Monthly Archives: August 2009

A new way to engage in DIY (do-it-yourself) social networking began May, 2009, when founder Aaron Price launched www.widwi.com (pronounced “wid-wee” and stands for What I Did With It). No longer content to be constrained with the existing restrictive social network websites, Price’s widwi.com breaks the straightjacket-template-mold and allows users to post before and after pictures of their projects discussions and forums.

From remodeling your kitchen to restoring a Harley Davidson motorcycle to refurbishing your old Buick; From turning your fire escape into a garden to handy arts & crafts woodworking projects, widwi.com is a unique network, bringing people together with similar interests to show off what they did with their projects. The oldest Amazon Kindle owner in the world is showcased on widwi.com.

widwi encourages users to talk about mistakes others should avoid as well as best vendors for supplies. widwi is the brainchild of Aaron Price, New Jersey native, who collaborated with a software developer and graphic designer, both of whom he met through craigslist.

Growing up in a DIY family, Price recognized the community that forms around a hobby. Price’s uncle always took him to car shows. His dad took him to home, garden, and train shows. Says Price, “I was fascinated with the passion of people talking about their projects.”

widwi users post before and after pictures of projects, receive feedback, and inspiration from other users on the site. Prior to widwi.com, Price founded effordables where he learned about the nature of motorcycle and eBay communities.

Comments Price, “People love to talk about their success and failures, show off their bikes and projects, or just be happy to connect around an eBay selling success story.”

Thus was born the inspiration for widwi.com, where people share their
projects with the world. widwi.com is the newest way for the online DIY community to show off what they do.

After much anticipation, Knoyce has released it’s new social network site to the public for all to join. Knoyce released it’s new social networking site to the public at 12:00am on August 4, 2009 and it has already reached people nationwide…literally. From the United States to Canada, South America, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Berlin, London, Serbia, the United Kingdom and many more, people are loving what Knoyce has to offer.

Some of the new members on Knoyce have already began tweeting about Knoyce and one member, in particular, has already invited over 1500 of his friends and family. Knoyce will grow based on the members, their participation and activity on the site. It is very easy to invite your family and friends with the ability to import your email address book contacts and send one large invite to all of them.

Knoyce allows it’s users to do pretty much everything they need to do without leaving the site. With the ability to log into your Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Hulu, Friendfeed, Friendster, Digg, Technorati and other social networks without leaving Knoyce, the only thing left would be your email. Wait…Knoyce allows it’s users to log into there emails without having to leave the site as well. Whether you have Yahoo, Gmail, Aol, or Hotmail, Knoyce has it for you. Knoyce makes social media easy for it’s users.

Social media networking is changing everyday. Why not be somewhere “KNOYCE” where it doesn’t matter what’s going on outside of your network, because everything you need is on http://www.knoyce.com.

Knoyce also has a mobile view for those avid iPhone and iPod Touch lovers. Many people on Knoyce have already started asking for a mobile version in order to use Knoyce on the run. The website for Knoyce Mobile is http://www.knoyce.com/m/

College Canteen (www.college-canteen.com) is a new social networking website. It is an enterprise that addresses the need for an online, real-time channel for communication between students, academics, faculty and businesses.

College Canteen will flag off a three-way partnership between students, educational institutions and enterprises. In essence, College Canteen is an idea that responds to the need to make social networking more meaningful and purposeful for its users.

By providing a platform for regular interaction between students, universities and businesses, College Canteen opens up many avenues for communication.

Universities: Member Universities will have access to an international database of students and faculty from all academic streams. Through constant interaction using the various applications on the site such as blogs, chat, classifieds, groups and forums, avenues open up for joint research and enterprise, admissions, internship, knowledge-sharing and virtual lectures.

The site will also feature member enterprises, allowing for better partnerships between academic institutions and businesses in the areas of internship, research, curriculum design and employment.

Enterprises: Any business is as good as the people it employs. Through subscription to College Canteen, businesses can access a wide database of prospective employees from various streams, be it for internships or for employment. It is also an excellent platform for building a positive business image internationally.

Businesses can also use the site for better collaboration with Universities worldwide, an area that is a global priority.

Students will be the backbone of College Canteen. As the name signifies, the site will have all the fun aspects of social networking, and the informal atmosphere of a College Canteen. However, it will also have a larger purpose – allowing students to lay down foundations for future studies or employment. College Canteen will facilitate access to an international database of educational institutions and businesses for purposes of research, admissions and employment. The partnerships will also create an atmosphere for joint projects, which by bringing together like-minded people from the three sectors will help create innovative products and services.

