View All of Your Favorite Content in One Place with Faveous

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If you use sites like Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to find and favorite interesting content then you’ll love Faveous. Right now Faveous is a very basic service in its “first private alpha,” but if you check out the features page you’ll see that there are a lot of new things coming soon. What it does is import all of your favorites (and “likes” from Facebook) into a single location so that you have easy access to them.

Connecting your desired services is easy and takes only a minute to authorize each one. If you want to manually add content from other sites not listed above, you can do so via the bookmarklet or Chrome extension. Content added manually will be displayed on the Faveous tab.

Your content will begin importing right away and you can view all items together or separately by choosing a tab. The search box on the right side of the page is also a nice touch because you can search through all of your favorites and find exactly what you’re looking for. Right now there is no way to actually organize your favorites, but that is coming soon. Honestly, I think it’s fine without that feature since there is the ability to search, but some may feel differently.

As I mentioned above, Facebook items are not actual favorites, but “likes” on videos, links and pages. If you’re visiting a blog and “like” an article, things like that will be imported as well. Faveous does not to import likes on statuses and comments.

Right now, the only option for each item is to delete it. Clicking on the Google Reader, Facebook and YouTube items will take you to the actual page on that service. Unfortunately, the only things clickable on Twitter content are links included in tweets (not usernames).

On a final note, I feel that Faveous has staying power and potential. We have enough services out there that let us view all of our content and very few that let us focus just on our favorites. Users want a site that is easy to use and doesn’t require too much work and Faveous offers just that. Why bookmark content when you can have it automatically imported from the social network itself? The latter method is definitely more convenient and helps to increase productivity.

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ifttt – Your Personal Assistant for Internet Tasks

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At first glance, I was a bit overwhelmed by the possibilities of ifttt (short for If This Then That). After setting up just one task though, I was really impressed with how easy it was to get ifttt working for me. Not only does it take you step by step through the process in a clean format, but it only takes a a few minutes to complete. The concept is simple: you create tasks that follow the philosophy, “if this happens then do that.”

ifttt lets you create tasks (“triggers and actions”) by using different channels. “Channels are the unique services and devices you use everyday, activated specifically for you.” There are a number of channels already activated for you when you first sign up and you can activate even more from the channels list. Tasks can be turned on and off whenever you choose and you can have up to 20 active tasks at a time. So, I’ll take you through the process of creating a task.

Step 1

Click on “this” to choose your trigger channel.

Channels available here include: Craigslist, Delicious, email, Facebook, Google Reader, phone call, Posterous, SMS, Tumblr, Twitter, weather and more. Most channels will require some type of activation/authorization, but you only have to do this once.

Step 2

Choose your trigger type. The number of options here are dependent on the type of trigger channel that you choose. Since I choose Google Reader as my trigger, the options pictured below are what is available.

I want all of my shared items to be automatically posted to Twitter, so I will choose the “new shared item” option.

Step 3

Here is where you actually create and customize your trigger fields (if any setup is needed). For Google Reader, there is nothing required here so you can move on to the next step.

Step 4

Now you’re going to click on “that” to choose your action channel. I, of course, chose Twitter.

Channels available here include: Delicious, email, Facebook, Google Reader, Instapaper, phone call, Read it Later, SMS, Twitter and more.

Step 5

Once again you will have options here to choose from. For Twitter there is only one option and that’s to “post a new tweet.”

Sidenote: If you want to see all of the available options for each trigger you can do that by clicking on an individual item from the channels list. This will let you activate inactive channels as well as view all of the available triggers.

Step 6

Here you can customize your action fields. For Twitter, you can choose which “Add-ins” to use in your tweet. For instance, maybe you want to include the item author or a snippet of the item content or you want to include your own comment (noted in Google Reader). ifttt lets you decide just what to include and in what order.

Step 7

Lastly, you can enter a description for your task so that you can easily differentiate it from other tasks.

Once you have more tasks setup you can filter them, delete, edit, turn on/off and view when they were last triggered from your tasks list. From the number of channels and options available on ifttt, you can see just how useful of a tool it really is.

