Will Google Give Skype A Run For Their Money?

Job Folbert — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:56:31 +0000

You probably have a Skype subscription or use some other VoiP (Voice Over IP) service. Now you have another alternative:Google Voice For GMail and Google Chat!It may very well be that this step by Google is a sign that the VoiP market for consumers is now maturing and will replace the landline and mobile infrastructures in the next few years. More cheap VoiP devices will be developed and cost of usage may be lowered even more dramatically. This will give home users and small businesses similar opportunities as have been around in the corporate market for years.Is it time to ditch your landline? Maybe (not). Learn more...

Why Google Wave failed / Alternatives

Job Folbert — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:02:39 +0000

The problem with Google Wave is not so much on the technological side as it is in the distribution model.This month Google said it will drop the experimental service Google Wave."Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked," said Google senior vice president Urs Holzle in a blog post.Clearly Google Wave offers a promising combination of technologies, allowing you to chat, share, bookmark and collaborate in all kinds of other ways in a single stream of activity.Had Google taken a more open approach to the product's introduction with many more third party plugins and options, more along the lines of Twitter's business model, I think the product might have been a success.

Free Social Media Monitoring Tools

Job Folbert — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:52:10 +0000

Googling the term you're after is just not enough. If you want to know where you stand in terms of brand awareness compared to the competition, you'd better have some tools to make it easier for you.Find some in depth search tools in this article. Multi-site trackers, tools to measure Twitter and Facebook activity as well as tools for bloggers. Learn more about them and try them yourself: they're all free.

Yoono: Great Monitoring And Multi-Posting Tools

Job Folbert — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:04:49 +0000

Yoono offers some great tools to stay upto date and know what your friends are upto on several social sites and IM's. It also gives you a powerful capability to multi-post updates to these platforms. There is a desktop app, a browser addon and an IPhone app available. It's a free service so give it a try.

Digg’s Recent Overhaul And Your Content

Job Folbert — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:24:15 +0000

Digg have recently updated their site with some great new functionality, making it a more complete platform. All of this is great ofcourse but unfortunately it seems they have discontinued the Diggs/History of Digg members.

Social Media: Ultra Short Reviews Part III

Job Folbert — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:05:21 +0000

With so many Social Media out there: create accounts for the right reasons. These twelve ultra short reviews give you the main capabilities and drawbacks of each site in a few sentences each and links to an instant network and relevant tools.Part III in a series.

Social Media: Ultra Short Reviews Part II

Job Folbert — Wed, 26 May 2010 10:35:12 +0000

Social Media: Ultra Short Reviews

Job Folbert — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:46:32 +0000

In this post you'll find a dozen very short reviews of Social Media networks and tools: their advantages over other networks and capabilities that you may be looking for. You can immediately see an example of this by following the links in each review. If you are looking for an instant network on each site: feel free to join our groups on each of them to find other Social Media Explorers.

Your Business Blog: WordPress.com or WordPress.org?

Job Folbert — Tue, 18 May 2010 11:01:01 +0000

Having a company blog makes a lot of sense. Wordpress.com offers a lot of value for a free blogging service but as soon as you need any functionality beyond the considerable free resources to give your blog some professional appeal, you have to pay a fee or there are limitations in place.Installing Wordpress.org is a simple process which only takes a few minutes. Adding functionality and customizing can be quite time-consuming. There are some implications to choices you make during the process which you may not anticipate. This blog could be of help to you to make the right decision between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org.

Don’t Agonize: Socialize! Social Media Effectiveness

Job Folbert — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:17:24 +0000

Networking is supposed to be fun but with the growing number of Social Networks and profiles we have to keep up to date, the commercialization of platforms and the huge amounts of spam and other uninteresting or even damaging crap we are bombarded with: is it still...fun? By taking control of our online data and having access to it in a single place we could:

Work more effectively and more organized

See the true commercial potential of our network and benefit from it

Have more fun networking because we have more time to socialize instead of agonize

Enhanced Social Media Experience With Browser Flock

Job Folbert — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 22:52:01 +0000

Since we all spend so much time using and enjoying Social Media, I would like to give those of you that haven't seen it yet a tip: www.flock.com has enhanced it's browser for optimum social media usage.

