Tiplet expert tips & tech support

May 5, 2009

What Twitter Is Really For

Filed under: Internet,social networking — Tags: , — admin @ 3:07 pm

by David Hakala

Recent press reports indicate that people are deserting Twitter in droves. The short-message social network that captured headlines for weeks is suffering from information overload. You sign up with Twitter, follow a few people, activate the RSS feed, and instantly you are flooded with dozens of messages like this:

“Just ate a baloney sammich.”

“Look at the cute thing my baby did…”

“Taking out the trash.”

Who cares, right? The problem is that question on Twitter.com’s home page, the one that text-messaging teens constantly send to each other: “What are you doing right now?” If I want to know, or just open a more meaningful conversation, I’ll ask you. But I don’t want 50 trivial updates per day!
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March 28, 2009

How Can I Make Sure Only Certain People See My Twitter and Facebook Information?

Filed under: Internet,privacy & security,social networking — Tags: , , , — admin @ 5:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

Social networking is fun, but you have to be careful about monitoring your privacy in online communities and behaving accordingly. Otherwise the whole world might see you with the cyber-equivalent of a lampshade on your head at the company Christmas party. Either watch what you type, or make sure your privacy settings are set to prevent anyone you don’t want nosing in your personal business from doing so.
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March 19, 2009

Twitter Clients for Mac OS X

Filed under: Internet,Macintosh,social networking — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — admin @ 8:00 am

by Dee-Ann LeBlanc

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard of Twitter, even if you haven’t used it. While the folks at Twitter are proud of the simplicity of their approach, having every Tweet from every person you’re following just flow into one long stream can get overwhelming.

Fortunately there’s a Twitter API that allows third party developers to write tools that interact with it. In the OS X world, there are many different Twitter clients. This article discusses four of them: EventBox, TweetDeck, twhirl, and Twitterrific.
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March 16, 2009

LinkedIn 102: What’s Next After Signing Up?

Filed under: social networking — Tags: , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

by Gabe Goldberg

Now that you’ve joined LinkedIn — maybe colleagues or friends invited or nagged you, maybe you signed up after reading about it — and created a basic profile, you may wonder what to do next. The good news is that taking a few simple steps will give you a complete profile and let you use and enjoy the service for effective professional, and personal networking.

Unless you want to use and explore LinkedIn at random — and there’s nothing wrong with that, since it can be interesting and fun, though it can miss opportunities — consider what you’d like to accomplish. Having goals in mind helps plan what to do.
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February 23, 2009

The Best Social Networks for Business and Meeting Friends

Filed under: Internet,social networking — Tags: , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

by David Hakala

Social networks such as MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook are all the rage. There are a staggering number of social networks now, but you can’t join them all. Each social networking site requires some maintenance. Joining all of them would be like joining every bowling and billiards league in town. You would be spread too thin.

Which social networking site(s) you should join depends on what your objective is. For some, it’s making business contacts. For others, it’s hooking up with long-lost friends, classmates, etc. For still others, it’s about hanging out with strangers of a certain demographic profile, usually their own. The variety of motivations for joining a social network explains why so many different ones have popped up.
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February 12, 2009

How to Get Started with Online Business Networking?

Filed under: Internet,social networking — Tags: , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

by Tina Gasperson

The people in your office have been talking about business networking online. It sounds intriguing and to hear them talk about it, it works great. It’s true that networking with colleagues and potential colleagues online can be a great way to meet new people, get your name “out there” and even find a new job or a new employee.
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February 7, 2009

What Is the Difference Between MySpace and Facebook?

Filed under: Internet,social networking — Tags: , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

Your friends finally talked you into getting a Myspace account, and you dutifully learned how to “pimp your page,” posed for Myspace photos with puckered grins, and checked in each day to see who left you a comment. Just when you felt like you had it all down, now your friends are telling you to come on over to Facebook and do it all again. If “why?” is the first question that comes to mind, rest assured that there are differences between Myspace and Facebook that are worth taking a look at. You may find that you want to try having an account at both sites, or you may realize that one really is enough.
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January 17, 2009

How Do I Get Traffic to My Blog?

Filed under: blogging,Internet,social networking — Tags: , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

So you finally took the plunge and set up a blog. But where are the visitors? You have lots to say and it would help if there was an audience. Never fear, it’s out there – people just need to know you exist. There are many tried and true ways to get the word out on the Internet to build traffic to your blog – and you may even find that you can cultivate a devoted following over time.

First, it may help to determine the theme of your blog. Sounds obvious, but many blogs suffer from a lack of direction. If you can determine your niche right from the start, you’ll know better how to market yourself to potential visitors. Your blog may be all about plastic widgets, or it may be all about daily life with your family. Whatever the subject, make sure you know what it is so you can communicate it to your audience.
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January 10, 2009

How to Get Started with LinkedIn to Promote Yourself

Filed under: social networking — Tags: , — admin @ 5:00 pm

by David Strom

LinkedIn is one of the more popular Web sites that is part of what’s called “social networking.” You use LinkedIn to keep track of where your contacts are working and when they and you are looking to change jobs or look for potential partners or consultants to help with new projects. There are both free and paid versions, but in my opinion the free one is suitable for most individuals’ purposes.

You start by clicking on the Join Now button and entering in some basic information. While listing your educational background is optional, I would go ahead and enter it. The site will send you a confirmation message to your email address. If you are thinking about leaving your current employer, you might want to use a personal email address. Once you sign in to the service, you will see your home page which has lots of things on it. But first, let’s show you how to add people to your network. Click on the Expand Your Network button on the top of the page. There are several ways to add addresses – if you are running Microsoft Outlook, you can copy them directly there. Or if you use Gmail or Yahoo or one of the other free email services, then you can import them from these services. You can also type them in one at a time.
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December 31, 2008

What is Twitter and how do I use it?

Filed under: Internet,mobile computing,social networking — Tags: , — admin @ 4:54 pm

By Tina Gasperson

If you spend any time at all on the Internet, you’ve probably been exposed to the term “social networking.” You may be familiar with sites like Myspace andFacebook are common examples of social networking Web sites, where users are connected to each other via friend lists. When you sign up for an account on one of these sites, you can find your friends, family, and acquaintances, put them on your friend list, and get notified whenever one of them updates their information or posts new photos.

Twitter is another example of a social network, but with a few differences that make it a little less intuitive for new users. The most important feature of Twitter is the status update, sometimes called a “tweet”. Users send frequent tweets of 140 characters or less that let their network of followers know what they’re doing right now. Veteran Twitter users swear by the service, saying it keeps them connected to other people in their network. Twitter provides business networking opportunities along with purely social “gab,” say fans of the service, that make it an invaluable part of their online life. (more…)

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