Original: Marketing >> Finding Future Trends with The Internet Time Machine

Swiss-based online scheduling tool Doodle has announced the launch of Calendar Connect. Doodle explains what Calendar Connect is, “the new calendar interface brings everything that users need for scheduling into one constantly updated place and enables them to select dates and times for meeting requests in a visual way…Also, free and busy data can be shared on Doodle with selected contacts regardless of the calendar system in use. This makes the gap between otherwise disparate calendars even closer.”

You can easily connect your Doodle calendar with Google Calendar using what looks like oAuth. Both calendars will be connected — see the video below for an example of how the new calendar connect service works.

You can also connect with Yahoo Calendar and any other calendar service that supports an ICS calendar feed.

The Doodle team is also working on a private beta of the Outlook Calendar connector. Doodle self-reports over six month users per month are using their calendar service.

Original: Technology >> Doodle Launches Calendar Connect

The tool is intended to make eye exams affordable in the developing world, and the creators are founding a startup to distribute it.

Measuring someone for an eyeglass prescription usually requires bulky diagnostic machines or high-tech laser scanners that can cost thousands of dollars. Which means that in the developing world, vision correction is often an unattainable luxury for literally hundreds of millions of people. But a team of researchers at the MIT Media Lab has unveiled a system for prescribing eyeglasses that requires nothing more than a smartphone and a $1 plastic lens attachment.

The system was created by Media Lab student Vitor Pamplona, along with Ramesh Raskar and Manuel Oliveira, two professors at the Media Lab, and post-doc Ankit Mohan, and the inventors plan on showing it off next month at the SIGGRAPH computer-graphics conference. They’ve dubbed it the Near-Eye Tool for Refractive Assessment, or NETRA for short.

To use NETRA, a patient simply peers into a small lens attached to a smartphone, loaded with the testing app. On screen, they seen parallel red and green lines; then, they use arrow keys on the phone to adjust those lines until they overlap. After just two minutes of testing, the app spits out an eyeglass prescription.

As to next steps, the team of inventors has is planning to launch a for-profit startup, called PerfectSight, that will market and produce the device for Asian and African markets.

The system, whose technical details are described in the video below, tests the eye in a novel way. A patient doesn’t need lenses to bring a blurry image into focus, like on those bulky machines that optometrists used to use. Rather, the clip-on cellphone attachment has a simple system of lenses and pinholes. When a patient’s eyesight isn’t 20/20, that system makes dots and lines appear separated, rather than simply blurry.

Mohan, one of the researchers on the project, thinks the device will do for eye exams what digital technology did for photographs: An expensive, rarefied process should now become cheap and ubiquitous.

Original: Most Luxurious >> Eye Phone: MIT Researchers Develop Ultra-Cheap, Smartphone-Based Eye Exam Tool

Genealogy site Geni is going global today with the addition of its site translated into 22 new languages, including Spanish, German, French, and Hebrew. The site will add dozens more languages in the coming weeks.

Noah Tutak, President of Geni, said that this additional language functionality is a result of the site’s international user base. Half of Geni’s traffic comes from outside of the U.S. But what’s even more compelling than Gene’s availability in additional languages is the technology that is helping to translate the site.

Geni’s engineers have developed a Ruby On Rails-based translation engine that crowdsources language translations of the site. Called tr8n, the technology allowed for Geni to be translated by a few dozen volunteers into seventeen languages in less than two weeks. Translators can vote on existing translations, or submit their own inline while browsing the site. The tr8n engine even takes into account the grammar rules of each language to provide accurate translations for any context.

Tr8n, which comes with 109 pre-configured languages, also shows you what percentage of the site is translated, has full support for right-to-left languages, and provides specialized character keyboards for specific languages with unique, local characters, such as Russian. David Sacks, founder and CEO of Geni, tells me that soon tr8n will be used to translate Yammer, Sacks’ other startup, and will eventually be licensed to other Ruby On Rails sites as a plugin for crowdsourced translations.

Facebook offers a Facebook Connect-enabled crowdsourced translation tool that helped the social network translate its site into more than 65 different languages. But Sacks maintains that tr8n is a more feature-rich option for translation.

