Here’s a look at the home page, which can look very different from one organization to another:

Note the familiar “activity stream” on the left, which you’ll find in all of the other enterprise social networking solutions. Podio allows you to add apps from the app store to workspace areas  called “Spaces.”  You can create as many Spaces as you need for your private network, or to share with external users such as clients or partners. The App Store makes it easy to set up specific tools for each of your Spaces. Podio also includes useful core tools such as a calendar, contacts area and a task management system like that you would find in solutions like Basecamp. These are all good features to include for a social platform in the workplace. Finally, having the ability to add other tools from the App Store gives each company a great deal of options.

Podio on the Go

There’s a free iPhone app for your Podio network, but I wasn’t as impressed with the it as I was with the Podio website. Currently, the iPhone app only provides access to a few core features such as the main activity stream, messaging, contacts, tasks and profiles; you don’t have access to any of the apps added to your Spaces from the App Store. I think it would make sense to include a way to include apps that you want your workforce to use while on the road on their mobile device.

Comparisons

So how does Podio compare to the current crop of corporate social platforms? Well, some have begun to give more options to add more features and customization, but none of them offer Podio’s range of specialty apps; I think its closest competitor could be a newly launched service called Convofy, which Simon reviewed recently.

Podio offers a free version for up to 10 users and a premium edition for $99/month for up to 25 users, and $4/month per additional user.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• The Future of Work Platforms: An Overview

PDF Viewers

The free Adobe Reader has been the de facto standard for viewing PDF files ever since it was introduced in 1993, but it has become bloated and vulnerable to malware attacks over the years. There are some free alternatives for viewing PDF files that are more streamlined and faster.

• Foxit PDF Reader is a lightweight PDF viewer for that is popular. (Windows)
• CoolPDF Reader is freeware that claims to be the smallest PDF reader available, at only 650kb. It can also convert PDF files to many different formats such as TXT, GIF, JPG and more. (Windows)
• PDF-XChange Viewer reads and edits PDF files for free. (Windows)
• Skim is an open-source PDF reader. (Mac)

Tools for Creating, Editing & Converting PDF Files

The good news is that just about every popular office application — including Microsoft Office 2007/2010, OpenOffice, Google Docs — now include built-in ways to save documents as PDF files. This means that many people no longer needs that expensive Adobe Acrobat license if all they need to do is create basic PDF files from documents. That said, there are also some useful standalone free tools for creating and editing PDF files:

• CutePDF Writer is my favorite free tool for creating PDF files outside of using the built-in PDF features of tools like Office and Google Docs. It installs a PDF printer that you send documents to in order to create them as PDF files. (Windows)
• PDF Creator creates PDF files for free, as well as converting them to other usable formats. (Windows)
• PrimoPDF is another free PDF writer for personal and commercial use. (Windows)
• HelloPDF converts PDF files to Microsoft Word document format, for free. (Windows)
• PDFill PDF Editor is the most robust free solution in this bunch, so don’t let its rather unimpressive website give you the wrong impression. It is chock full of features normally only found in premium PDF editors, such as the ability to merge files, convert files to multiple image formats, e-book options and more. (Windows)
• Skim, the open-source PDF reader I listed above, also includes some editing tools. (Mac)

e-Book Creation Tools

If you want to distribute your PDFs as e-books, you can use one of the free eBook publishing platforms.

• Stanza has a powerful e-book publishing solution for Windows and Mac.
• Calibre provides a publishing platform for Windows, Mac and even Linux.

Online PDF Tools

There are some free online tools that do the same things as the desktop tools listed above. Some let you edit PDF files, some convert them and others merge them. Here are some of the most popular solutions.

• PDFescape lets you create PDF files online; you don’t even need to register without even registering. However, if you do register (for free) then you can do other things such as save the PDF files online in your own secure account. There’s also a free PDF reader. You can create PDF files with up to 50 pages and up to 2 MB in size for free. Commercial use is acceptable, and there is no watermarked logo on any of the PDF pages. You can also password protect your PDF files.
• PDF to Word Convert PDF files to Word format with Nitro PDF’s online tool. The only catch is that it might take a little while to get the converted file.
• Nitro PDFHammer allows you to edit PDF files online and convert them to other formats.
• PDF2Word Online is another tool for converting PDF files to Word documents.
• Free OCR is a useful online service for extracting the text from PDF and image files. The one caveat is that it will only scan one-page PDF files or the first page of a multi-page PDF for free (although, of course, you could convert multiple page PDF files to images first, before uploading them to Free OCR).

Let us know your favorite free PDF tools in the comments.