Ping: A Minutes’ Work, A World Of Traffic!

Job Folbert — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 21:03:04 +0000

Blogging can be a very fulfilling activity: but what's the point of laughing out loud at our own wit when no one else reads them? The sad reality of many blogs is that they are not read at all. So much for your hard work... Now SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an industry for a reason: it's too boring and complicated for anyone to be interested in pursuing it seriously except SEO experts and nerds. So let's look for a quick and easy fix for mere mortals!

It All Comes down To Ballistics

Job Folbert — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:59:57 +0000

Trying to combine Business and Social Media can feel like a slippery slide as mixing friendship and business holds some risks: nobody wants to risk a friendship for a crappy product and nobody wants to offend their friends by saying no to them. So: what if we could reduce this risk? What would it take to make this risk into a negligable calculated risk? Basically it all comes down to ballistics...

Widgets: Let’s Go Viral!

Job Folbert — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:57:03 +0000

Widgets can be an excellent way to create some attention online for yourself, your site, your products or your services. Even if you're not a skilled programmer or otherwise gifted nerd or guru of the web, widgets can help you get your message across because they are spread by others creating a viral distribution. But where can you find easy and effective tools to create and distribute them? Here are some examples we made with a great service that could have you create effective widgets in no time at all. Not inspired? Check out the hundreds of widgets on our free network...

Social Media Obstacles

Job Folbert — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:39:30 +0000

Internet in general and Social Media in particular hold the promise of a sense of frictionless and effortless movement through a world without obstacles between you and your success: but are they? Here are some easy shortcuts to avoid financial, social and technological obstacles and turn them to your advantage.

Micro-Blogging with Google: Create a Buzz!

Job Folbert — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:32:10 +0000

Facebook's versatile micro-blogging service FriendFeed and Twitter's trendsetting service have put micro-blogging in the forefront of the Titanic struggle for domination of the internet by some of the largest Social Media sites. But what does Google bring to the table when it comes to Micro-Blogging? Buzz...

Social Media: Something From Nothing!

Job Folbert — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:08:43 +0000

If ever there was a great metaphor for Social Media this must be it: we each contribute something to a seemingly random structure of words, thoughts, code, images and before you know it we've created something from nothing: solid ground to stand on and in our case do actual business on.

Free Network Alternatives

Job Folbert — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:05:26 +0000

With these five alternatives you can prevent the cost of your Social Media usage to spiral out of control. Wether you are looking for ways to create a powerful online presence that you host yourself, are interested in making new business friends or are looking for ways to monetize your online presence: this blogpost offers a number of viable alternatives to suit your needs.

Social Media Opportunity!

Job Folbert — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:57:47 +0000

A network for professional networkers and networking professionals can't go without tools and opportunities to utilize these tools both to make the experience of Social Media more effective and more pleasurable and to do business on a level that suits your needs. These are three such opportunities revolving around tools that unite business and social media.

Science Of The Retweet

Job Folbert — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:50:52 +0000

The surprisingly intricate Science of The Retweet may give you some new ideas on how to utilize Twitter and Twitter search as a resource for your business.Find out about the best URL shorteners, keywords and other statistics on the best ways to attract attention with your tweets and how you can influence the likelyhood that you are being retweeted.

Liberate Yourself From Office Hassle!

Job Folbert — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:07:13 +0000

Executives all over the world are inundated with an endless stream of information. Digital files, hard copy documents, pictures and videos are constantly coming in or out of an office. Collecting, organizing, archiving and retrieving such information is becoming a common challenge, especially, when critical and immediate decisions have to be made. Solutions...

Managing Your Presence On Many Social Media: A Problem? Not at All!

Job Folbert — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 14:00:20 +0000

Managing Your Presence On Many Social Media: A Problem? Not at All! Lately I have seen messages of people on all kinds of networks saying they can't manage their presence on all those networks anymore and are leaving some of them because they simply can't manage it anymore.You can save a lot of time networking if you do it a certain way: the easy way! Five tools to save time networking while maintaining an effective presence on a large number of Social Media.

Social Media Trends

Job Folbert — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:32:58 +0000

What can ordinary small business people learn about the adoption of social media for business purposes from trends in the social media markets such as the recent purchase of FriendFeed by Facebook and the rise of Twitter?

Online Office Collaboration for members

Job Folbert — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:27:02 +0000

The HOB.Biz now has it's own Online Office Collaboration Space where you can edit and share many kinds of documents and even websites. All of these capabilities are fully integrated with MS Office environment and you can edit and store the documents from within MS Word, Excel etc. It's called The HOB Networker PRO Silver Edition and is part of a series of solutions for professional networkers as well as networking professionals.

Instant Network Principle

Job Folbert — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:21:47 +0000

Our "Instant Network" principle might be of significance to your own networking efforts: The principle is best encaptured in the My Social Media page. On this page you can choose an activity or subject on the basis of which you can make a selection in a large number of internet clubs and social media which you can log into directly. But that's not all: each of the social media has (or will have) a companion Social Media Club in The HOB.Biz as well as The House Of Business or The HOB.Biz facilities on the network itself. This not only means that we have about twice as many members: it also makes it excessively easy to find a network of people you know wherever you go and instantly be in the know about how to best use and benefit from networks, social media and internet-clubs,and other insider information!

The Magic Word: Web3.0

Job Folbert — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:02:30 +0000

In business school one of the most iconic examples of the failure of a technologically superior product at the hand of a technologically inferior product cited is that of the Philips Video 2000 facing Sony’s VHS system. The reason cited: that Sony was smart enough to make sure thousands of video’s were available for it’s inferior system where Philips paid less attention to distribution and more to technological development. Consequently the VHS system reigned for a decade and the Video 2000 withered away. The one system starts from a top down engineer’s mindset, the other from a bottom up user interest approach. Similarly social media generate huge amounts of content: to each his own, where websites who don’t cater for user interaction have less content and fail to cater to each individual’s taste.

Where we are…Everywhere

Job Folbert — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:57:00 +0000

At The HOB we are always innovating: integrating new ways to leverage Social Media for Business, adding new applications and amassing a vast amount of business know how with an excellent group of professionals and business owners. Learn more...

Our Blog…Your Blog!

Job Folbert — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:40:33 +0000

Welcome to The HOB Blog! The House Of Business (The HOB) is your Indispensable Business Development Resource! The main purpose of this blog will be to explore the subjects that interest us most of all: the connection between Social Media, business and how to deal with them effectively and hopefully in an original manner. You'll be able to find and access many of the fascinating blogs of our Residents, Associates, Trustees and Ambassadors from this platform. If you are in our network yourself, you've just found a new way to let the world know about your own blog! You can visit our site at: http://www.thehob.biz to join our network and use these reources and services free of charge.

The King Of All Eskimos

Job Folbert — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:06:03 +0000

Every sales person could tell you that a client gives of signals and that those who know how to play into them could sell a refrigerator to an eskimo. But: do you really want to sell fridges to eskimos? Wouldn't you rather control which precise audiences you target? A well defined target audience could be the solid basis of your organization's success. But it doesn't stop there...What about Social Media?

The Crisis & Customer Centricity

Job Folbert — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:51:45 +0000

Customer Focus: solution or problem in times of crisis. As organizations brace themselves in economically hard times it seems a good moment to evaluate the benefits and risks of the Customer Centric machinery they have put- or have neglected to put into place: What is the potential of a Customer Focus approach in times of crisis: what risks are involved. Which measures and values should we adopt to make such a strategy pan out under the current conditions? Versatilty, flexibility and originality appear to be at the basis of some striking and inspiring successes even in an economic crisis.