Specifically, Sacks says that tr8n differentiates from Facebook’s tool by not requiring a user to have an account on another site. Tr8n also allows site operators own their translations and includes a more flexible syntax for translating complex phrases.

Additionally, Geni announced that the startup’s VP of product, Noah Tutak was promoted to President and VP of engineering Amos Elliston has been named Chief Technology Officer.

Original: Social Media >> Geni Goes Global With 20 New Languages And A Crowdsourced Translation Tool

Finding a winning image for your ad copy is GOLD… but it’s usually a task to find related images that pull the same results? I was looking around Google Labs and came across a killer tool called Google Image Swirl. In so many words, this tool has the potential to save you a lot of time, increase your ROI and may even be able to scale your campaigns to the next level!

Let’s take a look at Google Image Swirl in action. In the first example, let’s pretend we have an ad copy for an auto insurance offer with a hot looking yellow sports car. We’ve already tested a ton of different cars and colors and know that a YELLOW SPORTS CAR will perform best…. but where can we find more winning ad images? Sure, we can go to Google Images and search “yellow sports car”, but Google Image Swirl offers an alternative solution.

Search Google Image Swirl for “hot cars” and you will be shown a few results. Select a specific image again and you will see even more related results. You can keep digging down til it starts showing a specific type of car or just focuses on colors. Each time you select a new image, a web of new related results will appear. The end result is below.

You aren’t limited to just cars. What about everyone who is running dating ads and needs more ad copy of top CTR images? Repeat the process, and this time search for “hot facebook girls” and you’ll have another swirl to work with.

Google Image Swirl isn’t perfect and it’s still in beta. Right now you are limited on what you can search for, and what they current have available usually doesn’t have thousands of images for you to choose from. Should the usage and development of Image Swirl continue, it may end up being a pretty useful too for designers and marketers a like.

As with all image use, be sure to look over all copyright and trademark information be using in any ad campaigns.

Give Google Image Swirl a run and let me know what you think.

Original: Make Money >> Need More Winning and Relevant Ad Copy Images?

There’s a new version of cloud-based note-taking tool Evernote for the iPhone and iPod touch, and it supports the multitasking features added by Apple’s iOS 4 software.

Evernote has three million users to recommend it, but no one with a great idea can rest on his or her laurels forever, so the company behind the tool has been updating the app with new features periodically. A couple examples: Evernote 2.0 added landscape typing mode and an in-app web browser about a year ago, and Evernote 3.2 added miscellaneous offline features for those times when 3G service isn’t available.

Now we’re up to 3.3.5, and this update is mostly about multitasking. Apple limits the things apps can do in the background, but Evernote is taking advantage of the ground that Apple’s given it by downloading new note headers and syncing new notes with the server even if the app has been put to sleep in favor of another one.

The best new feature is the ability to continuously record voice notes regardless of what app you’re actively using. Now you don’t have to stop recording to check something that’s pertinent to your note by visiting another app.

None of these features will be available to the public until iOS 4 launches on the iPhone 3G S this Monday though. iPhone 4 users will have iOS 4 the day they pick up their phones — which will be this Thursday if they’re bold enough to brave the lines. Multitasking won’t hit the iPad until this fall, unfortunately.

Original: Gadgets >> Note-Taking App Evernote Gets Better With iOS 4

As most of you have noticed lately Twitter has had its share of downtime. Talk of the Twitter fail whale used to be more prevalent but until recently was seen as more of a nuisance rather than an issue. Well, for many users the amount of downtime experienced recently is moving quickly into the realm of real concern rather than just an inconvenience.

Twitter is obviously aware as noted on their blog which attempts to explain what’s been happening.

From a site stability and service outage perspective, it’s been Twitter’s worst month since last October.

What’s the problem?

Last Friday, we detailed on our Engineering blog that this is going to be a rocky few weeks. We’re working through tweaks to our system in order to provide greater stability at a time when we’re facing record traffic. We have long-term solutions that we are working towards, but in the meantime, we are making real-time adjustments so that we can grow our capacity and avoid outages during the World Cup.

