As I tweet links to share to my followers, it is always customary to check out what other people are tweeting about.  As much as I love checking out the tweets, one thing bothers me.

Some people “twit” and not “tweet”.

Okay, before you start thinking I’m an elitist, hear me out.

I, at one point doubted myself.  I asked, “Am I tweeting or twitting?” Hey, it sounds right.  Twitter is the application and it makes sense to “twit” right? After extensive research (yes I actually spent time to look it up), I’ve found that people tweet and not twit. Because of Twitter’s popularity, there is a Twittonary and a site that lists Twitter words.

This is not the first blog post written on the subject and thought, “Hey, I’m not alone.”

But, does it really matter whether you say that you’ve “twitted” instead of “tweeted”? If I was Twitter, I would appreciate if the right word (verb in this case) is used. Like any language, if one uses the word in the wrong context, then you start confusing people of what you’re trying to say.  Besides, I wouldn’t want to use the four letter word because I am not a Twit (idiot).

Photo courtesy of Matt Hamm.

As of this writing, I’m switching from different blogs and watching a commentary show by The CrunchGear Network. Below is the live stream of the CrunchGear’s show.

Here are some blogs to check out pictures and live blogging.

IGN Gear Live Blog

Engadget

I absolutely love this! Will I get one? Let’s see.

2009 has been eventful, yet challenging.  The path I chose when I left employment was hard.  2009 presented itself with a business opportunity and it was a year that tested my patience.  With sheer determination, confidence and full support from loved ones and colleagues, I have faith that the next year will bring in good tidings.

Year of the Tiger, Lucky for a Water Ox
Looking at the forecast for 2010 through Feng Shui, I am told that the Water Ox can expect excellent success and money luck. Lilian Too’s book states, “The Water Ox has absolutely superb Financial and Success Luck which show that in terms of attaining business or money goals, you will definitely do better than you expect.”

I’m excited and has given me a boost of confidence that things will get better next year.  Hard work is still to be expected but this will motivate me to move forward, more than ever.

New Partnerships
I’ve forged new partnerships with a couple of companies and individuals in the latter year of 2009.  The prospect of these projects being successful is high.  New platforms and products to be offered is in ProFora’s midst.  When executed, the potential is huge!

Blogging Success
For the past few months, I’ve focused on getting my blogs more content.  Fixing each with a new template, allowing me to plug in more tools and help me spread the word made me decide that it is time to invest more time on my passion to write. As I push myself to write more and might be able to start on my long overdue book.

Travel, Travel, Travel
I see myself traveling to other parts of the country, both for work and pleasure. I am also planning to get Mon out of the country and experience different cultures in 2010.  It’s a goal and it’s going to happen.  First stop? New Zealand. Something we’ve been planning for a long time now.  With a great financial outlook, this can happen.

Only a few minutes left till midnight, I wish everyone a GREAT year ahead! Goodbye 2009. Hello 2010! Woohoo!

Photo courtesy of Selva Ganapathy’s Flickr Photostream.

Am I starting another blog carnival to allow other people to submit?  Nope.  Part of my daily routine is to read email, check my Google Alerts, scan through interesting articles, log in to my plurk universe, tweet and retweet, update my Google wavelets, browse through my friend’s status messages in Facebook, and carry on with work.

With so much activity within my online world, I experience information overload on a daily basis.  The only way for me not to go crazy and release the ideas from my head is to write and/or share.

So, here it is.  My personal blog carnival.  The only way I know how (until I find some other type of release) is to jot down my thoughts on each topic, idea, news tidbit and share it to the world.  Some might find a place on a post of its own but most would be listed in my carnival as blurbs. Hey, I might even find time to write about it a little bit more and group it into the right categories.

To kick off the carnival, here are some of the things I’ve discovered and wrote thus far:

• Aussie company Telstra publishes their Social Media training & policy online.
• Twitter has recently been hacked.
• The new Yahoo! page was launched in the Philippines.
• Your Customer Voice should be heard posted in Philippine Customer Service.
• A call center video winner was posted in Call Center Blurbs.
• Wordpress 2.9 has now been released.
• An act of kindness campaign by Yahoo! launched.

At this time, I’m still thinking whether I should upgrade my blogs with the new version though the image editing feature is tempting. The last time I tried to upgrade, the visual editor wasn’t showing up.  I’m not ready (nor will I ever be) to write code like html or even javascript!

The Yahoo! campaign is a nice product to spread kindness in the world.  Similar to the “Pay it Forward” concept.  I haven’t submitted anything. Does that mean I haven’t found the time to do kindness? Nope. I just don’t think I need to tell the whole world every little good deed I do for mankind.  I don’t need that type of affirmation.

