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With Apple Tablet, Print Media Hope...
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http://hihumiyo.net
http://hihumiyo.net Beautiful Site definitely worth checking.
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11 Mind-Blowing Reasons Your Business Needs Facebook | Social Media Examiner
11 Mind-Blowing Reasons Your Business Needs Facebook
By Jay Baer
Published January 14, 2010
Everyone seems to be using Facebook to connect with old friends, but do you realize what this huge network could mean for your business? In the past 3 years, Facebook has surged past MySpace to become our preferred online hangout. And businesses are beginning to catch on.
Interesting research shows just how influential Facebook has become in our daily lives. Combined with several critical adjustments to how Facebook publishes “news” and intersects with other sites, the state of Facebook is mind-blowing. And that’s a big deal for your business.
Here are 11 vital reasons your business needs to be involved with Facebook:
1. 350 Million Global Users and Counting
Facebook announced recently that they had passed 350 million members, making Facebook the third-largest country in the world, if it was a country. (Perhaps that’s their end-game, joining the UN and raising an army?)
2. 100 Million U.S. Users
Sure, Facebook is strong around the world (Canada has the highest penetration rate), but nearly 1/3 of all Facebookers are here in the U.S. You may have heard of a TV show called American Idol. On a good night, it averages 20 million viewers. Facebook has 100 million American members. Hmmm.
3. Average Facebook User Spends 55 Minutes Per Day
Nearly 1 hour per day, per user. That’s a lot of Facebook time. How can your company grab a bit of consumer attention? This data is based on Facebook’s own published stats, covered by Inside Facebook.
4. Nearly 80,000 Sites Using Facebook Connect
Connect is the Facebook initiative that has the greatest long-range impact. By integrating Facebook closely, sites are making our personal social graphs truly portable. Instead of having to go to Facebook and other sites to visit our friends, they travel with us online (and in our pockets via mobile devices), always there to provide advice or commentary. Even Yahoo! and MySpace are rolling out deep Facebook integrations.
This of course makes Facebook the central hub of not just social media, but the web as well (which is why Google is scrambling to catch up after their competing Google Connect fell flat).
5. Facebook Fan Box Becoming Pervasive
Perhaps the least powerful, but most prevalent, flavor of Facebook Connect is Facebook Fan Box, a simple tool for enabling your website visitors, YouTube video watchers, or email newsletter recipients to become a fan of your brand—without even having to go to Facebook.
6. Average Facebook User Has 130 Friends
Will Facebook users continue to add more friends at a rapid pace? It depends upon how they view their Facebook connections. 130 friends almost bumps up against Dunbar’s Number of 150—the theoretical maximum number of actual friend relationships you can sustain, according to British scientist Robin Dunbar.
If Facebook continues to revolve around relationships that you actually possess in three dimensions—people you “actually” know—then the addition of bunches of new friends may slow considerably. But, if Facebook makes the leap to tie people together more casually (like Twitter), average friend counts could rise dramatically.
7. Average Facebook User “Fans” 2 Pages per Month
If you think tons of your customers should become fans of your company’s Facebook page, you might want to recalibrate your expectations. The average Facebook user “fans” only 2 new pages per month. That’s not a lot, considering how many brands, causes, and organizations we come into contact with on a regular basis.
If you’re going to make growth of your Facebook fan base a key part of your social media strategy, you must create a clear rationale for why consumers should participate with you.
You also might consider a robust, organized approach for promoting your Facebook fan page. (This case study from Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes has some good advice.)
8. Only 4% of Pages Have 10,000 or More Fans
If your Facebook fan page is a bit of a ghost town, you’re not alone. A fantastic study by Sysomos of 600,000 Facebook fan pages shows that only 4% of pages have 10,000 or more fans—and only .76% have 100,000 or more.
That’s why it is so critical to focus your Facebook strategy on activating the fans you have, not just collecting fans like baseball cards.
9. Wall Posts Don’t Impact Popularity
The Sysomos study also found very little correlation between how frequently the Facebook page admin posted to the Wall and total number of fans. However—and this is important—there is a strong correlation between amount of other content (notes, links, photos, videos) and number of fans.
Thus, if you want to grow your Facebook fan base, it is imperative that you move beyond simple Wall posts and add photos, videos, links and other content.
10. Customized News Feed
Facebook’s recent move to an algorithm-driven news feed means that just because someone is your fan does not mean he will see your Wall posts or status updates (true for both individuals and brands). Instead, the default news feed is now comprised of content that Facebook thinks you’ll like, based on your interactions with content from that author in the past, and interactions by your friends with that content.
This puts a tremendous premium on posting engaging content that will get comments and likes and shares. If you’re not paying attention to your content engagement scores within your Facebook analytics, start doing so now, and testing content types to see what works best for your brand.
