I want to

Trove for news curation

There are lots of news curation tools available to you, and Trove: The best stories picked by people who share your interests is the latest of them. Simply register, list your interests and Trove will try and find things that match your interests. If you've never used one of these resources you'll probably be quite impressed by it, since it does catch a lot of good stories. However, it didn't have the same feel that my favourite, Zite has and I'd be inclined to steer you towards that, rather than this tool. However, that's just my opinion, so do try them both out yourself.

Nuzzel

If you're wondering why you want to follow lots of people on Twitter and Facebook then Nuzzel will give you a good answer. Give it details of your social media accounts and it will then go off and find out which stories are catching fire in your network, giving you the chance to make sure that you're fully caught up with them. If you're short on time, this is a great tool to use.

Hall.com - simple comms in your organisation

I am often asked about the availability of tools to make communications that much easier. HALL | Chat, Share, Connect is the latest one that I've discovered. There's a freebie and paid version, and this is what it does, taken from their website:

Group Chat Rooms

Create a room to stay connected with your team. Rooms can be open for anyone in your company to join, or set to private for only invited members. Features include chat, @mentions, inline previews, file sharing and notes. Conversations are searchable across all devices.

Instant Messaging

Have something private to say? Start a side conversation with a teammate or professional contact. Instant messaging chat history is stored on the cloud making chat history available across all your devices.

Video Chat

Meet with your team face-to-face to increase your team’s productivity with meetings that hold up to 12 people and powerful tools like screen sharing.

Screen Sharing

Show your team exactly what you're talking about. You can share your entire desktop or select a single application window.

Desktop, Web and Mobile

The Hall desktop app runs on Windows and Mac. The Hall web app is 6 times faster than existing enterprise solutions. Stay connected to Hall 24/7 with the free mobile web app and the iPhone and Android apps.

Contacts

Your contact list is instantly populated with your colleagues on Hall who registered with the same email domain. You can optionally add contacts outside of your company to have your professional contacts all in one place and ready to communicate in real-time to get things done.

Rolio

Rolio is a social media RSS aggregation resource. It's very simple to use - you just click on the feeds that interest you from a list that they provide, add in others that are your own favourites and you can also link in your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Then sit back and view the stream of data as it is presented to you.

It worked very easily and took seconds to set up. However, since I follow a lot of people on Twitter, that swamped the feed, so I had to take that out. It was useful for search since I could use the box to find stuff that I knew I had recently seen. I did try it when I had my Twitter feed loaded, but it didn't work properly, and kept insisting it couldn't find anything, even when it was on the screen staring at me. You can create groups, add favourite feeds and so on.

Fine as far as it goes, but in comparison with tools such as Zite, which allows me to rank/rate stories, this has a long way to go. It's best feature by far is the search option, and it's worth remembering that it's there if only for that. If I was them, it's the element that I'd really work on to improve.

sqWiggle

via sqwiggle.com

Hurrah! Another social networking platform. Yes, I know you don't care, and you're already on Twitter and Facebook and G+ and god knows what else, but here is another one. Which lets you talk to your 'real friends'; apparently you don't do this already. The blurb: A simple and elegant social experiment built upon the idea that real conversation is the best way to truly communicate with your buddies.

Are you tempted? No. Of course you're not. However, at least now you know it's here.

Cover Photo Maker for Google Plus

Did you know that now your google plus profile has a big banner behind your profile pic? They called it a "cover photo" pretty much like Facebook timeline cover with different layout and setting. It has a bigger profile photo with longer horizontal background banner. If you are concerned with your personal branding, creating a good impression for your Google+ visitor is vital.

I've played around with coverphotoeditor.com and it does a nice job - upload a couple of photographs, one of your background, and one of (probably) you, then you can save, then upload. Of course, you could just go and do the whole thing by hand, but this way you can fiddle around a little bit. Seems to work well. Very simple and quick. You can take a look at my G+ profile page if you like - I won't inflict it on you directly!

I wanna be forgotten

 If you really want to delete a social media account and all it comes with it, please  then you want this site. It'll delete your very existence from Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon; 10 different resources in fact. Yes, you could go to the sites themselves to do it, but this is the easy way. :)

Vikido

This resource styles itself as "a safe, child-friendly environment so that your children can join the conversation." It's designed to be child and adult oriented, so that children as young as 4 or 5 can use it to share pictures, words etc with grandparents or anyone else their parents or guardians deem appropriate. I've not registered so I can't comment, but if you're a parent and interested, I'd love to have your comments. Of course, since it's a site for children it makes sense to try it out yourself first - but you didn't need me to say that really did you!

Bandlink - Connecting Local Musicians

via www.bandlink.com

Fairly obvious idea really, though not one that I've seen before - a social network for musicians. Sign up via Facebook or old school email, look for a band, create a band, set up your own profile, you get the idea.

CouchSurfing

Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch At A Time The idea of sharing out your home to other people, either for free or a cost isn't new, but this is the first time that I've actually come across CouchSurfing. They say: "When you join CouchSurfing, you tap into our network of welcoming people worldwide. You can share your hospitality and experience your city through new eyes by offering travelers a place to stay on their journey. You can bypass the typical hotel experience by staying at the home of a local and learning about their culture. You can meet open-minded people in your home city by attending events. And you can meet up with new people, whether at home or while traveling, for inspiring experiences and new friendships."

Choose the place you want to go, check out the people who live close by and work something out. I don't think money changes hands, but I haven't joined in order to find out.

 

Related articles

• Couch Surfing - The World is Smaller Than You Think - Travel, Network, Expand, Experience, Grow (foxwellgallery.wordpress.com)
• Who Said Sleeping on Somebody's Couch Couldn't Pay Dividends? How About $7.6 Million? (icemanbaldy.com)