Another blog??

While I love Web2.0 and enjoy talking about it, I do have a day job (as you can see on the disclaimer on the right) that I happen to love a lot.

I’ve been a part of the contingent staffing industry since I was a senior in college. I’ve had opportunities to work in other industries but have chosen to stay because I really enjoy what I do. Now why I haven’t blogged about that, I’m not sure, but probably because I’ve always drawn the line between my personal activities (blogging) and what I do for a living. I was also afraid of the commitment having an industry blog entails. Can’t just drop it when laziness strikes.

In the meantime blogging has gone mainstream and almost every industry imaginable have their set of respected bloggers. Well, except for the contingent staffing industry. I see this as an opportunity to be one of the first.

I started the blog last week. The url for the blog is lisaamorao.com.

Crowdsourcing, Doritos Style

My husband brought home a mysterious-looking bag of Doritos last night. Mysterious because it isn’t labeled. It’s in black packaging, with the label x-13D and a write-in label with instructions to go to their website to “name the flavor.”

Crowdsourcing, I immediately thought. And I just gotta say, a really cool one at it.

So I went to the website to participate, thinking all I had to do was write it in. N’uh. There’s a ton more to do there. All in the name of crowdsourcing.

Not only can you participate in the x-13D experiment by naming the flavor and generating the ad for it (the ad generator launches 5.28), there are other things you can do, like “fight for the flavor,” where you can rate your favorite Doritos flavor (it isn’t Web2.0 if you can’t rate it, no?), and “crash the Superbowl.”

It has a Second Life feel to it but a much controlled environment. But it also isn’t crowdsourcing Dell style where you just make your suggestion, and you get rewarded by seeing a product you will actually want to buy out in the market. There aren’t any prizes, per se (or at least I didn’t see any), but I was definitely rewarded by the awesome user experience starting from ease of use to cool graphics, to knowing that your suggestion just might be on the Doritos label. Kinda like your kid appearing on the Life cereal box, I guess.

BrightKite

Something I’m really excited about 

I don’t know much about it yet, but if it’s what I think it is, I can’t wait for the Beta release of BrightKite.

“Notifications the way you want them” is their tagline. Just what I’m looking for.

For the last couple of months I’ve been searching for ways to send out notifications to reach massive amounts of people. Here are factors that I have to consider.

1) I want mobile options. Because not everyone will be in front of the computer at the time I want to reach them, but almost everyone has his/her cell phone in his pocket.

2) While most are familiar with the wonders of the web, I still have to think of the handful of my intended recipients who may still be living in the world of Internet 1.0.

3) I am looking to notify several hundred people at a time. With that in mind, I don’t have the resources to explain things (sign up, how it works, etc) to each one. So it has to be simple enough that even the old school users will get it right away.

4) My intended recipients are more of the LinkedIn crowd as opposed to the MySpace crowd.

Here are options I considered:

Mass E-mail – wasn’t going to mention it but heck it is there so just for the sake of being able to say I looked at everything… But e-mail is so Internet 1.0, not to mention you have to compete with spam. E-mail also doesn’t convey a sense of urgency. At least not anymore.

Twitter – I am actually using this but since it has grown so big it’s also gotten really slow in the last couple of months. The other thing is that the intended recipients of my notifications aren’t exactly familiar with Twitter and I’m having to do lengthy explanations about it…in addition to me explaining to them how to sign up so that they can get MY notifications. I gotta explain to them that they gotta go to Twitter…then make a profile…no you don’t have to update…only if you have to…and uh…sign up to be my FRIEND and FOLLOW me. Now imagine having to explain this to someone who has never read a blog (or at least doesn’t know they’re reading one)…or someone who still pays their bills via snail mail. Now…imagine that same person going to the Twitter homepage to sign up and see that  “fakeid781  isWondering why Aaron didn’t demand funnel cake at the fair… ” See factor #4. But I use Twitter because it lets me notify either by IM, e-mail, SMS or the web.

Mozes – I like Mozes almost 100%. I love it about 85%. I love it because of the simple sign up process. All the recipient has to do is send a text message with my keyword to 66937 and they will get an SMS to confirm that they’ve signed up. Simple. But I can’t love it 100% because it doesn’t have the instant messaging component so I still have to use Twitter if I wanted that feature. And lastly…on Mozes, my recipients are part of a “mob.” Now I understand this service is geared towards musicians and all…so I guess I can’t complain much. 

