The rapid growth of social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn has left many people uncertain as to how they should draw the line between professional and personal communications. It’s a bit of a balancing act, but if you follow a few rules of thumb, you’ll do a better job of managing a professional brand.

First off, if you aren’t familiar with it yet, LinkedIn is the most current destination for professional networking. It’s like the ultimate social and professional mixer that helps people connect through their career experiences.

Essentially, LinkedIn helps you to create a living resume that can help you get discovered by HR recruiters or former co-workers. So it is essential for you to market yourself properly.

The following are five easy tips for making the most of LinkedIn : 

 1. Be professional

 Treat LinkedIn as you would any other workplace. Try to consider it as just another extension of your career, because for now, it kind of is. There are enough working professionals on LinkedIn that you must assume that everything you write is going to be seen and interpreted by some of your co-workers.

Separate your personal online life with your professional online life. There is the “work you” and the “home you.” Think of LinkedIn as the place for the work version of yourself.

2. Build a better resume :

Many people miss the opportunity to share what they did or do at their job because they only register a vague functional title description. Expand on what you did that went above and beyond the basic job task. 

Tell how you improved something, saved money, or generally made something better. Don’t brag but don’t be shy either when you are talking about your “brand” identity.

LinkedIn gives you some feedback regarding the percentage complete of your profile. Seriously, get in there and make sure that it’s 100% complete and don’t forget to include a professionally appropriate photo of yourself.

3. Participate in the community : 

LinkedIn is technically a social network, so go socialize. There are groups that organize around topics and industries. Join one or two of these LinkedIn groups and see if you like it.

Observe the community before you start blasting out your opinion on topics. Lurk for a while, see how the group operates, and then find ways to share your thoughts. Again, it’s a professional community, so be sure to carefully review what you post.

Spell check is your friend.

4. Answer (an ask!) some questions :

LinkedIn has an interesting feature where people can ask questions of the community and then anyone can answer. Theoretically, the people who are asking the question are actually soliciting advice from the LinkedIn community.

Other times they are just grandstanding to draw attention to themselves. Check out the question carefully and decide if you can actually add value by answering the question.

If you can add value, answer the question. It may help enhance your personal brand to share your professional knowledge and insight.

5. Connect responsibly :

If you are new to LinkedIn, you may be surprised at the number of requests you receive to connect with people. It’s not like Facebook, where you are probably connecting with family and close personal friends. LinkedIn is all business, which makes it a different kind of connection.

It’s better to connect with people that you know well enough to call a colleague or peer, so that the relationship has context. One day, you may need that connection, so you want it to be real and honest.

Just like Facebook, the rules around privacy and usage on LinkedIn will likely evolve with the needs of the user base. As LinkedIn grows and evolves, you’ll want to grow with it so start with a strong, basic foundation and then check back to see how the service evolves.

LinkedIn is part of your overall personal and professional brand footprint. Make sure to use it responsibly and effectively integrate it as part of your networking efforts.

As per a report from the Pew Internet Project more than 50% of people in the US own a smartphone, indicating that this device may become the primary web access platform in 2013. The Flurry analytics mentioned that the fastest growing app categories are photo and video sharing (89%, in minutes spent per active user). It says that mobile video app consumption is increased by 52% and online video consumption is plunged by 10%.

A Smartphone is not only bought for making and receiving calls; it is being utilized for everything from surfing the web to downloading videos. People are spending their maximum time using smartphones and the day will dawn soon when they start using their mobile applications in place of websites for everything they do online.

Daily habit of watching videos:

Almost half of the time after six in the evening is being spent watching online videos. People who travel long distances to commute usually watch videos on their phone sitting in their cabs, trains or while flying back to their home. After analyzing this habit of watching videos by a layman almost everyday, Internet marketers have come to a conclusion that video sharing is the best online promotion platform for the brands as well as small entrepreneurs. Organizations are gradually switching to digital marketing, to thrive online; video sharing being the most effective tool to market products and services.

Video Sharing apps gaining popularity:

Thwapr Mobile Video Sharing App

Video sharing apps like Thwapr, Viddy, Magisto and SocialCam gained popularity as these apps have video editing and mass sharing capabilities. Video sharing has led to the growth of a variety of mobile applications. These video sharing apps not only help you capture a video but let you edit and share great video content among friends, all from your phone, without touching a computer. Mobile video app consumption has surpassed Internet video consumption. These apps are user-friendly and make the process of sharing custom videos hassle-free, as most of them come with inbuilt tools for editing and adding special effects to the videos.

