This proves that the world is coming to an end now.. lol
11:20 AM Posted In cats , funny , just for fun , pictures , stupid world , wierd , WTF Edit This 0 Comments »
The world is officially coming to end, you can get wigs for your cat(s). lol...
Top Ten online tools for the year 2009
1:04 PM Posted In online tools , Social Media , top 10 online tools , web 2.0 Edit This 0 Comments »Every year there are hundreds of new online tools and applications that come and go. Some of them make great impacts on our online experience and many of them go unnoticed. At Conversations, we analyzed more than 100 online tools and came up with the following top 10 online tools and applications that can make a difference to your digital experience.
Follow the links to find out more about the tools and the comments learning professionals have made about them.
Prezi
is the highest ranked newcomer on the list. It's a Flash-based app that lets you build amazing, non-linear presentations where you can zoom in and out of a visual map containing words, links, images, videos, etc.
Cost: free and paid for plans
Evernote
lets you capture things (web pages, screenshots, photos, note, etc), which you can tag, store and find again fast . It works across many different (Windows and Mac OS) computers and phones (iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, Palm Pre) that are used in daily life:
Cost: Free and premium accounts.
Dimdim
is a web conferencing tool that lets you deliver synchronised presentations, whiteboards and web pages while sharing voice and video. It's already a winner of a number of awards, and offers remarkable value when compared to other commercial web conferencing systems.
Cost: Free for 20 users, Pro accounts start at a low monthly charge.
Etherpad
is the only web-based word processor that allows people to work together in really real-time. Unlike other online documentation or wiki tools, Etherpad updates each document every half a second, which means that a number of people can work together and see each other's updates immediately.
Cost: Free and paid for professional and network plans
myUdutu
is course authoring software that lets you build a course very quickly and easily online either on your own or collaboratively with others. You can easily import existing content, e.g. PowerPoint presentations.
Cost: The authoring tool is free to use. You can build your courses, pilot and modify them, all for no cost. There is a small per screen charge if you want to host the course on the Udutu site.
Screenr
is an online screencasting tool. A number of these have come onto the market recently, but this tool from the Articulate stable has quickly become a favourite. It lets you record on your Mac or PC, and then play on the Web or on an iPhone.
Cost: Free
Posterous
is a very simple blogging system. If you haven't yet got into blogging this is by far the simplest way to start. Just post to your Posterous blog using email and attach any type of file - photo, MP3, video, document, etc - if you want to include it. If you already have a blog elsewhere (e.g. Blogger, Wordpress or Typepad) you can also auto-post to it, or even auto-post to Facebook, Twitter or Flickr.
Cost: Free
Yammer
is a private micro-blogging service. If you like the idea of Twitter but are concerned about the updates being public, then Yammer provides the same functionality as Twitter, but for in-company use. Only individuals with the same email domain can join a given network. In addition to microblogging there are discussion boards and users can form/join groups. There are also Yammer iPhone app and Blackberry clients.
Cost: Free, but companies can get admin rights to their company networks for a small monthly per user fee.
Wordle
is a small, fun and quite versatile little tool. It is a word cloud generator. Input or copy in some text and generate a visual cloud of the most frequently use words. You can then tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts and colour scheme.
Cost: Free
Flip Video
Finally, this one is not software but a tiny little camcorder that lets you easily take videos and upload them (using the inbuilt USB) to the PC as well as YouTube, Facebook and other sites.
Cost: this varies depending on size and record time of the Flip.
Twitter Tools for business, research and ease!!
4:33 AM Posted In CRM , SMO , Social Media , Twitter , Twitter Tools , web 2.0 Edit This 1 Comment »Twitter is a phenomena in itself. There are hundreds of companies that have used its API and come up with their own 'Twitter Enhancement' tools. But in midst of these hundreds of tools which tools do you want to use or which tools are the best is a big question. At Conversations, we analyzed most of these tools and came up with our own list of the best tools in each class.
Following are some valuable tools segregated according to their functionality. Most of them are free but some advanced ones, especially in the CRM arena are not but nevertheless worth a click.
Desktop Twitter Clients
Many people use the Twitter homepage for tweeting. Indeed I do often as well but for many tasks, especially in a business context an advanced client indispensable. I have tried a dozen of them and these three are among the best for professional users.
