I have been asked many times how I manage to keep track of all the social networks and services that I have. It is very difficult. Since I also review sites, I am constantly signing up for social networks or services. I think I am the only person that does not have a Myspace account, however, I suspect that many individuals are signed up for quite a few social networks themselves. Fear not! There are a few ways to keep them straight with – yes – another service, however, you will be just a little more organized. Below, I will give you five services that I have tried that are great starts to becoming more socially organized.

1. Profilactic (which sounds like a medicine to me) is a recent favorite of mine and supports Pownce, LinkedIn, Shelfari, and the ability to add more than one account for the same site. At its core, Profilactic does two things: it displays your personal lifestream, which consists of your social networking activity, and a group lifestream from your friends. What it does, it does well. There’s also the option to create clippings – bits and pieces of information from the web; but this option is not really connected to the rest of the features on the site.
2. SocialURL helps you organize your online identity and get back in touch with all of your friends and classmates. It’s a unified profile with support for photo galleries and videos, as well as a central portal with links pointing out to all your other social network profiles. It’s all spiced up with lots of additional features, like on-site email, reminders and bookmarks.
3. Naymz is not so much an organizer but helps in that the service actively monitor certain sites for mention of your name. Naymz also actively promotes your profile by trying to make it more visible on Google.
4. Second Brain takes a radically different approach to aggregation than other apps on this list. You organize your data – this includes data from your social network profiles, like Flickr photos or YouTube videos – into collections. A collection is basically a bunch of links, photos, or other bits and pieces of data thrown onto a dashboard; you can create your own collections or explore what others have collected.
5. MyLifeBrand goes a step further by really integrating various social network sites within a MyLifeBrand frame. Its a pretty great service.

All of these services will help in your quest to be a little more organized in your life online and let’s face it; They all do the same thing, however, each of them have something they do different as well. Something you may like, and something you may not like. Take a look at them all. They all strive to keep your online social life more organized and that is something many of us need these days.

Do you have a website? Do you have a blog. Do you own both? A good majority of people have either a blog or a website. If you don’t, now is the time to learn about them and start your own. It is super simple and there are companies out there that practically do all the work for you. We have covered a few options for building a website and if you are looking to create yourself a blog, WordPress and Blogger are just a few good options. Of course, once you start your blog or website, you are probably going to want some traffic, right? I am going to point out a few good ways to help you generate some traffic to your new page.

The term “content” when used by Internet Marketers refers to written words, audios, or videos. Incorporating high value web content in your website can help you generate more traffic in a number of ways.

How exactly does valuable website content help you get more traffic?

FACT: Search engines love website that offer high value web content. No matter what type of site you have, you can leverage this to increase the traffic to your website. Whether you have an online store, a forum, or a blog, you can add content to generate traffic.

Some example would be:

• Adding valuable articles to your website
• Archive your posts or content on the site.
• Add audio. Not many users do this, but if you include maybe an interview, readers will love it.
• Frequently Asked Questions. Everyone has questions. Why not answer some of the most common questions and post them to your site. An “About Us” page would also be helpful to a user.

There are millions of sites out there and massive amounts of information that could quite possibly be related to your blog or site and one cool way of getting some traffic is simple marketing; Article marketing. Article marketing is writing content for other websites. You write a useful article on a topic related to your website, and offer it for other website owners to publish on their websites, blogs, or in their newsletters. This can also work the other way as well. Not only do you receive links to your website each time your article is published, but also other website owners begin to seriously consider you as an expert in your field and may contact you for more opportunities.

Swapping can be one of the easiest ways to generate traffic, if done correctly. I am not very knowledgeable in ad swapping, but that can be tricky (from what I hear). Blog recommendation swapping is nice. Recommend a site and send them the link and if they are nice, they will do the same in return. It is a great way to share, or network rather.

Contests are great and everyone loves free items. One of the easiest ways to get a quick burst of traffic to your website is by offering a hot contest. The chance to do something small and win something big is appealing to the human psyche. So, use that to your advantage.

Podcasting/Vidcasting is a growing trend. If you can do it, do it. It is a lesser-known way of generating traffic . Podcasting is simply broadcasting audio via RSS feeds. This means that someone regularly records audios and has them fed via RSS to subscribers who are waiting for updated audios. It is not as hard as it sounds. There are so many podcasts these days they are hard to keep track of. One I listen to (or watch) regularly is Geekbrief.tv. To begin podcasting, you will need to ask yourself a few questions: What exactly is your message that you wish to share? With whom would you like to share this podcast?

