There has been a lot of hesitation lately regarding the evils of Facebook. Some argue they sell our private information. Some argue the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is some kind of monster-in-training. There’s even a movie about it. Whether or not Facebook is nefarious, the way it handles our private information has begun to ruffle some weathers. So what now?

Well this is the Internet. When some “infallible” institution, um, fails us, we move on to something better. Remember Facebook? Myspace? We used to use these in droves. Now Facebook is the go-to destination but this may not always be the case. Enter Diaspora.

Diaspora is a social network unlike any other. It’s currently being developed by four students of New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences with a consumer alpha scheduled for October of this year. So, what is it and how does it work?

Simply put, Diaspora is a social network that puts privacy controls absolutely in the hands of the user. There will be no outsourcing of information. No other websites will automatically know when you “like” something due to some backroom content-sharing deal. It makes the user the master of their own destiny. How does this work?

First of all, it’s completely open source. Betas have already been made available to would-be programmers and content developers. When money is (somewhat) taken out of the equation then the worry of privacy snatching somewhat diminishes as well.

The website has been described as a “network that allows everyone to install their own “seed” — i.e. a personal web server with a user’s photos, videos and everything else — within the larger network. That seed would be fully owned and controlled by the user, so the user could share anything and still maintain ownership over it”. (Mashable.com).

In addition to the revamped ideas of privacy, the service is going to offer some other notable functions. It will set up secure servers for sharing of multimedia files between contacts. It will also feature Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) integration. It will also feature it’s own instant messaging service, akin to Facebook chat.

Although the site is not live yet, the developers have been having their string of good luck. The press has been coming hard and fast and they started a fundraising site in order to raise $10,000 to help with developing costs. In mere days they had raised twenty times that, their final amount clocking in at more than $200,000. Certainly the idea has struck a nerve. Oddly, even Mark Zuckerberg himself donated, calling it a “cool idea.”

So let’s keep a lookout for October 2010, when the alpha becomes available to consumers. Also, let’s press on our favorite current sites, like Facebook, to implement some of these ideas into their UI. Let’s keep privacy, um, private. Once again.

More information on Diaspora can be found here.

Twitter was hacked today when a new security flaw was discovered which exploited thousands of Twitter accounts and caused users to be redirected to third party websites.

The security flaw only required users to hover over an offending link, no clickthrough was necessary. The flaw used a JavaScript function called onMouseOver which creates an event when the mouse is passed over text.

A hacker named ‘Matsta’ was found to be the one who originally initiated the hack.  The hack spread throughout twitter as users would only have to hover over a black box of text at which point the black box of text would then automatically retweet on your account.

Below is a snapshot of how the hack appeared in users timelines:

Real viruses evolve, and this Twitter hack was no different, the code changed as the hours passed and the epidemic spread – albeit with the help of people modifying the hack vs simple mutation. New variants appeared, exploring ways to increase the virulence of the code, making it more disruptive and contagious.

Twitter was finally able to correct the situation at around 11:45 EST today. Twitter Got Hacked is now a trending topic on Twitter.

Interesting note about worms: The self-replicating code of the Twitter hack is known as a worm, but in biological terms it behaved just like a virus.

Social media. The world is flipping out over it. It’s easy to see why. Social media represents an easy and instant way for companies to interact with a customer base on the fly. Social media doesn’t only connect companies with current customers, however. It also connects companies with potential customers. This is perhaps even more important.

Not all comes up roses in Tweetland though. There are several unsettling problems arising with social media that questions it’s validity as an enhancer of business-related profit.

So what’s the deal?

The enthusiasm for social media (and especially Twitter) is stronger than ever. However, that enthusiasm is dampened a bit by one uncomfortable fact: It’s become nearly impossible to measure the success of social media. Sure, each platform features it’s own set of metrics. Twitter has followers. Facebook has fans etc. But without something external to tie it to, those are jus high scores in the social media video game. What does it mean for you and your business? Being popular is certainly great for companies, but it doesn’t always translate into profit. So what is the benefit?

