As a social media participant I come across (too many) people declaring themselves social media experts on a daily basis. There are thousands if not tens of thousands of them surfing through the social media sphere, without leaving a bigger footprint in the on-going interaction than anyone else. There is no endorsement or certification to set legitimate marketers in the social media field apart from anyone else with a pumped up Twitter account.

Social media is the hottest topic on the web these days, leaving behind instant messaging, personal websites (Geocitis, tripod, anyone remember those?) and even blogging. The expertise and proficiency of a “Social media expert” are not clearly defined yet, other than a coined title there are no clear boundaries to the role. In all honesty, there are very few people who really deserve the title “social media expert”, most others only believe they are so, while they are truly self-touting experts seeking to make a quick buck.

1. Toodledo is a stand alone online to-do list with the capability of adding new tasks through Twitter. To add a task using Twitter, send a direct message to the Toodledo Twitter user with the name of your task. Other than task name, you can also set the priority, due-date, folder, and context using their own predefined syntax. You can also retrieve tasks via twitter by sending Toodledo a message that starts with a question mark (?) followed by the tasks you want to retrieve. You can retrieve tasks based on due-date, priority, folder or context.

2. Twittercal is a free service that connects your Twitter account to your Google Calendar. Add events to your Google Calendar from your favorite Twitter client or trough your mobile phone. To get started, just add gcal as your Twitter friend and Grant access to your Google Calendar account. Sometimes it may take a short while until the appointment pipes through and show up on your Google Calendar.

3. Tweet Later offers a wide range of timing tools to set up alerts, schedule tweets, send thank you DMs, and many other automation features that makes tweeting easier on a time schedule. You can setup follower functions, such as sending auto direct message replies, track keywords, setup un-follow rules, etc. Tweet Later allows you to send automated and timed messages to Twitter users who follow you, track high-demand keywords and more.

4. Tweetake allows Twitter users to backup their profile including followers, people they are following, friends and your tweets. It provides you with a very simple interface, just enter your twitter username and password and select the things you want to backup. The backup is created in CSV format which you can open with any text editor or spreadsheet application.

5. TrackThis let’s you track your packages using Twitter. TrackThis will send you a updated notices trough Twitter (or Email, Text message, Facebook) about your packages. All you need to do for the service to work is enter a tracking number and a nickname for a package and the application will continually monitor the package. Each time the package changes location it will send you a message.

6. TwInbox is an Outlook plug-in that connects your Outlook client to Twitter. TwInbox seamlessly integrates Twitter into Outlook and allows you to use Twitter from within Outlook without having to open any other application. Its easy to scan through the tweets and stay up to date when you are working and don’t want to be distracted all the time, it’s a good way to stay in the loop. One of it’s best features is that it keeps the history of tweets when you close down Outlook or when you take a laptop offline, everything is saved as any other email message.

7. Jott is a utility that allows you to give vocal commands, transcribe it to text and deliver them through Twitter or other messaging services. Jott makes you more productive and efficient by capturing your ideas, notes to self, tasks, and more without using your keypad. Jott, unlike the other utilities in this post, is a paid service.

8. Twtvite is an event manager tool that helps you organize meetings and make meaningful connections through social media. Twtvite allows you to connect with your followers in real-life, find and organize a local conventions. When you create a Twtvite, the link is shortened so you can share it easily on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed or other social media sites. Among it’s features are RSVPs, adding to your calendar, maps, name tags printing, and more.

9. Vacatweet allows you to set up an autoresponder for your Twitter account. This may indicate that you are on vacation, out of the office, busy or any other response you want to send during that time. You can send the autoresponder as a replay or as a direct message.

10. Timer is a service that let’s you get reminders as direct messages about tasks through your Twitter account. All you need is to send direct messages to timer to set up the reminders.

If you’ve been around the blogsphere for a while you probably noticed the never ending “make easy money with blogging” myth debunking festival. Seems like no one is missing the opportunity to debunk the same myths over and over again, some raised the issue to a crusade level, writing about it again and again on the same blog numerous times.

At some stage, it sounds like bloggers are trying to defend their turf, discouraging new bloggers from entering the field in a professional way, thinking they are guarding their status and income. There are two main problems with that line of thought.