You can generate traffic by posting on forums, if you do it right. There are spammers everywhere and there is software now to cut through those spammers and if you look like a spammer, you will probably be blocked, and your efforts to generate traffic have not increased. Read a message board or forum and post accordingly. You won’t want to post (with your link) on a message board or forum about the iPod in a Health forums page. Not cool.

Lastly, I want to mention Logos. If you have not noticed, we were fortunate enough to finally get ourselves a nice logo. The people over at TheGraphicStaff astounded us with our great new logo. You would not think a logo is that important for generating traffic, but it really helps. It establishes who you are. Go to any website and you will more than likely see a logo that identifies who they are. A calling card, if you will.

 Now that I have helped you out a little by giving you some ways to increase traffic, I hope you will see a difference in your own results. Here at The Tech Brief, we certainly have, using most of these methods I share with you above. Of course, there are a million other ways to generate traffic, and I would like to point out that although it may be fast to try every single method you find out there at once, you should try each of them individually and find the one method that you are most proficient at on your site.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us, but another good site to find how to do just about everything (including running a website) is eHow. Enjoy, and good luck!

Each day I come across some very wonderful sites that each deserve some recognition. Some I find from other sites such as lifehacker and tech crunch, others I find from the other writers here at the tech brief. However the main reason I don’t cover many of the smallest sites out there is because they just don’t have enough to them to justify a full post. Well I decided that I would compile my list of the best little sites on the web. These sites are all relatively small and offer very few services (generally just one or two) However they are great sites that could help some you out.

Shipgooder (beta) is awesome. You simply type in the information required and bam it will give you the cheapest shipping rate available. What is better is it actually gives you a table that you can compare shipping cost and time. If you do a lot of shipping Shipgooder could be your next best friend.

You can learn more about shipgooder (beta) over at this post on Lifehacker.

I found out about his fun little site over at lifehacker too. I like to change my wall paper a lot. With social wallpapering, the quest for good looking wall paper for your computer just got a little bit easier. With hundreds of images to browse through, I am sure you can find something that suits your fancy at the moment. However I have to admit that this site will remain kind of limited until it gets well known and more images become available. However I have every belief that it will be around for quite some time. check out social wall papering here.

If you are about to embark upon a major life changing event, you might want to set your browser over the first thirty days (beta). This site is designed to help people out during their first thirty days of making a massive changes such as buying a home, going green, loosing weight etc. Basically it’s there to offer encouragement and advice so that anyone making a change feels like they have some support. Again this is one of those time will tell kind of ideas, but I like the idea, and could actually find some use for it. you can read more about it over at this post at the tech crunch or visit the site here.

Now this site is just plain fun. You go to tipjoy, get a button, place the button on your blog or website and are pretty much ready to start receiving tips. While I seriously doubt this will lead to the next mogul blogger, I do think that it is something a lot of indy bloggers could find a lot of use for. The service is still very new, but I think they got a great idea and if enough people get behind it, I think we will start seeing tip jars all over the blogosphere. check them out at here.

Have you ever agonized over the decision of booking a plane ticket while wondering if now was the best time to buy, or is you should wait?  Well if you have, perhaps you would like to shoot over to Farcast.com.  This site makes it possible for you to know wether or not a fare will likely remain the same, go higher, or go lower.  I gave them a quick try and found that they actually have some pretty good information behind their predictions.  So next time you are planning a trip I would recommend you head over to Farecast.

So that is it for today.  I hope you find at least one of these little places on the web to be worth visiting.  Also if you happen to know of other little places, feel free to let us know.

 Do you have a hard time managing tasks between a group of people? Sometimes it can be rather tough assigning tasks to people without a little help, especially if you have a large group. I have just the solution – that is if you don’t have one already that you aren’t willing to leave.

Taskbin.com is an excellent way to give your team easy, precise, and oragnaized tasks. On Taskbin.com all group members have their own to-do list, priorities, completed tasks, timetables, and access to the task bins of others in the group. The idea is that everyone in the group begins and stays on the same page. The site is easy to use and as simple as typing in the test box, clicking on a time and priority and pressing enter. Take a look here to get a better idea.

Information such as, time, date, who created the task, when it should be finished, and the progress helps everyone stay abreast of what is going on within the group and with specific projects. Members can be a part of more than one group and can personalize their task bin. Every group member’s TaskBin is shared with everyone else in the group and is organized by timeframe: “today,” “tomorrow,” “this week,” “sometime soon,” etc.

