Posts Tagged ‘business’

Posted on June 27, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

5 business or personal ways to use Google Latitude

Google Latitude lets you see your friends on a map on Google Maps for mobile and iGoogle. Use Latitude to plan an impromptu meetup, see that a loved one got home safely, or just stay in touch with friends.

While it seems like the rest of the world is focused on checking in and badges Google is quietly making changes and updating their location-based services. One of their services is Google Latitude. Earlier this year Google launched Google Latitude API for developers and although I have yet to see any apps implement Google Latitude or build an alternative Google Latitude app, SimpleGEO has said their product supports Google Latitude, read SimpleGeo and Google’s Latitude API post.

But what about every day or business use for Google Latitude? Well that is something everyone is still asking and trying to figure out. As a location-based geek and partner of a location-based startup @TriOut, I try to use as many location-based services as possible and Google Latitude is one of them. Therefor I’ve been using Google Latitude to track my status the past few weeks and although it doesn’t actually say check-in here that’s what I’ve been doing. Take look at the video below to see my Google location history via Google Latitude from June 1 to June 27.

Looking at my location history and finding this post on Google Latitude last week called “The only use I’ve found so far for Google Latitude” I’m now thinking about possible business or personal ways to use Google Latitude. Here are 5 ways I came up with.

1. Real-Time nearby friends sms notifications

Instead of you launching an application to see where your friends are, Google Latitude can send you a sms if they’re nearby.

2. Mobile employee tracking
This is something that’s easier on a Google Android phone where you can natively have the Google latitude application run in the background. For iPhone and other mobile devices users will have to manually launch the Google Latitude app to mark their location.

3. Location-based content finding/sharing with Google Buzz

Google Latitude and Google Buzz work seemsly together and Google Latitiude has a buzz layer where you can find nearby content based on your Google Latitude location.

4. Family trip notifications.
As @jeffhilimire stated in his blog post. If your mom or other members of the family keep calling you while on vacation to check your status on a family trip, ask them to friend you on Google Latitude. Then just keep marking/checking in during your trip and they can see your exact location.

5. Create a customer notification/messaging list

This one is questionable and takes some work. But you could create a Google profile account for your business, encourage your customers to friend you and check-in using Google Latitude. Then you can have a list of your customers, see when they visited and email them as well. You may be crossing a thin line with that one but it’s an option. Google would prefre you to use Google Places instead.

Bonus & Tip
Of course you could use Google Latitude to stalk your friends/family therefor be careful using not only Google Latitude but any location based service. Make sure you check your privacy settings especially if you own a Android powered device.

For more on Google Latitude see the video: Google Latitude explained via @google

How do you use Google Latitude or see a use for it?

Posted on May 7, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

TriOut For Business explained. A location-based dashboard with messaging. By @LawPower

We are about to release some really exciting updates to TriOut for Business. The beta has been a great success and we have gotten feedback from those businesses that participated resulting in a number of enhancements and new features that add even more value for TriOut customers, both businesses and individuals. We will be sharing the details on the various plans with you over the coming weeks, along with some videos that show you how to use the service to enhance your sales and marketing efforts. If your business is not already listed in TriOut, please contact us and we’ll be happy to assist you.

We’ve talked a little bit before about some of the features of TfB; visitor statistics, special offers, etc. With the release of TriOut 1.4 for the iPhone we’re adding two new options for businesses to get involved; welcome messages and visitor messaging. Because this involves users directly, we want to be really open about what businesses can do and how users can control their experience with businesses.

Welcome messaging is pretty straight forward. If a business has a welcome message enabled, any user will see it on their first check in. The message could range from a simple “Thanks for visiting us” all the way up to special offers and coupons. It’s all up to the business to decide how to best use this feature.

Businesses also will be able to send messages to users who have checked in at their location. This could be a coupon or special offer, an invitation to an upcoming event, anything they like. I know this could sound a little invasive to the users, so here’s the rules we set up to keep everyone happy:

- Businesses can send no more than two messages a month and only to users who have checked in at their location.
- Messages are sent anonymously to all visitors, there’s no way to send a message just to a single user.
- Users have the option to receive these messages by push or by email, but by default they’ll just be seen when you log into your TriOut account.

We think this is a very good balance between providing businesses a valuable service while keeping users happy and respecting their privacy. Remember too, this is just the beginning. We’ll be listening to your feedback and making improvements that reflect those.

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 October 6, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

How to become a social media conference speaker. Tips and a free conference pass.