Latest buzz in the video sharing world:

Silicon Valley News.Net quoted, “ Viddy, a video-sharing mobile app, may be experiencing an 11 million rise in users because of high-profile Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg joining the service”. Zuckerberg had uploaded the video of his dog using this app a few days back. The fact that this video sharing app is adding 1 million users a day indicates that it has gained popularity over the photo-centric features of Instagram.

Video sharing apps- A threat to YouTube’s dominance:

These popular video sharing apps are almost on the verge of cannibalizing video sharing platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. Thwapr, a video monetizing platform, recently got an offer of partnering with MSG Varsity to provide mobile video services for its video content. The brand chose Thwapr’s SMS video subscription model to provide its fans with high quality content on a regular basis. Thwapr’s ‘Share to Phone’ button is being used by many websites, so that the browsers may share the videos on their phone or to any phone, without much hassle.

Video sharing websites are becoming obsolete, as people are using smartphones to access the web. Though Youtube is not in anyway intimidated by this increased usage of mobile devices to watch videos, but we can not deny the fact that video sharing apps are the talk of the town. Is this a real transitional phase for the web from social media to mobile apps or just a hearsay?

Image Credit : BusinessInsider

Internet radio and online music are satellites of our daily life. Among other cool music apps we reviewed like Spotify, Grooveshark and Last.fm, there is an app that deserves to try – Freemake Music Box 0.9.3. The app was recently updated to deliver great music experience. So let’s take a look what’s inside the Box.

Freemake Music Box is free Windows software that help search and listen to music online. It contains inbuilt music player so you can find a song and start enjoying it right away. Now Music Box was improved with search suggestions. Like Google search, Freemake Music Box forecasts your search requests and displays an artist’s name or a song title before you finish typing.  Thus, you can just click the suggestion and find a song faster.

Moreover, Freemake Music Box 0.9.3 allows you to organize your music collections better. Thanks to added drag and drop, you can sort songs in playlists and move songs from search results directly to your playlist. Another available option to change songs’ order is shuffle, but familiar drag and drop looks more convenient and easier.

One more improvement is higher music playback quality. It’s an important enhancement for music amateurs who are used to listen to good music.

So test the new features of Music Box today and let us know what you think of it.

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Motherhood is not something you are taught nor something you learn from the books. Motherhood is a way and only by walking it can one know what it takes to share such a love. Motherhood is caring, loving and feeling for another being more than for one’s own self. It is the ultimate unconditional love experience. The bonding is made not by flesh nor blood but by connection, emotions and a sense of unity with another being to whom we feel linked with essential Life.

Motherhood is more than the gift of giving Life. Motherhood is the blessing of keeping Life alive, within, so that it comes out enlivened in form. Whoever can share kindness, compassion and a sense of understanding of the heart holds the Truth of Motherhood.

Here are 5 Truths about Motherhood and how they affect Life itself :

1). Motherhood is unconditional

The first blessing of motherhood is the dedication to Love that it carries. Motherhood implies an unbiased sense of Love that holds the power to be compassionate, kind and understanding at all time. While this does not mean that one must always give in, as sometimes, no is the best answer for unconditional Love, it means that when Motherhood is shared, the well-being of the Soul is the primary focus.

2). Motherhood is powerful

Motherhood vibrates with the active receptivity part of the human experience. It is an experience of being-ness and presence. In presence lies silence and undivided Love. The space made by these is precious because it offers another the room to exist without expectation, limitation or desire. It is a space of truth. There is no greater power than the Truth and whoever can provide a space for self or another to be true, gives Life the greatest power of all.

3). Motherhood is delicate

The bridge on which motherhood is built is made of self-esteem, self trust and self-love. While these three virtues represent, together, a mighty strength, they are also very vulnerable when faced with outside expectations and societal pressures. Whoever holds the energy of Motherhood and is able to share it is simultaneously strong and vulnerable. A sense of vulnerability that empowers humanity with the knowingness about love and realization about interconnectedness.

4). Motherhood is innate

Motherhood is the energy of the ultimate caring for Life. It is at the center of all Life and as so, it is innate within each human being. While some may develop it more easily than other, it is the unalienable sealer for presence. Everyone with an expression of motherhood expresses the most natural sense of self held at the core of each cell that makes the Universe. The sense of caring for Life that exists within and outside of the form itself so that Life in form relates to itself through the sharing of its essence.

5). Motherhood is precious

There is no value nor even the capacity to price Motherhood as this is the truest treasure of Life. It is the most essential way with which Life can expand, grow and evolve not only in its number of experience but more so in its level of consciousness. Motherhood is the nurturer of the seed of the present so that the future is ensured to have flowers and fruits to bear.