They say:

“TaskBin was born out of a very strong need at MangoSpring. MangoSpring believes in what we call “Naked organizations”. Everyone needs to be on the same page. Everyone should have access to everyone else’s task list. We do not believe in status reports and weekly status meetings. Everything should be transparent and flat. TaskBin is our “company” management tool.”

I love the idea of Taskbin.com. It is simple so everyone can use it whether you are organizing your son/daughter’s chores to organizing your company’s  financial team. As mentioned, it is easy to work with. The UI is nice and you may find it to be a little fun, at least for a few days

There are others like Twitter and Facebook has a little task program, but none of these are as good as Taskbin.com. If you are looking for a task management program integrated in email, I would recommend Remember The Milk for Gmail. Taskpro.com gets close with some neat features, but after playing with Taskbin.com for a while, I feel Taskbin is just a pleasure to use. Play with the demo here to see for yourself. Here are a list of feature that Taskbin.com has to offer for you:

• Create, track and manage personal and group tasks (ToDo’s).
• Assign tasks to groups/teams or individual members.
• View colleagues’ tasks right below your task dashboard.
• Set different task priorities and due dates.
• View and Sort tasks by due dates (Today, Tomorrow, etc).
• Detailed Task history for each tasks.
• Keep important notes in conveniently positioned Notepad-like note board.
• Select different theme and look for your task dashboard.
• Access Taskbin directly from your mobile.
• Follow up on updates via RSS feeds or get ‘daily summary’ emails.

 [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnavIEkkZMg[/youtube]

Facebook, one of the world’s most recognizable words and most used and talked about Websites, is the center of a debate that has perplexed millions of us. Many sites have published articles favoring the site and calling out others who are attempting to drag it down. For example, TechDirt, refutes productivity loss reports against Facebook and TechCrunch reported that Facebook has witnessed an 89% increase in unique visitors and that Facebook is getting a whopping 15.8 billion page views. The marketing blog Hubspot also talks about the pro’s of businesses using Facebook.

As no surprise to many of us, the media will quickly report negative news over a touchy-feely story. And that leaves many of us wondering, is Facebook really a detriment to our lives, our work, our job security? Or is Facebook’s ever-growing popularity enticing the media to exaggerate each negative detail until we finally stop logging in? Hence, here are the Top 10 Lives, Businesses & Reputations Ruined Due to Facebook and while these stories are true – you can make your own decision on whether or not Facebook is to blame.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtp_XI8HzQ4[/youtube]

10. Salisbury University President – Janet Dudley-Eshbach
A few simple family vacation photos with questionable captions became the talk of the town when they were posted on Facebook by Janet Dudley-Eshbach. News stations were questioning the captions which referred to ‘beating off Mexicans’ and the photos were quickly removed. As far as the public is aware, Janet was not forced to resign or punished in any way. However, it’s possible that her reputation is viewed differently by the students and, in time, her highly regarded position may be affected.

9. KentState Athletes
Ars Technica reported in ’06 that Kent State athletes were banned from using Facebook because the University was concerned over the safety of their athletes and the risk the Facebook poses on making it easier for fans to contact them. Another mentioned reason for the ban was the University’s reputation and the fear of it being tainted by having prospective students and their parents view what current students are partaking in while enrolled at Kent State. The problem that I have with this (and why it’s in the top 10) is if Kent State was truly concerned about student safety, then they wouldn’t want anyone (not just athletes) using Facebook. Just because athletes are more in the public eye, does not mean that any non-athletic student should be guided with the same protection. Also, I think the decision relied heavier on the reputation. My prediction is that if we did some digging, Kent State officials may know of some content that has made it to the online prime-time and this is their way of keeping it undercover.

8. Miss New Jersey– Amy Polumbo
She didn’t lose her crown but many believe she lost a good standing reputation. It has been said that people are not looking at her as ‘inappropriate’ yet, they are viewing her as less-intelligent for many reasons. First of all, if you are “Miss (Any State or County)” you shouldn’t be taking pictures that are the least bit questionable and posting them on Facebook. And believe it or not, the fact that the photos were more ridiculous than anything is what brings Amy’s credibility down as a decent state representative. There is talk that there are more photos (claimed to be racier although that wouldn’t be hard to do) and those allegations will never go away. Rivaling beauty queens and money-hungry paparazzi will do what it takes to dig up any dirt that has yet to be uncovered.