Photo courtesy of Super Tourist’s Flickr Photostream.

What have I discovered and tried lately?

It’s been a tough month trying to make ends meet so I’ve been done a bit of research on different business tools.  Most are to make my life a little bit easier, make our business processes more efficient and start my journey to earn passive income through my blogs.

Card.ly

A simple online business card tool that lets you write a bio and include all your social media links and websites. As an entrepreneur and consultant, I work with different projects all the time.  I may represent myself as a call center consultant but at the same time have to let potential clients that I have a service to offer through my business.  I’ve thought of printing two different cards and give out what is appropriate but I end up giving both anyway.  This tool makes it easier.  I now only have to put my online card link along with the business’ website.  Just remembered, why not do this for ProFora altogether, since we have tons of links.

Kiwi

A new Twitter client for Mac users.  I downloaded the program and though it has great potential on the aesthetic side, the first version doesn’t compel me to switch.  I love the fact that you can choose from different themes and it has the ability to save hashtags and group them for later viewing.  I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t search for a tweeter and easily follow them with one click like Tweetie.  A shortcut would’ve been helpful.

Entrecard

This is not new and have seen it for a long time being used by bloggers all over the world.  This is the only time I’ve tried and set up my account.  Hey, it’s free not unless I decide it’s worth spending money on.  I had difficulty putting the widget into my 2 blogs because of the theme and the size is not standard. As of this writing, only 1 has been approved.  I like it because it gives me the power to advertise my blog and find out more sites for me to read.

Fullseat

I’ve been looking for a web tool that will help us register webinar attendees with a separate form plus accept payments at the same time.  We’ve opened an account with Eventbrite but haven’t really used it to its full potential.  I discovered Fullseat, which seems very new, noticing there are functionalities that don’t quite work yet.  It’s easy and I like it because it’s FREE!  So far, they are not asking for a percentage of any sales from registrations.  I have to wait a little bit more for them to publish their complete version before I decide to use this for ProFora.

Clicky

Real time web analytics in its finest.  I haven’t tried this yet but it says you can monitor sites and see visitors as they enter your virtual real estate.  It’s acts like a spy.  The demo showed that there was 1 visitor (me) on that page, showed what operating system I was on, country of origin, and browser I was using. How cool is that!  A bit creepy but cool! The pricing plans are affordable but restricted by the number of features and sites you can have. I plan to start the free trial during the holiday break.

I have other tools but will write about it on the next issue.  Hope the list made you think of trying some of them. Let me know if you’ve tried them and comments are encouraged.

A friend once told me, “When you find a new and shiny toy, you leave the old toy and focus your energies on the new one.” It is somewhat true.  I do get excited and go on “experiment mode” when I find something new.  Though I may leave the old toy and stash it along with the rest, the reason I still keep them is because you’ll never know when you’ll find something new to make the old toy even better.

This triggered me to start a list of my own discoveries on the net or even outside the realms of cyberspace.  Some would be recommendations from colleagues and friends.  Others would be pure research or a result of ads and constant surfing. Here is my first list for your consumption.

Google Wave

This is still considered new and only a few lucky ones have access to the tool.  I am one of them.  I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks now and it has been a great experience.  Everyone in the ProFora team has it and we get things done more quickly.  What’s great is the documentation piece.  Though you can try to edit a blip, everything is recorded once a wave has started.

I received 8 invites to give and it’s all gone.  My colleague received 20! I’m waiting for the next “wave” of invites from my other Google Wave account.  I think they stopped sending them at this point until they are ready to take the load again.  For newbies, the complete guide is a great resource.

pleasenotify.me

A simple and free web application by Paste Interactive is pleasenotify.me.  It’s a reminder system for you or someone in your team to finish a task.  Delegate and put a deadline by placing your email and the recipient’s.  He will then receive a notice through email that a task needs to be done. A link is found within the body of the email for him to click on to trigger the process of it being completed.

Neat stuff but it looks impersonal.  All I see is an email address telling me to do something.  Not unless I know the person or have memorized their email, it looks odd.

Memo To Me

Similar to pleasenotify.me, it is a web based reminder system but focuses on events as well.  Sending a reminder that a birthday or anniversary is coming up is great to have.  I would recommend this to men in general since they seem to forget important dates.

Tweetboard

I’m still waiting for our alpha invite so I can’t give any feedback as of yet.  But, the tool is promising.  Both a viral engine and communications tool, it is a great application to add to your website or blog if you’d like to keep the conversation going within your organization or community.  One can follow any conversation at a certain time as it shows the thread of a certain topic.