Motherhood is the power to care and the strength it takes to share it is a mighty one. Although, often related to the privileged relationship between a mother and her child, motherhood is also, and from a greater sense of consciousness, the capacity to relate to another life form with true dedication and unconditional truth. This is the way to Compassion, to Love, to Peace.

Happy Mother’s Day To All Moms [Video]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJWTwEtFHA4

Unfortunately for legacy systems, cloud computing services are becoming the small businessman’s best friend. With speedy innovations, the cloud is steadily tearing down IT barriers, providing users with usability, mobility, flexibility, acceleration, and an overall cool vibe associated with high technology.  Here are just some cloud-based tools that have radically changed the usual way we do business:

Google Drive – Free storage in the cloud

Better late than never may be the most appropriate tagline for Google Drive, which experts say came late in a market presently captured by Dropbox and Windows SkyDrive. Google’s venture into cloud storage is however a big game-changer. Both Dropbox and Windows SkyDrive have upgraded its services following Google Drive’s hard-hitting offer of up to 16TB of storage, equivalent to more than 4,000 two-hour movies coded in 720p HD resolution. Drive users pay on a rising scale — monthly fees of $2.49 for 25GB, $4.99 for 100GB, $49.99 for 1TB, or $799.99 for 16TB — but are initially offered 5GB free.  Other drive features are optical character recognition (OCR) technology and image recognition.

OCR recognizes text in scanned documents and allows you, for example, to search for keywords in scanned clippings of old newspapers. On the other hand, image recognition allows you to search Drive for specific photos you uploaded, making the photos pop up onscreen. In addition, a paid Google Drive account will automatically upgrade your Gmail to 25GB. Blind users can also access Drive with a screen reader. Playing catch-up, Dropbox allowed non-members access to emailed links of files and SkyDrive integrated with Windows Explorer and Apple Finder. 

RingCentral Cloud Touch– Phone systems reimagined

The San Mateo-based company impressed its audience at the DEMO conference this year when it announced the launch of its new Cloud Touch platform. Now, end-users can set-up, manage and use their phone system on their handy mobile devices without the help of an IT department.  

RingCentral Cloud Touch is the first phone system that allows you to set-up a fully-functional office and telecom IT desk anytime and anywhere with an Internet connection.  One of its other power features is Cloud Presence, which allows you to see which colleagues are on the phone, regardless of their location or the device they use.

RingCentral is on a roll this year. Just before Cloud Touch, the company also announced Internet Fax integration with Dropbox, Box, and Google Docs. If your company wants easy deployment of big enterprise phone system features at a small business price, RingCentral is the service provider to consider.

Microsoft Intune – PC Management and Security in the Cloud

The new version of Microsoft Intune was pre-release in April 2012, with analysts predicting the announcement to be made during the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 conference in Las Vegas. The cloud-based PC Management service provides on-premise Windows management tools and helps users perform security and management tasks remotely from a web-based console. Tasks include managing security policies and firewalls, providing IT support to offsite users, and tracking software licensing, among others.

It’s unclear when the full release will be, but SMBs will have something to watch for. As part of its BYOD (bring your own device) vision, the new Intune will provide support for mobile devices, including Windows Phone 7, iPhone, iTouch, iPad, and Android-based devices. Other updates include “automatic discover of mobile devices that access Exchange Server”, a simplified Windows Intune account portal and the ability to sync with Windows Azure Active Directory.

Cloud services are proving to be more and more advantageous for business. With the current innovations and updates being made in the cloud, it makes sense for small businesses to migrate to cloud-based solutions.

Top Image Credit : TimesBlogger

Wikipedia with your location and presents you with relevant articles about places around you. For users living in or traveling to the United States, we have added the popular yellow pages service, Citysearch.

The Wikipedia source helps you find interesting and relevant information that matters to you. Wikipedia, the worlds largest encyclopedia, is a remarkable source of information on countless number of places written and maintained by volunteers from all over the world. Over 1.3 million pages are tagged with geo data. They mesh this data with your location and present to you a localized encyclopedia with relevant articles about places around you. If you thought there is not much to know about your area, try discovering it through the Wikipedia lens in Localscope, you will be pleasantly surprised to know of the cultural, historical and factual information about it that you were yet to uncover.

Citysearch is a popular online yellow pages service that covers more that 75,000 locations across the United States. Citysearch uses the database provided by Citygrid that lists local businesses, services, restaurants, hospitals and more. It also aggregates information from other online business listing websites. Besides the listings, Citysearch provides editorial recommendations along with local user comments and ratings for businesses in popular categories like restaurants, nightlife, hotels and services. Integration with Citysearch gives Localscope users living or traveling to the United States another choice to find and discover new places around them.