7. Former Adelphi University Mentor – Andrew Smith-Trevino
By now, we should all be well-aware that what you do online can be detrimental to anyone’s career. The Tech Brief previously featured ‘How to Be Successful on Myspace’ and it clearly states not to post pictures of yourself in questionable situations because you can loose your job. The same tip can be used for Facebook and Andrew Smith-Trevino learned that lesson the difficult way. Because of a strict ‘dry residence hall’ policy at the University – Andrew was fired after officials saw a picture posted on Facebook of Andrew standing in a residence hall holding an alcoholic beverage. Andrews’ peers were outraged but he had no choice but to plead no contest.

6. Accused Cincinnati Teacher
Three Ohio teens now have a court record and suspension stamp in their school folder over posting a picture and real name of one of their teachers, claiming he was a pedophile. After a court hearing, the boys avoided expulsion yet the true victim is the teacher. This hurtful speech, eternally documented photo and demeaning title are in the record books. The teacher did receive an apology letter from the students…does that make it all better?

5. USC Football Player – Clay Matthews
Stigmas are virtually impossible to erase, especially if you are recognized as a stereotype that seemingly and repeatedly will outrage an enormous amount of individuals. The Daily Trojan recently reported on the story of a USC football player, Clay Matthews, and his grand idea to create a group based on an inside joke that the team shared after a black team member nicknamed his white team members “White Nation.” Clay Matthews, who was part of “White Nation”, created a Facebook group which depicted a photograph of a black baby in handcuffs and the caption read, “Arrest black babies before they become criminals.” This un-thought out action obviously triggered an outrage in the Facebook community, fellow USC students and anyone else who wasn’t aware of the inside joke. Attacking groups were created and people sought to have Clay punished. No major action was taken, Clay apologized, yet – his actions affected prospective students’ decisions in attending USC and some people will unfortunately always view Clay as a racist.

4. Porn Industry
In a report by Susan Quinn of AOL, Facebook had previously filled suit over a Canadian Internet porn company for attempting to hack into Facebook to obtain users’ personal information. However, not everyone knows that lawsuits are not the only threat that Facebook fronts against the porn industry. TIME recently reported that Facebook is more popular than porn and recent Hitwise ranking reports are showing 18-24 year olds are visiting Facebook more than the once popular adult entertainment Websites.

3. Chattanooga Cyber Bully Victim
It is sad that postings on the Internet can have this much impact on another individual. Originally reported by WBIR in Knoxville, TN – The case of a 14-year old girl stabbing a 15-year old classmate after the 15-year old posted a message on Facebook that the younger girl didn’t like. The 14-year old girl (obviously not named) has been charged with aggravated assault and thankfully the 15-year old is fine. The report did not mention what the comment was regarding; however, I can’t imagine anything being as detrimental in word-form that would invoke someone to potentially threaten another’s life.

2. Anglo Irish Bank Intern – Kevin Colvin

I don’t have to explain why Kevin Colvin made it as number two on the countdown, this picture says it all. But the general mishap took place when Kevin reported to his manager at Anglo Irish Bank that he would be missing work due to a ‘family emergency’. Later, this incriminating photo turned up on Facebook of Kevin attending a Halloween party (which subsequently took place at the same time of the so-called emergency). Not only do you not want to get caught in a lie at work but most importantly, you do not want this picture floating around the Internet.

1. Facebook Founder – Mark Zuckerberg
Yes, I did it. I placed Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg as number one and here’s why. Yes, he is worth over a billion dollars in his young twenties. Yes, it has been said that he owns the next Google. However, think about it for a bit. Every day, his site is attached by wannabe hackers which cost him $5,000 to investigate every hacking attempt. Not to mention his difficulty in hiring trustworthy individuals to handle the code in the first place. Companies are also attacking Facebook constantly and blaming the site for every pitfall known to man. The blog Switched reports that according to a new study by an employment law firm, approximately $264 million U.S. dollars are lost in man hours because of Facebook. Resulting in the site being restricted in many workplaces and even trickling down to having personal email banned as well. Maybe companies should let their workers use Ubernote or Stixy for time management? Mr. Zuckerberg tops the list because no matter how grand an application Facebook has become, he will never escape it. He will forever be haunted of the people that have lost their jobs due to unproductive work or stupidity, their spouses to infidelity and their sanity due their Facebook addiction.

If you’ve been under a rock and haven’t visited a social networking site, try these:

Facebook

Myspace