The B-word

Of course, the default answer always comes down to “branding.” Branding. That most ephemeral of concepts that, along with “engagement,” is always listed as the main benefit of the Internet age. However, branding is often just a distraction. No real results to report? Let’s just talk about how your brand is “improving.” Pretty soon your company’s logo will be like the Rolling Stones lips, right? No matter what you think branding is, you have to find a way to measure it. Here are just a few possibilities:

- Direct brand mentions

- Links with brand-related anchor text

- Branded search volume

As long as you have some kind of a number, you can calculate some kind of ROI.

Target a Response

We have all become guinea pigs. We are all learning how we go, trying to figure out how to use Twitter and Facebook to drive real business value. There’s the direct response approach, of course. But why not target it a bit? Put out a special offer through social media channels, and you can measure the response. When you can measure something, you can get close to an accurate ROI.

Take a cue from the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas. Their head of marketing has delved into another aspect of social media. Their employees monitor Twitter to spot dissatisfied hotel guests, then send off staff to fix the problem. Then they had back on to Twitter to try to measure the response. How many problems did they intercept? How many were they able to solve? What does solving one customer’s problem equal in real dollars? These questions can now be answered and with that comes an approximation of real value.

Find a Comparison

Lee Odden once told me an anecdote regarding his company. He said the company drives about 15-20 major media mentions per month from social media. He estimates that this equates to paying a PR firm $10,000/month. These are not traditional metrics but they sure do help to drive a point home. Social media, when used effectively, can replace the need for professional PR.

Just Measure It

What’s to be afraid of? It’s just social media ROI. It won’t bite. Well, not literally anyways. Stop making excuses, stop mumbling about branding, and find a way to quantify social media success in real dollars. You’ll be glad you did.

Anecdotes are great. You’ll get no arguments here. Still, when you are trying to drive the conversation with your customers, you are going to want to focus more on actual experience, and less on a set of messages.

You want to build a business that works with the flow of social content. Not against it. You want to drive positive conversations. This requires an organizational model and business intelligence process that connects “inside” with “outside.” Outside are many places where consumers come in contact with your brand, product or service.  This can happen in just about any way imaginable, be it billboard, message board posting, or an interaction with a customer service representative. Web strategist Jeremiah Owyang stressed this shift toward recognizing the new role of actual experiences when he said, “Marketing has spread beyond awareness and lead generation — support IS marketing.”

Consider the oft-neglected role of the customer service representative. This employee works in the reception division of your business. They should follow good practice of keeping track of current and past customers.  This includes memories of conversations, purchase histories, warranty claims and more. They should illustrate this knowledge whenever possible. Remember, support IS marketing.

On the Internet, support starts by taking an interest and actively listening to what customers have to say of the formal CRM channels. The trick isn’t to gather data, rather to create an aura of listening. There are tools to help you do just that. Nathan Gilliatt reviews 30-plus tools, all of which do a respectable job of bringing back snippets of conversations in an embedded business context.

These new tools go beyond basic listening and manage to create a new approach. This is called social CRM. In early 2008, Brent Leary wrote a short post about social CRM: “[It] means creating a customer profile that helps us identify key pieces of information, helping to determine good customers from bad ones.” With a bit of hard work, you can get the information you need. Hey, being an innovator is never easy.

Salesforce.com customers are in for a treat as their social Web experience is being completely overhauled thanks to a series of applications. There’s Radian6, a social media monitoring tool and Lithium, an enterprise social CRM solutions provider. Expect to see usage of these applications start to grow as businesses begin to draft new customer service policies.

Then there’s Techrigy’s SM2 platform. It has CSV export capabilities, a robust API the ability to easily take results out of the core listening tool for extended analysis. For example, you can use the result set to create a specific list of influencers that pertain to your particular favored topics. With this, you can build a more cost-effective blogger outreach program. As a bonus, it will be organically grown.

Take a look at BuzzStream, too. Buzzstream is an interesting application. It is to CRM what Posterous is to blogging. It’s simple, fast and extremely low cost. Actually, it starts at free. Oh yeah, it also works. May as well mention that. It runs on the Amazon cloud services platform and offers concentrated listening with a complete user database. It’s easy to scroll through your results and pick out particular things of interest. It can find any Twitter mention of any keyphrase you are looking for, and that’s the start of what is on offer here. It’s a neat little tool.

