A couple of days ago, we discussed about the basics of RSS. While a lot of people know about it already, we still need to touch on some basic points to help those who don’t. Once we got on that, now I am going to suggest some ways to utilize RSS to help your business.

Here they are :

• Subscribe to feeds that you read often or daily

This is just a practice based on a common sense. By doing that, you’ll save huge chunks of time from your typically-busy day.

• Find some feeds from a field that’s relevant to your business, – and subscribe to them

If you are in the tech business, you should subscribe to TechCrunch, Mashable and other prominent tech blogs out there. If you’re into news, catch the feeds of CNN, New York Times, and the likes. It goes similar way in whatever field your business in.

At first glance, this is also a sensible practice. Yet many of us ( – including me back then ), missed doing this because they can’t see the point. Please refrain from doing the same mistake. It will help you heavily in staying abreast of the most recent development in your particular business field. It will help you catch the newest trend and fad in the way you never thought possible.

There are 2 ways of doing this :

· If you already knew what sites are relevant to your business, you can go to their URLs, and subscribe manually. The process is elaborated in the first post of the series.

· If you are not sure, then Google is your friend. Find the best sites there is, and subscribe to their feeds. Alternatively, you can go to Google Blogsearch, and search for your topic. On your result page, just click the “RSS” link under the “Subscribe” menu in the left side of the page. You will then be asked to enter your preference of Feed Reader, – and you’re done.

• The last point you really need to consider has something to do with your business online activities. Does your business have its own website / blog ? If yes, then by default it will provide an option for people to subscribe to its own RSS feed. In this sense, you are a feed publisher.

What I will recommend for a serious feed publisher is : signing up for a feed optimizer service. The most well-known ( and so far has proven to be reliable for me ) is Feedburner. Acquired by Google in 2007, you can sign up for their service for free. Once registered, you can optimize your feed by customizing it in such a way to fit your readers’ needs. For example, you can include a menu below each feed, where any reader can bookmark your post to social bookmarking sites like Delicious or Digg; – all without going to your site. There are many other features to browse and use. Bottom line : better publication for you and your business. Try it.

There you go. I don’t pretend to be an expert on this matter. That’s why I said I “offer” some suggestions. One thing I do know : RSS is a very powerful thing to use, – both for personal productivity purpose, and as a platform to help growing your business. Have fun !

Disclaimer :

NET is not affiliated with any of the software / application company. While I am helped by certain features of these programs, in no way I can guarantee that they will give the readers the same results. Always back-up your file before doing major changes to your computer.

I first heard a word about this useful Twitter tool from EverythingTwitter who wrote a blog post about it. Reading it, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got to the feature list. Later, I got nothing but positive confirmation when I visit its homepage and download the client myself.

First, it is ingenious in monetizing itself. When a lot of useful apps related to Twitter have met their demise, Tweety Bot cunningly inserted an advertisement in the bottom of their desktop client. This is great idea because it is building on the fact that Twitter is wildly popular today. Coupled with Tweety Bot’s main strength, – which is its set of features, I can see why this one could easily become one of the leading Twitter client out there. And yes, the excellent features make me love this app in spite of the ad. It is unobtrusive anyway, as it is located in the bottom row, as you can see in the following screenshot.

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What about the features ? It boasts an unprecedented set of abilities, as follows ( I quote from the site ) :

• Login To Twitter Remotely
• Get Updated Tweets Every Minute
• Reply To Friends From Your Desktop
• Get Direct Messages Every 5 Minutes
• Alert List For Special Friends
• Ignore List For Spammers Following You
• Built-in Direct Messaging From Your Desktop
• Manage Followers and Those Following From Your Desktop
• Tweet Threading For Following Individual Conversations

When you take time to read the list carefully, it quickly gets apparent where this small app’s strong point lies. It build on areas anybody haven’t thought about, – let alone building it. Like Ignore List for your unwanted follower ( most likely spammers ), for example.