As we go through this process, we have uncovered unexpected deeper issues and have even caused inadvertent downtime as a result of our attempts to make changes. Ultimately, the changes that we are making now will make Twitter much more reliable in the future. However, we certainly are not happy about the disruptions that we have faced and even caused this week and understand how they negatively impact our users.

At this point it would be easy to rant and rave about how this apparent digital injustice is just an outrage blah, blah, blah. Rather than take the easy route I would like to consider just what we as users of Twitter expect and how our demands sound more annoying than World Cup soccer horns on most days.

Right now, at least, Twitter is a free tool. It’s an effective free tool. It’s a popular free tool. Why we expect perfection from a free tool is just a testament to our inability to handle bumps in our daily road. Would I like 100% up time with Twitter? Sure would. Last week during the IAB’s Innovation Days event in New York it was frustrating when the service was not available. It took something away from the experience.

It’s this last point that should actually make Twitter users happy. When used in a way that can help you or enrich you in some way Twitter can add to an experience for many. Just a few short years ago this kind of communication wasn’t even available. It’s interesting how we can go from not knowing what we are missing to completely spoiled and indignant in a very short period of time.

So my suggestion while Twitter works out its current kinks? Relax and remember how you used to be productive before Twitter. Do those things again for a little while. You may even find that you have shelved an activity in favor of Twitter but it should be brought back into your rotation.

Sure the fail whale is an unwelcome guest. Trouble is that while we see these ‘failings’ as massive letdowns it’s really just more evidence that perfect isn’t attainable and even Twitter is run by regular old human beings. Inherent in that is imperfection and trouble. Should they have anticipated the current trouble that is likely due to the World Cup? Sure they should have. Looks like they didn’t, however, and it’s probably just better to live with it as it is rather than complain about what it should be.

Your thoughts?

Original: Blogging >> Twitter Has A Rough Go As Of Late

Networking has delivered more return on investment than any other tool in my business. Both financially and in non-monetary terms, my network has delivered so much value that I can not imagine what my situation would be like without it. If there is one thing that I could suggest that would be guaranteed to boost any business, networking would be it.

The problem is, everyone who believes in networking recommends it the same way.

“It works, try it!”.

But how does it deliver value exactly?

Lewis and I are about to run the training class for Shy Networking tomorrow. One of the most surprising questions I have seen over and over during our launch has been people asking how they might benefit.

You see, networking takes time. It is not an instant gratification thing very often. OK, so we have all experienced that chance meeting where everything clicks and we come away with a brilliant, but random contact. That’s not the norm. We are talking about human relationships, and they are not always fast burning things.

People are asking if they should devote time to networking over, say, SEO, blogging or social media.

I have to tell you, being so close to things it took me a while to articulate. It’s like explaining why we need to breathe, drink and eat – my network is like food, but the other tactics are like water and oxygen to my business. It’s not either-or, it’s and. So if you are crunched for time, why should you add networking to your mix?

Of course you wouldn’t be reading this article if I hadn’t managed to give you concrete reasons why you should invest your time in networking, so here they are.

Networking ROI

There are many benefits to networking but you have to remember that we are dealing with people. You have to keep that in mind. Going out with a “what can I get?” attitude is going to sink your efforts before you begin. But, of course you need to know what return you are going to get before you invest, so here is what you can expect:

1. Friendship Benefits

I wanted to start with a benefit that does not necessarily convert to Dollars, Pounds or Euros. Do not overlook the simple benefit of having friends in the business with no strings attached. We need to know someone has our back, that we have people who are there for us. It can be lonely when you work alone, with only a monitor light to keep you company.

Having someone who understands is extremely valuable on a psychological and emotional level. Your friends can chat to keep you motivated and cheery, are a sounding board for ideas, or will listen to you moan when you need it. When Sonia, Jon and I get together on Skype an hour can go by in a flash, I am not always sure if we actually do solve the world’s problems, but those conversations are something I look forward to each week.

When you are in a strange town it is nice to have company even just for meals. Deb NG, Becky McCray and Andy Hayes keep me safe on the mean streets of the USA, help me dodge my diet, and stop my ego getting out of control.

Now I am feeling guilty for not listing all the other people who have kept me company, fed me, or joined me in friendship and conversation over the years. Hopefully you will forgive me for not linking you up this once, I will buy you a drink next time we meet while you tell me what a horrible friend I am. Deal?

