Archive for January, 2010

Posted on January 15, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Location Based Poll: What is your favorite Location based social network/app?

We’re only 14 days into 2010 and if there was one social media / technology prediction that everyone have been accurate about so far, it is that location based apps will be the next big thing. Now with 15 plus location social networks available many have already deemed Foursquare the clear leader, and if you look at the compete website numbers you’ll see why. After purchasing foursquare.com around August, their website numbers have passed some of the early location based social networks in just two months by more than double.

I don’t have all the data on how many users each location based social network has, but I do know that despite what many believe, the location based war is still very much wide open. For businesses looking to implement location based marketing to reach out to their customers, I suggest looking at all of the options and find out which location social network / app your customers are using before starting any with geo marketing.

To help businesses with their decisions and to provide me with some research data, I’m interested to see what is your favorite location based social network. Take a second and vote in the poll below. Also feel free to let me know why it’s your favorite location based app in the comments.

If you want to connect on Brightkite, Foursquare, Gowalla or Whrrl you friend on one or all of the profiles below:
Brightkite: http://brightkite.com/people/waynesutton
Foursquare: http://foursquare.com/user/waynesutton
Gowalla: http://gowalla.com/users/waynesutton
Whrrl: http://whrrl.com/person/7392180/Wayne_Sutton

*Disclosure: I’m a partner with TriOut.

Posted on January 13, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Shares from the Social Web: RSS feeds for January 13th

Today, while reading RSS feeds in Google Reader, I came across these interesting blog posts and wanted to share them with you. Some of the post topics range from WordPress themes/tips, to marketing advice, to various social media examples. I hope you find some of them interesting. If one of them was useful to you or if you have a comment about one, let me know in the comments. Thanks

	Shared Coke, Nestle Are Among Big Brands Testing Virtual Currency Vids.
	Shared Social Media & B2B: Interactions Are Opportunities.
	Shared How Your Scrappy Startup Can Make Big Sales To Fortune 500s – with Ed Robinson.
	Shared Seven (7) Must Have iPhone Apps For Video Bloggers.
	Shared WordCast: Duotone WordPress Theme: Especially for the Photoblogger.
	Shared 5 Tips For Creating A Successful Social Media Contest.
	Shared [Video] How to create a Facebook Page for your business.
	Shared Consumers Rank Ford as Most Improved Brand in 2009.
	Shared The Social Life WordPress Theme.
	Shared Apple Tablet Rumor: No Integrated Camera.
	Shared Help Haiti quake survivors via texting.
	Shared Upload Anything To Google Docs With New 250MB Limit.
	Shared Social Media and Holistic Cultures.
	Shared Inklet Demo with Handwriting.
	Shared Premium WordPress Themes Giveaway from Panda WordPress Themes.
	Shared Reply to Facebook Comments via Email.
	Shared Do You Innovate with Customers in MInd?.
	Shared Facebook Growth Jumps to 350 million Users in 2009.
	Shared Android Debuts on AT&T with Motorola Backflip.
	Shared Voice-Activated Internet: Text-Free Tweeting, Blogging & More.
	Shared Web Design Trends in 2010: Business Web Design for Branding and User Experience.
	Shared Show you mean business: Videogame business card cases now on sale.
	Shared Top Emails and more, 2009 Edition.
	Shared A Framework for Social Media in Crisis Management.
	Shared The Ugly Side of Social Media Part 2: Crap.
	Shared The Apple Tablet: All We Know About Apple’s “iSlate” Tablet.
	Shared NetBizInfoGuide: Relevance of Social Bookmarking.
	Shared Design, timing and social media key to email marketers in 2010: report.
	Shared Looking at Youth to Understand Our Mobile Future.
	Shared 5 Tips for a Successful Blogging.
	Shared beer planet: IntenseDebate Introduces Plugins.
	Shared Five success factors for branded online communities.

Posted on January 11, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

9 practical ways to use Google Wave for business

It goes without saying that to some Google Wave was one of most overhyped technologies to launch in 2009. From being called a failed product to users widely complaining about how to just use the platform. And we’re not talking about just the average users, even some of the social web elitist such as Kevin Rose who tweeted “playing w/google wave, what does this do exactly?” and Robert Scoble who tweeted “I don’t like Google Wave and am avoiding using it until they make major UI fixes.”

Other complaints about Google Wave have been that there is no real value to using it over other web services such as instant messenger. Plus there were hundreds of other blog posts asking will Google Wave replace Gmail/email or Facebook and what are Google’s long term plan for Google Wave. I don’t have all the answers to satisfy the frustrated Google Wave user, but I do know how I’m using Google Wave and I love it. I use Google Wave daily at Twine Interactive on various projects, and Lawrence Ingraham and I use it while working on TriOut. I also use Google Wave for event planning and blogging. How you ask? Here are 8 practical ways to use Google Wave for business.