It doesn’t matter which tool you choose, but choose something. The time is now. CRM is advancing, and along with it, your customers.  You do not want to get left in the cold, cold Internet. All by your lonesome.

Now it’s one thing to suggest employees get involved with social business and social customer relationship management. The specific actions and steps to put design into practice ultimately drive business success.

How does your company deliver the kind of exemplary service that sets your brand apart from the pack? First of all, be clear and succinct as to why your business even exists. Don’t let people wonder. Whether you’re a manager or an executive officer, a small business or Fortune 500, that remains one of the most important goals of customer interaction.

If you have yet to focus on this, take a cue from Roy Spence’s “It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For” and do this. Now. Clarity of purpose is the touchstone to end all touchstones.

Jeanne Bliss’s opens her fantastic new book “I Love You More Than My Dog,” with a simple and cogent thought: “Show your customers you deserve their business by deciding how you will run yours.” Adding further chutzpah  is Colleen Barrett’s foreword. Barrett, having risen through the ranks at Southwest Airlines, now serves as president emeritus. As most of their loyal customers know, Southwest is a company that knows a thing or two about what we are discussing here today.

However, simply having the purpose is not quite enough. You have to deliver on it as well. Management and business process design deliver some key insights here.

Purpose is a rallying cry that will bring your employees together. This way, every employee knows their place and their individual purpose. Your business will thank you.

When a firm decides to organize around employees and customers to deliver exceptional experiences, the results can be nothing but favorable. Bliss put it this way: “Beloved companies are clear about their purpose in supporting customers’ lives. They use this clarity when they make decisions to make sure that they align to this purpose.”

This, in turn, creates the kinds favorable conversations about your company or brand appear all over the web. The company Intuit knows this, and proceeds accordingly. 81 percent of their sales are driven via word of mouth. That’s an astounding number. Think of the money Intuit saves on advertising. That alone is enough to warrant interest.

Companies that enjoy these benefits obviously have a well thought out management policy. Ted Shelton, CEO of The Conversation Group, published a whitepaper on “open management,” a management model with the objective of transforming policies, philosophies, and the organizational model to support and encourage creativity and collaboration from every employee.

The combination of what Bliss, Shelton, and people like David Armano are talking about is a competitive advantage across the full spectrum of your business. Shelton takes it to the practical level, citing Google as an example.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt noted in an interview for Management Lab, that “smart people want to work with smart people and they want to be informed.” The challenge is, of course, the anything goes mentality of the web is in distinct opposition to the old ways of doing things. How do you get past this?

Take a look at how successful companies win in the marketplace. Consider Best Buy and Circuit City. Prior to Circuit City’s 2008 bankruptcy, these were the two leading retailers of consumer electronics. Divergent fates indeed. One thing Circuit City did that ended up being a mistake was to save money by firing expensive employees. Best Buy took the exact opposite approach.

Best Buy had several reward systems in place to let employees, expensive and otherwise, know they were doing a good job. Beginning with “Blue Shirt Nation,” Best Buy has integrated a suite of social and knowledge management technologies. Blue Shirt Nation itself is now an engine for innovation within Best Buy.

This can be felt across the board. Generally, their employees act competently and can answer questions accordingly. People, after all, want to feel good about where they work and what they do.

What technologies can be used internally to reach these objectives? The Conversation Group’s whitepaper lists them all, but here are some that have potential internal use:

• Innovation and community platforms, like Jive social business software and Cyn.in group collaboration software.
• Ideation tools, like Salesforce.com, Lithium’s Ideas, or YouSuggest.us.
• Internal blogs, Twitter, and Yammer, enabling communications with customers.
• Listening and social CRM platforms to collate data and insights from the social Web.

Taking these steps are sure to increase revenue across all facets of your business. The benefits don’t stop at the sale register, either: The cost of employee turnover is a concern for any business, especially so for grocers and retailers. Again from Bliss’s book: “Wegmans’ annual employee turnover is 6%, against the grocery store average of 19%.” That is a direct, measurable competitive advantage.