Photo credit: cohdra

Xobni — an app that aims to help people get more from their email — is coming to the BlackBerry with Xobni Mobile. The models supported will be the Curve, Storm and Tour lines. Just as the Xobni plugin does for Microsoft Outlook, Xobni Mobile offers the ability to gather more information about your email contacts. You’ll be able to see not only threaded email conversations but also the contact’s social networking details,  such as their Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.

Here’s what it looks like when you enter the Xobni Mobile app. You’ll see what looks like a regular contact list:

However, click on any contact and you”ll see a additional options such as your correspondence history with that particular contact in phone calls as well as emails. It also shows all of their accounts from the most popular social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook:

The thing I like most about Xobni is the way that it finds just about every contact you’ve ever communicated with. It improves the feeble search capabilities of Microsoft Outlook and the BlackBerry email client by automatically aggregating all of your contacts from emails and call logs — a huge time-saver. I’ve gotten so spoiled by this feature that whenever I use a system without Xobni installed I miss it.

Xobni One is a premium subscription service that adds more features and capabilities if you want to use Xobni Mobile together with Xobni for Microsoft Outlook. The plans available are either $3.99/month or $39.99/year. One of its most useful features is the way it automatically ranks your contacts according to the ones you communicate with the most. It’s another time-saver.

Xobni Mobile for BlackBerry costs $9.99 if you buy it without a Xobni One plan. If you get Xobni Mobile and Xobni One together, then the app costs $6.99 if you choose the $3.99/month plan, or it’s free if you opt for the $39.99/year plan.

I’ve been using Xobni for a few years now so I’ve seen it evolve over time. Releasing a mobile version of the useful product makes a great deal of sense and is perhaps overdue. It’s also interesting to see that the company released an app for the BlackBerry before the iPhone — I am sure that one is coming soon, though.

Let us know what you think of Xobni Mobile below.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Email: The Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated

Adobe PDF is the most well-known e-book format; it’s been around since 1993. Adobe provides a free PDF reader with Adobe Reader and offers a commercial product called Adobe Acrobat for creating PDF files. Other programs also provide the ability to create documents in PDF format such as Microsoft Office 2007, OpenOffice and many freeware tools.

The Amazon Kindle series of e-readers has its own .azw format (a variation of MobiPocket format). Amazon has released free Kindle readers for the PC, Mac, iPhone & BlackBerry, which will allow you to read Kindle books without a Kindle. Here’s the Kindle library of e-books, which also includes some free books.

Barnes & Noble Nook hit the streets in November 2009 and is a serious challenger to Amazon’s Kindle. The Nook is based on Android, and supports EPUB, PDF and PDB formats. Just like Amazon does with its free Kindle reader, Barnes & Noble also provides a free eReader for multiple platforms (PC, Mac, iPhone and BlackBerry). You can also find a bevvy of free e-books on the online library.

Sony has several models of e-readers available. It has its own eBookStore where you can download e-books and free readers for the PC and Mac. You can use this player to read free books you can download from the eBookStore, as well as from Google’s book library, which contains over one million public domain books available.  Sony Readers support the following formats: BBeB Book (LRF/LRX), PDF, TXT, RTF and ePub.

Microsoft Reader introduced the LIT format in 2000. I can’t believe it’s been a decade since Microsoft unleashed what it hoped was going to be the PDF killer. Sadly, that revolution never transpired, but Microsoft Reader is alive and kicking and free for creating and reading e-books on laptops, desktops, tablets and Windows Mobile devices.

Apple announced support for the free open e-book standard EPUB (Electronic Publication) in its iPad when it introduced the iBooks e-reader app in January. Obviously, it’s much too early to tell how good this app will turn out to be. However, based on all of the pre-orders for the device, one can safely guess that this new format will become popular very quickly. Apple’s iBookStore will have content from publishers Penguin Books, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan Publishers, and Hachette Book Group USA.

Which e-reader do you use, and why?

Photo by Flickr user Jurvetson, licensed under CC-BY-2.0

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Irrational Exuberance Over E-Books?

Over the years, my addiction didn’t stop, it merely morphed into new platforms and technologies. When the World Wide Web took off, I found nirvana with web sites like Moochers.com (sadly no longer around) that hosted tons of freeware programs. I couldn’t believe it — sites dedicated to free stuff. It only confirmed that I was not the only one with this addiction.

Fast-forward to recent times and, thanks to the Web 2.0 era of the “freemium” services, I’ve  found myself signing up for services I didn’t even need. Yes, as a technology writer I sign up for many apps in order to review, but I have to admit that I still sign up for many of them that I have no intentions on writing about. I guess old habits are hard to break.

