January 2, 2012 – #01

Each week I want to share with you the interesting things I come across. It could be anything; blog posts, tech products, new apps, quotes, etc. If you’ve found any interesting tidbits or news, please share in the comments below, I’d love to hear about them.

First, Happy New Year! Can’t believe it’s 2012.

1. Gympact. Is your New Years resolution to hit the gym? Do you have a weekly gym goal? Are you willing to put money on it? This app is about tough love. Each week you develop a goal on how many times you’ll go to the gym. You then attach a price you’re willing to pay if you don’t meet that goal. The app works on check-ins. If you don’t meet the goal, you have to pay the dollar amount you had tied to that goal. If you meet the goal, you see some green from all of the other users who didn’t meet their goals. Gympact collects a 3% fee on these transactions. Read more of Mashable’s coverage. P.S – you can’t do drive by check-ins. You must be there for at least thirty minutes.

2. ToutApp. Curious on the activity within your email inbox? ToutApp is a pretty slick tool that produces data on your Gmail activity for all of 2011. It produces a pretty neat infographic with various levels of data – it shows you how many emails you dealt with (received) over the year and how quickly you responded to them. On the flip side it shows you how many emails you sent, to whom, how many were replied to, the time of month, day, etc. Read more of Mashable’s coverage.

3. Steve Jobs. I completed the tale of Steve Jobs written by Walter Isaacson. One of the greater books I have read. It portrays the true side of Jobs. It’s truly a tell all kind of book. Though the printed version may seem overwhelming by the thickness, you won’t be dissatisfied. As I was nearing the end of the book I wish there was more. It truly is fascinating the impact this man had on our society and the industries he flipped upside down. Simply put, he’s a genius. Check out my full review  here.

Now it’s your turn to share… Go.

January 24-30, 2011 – #5

Each week I want to share with you the interesting things I come across. It could be anything; blog posts, tech products, new apps, quotes, etc. If you’ve found any interesting tidbits or news, please share in the comments below, I’d love to hear about them.

1. LinkedIn Maps – “Your professional world. Visualized.” This is currently an experimental project in the LinkedIn labs that puts your connections in a stunning visual. The visual sifts through your network and puts them into clusters based on the types of relationships. Take my LinkedIn Map for instance, it generated 7 different clusters in which I had the opportunity in naming them. This is a neat way to visually understand how your connected and to which category (relationship, industry, profession, etc.). It defines who your key influencers are by the size of the dot and font. It really is a beautiful visual. Make your own LinkedIn Map. Once generated it creates a landing page of your map in which it gives you several sharing options to share with your social peers.

2. Hyper Alerts – Facebook page administrators, it’s finally here, though not within Facebook, but via Hyper Alerts. You can register to receive alerts on any type of activity that takes place on your Facebook fan page. This new free service is extremely easy to setup. Simply; open an account, add new alert, input your page vanity URL, set frequency, and sit back while your email keeps you in the loop of any page activity. Via HubSpot, this service can also be used to stay on top of what your competitors are doing within the Facebook space. There’s no limit to the number of alerts you set. Nifty tool hugh.

3. Facebook Sponsored Stories – Facebook just recently launched a new ad platform of what they’re calling Facebook Sponsored Stories. Basically, when you either check-in to a brands physical location, engage on their page, or interact within their custom app that brand is able to grab those bits of content and use them in their Facebook ads. Not too long ago I posted a tweet about having dynamic photos instead of the brand uploading their own and the only thing being personalized is if your friend liked the ad. So whomever has previously interacted with the brand their photo would appear when someone in their network stumble across it. This is exactly what Facebook Sponsored Stories is doing but instead they’re using content that users have created. I think this is a great direction for the ad platform within Facebook. It creates a more trusted and personalized advertisement (not even sure you can call it that). As always there are two sides to every coin, some preferring to have users opt-in.