Getting it done

Here are three steps to help you get the ball rolling with this stuff.

1. Define your purpose, and communicate it internally. Start by developing a knowledge community, connecting the people who need information with the people who have information. These people could even be outside of your organization.
2. Invite your customers in. Consider the ideation platforms, external-facing blogs, and contained communities like those offered by Communispace or Passenger. As Sam Walton said, in the halcyon days before Web 2.0, “If you have questions, go to the store. Your customers have the answers.”
3. Find and engage the influencers that drive conversations. Using tools like Techrigy’s SM2, Radian6 + Salesforce, or BuzzStream go beyond trends, identify the sources of the conversations and develop an actual relationship with your customers. Measure everything and try to tie everything together.

Social media is an important new factor in the business world. A lot of people thought it would go the way of the dodo, become a tired old fad. So far, it has not. So we have to face facts, social media is here to stay. You and your business should get involved if you aren’t already. If you are already, you need to step up your game a bit. In this new always connected world, it’s the social bird that gets the worm.

But how to kick start your social media platform into place? There are number of ways. Below are three helpful tips that should get your company into starting position:

Active Listening

First and foremost, you have to listen to what people are saying about your company. I don’t mean monitoring, spying or something. No, actually listen. Rohit Bhargava makes this point and refers to it as “active” listening: Don’t just track a conversation in which your company is the subject, rather engage with it mentally and think about how it actually relates to the various organizations within your company.

So, it comes as no surprise that the first step on your social media agenda is to install a listening platform. Techrigy, Radian 6, Cymfony, and Collective Intellect all offer easy-to-implement solutions with core features like conversational analysis, trending, and workflow (allowing you to automatically send a post that references a defective product to your warranty services manager.) Taken together, these features really help to make your life easier.

Business Objectives and Audience Profile

Number two on your “get going” list comes from the beautiful minds of Groundswell: Get some clarity about your business objectives. What is it you are trying to accomplish anyways? If you can’t answer that question quickly and succinctly, then you have some thinking to do.

Once you have your business objectives cleared up, you can really start to get your audience’s attention. You can finally get a grasp on what social media is and what you hope to attain from it. Very few people have a concrete grasp on this. They hope to just stumble upon a million followers somewhere like Tila Tequila or something. That’s, usually, not how it works. Just start with your business objectives and people will come to you.

One of the best ways to get a handle on what social media is and how it can help you is Forrester’s Profile. This tool gives a nod to the idea of collective thought. The profiler gives data away for free. Everything that has been collected, via various businesses and their experience with social media, is available here. Once you use it, you also submit your own information, thus making the widest pool available. It really is a neat idea. Check out the Profiler.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a Blog

Now that your business objectives are defined and you have a grasp on what to expect, let’s wade into the world of social networking. Look through the following list, then pick one and give it a try:

Facebook. Facebook gives you access to, well, just about everyone. The social networking site certainly has blown up over the past few years. With so many people available, it’s all about who you target and how. Facebook offers Business Pages, complete with viewership stats via the Insights data available to Business Page admins. You can embed Facebook applications in your business page, and you can drive traffic to it since it can be viewed, but not interacted with, by non-members of Facebook. This is the opposite of their Group pages, so be sure to make the distinction. Also, be wary of mixing business with pleasure. Facebook prohibits one person or entity having more than one account.

Twitter. Everyone is talking about this little service that could. So no information needed, right? Well, not quite. Here is the thing about Twitter. Your customers are using it right now to talk about you. That’s what people do on there. Twitter is a fantastic listening post. Sign up for an account, and access a service such as “Tweetdeck” so you can access all mentions of your company in real time. You can also set it up to look for mentions of your competitors. May as well see what is being said about them as well.

LinkedIn. You probably know all about LinkedIn’s free directory service. You are also probably a member already. But did you know that you can create a company page? This works similarly to your personal page but but this page represents your company and all of the various connections contained therein. Be careful, though. There aren’t many checks in place to keep out fakers who may or may not say they work for your company. Be vigilant.