Here’s my list of places to find the best free stuff — from freeware software to free web apps and services — now.

My Favorite Places to Find Freeware

There’s a major difference between freeware and shareware/adware. For me, freeware is the good stuff that comes without the usage restrictions or crippled features that are hallmarks of shareware. Freeware is also devoid of the advertisements that riddle their adware brethren. Here are my favorite places to find new freeware treasures that are safe from annoying ads and potential spyware.

Tucows has been around forever and has amassed a large collection of good, clean freeware.

NoNags is probably the oldest resource in this bunch, having started in 1995! The site hasn’t changed much in appearance, but it continues to provide top-grade freeware.

Snapfiles has been around since 1997, and has an impressive freeware section, organized into categories.

FileHippo doesn’t have a freeware-only section like the other sites in this round-up but I’m including it because I love its Update Checker tool that auto-updates a ton of applications installed on your system.

Kids Freeware does exactly what it says, provides a vast collection of freeware programs, games and more for kids.

SourceForge is the best place to find open-source applications.

My Favorite Places to Find Web Apps

Go2Web20 is the ultimate directory of Web 2.0 apps and services. Its new interface actually makes it fun to find just about any kind of web app you’ll ever want or need. Most of the apps include free basic plans with options to upgrade to premium packages if/when you’re ready to do so.

KillerStartups is another impressive index of available web apps. It’s not as easy to use as Go2Web20, but it does provide helpful mini-reviews for countless web apps.

My Favorite Places to Find Free Mobile Apps

Appolicious maintains a massive list of mobile apps available for the major mobile platforms such as the iPhone, Android and more. However, its specialty is the iPhone. You can filter any of their categories to display only free applications which is quite handy indeed.

Yappler is another favorite of mine not only because it makes it extremely easy to find good free apps for the iPhone but also because it lets you create lists of your favorite apps and games that you can share with anyone via email or on social networks. You can also embed a visual list of your favorite apps on your blog or web site.

Those are my favorite places to find cool free apps. Where do you look?

Photo by stock xchng user Sarej

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Report: The Real-Time Enterprise

So here’s a roundup of some of the more popular tracking tools.

Monitoring Dashboards

Twazzup 2.0 beta (which Dawn wrote about last year) is a dashboard that gathers all the mentions of your brand on Twitter and presents them in an appealing and useful way.

Trackur is another powerful social media monitoring tool. It used to be premium-only, but a free basic plan was recently announced that allows you to monitor one keyword, which is sufficient for most small organizations and personal brands. One of the things I like is the way that you can export any search result to an Excel spreadsheet for further analysis.

SocialMention (which Dawn also wrote about last year) is similar to Trackur in that it will search all over the web for any mention of your keyword/brand. I like how you can set up alerts that will be emailed to you with results summaries. It also lets you break down search results according to where your brand is mentioned: blog posts, images, videos, news items and more. You can even see every time someone has saved a link from your web site/blog to Delicious or shared it on StumbleUpon.

Addictomatic presents all mentions of your keyword or brand on one nicely designed page. You’ll see images from Flickr, videos from YouTube, posts shared on Digg and much more.

Twitter Clients

Some people find it sufficient to keep track of their brand or other keywords of interest via their day-to-day Twitter client, such as TweetDeck, Seesmic or HootSuite. They accomplish this by simply creating a new column in the client that displays any tweets mentioning that keyword. The nice thing about this method is that you can reply and respond to people mentioning your brand or product, which makes it a good customer service tool.

Larger organizations that need more than one person to monitor Twitter can use a Twitter clients geared for teams, such as CoTweet, which lets multiple people respond to tweets at the same time. The other useful thing about CoTweet is the way it lets you turn tweets into tasks or action items that can be assigned to different team members, much like helpdesk tickets.

There are also tools that do nothing but track multiple hashtags/keywords on Twitter, such as Twitterfall, TweetGrid and my personal favorite of this type, Monitter. While Monitter doesn’t provide nearly as many columns or choices as TweetGrid, it does sport a slick user interface and feels faster. I do like the fact that TweetGrid lets you share a URL with all of the search terms you’ve assembled.

What tools do you use for social media monitoring?

Photo by: VivaLibre574

YuuGuu is a little different than the options outlined above, because it allows you to share your screen via instant messenger (IM). It also supports all of the major IM platforms such as Yahoo, MSN, AIM, GTalk and more. It also doesn’t require anyone (you or the people you share your screen with) to download and install anything, which should save lots of time and could avoid many headaches.

When you launch YuuGuu, it looks just like any other universal IM client, with all your friends listed from different services. However, the nice thing about YuuGuu is that you can share your screen with anyone by just clicking their name and selecting the “Show” option.