If you are a social media power user like myself, then ifttt is definitely a must use tool. Unfortunately, you will need an invite to join (the site is barely a month old), but it shouldn’t take too long to receive. Once you are able to give it a try, I hope you’ll enjoy ifttt as much as I do!

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Keep Twitter Group Discussions Private with Privately

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If you’ve ever wanted to have a private conversation on Twitter with just a group of people (instead of the whole world) then Privately is for you. Privately is a mixture of threaded group conversations and DMs. Conversations can only be seen by users who have been invited and replies are displayed chronological order.

Once you sign in via your Twitter account, you’ll want to set your preferences. You can enter your email so that you can receive notifications and use your Gravatar. Using your Gravatar is optional, if not selected Privately will use your Twitter avatar instead. You can also set your notification frequency preference.  If you want to know ASAP when new messages arrive, then it’s best to choose every hour.

There are no special features about the site, you simply enter the username(s) that you want to start a conversation with and enter your message. Once started, you can add replies just by entering your message (no need for @mentions). You can also mute conversations that may be getting on your nerves.

Privately is currently an invite-only beta site, but it doesn’t take long to receive an invite. Another way to get an invite is to have a registered user start a conversation with you. Once registered, you will receive 10 invites and for every unregistered user that you start a conversation with, it will use up one of your invitations. When you start a conversation, a DM is sent out from your Twitter account to the user(s) with a link to it.

I love the simplicity of Privately. It eliminates the need to join yet another site just to have private conversations with your Twitter friends. It will be nice to see how the site is improved in the future.

If you would like to give Privately a try, you can send me an @mention and I’ll start a conversation with you; currently I have 7 invites left.

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TweetStork – The Twitter Tool For Finding Targeted Followers

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Twitter users are always looking for new ways to find targeted followers. It’s important to not just have a lot of followers on Twitter, but to have followers that are going to interact with you and add value to your timeline. With TweetStork, you can find related users, list owners and re-tweeters who are just like you. You can also use it to unfollow users who aren’t following you back. Best of all, it’s free and requires very little work on your end.

Find Related Users

In order to find users that are like you, TweetStork will scan the followers of Twitter users who are similar to you. All you have to do is enter the username of a Twitter user of your choice and TweetStork will do the rest.

With the advanced search feature, you can define the keywords that the user descriptions should and should not contain. You can also set the quantity of users that you want to search for; the default is 30, but you can search for up to 100 at a time.

Once you get your results, you can follow users directly from the TweetStork website. Your results will display each user’s avatar picture, username, bio and number of followers. TweetStork keeps a tally of how many people you follow for the day and overall (if you continue to use the site).

Find List Owners

This section works the same way as finding related followers: enter the username of a similar Twitter user and get valid results. What TweetStork does is search through the Twitter lists of users that person follows and then shows you people from those lists that are related to you. You’ll be able to see the Twitter list that the user is on and how many followers the list has as well as how many followers the user has.

Find Re-Tweeters

Again you have the same setup, the difference is that TweetStork searches for users who retweet users similar to you. They suggest that you enter a similar, yet popular user here. You can also specify the amount of re-tweeters that you’d like to search for. There are no advanced search options for this section. The results here will show you the user’s tweet containing the searched user’s name.

Unfollow Users

TweetStork can also go through your following list and let you know who is not following you back. If there are some users that you never want shown here, you can add them to an “unfollow whitelist” and TweetStork will never display them again. Results are displayed in order from oldest to most recent and you’ll be able to see how long ago you followed each user. This will give you a good idea of whether you should unfollow at that moment or wait a little longer.

Subscriptions

As mentioned above TweetStork is free, but free accounts also have a 15 per day follow and unfollow limit. If you would like to remove this limitation, you can purchase a yearly (19.95EUR) or monthly (2.99EUR) subscription.

Plain and simple, TweetStork is a very useful tool that is great for helping you grow your Twitter network. I’d rather follow a small group of users who will actually interact with me rather than thousands of users who never say anything to me. I’m sure many of you would agree and that’s why TweetStork is a very valuable tool.