Your business blog. This is last, but not least. Your business blog is the anchor on which all other social media interaction rests upon. Your blog is where you lay it all out, everything your company is passionate about, topics regarding your industry and everything you offer. In short, it’s the holy grail for your business. Make sure to have links to it everywhere else you are visible online, be it Facebook, Twitter or elsewhere. Don’t have one? Set one up at Wordpress for free. You can also find cheap templates that will do all of the heavy lifting for you and make your blog look professionally designed in no time.

Taken together, these three points will help send the social media end of your business into the stratosphere. Once that happens, the rest of your business is sure to follow suit.

What do a paint company, a wakeboard manufacturing company and an audio technology firm have in common? They all dove in headfirst to the world of social media, garnering great results. This column is going to focus in on what social media can do for the world of small  to medium-sized businesses, affectionately referred to as SMBs.

It turns out social media sites are tailor made for SMBs. Why you ask? For a number of reasons. The relative smaller size of SMBs makes it agile enough to have a quick turnaround on ideas-to-action, meaning their social media sites are relevant. Often with big companies, by the time something is approved it has already lost juice with consumers. Stuff moves fast on the Internet.

Also, social media sites offer the ideal platform for innovative and experimental products. It gives companies a great way to “test the waters” or to gauge presumed consumer response using a batch of real-world test subjects.

Social Shopping: Benjamin Moore

Take a look at Benjamin Moore, a paints and coatings company now owned by Berkshire Hathaway. The company is large by SMB standards, but still much smaller than the big paint companies out there. Besides, the companies many franchise stores are classic SMBs. The challenge for this company is to not sell paint, that it can do in spades, but to convince consumers to be present in their conversations before they actually purchase the paint: To become part of the social fabric. After all, you never know when just the right color will pop into someone’s head.

The company used Apple’s iPhone, and the inherent value of social networks, to up their ante. It created and launched a paint color application for the iPhone. See a color that you or your friends like? Scan it and match it to a Benjamin Moore color. This works anywhere in the world. Friends and family can send you colors as well. It really brings the world of paint shopping to a fun and vibrant new level, and it worked to attract gads of customers. After all, why go somewhere to buy the paint when Benjamin Moore is keeping track of the exact color for you?

Social Product Design: Wakesites

How about collaborative product design? Wakeboard manufacturer Slingshot Sports put a program together built around the Wakesites online community and ProductPulse, a Facebook product sharing and voting application. It garnered great response from consumers as it allowed them to peruse and add to over their 350,000 different products and comment accordingly.

Collaborative product design is a difficult trick to pull off. It’s one thing to get consumers involved on a commenting standpoint. It’s another thing entirely to get them to actively engage with the products by offering up redesigns and other odds-and-ends. If done right, it truly does honor the consumer by making their voice heard.

It’s important, when considering collaborative design, to consider what your customers think of you and your brand. This can be swayed, of course, but only by a little bit. Consumer loyalty comes from offering a great product at a great product and listening to the the needs of your customers. This is as true now, in the social media age, as ever before.

Social Loyalty: Skullcandy

Finally, there’s Skullcandy. This company manufacturers headsets and earbuds, and have recently created a market push into India. How did they get started over there? Twitter, of course. Skullcandy India’s Twitter presence started an instant phenomenon, garnering hundreds of followers and some local media coverage.

This is helped, of course, by the quality product the company manufacturers. Their headsets are nigh indestructible, and come with a comprehensive warranty. Beyond the standard full replacement for defects, Skullcandy offers its “aggressive listening” replacement option. If your headset or earbud somehow gets destroyed, the company replaces it at half-c0st. This works even if it’s sort of, you know, your fault. This is the kind of thing that gets people talking, and capitalizing on that using sites like Twitter is a no-brainer.

So, SMB owners. Do you have any social media success stories? Drop us a line and let us know! Maybe we’ll do a follow up post sometime featuring your company.

Come on. Admit it. You blog. It’s ok. We all do. We are long past the days when blogging was a specialized activity aimed toward teenage girls with Livejournal accounts. The blog is a popularly accepted form of mass media. And where there are blogs, there are icons. Bloggers use all kinds of icons. Icons for social media. Icons for navigation. Icons for, even, smileys. However, there are so many icons out there in webville, it’s hard to know where to even start.

