Author Archive

 

Charlie: The App Makes Workplace Meetings Awesome

Monday, March 11th, 2013

With SXSW in full swing this week, many developers, entrepreneurs and early adopters are honing in on the latest and greatest that technology has to offer.

One application making a few digital headlines is Charlie.

Imagine: you have a meeting, conference or phone call with a new business contact. Before the meeting you have a multiple tasks to complete to prepare for the call, but all these tasks take time to research–time you don’t have…but Charlie does.

The quick-pitch on Charlie from the Charlie website: “Charlie arms you with the important information on your contacts before any meeting, conference or phone call.”

With a snappy slogan of “make meetings suck less”, Charlie is sure to find an audience when it releases soon. From Charlie CEO Aaron Frazin:

“Charlie filters through different online sources to prep you on the people you are meeting with. Some of the highlights we are proud of include alerting you if you have anything in common (you both like the Chicago Cubs) and what’s going on in the news with your commonalities (the Cubs actually won today!). We will also tell you more about where they work and check for breaking news on any of their current positions and companies, all so that you can walk in the most prepared person in the room.” via Mashable

Although not yet released (you can sign up for release info updates here) we see Charlie as a valuable tool for those who have to perform some online due diligence with one simple push of a button. For that reason alone, this application may be invaluable…for some.

To others, by simply visiting an individual’s Twitter stream, LinkedIn page and/or company website may be all that is needed to prep for that conference call or meeting. But who has time to do all that? Charlie does.

 

 

New Facebook Features Coming to Your News Feed

Monday, March 4th, 2013

It’s happening again. Facebook is revamping your newsfeed. Yes, again.

Although the company plans to reveal details at a public event in Menlo Park, California on March 7, some details of the newsfeed redesign are already appearing on some user’s timelines.

From Digital Trends:

“We’ve noticed a handful of new features being tested out on Facebook (and confirmed as tests, for that matter), and among them was an in-line like button that sits inside of an update shared by a friend. In this case it was a Vimeo video, which first popped up on the News Feed and later, we rediscovered it on the submitter’s Timeline. The story surfaced a link that takes you straight to Vimeo’s Facebook Page and an in-line button that sits across from this link.”

These “inline” features have several uses. Here are a few…

Add a Friend of a Friend

Whether you’re a fan of Facebook or not, it does one thing well: make connections. Facebook seems to be rolling out a new feature that will connect users with their second degree friends by encouraging one simple click.

Here’s a look:

Like a Page

Similarly, the ability to like a Facebook page from posts of your friends will begin to appear in your timeline over the next few weeks as the new news feed rolls out.

An example:

 

Join an Event a Friend Shares

Keeping up with what’s happening is what Facebook events are for, and in the new Facebook timeline joining an event will be even more accessible.

When a friend joins an event, you’ll now see that event posted on your friend’s timeline along with an invitation to going the event as well (provided it is a public event). This gives events more exposure and an easier interface to join them.

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And although these are only a handful of new features that we know about at present, many more will be made public during the March 7 formal announcement.

Question: what new features would YOU like to see in Facebook’s new timeline?