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Keep Business and Pleasure Separate with Whoopaa

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Whoopaa is not just another social network, it’s also a social aggregator for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. The site allows you to create both a personal and/or business profile, which lets you to keep your personal life separate from your business life. “These profiles will be your online identities, both with their own separate connections, communications and settings” (via the Whoopaa homepage).

Personal Profile

This profile can only be seen by your personal network. On your personal profile you’ll be able to connect your Twitter and Facebook account(s). You can manage all of your updates for each site as well as view the timelines for each one in their own separate tab. Having a private personal profile gives you the freedom of sharing anything you like without having to worry about it ruining your professional image. Once you’re ready to get professional, you can switch to your business profile in a snap.

Business Profile

Likewise, your business profile can only be seen by your business network. For this profile, you can connect your LinkedIn and Twitter account(s). Just like the personal profile, you’ll be able to manage your updates and view your timelines. You can share business photos and videos and switch to your personal profile at anytime.

Required Information

To setup both profiles you’ll be asked for: profile name (keep in mind this is a nickname and not your actual name), birthday, biography, country and photo. Having the two separated allows you to enter a fun biography and use a fun picture on your personal profile, while showing your professional side on the other.

Dashaboard

This is where you can access all of your timeline, post status updates, search for friends and business connections, post videos and images, view your messages, join communities (coming soon) and add widgets (coming soon). When posting updates, you’ll have the option to add images, links, a location and mentions with the click of a button.

Viewing Timelines

The actions you can perform on the Twitter timeline are: repost, favorite, reply, translate. The items you can view are: mentions, favorites, all updates, combined timelines. There is also a refresh button and search button for filtering by keyword(s).

The actions you can perform on Facebook and LinkedIn are: repost, like, comment, translate. The items you can view are: mentions, all updates, combined timelines. Likewise there is a refresh button and search button for filtering by keyword.

Other Features

On the sidebar you can view your number of friends, updates, messages as well as upcoming birthdays. There is also a link here to change your avatar.

Searching for friends is easy with the search bar and you can even organize your friends and connections with labels.

The messages area is where you can create new messages as well as view your inbox, outbox and trash. Keep in mind that this is for Whoopaa messages only; Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn messages are not displayed here. You can also create folders for organizing your messages.

Privacy Options

When it comes to privacy, Whoopaa has that covered as well. When editing your profile, you can set privacy options for your country, city and bio. You can choose to make these items viewable to friends, friends of friends or everyone. The same goes for your contact information. Unfortunately, there isn’t an option to make this information viewable only to you so if you want something totally private, you shouldn’t add it at all.

Lastly, Whoopaa lets you customize the types of notifications that you want to receive by email and like Facebook, they even have a separate page for you to view all of your notifications on the site.

With all of that in mind:

How do you feel about having to keep up with not one, but two more profiles?

Do you like Whoopaa concept or do you prefer a single profile?

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Share and Tweet Your Emotions with Smood.it

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There’s a new microblogging platform in town and it’s called Smood.it. On the site you can share your smood with the world; the word smood is “a syneresis of two words: smile and mood.” Smood.it calls itself a “micro(emo)blogging” services since it’s more focused on letting you share your emotions rather than a simple status message.

Smood.it offers all of the basic features like a profile, the ability to invite and search for friends as well as a timeline view that showcases the smoods of those you follow. In addition you can keep up with your weekly mood (that is if you use the site consistently).

There are two simple steps to sharing your smood:

1. Pick one of six emoticons that describes your mood. The choices are: joy, surprise, love, anger, fear and sadness.

2. Tag your mood with words that describe why you’re feeling that way; you can also use URLs here. Previous used tags from the community will appear below the text box as you type.

Once your done, your smood will appear as picture below, with the emoticon and tags. Clicking on each tag will, as expected, take you to a page where you can see others who have used the same tag.

Connect Your Twitter Account

Smood is tightly integrated with Twitter. When you first sign up, you have the option of signing up via Twitter OAuth. Be aware that by default, your smoods will be set to auto-post to Twitter. You can, however, turn this off under settings. You can also customize how your tweet will look when it posts, which is a nice addition that not many sites offer.

