techbytes.biz

2 days ago from bookmarklet
Facebook Pages, Groups and Profiles Explained – WebWorkerDaily
This is one of the best overviews I’ve seen yet that includes a quick reference table of the features of Profiles, Pages and Groups.

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Notes: 73 / 2 days ago from hiten (originally from whatmakesyoubeautiful)

Great thought…

hiten:

matthendrick:

(via whatmakesyoubeautiful)

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3 days ago

Posterize.us

via posterize.us

Posted via web from the_mobilized_life | Comment »

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3 days ago from bookmarklet
extendr.com

You’ve got links everywhere, for everything. Now you can easily share them all with one URL: yourname.extendr.com.

Your .extendr account is highly customizable, allowing you to organize URLs as you see fit. Use it to re-engineer your resume or portfolio. Use it as a temporary home page. Use it to neatly synthesize all that you are, online. It’s up to you, and it’s easy to do.

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3 days ago

Far-reaching applications of mobile downloads - The Irish Times - Fri, Feb 05, 2010

Number of mobile applications downloaded:

2009 : $2.5 billion

2010 : $4.5 billion

2013 : $21.6 billion

Revenue generated (consumer spend and advertisements):

2009 : $4.23 billion

2010 : $6.7 billion

2013 : $29.4 billion

Downloads in 2010 that will be free : 82 per cent

Source: Gartner

via irishtimes.com

Posted via web from the_mobilized_life | Comment »

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4 days ago from bookmarklet

"Facebook is the world’s leading social network, with over 300 million users and more than 900 employees. But how do you get the most out of it? To answer this question and more, Mashable has created The Facebook Guide Book, a complete collection of resources to help you master Facebook. - Pete Cashmore, Mashable"

- The Facebook Guide Book from Mashable

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4 days ago from corkshare

Free or Cheap Tools for Startups that Make It Possible

corkshare:

One of the main keys to startup success is to stay lean - you don’t want to get caught up in any unnecessary expenses. The entrepreneur’s financial motto should always be “If you don’t make money, don’t spend money.” A lot of what made CorkShare possible, and many other startups possible, are the free tools available to help us take care of business. Here are some great examples of those tools you can use for your business - or for personal use!

Productivity Tools and Collaboration

Google Docs (free) - A staple for any startup. Make spreadsheets, text documents, and presentations, and then share them with each other. Super powerful and super free.

Google Calendar (free) - Setup a Google Calendar for your company so you are all on the same page on who’s doing what and when. Google keeps adding new features to make it more comparable with Microsoft Outlook - it’ll never have all the bells an whistles, but it’s more than good enough.

Basecamp ($24 a month for basic plan) - Product Management and Collaboration tool used by many startup companies, especially useful for software development. Basic plan only supports 15 “projects” but that’s probably all you’ll need for a long time.

Yammer (free) - It’s like Twitter for within businesses. It’s private, let’s you share links and content, and let’s you tell it what your organizational chart is. Keep each other updated on what you’re up to, and rather than e-mailing all those random links out and spamming each other, put it on Yammer with some # hashtags to keep it organized.

Open Office (free) - Microsoft Office is expensive. If you really need some offline tools, consider Open Office which has pretty much all the power with none of the price.

Zoho (free) - Zoho is a suite of online software similar to Google Docs, Gmail, and Google Calendar, but it also has CRM, Wikis, Invoicing, Product Management, Reporting and Business Intelligence, HR/Recruitment software, and much more. They limit how many users can use things, with the intent that you’ll pay later when you outgrow the free level. We haven’t used it much yet because we haven’t needed some of that more intense software stuff yet. But its pretty awesome, and when we need it I’m sure we’ll come back to it.

Brand Identity

Logoworks (decently priced) - As much as you can, you want to do things yourself or bug your creative friend in exchange for some pizza and beer. But if you’re willing to pay up a little, Logoworks will design your logo, website, business cards, etc. for decent prices. It’s not super cheap, but it’s worth checking out if you need something professional for a reasonable price and you need it pretty fast - in many cases they can get you concepts in just 3 business days.

