AnywhereMan

How much do you really know about the people you know?  

Gist (www.gist.com) is a brand-spankin’ new app that allows you to import your contacts from several sources such as Gmail, Outlook, LinkedIn, Facebook, Salesforce, Twitter, and MORE, and then browse fresh news, blog posts, and Twitter updates with content relevant to those contacts.  It takes a little bit of getting used to, but once you have the contacts you want set to high-priority, the functionality is priceless.  Think of it as part contact management/CRM, part news aggregator, and part Google Alerts.  

A few of my favorite features:

• Add new contacts or companies to watch directly
• Share interesting bits on content on Facebook, Twitter, or through email
• Set various priority levels so you’re assured of seeing the news relevant to your highest-priority clients
• Items that you haven’t read are marked as un-read, similar to checking your email
• Profile tagging to create groups
• If you import actual email messages, Gist will keep an archive of them

As a freelancer, being able to keep an eye on not only my current clients but potential clients through Gist is priceless.  The more you know about a client and their organization, the more they are going to trust that you will be able to take care of their needs.  You may also find opportunities you might never have noticed before.

One other recommendation with Gist is to make sure you’ve got a profile set up to track yourself.  It’s good to be aware of what content is being pulled that has you or your company’s name in it.  

Also, give Gist more than just a  quick glance. It’s in beta right now and the UI took a little bit of effort for me to learn, but the more you tinker with it, the more you’ll see the potential Gist has to be a major part of successful networking on the web. Check it out at www.gist.com.

You may have noticed that recently I started using YouTube to show the videos on AnywhereMan instead of Vimeo.  The reason for this change was a glitch I encountered with Vimeo and its inability to properly encode the .wmv files that I was uploading from my new webcam. The problem was the files’ 15 fps frame rate, and YouTube handled this frame rate much better.  

However, it now looks like Vimeo fixed whatever was wrong and I am able to upload those .wmv files for correct encoding.  I’m at a point where I’m uploading to both YouTube and Vimeo for each video, both for dependability and for having multiple ways for people to find AnywhereMan.  I thought it might be good to give a breakdown of the apps I view as the “top three” video hosting services out there right now, and my opinion of each one.

Vimeo – The Artist’s hideaway

Vimeo is my favorite video hosting service out there, for many reasons.  First of all, it has the best HD handling and overall video quality (watch the videos on the Canon HV20/30/40 channel for proof).  It also has the cleanest interface, the best player, some awesome social media/community features, and it lacks much of the garbage videos cluttering up YouTube.  Vimeo has explicit rules about making sure you are uploading original content, whereas YouTube is completely full of old TV show clips.  Vimeo also doesn’t have the 10 minute limit that YouTube does.  This was appealing to me as I’m considering doing some short documentaries.  The other thing I love about Vimeo is the ability to create groups and channels, such as the AnywhereMan channel.  

The negative aspects of Vimeo service are things such as the occasional problem like I had with the .wmv files and the time it takes to get your videos encoded…if you have the basic free subscription.  I like Vimeo enough to buy a Plus membership which allows for very quick video upload and encoding among other perks like 5 GB of upload per month and HD embedding.  I really like it and the cost has been worth it.  The other negative is that I can’t watch my Vimeo vids on the iPhone or iPod Touch.  However, since I dually upload to YouTube, that takes care of that issue.

Here is a sample of a video on Vimeo:

YouTube – Where all the kids hang out

My second-favorite video service is YouTube simply because it’s one of the biggest video destinations on the web and it does a great job of getting uploads indexed in search engines.  I don’t love its encoding, but it gets the job done.  Whereas Vimeo is where I see more film-makers, musicians, and photographers hosting their original content, YouTube is where I see a lot of high-schoolers posting videos of their friends getting hit in the crotch with skateboards. It has a lot of legit content too, but there’s a lot of competition.  Again, it’s big and it gets the job done, but whereas I’m willing to pay $60/year for Vimeo, I’d maybe pay $3/year tops for YouTube.  I’m not too loyal to it.

Here is a sample of a video on YouTube:

Viddler – Business time

The final service of what I view as the Big Three of video apps is Viddler.  I list it here only because I see a lot of others (like Gary Vaynerchuk) using it.  The thing that Viddler really has going for it, especially for businesses, is the branded player option.  You can actually upload a copy of your logo and brand the video player.  You can tweak the colors to match as well.  In a way I view Viddler as the perfect complement to Vimeo: Vimeo is trying to be as non-commercial as possible, while Viddler is probably the best-suited for business content.  I am not sure if I consider AnywhereMan “commercial” or not, so Vimeo wins my love. Of course.

I’ve heard that Viddler can support HD, but I haven’t seen it on the HD videos I’ve tried uploading.  It looks like they are offering paid accounts now, so I’m guessing that’s a feature on those.  