More on the next issue of New & Shiny Toy Discoveries.  If you’ve found interesting applications that I should check out, let me know.

Image courtesy of Andrea See

The first time I heard about Blog Carnivals was about 2 years ago when I was still writing for Know More Media.  A colleague within the network, Maria Palma, started one and has successfully maintained it since.  This inspired me to follow her lead, even if it feels like it’s been way overdue.

My first blog carnival starts within my call center blogosphere.  The Call Center Blurbs Blog Carnival will showcase blog articles written by call center professionals.  I was thinking if I should focus on one location but like any magazine, an issue can have a theme or focus.  I could have a Philippine Call Centers edition or probably a Humor / Comics edition.  The possibilities are endless.

As of this writing, I’m seriously considering another blog carnival focused on my other blogs.  The only hesitation comes from the fact that I don’t know if I have the time to maintain several carnivals.  Oh, and well it depends on how receptive my readers are on submitting their articles.

Join me in this experiment! Create your own blog carnival or if you have one, do share.

It was a simple birthday celebration for me this 2009 like the previous years.  Hubby got me a cake and some candles, which I always wish for every year.  We went out for a movie and had dinner in our favorite Japanese restaurant.  I didn’t know where else to go so we went home.

That was short.  It was a quiet day.  Was I expecting more?  I guess I was.  Was I expecting a surprise party from my friends?  No. Did I want to travel and spend time out of the city?  Yes, that would’ve been a refreshing change.  Was I depressed this year? No.  Relatively a good birthday then.  Yes.

Enough said because I’m at a loss for words.  Life goes on.

It has been more than a year since I left the call center industry and the ride has been the least uneventful.

The decision to live a “free” life (from the clutches of employment) was absolute and it hasn’t changed since.  The taste of freedom has never felt so good.  Yet, with freedom comes the huge realization of responsibility breathing down your neck.  And so my journey begins…

Entrepreneur
Being a pioneer at heart, I’ve always had the passion to start something new or break into the market and shake things a little bit. The strong interest in new technologies and education has led me to open a virtual events company.  It started out as a simple idea of having to offer online seminars (webinars) to the public so that local experts can showcase their knowledge to a wider audience. Geographic constraints was a thing of the past.  It was a great idea!

An idea yet so simple became a challenge.  A year in the making, accompanied by frustrations, constant change in processes and its business model, I’ve managed to stay stubborn and steadfast with the business.  As of this writing, I’ve received numerous inquiries from professionals, small businesses and huge corporations.

Blogger
This has been a frustrating journey.  Even with the free time available to me, I just lost the spunk and motivation to write.  With the setback of my professional career as a blogger (yes I got paid to write) due to Know More Media’s decision to cease operations, my blogs’ content became stale.  The plan to monetize my blogs was just a distant memory.

This month, my groove is back.  I was tired of making excuses.  To start anew, I decided to change the look and feel of all my blogs.  I had to bury the past and a new look helped me push forward.  Now, I am slowly moving content and creating new posts. With my “to-do list” in hand, I am confident that I will not miss a beat pushing content to my readers.

Consultant
This is in the planning stage at this point.  The first step is to stabilize my company so it can run like a well-oiled machine and with the blogs churning content, this will give way to new opportunities.  Time to show the world what I can do to help their organizations.

If you blog often then you are aware that bots (and obviously humans) are capable of putting comments on a post.  In as much as you would like to receive legitimate comments and start a conversation, your comments list is now dominated with “Comment Spam”.

Thinking that most bloggers would know this, apparently not a lot take the time to configure their blog settings to check for spam. Though this is mostly taken care of by top blogging providers, there are some that are still primitive  or it doesn’t do it for you automatically.

Here are some of the things that help me spot a genuine comment from a fake.

1. People who don’t know your real name (see example in picture) is obviously a spammer.  They don’t even bother to read your About page. If someone’s intentions are real then they would make sure they are addressing the author correctly.
2. (dot) ru.  I see a lot of email addresses ending with .ru, accompanied by weird characters.  They are Russian.  I would normally delete any email that has that extension because of experience.  But, from time to time, I still check with a translation tool in case it is legit.
3. Appreciation. If the praise isn’t appropriate and seem “fishy” then it’s spam.  It feels good for a second but you will realize it’s not intended  to please or give feedback.  It’s easy to delete it then.
4. Bookmarking.  You will get messages that say they will bookmark your blog.  If it’s a one liner, I delete it.  If you want to seriously pat the blogger’s back then I’m sure you would say something else to support the praise.

There are more tips out there to help you combat comment spam.  Do share and provide the links so bloggers can get back their time and focus on writing and building relationships with their readers.