Social media is a relatively new phenomenon, but Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon and other social media websites have become an increasingly important source of website traffic. This also creates a massive demand for data related to social media. Where are users coming from? What topics excite them?

These are questions that, when answered, can be the difference between a successful website and a failed social media campaign. But social media analytics is young, and not many people know where to start. This guide is designed for that purpose: to help you get started with some of the best tools and habits so that you can effectively gather and analyze social media analytics.

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Understand what you want to track

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As with most things in life, you can’t conquer what you don’t understand, or at least what you haven’t really thought about.

What is your goal? Do you want to track how people are sharing your website? Do you want to track a specific social media campaign? Or maybe you’re just interested in trends related to a specific meme or social media phenomenon? Each one requires different tools and different focus.

You’re going to focus on traffic statistics if you’re tracking social media website engagement, while if you’re tracking a wider campaign, Twitter response and positive comments might be a more appropriate metric.

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Optimize your existing analytics software

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Most of us use analytics software like Google Analytics, Woopra, or Omniture to track website data like traffic, visitors, pages per visitor, and traffic sources. Most of these analytics tools can track a wealth of data, but they are not designed to track social media data. Luckily, there are a few ways to beef up your analytics software for social media. Some quick tools and suggestions:

Social Media Metrics Plugin: Social Media Metrics is a greasemonkey extension that adds a social media information layer to Google Analytics, providing information on Diggs, stumbles, delicious bookmarks, and more for each individual page. Be aware – it’s not perfect.

Set up specific campaigns and events for social media: Most analytics software has custom campaigns to make it easy to track specific events. You can track a specific Twitter traffic campaign or DiggBar URL with campaigns.

Reorganize dashboards and set up email reports: To get specific information on social media, have traffic stats from top social media websites (i.e. Digg, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) emailed to you so you can see it all in one place. In addition, reorganize any dashboards you have to show this information for easy access.

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Add new analytics tools

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Even with web analytics tools, you don’t have all the tools necessary to get started tracking analytics related to social media. Why not add some more tools to your inventory that track detailed social metrics? Some suggestions:

Bit.ly: When you use a URL shortener, it’s always a smart idea to use one that has analytics information, like Bit.ly. This will track information like number of clicks, traffic sources, and even at what time clicks occur.

Xinureturns: Despite the funny Scientology-inspired name, xinureturns provides a great dashboard overview of your website’s standing in social media. Run a report and you will receive information on Technorati, Googe Pagerank, Diggs, and even backlinks to your website.

PostRank: Formerly known as AideRSS, PostRank provides detailed information on Tweets, stumbles, diggs, and FriendFeed all in one place. It’s best for blogs and websites with a lot of content.

SocialToo: SocialToo is a comprehensive tool for creating social surveys and tracking social stats. It also will send you a daily email describing follows and unfollows on Twitter.

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Aggregate your analytics

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There are a lot of tools for gathering social media information, but no one place has everything you need. You don’t have time to look at all of the tools, so aggregate your analytics information.

There is no single tool that will bring this information together, so you’ll have to do it yourself. Export data into excel, pdf, or email and record all of the information to one area, whichever works best for you. Building a spreadsheet may be best for playing with the numbers. Make it easily accessible.

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Analyze and engage

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The last step is always the most important one – the actual analysis. It takes years of dedication to the art of web analytics to really understand how each variable affects website traffic and user engagement, but by looking at this data in one place and comparing the information, you will hopefully be able to pick up on trends.

This guide is only how to get started with social media analytics. Take the time to find great tools and to understand how each of the social media levers affects traffic and analytics data. But most of all, use the data to engage your audience. You can figure out what they’re looking for using social media analytics, so be sure to act upon the data once you’ve analyzed it.

One of the main topics buzzing around is social networking.  We got an extensive list from Mashable.com and posted them below.  Enjoy.

Feel free to add more apps in the comments.

Books

Americabookshelf.com – One of the largest book exchange clubs across the US.

BooksConnect – A book sharing community site connecting readers, authors, publishers, librarians and booksellers.

BookCrossing.com – A community of users from over 130 countries who exchange books with each other at public places like cafes, parks etc.

Bookhopper.co.uk – Free community for UK residents to share used books with each other.

Bookins.com – Book sharing website that enables members to exchange used books with each other in real time.

BookMooch.com – An interesting concept where users can exchange books with others through points. Users gain points when they give books to others.

Booksalescout.com – Online community of users allowing them to sell books in the US.

Bookswim.com – Book borrowing service with free shipping for registered website.

ConnectViaBooks – A social networking site connecting book lovers and enabling them to discover other similar interests.

GoodReads – GoodReads is a book reader’s community enabling members to review, share books they have been reading.

PaperBackSwap.com – Users can share books amongst each other and only pay for the delivery charges.

Pazap.com – A book trade engine for students to buy and sell old books.

Read It Swap It – A free service that allows users to exchange books with others.

Revish – Revish is another community for book lovers, letting them review their favorite books, group up, or simply tell the world what they’re currently reading.

Shelfari () – Shelfari is a popular social networking service for book lovers.

Socialbib – Book swapping network between students.

Business Networking & Professionals

AdvisorGarage – It is an online directory of advisers who are willing to assist budding entrepreneurs.

ArtBreak – ArtBreak is an artist community for sharing and selling artwork.

Blogtronix – Blogtronix promotes corporate social networking, enterprise 2.0 and wikis.

Commutal – Commutal is an online sharing platform for businesses to create media rooms, participate in domestic groups and share event happenings with each other.

CompanyLoop – An online co-working community for global businesses.

ConnectBeam – Connectbeam offers social networking specially designed for corporate users.

Decorati – An interior designer community enabling users to post items for sale and for exchange.

DoMyStuff – A good site for working professionals looking to find online assistants.

Doostang – An invite only career community for professionals.

Fast Pitch – It is a quickly growing business networking community in corporate world. Its online provides users with a one-stop shop network to market their business.

iKarma Inc. – iKarma is a specialist in providing customer feedback for organizations and professionals.

ImageKind – ImageKind is a community and marketplace for professional artists.

Jambo – Jambo lets you connect with your neighborhood friends.

Jigsaw – An online business card networking directory for users to establish contacts with each other. Each business card is listed with an email id and a contact number.

Konnects – Konnects enables members to create their own professional networking communities.

Lawyrs – A professional social networking community for lawyers.

Linkedin () – LinkedIn is a professional social networking website for business users, one of the most popular such sites out there. Some aspects of it are free, but many are paid.

mediabistro.com – mediabistro.com is for professionals in content or creative industry.

Pairup.com – Pairup connects business travelers assisting them to travel together.

Ryze.com – A site for establishing new connections and growing networks. Connections for jobs, building career and making sales.

Spoke.com – Spoke offers access to business network of over 40 million people worldwide.

Visible Path – Visible Path helps organizations to integrate social networking into their existing tools.

WebCrossing Neighbors – It provides a private label social network with personal spaces and user groups.

XING () – XING is a networking directory of business contacts powering relationships between business professionals allowing users to connect with each other.

Family

Amiglia – A family networking service enabling users to connect to family members by publishing and sharing family trees, photos etc.

CafeMom – CafeMom is a social networking site for mothers to connect and share thoughts with each other.

Cingo – Cingo users connect with each other to organize their family life.

CommonGate – A social networking platform that enables users to create their own social network for their friends, family or organization.

Family 2.0 – Family 2.0 helps you create your own family social network, you can add family members, send personalized emails and create event alerts.

Famiva – A premier social network to connect with family members and relatives in a secure environment.

Famster – A private secure social network for family members.

Geni.com – An exciting social networking site enabling members to create their family tree. Although it’s a relatively new site, it has grown tremendously fast, and has hundreds of thousands of users.

Genoom – Genoom creates a meeting place for its site users. They can create a family network by inviting their relatives and discover their past memories.

Kincafe – An ideal social network for families to connect with their beloved ones.

Kinzin – Kinzin is an online meeting place for families to share family events, photos, stories and recipes.

MayasMoM – A family networking site for parents.

Minti – A collaborative parenting site.

MomJunction – MomJunction allows mothers to find reliable answers to questions, create private spaces with friends and build communities.

MothersClick – MothersClick connects mothers in a neighborhood with each and provides parenting advice to them.

myfamily.com – An excellent way to connect with your family members.

OneGreatFamily.com – An online shared database with combined knowledge and data at a single place.

OurStory.com – OurStory enables users to share stories of their families with others.

Parentography – A social network offering advice and advice for families.

The Family Post – A sharing network for communication with family members.

Friends

43 Things – A tagging based social networking site. Users create accounts and list a number of goals or hopes and these are parsed based on similarity to goals of other users.

Amitize.com – Amitize is a worldwide friendship network.

aSmallWorld – aSmallWorld is a private online community designed for individuals who would like to connect, re-connect to share similar thoughts with each other.

Badoo.Com – Badoo is a dynamic multi-lingual social networking site with innovative photo and video features that allows its users worldwide to gain an instant mass audience and interact both locally and globally.

Bebo () – Bebo is a hugely popular site (especially in the UK), and similar in philosophy to MySpace (). It allows users to communicate with their friends in multiple ways including blogging, sending messages and posting pictures.

Eons – An online gathering place for the elderly; most of the users are over the age of 50 years.

Facebook.com – Facebook () is a social networking phenomenon connection people with their friends, family and other users with similar interests.

Faceparty – A UK based community social networking website. It started for youngsters but has now risen to popularity among all age groups.

Flingr – Flingr allows users to connect with all categories of friends – colleagues, college mates and school buddies.

Friendster () – It is a popular global social network for finding new friends and developing friendships as well as searching old friends.

hi5 () – Hi5 is a prominent social networking service in India with over 40 million users. However, Hi5 has recently experienced an upsurge beyond India and has shown increasing popularity in EU too.

Lovento – Lovento allows you to discover news friends and also find information about latest events.

Multiply.com – Multiply () is a social networking website providing easy way to share digital media which includes photos, videos and music.

Mycool – Mycool enables members to find and share their interests with special groups.

MySpace.com () – MySpace is an interactive social networking website consisting of personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos. It’s currently the biggest social networking site out there, and while it might not be the most advanced one, the users seem to love its simplicity.