11. Real-time Search Changes the Game
Facebook is now making most content available publicly, unless you tell them not to via your privacy settings. Twitter opened their data stream to anyone (not just big developers). Google and Bing are incorporating this data into search results, in real time.
This has tremendous implications for search engine optimization and reputation management, because a negative status update about your brand might now show up on the first page of Google search results for your company name (at least temporarily). The shakeout is still happening, but someone in your company needs to be on top of real-time search. Today.
Facebook may not be the ideal environment for every social media initiative, but its huge size forces you to at least consider participating—regardless of what type of business you run.
It’s not just fast-food chains like Souplantation that are promoting their businesses on Facebook. Everyone from the ultra-small business to the Fortune 500 corporation are placing bets on Facebook.
However, some brands are putting an awful lot of eggs in the Facebook basket, which is perhaps justifiable based on the facts above. However, I’m not so keen on building the centerpiece of a social media strategy on what amounts to rented land. What say you?
Is your business taking advantage of Facebook? How important is it to your social media efforts? What advice do you have for creating content and managing Facebook fan pages? Please comment below.
Tags: busienss, business promotion, central hub, consumer attention, customized nes feed, dunbar, facebook, facebook analytics, facebook connect, facebook fan box, facebook integration, facebook news, facebook page, facebook stats, facebook strategy, facebook update, facebookers, fans, friend relationship, global users, google connect, inside facebook, myspace, negative status update, news feed, online hangout, page popularity, real time search, Research, robin dunbar, social graphs, social media hub, social media strategy, souplantation, sysomos
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Thursday, January 7, 2010
5 Web Apps To Keep Your Startup Organized - ReadWriteStart
5 Web Apps To Keep Your Startup Organized
Written by Chris Cameron / January 6, 2010 9:30 PM / 24 Comments
This post is part of our ReadWriteStart channel, which is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs. The channel is sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark. To sign up for BizSpark, click here.
In a world where emails, phone calls, texts, and Tweets constantly bombard us, it is getting harder and harder to manage the firehose of data and information being thrust our way. For young companies to succeed this environment, it is imparitive they become organized and efficient lest they fall behind and quickly become overwhelmed.
While there is no shortage of online solutions, it can be hard to know which one is the right tool for the job, so here's a list of five web applications to help kick-start your company and keep it organized without breaking the bank.
Google Apps - Google's collection of web apps includes solutions for corporate email accounts, calendars or contacts, but its best use for a new startup is with document sharing. Using Google Docs to collaborate on text documents, spreadsheets or even presentations is far more efficient than sending a file in an email attachment.
In recent years, Zoho has become an increasingly competitive enterprise alternative to Google, even adding integration with Google Apps. Zoho has also introduced more features that help it stand out against Google Apps, including their own CRM solution that aims to compete with Salesforce.com.
Basecamp - We here at ReadWriteWeb use Basecamp on a daily basis for managing ongoing projects and reviewing edits of our stories. Developed by 37signals, Basecamp offers a great interface with an easily read dashboard of the latest activity, as well as to-do lists, milestones and email alerts.
For the on-the-go entrepreneur, there are a handful of mobile Basecamp apps ranging in features and price. Personally, I recommend using Insight for iPhone, which was rebranded from Encamp and recently recommended by 37signals.
Dropbox - Whether it's large financial spreadsheets, or Photoshop mockups of your website-to-be, you are going to need somewhere to store all your files. Dropbox makes all of these easy and relatively inexpensive, offering up to 100 GB for $20 a month. But it's not just storage.
Dropbox can automatically sync with folders on your desktop, creating an offsite backup of your vital startup files in the cloud, which any member of your staff can access. An alternative solution would be to use Box.net, however their pricing plans are higher than Dropbox's and are aimed at larger corporations.
Dimdim - The next time you find yourself struggling to explain an intricate concept to your coworkers through a text document or presentation, check out Dimdim and use the power of screen-sharing to make your point crystal clear. One of Dimdim's best features is that their product works entirely from within your web browser without the need to download or install any extra software.
Screen-sharing services like Dimdim can save a young company hundreds if not thousands of dollars in travel expenses by providing a much more efficient way to meet and share information. Also a notable service in this space is Citrix's GoToMeeting. However, like Box.net to Dropbox, its pricing is much higher than Dimdim's.
MindMeister - Between the last two semesters of graduate school, I worked on a collaborative ten-week reporting project, and used online mind-mapping app MindMeister extensively to stay organized. The application is a great way to keep those more abstract ideas organized in an easy-to-understand way.
Countless startups have mapped out their product ideas and business plans on giant whiteboards, and now the whiteboard has gone digital. MindMeister makes it easy to create and share mind maps and flow charts, and best of all, its free to get started.