They will see something like this on their end:

That’s all there is to it. They click the link to view whatever you’re sharing on your desktop. Nothing to download or install and no emails invitations, no special session code to enter and no accounts to create. Just click and share.

This is what you will see on your end. Notice the pause button which lets you freeze the screensharing if you need to step away, or change something on your desktop and don’t want others to see what you’re doing. There’s also a free dial-in phone number for all sessions, with a unique conference code.

You can add other viewers to the session by clicking the “Add” button. The free version allows you to host up to five viewers at a time. You also have unlimited usage with other YuuGuu members, and up to 100 minutes per month with non-YuuGuu members. Every session includes the free telephone conference room. There are a few premium plans to choose from which allow unlimited usage with people outside of YuuGuu as well as support for teams and corporate environments. The free version is a good way to get your feet wet and see how you like it.

There’s also a feature called “Web Share,” which works the same way but it allows you to invite others who are not in your IM contact list. It generates a unique URL for your screen sharing session that anyone can view as long as they have the special PIN code.

Besides being able to conduct telephone conference calls during your online presentations with the dial-in phone number, you can also take advantage of YuuGuu’s Skype integration. This allows you to avoid long distance charges (in most cases) or save a great deal of expense with Skype’s reduced long distance rates.

I like the concept of conducting screen sharing sessions and presentations via IM; it makes the process so much easier. I also like not forcing anyone to download and install software and that you can also invite those that are not on your IM contact list.

I would like to see the option to see your contacts from other platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. I’d also like to see the ability to create groups so that you can quickly launch sessions for a group of people with a single click.

What do you think of using your IM contact list to initiate online presentations? What other tools do you use for sharing your screen?

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Report: The Real-Time Enterprise

What’s the Problem?

I think part of the problem with blogs is that they are too static and dull. We need to infuse new life into blogs and make them more dynamic. Just as Flash added a freshness to web sites when it first appeared on the scene, we need to do something that will change the game for blogging.

The other part of the problem involves the incredible shrinking attention span of readers/viewers. Hollywood learned long ago that motion pictures need to reach out and grab the audience right away within the first 10 minutes or else its opening weekend will be its last. That’s why most movies look and feel like music videos these days. Quick cut editing and special effects reign supreme. Even the publishing industry has taken its queue from the movie industry and insist that its authors write tighter and more exciting stories.

What’s the Answer?

I believe the answer could be the same one that’s being touted as the potential savior of newspapers and magazines: The Apple iPad and similar devices, plus the new digital newsstand that it will usher in. Yes, I am suggesting that we look at blogs the same way we look at newspapers and magazines. It’s not a coincidence that many blogs have experienced increased subscriptions after changing to a more magazine-styled theme. Imagine providing your content in a more dynamic and exciting manner, like Wired’s demo iPad app:

Kiss Your RSS Goodbye?

Some pundits predict that subscribing to RSS feeds will become obsolete, thanks to technology such as PuSH (PubSubhubbub) and the proliferation of mobile applications. This could be why many blogging professionals have already started making their blogs available as iPhone apps. Their reasoning is that they want their work to be accessible and available to as many people as possible, and if it means porting it to a new platform, then so be it. The good news is that these same iPhone apps will also work on the iPad. Another factor in the increase of “blogs as apps” is the continuing decline in the cost of having an application developed. Pretty soon, releasing your own app will become as common as launching a blog.

Content is Still King

I’m not suggesting that glitz and glamor are better than substance and message. On the contrary, I firmly believe content will always remain the most important aspect of any blog, newspaper or magazine. I’m just saying that we cannot ignore the obvious truth of today’s readers and viewers. We cannot stick our heads in the sand and hope that the quality of our content alone will win the day. We need to deliver our best work (be it blog post, article, movie, book, etc.) in the best packaging available if we want to give it a chance to be consumed/digested and, ultimately, appreciated.

The new generation of mobile devices such as the iPad and other tablet computers will become ubiquitous and will help us deliver our message in exciting new ways. We should not lament this changing of the guard; instead we should embrace it and adapt to it, and take our blogging to new heights.

What do you think? Could iPads and similar devices usher in a new age of blogging?

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.):

Web Tablet Survey: Apple’s iPad Hits Right Notes

All of the tools covered here centralize the data, and allow visitors to see the feedback that’s been shared already, thus avoiding the headaches involved with dealing with duplicate entries. They also gives everyone an at-a-glance overview of the things that others are thinking and feeling. They benefit your public relations and give your customers a platform to communicate with your firm: a win-win scenario.