Enter Webrulon. We haves tirelessly scoured the web to come up with this list of 30 of the absolute best free icons sets available for the blogosphere. Enjoy and feel free to link to this on your, um, blog.

Function Free Blog Icon Set // Designer // Download

Vaga – Developer Icons Set // Designer // Download

Vector Blog Icons // Designer // Download

Email-icons for blog & web-design // Designer // Download

24 Free PSD Blog Iconx Set // Designer // Download

Free Vector Icon Set // Designer // Download

Free Button Icons // Designer // Download

Free Download WordPress Icons in 30 Colors // Designer // Download

WebDev Social Bookmark // Designer // Download

Free Vector RSS Icons for Download // Designer // Download

Free Glossy Blogging Icons Set for Bloggers // Designer // Download

free RSS and Feed icons // Designer // Download

Grunge Style Rss Feed Icons // Designer // Download

Feedicons // Designer // Download

iConPack // Designer // Download

POPO emotions full version // Designer // Download

Mouse category // Designer // Download

Icons Set // Designer // Download

3D Cartoon Icons Pack // Designer // Download

Free Vector Icon Set // Designer // Download

Dellixmas Christmas Icon Set // Designer // Download

Application Icons // Designer // Download

Mini Pixel Icons // Designer // Download

Smashy The Alien Icon Set // Designer // Download

2space web 2.0 PNG smiley icons // Designer // Download

Cocktail Party rss feed icons // Designer // Download

Blog calendar icons // Designer // Download

Free icons set for bloggers // Designer // Download

Free Hand Drawn Doodle Icon Set for Bloggers // Designer // Download

Handycons – a free hand drawn social media icon set // Designer // Download

Where did you find the icons that you use? Got some interesting ones to share with the Internet? Send them our way!

To say social networking sites are all the rage would be something of an understatement. Privacy issues withstanding, they feature some of the highest traffic on the Internet. So get in on the game! Adorn your website or blog with some of the best and creative social bookmark icon sets around. Here are 30 simply astounding sets to get you started. If you know of any more, please drop them in the comment box.

1. Web 2.0rigami – I Am Paddy

2. Social.me – jwloh

3. Socialize Icon Set – DryIcons

4. Social Icon Set – Stylelion

5. Social Media Mini Iconpack – Komodo Media

6. Nurture Social Icon Set – Smashing Magazine

7. Heart: A Free Social Icon Set – Smashing Magazine

8. Social Icons Made of Wood – webtoolkit4.me

9. Web 2 Icons – Fast Icon

10. Free Vector Social Bookmark Icons

11. 13 free social bookmark icons for your blogs – Edward de Leau

12. IconTexto WebDev Social Bookmark

13. Social Bookmark Iconset: Part II – Vikiwork Studio

14. Social Bookmark Icons – Fast Icon

15. Social Web Buttons – WebFruits Blog

16. Social Web Buttons – Set 2 – WebFruits Blog

17. Social Networking Icons – AODdesign

18. 6 Social Icons – Design Reviver

19. The Leaves Fall – Smashing Magazine

20. Aquaticus.Social – jwloh

21. 34 Social Bookmark Buttons – SoulVisual

22. webtoolkit4.me Icon Set

23. DelliCream Free Social Bookmark Icons

24. DelliCake Free Social Bookmark Icons

25. Social Bookmark Iconset

26. Cheers Social Bokkmark Icon Set – Smashing Magazine

27. Function Free Icon Set

28. Circle Social Bookmark Icons

29. Social Media Icons Pack

30. Handycons

Social media sites can mean big business for your, um, business. After all Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and those crafty blogs have all become a part of the daily machinations of the business world. So how do you keep track of all of your accounts while on the go? With an iPhone of course! Apple’s megapopular multitasking device has a boatload of social media-related applications you can download. Too many, actually. Hundreds upon hundreds. We took it upon ourselves to narrow it down to an essential 14 apps. These are the 14 “must have” applications to keep your business flying in the age of the social media. And as always, they are all available at the Apple Appstore.

Official Apps

These are official applications available for download from the bigwigs, the cream of the crop of the social media world. No funky upstarts needed here. These are all must haves.