Ripple9 – Kinda like Mozes, I guess, with a ton more features…which really doesn’t matter to me because I don’t send out music. Like Mozes, Ripple9 also works with keywords. But the only thing with Ripple9 is that the word “music” is attached to whatever keyword you choose and well…I’m not an artist or a part of a band and I won’t be sending out music so it really won’t make sense that my recipients would have to type in MyCompanyName+music to sign up. Again. I can’t complain as I’m not their intended user. 

As you can see…BrightKite seems to be my light at the end of the tunnel. Notifications via e-mail, SMS or IM. Cool. Now if the sign up process is as easy as Mozes and the label is professional enough for my recipients…I think I’ll be set.

Good luck to the folks at BrightKite…and I hope I get an invite to your beta!

Cogenz Part 2

I got my Cogenz sign up details shortly after I posted Part I last week and I finally got to try it.

I love it.

It works exactly like del.icio.us. And I love del.icio.us. But unlike del.icio.us, Cogenz is secure. And that’s exactly what I needed. I wanted the ability to share my links, but I didn’t want to share it with anyone who just happened to stumble by them, a la del.icio.us (now I know there’s an option not to share but like I said…I still wanted to share to a select few and no one else).

Now, Cogenz didn’t just label their social bookmarking service “secure.” The options prove it. As the administrator, I can limit who can sign up to see my links. I have the option to require administrator approval for new user registration. Now, I don’t want to have to see each one who sign up but still want to limit it to users within my company, so I chose the option to restrict sign up to those with e-mail domains that I specify.

But what if someone learns what my specified e-mail domain is, it would be easy to bypass that block, right? Nah. As the account administrator, I also have the option to restrict access to an approved IP range. How cool is that?

Not that my bookmarks need that level of security, but it’s cool to know that I have the option.

So yeah, I love it…but this is Web2.0 and services always have room for improvement.

Here’s my wishlist:

1) I wish the site was easier to navigate. I knew that for the service to be user-friendly, it HAD to have importing capabilities. And it did. But the import link was nowhere to be found in the navigation bar, or the admin page, not even in the settings page. I did find it but only after doing a search on the help page. It would help to have it somewhere more prominent.

2) Cogenz works exactly like del.icio.us, including the use of browser buttons. I wish the browser button download page was also easier to find. Again. It would help to have it somewhere more prominent.

3) Sometimes I want the ability to import just some, not all, of my del.icio.us bookmarks. I wish there was a feature to import by del.icio.us username + tag.

Other than that (and the set up time mentioned in the previous post) I think Cogenz is off to a good start.

UPDATE: 

…on #3. This is me not paying attention yet again…I can import by tag. It says so right there on the bottom of the import page…D’OH!!!! (So they say, always design for the dumbest of users…)

Tidbits

There are things I want to write about but feel I can’t until because everytime I start a post I always end up spending more time than I wanted. And the list keeps getting longer and longer and well…I don’t want to lose them.

So here are bullet points for now, until maybe the weekend…provided of course that this boy and his brother go to bed early and leave mommy with some blogging time.

• Wridea. How much I loved it at first and how I eventually forgot about it.

• My ZohoMail wishlist.

• Applications that I don’t want to tell anyone else about because I reaaaaaally want to keep them for myself.
• How excited I am to try out Zude. Because that’s just what I need…another profile to manage.
• How I don’t get UrbanSeeder (perhaps because I am not part of the target market?).

• My Wufoo wishlist.

And some thoughts in my head that I’d like to open up for discussion (I hear crickets…) because I will probably end up writing an incohesive post about them:

• Difficulty of convincing the enterprise to switch — Web2.0 services and applications are mostly free and low-cost, but cost-savings isn’t enough to switch. How would you address questions on reliability (“it’s free/low-cost”…”they might go out of business”…”it’s too new”…”what happens to our data if they go away?”) and security (“it’s web-based,” “it’s managed by someone else,”) ?
• I love it that an individual user can directly impact how an application/service is developed in the Web2.0 space through blogging and other communications and how quickly these companies adopt new direction based on user feedback. Not a question, just a statement, I guess…but your thoughts on this are welcome anyway.

Lisa out.

Cogenz

I spend the first hour of my work day surfing. I browse my favorite blogs, read articles that are emailed to me, I look through the Times, then I go check the different events calendars out there just to see what I can go to.