Obviously, these tools also give your customers a way to vent and release frustrations. While some companies don’t like to see or hear anything negative about their organization, giving your users and consumers a way to talk to you  — and each another –  is a major plus in the long run. It shows everyone your level of confidence in what you do and signifies a level of commitment to customer satisfaction. Today, consumers are all web-savvy and expect to be able to communicate with an organization and its community.

Here are several services for establishing a customer care center in the cloud for your brand. They’re all easy to set up, and in most cases provide a free package so you can test drive them to see if they have the functionality you need.

GetSatisfaction. I’ll start with the two “gold standard” apps that compete in this space: GetSatisfaction and UserVoice. In a nutshell, GetSatisfaction excels at letting you communicate with your users/customers. You can give status updates on your service, answer questions and provide a useful Frequently Asked Questions list. It also provides your community with a forum-like service to help one another with problems they’re experiencing. GetSatisfaction has different premium plans that allow you to host this service on your own web site, while there’s also a GetSatisfaction-hosted basic free plan, which lets you see how it all works.

UserVoice also lets your users/customers report problems and ask questions, but it particularly excels at letting them submit ideas for new features. Each user gets a limited amount of votes so they have to pick and choose which ideas/suggestions they like the most.

UserVoice also provides a free basic plan for one forum, and recently removed usage limits on all accounts in favor of a “fair usage” limit. This means if your web site has less than 10M pageviews a month, then you’ll have unlimited usage.

Google Moderator is a free way to create a forum where your users can vote on the features they most want to see for your product or service. It works similarly to UserVoice but there’s no voting limits for users. For example, here’s one that was created to track ideas and suggestions for Google Buzz features: How to Fix Google Buzz.

Zoho Discussions is Zoho’s customer feedback solution that works very much Google Moderator. You can track ideas and suggestions on how to improve your business/product or service as well as provide answers to problems. It also have multiple plans, including a basic free plan that allows up to two forums.

makefive is the most unusual solution in this roundup, because its primary function is to create and share lists of anything you can imagine. The reason why I’m suggesting this service is because your users can vote on the items in these lists and, best of all, they can even add new items to the lists. So, for example, you could create a Most Wanted Google Buzz Features list, and let people vote on existing ideas and even add their own ideas.

So there’s my five free ways to get customer feedback in a hurry. What tools do you use to get customer feedback? Please give us your feedback in the comments.

Photo by martin schmid on Photoxpress

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub req.): Report: The Real-Time Enterprise

If you don’t already have a Zoho account, then you can sign up with your Facebook ID.

If you already have a Zoho account, you can connect your Zoho apps to your Facebook account by linking them in your account preferences:

While this is good news for the 400 million-plus Facebook users out there, I’m left wondering at the continued lack of support for other popular sign-in options, such as Twitter and (more importantly) OpenID. I hope that they will be added soon.

Does Facebook Connect support make Zoho a more attractive option for you?

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Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?

I’ve added social networking features with BuddyPress 1.2 to a couple of my WordPress blogs without any problems. I can safely state that this new version is going to be very popular with bloggers all over the globe. Within minutes your blog will have Twitter-like status updates for your blog readers and writers (called the “activity stream”), who all now become members of your new social network. Also included out of the box are easy to use message boards and groups. Members can either join existing forums and groups or create new ones about any subject matter they’re interested in. They can communicate in the public stream or via private messaging with one another or via their own groups they establish on your social network. There’s also a useful Member Directory that allows members to communicate with other other. Every member has an extended profile they can fill out any way they want.

Here’s a sample of what a BuddyPress install looks like:

One of the things that I like is the option to make your home page either your blog posts or the activity stream. The choice is up to you: do you want to keep your blog as the focal point of your site or do you want the social network to take center stage? If you choose to make the activity stream your home page, then a new tab called “Blog” is added, which is where all blog posts will be available.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that BuddyPress — like WordPress itself — is extensible, which means you can add many new features and functionality via plugins and widgets.You can also change the look and feel of your new social network with themes customized for BuddyPress features.

I’ve been a BuddyPress user since its early beta and release candidate releases. While those early iterations had some minor bugs as you might expect, the BuddyPress support community was extremely helpful and swift with suggestions for fixes or workarounds. I expect the community to continue to be so supportive with this official release of BuddyPress 1.2.

Important: Just in case, it’s always smart to perform a full backup of your WordPress blog and database before experimenting with anything that integrates with your infrastructure, as BuddyPress does. There are many excellent backup plugins you can use. It’s better safe than sorry.

