Social Networking

Business networking is as old as.....well.....business. Entrepreneurs and thinkers need to be connected to others of a like-mind, and sometimes those connections don't just happen. It requires getting out for events, attending webinars, and a host of other activities where business and social conversations happen.

About a month ago, I officially joined the ranks of iPhone users. Since then, I've been introduced to an entire new world of mobile phone apps, and on-the-go social networking. One of my favorite discoveries - and one of the major reasons why I purchased my iPhone in the first place is the abundance of location based iPhone apps. These applications help me find new restaurants, bars and other nightlife spots wherever I go, and they help me say in touch or meet up with friends in the area.

Don't like what you see when you Google yourself? Then it's high time you set up a Google profile.

On your profile page you can decide what the world sees when they Google you - who you are, what you look like, where you've lived, where you've worked, and what schools you attended. You can even link to all your other websites and social networking profiles like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. Your profile and photo even show up at the bottom of Google's search results page. Think of it as Google's own Table of Contents to you.

It appears fellow Tweeters are going to have to give due props before retweeting from now on. This morning, an interesting occurrence came into being...TweetCC. Over at TweetCC.com, Creative Commons has applied a form of intellectual property, although not really, on Tweets leaving them "licensed." TweetCC (@tweetcc), designed by Andy Clarke (@malarkey) and Brian Suda (@briansuda) and developed by Brian Suda offers to:

One of the highlights of 2008 was working with Sejal Hathi, the founder of Girls Helping Girls. At the tender age of 16, she founded an international nonprofit organization to empower girls to transform their world though cultural exchange, global education, and leadership training. When she approached us to develop a social networking site for her organization at Sisters4Peace.net, we jumped at the opportunity.

National Breast Cancer Foundation wanted to extend their mission of providing hope and support for breast cancer patients and survivors to the Web. LevelTen met this need by developing and managing an online community where patients, survivors, and supporters could meet others with similar experiences, share stories, discuss issues, and inspire other members. This effort was paired with a full redesign of their existing website.

The Challenge

I signed up for Ping.fm today. It allows you to set your status or create a blog and send it to multiple social networking sites such as MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and several others, all at once. I've found it useful since I just started using Plurk and continue to use Twitter. You can sign up today by using the code "tastyping".

Can I just say that as the last person in a fully developed country that doesn't have cable OR high definition television, the internet is like a treasure trove for me? This morning I went on YouTube and caught the highlights of last nights South Carolina debates, checked out some blogs to get people's reactions and joined my candidate's support group on Facebook.

While I work in an interactive development agency, I still find my self a little lost sometimes with all of the new technology and online developments. Recently Chris Brogan wrote a great blog on how to help others understand social media, and I found that this was probably one of the most helpful blogs I've read in a long time.