Making these ideas a part of your writing process will require a change in your mindset on content creation, but changing your mindset on writing will enhance your content dramatically Most writers rely too much on the process of creating content instead of the results said content should bring. Don’t focus too much on the thrill of writing but rather what you hope to achieve with it in the long run. Do you want to educate readers on your product or are you simply filling content on your corporate blog?

Writing Informative Content

If I were writing a story on the iPhone 4, I would create a title like “iPhone 4:  Apple Revolutionizes The Phone, Again.” Assuming my readers are interested in technology in some way, they will be compelled to click on the link because it tells them Apple introduced a new iPhone, (specifically, the fourth one). Readers also learn that the iPhone is a great product because it is revolutionary. I’d follow up with a short, Twitter-esque description that tells the reader what to expect while making them want to read the content:

Today, Apple introduced the iPhone 4, which revolutionizes how you call, use apps, and surf the web. It’s powerful, fast, and beautiful and we’ve got all the info.

This short, 163 character description expands on the title, tells the reader what the iPhone does, summarizes its attributes and most importantly tells them how it will impact their life.

When creating your content, you must keep in mind one simple rule: you are not writing for the sake of writing, you are writing to inform, engage and to captivate. Many bloggers make the mistake of writing words without meaning, including text that does not inform nor engage. Changing your preconceived notions about how and why content will be created is crucial.

Conceptualizing your content beforehand makes it extremely easy to create an outline and structure your content accordingly. A simple structure makes your writing more accessible, captivating and informative for readers. Following this structure will also make it extremely easy to write content, whether you have any background in the topic or not.

Write Engaging Content

Content engages your reader in many different causing them to possibly reply, and give feedback or simply generating interest about your work within their network. Using a “call to action” makes your content most engaging; these could be in the title, the body and the description in your post. However, you could insert questions or make the content relevant to your readers’ personalities.

Keeping your mind on what you want to achieve will help your writing workflow. I’ve had to adjust from the preconceived notion of great content is wordy content. Great content is content that informs, captivates and engages. If your post is 3,000 words and informs me on a particular subject without boring me and follows up with questions, that is good content. If your post is 300 words and tells me what I should know, tells me why its relevant and tells me why I should care, that is great content. If your post is however many words but fails to engage, inform or make me notice, I will not care.

Most writers focus too much on inserting personality and opinion over information. A balance of both is needed but one should not over ride the other. You’ll see throughout this post I mention my previous freelance exploits as examples. I could use examples of other writer’s techniques but I have more experience in detailing how I progressed. This inserts my personality in to the content but gives you information at the same time.

Saying I changed my writing style to engage readers does not inform, it tells you what you want to do but does tell you how. Writing about the process of my editor lambasting me about not writing good content inserts too much of my personality and not enough information.

Keeping your eye on what you want to convey throughout the content compiling and content creation process will make your content good because your writing will be compelling, informative and engage me.

Following the sample scenario of the iPhone 4, I’d want to apply the idea of this post to a piece of news from Apple: Steve Jobs has announced a new product, the iPhone 4. It includes a 960 x 480 retina display, Face Time webcam, Apple A4 processor and iOS 4. As a technical writer I would be hooked instantly, I have my product info ready to insert in to my content but I’m already making one fundamental mistake: writing content aimed for technical people and not the mass populace. However, by changing my mindset, I can not only engage the technical demographic but also everyone else. I need to focus on what the product does, its end result and answer the question ‘what does this mean for me?’

What does the iPhone 4 do? It allows me to video chat with my family and friends. Its new display doesn’t cause eye strain and text looks like I’m reading it from a book. The new processor makes games and surfing the web much faster. The new Software lets me run more than one App at a time and has a more intuitive mail layout. That tells me right there what the iPhone 4 will do, how it will enhance my life and what I should buy it.

Being more technical oriented I want to know how it accomplishes this. I’d follow up with  “The iPhone 4 uses a front facing 0.3 megapixel camera to enable video chats. Its 960 x 480 has a resolution of 321 pixels per inch, a higher resolution of printed text which is 300 dots per inch. The included A4 processor runs at 1 GHz and has access to 512 MB RAM. The Phone’s Software, iOS 4 includes multitasking support, the mail App has thread view support and a unified mail box. Including that information along appeals to the tech oriented readers but tells no tech savvy readers why the iPhone is great.

The Basic Structure Of Your Content

Your structure should follow the rule of three by focusing on three main points you are discussing. These main points should be created from three words you’ve used in your description so the reader will be familiar with what you’re talking about. If you must use more than three points, do not go beyond five- the reason for using only three points is that it will be easier to read your content and actually retain the information. You’ll find that spewing bullet points no longer works for writing. If you were to really read what you wrote from months back, how much of it would you retain? Keep this in mind as you divide your post in to distinct sections.

To tie the summary in to the rest of the content. I’ve used the words ‘powerful’ ‘fast’ and ‘beautiful’ to describe the iPhone 4. I’ve also described the basic functions of the iPhone 4 as being able to call, use Apps and surf the web. I have to remember to use those three adjectives to describe the iPhone’s basic functions. Using those three adjectives to create three distinct sections would make my post look like this.

iPhone 4, A Beautiful, Stainless Steel Design

This explains why the iPhone is beautiful, it uses a stainless steel design which I would elaborate on why Apple chose a stainless steel design and discuss other design elements which make the iPhone 4 beautiful like this: The iPhone 4 is a strong departure from its previous design of plastic  by embracing a stainless band around the glass backing and front display. To improve signal strength Apple has placed the antenna in the steel band.

The Apple A4 Processor: All The Power A Phone Could Want, And More

This explains what makes the iPhone 4 powerful; a processor called the Apple A4. However, those who are tech illiterate may not understand what the Apple A4 is or even what it does. I’ve appended a description in the section name that explains its a very powerful processor. I would expand on this and detail what makes the Apple A4 a great processor, why Apple chose that specific processor and the advantages it offers: The Apple A4 was built specifically for the iPhone, iPad and future Apple devices that require speed while maintaing a long battery life. The processor runs at a speedy 1 GHz without encroaching on battery life; at 6 hours of 3G internet usage the iPhone 4 is an improvement over the iPhone 3GS it replaces.

Faster Wireless Speeds: 3G, 802.11N WiFi And Bluetooth 2.1

This sentence also builds upon the previous statement that those who aren’t tech literate may not understand the complete technical nomenclature such as 3G networking, 802.11N Wifi or Bluetooth. I started off with the statement of “Faster Wireless Speeds” which tells all my readers that the iPhone 4 networks faster and has faster wireless speeds. I’ll elaborate and explain which wireless functions are faster on the iPhone. Since this is the most technical portion of my iPhone description I will need to describe what 3G networking is (It is a standard which denotes wireless upload and download speeds between a mobile device and a wireless network when communicating with a cellular carrier) what 802.11N Wifi is (802.11 N is an improvement upon previous wireless standards and offers increased download and upload speeds between the iPhone and your router) and what Bluetooth 2.1 is (The newest version of Bluetooth 2.1 brings enhanced security when pairing with mobile devices.)

iPhone 4 Makes Apps Faster And More Powerful

Since I discussed the iPhone 4 revolutionizes how you use Apps and surf the web, I’ll want to create a fourth section that describes how the phone does this and build upon what I talked about previously: the iPhone 4 energizes App usage using the speedy A4 processor and its spacious 512 MB of RAM. This allows the iPhone to run more than 1 Application at any time without lag. The phone’s built in Web Browser, Safari, renders pages faster and download content faster thanks to the upgraded 3G and Wifi connections. You’ll be able to run multiples Apps and read your favorite Blog while on a conference call without any degradation in quality.

Grow Your Audience

Even though you may write a niche blog with a specific audience in mind, don’t alienate readers. There is a reason the topic you’re focusing on is a niche; not enough people know or care about it. If you can create content that engages people who are new to the topic you will be more likely to grow your readership and interest new people.

While I could restructure my post to talk about different keywords relating to the iPhone such as usability, battery life and emailing capabilities, I’d engage, inform and captivate readers the same way as long as I used the basic structure of three simple talking points. I’d still have the opportunity to discuss what makes the iPhone great, why readers may want to use it and how it improves their lives; essentially, it doesn’t matter what points I want to make in my bog if I’m organized and follow the rule of three.

You’ve seen blogging demystified and broken down into a simple, three point outline that will make your content engage, inform and captivate. These guidelines can be applied to your writing without any learning curve whatsoever; simply change your state of mind and your writing will improve.

That total comes from 11.4 million blogs that are hosted on the site, and in all, WordPress reports the site is seeing more than 260 million people visit its blogs every month (according to data from Quantcast).

To put that in perspective, there have more than 15 billion tweets, four billion Flickr photos and two million minutes of video uploaded to YouTube (every day!).

Of course, one could argue that the written word (in blog form in this case) requires a bit more thought and effort than tweets, photos or vids, and hence is an equally if not more impressive milestone. Not to mention, another 13.8 million blogs (including Mashable use the installable version of WordPress, creating tens of millions of additional pieces of content.

And sometimes one of these little settings can make using WordPress and writing our posts a lot easier.  One of my favorites increases the amount of space on the Edit Post page before you have to start scrolling.

Go to Settings > Writing and the first option is ‘Size of the Post Box’. The default is 10 lines. I’ve changed mine to 20. I write with more ease when I can see more of the post in front of me.