1. Collaborative note taking:
Using Google Wave for collaborative note taking can happen in meetings or conference calls. Often I find myself taking notes in Google Wave then adding other team members to the wave to review notes and add feedback from the meeting.

2. Crowdsourcing conference notes:
Let’s say you’re at a conference and there are multiple sessions at one time that you want to attend. You can make a conference wave and ask a friend to take notes in Google Wave for the other session and add you to the wave. Also you can ask others in other sessions to add their notes to the wave too by just adding them to the wave.

3. Task List for application or project development
It’s easy to make a task list inside of Google Wave, but the best part about it is that you can easily have conversations about each task, including listing marking pros and cons of the task.

4. Shareable resource library
With Google Wave it’s easy to create an information list. You may already be part of a Google Wave that is full of links on how to us Google Wave. If you want to create a list of links about a project, just add the links to the wave and add other team members to the wave. Everyone added to the wave can also add their own links to the wave.

5. Unclutter your inbox
If you’re like me, you receive too many emails every day. Even though I do belive Google Wave will “someday” replace Gmail, you can have colleagues cut down on email and just contact you via Google Wave.

6. Low risk internal communication platform
Are you looking for a simple inexspenive way to communicate with all of your employee or coworkers? Or to share files with everyone in your department. Just create an internal Google Wave company policy and Google Wave can handle the rest as a bare bones minimal platform.

7. Customer feedback forum
If you’re designing a prototype or uploading a beta release of a product and would like to organize all of your feedback about various versions of the files, then Google Wave is a perfect platform to handle inline feedback. With postings in Google Wave that look like threaded comment, it’s easy to follow who addressed each comment.

8. Event planning:
Recently I was planning a social media club meeting in Raleigh, NC. Instead of emailing my partners I made a Google Wave with the details and added the team to the wave. I not only helped unclutter my inbox, but it served the purpose of our entire communication process by making sure we were prepared for the the event.

9. Lunch orders
Have you ever had to take a lunch order from your coworkers and you’re stuck being the one to write all of the orders down? Well no more. Just create a Google Wave and ask each one of them to add their order to Google Wave and your simple, self serve lunch order is done. As adoption increases, we’ll add restaurants to Google Wave to fulfill our lunch orders.

Basically if you have a project and you need to have some sort of collaboration, you can find a use for Google Wave for the project.

What are some of the ways you are using Woogle Wave in your business?

Feel free to add me to your Google Wave contacts by using: waynesutton@googlewave.com

Posted on January 9, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

14 Social Media Professionals to watch in 2010 from the Triangle, NC

If there’s two things most of my friends and colleagues know about me is that I love living in the Triangle, NC area which includes Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill and that I love technology/gadgets/social media. This area has one of the largest and smartest technology communities in the world and more than often I think is over looked by others.

A few weeks ago I saw a tweet from someone asking about what cities have strong social media communities and they were listing New York, Austin, Miami and the “Valley” which are worthy but don’t forget about the Triangle area too. With more companies starting to implement social media strategies into their marketing efforts or use social media for customer service we have seen an impact from various companies in the area either from creating new positions or launching new products or using social media for community outreach.

Below is a list of social media professionals in the Triangle Area who I believe are ones to watch in 2010.

1. David Thomas
Title: Social Media Manager for SAS
Twitter: @DavidBThomas
Url: http://blogs.sas.com/socialmedia/

2. Nathan Gilliatt
Title: Principal, Social Target and organizer of AnalyticsCamp
Twitter: @gilliatt
Url: http://net-savvy.com/executive/

3. GinnySkal
Title: Social Media Specialist for Cree
Twitter: @ginnyskal
Url: http://ginnyskal.com/

4. Morgan Siem
Title: Social Media Strategist at Media Two Interactive
Twitter: @morgansiem
Url: http://www.mediatwopointoh.com/

5. Adam Covati
Title: CoFounder of Argyle Social and Founder of http://idek.net
Twitter: @Covati
Url: http://adamcovati.com/

6. Angela Connoer
Title: Author of ’18 Rules of Community Engagement.’ Online community manager and strategist at WRAL
Twitter: @communitygirl
Url: http://blog.angelaconnor.com