Photo by Flickr user simax.
Microsoft BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. Click here to apply.
Tags basecamp box.net dimdim dropbox entrepreneur google gotomeeting iphone list mindmeister startup wave web app
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Has DimDim gotten better? I've tried it several times and can't seem to make it work properly. Which is a shame because WebEx and GoToMeeting are dying for decent competition.
Posted by: pwb | January 6, 2010 10:06 PM
I still use google apps to handle my activities on the internet. its easy and almost comple for my needs
Posted by: laptop | January 6, 2010 10:27 PM
Google Apps and Dropbox are most popular.
Posted by: Igor Poltavskiy
I think Live Mesh is much better than Dropbox. Although still in beta it gives you 5gb of free space and free remote access to any of you computers that you install live mesh on.
Also it lets you sync any folder and also share it with anyone who has a live id.
Posted by: MD Techs | January 6, 2010 11:20 PM
The aim of many entrepreneurs is to take a business idea and convert it into a professional and functioning business on a low budget. This is typically called “bootstrapping” and it is fraught with potential pitfalls and dangers. But when done well it can really help get a company going fast, professionally and without the founders having to give up much equity or bankrupting themselves.
Posted by: wii Sensorleiste | January 6, 2010 11:25 PM
For those of you managing client projects, Mavenlink is the new kid on the block and we think we've got a better solution for keeping your work organized, having conversations with your clients, and tracking deliverables than anything else out there today. If you're tired of re-sending important files or managing disparate audiences via email, our workspace is just the cure.
We're busy rolling out new features on a daily basis, so give us a look! Feel free to contact me directly with questions.
Roger
@mavenroger
http://www.mavenlink.comPS It works for businesses managing lots of consultants/freelancers too - that's how we use it internally!
Posted by: Roger | January 6, 2010 11:51 PM
Personally I can't stand DropBox, it's invasive and annoying, plus fixes a problem that doesn't exist.
Anyhow, shame there is no shout out to version control apps like Beanstalk, etc.
Posted by: Vincent Roman | January 7, 2010 12:35 AM
I would also put Skype on the list. Its great chat program, and easily conference call for free, and I've also used it to share my screen with colleagues.
Posted by: Adam | January 7, 2010 2:06 AM
Another great alternative for screen-sharing is Mikogo, a desktop sharing application that allows you to share your screen with up to 10 participants, in a secure and easy to use way, available both for Mac and PC. And it's free for business, making it perfect for small business and startups working on a low budget.
You can visit our website at http://www.mikogo.com
Cheers,
Thiago Almeida
thiago@mikogo.com
The Mikogo Team
Posted by: Thiago Almeida | January 7, 2010 2:35 AM
I think you miss one very important tool, which is more or less MindMeister but for diagramming etc.
Posted by: Jacob Saaby Nielsen
Dropbox is phenomenal - use it every day to keep a bunch of machines synched up with the same folder of work. Works flawlessly - can't recommend it highly enough. There's also Evernote, which is fantastic and should probably be included here.
Backpack and Highrise (other 37 signals services) are also really good - worth looking into for collaborative/intranet and contact/prospect management respectively.
Basecamp is still far and away the best online project mgt tool - we use it for everything. We've tried everything else, keep trying them, and nothing comes close - all the others make the mistake of thinking that doing more is better.
Posted by: Mark | January 7, 2010 3:42 AM
wow....i use google apps only...thanks for providing other tools information.
Posted by: Richard Menon | January 7, 2010 4:18 AM
Vincent, I'd really like to know why you think Dropbox is invasive. The comparison to versioning software and the inexistent problem comment make me think you're seeing Dropbox for what it's not. While it's true you could use Dropbox as a version control solution, I believe that feature is more intended for people doing work that generally doesn't involve version control. Asking a designer (most of them at least) to use git is a recipe for disaster. That said the main use of Dropbox is having a file (be it a document, a graphical composition, or a database) in all the machines you work in, being able to get said files in a machine that you DON'T work in, and lastly to keep desktop software synchronized. I'll give some examples to further emphasize my point: 1) Many times some changes to a PSD file don't warrant a push or checking in. In this case I might use Dropbox to have the most up to date file in all my workstations or while being mobile, and push to git when I achieve an actual milestone. 2) How else am I going to keep my to-do app synced between computers? 3) If I need to put a file online for people to see, its as simple as putting it in the public folder, is there an easier solution?
Posted by: Jaime | January 7, 2010 5:31 AM
I'd like to add Scale to the list - my own company's product, which I use every day. I'm not a salesperson, so I don't have prospects or a pipeline to track, but I do have relationships I still need to manage. Scale does this automatically for me by importing my calls, emails, SMS, and calendar entries into a single platform on my Blackberry, and reflecting the health of important relationships in a color-coded dashboard based on parameters I've set.