Marketing or Business Materials

Zazzle (decently priced) - Zazzle is really cool - customize your t-shirts, business cards, mugs, you name it. It’s not the cheapest on the block, but the level of customization is huge. I’ve noticed the business cards are really cheap, and as you customize things the cost stays the same - some sites like to really pump up prices to more you modify.

Website Statistics

Google Analytics (free) - Google Analytics is used by just about everyone it seems - it’s relatively easy to setup, and its extremely powerful. Figure out how many people are coming to various pages on your site, how many people are clicking on certain links, etc. etc.

MixPanel (free, may have to buy some credits soon if you use it heavily) - A different option for analytics. It have some heavy duty customization to get very specific as to what you are measuring, it’s in real-time, can support detailed “funnel” analytics, and more.

Newsletters

MailChimp (free credits, but you’ll need to buy some soon) - Use one of their templates or upload your HTML and blast out your e-mail messages to your e-mail lists. It makes the whole process a million times easier, and it gives you great statistics on who’s been clicking on what in your e-mail, how many people are opening your e-mail in the first place, and how things compare with past e-mail blasts.

Customer Feedback

Get Satisfaction (free, with lots of good upgrade options) - CorkShare just setup an account here, you can only have a couple admins at first but it’s a really great way to engage customers and have them engage eachother for (1) Questions, (2) Ideas, (3) Bugs/Problems, and (4) Praise.

Blogging

Tumblr (free) - Tumblr has a really easy setup for a blog, and has a strong community to reach out to. Our blog is setup through them with some customization.

Wordpress (free) - Wordpress has some really good customization options, and can be placed on your own servers and such. Requires a little more setup than Tumblr, but may be worth it for you.

Online File Space

Dropbox (free) - Gives you 2 GB of space online for free with a great syncing system. Whenever someone in your startup puts a file in the Dropbox folder on their computer, it automatically uploads it to the internet, and also downloads it to everyone else’s folder on their computer. It’s quite magical.

Drop.io (free) - Little drop zones for files to be uploaded to, pretty useful for adhoc or temporary sharing of files with people, and has many different views to interact with content.

Social Media Marketing

Twitter (free) - Great for having conversations with customers and colleagues, blasting out links to your blog articles or interesting related content, and gaining a following. Those who say Twitter is overrated may have some valid points, but we’ve found it to be a tool that has delivered consistent business value.

Facebook Page (free) - Very much like the Twitter of the Facebook world. It’s a good way to reach out to Facebook, which has a huge user base. Also very useful - being able to make events on Facebook. A lot of people have profiles there, and often making an event on Facebook is the most effective way to build an RSVP list.

YouTube (free) - Good old YouTube. Post your videos up easily and then distribute. In the social media world, content is king - and video is the most powerful and engaging form of that content.

Vimeo (free, premium member is worth checking out though) - Vimeo is growing in popularity and doesn’t have all the noise and copyright infringement of YouTube and tends to be a friendly audience. Great place to put up high quality or HD video as their viewer is beautiful and administrative system is intuitive. Also breaks down the statistics of who’s watching your video pretty nicely.

Interesting Programs of Note

Microsoft BizSpark (free at first, but has some catches) - Microsoft will let you use their software for free as long as you are a small, privately-owned startup. Most of the software can only be used for test or demonstration purposes which is the big catch, but it’s a huge help to be able to use legit, full-powered Microsoft software to get stuff done. Includes Office 2007, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Sharepoint, SQL Server, Microsoft Dynamics, Visual Studio, Expression Studio, and more.

Have some other recommendations for free or cheap tools for startups? Let us know at @CorkShare or on Facebook!

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1 week ago from bookmarklet
How to Create a Custom YouTube Background for Your Business : Technology :: American Express OPEN Forum

Like any social network, your business presence there should be branded and recognizable. You’ll want to ensure that people finding your videos and clicking on your channel know where the content is coming from.

