If you have a linkedin.com account you may want to try their new Linkedin Applications section.  Linkedin.com is a Web 2.0 social media website designed to help you with online networking for you or your business business.

The Linkedin Application suite is currently limited to 9 different applications right now. Company Buzz, Box.net Files, Blog Link, Reading List by Amazon, My Travel, SlideShare Presentations, Google Presentation, Huddle Workspaces, and WordPress.

I have tried all the applications but the ones that seem to work the best without any trouble in loading is Reading List by Amazon and SlideShare Presentations. These application are supposed to be similar to the many Facebook application that help you enhance your experience with the website. Unfortunately Linkedin may need a bit more time to get all these applications up to speed.

What’s great about having these applications on is they allow you to optimize your Lnkedin profile page. Given time these application will allow your Linkedin network to follow your blog posts using the Blog Link or WordPress app. Follow your Tweets with the Company Buzz app and follow your uploaded presentations with SlideShare and Google Presentations.

What’s not so great is the lack of support of these applications if they are not working on your profile page. I have been trying to get answers to why I can’t change the URL to the Blog Link app and why the Company Buzz app won’t show up on my profile page at all. All they give you is a feedback form that says your feedback is helpful but will not get a response.

As impressed as I am with Linkedin as a whole I am less than impressed with the roll out of these new applications. I would have thought that the 9 applications currently available would have been tested on multiple profile pages using multiple browsers. I have tried the applications on Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Crome all with the same results.

Even though I can only get 2 of the 9 to work consistently on my profile page, I still have hope that all of the applications will eventually perform to their fullest.  If you would like to see some of the Linkedin Applications in action please take a look at my profile page below and click on the View full Profile button on the bottom of the page. Oh and please leave me comments on your experience with loading and viewing these applications on your Linkedin Profile page

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyalexanderbrathwaite

All the best

JB

Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, the number one blog on the Internet declared her winner for the 2008 Presidential Election.

Twitter, a micro blogging service has real time conversations with its Election 2008 custom website.

You can then go to TwitVote and vote in a mock opinion-poll for voting for Election 2008.

Facebook will help you find your polling place and for those who don’t know you can still register and vote If you live in Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, or Wyoming.

CNN has an Interactive Map of the United States for updates on the Presidential election as well as customizing that page to show all the different races in every state.

Here is the Barack Obama’s website and YouTube Channel John McCcain’s website and Youtube Channel

Last but not least there was even a social media marketing case study created by Social CRM Expert Brent Leary and Internet Marketing Expert David Bullock. Barack20.com

This study helps small businesses understand how Barack Obama used social media to market himself. Brent and David used their blog to give

audio lesson on how small businesses can use social media to further their business as well.

We first reported on this study when it was just a webinar but has now grown into so much more.

Brent and David were recently featured in the November issue of Black Enterprise and are in the midst of launching their first

seminar in a local city near you. We will keep you posted on what happens next for Barack20 after the election.

The main thing that everyone should understand is that the 2008 Elections has used Web 2.0 technology and made the Internet better for us all.
We are so much more informed and knowledgeable about our local and national candidates. This can only help us make the best choices for the leadership of our country.

So if you have not done so yet. Please get out and Vote!

All the best

JB

Unfortunately I could not attend this years TechCrunch50 but I watched a good amount of the conference on Ustream.tv. I have posted the video demos of the three companies that impressed me the most on day one.

Angstro delivers critical business news about people and companies across professional networks. By leveraging existing services such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, Angstro helps users to easily discover and share news about colleagues and clients. Unlike clipping services that confuse different people with the same name, Angstro both disambiguates names and analyzes social graphs to prioritize those relationships that matter most. Founded in 2007 by serial entrepreneurs with decades of experience developing real-time notification solutions, Angstro is located in Palo Alto, California.

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I read an interesting blog post today from Senior writer at Fortune magazine Adam Lashinsky’s Go West Blog. His post, titled “Will Twitter Make It?” gave me a lot of food for thought. Adam is addressing the question many of us are curious about when it comes to Twitter’s business model. Adam is also asking the question why should he and other business people use Twitter.

I myself have had a Twitter account for almost a year now but never used it because I, like Adam couldn’t see why business people would frequent this micro blogging service. I also had to fight the misconception that Twitter was only for those with SMS mobile devices. I fought the urge to Tweet long and hard until my good friend and Social CRM Expert Brent Leary told me how blogs like Mahalo drove major traffic to their website using Twitter.

Driving traffic to my website and blog was something I was definitely interested in doing. I then renewed my Twitter account and have been Tweeting both from my computer using the Twitter application, TweetDeck and with my cell phone using Jott, the voice recognition service. Marketing my business, my blog and myself through Twitter, or “Twarketing” has now been added as a focal point to my current business strategy.

I now have my Tweets show up on my blog using Twitter Tools. I automatically respond to followers and schedule future Tweets with Tweetlater. I even track the links in my Tweets using Tweetburner. Last but not least I do market research on products and services using Summize, which was just purchased recently by Twitter.

I believe that Twarketing will eventually drive those of the more mainstream to become users of Twitter. Early adopters like Maggie Mason who was the 448th person to sign up for Twitter, according to Twitterholic, are already seeing the fruits of their labors. Maggie currently has 6,458 follows and has parlayed those followers into traffic to her MightyGoods blog. Mighty Goods is a shopping blog and one of Time Magazine’s Top 50 Cool Sites of the year.

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama holds the number two position on Twitterholic with 56,183 followers. The Blog Barack20 credits Twitter as one of the many social media networks that helped Mr. Obama win the Democratic nomination for President.

I believe Twitter will make it. I believe Twitter will develop a profitable business model. I also believe I have an idea of how Twitter can use a current advertising model for one of their revenue streams.

I will look to share that in a future post.

Brent Leary, I think you may have created a Twonster..;-)

All the best

JB