Here is a sample of a video on Viddler:

There are plenty of other video services out there and I hope to highlight some more in the future, but I thought I’d give you a quick run-down of the apps I’ve had experience with.  I’m doing more and more video and I’m really enjoying it!

If you are producing video content, what are you using to host your videos?

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The Twitter phenomenon has been absorbed into the daily lives of most of us, and as someone who works from home, it has become my “water-cooler” outlet (as I’ve mentioned before). The idea of keeping followers updated on “what’s on your mind” has become a staple of the web today.

Apply this idea to a team of telework professionals all working for the same company but in different locations.  Imagine being able to constantly keep each other updated on what everyone is working on at any point in time.  The public (and spammy) nature of Twitter wouldn’t work well for this.  

Enter Yammer,  the “internal communication platform” (and a great social network for virtual teams).  Here’s a quick description from the Yammer website:

Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: ‘What are you working on?’

As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location enabling co-workers to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, and share links and other information. Yammer also serves as a company directory in which every employee has a profile and as a knowledge base where past conversations can be easily accessed and referenced.

Anyone in a company can start their Yammer network and begin inviting colleagues. The privacy of each network is ensured by limiting access to those with a valid company email address. Information is never shared with third parties.

In a way, Yammer behaves much like Twitter, but instead takes place within the safety of an organization. In fact, Yammer offers a way to create an org chart for those involved with a particular account.  How does it know who should be in an account? It uses the domain on the member email addresses.

For example, I signed myself up to try out the service. The domain on my email account is liftdevelopment.com.  It then created a central “Liftdevelopment” account, and any other users who sign up with a liftdevelopment.com domain will get added to that group.  

Those that are signed up can then publish their status throughout the day and view statuses of others.  Files can be attached to statuses, messages can be bookmarked, and RSS feeds can be added.  Within a specific account, groups can be created.  Plus, there are desktop, iPhone, and Blackberry versions of Yammer available to take the tools just about anywhere.

Yammer is free, but there are premium paid accounts available that allow you to set up a central admin profile.  Companies with one of these premium accounts can manage users, delete messages and files, export data, remove former employees, etc.

For a one-person company like mine, the functionality of Yammer isn’t something I need. However, for a scattered team of individuals, I can see the collaboration features bringing value to communication and collaboration.  If you fall into this category, be sure to at least check it out as Yammer is getting a growing amount of buzz.

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I posted a link to this app on Twitter today, but wanted to re-post here on AnywhereMan for anyone in the community that needs to send an occasional design or layout proof to clients.  I had to send a two-page flyer proof to a client today and wanted them to be able to make simple markups to it, such as “move this here”, “change this text”, “remove this”, etc.  

Enter FineTuna, a super easy way to send and comment on proofs.  You don’t even need an account.  Simply upload your image file or point to it’s location on the web and you’re all set. You’re proof will be assigned a unique URL that you can simply send to your client (or you can email them from the app itself).  Just bookmark that URL and you can get back to the working proof at any time.  

There’s nothing super complex about the functionality of FineTuna. Just add comments, draw lines, etc, but it works great for a simple review process.  They also offer a plugin for Firefox that allows you to create instant screenshots of the page you’re on and upload direct to FineTune (but it wasn’t working for my version of FF…bummer!).

I thought some of you Anywhere folks would find this useful for remote collaboration processes. Enjoy!

Today I talk about one of my favorite web apps: Freshbooks, a system of “painless billing”.  As a freelancer and business owner who needs to track all of his time for invoicing, Freshbooks has never let me down. 

As I mention in this video, Freshbooks has hooked me up with a few things to give away.  I am going to hold two separate drawings for prize packages that will include a Freshbooks t-shirt, some swag, and a FREE two-month subscription to the Freshbooks subscription plan of your choice!  Whether you’re a current Freshbooks user or you’ve never used it in your life, this contest is open to everyone.

There are two ways to win one of the two prize packages:

1. Sign up for any of Freshbooks’ plans (even the free one) and past the URL to your login page in the comments below.  For example, my login URL is http://liftdevelopment.freshbooks.com  Easy as pie! (One entry per person). Be sure to fill out the comment name/email completely so I can notify you if you win.
    
2. Tweet the following message on Twitter:  ”Hey @daveyank you’re right – @freshbooks IS awesome for painless billing! http://bit.ly/freshy”  (You can retweet this as many times as you want and each one will count as an entry into the drawing)  Click here to Tweet this message right now!

One of the shirts that I am giving away is a blue version of the famous “tie shirt” as worn by Freshbooks CEO Mike McDerment on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine a few months back. It doesn’t get any cooler than that! I’ll give that one away with drawing #1 above…It’s perfect for Work Anywhere attire.

I will draw a winner from each contest on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009. 

Good luck!

PS – As a Work Anywhere-type, you owe it to yourself to check out Freshbooks’ forums as well.