Of course, I don’t always write most posts in the WordPress editor. Sometimes I need to pretend I am offline so I write them in a text editor and then finish them up in WordPress and get them scheduled.

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.

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?

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

Social search, demoed at the Web 2.0 Summit by Google’s VP of Search Marissa Mayer, combines results from your friend’s blogs, Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed and a wide variety of other social media sites (so long as your friends have connected their social accounts to their Google with Google’s regular search results. The feature will go live this afternoon, and can be found within Google Labs.

The experimental feature, once activated, will display relevant search results from your social circle at the bottom of the search results page. This could be travel photos from your friends, a recent blog post, a set of status updates, or other information Google pulls.

For now, the feature is opt-in, only affects certain searches, and appear at the bottom of the search results page. However, we won’t be surprised if Social Search results start blending into regular search higher up the page. After all, your social circle is often far more relevant than even the top Wikipedia article on a subject. Google seems to betting on it in a big way.

Here’s a demo of social search from Google:

When first starting a blog, choosing which blogging platform to use is one of the most important decisions that you can make as a new blogger. The right platform can make blogging a breeze, and the wrong platform can make blogging a chore.

Because the platform that you use to blog with is such a powerful part of your blogging experience, it is well worth putting in the time to find a platform that provides your ideal balance between a user-friendly interface and a flexible framework that allows you to make your blog look and feel unique.  If you are planning on blogging for profit, then I would recommend getting a hosted account at someplace like godaddy. Finding the right platform isn’t always easy, but with a little bit of contemplation and a little bit of research, you will be on your way to finding the perfect blogging platform.

If you are new to blogs and to internet technology, you might want to sacrifice the ability to create a custom background design or to integrate a unique font into your template in order to find a program that will be easy for you to use. On the other hand, if you are a veteran web designer with knowledge of html or javascript, you will probably find the limitations of a user-friendly platform to be frustrating.

Blogging Platforms

There is no such thing as a blogging platform that is objectively the best platform, because every blogger has unique needs. The blogging movement is very much about individuality, so it makes plenty of sense that there would be many different platforms available that are designed to meet the needs of different kinds of individuals undertaking different kinds of projects. This diversity is a good thing, because it means that you will almost certainly be able to find a program that suits your level of technical aptitude. However, the fact that no two bloggers need the same thing from a blogging platform can make your search for the right platform a bit tricky.

Here are some blog platforms to consider:

• http://blogger.com
• http://wordpress.com
• http://typepad.com
• http://livejournal.com

There is no such thing as the perfect platform for everybody, so instead of looking for the “best” platform, look for the best platform for your specific criteria.

All4WordPress.com – Offers several themes with 125×125 placements, such as the above Clouds Rounds, as well as at least one with a 25ox250 slot.

BlixKrieg – The extremely versatile Blix theme got abandoned as a project ages ago, but it then resurfaced as BlixKrieg with built-in placements for Google AdSense units. Even though this theme is aging, new authors do try to keep it up to date.

BlogOhBlog.com – Offers several free themes, with AdsPress being the most ad friendly of them with some fairly subtle Google AdSense placements.

DailyBlogTips – The popular blog about all-things-blogging has started offering free monthly WordPress themes, all of them with an eye to advertising. There is a mixture of choices with 125X125 ad blocks and those supporting Google AdSense.

EasyWordPress.com – Offers a few free monetized WordPress themes for free (registration required for download) that have various types of monetization units.

ElegantWPThemes.com – ElegantWPThemes offers several free themes with 125×125 spots, the above pictured one is named Soloss.

Jauhari.net – Jauhari.net offers numerous themes, a few with Google AdSense placements, and two with 125×125 spots. This one pictured, My April Reloaded, also features a 729×90 banner spot that can be used for images or as an ad spot.

Monetizing The Web – You can’t do an article about monetization themes without including one named “Monetizing the Web”. Available in 17 different colors, there isvirtually no monetization they left out of this: Google AdSense units, text links, Google Referrals and more.

Slick Blue – From HackWordPress, this theme includes four 125×125 placements as well as a Google AdWords banner slot at the top.

WPThemesPlugin.com – WPThemesPlugin offers several free themes, several of them monetized such as Vestique which features 125×125 ad slots, Google AdSense on the individual posts and a 468X60 slot at the top.

WPThemesPress.com – Offers several free themes with ad placements, but they seem very targeted to niche blogging, like the one above, Deliciously Nature.

With a social media resume, you’re able to paint a completely different portrait of yourself for hiring managers and customize it to reflect your personal brand. With the inclusion of various multimedia elements, sharing options, integrated social networking feeds and the same elements you’d find in a traditional resume, you are better equipped for success.

