Useful Online Reputation Tips

Following are seven practical tips to help you manage your digital imprint.

Take stock. Discover what information about you -- if any -- already is online by performing a search using popular search engines. If you discover an item that you wouldn't want hiring managers to see, ask the person who posted the information or website administrator to remove it. Similarly, untag any inappropriate photos of yourself.

Activate privacy settings. If you belong to social networking sites or have a personal blog, adjust your privacy settings so you control who has access.


Exercise discretion. When interacting online, be selective about which venues you participate in and who you allow into your personal and professional networks. If you regularly contribute to blogs or forums, give thought as to how your statements may be interpreted by those outside your community. Consider using a pseudonym if you wouldn't want a potential employer to see your posts. You can use BlogPulse or Technorati to track online conversations about you or your sites.


Network wisely. When using professional networking sites such as LinkedIn to look for job opportunities, behave graciously with everyone you encounter and follow posted protocols. Thank anyone who assists you, and be sure to return the favor when possible.


Stack the deck. Business information websites such as ZoomInfo allow users to post information about themselves, so consider including details about your professional involvement and qualifications on these types of forums.

Share your insights. Posting useful advice and commentary on industry forums and authoring online articles in your area of expertise can add to your credibility.


Monitor the conversation. Set alerts using Google or other tracking services under your name so you receive an e-mail notification every time something new is said about you online.

by Dave Wilmer

Use Social Media to Get Web Traffic or Promotion

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.

2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.

3. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.

4. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.

5. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality.

6. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.

7. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events.

8. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business.

9. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.

10. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.

Google Analytics Data Skewed by Instant Previews

Did you know that Google Instant Previews may be skewing your web analytics data.

It appears that in some cases Google will conduct an on-demand fetch of your page to dynamically create an Instant Preview. The on-demand fetch occurs when a searcher places his mouse over the search result on Google and the image preview comes up. Some analytics tools, including Google Analytics, may consider that a visit, because Google Instant Preview is really visiting the page in real-time to get that on-demand Instant Preview.

There are many complaints about this issue in the Google Help forums. Google’s John Mueller replied saying they are working on fixing this from showing up in Google Analytics. “We’re working on a solution for this, to prevent Google Instant Preview on-demand fetches from executing Analytics JavaScript,” John said.

Ideally, There is no estimated time for when this may be resolved. So if you have seen a skew in your analytics data in the past two weeks, this may be the reason.

Read More: Data Skewed Because Of Instant Preview

Top 10 Web Analytics Softwares

Some of Good web Analytics software's to track visitors:

1) Google Analytics
2) Web Trends
3) Omniture
4) Yahoo web analytics
5) AWStats
6) CrawlTrack
7) Webalizer
8) Bango Mobile Web Analytics
9) Hitbox
10)VisitLab

Yahoo Sells Delicious

Delicious users can heave a sigh of relief. The neglected Yahoo property has been sold off to YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen:

Today YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen announced they have acquired the Delicious technology from Yahoo!. They plan to continue the service that users have come to know and love and make the site even easier and more fun to save, share and discover the web’s “tastiest” content.

Providing a smooth transition for users is important to both companies. There will be a transition period where users can elect to sign up for a new account. Users’ public and private bookmarks will be maintained through the transition period and transferred as they are today when it is complete.


Yahoo previously had Delicious users worried when it was leaked that the site was in a list of 'sunset' products. Delicious' founder Joshua Schachter had previously left Yahoo in 2008, amidst a high-level exodus which included the then search division senior VP Brad Garlinghouse, Flickr founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake. Schachter has since said that "I wish I had not sold it to them. The cash and freedom do not even come close; I would rather work on a big, popular product."

Source: 

http://www.hardwarezone.com

How to Create an Event on Facebook

Facebook provides a great platform for making and building your events. From friends birthday parties to organized trips, you can organize and advertise any event using Facebook.

Create an Event

1. Log in to the Facebook home page.
2. Select "My Events" from the navigation menu. You will be taken to a page with all the events you are currently planning to attend.

3. Click on the "Create Event" button.

4. Fill in all the details about your event, including the time and place. You can always edit these later, but try to get as much detail in as you can initially.
5. Select the level of access to your event. If the event is open, anyone can see the details and add him or herself to the guest list. If the event is closed, only the time and description is shown to uninvited guests. Facebook users can request to be added to the guest list for complete event info. A secret event will not appear in search results and will only be viewable by those people you invite.

6. Click "Create Event" to complete your event details.

7. You can upload a photo related to the event. Use the browse feature to find a photo on your hard drive to upload.

8. Invite guests. Select your friends on Facebook and other users to attend your event. You can even send emails to people not on Facebook. After you invite people, you are done creating your event.

Twitter Tools and Applications

Find great list of Twitter tools & applications ? Twitter is one of most popular micro blogging sites all over the world.

Twitter Organization
Tweet Deck
TweetMixx – shows tweets and summary of links out
Twitscoop


Manage Multiple Twitter Accounts
Splitweet

Twitter for Companies
CoTweet
Twibs – Business directory
GroupTweet

Firefox Plugins
Twitbin
Twitterfox

Send Messages to Twitter using Voice
Twitter Fone
Blackberry Client
TwitterBerry

iPhone Twitter Apps
Tweetie for iPhone
Twinkle for iPhone
Twitter for iPhone
Hahlo
Pocket Tweets
Tweetdeck

Twitter on any Mobile device
Tiny Twitter – phone needs java
Twitter Mobile – only go here on your phone
iTweet
twibble

Twitter on Windows Mobile
Pocket Twit

Post via Mobile
Twitterscan
Send via eMail
Twittermail

Counter to show your twitter followers
Twitter Counter
Enhance your Tweets
Twitter Keys

Un-follow Someone for Just a Few Days
Twitter Snooze

Find out who Stopped Following You and Why
Qwitter
Twitterless

Manage who Follows You and Who You Follow, Recommendations Also
Friend or Follow
Mr. Tweet – Recommendations
Tweepler – organize followers

Top Twitter Lists
Twitter Counter Top 100 List
twInfluence Top 50 List

Visual Map of Twitter Posts
Twitter Vision

Share Files, Pictures & Videos via Twitter
Tweetcube – files
Twitpic – pics
Visual Twitter – pics
Twixxer


Share Quotes and Bits from Webpages
Tweet All About It


Monitor Twitter for Keywords & Whats Hot
PeopleBrowsr – filter, sort, follow, post, repeat
Tweet Grid – monitor keywords
Monitter – monitor keywords
Twitscoop
Flaptor Twitter Search – search twitter for a keyword
Twitspy – monitor twitter public timeline in real time
Tweetscan
CityTweets – follow tweets by City
Tweet Cloud
Tweetbeep

Monitor Conversations
Tweet 2 Tweet
Twitalks – find out what two users are saying about you

Monitor Trends
Twist
Tweet Cloud

Autoresponder & Setup Automatic Tweets
Tweet Later
Future Tweets

Autopost your Blog entries to Twitter
Twitterfeed

Evaluate your Twitter Profile
Twitter Grader
Twitter Ratio
Tweet Value

Twitter Statistics and Graphs for a Twitter Account
Tweetstats
Twitgraph
Twitter Dictionary
Twittords

Twitter Directory
Twellow – Twitter yellow pages
Twibs – Business directory