Alternately and also in addition, you can have your tweets post as smoods to Smood.it. This is also something that is set by default, but can be changed under settings. It seems as though Smood.it scans your tweets, gets a feel for the mood of them and then automatically sets one of the six emoticon for them. As for that tags, it uses the URL in your tweet (if one is included), the users mentioned (if you @mention anyone) and hashtags that you may have used.

I do like being able to quickly share how I’m feeling on Smood.it. Sometimes a simple emoticon (as opposed to a text status message) is the best way to describe my current mood and Smood.it makes this possible.

While the community does not seem very active, it may just be because it is hard to find other users (besides clicking on tags). Also, there doesn’t seem to be a way to “like,” comment or reply to others’ smoods. Of course, these are just some of the missing functionalities that come with an early beta site, so I’m anxious to see how Smood.it progresses.

Once again, here’s another site that I’d really love to use often and hope that I will remember to do so. What are your thoughts?

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Collect, Organize and Share Your Favorite Content with Zootool

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Sometimes I often wonder, just how many methods do we really need for saving and organizing bookmarks, images and videos from the web? You would think that just one would be enough, but every time I come across something new I wonder if it could be better than what I’m currently using. That’s exactly how I felt when I came across Zootool; it’s a visual bookmarking tool that also integrates social media for instant sharing.

Pick Your Tool

Zootool has a bookmarklet, which is called the “Lasso.” It allows you to quickly save images, videos and web pages while browsing. This is the easiest way to get started using Zootool, but if you prefer they also have an unofficial Chrome extension, Firefox Addon and even a Safari extension. If those aren’t enough, there are many other tools and integrations listed on their Tools page.

Connect Your Social Profiles

You can add links to your other profiles right on your Zootool profile. Supported sites include: Delicious, Facebook, FriendFeed, Tumblr, Twitter and many more! Some profiles are used for sharing your Zootool content while others are just used as a simple link to your actual profile on that site.

Adding A Bookmark

I am using the Chrome Lasso extension and when I click the browser button, I am given the option to pick the image that I would like to use. Unfortunately, you can only pick one image to represent your bookmark. Once you pick the one you want, you’ll be give the option to add a title, description and tags. You can set you the item to public or private.

Don’t miss out on the other tabs along the top that give you sharing options. Clicking on Twitter lets you customize and post a tweet, as does clicking on Facebook, Email and More. The More options lets you add the item to Delicious, Tumblr and/or FriendFeed (if you’ve added those to your profile).

Each tool does something a little bit different, so depending on which one you’re using your options may differ.

Stylish Profiles

Honestly, I really like the clean look of the profiles on Zootool and the way that they’re set up (see for yourself). Your content is in the large column on the left, while a search bar (to search through your items), bio, social profiles and following fill up the right. Clicking on an item takes you to full view and lets other users add comments, share it and “like” it.

Discovering other content is also very easy with the public timeline on the home page and the search options. As soon as you add a new item (and have it set to public), it will appear right on the homepage. Find other people is pretty easy too and you can even find your Twitter friends (who are already using the site) by connecting your account.

While Zootool has been around for awhile, I think it is a very handy tool. In addition to my other tools that I use for keeping up with what I find on the Web, I think it’s a keeper. How about you?

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Keep Your Online Reputation Clean with SocioClean

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You really have to be careful about the way you represent yourself online. There are many companies now that will do a quick search for your name on Google before even considering you for a job. Then there are those who won’t even consider working with you on a professional level if your online presence is unprofessional in any way. This is why it’s important to watch what you say and be careful of the things you share (images, videos, status updates, etc).

The Solution

SocioClean is a tool that understands the importance of a clean online presence, so they built a site that allows you “understand and protect your social reputation.” What it is supposed to do is connect all of the major social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and let you monitor them for questionable and inappropriate content. In essence, it’s supposed to be like a constantly running washing machine for your social profiles.

Getting Started

After signing and confirming your account (by clicking the link in the email you’ll receive) you will be able to login. You’ll then need to connect your Facebook account; this is how they access your data.

Next you’ll be asked to enter “words or strings that you would like [SocioClean] to search for.” These are terms that you feel are questionable and/or inappropriate and do not want shown on your profiles. The next step is to view the results.

The Results

Depending on the size of your account and how many keywords you’ve entered, scanning could take a few minutes. This would probably be a good time to get a snack or drink. Next you’ll see wall posts that contain the keywords you’ve entered. You’ll see a chart (as pictured below) with the search word, text, date/time and the a link to view the post (in case you want to remove it).

You can also view status messages, photos and even groups that contain your keywords. That’s about it. So, I guess you’re probably wondering how to add the other sites.

Keep reading.

The Downside

While SocioClean’s homepage boasts that you can connect Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, it currently only supports Facebook! While the main image on the homepage (also pictured below) has icons for Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr and Linkedin, it currently only supports Facebook! I guess you see where this is going.

Though the homepage is a bit misleading, SocioClean is obviously still in the early stages and will be adding new features (and hopefully services) in the near future. While I love the concept, the functionality doesn’t seem quite there yet, but I do feel that it’s moving in the right direction.

What do you think?

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Astroturfing: Maybe it’s Not as Bad as it Seems

Astroturfing is defined as the act of creating a false sense of grassroots support. The two most common examples are politics and online reviews. For example, a Senator receives a flood of letters that appear to be a spontaneous response to a political event but the letters are actually from an organized group who will gain something by swaying the vote.

Online, it could be a series of very positive product reviews that seem to come from Average Janes when in reality they were posted by an employee of the company.

Back in September, R2Integrated did a survey on the topic and not surprisingly 87% of the people said they thought companies planted reviews. What’s interesting is that only 35% said it was “highly unethical” and only 9% said they’d stop buying from a company if they found out they were astroturfing. Why that’s particularly fascinating is that the news coverage which followed the survey all leaned heavily on how it proved astroturfing was bad for business. Really? I’m not getting that. Many studies have shown that people trust the reviews of people they know over ones they don’t, so a whole page full of astroturf reviews probably aren’t helping the cause anyway.

Still, there is that old “truth in advertising” issue. That’s why the FTC busted Reverb Communications last year after it was revealed that they were paying people to put positive reviews on their client’s iPhone apps.

But when we look at social media and how we use it to promote products, aren’t we all astroturfing to some extent? Tell me you’ve never hidden behind a fake Twitter account, or an anonymous blog comment. The internet was designed to allow people to be who they want to be at any given moment. Right now, I’m a middle-aged marketing writer but later today I’m going to be a hip, twenty-something who knows all about fashion. Like Hollywood, marketing is about creating an illusion and I don’t see where that’s so bad. (Barring the use for illegal purposes, of course.)

I prefer to see creativity over safe. If I’m drawn in to a clever YouTube video of a ten-year-old doing off-the-cuff movie reviews, then I don’t care if it’s actually been scripted and filmed by a studio.

When it comes to stocking a site with company written reviews, as long as their telling the truth, does it really make a difference if they were paid to write them or not? I say no. What do you say?

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Show The World Who You Are With One Simple About.me Page

If you’re tired of creating numerous social networking profiles on the Web and want just one a single page to direct people to, About.me has got you covered. Within a few minutes of picking a username and adding a short bio, you can have your very own About.me “splash page that points visitors to your content from around the Web.”

About.me is basically like creating a mini website all about you. Besides your bio, you can add a headline, upload an avatar picture, change your fonts and colors and allow visits to email you directly from your profile (via a contact form). You can also upload your own background image, but they also have preloaded images from you to choose from. Be warned that when adding an avatar picture, there is a noticeable distortion due to a decrease in quality.

One of the best things about About.me is that you can add your social networking profiles to your page.

For most services you can choice to either connect your account via OAuth (which will also display your latest updates) or just add a link to your profile instead. When adding Facebook, you can control what content will display on your page; you can choose to show our hide photos, updates and friends. Once your accounts are linked, it may take some time for your content to load – be patient. Once it’s loaded, other users will be able to click on the icons via your profile and open up a small window containing your updates, blog posts, etc. As you can see from my page, it’s a very clean and minimalistic page that really stands out.