My point is people need people.

2. Opportunities

Now to contrast with the touch-feely first benefit, here is where the big bang of ROI kicks in. The most significant monetary benefit my network has brought me, and we are talking six figures from just one contact, is the opportunities they expose me to or introduce me to.

If you are not getting enough opportunities, then you need to build your network. Opportunities like joint ventures, client leads, partnerships, speaking and writing gigs, businesses or assets bought and sold … you name it.

All the best opportunities are shared person to person in back channels. Everything from prime domain sales through to employment opportunities. If two people are equally qualified then it goes to who you know, like and trust. A lot of the time even when the person you like is less qualified. Getting passed over for plum gigs? This is why.

This one networking benefit alone has to be worth an astronomical amount.

There are two problems that stop people thinking of this benefit, though:

1. People do not give credit to their network when opportunities arise. They either think “Of course I got this opportunity, I am awesome” or they think they were just lucky.
2. Bad networking leads to a lack of opportunity, and can actually damage your ability to attract the best opportunities. It is better for nobody to know who you are, rather than be known as a jerk. Sorry, it is a simple truth.

3. Advice

We all like to give friends advice, and sometimes they even ask for it!

There are some things The Google can’t tell you. If I had gotten all the free advice I have received over the years from paid consultants then … well, I would have a massive deficit in my bank account or wouldn’t be writing this to you now.

We rely on our networks to advise us and keep us on track, and we give back to our networks in return. Give a lot and you have credit in the bank when you need to make a withdrawal. The better your network the more knowledge you can tap into.

Just in the world of SEO, people like Aaron Wall, Dave Naylor, Doug Scott, Jason Duke, Michael Gray, Rae Hoffman, Joost DeValk, a certain Google employee, and numerous others have given me golden tips over the years. They have kept me from making dumb moves, and have put me right when I have been confused (ok, that happens more times than I like to admit). When people confuse me with being a search engine expert I tell them I am not but I know plenty who are the real deal. It would be impossible to get this much expertise on the payroll, the only way to have contact with this much awesome is to try to be worthy of their friendship.

There are informal advice channels like those, and there are formal arrangements such as consulting swaps or masterminds. I am doing a consulting swap with a self development expert, he is fixing my brain and I am helping him with online marketing. Masterminds are where a group of people with common goals and values get together to push, encourage and advise each other.

If you only get occasional advice from your network then you are in significant net profit from your efforts.

4. Assistance

Someone once told me the definition of a friend is someone who will help you move house with no notice and no expectation of payment. I’m not sure about that but I think mutual help is definitely part of the definition, and one of the ways you can benefit from networking. Not the house thing, the helping part.

• Promotion – Giving you a boost in traffic, reputation, or sales
• Community – Helping you build conversation and community
• Links – Links in terms of Google juice, or sharing news and info from their networks
• Introductions – Connecting you to people you would like to meet or who they think are awesome
• Getting you out of a hole – Fixing dodgy code, giving you a heads up when you goof, or having your back when someone attacks

5. Positive Influence

You become who you associate with. This works in the negative, as any parent will have thought about while considering who their kids friends are or will be. It also works in the positive, if you surround yourself with the right people then the attitudes, habits, world view, and associations will rub off.

Apparently there is some scientific basis for this, but I have seen it enough in my own life to know it is true. I grew up in a place where success and wealth were considered wrong. If you had nice things then you must be a bad person. You can see all around you what that does to a community. So I gravitated towards people with a more positive mindset, who shared my goals and values. If nothing else I am happier for having motivating influences rather than depressing ones.

Modeling successful people is a proven way to improve your own performance, what better than to be able to model people up close and personal?

The tribe you select will have a profound impact on your work and life, so choose well.

Summary

One of the worries with an article like this is that people will focus on the “bragging” or “name dropping” rather than on the message. Thank you in advance for pointing out what a jerk I am, and you are welcome

The fact is I owe a great deal to my friends, contacts and extended network. If you get anything out of this article I want you to understand that every single new friend or contact you make is worth their weight in gold.