Photo: by chrisheuer

If you listened to my podcast yesterday on the ROI in attending Social Media Conferences, then you know I just returned from IZEAFest a marketing / social media conference in Orlando, FL. organized by Ted Murphy. In my podcast I mentioned how the ROI for attending various social media conferences is relationships and from the relationships it could lead to more business deals and/or speaking opportunities. While it seems that everyone now is a social media guru or expert, or ninja or “fill in the blank”, the next social media must prove yourself thing to do is write a book or speak at various conferences. While my book is on the way, haha, I have been fortunate enough to take part in both local and national conferences / events such as SXSW, CLT WordCamp, SoFresh, Social Media Club meetings, Triangle Chapter of the American Marketing Association meetings, IZEAFest and more before the end of the year such as BlogWorld Expo, the Social Media Business Forum and Internet Summit 09.

Often I get asked how was I able to take part at various events or how can someone become a speaker at those events. While I’m no “keynote” speaker … yet  :), you can see a list of my past speaking events here on FriendWayne.com.  I still have a long ways to go, but here are a few tips on how to become a social media conference speaker that I have seen and done.

How to become a social media conference speaker:

• Start local – Be known in your own backyard before you try to go global
• Establish a personal brand / identity / voice – What will people say about you.
• Keep your social networking profiles updated (outdated info can cost you a gig)
• Attend other social media conferences – Network!
• Create valuable content to showcase your skills. No blog, no videos, no podcast = no gig. Unless you work for a major brand!
• Start your own conference / event and ask others to speak – if it works out they may return the favor… maybe.
• Have a travel budget
• Share your existing presentations on http://www.slideshare.net

Speaking Tips – As you start  becoming social media speaker, you need to do a few things such as:

• Be memorable and awesome
• Provide great content
• Provide new content (dont’ just talk about post you read on Mashable)
• Tell jokes and stories
• Rap – hat tip (Chris Brogan), I dare you! Wait, that’s Chris’s thing so …
• Don’t copy other speakers ( I know it’s hard to be creative)
• If you’re a quiet person, provide Really great content
• Practice, breath and have thick skin
• Don’t think about the tweets or “noise” that are being posted while you’re giving your talk.
• Have someone video your talks so you can post online for later.
• Ask yourself what separates you from the rest and why do you want to become a speaker.
• Be yourself.

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Free passes to the Social Media Business Forum

If you have Never spoken at a conference in the past and would like to Attend the Social Media Business Forum on Friday, October 23 in Durham, NC, the first Two people who leave a comment on this post saying “I want to attend the Social Media Business Forum” will receive a free pass to the 1 day event. *Tweets or ReTweets of this post do not count.

If you’re a speaker I would love to hear any thoughts you have in the comments or if you have any speaking tips.

Posted on December 15, 2008 - by Wayne Sutton

Talk Social News episode 17# MC Hammer, on social media, the music industry & twitter. Need we say more?

There are a lot of fake celebrity accounts that get started on twitter, just ask Shaq (@THE_REAL_SHAQ) but if you get followed by an account called @MCHammer don’t block him or think it’s a fake account because it’s the one and only MC Hammer (http://mchammer.com) . So what is Hammer doing on twitter, well you’ll have to listen to the podcast for that, but we had the privilege to chat with the one and only Hammer himself about how long he’s been blogging, his thoughts social media and the music industry, who introduced him to twitter and more.

If you’re been wondering what Hammer has been up, Hammer is currently the co-founder of DanceJam.com a user generated dance social networking site and is still involved with the music industry. We also took a few questions via twitter and if you thought Hammer was just a rapper who made Hip Hop classics, like “U Can’t Touch This” and “Let’s get it started” then I must say that you only know maybe 5% of Hammer.

Hammer is one of the smartest entrepreneurs online today and we’re excited to have interviewed him. Take a listen.

The interview: Talk Social News Episode 17 – length 48.52 download or click to play:[audio:Talksocialnews-0017mchammer.mp3] Subscribe to podcast in iTunes:

Other segments of the podcast are:
What the blog:

Google Friend Connect (http://www.google.com/friendconnect/) vs Facebook Friend Connect (http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php)

Fail of the week:
1. Wayne Sutton, lost a podcast interview with Centernetworks.com, Allen Stern (I’m sorry man!)
2. Economy and layoffs

News this week
WordPress 2.7 – http://wordpress.org/development/

Google Chrome out of beta- http://www.google.com/chrome
UNO iPhone app – http://www.tuaw.com/2008/12/07/first-look-uno-for-iphone/
NC Startups Blog post on social media – http://idek.net/vr
PastBud, iPhone copy & paste – http://pastebud.com
twitter to friend feed contact sync – https://twitter2ff.appspot.com/
Jennifer Anderson GQ cover (Is this the best magazine cover ever?)

Also being that I lost the podcast episode with Allen Stern , please check out: