Simplify, and Get the Most of Your Life Online

We are well into the information age. If you are not yet the interactive type, then you are missing quite a lot. If you are the tech savvy one, then you know that life can be chaotic on and offline.

We all can get obsessive compulsive about collecting and keeping information. It would be well to manage them so they take less of our time and are easier to keep track of. Besides, organizing activities online can be very helpful for business people and professionals on the go. You not only save time that you can devote back to work or other personal commitments, you are likewise kept tuned in to information relevant to you from throughout the globe, as they unfold.

These social media networks channelled correctly can be a valuable tool for marketing or personal branding in the case of today’s professional. But used indiscriminately may cost you valuable time from your work day. As a busy professional consider how much time you’re putting into Social Media and what you’re getting out of it.

Here are some hot tips to simplify your digital life:

• Make your own homepage. A personalized homepage as alternative to traditional web portals can be a great help. There is Netvibes which lets you assemble your favorite websites, blogs, e mail accounts, social networks, search engines, IMs, photos, videos, podcast, you name it. All in one place.
• If you are more often on Yahoo, you can use My Yahoo, or if you love Google, then you can set up an iGoogle. So easy to do, just type in to your searchbar, follow instructions and sign up.
• Subscribe to RSS feeds. Your RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader program gives you a one-stop place to visit all of the sites that you think are important on the Internet. You follow a site by subscribing to its RSS feed. Instead of using your bookmarks to visit the site you use your RSS reader to keep track of new content.
• For organizing photos, you may use Flckr or Picasa, you can choose only the photos you really want to keep.
• Delete softwares you don’t actually use, it is just taking up space on your hard drive. Software often installs services that run in the background even though you aren’t using it — uninstalling software can make your computer run faster as it frees up memory.
• Unsubscribe from automated emails you don’t read. You can try Gmail which has super-fast search. Delete e mails you are not likely to read again or have need of, or not going to want to re-experience. They’ll be in the trash for 30 days if you change your mind. Use filters and labels to track emails that aren’t urgent.
• Do you twitter? The strength of Twitter is that it is a mesh network of people who find each other interesting. Unfollow people who you don’t have two-way communication with, especially if they’re too prolific.Subscribe to your @replies feed using another service so you don’t miss people communicating with you. Block people who are spamming your @replies.
• Have you signed u p for Facebook yet? It is an essential site not to be missed if you want to be the professional in the stream of things.

Time has come up with a list of 10 essential Sites dubbed Sites We can’t live without and they are as follows:

1. Wikipedia.org
2. Yahoo! Finance
3. Craigslist
4. ESPN
5. Yelp
6. Facebook
7. Digg
8. Google
9. TMZ
10. Flickr

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New Global Media: A Woman’s World?

Remember the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? It’s that popular book written by John Gray in the early ‘90’s offering theories as to how men and women are so differently wired, and how their communication style and emotional needs are poles apart that it would need an understanding of these essential differences for them to co-exist. As the title asserts, men and women are as different as beings from other planets.

An example of the basic theories in the book is that “ women complain about problems because they want their problems to be acknowledged, while men complain about problems because they are asking for solutions.” Coming from different places, right? Other concepts are about the difference between women and men’s point systems and how they react under stress.

This metaphor seem to still inspire some new phenomenon in the participation of men and women in today’s interconnected world. We found some interesting insights in the NYmieg blog of Bill Sobel,

Founded and organized in June 2006, NY:MIEG (The New York Media Information Exchange Group) brings together media, entertainment and financial professionals who meet monthly in New York City to explore ideas and offer wisdom on the profound changes that are forever changing the industry. NY: MIEG provides a forum for continuing education for all professionals who work with media. Bill Sobel seems however very observant of the phenomenal rise of women in positions of influence in media, particularly the new global media.

Bill cited an article from the blog called Summation drawing a Venus-Mars like metaphor for today’s interconnected world: Men are from Video Games, Women are from Social Networks.

Does it come as any shock that even on their online life they are beings from two different planets?

Some interesting insights from the Rafleaf study

• Rapleaf conducted a study of 13.2 million people and how they are using social media. While the trends among the sexes indicate they are both massively using social media, women are far outpacing men.
• For those under 30, women and men are just as likely to be members of social networks. Sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Flixster are extraordinarily popular.
• For those above 30, men – especially married men – aren’t even joining social networks.. With the notable exception of LinkedIn usage
• Women are are joining social networks in droves. In fact, women between the ages 35-50 are the fastest growing segment on social networks, especially on MySpace and Facebook.
• It may be gleaned from the study results that men’s time online comes from spending hours playing video games such as World of Warcraft and many first-person action games. Men also dominate LinkedIn – the most transactional social network (with the exception of AdultFriendFinder). LinkedIn is all about getting information and introductions now.
• Women, on the other, hand are much more relationship driven and less transactional than men. They spend more time on social networks building relationships, communicating with friends, making new friends, and more. Married women put up pictures of their immediate family on social networks and use their social network profile as a family home page to share with friends and relatives.

With all these, trends can possibly be gleaned in the direction that we’re witnessing a burgeoning gender gap.Therefore, they say if you are creating a new Web 2.0 site and you want to go viral, you target women. Women drive virality and so all the new innovations currently on the net are mostly targeted towards them.

Do I hear any objections?

Upcoming: Ad:tech Singapore, Social Networks and Doing Business in the 21st Century

Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo SVP for Communication keynotes Ad:tech Singapore

It’s about time. In Singapore, we need this high level trend overview for businessmen, PR strategists, leaders and marketers: What ’s all the rage about social networks? Why is the Internet and a new wave of Web applications called social media been so readily embraced by this generation and spawned a culture of participation ?

In today’s Web environment, consumers can get overwhelmed by the information overload and the noise generated by a proliferation of social networks. Marketing executives, agencies, and publishers are all finding it a struggle to target their messages to consumers within these environments. And yet, this is where their consumers are spending their time.

These social media networks are communities of real people existing in the real or offline world. They are the foundation of the web as the top ten websites are social networks . Studies show more messages are being sent between people inside social networks than on emails. It is worth a business’ time and money to learn how to find market opportunities in these networks.These sites are networked relationships of families and peers and other like-minded people. These are relationships based on mutual trust which is a pillar of every relationship. Facebook, YouTube, Linked In, MySpace,Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Sphinn, Delicious, Reddit, Propeller, Xing, Forums, along with over four million blogs, the list goes on. And so we ask, if companies are generally less trusted than peers, does that mean they have no place in the networked culture? Will these companies then be left out? They will be, if they do not become part of the on-going conversations and an authentic member of these communities. Just look who is keeping pace, go check out Barack Obama’s Twitter.

Take for instance the blogs. The Guardian writes how bloggers win on timeliness, accuracy, relevance, effort, ethics. If your company’s idea of being on the web is having no more than a website, you better consider carefully if yours is the kind of business that can afford to do so. Or you better take it from companies such as Coca-Cola, Marriott and Kodak who have recently opted to tell their stories and engage consumers in official blogs. There is Dell’s Lionel Menchaca and LinkedIn’s Mario Sundar as examples of personalities online who are positively affecting a brand. There is vice chairman Bob Lutz on General Motors’ FastLane Blog and surely need to check out this blogging CEO Jonathan Schwartz on Sun Microsystems.

To begin to get involved and target your own participation in the web world, we enjoin you not to miss out on this conference: Ad:tech comes to Singapore this June 26 & 27 at the Suntec City Convention Center. For several years adt:ech has been a top event 11 cities across 7 countries. The conference brings together brand advertisers, traditional & interactive agencies, portals, on-line publishers and technology providers. With the rapid growth in technology and use of digital media, ad:tech offers an unrivalled opportunity to discover new practices and technologies, and to learn how optimizing use of these tools can pump-prime your company’s performance. It will be keynoted by Brad Garlinghouse, Senior Vice President for Communications and Communities at Yahoo.

Join Brad Garlinghouse as he looks at how people are using social networks and the value they bring to the consumer. He will discuss the business of social networks and how marketers, agencies and publishers can take part in the phenomenon and provide dialogue that engages users and ultimately their messaging. This is a Keynote so relevant for those who want to be on the cutting edge of the new global media teachnologies. Check here for more on ad:tech Singapore.

Book this conference direct and hassle-free by heading on the Conference Bay site. At Conference Bay we are committed to creating a delightful conference experience for you and your colleagues.You may register directly on our site as a regular conference delegate. Plus, you have the option to name the price you are willing to pay for this conference by using our online bidding tool. Check out the smart, new way that takes the sting out of finding and bocking conferences. And save yourself a significant amount off your next conference seat. Note that you will be treated same as a regular paying delegate, the discount you gain does not detract at all from your conference experience. Have fun at Ad:tech !