Tag Archives: flickr

Techsmith’s Jing Screen-Capture Platform Saves Developers From Killing Middle-Management

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Software development is a hapless job that requires patience and is often the butt of plenty Dilbert jokes. The primary source of most developers frustrations is explaing all of the ‘techie’ jargon to all of the non-technical minded ‘suits’. TechSmith is a company based in Michigan that offers various screen-capture programs that offer several different utilities, such as image capturing, video editing, and web hosting. All with the goal of making developers and anyone who relies on presenting technical work lives easier.

One of their products, Jing, offers the same screen-capture options as other Techsmith products but where it shines is its shara-bility. Users can click-and-drag over images, sections or regions of their screen, then record audio instructions of what they are doing while also using text boxes and arrows. Collaboration of projects is much easier with Jing because the program includes buttons to instantly save and share to Screencast.com, TechSmith’s web hosting service, a separate FTP site, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr. After sharing, Jing automatically creates a URL that is copied to the Jing clipboard and can be share in e-mails, and instant messages.

Jing even offers a spoof portable applications Jing-2-Go

The program would be best suited for software developers who need to explain detailed instructions quickly and painlessly. Jing is FREE to download for both Windows and Mac.

On an eco-friendly note, Jing could potentially reduce fuel consumption, saving co-workers and collaborators the commute driving from office to office to sit through meetings. Al Gore allegedly uses Jing.

Getting business through social networking

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A couple days ago I found an interesting discussion in Flickr. In the wedding photographers group some of the members were discussing about how to get business through social networks. The idea is simple, but effective: Post the pictures you take for a senior portraits session, engagement or a wedding on your Facebook and tag your customers. If your privacy options are set up so everyone can see those pictures, allow comments, and you will be the guy who took those cool senior portraits or those cute engagement shots, and that will surely bring you business.

The same idea applies to many different businesses. If you do a good job in whatever you do, you can probably ask that customer to left a recommendation for you on any of the social networking sites, or ask him to refer your site to other potential customers.

If you are writing a blog, write about what you have done for that customer and put pictures of up it if possible. Then let your customer know and he will surely show your blog entry to colleagues and friends, spreading the word about whatever service or product you do and how well you do it.

Word of mouth is proven to work well, and social networking is a powerful tool for keep spreading the word about your business.

Politics and Social Networking

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Social Networking and politics are developing a strong relationship during this current presidential race. The use of social networking as a tool to get votes is not new; social networking sites were already used by the candidates in 2004, but they were not given the importance that they have now.

So what has changed? In the first place, social networking sites were not as popular as they are now. Also, the candidates were not so active in the social networking and their profiles were more an extension of their campaign websites. Facebook now has more than 100 million users, and the more professional focused network, LinkedIn, already counts 24 million users. Politicians are also realizing that they can also get votes through using these social networking sites, as they allow them to interact with potential voters and let them be perceived as someone closer than the candidate we only see on the news. Regarding this matter, Barack Obama has asked two questions using the Questions and Answers service of LinkedIn: “What ideas do you have to keep America competitive in the years ahead?” which already has 3,108 responses and “How can the next president better help small business and entrepreneurs thrive?” which at this time has 1,493 answers.

The Obama campaign has also launched my.barackobama.com, a social networking site similar to Facebook for Obama supporters, where you can connect with your friends, create events and even create your own blog.

In many senses the Obama campaign seems to be more connected with social networking and in my opinion is doing a better job than the McCain campaign. I was able to find Barack Obama on LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Myspace and Twitter. I was only able to find John McCain on LinkedIn, Facebook and Myspace.

I am not sure on how the social networking efforts of both candidates will be reflected in the elections results, but at this time, if we took Facebook as a reference, Barack Obama has 1,791,490 supporters, while John McCain has “only” 332,949 supporters. However, the main problem with these numbers is that the number of potential voters among these supporters is unknown, and if you look carefully you will notice many teenagers that are not able to vote yet and also many foreigners. If these results will have a reflection on the real elections, only time will tell.