It’s not a web-app per se, but as it’s based on my Blackberry, I always have it with me and can take advantage of those nuggets of previously wasted time throughout the day to stay in touch with my network.
We're releasing our production version in about two weeks and have a free, 7-day trial on offer.
Posted by: Ray | January 7, 2010 5:51 AM
I have to check our Mind Meister, if it is really a digital white board..
Posted by: Jim
| January 7, 2010 5:57 AM
Chris-
Thanks for counting Dimdim among your 5 Web Apps for keeping startups organized. We're working with Sramana Mitra to help entrepreneurs/startups in other ways as well. We have a Strategy Roundtable for Entrepreneurs webinar today at 11am EST and another each week this month.
http://www.sramanamitra.com/entrepreneurship-strategy-roundtables/Thanks!
-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
Dimdim Web Conferencing
e: kevin@dimdim.com
twitter: @dimdim
facebook: dimdim.com/facebookExperience the Dimdim Live Webinar! Register at:
http://www.dimdim.com/aboutus/events.html
Posted by: Kevin Micalizzi, Dimdim Web Conferencing | January 7, 2010 6:44 AM
Most of the collaboration tools (e.g. Basecamp) focus on the day to day logistics. For more abstract discussions like roadmap, strategy, brainstorming sessions, you should check out Ask My BrainTrust.
Ask My BrainTrust (http://AskMyBrainTrust.com) helps you save time from going back and forth on email and enables you to have meaningful online discussions with your startup team, key customers and even your external advisers, privately and in an organized fashion.
Posted by: Tawheed Kader | January 7, 2010 6:44 AM
You should check out XMind, which has a free version and is quite capable on Mac and Windows. I use it virtually every day.
R
Posted by: Randy | January 7, 2010 6:59 AM
Here's the combination we're finding most useful for our startup clients:
1. Google Apps for email, shared calendars (we're Google Apps Authorised Resellers and are seeing increasing interest in it from orgs of all sizes)
2. Dropbox for sharing/syncing documents and them being available offline
3. Trend WFBS Hosted for anti-malware with a centralised control panel
4. Open Office for word processing and spreadsheets
5. EeePC netbooksWe find Windows XP (and now Windows 7) is still the most compelling operating system despite Ubuntu being a free alternative. The extra work involved in Ubuntu setup and tweaking etc is still too much.
Scott
www.cloudlogic.co.uk
Posted by: Scott | January 7, 2010 7:08 AM
I use gotomeeting but need better competition
Posted by: Excel Dashboard | January 7, 2010 7:25 AM
I work with a lot of start ups and the other apps I see in use a lot include:
1. Skype (mentioned above but great for widely distributed teams)
2. Yammer (for internal collaboration and communication)
3. Tungle (for meeting scheduling, disc: also a client)
4. Wikis (for collaboration, sharing and "intranet"
Posted by: Tamara Gruber
I'm always trying to find the best and most cost effective solution. Google Apps is excellent. Evernote is an excellent alternative to Backpack, with mobile access and a great freemium offering. I tried Highrise, but I prefer Batchbook and their added functionality of tagging, web-to-lead forms, and social network integration. I love Dropbox too, but I'm probably going to move to Jungledisk (owned by Rackspace). Jungledisk's new 3.0 software does much of what Dropbox does, plus it doubles as a cloud backup service (like Mozy/Carbonite). You can even set it up as a network attached storage drive (runs on S3 or Rackspace cloud) and access your files anywhere and sync all your computers to the NAS.
Check out LogMeIn's solutions as they offer a great free offering, plus they have paid versions that allow great screen sharing capabilities like DimDim.
Zoho offers a huge selection of online offerings. Make sure you check out Zoho's Projects (alternative to Basecamp) and Invoices (alternative to Freshbooks). Zoho's development over the last year has impressed me a lot, and their offerings are competing with all of the best solutions in the market, not to mention everything integrates pretty well and has single sign on.
Posted by: Jason Barone | January 7, 2010 9:29 AM
Solid list. Most these suggestions are free to try and/or have great free versions of the product that really allow you to understand if the product will work for your business. That's key when you're talking about something to actually integrate into your daily grind.
On that note, could add QuickBooks Online to this list. Free to try for 30 days and pretty intuitive to get started. Or if the accounting is too much, the free invoicing sidekick Billing Manager is without restrictions. (no limits)
Kristen (QuickBooks Online Product Manager)
Posted by: Kristen Berman | January 7, 2010 9:43 AM
Plotbot.com and Zhura.com for creating screenplays online.
Posted by: Billy Bob Ornton | January 7, 2010 11:14 AM
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