College Canteen is an endeavour to make social networking more meaningful, to turn students’ need to connect into a profitable opportunity for all parties involved. While the website will have all the fun inherent in social networking, it will also be a hub where great ideas can be born.

The recent concerns with Twitter and Facebook has sparked the realization that any site can become vulnerable on the net. Although Facebook had minimal damage in comparison to Twitter, there was serious security issues with both. During this downtime, many people were sending Tweets about the new social media network Wooxie. Wooxie recently launched their new service and has been receiving great response and feedback from it’s Wooxier’s.

You can be a part of the 1st social network highlighting users in a very special way and making the best use of user generated posts – while offering blogs and websites free link backs. Everybody loves man and womans best friend… Wooxie!!!

Learn more about Wooxie and it’s Wooxier users from NBC Chicago @ http://url.wooxie.com/qivv9l

Go to http://www.Wooxie.com to join!

Wooxie is themed after everyones best friend, a dog and is the nickname of a real living family dog.

Wooxie is a new Microblogging Social Network. The look & feel of Wooxie is similar to Twitter. However, Wooxie allows 155 characters in posts (unlike Twitter’s 140 characters) and offers other unique features

Grafdom, the region’s leading online competitive intelligence unit, announced that one in every 20 Internet visits went to one of the top 20 social networking websites in November 2006, nearly double the share of visits compared to a year ago. This and other findings were released today in the Grafdom Consumer Generated Media Report, which examines recent trends in social networking, photo sharing and online video.

MySpace was the undisputed leader in social networking, receiving 82 percent of visits among the top 20 leading social networking websites in November 2006. Visits to MySpace increased by 51 percent from March to September 2006, outpacing category growth in visits of 34 percent. Other social networking websites which received larger than average growth in market share of visits were: Bolt, up 271 percent; Bebo, up 95 percent; Orkut, up 63 percent; and Gaia Online, up 41 percent.The influence of MySpace crosses over into other industries as users integrate social networking visits with other web activity. In November 2006, 2.6 percent of visits to Shopping & Classifieds websites came directly from MySpace. Other industries receiving increased traffic from MySpace were Telecommunications, Banks and Financial Institutions, and Travel.

The report also highlights how photo hosting and user generated video websites have become a new cog in the creation of content and present additional opportunities for advertisers. The market share of visits to the leading photo hosting website, PhotoBucket, increased by 43 percent from March to September 2006, while visits to community-oriented photography website Flickr increased by 49 percent and visits to YouTube were up 249 percent in the same period. YouTube ranked at number 26 among all Internet domains, and Photobucket ranked at number 34.

“This report shows how influential the creation and consumption of user content has become as a web activity, and demonstrates its significance in driving web traffic to other categories,” said Susan Williams, director of research at Grafdom. The use of social networking, photo hosting, and online video websites represent a significant shift in online user behavior, and Grafdom BrowseStream data is particularly useful in understanding how these users are interacting with the web.”

About Grafdom.
Grafdom is strategically positioned to pioneer the IT & Web industry and further build compelling synergies with business partners. It strives to spur revolutionary concepts of web modules, graphic design and e-commerce. Grafdom has grown exponentially since its early days, supplementing 3D animation design and print media to its line of corporate services. The company empowers businesses to expand into seamless online platforms and fortify their envisioned brands globally.

Gleedo™, the first ever livesharing application, debuted to the public today as part of an open alpha program. Gleedo layers live social networking over one’s favorite media, allowing users to share Internet videos, web sites and personal media with friends and family, in real time, in a private online media room. Gleedo is free and available for download at www.gleedo.com.

“When you find or create something interesting or fun, your first instinct is to share it. With Gleedo, sharing takes place in real time, offering users a real, rich, live connection with friends and family members. That’s why we call it livesharing,” said Tara Flynn Condon, VP of Marketing for Emerj, Inc., maker of Gleedo.

Key Features

Liveshare™ Online Videos: Share content from popular video sites (including YouTube, Hulu, TV.com and others) with friends and family in a private online media room, in real time. Comment on the action as it happens using built-in chat and talk features.

Liveshare™ Personal Content: Stream personal music and pictures to friends and family across the world, direct from your desktop. Narrate a slide show for Grandma or stream songs to your best friend.

Livebrowse™ Web Sites: Share favorite web sites with friends and family. Collaborate online together for school, work or fun.