Disclosure: Automattic, maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

For example, Google Buzz allows you to connect many of your other social networks, which means whenever you send a tweet on Twitter or share a photo on Flickr, the same things appear in your Buzz stream. While this sounds productive and gives maximum exposure with the least effort, it risks annoying large numbers of people who are following you because they’re seeing the same information multiple times.

The problem stems from the fact that the majority of people in our social circles don’t exist in just one stream, so if we try to aggregate our messages to cross-post to multiple networks then that means exposing these folks to repetitive posts ad nauseam. To those we annoy, our posts increasingly look like “noise.”

The Noise Makers

The most popular ways that people share their posts across many platforms at one time automatically are with social aggregation services such as FriendFeed and Ping.fm. There are many others in this space, but those are two of the most popular and powerful apps available today. Detractors call these tools “noise makers” because of the digital pollution they dump into the social streams, contaminating the social ecosystem.

Personally, I like automation and the way these two apps work because of all the options they provide. For example, FriendFeed allows you to add just about all of the social networks and the RSS feeds of your blogs. Whenever someone subscribes to your FriendFeed stream they will see everything you share.

The nice thing about FriendFeed, though, is that it allows you to hide or mute any streams you don’t care to see from a particular person, without blocking them entirely. So, people can see your company’s Twitter updates but they could hide/mute your personal Flickr and Youtube updates and so on. Unfortunately, Google Buzz doesn’t yet offer that level of complexity so it’s either feast or famine at this point — people must subscribe to all of your updates, or none. That’s not to say that Google won’t implement this vital feature somewhere down the road.

Divide and Conquer

So, how can you avoid being so “noisy?” Well, some will insist on separation of social streams. However, this goal is very difficult to implement and maintain, at least on a consistent basis. Let’s say you’ve decided to stop repeating yourself across the social landscape. Obviously, you will have to stop using social aggregators such as FriendFeed and Ping.fm. You must also ensure that you’ve not connected feeds from any of your networks to any of the others, such as with Google Buzz. The goal will be to keep your streams as clean and pure as possible. This also means not using desktop clients such as TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop or whatever to cross-post simultaneous updates to Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

The Downside of Solo Streams

Let’s say that you’ve been able to isolate all of your social networks and now none of the things you share are regurgitated on other networks. The good news is that you can never be labeled a litterbug or perceived as noisy by the minimalists. The bad news is that this means most people will never see/read/hear most of your content any more, because most people don’t belong to all the same networks that you do. Thus, the people who never use anything other than Facebook will never see your special announcement on Twitter for a new sale that your company has going on. Conversely, the same is true for those who only use Twitter and never go to Facebook; they will never see your messages on your firm’s Facebook page.

Moderation is the Key

I think the best answer is moderation. As in all things in life, over-indulgence of anything is a bad thing. I think it makes sense, especially for businesses and organizations, to connect some of their social platforms in order to ensure that their message (and their brand) gets distributed to the most people with the minimum amount of effort. Will they then be duplicating themselves and crossing streams from time to time? Yes, they will, and I say, “so what?” Mainstream media has been doing this for a long time now,  using many different platforms such as TV, billboards, magazine ads, etc.. The secret is in not abusing the powerful tools that we have today. The goal isn’t to saturate, but to satisfy. Spread the word and engage your community.

Rolling Your Own Social Stream Aggregator

If you still like the idea of having all of your content in one place and don’t want to risk being too noisy with apps like Friendfeed, then perhaps hosting your own social stream can be the answer. This means streaming all of your links and messages on your own web site or blog, which could be the perfect solution for businesses and organizations. There are many ways to do this. For example, LifeStream is a plugin that I’ve covered before in “3 Ways to Create a LifeStream for Your Brand.” In short, it lets you add all of your social network streams to your blog. You can create a widget or a page that will display everything you share on places like Twitter, Flickr, Youtube and many other places in chronological order. I think it might be one way to have your cake and eat it too.

What do you think about “crossing streams” and digital noise pollution? Please share your opinions in the comments. We’d love to hear your take on this.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Social Media in the Enterprise

Photo by MartWork

Reactions to Google’s new social networking tool, Buzz, appear to be divided between those who think it will topple Facebook and those who have already discounted it.

If you still haven’t made up your mind yet about Buzz, here are some useful tips for customizing and automating the service so that it can work with your other social networks. We’ll also look at some ways to share messages and links via Buzz with specific groups, which could make it a useful tool for the workplace.

The Importance of Your Google Profile

Even though Google Buzz works inside your Gmail account, your Google Profile also plays a role in managing the information you share on Buzz. What’s that? You didn’t know you had a Google Profile? Well, if you use any kind of Google account then chances are that you already have one.