After you’d added all your services and have arranged your page as desired, you’ll also want to check out the dashboard. This is where you can see statistics (views, clicks, links) for your page. You can also “use the tools in the Promote tab to let more people know where to find your About.me profile.” As you can see, my dashboard info below is empty because I just created it. Also, the Dashboard is currently in beta, so improvements are being made on a regular basis.

If you’re wondering about the Datastacks tab, it shows details about your activity and weekly updates. You can see how many combined and individual (by site) status updates you’ve posted. You can also see how many combined and individual (by site) friends/followers/contacts you have.

As  you can see, About.me was not meant to be just another profile page; it’s your own stylish web page that holds that directs people to all of your social networking hangouts.

What’s your About.me page link?

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Discover and Share Your Favorite Internet Tools with Curated.by

Curated.by has quickly become a new addiction for me (as if I needed another). In just the short amount of time that I've been a member of the site, I have discovered many useful Internet and social media tools and apps. The idea behind Curated.by is to make it easier to find "the good stuff" on Twitter. The goal of the site is "to help where a Twitter list or hashtag search is just not good enough."

As a member and curator of the site, your job is to put website links together in what they call bundles; these topic specific bundles are then shared on the site and followed by other users who choose to subscribe. "Curated.by works a bit like labels for Gmail. [They] let you organize your tweets around a topic, an event or a company." Bundles can also be embedded as a customizable widget on websites that allow JavaScript or shared via URL, Twitter and Facebook. If you prefer, your bundle can also be private.

You can create bundles using their bookmarklet or Chrome extension. The extension places a "curate" button on below every tweet on the Twitter website. This allows you to easy add tweets to a specific bundle, while the bookmarklet allows you to add any website link (discovered while browsing) to a bundle.

The home page is where your news feed appears. Here you can see updates from the people you follow on the site. When you join Curated.by (via Twitter OAuth) it automatically follows all of your Twitter friends that are already on the site. Curated.by is great for finding new friends as well, since you can connect with others that share your topic and bundle interests via the search bar.

The Explore page is where you can see the latest bundles and curators. The topics page is pretty interesting because you can see what other people have curated. Topics are in a list according to popularity.

When you view a bundle, you can see the curator, stats, links featured in it and followers. The news feed of the bundle is much like Facebook in that you can comment and like each item. Some items show links, others show text and some even have thumbnails. There are many possibilities and great uses for a tool like Curated.by. Best of all, what you include in your bundle and how you organize it is all up to you.

You can also receive email alerts and control what you receive alerts about. You can choose receive a notification when someone starts following you and when someone subscribes to your bundle. There is also an option to receive an email each time someone updates a bundle that you're following; you can choose to receive emails right away or as a once per day daily update.

What are your thoughts on Curated.by. Is it something that you see yourself using in a regular basis?

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Footfeed – One Site for All Your Check-ins

If you're like me, you probably have at least 2-3 geolocation service apps, like Brightkite, Foursquare or Gowalla, on your smartphone. It can be quite time consuming when it comes to using all of them when out and about. My husband always laughs at me because I have to take 5-6 minutes just to check-in at each one.

Like Checkin Mania, a site I covered earlier this year, Footfeed is another site that aims to make your life easier when it comes to sharing your location on the web. Footfeed lets you check into all of your services at once, as well as earn multiple rewards (points, badges, mayorship, etc). "Footfeed integrates APIs from Brightkite, Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook, Twitter, Google Latitude and soon Whrrl."

Getting Started

After creating and verifying your account, it's time to start connecting your geolocation accounts. When registering, you can choose to connect your Facebook account during that initial step, or wait until now. Adding each account is painless, and best of all you don't have to supply any of your login credentials. You're directed to each site (Foursquare, Brightkite, Gowalla, etc) in order to grant Footfeed permission to access these accounts.

View Your Timeline

Once you're done connecting your geolocation accounts, Footfeed imports all of your friends, check-ins and data from each site. You're then directed to a combined timeline that can be sorted by service. Clicking on a username will take you to that person's profile on the original service, while clicking on their location will take you to a location page within Footfeed.