Live Interaction: Chat and talk features invite interaction with friends and family while you share your favorite media.

Advanced Security Privacy Features: Your media room is accessible by invitation-only. End-to-end encryption ensures conversations and comments remain private. Additionally, media is shared in a “stream only” format, so you remain in control of your content.

“We want users to get an early taste of liveshare™, a prominent feature of what’s becoming known as ‘real-time’ Internet,” said Mehrdad Nadooshan, CEO of Emerj, Inc. Gleedo provides an alternative to email, blogs or posted links, offering users an immediate, personal connection. “Gleedo lets people share something live, in the moment with those that matter to them. We feel strongly that liveshare will change the way people interact online,” added Nadooshan.

Gleedo will launch this fall. The open alpha program offers a way for users to preview Gleedo, as well as offer feedback to the development team. “We are thrilled to share Gleedo with the world. This pre-launch period allows us to gather feedback and interact with our growing user community, ultimately allowing us to provide our users the best possible live social networking experience,” added Nadooshan. To download Gleedo, visit http://www.gleedo.com/content/download.

About Emerj, Inc.
Emerj, Inc. is the maker of Gleedo™, the first ever livesharing application. Gleedo layers live social networking over online and personal media, allowing users to watch – together, live – with friends and family over the Internet. Private equity-funded Emerj, Inc. is headquartered in New Jersey. For more information, visit www.gleedo.com or call +1 800.541.2027.

DailySplice, developer of the Podcast Station multimedia manager for streaming video and audio web content, has launched an online educational initiative for Police and Fire departments. The professional development series is for police and fire departments to learn and apply social media tools.

“Social media is a hot button. First Responders need reliable information about what tools make sense for them with budget and privacy constraints,” says DailySplice CEO, Rian Bowden.

The first in a series of webinars was delivered by Social Media Guru and Web Strategist, Chris Burdge of bwest.ca who discussed the application of new media in the First Responder industry. Burdge detailed real world applications of social media and examples of where technology such as podcasting has been used effectively.

The session was facilitated Bev McPhee, Professor of Communications at Royal Roads University, who said “Our goal with this series is to inform and educate. Social media is improving communications everywhere in today’s community, and extending the role of public relations into emergency services is a natural progression though there are privacy pitfalls that first responders should be aware of.” McPhee also emphasized the importance of using social media to disseminate public safety information to increase emergency preparedness and engage stakeholders.

Bowden concluded by saying that Saanich Police and the View Royal Fire Department both use the Podcast Station as a key component in their social media strategy. At Dailysplice we will continue our strategy to educate and enlighten those in the emergency services industry.”

To register for free webinars, contact Mike Waraich, Marketing Coordinator, DailySplice Technologies at +1 (866) 334-3958

About DailySplice Technologies Inc

DailySplice is a leading developer of online multimedia management tools to make streaming audio and video content easy and quick for the non-developer. Users create an aggregated playlist of various podcasts either supplied by third parties or can broadcast their own content on custom branded Podcast Station™ based on the preferences of their target audience. The Podcast Station allows audio updates by cellphone and creates detailed analytics report so users can continuously monitor and assess the needs of their market. DailySplice augments its client offering with a free podcast directory with over 100,000 well-organized audio and video clips.

GoldenNetworking.com will host its highly anticipated China Leaders Forum 2009 (http://www.ChinaLeadersForum.com) on October 8th, in New York City. This extraordinary gathering of minds will congregate businessmen, professionals, entrepreneurs and academics, both from China and Western countries, interested in learning more about the business challenges and opportunities China faces and presents for the global business community.
Chinese companies are on the threshold of becoming truly global. A few have already passed the door by moving to acquire resources, talent, intellectual property, and customers beyond China’s borders. In fact, demand for skilled managers will grow more quickly than the supply of qualified candidates. China Leaders Forum 2009 will examine the challenges facing the Chinese companies now expanding abroad and how to overcome the obstacles there, as well as the threats and opportunities posed to multinationals by the present wave of Chinese globalization.
China Leaders Forum 2009 is produced by GoldenNetworking.com, the premier networking community for businessmen, entrepreneurs, professionals and diplomats, founded by Columbia Business School MBA and former McKinsey consultant Edgar Perez. For more information about GoldenNetworking.com, please visit http://www.goldennetworking.com, follow GoldenNetworking.com on Twitter @GoldenNetworkin, join Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=39041844214 or send an email to [email protected].