This neat feature will let you create a list of Twitter users you would want to ignore. Of course you can do that by visiting the Twitter web, but how many clients have actually implement it in its execution ? Not even Twhirl did that, and Twhirl is currently the #1 favorite Twitter client. Go figure.

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It hasn’t finished there yet. One of my most relished features of this app is that it has the so-called Tweet Manager. What it basically does is letting you write a list of tweets, and put them on schedule to be automatically tweeted later.

It is similar to a lot of blog platforms’ auto-posting feature. Still, it drove me to an applause because the app proved its distinction : an originality of functions. Simply put, it takes you places no other Twitter clients could.

Try it. It’ll re-define what you think about Twitter.

If you ever think about building your persona online, and build a business from there, there are some things that you can not afford to neglect. If you’re like me, you will feel unsatisfied at some point. I mean, back then I wonder, – OK, I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and I blog, – now what ? How do I use my profile to my advantage ? How do I build my online credibility to the point where I could gain something from it ? This is the point where I sat back and consider the best lesson there is : the Internet celebrities, – so to speak.

You see, when we consider the most prominent Internet personas and the way they market their respective credibility, the first character trait that comes to mind is consistency. From the larger-than-life Robert Scoble, the calmer proto-blogger Dave Winer, web strategist Jeremiah Owyang, or marketer-cum-writer Guy Kawasaki with his Alltop portal; – they all have consistency as the main key and leverage of their success. What they do may differ dramatically, – yet they agree on that one single important point.

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First, let’s take a look at some definition. Taken from Merriam – Webster online :

Main Entry: con·sis·ten·cy

Pronunciation: \kən-ˈsis-tən(t)-sē\

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural con·sis·ten·cies

Date: 1594

1 a archaic : condition of adhering together : firmness of material substance b: firmness of constitution or character : persistency 2: degree of firmness, density, viscosity, or resistance to movement or separation of constituent particles <boil the juice to the consistency of a thick syrup>3 a: agreement or harmony of parts or features to one another or a whole : correspondence ; specifically : ability to be asserted together without contradiction b: harmony of conduct or practice with profession <followed her own advice with consistency>

Taken as our starting cue, this definition serves us excellently in trying to comprehend what consistency is and apply it to what we do. The goal of this post is to underline this.

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Now, I believe there are several dimensions involved when we talk about the concept of consistency. I am going to offer two of them for you to think about.

First, consistency applies to your own credibility. You need to be consistent in building your online existence to help you gain audience and influence. Do your homework. Examine closely your strength and weakness as a person. You might even need to ask your self this question : How do I want people to know me ? Define your USP ( Unique Selling Point ), and be consistent on that. Scoble, again, is a fine example of this. He knows that his particular strength is in technology, – having spent some time working for Microsoft. And that’s what he built. Successfully.

Secondly, consistency also is closely related to the concept of perseverance when the going gets tough. I am talking about the daily grind of blog writing here, among several things. Sadly, this is where a lot of very potential person fails. They build their “brand” as a person strong and loud, – only to disappoint us in the end because their most recent blog entries is 6-months-old, – for example. Never let daily activities hinder you from maintaining what you did before. Learn from Guy Kawasaki. Devoted to his portal project alltop.com, he painstakingly keep it updated with new sections. Of course, let’s not forget how he tell the world about the new section afterwards.

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Of course, consistency is only one of the key values that you have to acquire. However, I strongly feel that it probably is the most important core value to adopt if I’m to succeed in what I do. Back to the context of this post, being consistent will help you build your online existence to the point where you gain some advantage for it. Be it a business, new client, or some other intangible benefits, – it’s your choice. Good luck !

It has increasingly became apparent that social networks are here to stay. Granted, there are a lot of unsuccessful followers in the field, but the giants of social networks like Twitter and Facebook continue to stay abreast for the foreseeable future, come low or high tide.

What does it mean for a business owner like you ? In this post, I’m going to talk about three companies who use social network as a way to maintain close communication with their customer; and about my experience as their products’ user.