Location Page

Here you can see information about a specific location that a user has checked into. Of course there is a map of the location - as expected. You can see how many times you have checked into that location, how many people have visited the page and how many people (total) have checked into that location. There is also a combined timeline showing who has checked in that location and via which site. The timeline can be sorted by service just like your own account timeline.

Feeds & Stats

Now back to your account page; the left sidebar has information about you such as your latest check-in, number of check-ins via each service, number of badges, number of photos shared, number of notes posted, etc. Clicking on the "All Activity History" link will show a timeline with just all of your check-ins. So if you're curious about your past whereabouts, this is a great place to feed your curiosity.

Auto Posting

You may also want to click on your name in the upper right corner of the page to go to your settings. Here you choose which services to have Footfeed automatically post to when you check-in. By default, each site is set to not post. You will probably want to enable most if not all of them, so that your sites will be updated whenever you check-in via the Footfeed app.

You can also choose whether or not to have your services post to Facebook. Since you probably already have Facebook connected directly to each individual service, it's probably not a good idea to enable this. Of course, the choice is yours - just be aware that double posting may occur.

Mobile App

It's seems that Footfeed only has an iPhone/iPod Touch app at the moment. I'm surprised that they don't at least have a mobile website. This could be a huge mistake for them, since more people are now using other smartphones more than the iPhone.

I did try the app on my iPod Touch and it seems pretty decent - it's also free, which is always a plus. Not only can you check-in within seconds, but you can also keep up with your friends and see where they are checking in.

What I really do like about Footfeed is the fact that now I don't have to open up each geolocation app each time I want to check-in, and my husband can no longer laugh at me! This is definitely a huge convenience.

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Get to Know Your Neighbors and Stay Connected with OneTwib

OneTwib struck me as interesting because I’m always looking for new ways to connect with people in my local area. With that being said, “OneTwib is a location-based social network that lets you connect with people around you, in your neighborhood, at work or anywhere.” Right from the homepage, you can enter your zip code to set your location and see who’s around you at-a-glance.

Creating an account is easy and they also allow you to login via Facebook Connect. Creating an account allows you to really get involved and see what’s going on in your neighborhood.

Dashboard

Here you can post status updates, see what’s happening in your area and get a quick view of your inbox. There are also separate tabs for editing your location and viewing your contacts.

Inbox

This is where you can view your messages in more detail and also see the messages that you’ve sent.

Who’s Around

Here you can see a list of people who are around you via a map and text list underneath. You can manipulate the map by zooming in and out and moving around. There is another tab that lets you view and edit your profile.

Events

Here you can see events that are going on in your area as well as create and manage your own events. This is a great way to get involved and get others involved. Creating an event is as simple as filling out a little info such as title, description, time, duration, location and attendance requirements.

Message Board

Here there are tabs for messages, classifieds and lost & found. You can choose the perimeter for who you’d like to view messages from; the max is 5 miles. You can also post messages to be seen by people in your area. Classifieds and lost & found should be pretty self explanatory; it’s like a mini version of Craigslist, but just for your neighborhood.

Groups

If you’re looking for yet another way to connect with your neighbors, why not join or create a group? All that’s needed is a title, description and location and you can have your group started. This is great for meeting people with like interests and hobbies.

Unfortunately, OneTwib is really only beneficial if there are other people in your neighborhood using the site. You can, of course, share the site with and invite friends and neighbors (if you happen to have their email address). In my fairly large area of Tampa, I only saw one other person using the site. The site definitely has potential, it just needs the users. What’s your take on it?

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Sort Tweets by Relevance and Importance with Cadmus

How many times have you looked at your Twitter timeline and wished that there was an easier way to get caught up on just the important tweets that you may have missed? Well Cadmus aims to fix that problem for you. You may be familiar with Cadmus as a plugin for Seesmic or as an addition to the TweetAgora iPhone app, but it’s also an awesome standalone Web tool.

What Cadmus does is “manages your stream in real-time by displaying the most relevant content since the last time you checked in.” It does this by “placing the most important tweets at the top.” If you want to learn more about the specifics of the Cadmus algorithm, check out Twitter Conversations in Cadmus. So, what’s so great about Cadmus?