Choove.com is launching the first online rental site in Milan that includes everything from an updated blog, to fan pages. They are currently the first site in Milan that includes all social mediums and micro blogging resources to promote their company, reinventing how rental sites in Milan connect with their consumer.

Choove.com is a short term rental site that gives travelers information and tools to learn about the city of Milan before they choose their apartment, allowing their transition into the city to be easier and more enjoyable. It has just re-launched their site to include hotel searches as well, making Choove.com a rental site on all accounts.

By integrating social media with property listing, the site becomes less of a business and more of a hands-on interaction. “Finding an apartment is a personal decision and Choove wants to be as transparent to the consumer in order for them to make an educated decision on their move and accommodation,” states the company.

The challenge to understand a city in which you have never been and to know which neighborhood you want to live in is what Choove helps their customers with. The blog to choove (choove.com/blog) was launched last week in order for people to see the fun side of Milan and Italy in general. A blog you can enjoy even if you are not traveling to Milan, it aims to give people a sense of the pop culture and news coming out of the fashion capital of the world.

Social media is as important as traditional media, if not more. Choove understands the power of community as well as the importance in connecting with their consumer. It aims to reinvent how people search for apartments and wants to take away the aggravation of looking for an apartment. Moving to a new city has its challenges, but Choove tries to make it as easy and enjoyable as possible.

For more information, visit http://www.choove.com, http://www.choove.com/blog.

Social media can be an effective tool for promoting your business or brand. But without a plan for how you’ll use it, you could lose valuable time trying to keep up with an ever-evolving landscape of new information and tools.

An upcoming workshop, Social Media Jumpstart for Women Business Owners and Entrepreneurs, is catering to time-strapped business women who want to better understand and maximize their use of social media. Hosted by Public Square Communications, the event will be held on Thursday, August 13, 2009 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Haworth, Inc., located at 575 7th Street, NW in Washington, D.C.

“Women business owners face unique challenges. In addition to running businesses, many are also managing households and parental responsibilities,” said Judy Lubin, president of Public Square Communications.

Women-owned businesses also tend to have fewer financial and human resources, which makes social media especially attractive to women looking for cost-effective ways to promote their businesses.

Studies show women already outpace men on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites.

“As more women use social media for both personal and business purposes, there is growing concern about work-life balance and whether time spent on social media sites can really help them meet business objectives,” added Lubin.

Her firm specializes in tracking and analyzing social, health and economic trends affecting women. With this data, Lubin has developed both online and offline communications and outreach strategies for national nonprofit organizations, government agencies and businesses.

An author and speaker on women’s empowerment and work-life balance, Lubin started her first blog in 2004. Now she’s using the insights gained from working with clients and personal experience to shorten the learning curve for business women.

The workshop will help participants develop a social media strategy for improving brand visibility, networking and engaging current and prospective clients. A strong focus of this session will also be on time-management, work-life balance and avoiding social media overload.

Topics to be covered include:

– Trends – Understand the driving forces behind social media so you start off on the right foot

– Branding – How to use Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools for branding and building credibility and trust

– Networking – How to connect and build relationships with industry leaders, key influencers and current and prospective clients or customers

– Tracking – Tools to track and evaluate social media efforts and return on engagement (ROE)

– Time Management – How to best manage time on social media to get the results you desire

– Strategy – Work on a social media action plan during the workshop and leave with concrete steps for action

For more information or to register, visit www.publicsquarecom.com/speakingtraining/smjumpstart/

The new social network Wooxie is now making use of another great feature. You can now comment or “SPEAK” as they call it directly under a users post. You can speak on your own posts too.

Founder and CEO Jeff Knize of Wooxie®, mentions “The speak function is a way to communicate directly to a users post without having to Reply. This new function is important for a few reasons. 1) It unclutters recent posts on the home page. 2) It keeps posts around longer as user accounts grow with more fans. Thus, users don’t miss valuable posts. The feature is user friendly and opens and closes shut (unlike other networks). If users have an issue with a particular comment, they can delete it. Users will know when others are speaking on their posts too. I think it is an efficient way for communication”.

Wooxie’s speak feature is now functioning and being used under posts. The feature is for quick replies. Therefore, the chararacters per “Speak” are maxed at 75. Users can speak back and delete if needed. Speak alerts are being added to Wooxie’s sidebar.

