Social Media

Ben Kauffman, entrepreneur and founder of mophie and Kluster, has struck again.  Quirky.com is somewhat of a  follow through on Ben’s original mental concept of Kluster.  Kluster was originally meant to be a platform where ideas and inventors collaborated with designers, engineers, creative namers, etc on product ideas.  Kluster quickly morphed into an online collaboration platform and their software is now used by many for such collaboration.  Kluster’s NameThis.com has seen moderate success for both business owners seeking to name their product or business.

Quirky.com takes a few elements of both of the Kluster platforms and combines them into one stunning product development service.  Quirky.com’s main purpose is to address the common inventor’s conundrum.  People have ideas, but lack the capital and perhaps innovative improvements and feedback needed to bring that product to the market.  For $99 [click to continue...]

After the second major “upgrade” to the FaceBook system in about a year, FB has many users wondering what’s next and how far off it is.

FB has always been its own social network.  The main source of FB’s likability was the simple AJAX driven user interface.  FB unveiled their New Facebook recently which sported a bit more of the “feed” aspect.  In the past two weeks, FaceBook has gone all out making it out to be a sort of closed network  iGoogle/NetVibes/Twitter service.  User profiles [click to continue...]

Susan Boyle completely owned the Twitter Top 10 trends list once again on Sunday.  Susan Boyle is still a trending topic, but she is now at about number eight and will most likely fall off the map at the mercy of a few sporting events yet to happen this week.  Twitter trends are a great way to find out what the majority of twitter users are talking about, but the trends are only temporary.  It would be nice if someone developed a twitter app to track the most consistently tweeted words or phrases.

If someone were to develop such an app and perform the analytics I am almost convinced that, excluding all articles and pronouns, the “f”-word would be near the top of the list – if not at the top.  Now, the f-bomb is no Susan Boyle, but [click to continue...]

I was listening to a friend talk a week ago about how much he hated online social networking.  I asked if he wouldn’t mind writing down his thoughts so that I could publish them here.  He gladly obliged, and so here they are for you to read.  Feel free to openly agree or disagree, I look forward to the discussion that follows.

It used to be that the term “social networking” was defined as the activity of social interaction in a personal and intimate setting.  Social networking played a big part one getting where they wanted to go, and getting what they wanted to get.  Social networking was a valuable time where people interacted and got to know each other on a more personal level.

Social Networking has a new face now.  Say social networking in public and 9.9 out of 10 people’s minds will immediately shoot off in the direction of the internet and popular sites like MySpace, FaceBook, bebo, Hi5 – the list really is endless.   Due to these new trends and fads, social networking has turned into an informal and sloppy system of constant communication.  Intimate and personal interaction has been traded for whole lives being exposed online.  Rather than using social networking as a way to promote oneself, we have all seen the stories of how “social networking” has ruined people’s reputations and lives.  Personal meetings have been traded for [click to continue...]

Twitter has long been heralded as a valuable marketing and lead generation system for businesses, and for all practical purposes it is.  Business or marketers seek out and follow other people with similar interests or tweet subject matter, and slowly work their way into a relationship which may or may not result in sales.  The great thing is, this whole process works in reverse and often to the benefit of the shopper/service seeker.

I have been thinking about switching things up soon webhost-wise, and so decided to tweet about it making sure to contain the key words “web hosting”.  Sure enough, within 5 minutes I had the first hosting company contact me in an effort to promote their service and sell me some hosting.  Not long after I got a second hit, and then a third.  The trick is to turn these marketer’s solicitations into deep discounts and product trials.  With just a little pushing and interaction I was able to manage a 10% discount – nothing too much, but it could be much more if you are into haggling and deal hunting.  The key is to make yourself the target rather than becoming one at the mercy of a pushy marketer.

And with that, I will try to come up with some content that is a bit less twitterish…

It was not too long ago that FaceBook overtook MySpace as the most popular and used social networking website.  FaceBook was a breath of fresh air to the social networking scene and stole the hearts of college students who in turn passed it on.  FaceBook has also enjoyed an almost complete measure of success in the age 30+ group of social networkers – a virtually non-existent group of users on MySpace.

Twitter enjoyed moderate success and a growing momentum for the past several months.  In the past two weeks Twitter has completely exploded thanks to a couple of celebrities and a national news network.  Twitter’s user group is similar to that of FaceBook as they enjoy [click to continue...]

People do search for jobs outside of economic recessions, however loss of a job and unemployment make job searches even of a necessity.  Many job hunters don’t really know how good they have it.  Rather than letting the local paper scam you into working for a CutCo Knives distributor or a Kirby Vacuum dealer, the job searcher might want to employ technology to find some work worth doing.

The greatest piece of technology available to the job hunter, is the internet.  A significant number of websites whose sole purpose is to find jobs for job hunters are at your disposal.  I’m not talking about the big names like Monster or CareerBuilder either.  As far as I know, these sites “job listings” are more or less just a different form of consumer advertisements, and provide little value.  A few people may have found favor at these places, and perhaps a helpful resume tip or two as well, but it is unlikely that your next (enjoyable) job will be found there.  Outlined below are a few great websites, ideas, and tips designed to help the job hunter utilize technology to find employment. [click to continue...]

Flickr.com shouldn’t be new to the internet user who has used the web for more than a month.  Flickr is a photo sharing website that operates on much the same principles of Twitter.  A user uploads photos, and the photo stream is shared with followers, and in the public stream.

Flickr has done much more in its relatively short life than just spark the web 2.0 revolution of forgetting the last vowel in the suffix of the URL keyword.  Flickr has grown into much more than just a photo sharing website. [click to continue...]

BuzzFund is a truly remarkable idea by a man hoping to revolutionize the way students pay for college or at least minimize their college debt.  BuzzFund allows students to make personal profiles stating their college info, a little information about themselves, and how much their current college tuition costs.  Donors can also create profiles and choose students to give e-scholarships to in an effort to help with tuition costs.

The Good: BuzzFund takes advantage of the already popular and successful business of crowd-funding/micro-lending (i.e. Kiva, LendingClub, Prosper.com).  The main difference is that BuzzFund does not process loans.  Rather, BuzzFund is [click to continue...]