January Read: Referral Engine by John Jantsch

January 17-23, 2011 – #4

Each week I want to share with you the interesting things I come across. It could be anything; blog posts, tech products, new apps, quotes, etc. If you’ve found any interesting tidbits or news, please share in the comments below, I’d love to hear about them.

1. Why Entrepreneurs Should Care About Google Suggest – Now, more than ever, brands from main street to wall street need to listen extra carefully and respond more quickly. In a recent post on Open Forum it talks about Google Suggest and Google Instant. Both basically filling out the rest of your search query for you. This may lead consumers to seeing negative ‘suggestions’ when it wasn’t their initial search intent. Leaving little to no control for the brand in its online reputation management efforts. The control; to listen intently and respond quickly. The post shows an excellent example of Google Instant gone wrong for Comcast.

2. Sean Parker Says “The Social Network” Is “Fiction” – via Mashable. Napster founder Sean Parker comments on the movie “The Social Network” during a panel conference in Europe with Paulo Coelho. Sean lashed out in saying the movie was a complete work of fiction and was dissatisfied in the way he was portrayed in the film. Sean and Paulo discuss “The Social Network” only for a brief moment, but the 23 minute video is worth finishing out. They touch on social media and the future of publishing. Quite interesting.

3. What Does Google Offers Mean for Groupon? It was only a matter of time for Google, after Groupon politely declined a $6 billion acquisition offer, to step into the group buying ring. It will definitely be interesting to see how this plays out. Google obviously has the infrastructure with their existing AdSense and AdWords products in their arsenal. But, we all know Google’s social efforts don’t really take off and with not having the men on the streets to compete with Groupon’s sales force leaves a competition that will be closely watched.

So, as Mashable ends the post, is there enough room for both Google Offers and Groupon to be in the group buying space?

January Read: Referral Engine by John Jantsch

January 10-16, 2011 – #3

Each week I want to share with you the interesting things I come across. It could be anything; blog posts, tech products, new apps, quotes, etc. If you’ve found any interesting tidbits or news, please share in the comments below, I’d love to hear about them.

1. PingTags – creates a QR code for your LinkedIn profile. Simply login using your LinkedIn credentials and it populates a QR code that you can put on any of your personal marketing materials; e.g. business card. Once the QR code is scanned the user can see any of your LinkedIn profile information. They’re also able to easily connect with you via email, a phone call, or click through to one of your profile links without having to input any data; it’s automatically populated. When you login into your PinTags account the dashboard displays analytics for your QR code; how many scans, what links were clicked, and what geographic location it was scanned.

2. 26 Tips to enhance your LinkedIn experience - Social Media Examiner recently put together an excellent list of how to enhance your LinkedIn experience; recommendations, creating a share of voice within groups, introductions, connecting, etc. Aside from this post, Social Media Examiner does an excellent job producing news on the social space for all experience levels.

3. AT&T vs. Verizon 3G Networks – With the recent announcement of Verizon taking aboard the iPhone, it leaves a lot of people wondering if they should switch or not. This piece, via Mashable, goes into detail on the underlining differences between the two networks and what may be the best option for you. I for one am still hung up on getting a 4G EVO (Android) or the Verizon iPhone.

January Read: Referral Engine by John Jantsch

Will you be purchasing the new Verizon iPhone? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

January 3-9, 2011 – #2

Each week I want to share with you the interesting things I come across. It could be anything; blog posts, tech products, new apps, quotes, etc. If you’ve found any interesting tidbits or news, please share in the comments below, I’d love to hear about them.

1. Jott.com – Jott allows you to utilize your mobile device to remain efficient all through voice activity. Jott Voicemail takes your voicemail and turns them into text and emails. With Jott Assistant you simply place a phone call and you can add to your todo lists, send emails to colleagues, update web services. The voice-to-text service turns your voice notes, messages, and updates into text and sends them where you want. Jott Salesforce uses voice-to-text and a simple phone call to allow sales professionals to input their account and opportunity updates, take quick notes, and set reminders and appointments, all on the go.