NetFriendships.com – A comprehensive social networking site enabling users to make new online friends and discover old ones.

Netlog – A social community of more than 20 million young Europeans.

Orkut () – Orkut is a social networking service owned by Google (). It enables users to meet new friends and create communities.

Passado – Passado is Europe’s no.1 re-union website connecting members with friends from school to workplace.

Piczo – Piczo offers safe social networking environment to youngster around the world. Piczo users can design their personal website with photos, videos etc. and share it with their friends.

Plazes – A social networking website for connecting with local users.

Pownce.com – Pownce is a mix of social networking and microblogging. It enables users to send messages, files, events and links with each other.

ProfileHeaven.com – A UK based social networking site for teenagers.

reunion.com – A leading online service for discovering old friends, classmates and family members.

Vox.com – Vox () is a social blogging service where users share their ideas, photos, videos with family and friends.

Xanga () – Xanga is one of the biggest social networking platforms with features of sharing photos, photos and videos.

XuQa – An online college social networking site with poker gaming features.

Hobbies & Interests

ActionProfiles.com – It is social networking community for sports and action. The features of the website are profiles of users with photographs and videos, reviews of products and job discussion boards.

Arts community – Arts community provides a dynamic community experience by providing extensive listing of exhibitions, events and openings.

BeGreen – BeGreen is a community that aims to generate environmental awareness for users.

beRecruited – beRecruited is a dedicated online community for sportpersons and coaches.

BottleTalk – BottleTalk is a wine lover’s community making it easy for members to share their drinking experiences.

CarGurus – An automobile community website enabling users to post car reviews, photos and share opinions.

Change – Change is a nonprofit social networking website that connects like minded users and allows them to exchange information.

ChangingThePresent – A nonprofit fund raising community with membership of over 400 nonprofits.

ChickAdvisor – ChickAdvisor is a sharing community for women users.

CircleUp – CircleUp is one of the best community website connecting users to groups, clubs for knowledge sharing, information exchange.

Coastr () – Coastr connects beer lovers with each other.

ColShare – ColShare is a community for people who have hobby of collecting items like coins, stamps etc.

coRank – A rating community for users to share interesting information on internet.

DailyStrength – A huge community of over 500 groups dealing with health issues and various medical challenges.

Dundoo – Dundoo enables users to create image collages out of social networking profile. A big amount of ads on the site somewhat diminishes the overall impression.

Flixster () – Flixster is a community for movie lovers.

FuelEmpire – FuelEmpire brings automobile enthusiasts together at one place.

GirlSense – A community for girls to promote their fashion designs & creations.

Greenvoice – An online networking platform for people who are conscious about the environment, who want to inform each other on environmental issues and create a difference.

iYomu – iYomu is an adult social networking website and it allows users to search for site members who have similar interests or for business needs.

Motortopia – Motortopia is community for automobile lovers. It consists of passionate lovers of bikes, planes, cars and boats etc.

MyCatSpace – MyCatSpace is a community for lovers of cats passionate to share experiences of their cats with others.

MyDogSpace – MyDogSpace users can share their dog pictures, write blog posts about dogs and communicate with other dog lovers, all in a very lovely community.

Uniteddogs – A social networking website for dog owners. The dog owners can creae profiles of their dogs, create blogs and share their thoughts.

vSocial – vSocial is a video based social networking platform allowing content owners, site operators to deliver the message online with video.

Language

15+ Language Communities

Media (Photo, Video () & Audio)

25+ Video Sharing Services

30+ Photo Sharing Services

20+ Music Sharing Services

Buzdeo – Buzdeo provides secure video sharing service with friends and family.

Fotki – A photo sharing service enabling users to connect with friends.

Fotolog – A big online photo sharing community.

Music

Asoboo – Asoboo is a sharing network for cultural artists from around the world.

BandChemistry – A network for musicians uniting music bands all over.

BandWagon – BandWagon is a music community website for music fans to manage their web pages, profiles, videos and music.

CrackSpace – A common place for fans of hip-hop music.

Moob – A dedicated community of hip-hop fans.

MOG – An online community powering site members to discover music and music lovers.

Mobile

CrackBerry – A community dedicated to BlackBerry users.

Dodgeball – A New York based service facilitating social interactions through mobile phones.

Friendstribe.com – A mobile phone based social networking site.

GotZapp – A mobile social network for sharing images, audio and graphics with your friends’ mobile phones.

Groovr – An ultimate mobile social networking site for staying connected with friends. It is compatible with iPhone.

Jaiku () – Jaiku is essentially a microblogging service with an SMS gateway, very similar to Twitter (). They’ve recently been acquired by Google.

Loopt – Loopt is a cool mobile based friend locator website. It uses GPS to show its users the location of friends by updating maps on mobile handset.

Mixxer – Mixxer enables users to content on their mobile with site members.

Mobango – A mobile community service powering users to search for user generated music content, videos and other data.

Mozes – Mozes enables members to connect & socialize with each other through mobile phones.

Partysync – Partysync helps users to interact with people using mobiles.

Peepsnation – Peepsnation allows users with similar interests to connect with each other on location basis.

Rabble – A location based social networking service for mobile phone users.

Socialight – Socialight is a mobile based social networking site where users share their travel experiences with other mobile users.

Wattpad () – A mobile phone social networking platform allowing users to discover, read and share their stories with each others.

Shopping

18 Sites for Social Shopping and Deals

3LUXE – A community generated product research site.

AgentB – A common place to find out the best shopping deals on internet.

bringsome.com – A global goods delivery platform enabling community members to assist each other with access to best items from across the world.

boxedup.com – Boxedup.com users add their favorite products to their list and share it with others.

CoWorkersAds – An online marketplace listing allowing site members to discover and sell items among coworkers community.

iliketotallyloveit.com – A user generated marketplace where users submit cool products.

MyItThings.com – A user generated magazine for shopping.

MyStore.com – A social market place for buyers and sellers.

Productwiki.com – ProductWiki is a common place for users to share information about consumer products.

RedFlagDeals.com – RedFlagDeals.com is Canada’s most popular shopping community which offers huge discounts to site users.

Sale Grab – SaleGrab is a social shopping site for best sales and discount deals.

Shoppero – Shoppero offers profit sharing to site users for writing product reviews.

Smashing Darling – A collaborative market place connecting buyers and sellers at one place.

Social BookMarking

50+ Social Bookmarking Sites

Students

AlumWire – AlumWire has been created to assist college students, alumni with professional opportunities.

B4Class – A social network for high school and college students.

Campusbug – A college student social networking website.

CampusRank – CampusRank members select and rate their old school friends and group them into various categories.

College.com – An online community for college students.

CollegeMedium.com – A student classifieds website for buying and selling items, jobs search etc.

College Tonight – A great place to meet fellow college students and alumni.

DormItem.com – A local classifieds listings for schools in various cities.

Graduates.com – A social networking site assisting graduate school students to stay in touch post completion of course.

Half.com – A leading student market place for buying and selling textbooks at discounted prices.

iHipo – An international community for college students and business professionals looking for networking opportunities.

LocalSchools – A networking site connecting students with local US colleges and universities.

Pazap.com – A student trading site for buying and selling on-campus books with other students.

Quizilla – Quizilla is a social network for young teens.

RateMyProfessor.com – RateMyProfessor connects students aspiring to study similar courses by assisting each other.

Student.com – Student.com is a big online community for college students, high school students and teens with around 1,000,000 members.

Studentbid.com – Studentbid.com is a student market place for sales and purchase of items without any fees.

StudentSN.com – A social network allowing users to create home pages with contact information, personal information and photo albums.

Uloop.com – Uloop allows students to trade textbooks, promote community events and do host of other activities.

Travel & Locals

Amicoz.com – Amicoz is slightly different from conventional social networking sites; it doesn’t have some of the common features found on socnets. It is dedicated to assist users in sharing their travel experiences, nothing more, nothing less.

Citizenbay – Citizenbay is a user community for discovering local information.

CityTherapy – CityTherapy is an easy way to find and share places of interest (restaurant, bars) in Europe.

CouchSurfing – A global travel network connecting travelers with local communities.

fatdoor.com – A fun and an interactive way to connect with the folks from your neighborhood online.

Going.com – A fun way to interact with people locally.

iloho – An online travel community with similarity to social bookmarking services like digg.

MatchActivity – A site connecting people on the basis of their activities. Users can find things to do and join people in their area.

Matador – A travel based social network with an integrated blogging service.

myTripbook.com – myTripbook.com is a place for people who want to share their travel experiences through photos, videos and blogging with others.

OurFaves – OurFaves is a community of urban savvy folks who enjoy the Toronto city and find out cool places to hang out at.

Outside.in – A nice way to explore local communities to keep track with neighborhood news.

Rummble – Rummble enables users to discover as well as share places of interest in your neighborhood.

TravBuddy – TravBuddy is a cool site for sharing travel experiences, finding new travel friends or reading travel reviews of fellow friends.

Travellerspoint – An international meeting point for worldwide travelers.

TravelTogether – A travel based social networking service enabling users to share travel plans, travel deals and experiences.

tribe.net – Tribe.net is one of the easiest ways to connect with people for finding a restaurant, a killer apartment, a gentle dentist or a hiking friend.

TripUp – A travel community site for finding travel information and planning for trips.

Triporama- Triporama provides an easy way to plan and collaborate on group trips.

VibeAgent – VibeAgent is a site about hotel reviews, travel meta-search and social networking.

WAYN – A social networking website uniting world wide travelers.

WeExplore – WeExplore provides an online platform for volunteers and travelers from all over the globe.

Wikitravel – Wikitravel is dedicated project for creating a trusted, up-to-date travel guide. It has over 16,641 travel destination guides maintained and written by Wikitravellers from around the world.

Zoodango – Zoodango is a website enabling users to connect with urban professionals either online or face-to-face at local venues.

by Nicholas Deleon on November 23, 2009

A year ago, Swype launched a new way to type on a touchscreen phone at TechCrunch50. Swype was created by the inventor of the T9 predictive typing system used on most phones today because he felt that new text input methods for small touchscreens are sorely needed. Today, the startup announced the first phone to use the technology will be the Samsung Omnia II on Verizon.

As you can see in the video above, which shows a side-by-side comparison of typing on the Omnia II versus on an iPhone, the way you type with Swype is you literally swipe your finger from one letter to the next as fast as you can. In the video, the Swypist beats the iPhone typist hands down, so to speak. But the comparison is more illustrative than definitive. A practiced iPhone typer can bang out a few sentences just as fast. I tried it myself and was able to basically tie the Swype user on the video. Still, I’ll withhold judgment until I can actually try a Swype phone myself.

More phones with Swype built in will be launched next year. The Omnia II is a Windows Mobile phone. But Swype will be included in a new Android phone in the first quarter of 2010.

Will Swype give Android an edge over the iPhone?

Consider this: if Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth largest in the world by population, ahead of both Japan and Russia.

When I talk to people about using social media to market their business, I usually get one of two responses. Either they love using Facebook and Twitter or they really don’t see what all the fuss is about. Unfortunately, both are missing the point.

Social media is probably one of the biggest developments in business since e-mail. Never before has the communications playing field been so level. Social media allows for a single-person, sole proprietorship to have the same potential consumer impact as a Fortune 100 company, without the million-dollar advertising budget.

And yet people still misunderstand social media or, even worse, ignore it completely as a fad.

Take my two earlier examples of responses. The first guy thinks social media is all about Facebook pages and Twitter statuses. The fact is, there are literally hundreds of options in the social media pantheon. The trick is figuring out which ones work best for communicating with your target audience and focusing your attention on those.

As popular as Facebook is, it might not be your best choice. This takes time and attention that not every small business owner might have. This is where outsourcing or contract work comes in handy. A good consultant will help you research your market and decide on the best course of action, while leaving you free to run your business.

Even worse is the second response - indifference. These are the people with their proverbial heads in the sand, assuming all of this social media hooplah will fade away.

Social media is not a fad, and it is not just for kids. Businesses small and large are making lots of money using this social media stuff. Look at upstart blender maker BlendTec, for example. They struck marketing gold with their popular “Will It Blend?” videos on YouTube and saw their sales increase five times as a result.

Now before you grab a digital camera and try your hand at becoming a viral video director, you should know that BlendTec invested a lot of time (if not money) in producing their video series. This is key. You must be prepared for the real cost of social media marketing. What you don’t spend in dollars, you will spend in sweat equity.

But at the end of the day, if it’s done right, the return on your investment could be legendary…and profitable

We’ve been matching up popular web services, applications and mobile apps against each other in heated one-on-one battles here in our weekly Faceoff Series. Last week Microsoft Office bested Google Docs in a head to head race for the title of office suite champion.

This week we turned our attention to a rather timely battle being waged on the mobile front, between Apple’s still wildly-selling iPhone platform and Google’s slower to boil Android mobile operating system. Apparently the latter has been gaining some ground, resulting in our first unexpected upset victory in the Faceoff series.

… Google Android is the winning platform by a more than 2:1 margin. Out of 5045 total votes, Android walked away with 3323 of them or 66%, while the iPhone platform only netted 1494 or 30%. The tie vote included 228 or 5% who just couldn’t choose between them. Many people cited the openness of the platform and third-party development process as well as Android’s versatility, being able to be put to use not just on phones but also netbooks, tablet devices, eReaders and more.

Still, given the popularity of the iPhone we were a little surprised by these results. Are you? Let us know in the comments.

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Web Faceoff: Overall Results

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Week 1:
- Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome
- WINNER: Firefox , 4600 votes (Chrome: 3310 votes, Tie: 911 votes)

Week 2:
- Tumblr vs. Posterous
- WINNER: Tumblr, 1809 votes (Posterous: 1496 votes, Tie: 256 votes)

Week 3:
- Pandora vs. Last.fm
- WINNER: Last.fm, 1187 votes (Pandora: 1156 votes, Tie: 122 votes)

Week 4:
- Twitter vs. Facebook
- WINNER: Facebook, 2484 votes (Twitter: 2061 votes, Tie: 588 votes)

Week 5:
- WordPress vs. Typepad
- WINNER: WordPress, 2714 votes (Typepad: 267 votes, Tie: 357 votes)

Week 6:
- Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard
- WINNER: Windows 7, 3632 votes (Snow Leopard: 3278 votes, Tie: 121 votes)

Week 7:
- TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop
- WINNER: TweetDeck, 3294 votes (Seesmic Desktop: 1055 votes, Tie: 260 votes)

Week 8:
- Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs
- WINNER: Microsoft Office, 1365 votes (Google Docs: 994 votes, Tie: 315 votes)

Week 9:
- Apple iPhone vs. Google Android
- WINNER: Google Android, 3323 votes (Apple iPhone: 1494 votes, Tie: 228 votes)

Facebook is not only the world’s biggest social network, it’s also one of the most popular places to share photos. For users with lots of photos, however, the process of adding albums or collections to Facebook can be kind of a chore.

Sure, there are apps available to minimize the time it takes to tag people in your pictures, but the upload process itself is slow, dated, and buggy. Facebook agrees and today has introduced a new Photo Uploader Prototype.

Facebook describes the prototype as “a preview of an upcoming replacement for the existing Facebook photo uploader. This brand new experience makes use of the new Facebook Plug-In, a light-weight browser plug-in.” And you can activate it and start using it on your account immediately.

The new photo uploader is a huge improvement over the old version. This is how it works: the first time you launch the uploader, you’ll be asked to install a new Facebook Plugin. The plugin works with Windows, Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux 8.04 and up (the plugin only works in the 32-bit version of Ubuntu at this time). The plugin should install right in your browser, but you might have to download it separately and run the file, like I did on my Mac.

In any event, you don’t have to restart your browser to use the plugin. Once the plugin is installed you’ll see your standard “Create an Album” screen, but now when you select “Select Photos,” this is what pops up:

It’s fast and allows you to access photos from your computer (you can easily select folder or folder within folders). You can then add photos from all over your computer and when you’re ready, select upload. At this time, the upload process will take place in the background, meaning you can go back to using Facebook instead of waiting for your files to upload.

This is still in the testing phase, so you might find some bugs — if you have issues — you can always deactivate the prototype and go back to the old way of uploading. The Facebook team hopes to roll out the new version to all users as a replacement soon.

We have to say, the new uploader is a huge improvement over other options. In fact, stand-alone apps like the Flickr Uploadr not-withstanding, this uploader is one of the best ways we’ve seen to upload photos to an online service.

What do you think about Facebook’s new photo uploader?

This morning, professional social network LinkedIn announced that it is opening up its API for developers to build applications around the platform. While LinkedIn has partnered with Twitter, Microsoft, IBM, Research In Motion and others, this will be the first time startups can tap into the platform.

While LinkedIn is releasing 11 different APIs, they fall into three distinct categories. First, developers will be able to let users easily access their information, profiles, connections and messages via oAuth login. The second functionality is to give users the ability to make actionable decisions about information, but letting them message their LinkedIn contacts, post updates, accept contacts and more. And the third piece of the puzzle is search. So developers will now be able to embed LinkedIn search in other applications.

Although the API is now available for all, LinkedIn has already partnered with a select group of developers. Here are a few examples of their integrations.

TweetDeck

Twitter, MySpace and Facebook client TweetDeck will be integrated with LinkedIn in its next version. You will be able to add a LinkedIn column to your TweetDeck, showing all the updates from your network that would normally be visible on the LinkedIn web page. From the client, you’ll be able to see a stream of updates from your contacts, view profiles of contacts and comment and message contacts directly from TweetDeck. If you want to filter the LinkedIn column to only show certain types of update (e.g. status updates, connections or profile changes), you will be able to manage this from the new filter panel which will appear when you click the column header.

Posturous

You can now add LinkedIn as an autopost site on Posturous. So when you update to Posturous, you’ll be able to update directly to your Status Message on LinkedIn. It doesn’t appear that it works the other way around.

Ribbit

Through Knx.to’s recently launched technology, cloud-based VoIP telephony service Ribbit Mobile will pull in the LinkedIn contact info and status updates from anyone who calls you on Ribbit. It will also pull in info from Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and other social media sites. The idea is to give a social context to all of your contacts, which is definitely useful information for both professional and personal contacts.

JobDASH

From the developers of TwitterJobSearch, comes JobDASH, which is an Adobe Air-powered Twitter and LinkedIn client that serves as a career management tool for IT professionals.t can be used to Track colleagues via LinkedIn, and track industry news. JobDASH also features real-time job listings that are posted on Twitter and cross posted from LinkedIn. You’ll be able to filter listings based on type of job.

Box.net

While Box.net co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie is not yet sure of eventual scope of the integration, it will enable users to take content from Box.net and share it with LinkedIn contacts and on their LinkedIn profiles. Box.net is doing this via its OpenBox platform. The long-term approach is to include LinkedIn data and details on our own users’ profiles (on Box.net) to make a richer experience.

With over 200 million active users, Facebook has become a personal, product and corporate branding hub. Every brand that exists on Facebook has the same core features and benefits, such as the ability to create a page, share resources, add multimedia and much more. You have a unique opportunity to leverage this platform for career success or as a playground for you and your closest friends.

The social graph is filled with CEOs, celebrities, entrepreneurs and people just like you who can be reached through Facebook’s messaging system without any boundaries or restrictions. Facebook is also a talent search engine and part of the college admission and corporate recruiting criteria. You will be searched on Facebook by potential dates, managers, and teachers, so use common sense in determining how you want to represent yourself. You are what you publish and first impressions are everything.

What follows is a guide to building your personal brand on Facebook. Continue the conversation by adding your own tips and stories below in the comments.

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1. Know your audience

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Too many people are sharing information to the wrong audiences. Your manager doesn’t want to know if you just went to the bathroom and, although your parents would love to eavesdrop on your relationship with your girlfriend or boyfriend, you might not want to share those details. Since our lives are starting to converge more and more every day, you need to decide what audiences you want to connect with on Facebook.

Do you want to use Facebook as a communication stream to your family and friends? Are you looking to network with professionals that could help you get a job? These are questions you need to start asking yourself before you add “friends” to your Facebook profile. If you decide to open it up to the masses, then you need to be mindful of what you share and how that could impact people’s perception of you. Remember, you can limit what select users can see on your profile, just by changing your settings, which we’ll discuss more below.