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First, some explanations are due. The three companies are :

1. Digsby

Digsby is a recently popular chat program that tries to incorporate all your usual chat platform in one software. They are aiming to be a swiss-army knife of instant-messenger applications, – so to speak. At the time of this blog posting, you can use it to chat with your Yahoo ID, MSN Live, GTalk, Facebook Chat, AIM, – and even updating your social networks status in Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. Their Twitter page can be viewed here.

2. Flock

Flock basically is a Firefox equipped with a custom-built add-ons, making it a browser where you can instantly get signed-in in your various social networks and engage in their activities. There is even a built-in blog editor where you can write a blog post without going to your blog platform website. For the newest version of Flock and its features, you can visit its website.

3. Evernote

If you are anything like me, you will feel the need of organizing various notes or snippets of text files that you jotted down whenever you think of something. Standard methods of filing in Windows folder just don’t seem to be enough as it can get wildly confusing after a couple of weeks or so. Here’s where Evernote figures. An organizer software where you can store practically anything, it will also give you a free online account ( with some limitations ) where you can back up your important notes. A couple of months ago, I wrote a short review of Evernote and what it can do that you can read here. Alternatively, you can visit their website.

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What those three otherwise-very-different companies have in common is : They all use Twitter to communicate with their users. By this I mean, they create a special Twitter account where they then use to scan various issues other users may have about their products; and replying whenever necessary.

Now, as a user of their products, I can think of at least 3 ( three ) reasons why I will continue to use their products. Bear with me as I get to the following points :

1. Because they are companies who care about their customers

Some of you may argue this point, stating that of course any company will care about its customers, that’s where the money comes from. Indeed. But a company who cares enough to dedicate time and ( in some cases ) a special staff to communicate with their customer using a supposedly-intangible media as Twitter ? I am impressed.

2. Because of the speed of their response

Let’s admit it. Complaining, – or even just asking, about a feature of a product you just recently acquired is most of the times frustrating. Those dreaded automated phone systems or faxing proof of purchase almost always spends more time than necessary. On the contrary, the three companies I mentioned respond to their users’ complaints and enquiries almost instantly, – sometimes even under a couple of minutes.

3. Because I am dealing with companies who update themselves on new developments of technology

To average people you meet in the streets, Web 2.0 raises more questions than it answers. This means that as a technology, it is still relatively new. Not in the term of age, mind you; but in the sense that more people don’t know about it than those who do. All it implies is that Digsby, Flock and Evernote are companies who make it a point to keep on updating themselves of new technology. I surely can’t complain about company who has that characteristics.

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Let’s stop here and consider my experience as the customer of the three companies and why I’ll be a repeat user of their products. Do you want a loyal, repeat customer who buys your product more than once ? How about five ? Or a hundred, even thousands of them ?

Depending on the nature of the business, now may be the right time to take a plunge to the lake of Social Networking. Sink or swim, it’s your choice…

There really is no easy answer for this question.  And while there are many ways we could approach this issue, I would suggest that first of all, you ask yourself this question :  What kind of industry the domain of your job is ?  That is, what do you do for a living ?  Could you benefit in any ways by engaging in a, – or several, social networks ?

Now, I am going to assume that the readers of this blog are surely familiar with the concept of social networks.  At the risk of being redundant, let it be said once again that in short, social network is the place where you socialize online, – being a network where there are interactive communications, mostly almost instantly delivered, thanks to the increasingly popular AJAX-based sites.  The most famous of them include some well-known names like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

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Going back to our question, I believe that there are business fields where you don’t exactly need to do some serious social networking.  For example, a plumber will need to dedicate his free time more in increasing his knowledge of his trade, rather than replying to some conversation threads in Plurk.  Or a London taxi driver will risk tarnishing a well-known legend if he spends his time in front of the computer instead of studying the streets of London until he knows it like the back of this hand.  Still, I am also of the opinion that even these kind of professions may gain a useful thing or two if they can dedicate a little bit of their time to socialize online.  Who knows, maybe our taxi driver may got a much newer and complete version of London map from his online contact.  The key is, knowing how much time do you need to spend, and act accordingly…

On the other hand, there are some professionals who absolutely need to be a member of some ( if not most of the ) social networks.  An obvious example would be web developers, programmers and writers.  Being a writer, I could tell from first-hand experience that you are only as good as your published works are.  These days, the fastest and simplest way to build your credibility is by publishing your work online.  If you’re good at what you do, people will recognize your worth and start bringing some projects in.  In this context, social networking helps by bringing a badly-needed traffic to your blog, – which is the place where you mainly write.