Social media has allowed us to reverse the recruiting process. Instead of submitting our resume, it becomes a billboard that can be shared, distributed to hiring managers, searched and more. In one sense it showcases your talents and what you’re looking for in a job and in the other, recruiters become attracted to it and will approach you with the opportunities that you desire.

Here is the social media resume process:

1.  Start With A Website

Depending on who you are, how much time you have, how you deal with criticism and your technological competency, you’ll either want to start a website or a blog. With both, there are free and easy to use services out there, as well as services that cost money and require experience.

Options for websites

Free: Bravenet.com is a free solution with many different tools, such as a polling feature and guest book to help you get started. They’ve been around since I started building web pages in middle school.

Paid: I recommend you use Bluehost or Godaddy to host and build your website. You can also use Microsoft Expression Web (), which is an easy to use website building software program, much like using Microsoft Word to build your website.

Options for blogs

Free: I recommend WordPress.com or Google Blogger. Both are easy to use and don’t require much web knowledge. I would touch up your skills in HMTL before even getting involved with a blog. There are various sites such as W3 Schools that can serve as tutorials for you.

Paid: I recommend loading WordPress.org into Bluehost. I just went through this process and Godaddy can’t comply, but Bluehost is easy to work with and understands how to install WordPress () blogs onto their hosts. Another option is using Typepad.com, which costs money and is great for the beginner blogger.

2.  Your URL is Key

Depending on your strategy, your URL is going to be extremely important. Of course I would recommend that you purchase your domain name, yourname.com. If that isn’t available, try for yournameRESUME.com or the .net or .org equivalents, in that order.

The objective of the URL is to have something you can freely promote and that people can remember.

- Use the URL on your paper resume.
- Use the URL on all of your social networks.
- Use the URL on your business cards and any other marketing materials.

You can get free domain names when you sign up for Bluehost, Godaddy and others. They typically come in a package with the hosting space.

3.  Decide on Format and Design

Depending on what job you’re looking for, you’ll want to change the blog/website format accordingly. I think it makes a lot of sense to take your paper resume and break it apart into its different sections. Once you do this, you can have separate tabs and pages for each, so it’s easy to crawl, navigate and makes a lot of sense to the recruiter.  Depending on how you want to brand yourself, you’ll want to design your blog accordingly. Using a color wheel to choose colors that match is very important, especially if you aren’t a graphic designer or artist. Remember to use a consistent font, headings and colors, while keeping your frame/format intact.

4.  Enhance Your Resume with Multimedia

Traditional resumes can’t include multimedia because they are on paper. Multimedia makes your website/blog much more interesting and interactive. It allows you to emotionally connect with recruiters and all other observers. It also puts a resume to a face and is another great method for people to consume your content. We’ve discussed video resumes before on Mashable, but you do have other options.

As WebWorkerDaily explains, you can enhance your multimedia resume in the following ways:

- A video or MP3 of you answering basic interview questions.
- Video of a talk or seminar you recently conducted.
- Photos of you meeting industry celebrities or business people.
- Audio testimonials from previous clients and coworkers.
- A podcast you’ve started.

Out of everything, I think a basic introduction to the brand called you is the most valuable for the observer. I would give a thirty second pitch for why someone should hire you. Depending on the company you’re targeting, you’ll want to dress formally or informally. Don’t act like you’re reading from a card and try to have a natural sounding voice. You can upload your video or audio to sharing sites, such as Vimeo or YouTube and then embed them on your website or blog. This typically works the best because then the video can have movement, going from one hiring manager to the next.

5.  Integrate Your Social Network Platforms

Before you think of even linking to any of your social networks in your webpage or blog, please consider how the profiles would appear to recruiters. For instance, if you want to highlight your Facebook profile, ensure that it doesn’t have profanity or explicit pictures on it first. You should review your wall postings, picture, profile information and more to see if it would be appropriate for hiring managers.

If your Facebook profile passes your examination, then feel free to build a profile badge that you can embed on your website.

Other social networks you may want to crosslink with:

LinkedInYour professional profile on this social network is extremely important because it takes into account everything a recruiter would desire from an applicant: cover letter, references list and resume. You can use a LinkedIn badge on your website or blog as well.

Twitter: Your Twitter stream can be a huge asset to you on your social media resume because it’s easy to update and recruiters can get a better feeling about who you are from reading it. There are Twitter badges you can include on your site as well.

YouTube: Storing your videos on YouTube makes a lot of sense because it’s easy to embed on your site, organize your videos into playlists and you can even have your own YouTube channel widget.

This is important if you want potential clients and employers to get a feel of what your personality and work ethic is like. The most important thing is to use social networks that people are most familiar with, such as the ones above and to keep them all fresh and updated. They HAVE TO best represent your personal brand to be included on your social media resume.

To read the other 5 ways to build your social media resume, read on Mashable