One, all those myths that are being debunked don’t really exist. I doubt there is any substantial number of web users thinking blogging is the key to fortune. Those who do are either talented enough to not be moved by debunking articles or those who are ignorant enough to never be successful.

The second problem is that by raising the issue over and over again, some people conclude that there is a hidden interest behind those articles, other than explaining the real difficulties behind running a successful blog. To add sin on sin, most bloggers do not explain any of the real life difficulties, but make do with brief unexplained statements that do not shade light on the real efforts that go behind every blog post.

Next time you are going to debunk a “blogging myth”, make sure this myth really exists, and make back your debunking with real substance. Writing it is or isn’t so, is not enough.

SoundCloud is a new online audio platform/social network for music professionals and enthusiasts. Any original music track can be shared with friends or everyone on the network.

SoundCloud is a community for music makers, people in the music industry or everyone looking for fresh music made by other members of the community. It’s a comfortable setup for sending around demo copies of a new album you just finished mastering, or sharing the yet to be hit single. The SoundCloud platform allows it’s members to share, promote and distribute their own original music while allowing all members to comment and review the tracks as they listen to them. The commenting system allows anyone to drop a note at any specific spot along the track and voice their opinion on that specific sound or on the track in general.

After uploading tracks, you can follow your stats closely to see how many people are listening to your music. But your music is not jailed in the SoundCloud universe, the platform allows you to embed your tracks on any other website and maintain your own look & feel (as much as possible) and customize it’s playlist to auto update.

Anyone looking for a SoundCloud invite, your welcome to contact me

Can random surfers identify what your blog is about?

Yesterday I wrote about staying focused on your target audience when adding content to your blog. By remaining focused on the same theme you are most likely to retain and expand your audience.

In today’s fast paced internet life, readers tend to browse quickly between pages and sites, one of your main goals is to successfully capture and convert them into loyal repeat readers. An important part of doing so is to be very clear about your blog’s main theme. Will a pass-by reader know what’s your blog is about by grazing over its first page or a single post page? Here’s how you find out if potential readers will recognize your blog’s theme on first read.

Go to any random page on your blog or site, get a person who is somewhat familiar with the general subject, but is not an expert. Have them look at that page for a while and after closing the browser ask them what they think the site is about. If they know the correct answer, you’re on the right track. If they give the wrong answer, or are clueless, you need to reconsider the material you post.

The test is very simple and accurate most of the time. If people stumbling over your site don’t recognize what it’s about, they are not going to stick around. When they do, it’s only a question of how interested they are with the theme of your site. The first option gives you zero chance of a repeat reader the second leaves everything open.

In many cases when I was asked to critique blogs, I found myself scratching my head while trying to understand what the blog is about. Many times I found them to be cluttered and complicated that its taken me great deal of effort to understand what’s their theme or main subject

I must say, it is very easy to find yourself posting entries that have nothing to do with your main theme. You might get carried away with your various interests and ideas so far off from your theme that it will even confuse your most loyal readers. We all sin sometimes, it is important to catch yourself in time before your blog turns into a mess.

When writing a blog or content for a website, do you aim to the right audience? Are you doing everything possible to turn them into loyal readers?

If you checked my overflowing RSS reader of choice, you will find a wide diversity of blogs and feed sources. Most will be tech related but among them you will find personal blogs, security feeds, gaming, family, finance news and others. All those feeds represent my various interests and my innate craving for knowledge. What you will not find is a single feed representing all of these interests combined. When writing, you shouldn’t try and encompass anything and everything, if you do; you’re most likely end up with non of those themes.

When writing your own blog, you must understand your target audience and know what it is that they want. While writing imagine the person you are writing for, what sparks his (or her) interest, what’s he’s curious about, what will make him think, what will excite and inspire him. What will make him come back and read some more in the future.

Obviously it’s impossible to please all the people all of the time. So, a good idea is to focus on pleasing the people who are more likely to stick around. Passive and pass-by readers are not as important as the readers who interact with you and are influenced by what you write. You want to please the readers who leave a comment, to add information or object to your opinion. You want to satisfy the readers who click a link of a new product you recommended because they trust your opinion.