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1 week ago from bookmarklet
Drupal Gardens | Get a Free Drupal 7 Site Here
Another great tool for building websites with the ease of starting a blog.

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Notes: 3 / 1 week ago from georgenemeth (originally from mauricesmall)

going back clean.
stacked neatly and in place for safety.
ready for the next load in the a.m..

georgenemeth:

Hope you’re following Maurice Small’s blog. I spent quality time with him yesterday and he’s really excited about social media. With a little bit of coaching, he’s taking off like Susie Sharp. In six weeks or so, he’s already been invited to a panel and to be a radio guest on a show from FL.

“It all comes down to relationships and trust with passion—a chef’s passion for food, a farmer’s passion for soil.”

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1 week ago from bookmarklet
Recessionomics 101: How to Make Extra Money
I’m working with several business partnerships on these very same action items. Whether you’re an individual or business you should plaster these 3 key ideas on your wall.
1. Sell It
2. Rent It
3. Say It
4. Do It

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2 weeks ago from bookmarklet
WooRank | Website analysis tool

WooRank is the fruit of much hard work by online marketing consultants, clockwork-precision developers and creative designers. Together they’ve built a simple yet powerful website analysis tool meant to leverage search engines.

Now web professionals have an objective yardstick to know what Google looks for when crawling their websites: WooRank

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2 weeks ago from bookmarklet
Plancast: "...has instantly become San Francisco’s tech geek social calendar."

Plancast is a service for sharing your upcoming plans with friends. It’s a social calendar of sorts. Just submit the things you’re thinking about doing in the future, and your friends will be able to hear about them - and maybe join you, too!

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Notes: 67 / 2 weeks ago from hiten (originally from thegongshow)

hiten (where start-ups come from…):

rafer:

heyitsnoah: /Via adamiss:thegongshow

Rafer sez:
Being between startups, this is a great thought provoker.

So is Plancast. I finally registered. It’s fascinating that they can up the game on Upcoming with so little obvious effort. Would Upcoming have been able to make the transition to here, now?

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Notes: 10 / 2 weeks ago from hiten (originally from 52weeksofux)

Deliverables vs. Delivery

hiten:

52weeksofux:

Wireframes, flow diagrams, personas, card sorts, content strategy documents, etc. All of these things are important to design, and designers need some combination of them to synthesize their user research and communicate what they’re doing with the other members of the team.

But too often these deliverables are the last line of contact for designers. Too often these deliverables are what designers prepare and then hand off to implementors. Then they shuffle off to create more deliverables and the cycle is repeated.

In the end deliverables are merely artifacts of the design process. They are not the final design, they are not the artifact of experience. The end user never interacts with them…they interact with the product or service that is actually delivered.

That’s the difference: deliverables are divorced from delivery.

Thus, the task of a UX designer, in order to stay true to our calling, doesn’t stop at any deliverable. Even if our “job” is to create wireframes, we cannot be satisfied with passing off wireframes to other team members. If we are truly concerned with the experience of the people who use our product/service, we will infiltrate their world…we will demand to know the quality of their experience.

Many UX designers are judged on the quality of their deliverables. This is necessary to a point, we must make sure each step is faithfully executed. But to truly be a user experience designer, we must have a longer scope. We can’t stop at deliverables. We must extend through delivery.

Deliverables are diminishing in importance. Sketches, super important to early design synthesis, have fleeting value. They are valuable for a very short period of time. Design, implement, iterate, move on. Record the learning, but don’t judge the sketch, judge the resulting experience.

So, if you’re not involved in the day to day feedback loop of your user’s experience, make sure you get involved. Ask about your feedback channels: support emails, call-center requests, twitter mentions, all of it. Do regular surveys and user testing. Investigate. Demand data. If you don’t, you’re just creating deliverables and missing the forest for the trees.

Experience, in the end, cannot be captured in a deliverable.