- TweetDeck, perhaps the most popular professional Adobe Air client for Twitter. Supports, searches, groups, multiple accounts
- SeesMic is like Tweetdeck but less buggy and with a more polished interface. TweetDeck never really worked on my system.
- Statuzer is similar to the above but with added multimedia support
Web Based Twitter Clients and CMS
Even with a desktop client like one of the above working in teams is difficult. Web based tools offer even more features for teams and companies
- HootSuite, a web based Twitter CMS for companies
- coTweet (Twitter CRM?) - coTweet has been hailed as a Twitter CRM app but it's basically a Twitter CMS with very basic CRM features
- Twaitter allows team accounts, scheduled tweets, RSS integration etc.
- Tweetvisor is a horribly cluttered but very powerful Twitter interface or web based Twitter client
CRM/Social CRM/TRM (Twitter Relationship Management)
In case you are serious about business you most probably use some kind of CRM tools for customer relationship management. Both CRM software makers and new kids on the block attempt to harness Twitter conversations to get more leads and organize a better customer service. CRM solutions supporting Twitter are still rare though. At least one, Axopt already disappeared.
- CureCRM - Twitter and Email bases CRM
- Salesforce Service Cloud supports Twitter
- IGOpeople Twitter CRM business suite
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers a Twitter "accelerator" integration
Twitter Directories
One of the most common questions people new to Twitter ask is: Who to follow on Twitter? In order to some quick overview of who might be the right person to follow in your industry or niche you should check out Twitter directories like Twellow.
- Twellow - Twitter "Yellow Pages", one of the oldest and most reputable Twitter user directories
- JustTweetIt is a clean and web directory with many users, some of which I recognize. The top result for SEO, Dev Basu is a well known local SEO expert.
- Geofollow - Location based Twitter directory covering the whole planet
- Twibes is not really a directory it's rather a collection of Twitter groups based on interests
Twitter Enhancements
Twitter has only ver basic features, even Twitter clients offer only a few more. there are literally thousands of tools that enhance Twitter in one way or another. here I can mention only some notable among them that are ideyll suited for busines people.
- TwitterLocal allows you to address local audiences via Twitter, ideal for small businesses
- Social Oomph (formerly Tweet Later) is a tool with multiple features, some of clients some of extra tools, scheduling and automating tweets are just two of them
- Twaitter is like Social Oomph but with less features which doesn't mean it's less useful
- PingFM allows to submit links to Twitter, Facebook and numerous other services at once
- PeopleBrowsr is a very powerful suite of tools for creating and addressing groups and beyond
Twitter Search and Monitoring Tools
Twitter users produce huge amounts of data you impossibly can be digest or overview as a human being. Even your followers tweets are too much in most cases. search and monitoring tools make sure that you don't miss something important.
- Topsy finds and sorts most of your brand's mentions, tweets and links
- Yahoo Sideline is a Adobe Air based desktop search tool for Twitter. It also displays current trends
- Twilert - Like Google Alerts for Twitter mentions, catches most of them
- TweetBeep - Similar to Twilert but less reliable. Good to find additional mentions Twilert overlooks but not enough on it's own
- Radian6 - This is an advanced social media analytics suite with some Twitter tools also useful for CRM
- Twitturly - shows the most popular Twitter links in a social news like interface
- Tweetreach - Find out who really is your friend, or at least who spread your message the most
Blog Tools
Being on Twitter is good for business but integrating it into your website or rather blog is even better. Many tools attempt to do that but only a few of them are good enough for business users.
- Twittercounter - A Feedburner like counter showing you the number of Twitter followers, SEOptimise uses one
- BackType Plugins allow you a seamless Twitter integration into your blog
- Twitter Tools by Alex King allows almost complete Twitter integration into your WordPress blog
We hope you find this relevant and useful to your business or work. Feel free to share it with your colleagues and peers.
Database of Social Media Policies
1:15 PM Posted In blog guidelines , code of conduct , Communications , Digital media , eGoverance , Online business , Online Policies , Social Media , Social Media policies , web 2.0 Edit This 0 Comments »A list of Social Media policies of some of the biggest players in the online platform. I hope everyone finds it useful.
Don't forget to tweet about it or share it, if you find it useful.
Cheers!!
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