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2. Decide on your branding strategy

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Everyone should have a Facebook branding strategy and it should be based not only on the audience you’re targeting, but your overall life goals. Depending on who you are, where you are in your career, what you’re passionate about and an expert in, you’ll want to brand yourself differently.

If you haven’t signed up for Facebook, then you have a great opportunity to start fresh and to build your Facebook profile to best represent you. If you’re a current Facebook user, then start analyzing how your brand is being portrayed and take steps to customize it to reflect your branding strategy.

If you don’t want to build a branding empire, a strategy should still be extremely important to you; you’re already branded and that brand can help shape perceptions online to portray you in a positive light and help you secure a good reputation. This means choosing what links and media you share in your news stream to add value to your brand and those you’re friends with.

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3. Set your privacy settings

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Depending on your Facebook goals, you may set your entire account to private or grant certain individuals permission to view sections of your profile. You can also make your entire profile public for the world to see, which could be beneficial to you if you’re looking to become more visible in your industry and will result in your profile ranking high for your name in search.

I recommend turning tagging settings off for both photos and pictures so that you can take control of your Facebook wall. You wouldn’t want your friends tagging you in a picture of you doing something stupid, would you?

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4. Fill out your profile completely

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Facebook is a great platform where you can paint a picture of who you are. When filling out the information fields, be sure to focus on the education and work section, where you can reconnect with fellow alumni from college, or past colleagues that might be able to help you get a job.

Also, in the contact information field, be sure to list your blog, any websites you might own and links to your profiles on other social networks. Since hiring managers use Facebook’s search engine to find candidates, it pays to load up your profile with keywords that they can search against. Depending on your Facebook brand strategy, you’ll want to promote more information in certain fields like your contact information and less in other fields.

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5. Import contacts and grow your network

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Each month, you should go through the process of importing your contacts from your email accounts and your instant messenger screen name accounts. This will help you continue to grow your Facebook network as you’re meeting new people through your other channels.

If you have a blog, it’s also a smart idea to use Facebook Connect. By having Facebook Connect on your blog, you can bring your friends with you and promote your content through social interactions that start on your blog and end up on Facebook.

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6. Update your status

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Updating your status on Facebook allows your to project a single message to a large audience. Your status is a reflection of who you are and what you do. You can update your status with press mentions, your latest blog entry, a new project you’re working on or your interest in a particular job. Based on your branding strategy, you’ll want to update your status to either keep people informed about what you’re up to, push them to your content or both.

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7. Start a group or a page

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Facebook groups have fewer features than Facebook pages, but they are still important. Use a Facebook group to bring people together in your industry, become a valuable contributor to that community and market your blog, your product, or yourself! Facebook groups let you share links, videos, photos, and start discussions.

Facebook pages are for brands, ranging from Coca Cola to Barack Obama and even you. These pages resemble your Facebook profiles, so only use one if you have a large number of Facebook friends. By having a Facebook page, your brand can go viral, holding a spot on other people’s profiles. The other main advantage is that your page will rank high for your name in Google and you can use it for your professional career, while keeping your personal profile private.

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8. Join or start an event in your area

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One of the best aspects of Facebook is that you can get involved in your community by joining or starting an event in your industry. By opening up your event to everyone, you can meet new people and discover other people who have shared interest and can support your career. Events can also be cataloged on your Facebook page.

If you’re looking to start a weekly or monthly event and want to keep a calendar, logging it on a page is a good strategy. By starting an event, you’re positioning yourself as a leader and an expert, which is great for your personal brand.

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9. Link out to your Facebook profile

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You might already have a blog and accounts on other social networks, including Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Technorati, etc. If you do and your Facebook strategy is to promote yourself and remain public, then placing a link (and possibly a Facebook icon) on these other sites to your Facebook profile is a great idea.

As the chief marketing officer for your personal brand, you want to build your friend list, so that you have more people to market to now and in the future. Think of your Facebook profile as a digital asset and grow the equity in that asset over the rest of your life.

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10. Feed your social networks

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By using Ping.fm (), you can update your status on Facebook, as well as many other social networks in an instant, without duplicating your efforts. Also, you can import your blog titles in Facebook using notes or by using an application called Simple RSS.

Not only does this make you more productive, but it appears as though you’re contributing to your community, without you having to think about it. Since Facebook is all about sharing, those that share more will be remembered more, which is great for personal branding.

There are thousands of different websites that you can leverage to build your own personal brand, but only a few that will give you both the reach and credibility to make a major impact. Here is a detailed look at how you can build your personal brand on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. YouTube is the largest video sharing site on the planet.

With over 120 million U.S. viewers, YouTube is used by President Obama for his weekly State of the Union Address, by universities who share lectures from star academics, and by celebrities such as Miley Cyrus who use it as a lifestream. Aside from the popularity of YouTube, the site exploits the most powerful branding medium of them all, video.

The reason why video is so effective in communicating your personal brand is because your audience will already feel like they’ve met you by the time the video is over.  With video, you get a sense of who someone really is based on their voice, their face and their body motions.  Video can support your branding efforts like no other medium on the web.

