Plaxo is part social media tool, part address book. It’s a useful way of keeping contacts names and addresses up-to-date. Useful, but in my opinion not as elegant or as handy as alternatives such as Linkedin.

The company and its product have a chequered history. In the earlier days Plaxo messages would turn up in my email all the time. The looked like spam and were extremely annoying. The company climbed aboard the cluetrain and the unpleasant stuff stopped.

While I understand Plaxo needs to make money – don’t we all? I’m not sure the company’s current approach is going to work. It certainly doesn’t work for me. Read the rest of this entry »

Gist is designed to cut through the deluge of incoming email, tweets and other messages. It sorts, highlights and presents your most important material in a simple format.

After one day of using the application I can see it has potential. It may become a lynch-pin. But I’m yet to be convinced I’ll use it over the long term. Here’s why:

Gist works with Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook inboxes, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Salesforce. The software is a free web-delivered or cloud application. There’s a paid subscription version in the pipeline.  Read the rest of this entry »

You can Twitter all you like. Poke half the world on Facebook. And polish your Linkedin profile until all those buttons shine. But according to Jason Falls, social media activity on its own isn’t going to find you a new job.

He says if you’re seriously looking for employment, you need to get out and meet people or, at least, get on the phone.

Of course Falls is right. We all know that. But two things make his point of view particularly valuable.

• First, he offers his own personal story as evidence.
• Second, Falls is a director of social media and his view was published on his Social Media Explorer web site.

Why Social Media Won’t Get You Hired In A Recession.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Social Media is Not a Fad. Get Over It. (kylelacy.com)
• Social networking sites can raise publicity legal issues (jonggunlee.tistory.com)

From the department of every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining:

According to the Economist newspaper, business-oriented social networking websites like Linkedin and Xing are doing a roaring trade despite, or more accurately because of the world’s financial troubles. Apparently the professionals who use these sites have been busily updating their online profiles in recent weeks for when they lose their jobs.

So it looks like some people are heeding the advice handed out by management guru Tom Peters.

See Professional social networking | Facebook for suits | The Economist

Related articles by Zemanta

• Social Networking And Your Business (smtusa.com)
• Plaxo: OK free, not worth paying for (billbennett.co.nz)

This was written last week as a reply to a question on Linkedin.

I’m a career journalist and editor (almost 30 years now). I mainly blog to learn more about blogging and how it works. It’s a way of staying current. Right now I’m on my fourth blog and I think I’m getting the hang of it.

What have I learnt so far?

1. You don’t need fancy software to blog.
2. The free hosting services are as good as or better than self-hosting.
3. Blogging can take up a huge amount of time, but it doesn’t have to.
4. There’s a community aspect to blogging that isn’t apparent until you dive in and do it yourself.
5. Blogging is similar, but not the same as journalism.
6. My blogs don’t tend to drive traffic to my website, nor do they deliver any direct economic benefits.

Related articles by Zemanta

• What Is Blogging The New Form Of Journalism. (ronmedlin.com)
• 3 questions bloggers should be asking (lansner.freedomblogging.com)
• Google Pushes over the Book Shelves (arnoldit.com)