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

Our nation is in the midst of the largest financial bail out of Wall Street in history. We as tax payers are going to have to collectively pay out almost three quarters of a trillion dollars due to bad real estate loans and greedy heads of major banks. We are now going to have to look after our finances with a fine tooth comb. Every one of our hard earned dollars has to be stretched to the limit.

Keeping track of our finances has become a major factor with the way our economy has faltered. Mint.com is and online money management service that allows you to see all of your online accounts under one umbrella. Whether you have a savings account, credit card or even tracking the balance on some of your investments you can do it all with Mint.com

Mint.com helps me keep track of my three savings accounts, two checking accounts, three PayPal accounts, two credit unions and one investment account. It gives me an interactive pie chart view of all my spending habits. Mint.com also gives me advice on how I can make more money buy analyzing my current bank accounts and making suggestions on others that will give me a higher interest rate of return.

Mint.com takes just five minutes to set up. All you need is the user name and passwords of your online accounts. Security is really not an issue because Mint uses 128-bit SSL encryption to ensure that all communications between your browser and our Web site are secure. You also can’t make any transaction through Mint.com you can only view your account information.

One of the best things about Mint.com is it will send you email or mobile alerts reminding you of various financial matters that go on with your accounts. You can set them on anything from your bank account balance going below a certain amount to your interest rate changing to whether you have exceeded your budgeted spending limits.

Mint.com does all of this and more for free. Yes, Free! I don’t know about you but I love all things of value that are free or just about free. So if you are in anyway concerned about where your money is being spent and saved you don’t have any reason for not signing up for an account right now.

Saving money is crucial in these trying times. Mint.com lets you see where you are spending most of your money and then gives you to tools to keep more of it in your possession.

All the best

JB

I think that the TechCrunch50 can just stop the contest now after seeing the demo of Swype.
I new way of inputting data to any device. How cool is this technology. Day two was slow but ended strong. You have to see this demo.

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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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Here are 5 great sites that help you market your business by sharing your past and current documents.

I have used all but one of these document marketing services yet all of them can improve your market potential by uploading documents that you have already created. All of these services will also allow you to create searchable Tags for your documents. The best part is that each of them give your documents an outlet to more exposure to an audience that would not have seen what you have to offer on your own.

1. Sideshare.net

SlideShareis the best way to share your presentations with the world. Let your ideas reach a broad audience. Share publicly or privately. Add audio to create a webinar.

Here is an example of a presentation I created and uploaded to slideshare.net

Docstocis the premier online community to find and share professional documents. Docstoc provides the platform for users and businesses to upload and share their documents with all the world, and serves as a vast repository of documents in variety of categories including legal, business, financial, technology, educational, and creative. All documents on Docstoc can be easily searched, previewed and downloaded for free.

Small Business Lessons from Barack Obama - Get more Business Plans

Here is an example of a pdf file on Docstoc.com

Scribdbegan with a simple observation – there are billions of documents sitting siloed on people’s hard drives. By making it easy for people to publish their documents to the Internet, Scribd has unlocked this treasure trove of information.

Here is an example of a document on scribd.com

Here is an example of a pdf file saved to issuu.com

Gazhoo(“Gazhoo”) is an innovative Content Marketplace that allows users to search, buy, and sell documents. The site will initially focus on Reports, Term Papers, Business Forms, Legal Forms, and Market Research Reports. All documents are User Generated Content and uploaded solely by users. Given it’s open marketplace nature, Gazhoo will intrinsically maintain quality content and low prices.

You can use Slideshare mainly for your PowerPoint presentations. Scribd and Docstoc a very good for uploading your pdf files. Both Scribd and Docstoc have a document viewer that will allow you to embed the pdf file right into your website or blog. Your readers could then read the document right on your website without having to install adobe reader. Issuu is more for those who want to highlight a pdf file as a online magazine. Gazhoo is best for those of you who want to market and then sell your documents.

So if you have an old PowerPoint presentation, an e-book or just a report that highlights your expertise in your business, I would not hesitate to upload them immediately to one or all of these services.

All the best

JB