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1. Brand your profile

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In order to build your personal brand on YouTube, you have to decide how you want to position yourself.  If you already have a brand, then carry it over onto your YouTube channel to make it consistent with your other web properties.  Channels that have multiple faces should be branded under a topic or a company.  Channels that only have one face and voice should be branded under a full name.  This is extremely important to understand because you can’t change your channel name at a later date.

Choose a channel name: Depending on your branding strategy, you could choose your full name, your company’s name or a unique “show” name for your YouTube channel.  For instance, if you want to brand yourself as an expert in your field, you might want to do it under your own name.  The URL you will receive in return for a successful registration on YouTube is youtube.com/user/yourfullname.

Profile setup: Just like with Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, filling out your profile is important because it will allow people to locate you on a platform where millions of people are competing for attention.  You are able to upload an avatar or use a screenshot that they give you from your latest video.  Use the avatar/professional picture that you have everywhere else.  You also get to add a single URL, which should be the website that best represents you as a brand, such as your blog or LinkedIn profile.

Channel information: Most people don’t know that there are different types of accounts you can choose on YouTube.  If you’re an expert in your field, then I recommend selecting the “Guru” account type because you can use a custom logo and add links.  To access this page go here.

Customize your channel: Log into your account and view your channel as it currently stands.  On the top right of your screen, select “Switch to Player Mode.”  This will change your current display to the newer layout, where people can view your latest video and select any other ones that they want to watch from the sidebar.

Channel title and tags: Where it says “Edit Channel,” you should click on “settings” and then give your channel a title, such as “Mike Smith’s Internet Marketing Show.”  On the right, you’ll want to type in tags that reflect your video content, such as “marketing” and “mike smith” because that’s how people will find your material while searching.

Themes and Colors: Under “Themes and Colors,” find the colors and overall look that align with your website, blog, business card, PowerPoints, etc.  You can also upload your own background image and change fonts and colors.  There are websites that have free YouTube designs that you can use too.

Modules: Now you want to go to “Modules” and check all options because comments, recent activity, and friends are all important if you want to build a community around your YouTube brand.

Latest video: The last thing you want to do is to click on “Edit” on the top right of the screen and where it says “Featured Video,” select “Use the Most Recent.”  This way people will be viewing your latest video automatically.

Now that have presented your audience or future audience with a legitimate profile and design on YouTube, you’re ready to start developing videos that will put your brand in the spotlight, while helping you build your business.

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2. Create remarkable videos

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Content is king and on YouTube, the only true way to be successful is to have content that is worth spreading.  Typically, this means it has to be either really funny or extremely interesting.  Here are a few examples of remarkable content. Video isn’t for everyone and you shouldn’t fool yourself if you know you’re introverted and shy.

Video equipment: I recommend either using a web camera from Logiteck ($99) or a Flip Ultra HD ($200).  The flip is higher quality, but the webcam allows you to do video chat or live video in addition to regular videos for YouTube.

Advanced video equipment: If you’re really serious about creating a video show on YouTube, then you may want to invest in a sounds system, amplifier, lighting, and other professional tools that will make it look professional.

Produce content: The best part about taking videos of yourself is that if you don’t like the end product, you can delete it very easily.  I recommend that you shoot multiple videos at once and then cut the ones that don’t work well.  Make sure all of your videos fall under the theme of your YouTube channel and that you fill out the title, description and tags for each.  In the description of each of your videos, there should be a link back to your blog or website because the people that watch your video might have never heard of your brand before.

Once you have about five or six videos, you will want to start promoting both your channel and each video to your audience.

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3. Promote your videos

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When promoting your channel and your videos, you’ll want to use the network that you already have before you start to get creative.  In the past year, YouTube has streamlined the sharing process through various social networks.

Facebook Application: Using the YouTube Video Box Application on Facebook, you can add your videos automatically on your profile page or your Facebook Fan Page.  This is a great way to give each of your videos additional visibility without additional labor.

Autoshare on Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader: Go to your YouTube account settings and click on “Sharing.”  In this menu, you can automatically syndicate your YouTube updates (such as when you upload a new video) through Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader.  Before you check all three off, please understand who your audience is on each social network.  For example, if you share your professional videos on Facebook, where only your college friends are, then it might be awkward.

Add your blog: Go back under YouTube account setting and click on “Blog Setup.”  This will allow you to link your blog (Wordpress.com/org, TypePad, Blogger, etc) with your account.  This feature will enable you to post your videos on your blog directly in just a few simple clicks.

Embed your videos: If you have a blog or traditional website (corporate or personal), you can embed one or more videos from YouTube on it.  YouTube embedded videos give you options, such as a border, different size arrangements and a variety of colors.

Link to your channel or videos everywhere you can: The more links you have to a video, the higher it will rank when keywords are searching in YouTube or in Google.  Also, more links typically means more traffic to your videos, which helps build your brand.  Link to your channel and videos from your resume, from your social networking profiles (possibly as a graphic icon), from your email signature, from your presentations and everywhere else.

YouTube isn’t going anywhere.  It’s one of the most trafficked websites in the world and it’s a great place to get started with online video.  Even though many of your videos might not get 100,000 views, the important thing is that you can leverage that video content and share it on all of your branded properties.  Your YouTube channel can become a very important asset to your brand, one that provides your authentic voice and appearance like nothing else can.