I really love del.icio.us and digg and use them to bookmark useful sites that I come across and also to share with my colleagues, but sometimes if the site or the article or the post is just waaaaay too cool…I really don’t want to put it on del.icio.us because that means other people — including my competitors — will see it too. So I resort to the old e-mail and just send them the link that way.

But e-mailing links isn’t just as effective as a social bookmarking tool because you don’t have the ability to tag and if you want to look for it later it takes a lot of time to find. Yeah you can bookmark it on your browser, but that means that link lives in that computer. And that’s so 2005.

So I checked out Cogenz, a social bookmarking service that supposedly works like del.icio.us except it’s private and it’s hosted, so you get to control who sees your links. It’s free up to 10 users, and they have upgraded plans after that. The free version suits me just fine.

Cool…!

But I have to write “supposedly” because I haven’t really tried it yet. My account doesn’t work. Yet. Or will it ever? I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe they’re just working on it? But it’s been an hour since I signed up.

But. I reaaaaaaally want to use the service. I’m convinced that I need it. So I give it the benefit of the doubt. And I’ll wait.

But I have other quirks. Though they are easily fixable.

The web page doesn’t have to describe much. If you use del.icio.us you know how to use their service. And if you don’t use a social bookmarking site, you probably won’t even make your way there. You either get it or you don’t. And I get it. At least I think I do. So I click on “learn more” to find out how to sign up, etc…and I get sent to a page that says “place your order.” Which…was not a biggie, but to me, “place your order” just sounds like I’m gonna get a boxed-software. “Choose a subscription plan” or “choose a plan” might work better.

So I go to the “order” page and ok it says “sign up” but the upgraded plans still said “order.”

Ok fine. But after I’ve completed the transaction, it takes me to my license page. Oh. And then towards the bottom it says “download.” So I immediately thought there was something that I would have to install. Great…I thought. I have to install something?

Apparently not. But I don’t know. I still don’t know. The “download” link takes me to a pdf file on how to set up the account. A pdf file? You. Have got. To be kidding.

Ok. Fine. Instructions. Yay…so it tells me to go to http://myaccountname.cogenz.net. The page is under construction. I try http://myaccountname.cogenz.com. The page is under construction.

Now. Really.

Seriously??

I really want to use it. The idea is great. But it also has to be functional. Or maybe it’s an ID-10-T error on my part. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention to the instructions again? Someone tell me what I’m doing wrong…please??

Invite me. Please?

Because I’m a true Digerati Wannabe, invitations to try out new things (apps on beta, private beta, double-secret beta beta, alpha, kappa or whatever hip Web2.0 term you want to use) never fail to excite me. And when I get one, I make sure to show it off and blog about it.

Now. I even though I try to sound like I know what I’m talking about, I really don’t want to give anyone the impression that what you see here is unbiased. If you give me an invitation to a private beta, you’ve already put me in a good mood so guess what. I’m probably going to like it, unless it just really sucks.

<shamelessbegging>

So. If you want to read about someone getting all happy and excited about your new web application, send me an invite.

</shamlessbegging>

That’s not to say, however, that I promise to write only good things. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Here are things that I am mostly interested in:

Business [social] networking — Apps that can help me connect with other people in a professional setting.

Mobile — I have a dumb phone. If your web app can turn it into a smart phone, I’d definitely want to hear about it.

Mobile Messaging — SMS alerts. I’m in Marketing. Can your app help me reach a bunch of people on their cell phones with just one click?

GTD, productivity, workflow — Can you help me be more productive? Can you help me organize the million things I have to do in a day?

Content Distribution, publishing – I have a bunch of cool things I want to tell people about. Can your app help me get the message out? (RSS, publishing tools, etc)

Search — Can you help me find information so I don’t have to fish the wide Google ocean?

Metrics — I like measuring things. Sitemeter excites me.

Tools – Again. I’m a digerati wannabe. I’m not technical. Can your app help me do cool things without me having to write a single line of code?

Business applications — I have a day job. And I like playing hero at work. You know the type. I love coming up with solutions and improvements to existing processes. Can your app make me look good at work? Email me if you need specifics of what I’m looking for.

I have a short attention span, not to mention I don’t have all day to try out stuff. If I don’t “get it” in two minutes, I won’t sit there to try to figure it out, because if I’m having a hard time “getting it,” I’ll probably have a tough time explaining it to everyone else anyway.

<shamelessbegging>

So please? Send me invites?

</shamelessbegging>