2. Foursquare losing its appeal – A recent post from Reuters.com titled “Foursquare still struggling to become more than a niche app” states that the number of unique visitors is on a downward spiral and fast. There were 1.8 million unique visitors this summer compared to less than 1 million last month. This is a pretty staggering number considering the short time frame in which it occurs. This leaves me with one question; What can Foursquare do to not fall victim to the breathing monster in silicon valley, Facebook? Although the recent upgrades with photos and comments was a great added feature, there needs to be more features that attract the user as well as the brands. Foursquare needs to bridge this gap. The ‘game’ of Foursquare is losing its appeal. I hope they can rebound and not fall into Facebook’s quicksand.

3. Ge.tt File Sharing -  “With Ge.tt you can share any number of files, no matter how large, within seconds. Click on select files. Share the files with your friends. Move on” It’s a simple file sharing/hosting tool where you can easily push out to Facebook, Twitter and email; no plugin to download, view real-time analytics and free yourself from rejected emails because of too large of files. More about Ge.tt.

January Read: Referral Engine by John Jantsch

What does Foursquare need to do to be mainstream?

Each week I want to share with you the interesting things I come across. It could be anything; blog posts, tech products, new apps, quotes, etc. If you’ve found any interesting tidbits or news, please share in the comments below, I’d love to hear about them.

1. Quora – A social platform organized around questions – answer or ask questions. You can follow topics, questions, and people and your answers are voted either up or down.

2. SMB Web Tools - working via the ‘cloud’ is getting stronger and stronger. In the near future this is what companies will solely rely on. This post (via Read Write Web) has an excellent array of various tools an SMB could utilize for their business operations.

3. 2011 Goals – You can find mine here, but, what are your 2011 goals?

January Read: Referral Engine by John Jantsch

Did you come across anything this past week you’d like to share? Drop it in the comments below.

Every other week I will share with you the interesting things I came across through my “e’s Weeks in Review” post. It could be anything; blog posts, tech products, new apps., quotes, etc. If you have found any interesting tidbits or news, please share in the comments below, I’d love to hear about them.

1.) Local SEO Clinic: This was a podcast just recently published on The Marketing Spot blog, authored by Jay Ehret, and it features Glenn Gabe of G-Squared Interactive. Glenn runs through a well executed case study, Kati’s Kupcakes, on the importance of local SEO in a small business. By making the necessary tweaks and adjustments on your website you’ll reap major benefits stemming from the search engines. Also by verifying and ensuring your business information is consistent throughout the web is key: IYP’s, local business listings, etc. Glenn discusses the four pillars of local SEO. Take a listen, you’ll want to immediately jump on your site and make the necessary changes and/or additions.

2.) 380social Podcast: 380social is a social media gathering point in Eastern Iowa. We recently just recorded our first, of many, podcasts. It was more of a roundtable discussing the ‘Founding Fathers’ backgrounds and moved quickly into the social media scene. Topics of discussion included; iPad/iPhone, the state of social media in Iowa and how our local SMB’s can utilize the online tools, ending with a Twitter (social networking) professional dashboard called Hootsuite. Look for upcoming episodes, we hope to push them out every 2-3 weeks.

3.) f8 Conference: Facebook just recently released a few game changing features that takes their existing social graph and tosses it out in the web, making the users’ entire web experience more social and personalized. Not only will you be connecting with your friends via Facebook, but also through the sites that utilize Facebook’s open graph and social plugins. For instance; CNN, when these social plugins are implemented, without you logging into their site, CNN will feed you which of your Facebook friends have liked the story without CNN ever knowing who you are. Click the ‘like’ button, it feeds that item into your profile. These are powerful new features brands will benefit from. Music, restaurants, etc. they can all be fed back to your Facebook community by a simple click of a button. Mashable also has more here.

e’s Weekly Read:
“Everyone Communicates Few Connect” by John C. Maxwell