practicehacker

2010 Social Media Influencers – Trend Predictions

In “How Twitter is Changing the Face of Media” @Mashable guest poster @SorenG shares his take on how the micro-blog phenom is affecting the 5th Estate. In his estimation the big changes brought about by Twitter are

• Our News – items get around via reTweet – more immediate than RSS or Blogs
• People Power - “news” is no longer just what “they” say it is; now it can be what the mob says it is
• Competition – just because it comes from a given source doesn’t make it news; everyone is a source today
• Personality – news is more pesronal when it is local and affects your narrow interest or interest group
• Interactivity – reaction and interaction could be more important and interesting than the story itself

I should be all for these changes. Strangely however, I’m on the fence. Here’s why. People-powered information sounds great and has the potential to be much better for society than information being in the hands of the newserati. But when it comes to us in an immediate, raw, unfiltered feed, news still should be vetted and processed before it is trusted. The alternative could easily be panic caused by a cascade of misinformation.

Still, that’s the democracy of Twitter – everyone has a chance to succeed and an even bigger chance to fail.

From Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop – some good advice about how to get found online:

• Don’t Be Ordinary. Unique ideas will take you further than throwing money at marketing
• Create Good Content. Blogs, videos, podcasts, social networks, and tweets get noticed
• Optimize It. Optimize posts to be found on Google, Facebook, Twitter, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
• Promote It. Post your content as many ways as you can and email it to interested parties
• Measure Results. Act once, measure twice and keep measuring for continued success

Who knew? It turns out that free tools online can help you achieve your personal, financial, and practice goals. Below you’ll find the 10-step plan to do it.

1.  Get the big-picture of what you want do to using software like mindjet.

2. Develop task lists via Remember the Milk, Google Tasks, etc.

3.  Use services like Bing and Hunch that give suggestions.

4.  Record your progress via Springpad and like services.

5.  Use tools like Diigo, Zotero, and Laterloop, to save work.

6. Searchpad can help integrate the results of your research.

7. Calendar and organize using services like Ning and Meetup.

8. Build or participate in communities of goal-oriented people.

9. Review content-sharing sites like WordPress, YouTube, etc.

10. Refine, reconfigure, repeat.

Sites to Checkout

Geezeo tracks personal finances in a community of like-minded people. The site just launched a Facebook application.

Mint: the more famous and earlier financial website recently purchased by Intuit, the makers of Quicken. Imagine the possibilities.

Goalmigo is an online community that helps you set, track and find supporters to reach your goals.

112 Apps that help you Get Things Done (GTD) is a great list, but of course who has time when you’re getting things done?

From 5 Steps to Getting Unstuck and Pursuing Your Goals