Supports Other Services

You can add your FriendFeed account to Cadmus by entering your username and key. This allows you to post updates and comments to FriendFeed from within the site. You can also add your favorite RSS feed to Cadmus for easy access; you can enter each URL individually, or upload an OPML file. RSS feeds do not have any functionality within Cadmus, they are simply listed so that you can click on them and view the actual RSS feed in a new tab/window.

Show/Hide Comments

It’s nice that you can view all comments/@mentions to a tweet with the click of an icon. Items that have comments will have a number displayed to the show/hide icons. You can click it to see what others are saying and also add your own comment/@mention.

Related Posts

For some tweets you may also see “Related Posts” and a number next to it. Clicking on this will show you the same item that has been posted by other Twitter users and FriendFeed users – if you have added it as a service. You can also add comments to these items; your comment can be posted to Twitter or FriendFeed.

Sharing

The share button allows you to retweet on Twitter or repost items on FriendFeed. There is a drop-down menu that allows you to choose which account to share on. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a way to share on both at the same time.

Real-Time

As I already mentioned above, Cadmus is in real-time – no refreshing needed. If however you don’t like this feature, you can use the pause/play button at the top right to stop the real-time updating. This button is found next to the “Post” button, which lets you post your own tweets on Twitter and updates on FriendFeed.

Trends

The best feature on Cadmus, in my opinion, is the ability to view trending conversations and personal trending topics. I am one that has gotten so fed up with the Twitter trending topics, that I rarely pay attention to them anymore. Cadmus fixes the issue by making trending topics personal.

You can view the post popular conversations from the last 6 hours, 12 hours, 1 day, 3 days, or last week. This makes it really easy to jump into conversations and see what you have been missing. Personal trending topics are just like Twitter trending topics, except they only relate to the users that you’re following. This makes it easy to see the most discussed topics among your friends and lets you participate accordingly.

Twitter Lists

Lastly, it’s nice to have access to your Twitter lists within Cadmus. Since lists are great for organizing users by category or importance, this is an even handier method of viewing the most important and relevant tweets. If you have a Twitter list of all your friends or favorite users, you can go directly to the people that matter to you. So as you can see, Cadmus is definitely great to use in addition to your Twitter lists.

Final Thoughts

Do you think Cadmus has longevity in the expanding world of Twitter tools? I definitely think so. I know there there are similar tools out there that do what Cadmus does, but with its elegant yet simple UI and strong features you really can’t deny how useful it is.

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iBigBang – Your Bookmark Organizer and Desktop on the Web

I know many of you probably don’t use homepages anymore — I know I don’t, but iBigBang might give you a reason to use them again. It’s a free tool that gives you your own desktop on the Web. With that desktop, you can create bookmarks and projects that will make it easier for you to access your favorite and most used websites. Your desktop can be customized to your liking and you can even share bookmarks and projects with friends.

After signing up, the first thing you’ll want to do is go to “settings” to customize your desktop. If your bookmarks are already saved in your browser, you can download and important them to your desktop. You can also do things like customize the color of your menu bar and add your own wallpaper/background or use a predefined one.

Adding bookmarks is done from the “menu” on your desktop. Once you click “new bookmark,” you can enter the URL, title, section (which are like tags or categories), add it to a project (described below) and add a note or two about the website.

Once added to your desktop, icons can be arranged anyway you like by just clicking and dragging around the screen. You can click on the title to go to the website or click the section/topic (that you added) to display other sites that are related to it (see image below). Also, from the menu bar you can search the Web from within the iBigBang interface.

A nice feature they have for organizing your desktop even further is the ability to create projects. Projects are folders that you can use to organize your bookmarks by type, alphabetical order or any other way you choose. These projects can also be shared with friends or kept private. Every time one of your bookmarks is saved by a friend, a message will appear on your desktop letting you know. You can also allow projects to be visible to everyone, which will automatically create a link for you to share on any site.

The only issue with iBigBang is that some instructions and buttons are often displayed in Spanish. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any way to fix this at the moment. Other than that, it’s definitely a very useful tool for organizing your bookmarks in style.

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