Wooxie is accepting new members and is a free service
http://www.Wooxie.com/register

First there was Facebook, then Twitter, & now Wooxie. Wooxie is unique by allowing you to choose your categories upon sign-up & only allow posts from those categories (up to 155 characters). Wooxie allows you to add your photo, website url, your info. on your profile page, customize your backround and colors, add a photo gallery with a unique title, speak feature under posts and soon SEO/link backs to users blogs and websites.

BluMail (http://www.blumail.org) – the leading online portal that helps people in developing nations find information and resources for improving their lives – now offers three, unique, social media Web sites that enable users to forge stronger, more meaningful connections compared with alternative sites.

Accessible via BluMail’s homepage, Read/Share a Story, What Do You Think? and The Remembering Site enable anyone with Internet access to share his or her life experiences – whether a single, important incident or a complete memoir or something in between. Users can read each other’s postings and then easily connect with those facing similar circumstances, issues and/or challenges. BluMail’s three, complementary formats for sharing something about oneself allow users to get to know each other in a deeper way than is possible on today’s other popular social media sites.

This “trifecta” of social networking Web sites supports BluMail’s broader mission of promoting meaningful connections, cultural understanding and networking among people everywhere throughout the world, regardless of geographic and other barriers.

“We developed these BluMail sub-sites so people could truly benefit from what anyone has learned through both common and extraordinary life experiences,” said Sarah McCue, Founder and Chair of BluMail and its parent organization, BluWorld. “You can’t get that value from most of today’s other popular social media sites where, for example, you only get snippets of often trivial information about things like your friend’s excitement that he got upgraded to first class on his latest business trip, two-sentence review of a new movie or nostalgia for the five toys that remind him of his childhood.”

Read/Share a Story (http://blumail.org/shareastory) is a shorter format option for people who want to share their insights, advice and/or wisdom about a memorable event. This BluMail sub-site is an active repository for the diverse stories of people everywhere of all ages and from all walks of life – sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, artists, entrepreneurs, educators, office workers, political activists, scientists, students, taxi drivers, waitresses and more. Anyone can post his or her own story, along with a photograph, and also see those posted by others. Whether funny, poignant, triumphant, indignant or nostalgic, these stories are invariably powerful and everyone is bound to find some that resonate.

Using a double-blind, secure email system that prevents users from seeing each other’s email addresses, anyone can easily connect via email with people who have posted stories that inspire them. Eventually, BluMail plans to publish a book of the most inspiring memoirs to make these stories even more widely available.

What Do You Think? (http://blumail.org/whatdoyouthink) is geared for the person who is not interested in writing about his or her experiences or memories – who doesn’t want to share a story – but would like to quickly create a snapshot of his or her personality, values and motivations. Based on the renowned Proust Questionnaire, it is a more structured format of 35 thought-provoking questions that the respondent answers in one sentence each. The questionnaire has its origins in a 19th century parlor game popularized (although not created) by the celebrated French writer, Marcel Proust, who believed that an individual’s answers to these questions revealed his or her true nature. Questionnaire respondents can opt to allow others to privately comment on their answers through BluMail’s double-blind, secure email system.

Featured on Senator Bill Bradley’s radio show, “American Voices,” The Remembering Site (www.therememberingsite.org) makes it simple and fun for anyone to write, share, archive, continually update and publish his or her life story. Although not everyone is able to leave money, jewelry or land as an inheritance for his or her children and grand kids, everyone can leave the most precious thing of all – an account of the family history and legacy. Non-relatives, too, will find The Remembering Site valuable because it is an Internet-based anthology of personal histories chronicling life experiences and lessons.

Because most people are likely to be overwhelmed at the prospect of writing their own memoirs and may not even know where to start, The Remembering Site makes it easy by asking users to answer 1,000-plus, evocative questions that elicit key details and memories from their lives. Also, professional writers are available (for a fee) to interview users and help complete their biographies. Upon completion, a user can make his/her autobiography available for others to read on this site or print and distribute quality paperback or hardback copies.

To date, people from all over the world have used The Remembering Site to write their life stories – people from Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Cuba, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Philippines, Sudan, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

About BluMail

BluMail is an online community for anyone, anywhere, especially youth in developing countries, to find information and resources for improving their lives, local communities and countries. BluMail offers free email accounts as well as “make-a-difference” content and a networking and activism portal for the millions of people gaining access to the Internet in coming years as well as for those who are socially responsible in any country. BluMail partners with U.N. groups, other NGOs, nonprofits and technology companies to provide support and Web site content to raise global awareness of their missions. For more information and to register for a BluMail email account, please visit http://www.blumail.org.