What do you know about your target audience than? Well, they are probably interested in the theme of your blog the same way you are interested in it, unless of course, you are writing about a subject that is not in your own interest, in which case your success rate is probably very low to begin with. So, it seems like you have your work cut out for you. If your audience is like you, than the things that spark your interest and the things that make you excited are the same for them. But there is one thing to remember; just because you have one interest in common with your readers doesn’t mean your entire range of interests is the same

Usually, you will get two types of people coming to your blog, people with whom you built up a relationship in real life or on the net, and people who stumbled to your blog by chance and arrived to your site for the very first time. At this point you have two jobs to do. 1. Keep the first type coming back. 2. Grab the second type attention, persuade them to stay long enough to engage their interest and to convert them to repeat readers.

Though sometimes it’s portrayed that way, people are not surfing the web randomly. Most people online are looking for some specific information or seeking a solution to a problem. Your job is to make that information and solutions available to them. The better you do that job, the more people will stop by your site to find solutions. If you continuously do a good job they will come back again and again to check out your new updated information.

Make sure your blog has a well defined theme and try to stick to creating posts on that topic. It’s ok to break habit once in a while, but not enough to make it a distraction.
Keep up to date with news within the theme of your blog and provide your readers with your and experts opinions on relevant and interesting items. Encourage interaction and always respond to questions from your readers.

Seems like everyone heard of Robert Scoble Google killers videos and the fire they are still drawing over the past few days. A post over at Wired Online pushed Robert over the edge and he had to defend himself, mind you, he doesn’t shoot back to defend his opinions, but wonders how come this matter of self opinion drew so much more attention than other interesting video interviews he posted over the last month.

But thats exactly like wondering why Britney Spears pantyless photos drew more attention than an Owen Wilson interview? Thats the nature of the beast. You have to take the good with the bad.

Anyhow, thumbs up Robert, for not mudslinging back and not getting sucked into it.

I hardly ever watch online video shows or vlogs or videocasts, how ever you want to call them. I simply don’t have time for them. They require too much of my attention. I can read through a few blogs posts quickly and move on. I can listen to podcasts while doing some other work, if I feel I missed something, there is always the option to rewind it a little without disturbing my work. But video require my eyes and ears and basically there is hardly anything else I can do while watching, a real attention monger (I can use another word, but I won’t).

Another thing is the laziness factor, writing takes effort, it requires concentration and some kind of physical effort, if you can call hitting the keyboard keys an effort. Shooting a video is effortless, you turn on the camera and you can sit there and talk yourself to neverland, some videos go on about stuff people will not take the effort to write about. Because they are so easy to do, they tend to stretch over and beyond the point. That of course doesn’t apply to all videos, some programs are well made at TV broadcast level, but again, it must have some real appeal.

I have a few more Pownce invites to give out. If you need any contact me with your email address. If you don’t know what Pownce is you can check this post or check Pownce website. Don’t post your email in the comments as it’s likely to get phished.

I never got caught up in the Twitter hype. It’s uninteresting to me to see what people are doing every waking moment of their lives. Looking at the constantly updated page you realize that most people’s lives are just plain boring, even more than your own. And considering they twitter only the highlights of their day… what a bore!!! Not only that, I believe it’s tiring after a while, for how long can you keep it up? And whats the worth of it if you keep forgetting to post what you do in real time? “Oohhh yeah… and 3 hours ago I took my car to the car wash … was out of there in 4 minutes….. lol”

A typical Twitter stream:

half a minute ago, talking with a friend
07:18 AM June 20, 2007 Made my bed
10:15 AM June 04, 2007 Chatting with someone I’ve never seen before
09:37 AM June 04, 2007 Try to get dressed.
04:35 PM May 30, 2007 Dress up for the “Kloster” Have a nice evening everybody!
04:07 PM May 30, 2007 Decided to do situps again for the summer-belly ;-P
01:56 PM May 30, 2007 Finding out what makes biologists say “ihhhh”: Tea on their keybord. World’s funny
12:56 PM May 30, 2007 Searching for distraction, after seeing my ex-boyfriend in the supermarket
10:48 AM May 28, 2007 reading something about love after I broke up with my boyfriend

Yes, it does have nifty application and API’s etc… After being the first popular breakthrough microblogging platform a few other better streamlined services showed up in the “scene”. I’d be socializing some place else. I might be wrong on this one, you’ll have to convince me otherwise. Or not.