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

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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

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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

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There are a lot of great tools to keep you in touch with your social and professional network. Most of us use the computer, Jott gives us the power to do the same thing using voice recognition on your cell phone . Jott allows you to send emails to yourself, send email and text messages to your list of contacts, and send messages to different web services like Twitter, Blogger and Google Calendar. Jott will listen to your voice commands and turn you words into text to then be displayed as though you had typed the message yourself.

Most smart phones like the Apple iPhone and the Sprint Instinct have application that can give you some of the same kind of access. Jott uses voice recognition to let the rest of us who still use non-smart phones the same capability.

All I have to do is call the Jott toll-free number and my voice does the rest. The main reason I use Jott is to help me send reminders to myself when I am on the road and don’t have a pen handy, but it can do so much more.

Here is an example of a Jott I sent to my email address

Sent with my voice via Jott:

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to our selves and our posterity do ordain…

Listen to Jeffrey’s Message

As you can see Jott was able to pick up words that are not that easy to pronounce let alone catch by voice recognition software. If your message is a bit long Jott will generate a link to the audio recording of your message that you can retrieve from the Jott website.

I also use Jott to update my Google Calendar and have just started sending post to my Twitter account.
Jott can help you keep up to date with your favorite blog by allowing you to hear the written words instead of reading them.

Jott lets me hear up to date blog post from Tech Crunch, Mashable and Barack20 when I don’t have the time to get to a computer to read it. If your blog feed is not on the Jott Feed list you can add it and give it a name that will be easily identified when speaking it into your cell phone.

The Jott service is currently FREE to all their users. Their is a quick setup on the Jott website that you walk through in order to store your contacts, groups, feeds and web links. Once that is done you are ready to Jott.

Jott gives busy Solopreneurs and Small Business a voice controlled way to communicate with their social media, emails, groups, blogs and up date their calendar. All done with with a non-smart cell phone.

The Jott service is currently FREE to all their users. There is a quick setup on the Jott website that you walk through in order to store your contacts, groups, feeds and web links. Once that is done you are ready to Jott.

Who do YOU want to Jott?

All the best

JB

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Image via Wikipedia

The jury is still out with the new Facebook Redesign. I took a look at it 2 days ago and at first glance thought it was Good for the most part. Its now wider than it was before and not as congested.

Current Facebook

New Wider Look Facebook

I also did a search on the comments of the Twitter community on the Facebook Redesign and got some interesting results. Although I liked and was comfortable with the old look I did think there was some room for improvement. Only time will tell if Facebook made the right decision. One thing I do know is that even with the changes Facebook is still the fastest growing social network on the Internet and most Solopreneurs and small businesses would be wise to design their own strategy to take advantage of its success.

I would really like to hear back from you on what you think of the Redesign. If you have not seen the new look just log in to your Facebook account and click on the link below.

http://www.new.facebook.com/

All the best

JB

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