7. Catherine Mears
Title: Social Media Specialist at AICPA
Twitter: @catmears
Url:

8. Dan London
Title: Director of Online Marketing @ ShareFile.com
Twitter: @Danlondon
Url: http://www.dan-london.com

9. Phil Buckley
Title: Support Developer at McClatchy Interactive
Twitter: @1918
Url: http://www.1918.com/

10. Karlie Justus
Title: PR/ Social Media Officer with N.C. State Fair & NC Dept. of Agriculture.
Twitter: @KarlieJ
Url:

11. Olalah Njenga
Title: Marketing Strategist at the YellowWood Group
Twitter: @Olalah
Url: http://www.yellowwoodgroup.com

12. Gregory NG
Title: VP Creative Director at Brooks Bell Interactive.
Twitter: @gregoryng
Url: http://www.followgreg.com/

13. Brian McDonald
Title: Vice President of Marketing & Social Media at SignalShare
Twitter: @bmcd67
Url: http://zen-marketing.blogspot.com

14. Andy Beal
Title: Founder of Trackur.com, author of Radically Transparent, editor of MarketingPilgrim.com
Twitter: @Andybeal
Url: http://www.andybeal.com

UPDATE: I forgot Chris Moody. Sorry Chris.
15. Chris Moody
Title: Social Marketing Manager at Bandwidth.com
Twitter: @cnmoody
Url: http://www.chris-moody.com

You can also follow my list of Triangle Social Media professionals on Twitter from my Triangle To Watch list.

Please note, I do know all of the individuals on the list and this not a buddy list or a list by the numbers of their twitter followers or etc. It’s a list of professionals from various companies in the Triangle who I believe will have an impact locally and nationally in the social media space. If you’re on the list, don’t let me down.

*Not included in this are my partners/friends from OurHashtag who are very active in the social media scene in the Triangle Area. They include:
Kipp Bodnar
Ryan Boyles
Jeff Cohen

What are your thoughts on the list and/or who did I leave off and why?

Posted on January 8, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Announcing: TwellWishes.com a Twitter Virtual gift store by @Tiffani

Guest post by: Tiffani Bell (@tiffani) cofounder of TwellWishes.com

Lots of developers making use of the Twitter API use it to create different ways to visualize tweets.  We decided to do something a little different yet still useful.  Enter TwellWishes.

TwellWishes is a Twitter app that allows Twitter users to send well wishes to their followers for occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, or whatever you like.  And truthfully, people can use TwellWishes to wish somebody well for anything.  We’ve already seen people send virtual bottles of champagne and pints of beer just for fun.

TwellWishes also doubles as a reminder service so that no one’s birthday isever forgotten.  Every user has a link they can give out which allows people to add themselves to that user’s birthday list.  When a birthday rolls around, everybody who has that user’s birthday on their list will be reminded with one simple tweet.  Then, they can send a tweet to that person from the TwellWishes dashboard or they can send a virtual gift to that user such as a cake or a comfy pair of slippers.

Yahya proposed the idea after noticing there was no way to keep track of followers’ birthdays.  Facebook users get that information automatically, but on Twitter you only see birthdays in passing in your stream.  Furthermore, you usually end up with some kind of gift for your birthday, so we thought it’d be neat to open up a virtual gift store.  Users can send gifts with either credits or cash (via PayPal).  Everybody starts off with 100 gift credits to send at least one free gift.  When they run out of credits, they can easily purchase more.  Also, users can earn gift credits when they send gifts via PayPal.

We like to think of TwellWishes as great for anybody on Twitter who wants to have a bit of fun while discovering something simple and universal about their followers!

About the founders of  TwellWishes.

Tiffani Bell (@tiffani) is a twenty-something in pursuit of better living through software.

Tiffani is also the founder of Pencil You In (http://www.pencilyou.in/@pencilyouin) which allows beauticians to accept appointments online and via text message.  Tiffani has also appeared on the radio in Philadelphia (Technically Speaking Radio with JC Lamkin) to talk about Ruby and Ruby on Rails (she’s a huge fan) and the greater social/access implications of free and open source software. Tiffani graduated in May 2008 with a BSc in Computer Science from Howard University.

Yahya:

Navy veteran and entrepreneur, by design, Yahya is an idea guy. He has been in the real estate business for 8 years and serves as founder of sustainable development blog Aribra.com. He also serves as Director of Business Development for The Aribra Group, LLC, a real estate development consultancy. Yahya has built his career around his passion for people, the planet, technology and real estate. Along with partners, Yahya started TwellWishes, LLC, an application developer for the birthday reminder service TwellWishes. He currently resides in Augusta, GA. You can follow him on Twitter @YahyaHenry.

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I wish both Tiffani and Yahya much success with TwellWishes.

What are your thoughts about the project?

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