Facebook – Free

The official Facebook app provides easy and simple access to your trusty Facebook acount. The grid interface makes browsing and posting extremely user-friendly.Push notifications let you know when you have new messages or other details. This is a great functional app for managing your primary Facebook account. Great for single-account holders.

Twitter – Free

Twitter functionaly on the iPhone used to be handled by a handy little app called “Tweetie 2.” Well, Twitter bought them out and now what used to be known as “Tweetie 2″ is simply known as “Twitter.” Easy and functional are the names of the game here. Login to your account and post away, or read those you follow. All on the go. This is what Twitter was made for.

LinkedIn – Free

This is the only app we use for LinkedIn. Check out new messages, import addresses from address books located on other devices, or just browse around. Anything you can do on the website you can do here. Manage your professional contacts with ease. Of paramount importance for you freelancers out there. Don’t want to miss any jobs, do you?

Multi-service & Multi-account Feed Management (Twitter and Others)

If you run a business, or even do something creative like play in a band, chances are you have more than one account on social networking sites. After all, one does not want to mix apples and oranges. Here are several applications that are perfect for managing many accounts on the go.

TweetList for Twitter – $1.99

A simple Twitter client that manages multiple twitter accounts. The interface is ultra-clean and the UI makes it the perfect app to manage the newest and best feature on Twitter’s roster, lists.

Seesmic – Free

This iPhone app is great for quickly navigating between several Facebook, Twitter and Ping.fm accounts. It features a minimal design that may be low on extras but is great for, you know, actually getting the job done. Quick and works like a charm every time. What more could you ask for?

Brizzly – Free

Brizzly is the hip, new social media kid on the block. It simplifies all of your social media accounts into one simple to read feed. Guess what? The iPhone version does the exact same thing. Perfect for those who hate to type in those pesky urls all of the time.

HootSuite for iPhone – $2.99

This iPhone app gives you easy-to-use access to all of your Twitter feeds at once. It really is the gold standard for this kind of thing. It’s clean, minimal and easy to use. You’ll be multitasking in no time, managing dozens of accounts and making Ashton Kutcher look like a rank amateur. Well, that last one you could probably do anyway. 

Handy Apps for Facebook

Facebook is a repository of contact information, media content and simple brainfarts. It’s number one for a reason, after all. Here are some applications for your iPhone that make getting the most of the site as easy as pie.

VideoUp for Facebook – $0.99

So you wanna upload video content to Facebook from your phone? Of course you do! Then get this app. It does exactly what it purports to do. Handy for you would be Spielbergs out there. Everyone knows he started on an iPhone camera. Time loop.

SmartSync for Facebook – $4.99

Sync all of your friend’s information to your address book, including their profile pictures. This makes it easy and, dare we say, fun to keep your ducks all in a row.

Facebook PixSter – $0.99

So you wanna upload pictures to your Facebook account? Of course you do! This is the app to get, then. It’s easy and that’s all it does. Why mess with a good thing?

Blog Management on the Go

What happens when that great idea strikes and you are nowhere near a computer? Do you risk it? Hope your brain will remember the perfect wordphrasing until eight or nine hours later, after you’ve had a few drinks and exhaustion has set in? No way! Get one of these iPhone apps and start posting on the go. Your readers, or customers, will thank you.

WordPress – Free

The official WordPress app gives you access to any WordPress blog that you have access to. This application allows you to then post something straight to the web. However, it’s been our experience, it is better suited for drafts. Darn these fumbly hot dog fingers!

TypePad – Free

The official TypePad app, if your blog is on the TypePad platform then this is the one for you. Similar to the WordPress app. Post right to the web or set up drafts for later posting. Easy and quick.

iBlogger – $9.99

Yowch. This app sure is expensive, isn’t it? However, if serious blogging is the name of your game, it might be worth it.  iBlogger gives you the capability to do just about anything with a blog post that you can do on a computer. The most comprehensive on-the-go blogging tool out there. Highly recommended. Come on, live a little. Then blog about it.

That’s it for now. As always, leave us some emails or comments with what apps you think should have been on this list. Stay on the go and keep the social media home-fires burning!