To see if you do and what it looks like, go to the Google Profile page and click the “View Profile” button to log in. If you already have a profile, then you can customize it via the “Edit Profile” option. You can add many of your other social networks and RSS feeds. Notice the “Buzz” tab. Also, you can actually edit the URL for your Google Profile and create a vanity URL; mine is http://www.google.com/profiles/ThePaisano. Just bear in mind that you can only do this one time. Simon provided some more information on Google Profile here.

Sharing Stuff with Google Reader

If you use Google Reader then whatever you share there shows up in your Google Buzz stream. It’s all done via the  ”Shared items” feature. Look for it under “Your stuff” in Google Reader.

You can share anything you’re viewing in Google Reader by clicking the “Share” button at the bottom of every post you’re reading. (Click “Unshare” to stop sharing it)

You can set privacy controls and only allow specified groups of people to view the items you share. This could be important for those of you that are using Buzz for work.

1. Go to Google Reader
2. Click on “Shared items”
3. Click on “Sharing Settings”
4. Change the setting for “Your shared items can be viewed by” to: “Protected (Shared with Selected Groups)”

You can manage your groups via Gmail’s Contacts. Note that selecting the “Public” option means just that: Everyone is be able to see everything you share via Google Reader and Buzz.

Buzz Browser Add-ons and Extensions

You can access Buzz via some new browser add-ons and extensions:

Buzz It! is a Firefox add-on that allows you to share anything you’re viewing by adding a button to your Firefox toolbar that launches the Google Reader sharing window. The install process is a little convoluted, and I don’t like the way it opens new tabs instead of using pop-up windows.

The Chrome Buzz extension for Chrome is good if you just want to view what’s happening in your Buzz stream. It does not provide any ways to share items or even post messages there.

By far, my favorite way to share items on Buzz is through Google Reader’s Shared Items “Note in  Reader” bookmarklet. To set it up, just go to Google Reader, click on “Shared Items” and drag the “Note in Reader” button (located on the far right-hand side) to your browser’s bookmarks toolbar. I’ve tested this in Firefox and Chrome and it works really well.

Whenever you’re reading something online and want to share it, just click the “Note in Reader” button. A window pops up with all of the details filled out; you can also add a note. Make sure the “Add to shared items” checkbox is selected, hit “Post Item” and the page is shared via your Buzz account.

Connecting Buzz to Twitter via Google Reader Shared Items

If you’re sharing links via Buzz you’ll probably want to share them with your Twitter followers, too. You can do that in a few different ways.

Twitterfeed lets send anything you share on Google Reader to your Twitter account. Just go to your Google Reader Shared Items page, copy the Atom feed and paste it into Twitterfeed. Then just authorize your Twitter account to sync them up.

Facebook’s FriendFeed can also connect Google Reader to Twitter very easily. Just click “add/edit” on your Friendfeed profile and look for the Google Reader service under “News.”

Reader2Twitter is my favorite method of synchronizing Google Reader/Buzz with Twitter because it uses the pubsubhubbub protocol to perform real-time sync. A new version has already been released that works specifically with Google Buzz. Just sign in here with your Twitter account via Oauth. You can even add your bit.ly account so you can shorten URLs and track analytics. All in all, it’s a simple but powerful little tool.

Share your favorite Buzz tips below.

Adobe Story

Adobe Labs is currently featuring Adobe Story in preview mode, which means you can create an account and start using it for free (for now, anyway). You can create projects that can include as many scripts as you want. These projects can also include charactor biographies and links to external resources, like blogs or relevant web sites. The user interface is slick and rather intuitive. There’s also an Adobe AIR desktop app (of course) that conveniently allows you and all collaborators to work in offline mode, synchronizing all changes whenever you’re connected again.

Here’s the home page for a fictitious project I’ve created called “The Revenge of The Blog,” which is basically a remake of the classic campy horror film “The Blob.” There’s also a character biography page for Robert Scoble, who will reprise the Steve McQueen role from the original movie (I said it was fictitious!)

Plotbot

Plotbot is a web-based script-writing app that also allows you to collaborate with other writers. The good news is that the web app functions very well just like a desktop app, and automatically formats the scripts as you write it — you just have to come up with the ideas. It’s pretty good at determining what you’re trying to type, such as a scene heading or character dialogue.

There are also some handy tools, such as the notebook area where you can track thoughts and information about the story as well as a forum area to brainstorm with others. You can upload a screenplay if you already have one available. Plotbot is free.

Celtx

Celtx is a little different than the other apps in this collection. It covers a far wider variety of scripts for more types of projects besides film, such as scripts for video, documentary, theatre, comics, advertising, video games, music video, radio, podcasts, videocasts, and much more. It provide a free desktop application that you can download and install, but collaborating with others via the online service (called Celtx Studio) is not free. It provides collaboration for up to five users for only about $5 per month, which isn’t bad.