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So I hope it’s obvious by now that the question of how much should you engage in social networking will depend on how much your job need it.  This is not to say that it’s the only thing you should consider, though.  Blogger Deb of freelancewritinggigs.com publish some excellent criteria on this issue, which you can read here.

All in all, I believe that this is the main reason of social networking exists :  to help people gain edge in what they do.  Do so if it’s part of your job, but do yourself a favor and avoid the trap of idleness which almost always happen when a person is addicted to social networking….

sendokgarpu.com

I congratulate sendokgarpu for its achievement in Bubu Web Competition and also its new framework and design. Especially on design, personally I found it stunning.

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Web Hosting business process nature is the easiest way to understand the concept of web services. The main concern is operation. The advance model of web services we can look up to internet big boys like google, yahoo and amazon.

Now, we are challenged to get as much user as possible… just in three months, hopefully about hundred thousand users should registered to our portal… what we can do to answer that when we had almost nothing but joomla comprehension and a fair knowledge of PHP?

What reason to challenge ourself?
The challenge itself is a strategy to win the internet competition in Indonesia… and of course starting to feel worldwide competition.

Why three month?
Speed is crucial to win when it all about momentum and trend.

Why hundred thousand registered users?
This is what we called capitalization of our business. Remember in this business and most of market capitalization model, customer is the most valuable asset. Big brands always represent big (quality and or quantity) customer as their asset. We have learned, now we show work result.

Why web services?
Simply leverage our competency from development into the whole business and face the biggest customer ever, the consumer.

Where to start?
- compelling concept
- simple web services (web hosting/application service provider) operation model
- development competency improvement (scripts, databases, and user interface)
- advance internet and massive marketing

detail of developing web services infrastructure (production) will be available in later post

▶ ❑ ballfreak.com
main concept: a social networking and blog tools for football fans around the world they could share more efficient

Into web services framework:

• Development Model
• Operation
• Business and Marketing Model
• Marketing Operation

Development 2.0
(a proposal for a discussion with Ardy, Andi sama, CenCen, Rizky and Catur). BOP (Bottom of Pyramid) Principle applied in web technology. Web Services go to consumer.
is about how to build today’s web services platform
- original concept then up to customer (user)
- database structure again and again
- visual imagination modeling
- perpetual beta
- always platform with user space on it
- should be the easiest as possible to set up and use
- explore the live navigation possibilities
- system scalability design

Services Operation:
- Server – network performance maintenance and administration
- Statistic Production
- Technical Support
- Perpetual Activation
- Vendor, Agency, Partner management
- general administration

Business and Marketing Model
- paid services –>> Revenue from specific user
- free services –>> Revenue from ad agency and direct client

A. Paid Services:
- Define distinguished services (comparative and competitive)
- Define Charging Model
- Define Specific User segment that will charged (market)
- Define Financial Projection including Monthly BEP
- Evaluation and back to top

B. free Service:
- Define distinguished services that drive user to
- Define Products (sponsored links, banners, channel etc)
- Define Segmented Client
- Select Agency Partners
- Define charging model combination (best for BEP) through statistic data optimization

Marketing Operation
- Maintain best statistic feed
- Evaluate trends through creative queries (geo-segment, behavior, etc)
- Promotion: 80% internet and 20% other
- Sales: 65% online and 35% offline (direct marketing)
- Creative Presentation Updates (Marketing Kit)
- Business Development: Partnership and New Product/Services
- Customer relationship Management
- General administration