There is a danger that some people will take from this that they should go out with a gimme gimme frame of mind. That’s not what I am talking about. My hope is that you will see that while the impact might not be immediate, the compound effects of networking are significant and long lasting.

Want to know how you can get all these benefits and more?

The live training for Shy Networking is tomorrow, Thursday 17th June, at 2pm Eastern USA time. The Q&A call is the Thursday the week after at the same time. You get the live training, action guides and bonuses (to be revealed) all for $47 if you get in now. Everything is recorded and will be up in the member area with no time limits, so don’t worry if you can’t make it live, or if you miss something. After the first class the price goes up, and again after the Q&A, so get in now for the best price.

We look forward to seeing you in the Shy Networking training – Go ahead and sign up right now!

Original: Blogging >> 5 Reasons You Should Invest Your Time in Networking

A blog is a two way communication tool between the blogger and his readers. However, for most bloggers, their blogs are a one way street. They write the blog posts but for some reason, nobody ever comments. Does this sound like your blog? Want to change it so there are comments after comments whenever you write a new blog post? Then my new eBook, The Secrets To Getting Blog Comments, is for you!

The Secrets To Getting Blog Comments was originally offered only to buyers of my Standout Comments WordPress plugin. By itself, the eBook would sell for $47 but I’m going to give it to you for free! The Secrets To Getting Blog Comments will teach you the tricks and techniques I used to generate over 50 comments per blog post. That’s over 168,000 blog comments!

To get your own copy of The Secrets To Getting Blog Comment, all you have to is download my last eBook, The Ultimate Blog Profit Model, which is also free and explains how I make $500,000 a year from blogging. You do want to learn that, right?

If you’ve already downloaded the Ultimate Blog Profit Model, then you should have already received an email from me with the download link for The Secrets To Getting Blog Comments. If you haven’t got your copy of The Ultimate Blog Profit Model yet, then go sign up and get both eBooks now.

You really can’t lose with this deal. It won’t cost you anything and just for downloading the eBooks, you’ll be entered into a draw to win an Apple iPad! The draw will be held in the first week of July. Good luck!

Download The Ultimate Blog Profit Model and The Secrets To Getting Blog Comments

Original: Blogging >> The Secrets To Getting Blog Comments

Mindmapping is the best way to brain storm lots of ideas at one go. When ever I start a new series of topic on my blog, I spend almost one day brainstorming the post ideas. I use keyword tools to find the best keywords related to topic, and using those keywords and mindmap tools I create a road map for my future posts. Now I’m using only one mind map tool regularly but here I’m sharing 4 mind mapping tools, which will help you to create lot of ideas, in short time.

1. Mindomo

Mindomo is one of the best tool for mind mapping. It has both web and desktop version. It comes into free and paid version. Free version is good enough to take care of your need. When you will work with its web based interface, you will feel as if you are working in a Microsoft Word document.

2. Free Mind Map

Free Mind map is my favorite mind map tool. It’s a free desktop tool and its a light weight software. I like it, because its one of the simplest Mind map tool I ever used. Free mind map is licensed under GPL and its free to use for everyone. You can take help of keyboard shortcuts to create quick mindmaps. It uses extension .mm, which you can also share it with your group and any one can access it using the same software.

3. Bubblus

Bubblus is a web based mindmap tool. You will be creating mindmaps in the bubble format and here are some of the best features of Bubblus. You can create and embed mindmap into your blog or websites. You can also use it as a collaboration tool while brain-stroming.

4. Xmind

Xmind is another desktop based mind-mapping tile. It comes with timer mode, which will help you to keep track of your brainstorming mind. It’s an open source software and it has also blog embedding feature but sadly that’s come with it’s pro feature. Else this is another free tool which you should get your hands on.

The number of such tools are endless and you can find n number of free mind map tools using Google. I tried all the above mentioned and find them worth sharing.

Do you take help of mind-mapping technique to brain storm your ideas? If yes, which software you use to brainstorm your ideas?

About the Author: Harsh Agrawal writes at Shoutmeloud, and recently he created a blogspot to WordPress migration service.

Original: Technology >> Top 4 Mindmapping Software to Brainstorm your Ideas