The Celtx app offers the most features that I’ve seen in this type of tool. Not only can you add dialogue to scripts, it has other functionality such as a sketch tool to draw objects, a catalog to track all props and objects, index cards to arrange scenes and a cool storyboarding tool. Check out Sam’s post on the app for a full review.

So there you go, three different ways to collaborate with others on scripts, whether it’s for an entertainment project such as a movie or a corporate instructional video. These apps make it extremely easy to maintain all related information and help save you time and effort with the medium’s formatting, so you and your team can focus on the creative aspect of writing.

What tools do you use for collaborating with others on scripts?

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The other new feature involves categorizing your contacts into groups. Yes, it’s really just another way of creating distribution lists which comes in handy when corresponding with large groups of people at once. You can add your contacts to more than one group and send emails to the group.

Also new is the ability to mark your favorite contacts with a star, which makes them appear on the front page of your address book. All of your top contacts from Gmail automatically get the gold star but you can easily unselect it.

Plaxo has also renamed its social streaming “Pulse” service to “Stream.” All of the same functionality remains, it’s just a new name.

These changes point to a good future for one of the elder statesmen of the Web 2.0 era. Plaxo has listened to its users, improved performance and added some useful features. It’s still the best when it comes to importing contacts from other address books such as Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook. By the way, you might have missed this feature but you can also import all of your LinkedIn contacts. Just perform a LinkedIn address book export and upload it to Plaxo here.

It’s going to be interesting to see what other socially-aware address book services like Gist and Soocial will do in this space. I think it’s surprising to see that Google still hasn’t done much with Gmail’s address book; I want contact information synchronization and other social networking features to get added, but nothing much has changed. Not yet anyway.

Do you use Plaxo? What do you think of the new address book?

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With these tools, you are no longer required to send your tweets in real time, because you can write them in advance, making them a perfect solution for those of us who can’t find the time to jump on Twitter on a consistent, regular basis. Whenever you find a pocket of time for Twitter, you can sit down, write several tweets, and queue them up to post at a later date.

Here are some of the better free Twitter automation tools that I’ve seen. There are a few good tools that require a paying a fee, but the selections in this roundup are all free, with some of them offering a more advanced premium package, should you want or need it.

Twuffer does one thing only: sending tweets you place in its queue at the times you schedule. Nothing fancy, just a simple calendar-based interface to pick when you want your tweet to go live.

SocialOomph (an app formerly known as TweetLater) provides a suite of tools, including a free edition that includes the ability to schedule your tweets.It also provides a premium suite that includes additional tools for Twitter and Facebook automation. However, if all you want to do is schedule your tweets then the free version will do the trick. There are a couple of extra perks that I’d like to mention here. Besides scheduling tweets, the free edition of SocialOomph also lets you create and save drafts of tweets that you can reuse over and over again. While that might smack of spamming, it could actually provide some non-nefarious benefits as well, particularly if you often end up writing similar tweets. The other features I like is that it lets you use your own URL shortening service such as Bit.ly, and you can also schedule tweets to publish to multiple Twitter accounts.

FutureTweets doesn’t take the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach that SocialOomph does but it does schedule tweets rather well. If that’s all you need, than this one will work for you.

HootSuite is a popular Twitter client that happens to include the ability to schedule your tweets for future posting. You can access HootSuite via its web site or any number of special desktop apps and browser add-ons. You can view, edit or delete scheduled tweets from a column called “Pending Tweets.”

Twaitter (soon to be renamed Gremlin) is another powerful suite of free services that includes a scheduler for tweets. The thing I like about this one is that it also connects to Ping.fm, which means you can not only schedule posts to Twitter but also to many other social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. It also includes an option to save drafts and includes follow management tools.

CoTweet is designed for organizations with multiple Twitter accounts and/or multiple Twitter members that work as a team to manage their online presence. Included in its arsenal of useful tools is the tweet scheduler, which has a calendar that helps schedule your tweets. Another handy tool is the ability to assign tweets as if they were tasks, thus giving your account a project manager (of sorts) for Twitter.

There you have it, just some of the free ways that you and your organization can schedule to Twitter, and some other social networks as well. Some of these services include an option to schedule recurring tweets, which could violate Twitter’s Terms of Service. Both Twitter and its members frown upon such behavior because spammers have abused this kind of feature; think twice before setting up recurring tweets too often.

Do you use any of these tools, or any others, to schedule your tweets?

Image Credit: PhotoExpress user Adam Borkowski.

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