The new and updated version of Localscope is now globally available on the Apple AppStore, for US$1.99 (or the equivalent in other currencies). Visit the AppStore to get your copy now.

Presence is the power behind confidence, self-confidence, self-esteem, boldness and more. It is the foundation to leadership and whenever charisma is felt, presence is loud. While presence exists and cannot not be, very often the societal dogmas in which most of us grows keeps it under-developed. Awareness and meaningful-ness are necessary to its development and practice, essential to its success.

Here is a list of 5 daily ways to guide you on the path to presence. Practice with dedication and awareness, they will provide you with everyday guidelines to unfold your presence and build your self-confidence from inside out.

1). Daily reminders of Gratitude

Daily reminders of Gratitude | Credit : http://bit.ly/IZpd4H

Presence exists within each of us. While it may not always be felt because of the mind’s inability to make it easily tangible, the heart always knows where to feel it. When the mind is invited to journey into the goodness of Life through gratitude, it effortlessly remembers it and naturally realigns its reality with these emotional memories. What can be remembered through feelings, can be known in wholeness and every time, wholeness is sensed, presence finds a space it calls home.

2). Daily blessings of Love

Daily blessings of Love | Credit : http://bit.ly/IZpFjD

Each time love is shared, Presence travels. Be the one whose intentions are anchored in compassion and kindness for these intentions hold the potential to carry Love in form. Whether, they are transformed in words, actions or remain conscious moments of humble silence, their high vibrational frequency elevate your own energy field and you naturally feel empowered with the same potential of universal greatness.

3). Daily prayers of Possibility

Daily prayers of Possibility | Credit : http://bit.ly/IZq2dR

Everyday brings, with it, new possibility. Each possibility is a world in itself to which presence is the nurturer and fertilizer. Prayers are silent connection to the filed of all possibilities. While the individual mind may not consciously know which possibility is the most appropriate for the moment, the divine Mind knows without error. Prayers provide a bridge for presence to share its creative power in the most directed way.

They give the conscious mind a way to connect with its subconscious counter-part. When the two are reunited, strength within a sense of mission is felt and known. This presence within empowers the mind with the concept of Faith, essential when the mind must yield the control to the unknown, unexpected and unfathomable.

4). Daily moments of Awakening

Daily moments of Awakening | Credit : http://bit.ly/IZqIjs

Your daily routine, made of doing-ness, chores and ordinariness, may take your mind away from the extra-ordinariness held at all time. Giving yourself moments of awakening and revelations during which you realize more about who you are is offering yourself a gift of time. Time spent in self-realization is Life spent in self-actualization. Consciously actualizing greatness in form is but the most universal purpose of all that is. It is the preferred channel for Presence to be known.

5). Daily deeds of Goodness

Daily deeds of Goodness | Credit : http://bit.ly/IZrxZr

Days that shows deeds of goodness are days spent in honoring Life. Each time, life is celebrated, Presence also is. Whether you do good for another or yourself, you display presence in form. As shared above, when presence is shared, it is known within.

The fact that a tweet can only have as many as 140 characters can be seen as a point that emphasizes the ease of use or the one that throws a challenge at you. You get only that many characters in one go to get your message across and therein lays the fun of Twitter. Precision is the key.

Tweets do not take a lot of your time but the flurry of tweets on people’s timeline is a manifestation of the way tweeting has caught up with people in a big way. People are keen on sharing everything about themselves through their tweets, down to the detail of the activities taken up through the day.

Join in the fun to experience it on your own. Here are the top 12 reasons that make tweet chats so much fun to indulge in.

TwitterChats | Credit : http://bit.ly/IKpE2O

1. Follow anyone you like

Search for interesting people with similar interests and follow them to receive their tweets on your timeline. There is absolutely no restriction on which you can follow. Only a minuscule percentage of people keep their tweets protected.

2. Reach out to people by replying to tweets

It is easy to strike a conversation with people on Twitter by just replying to a tweet. Interact with people regularly to increase your number of followers and to be able to increase your sphere of influence through conversations.

3. Build your social media presence with tweet chats

Your presence on Twitter can serve as a source of traffic for your blog or website. In addition, the contacts you build on Twitter help in the real world as well as the interaction on Twitter invariably give way to organized meetings for people who interact regularly.

4. Support your SEO initiatives

Interact and contribute to the community and reap rich dividends for yourself as well. Promote your blog or website. Retweets from your followers expand your reach and the inbound links work well for increasing the rank of your site on search engine result pages.

5. Get to learn from important people in your knowledge domain

With access to Twitter, it is possible for you to communicate with people of repute in your sphere of activity. Learn more and become better at your work through your tweet chats.

6. Make your opinion count on varied issues

Your tweets need not be frivolous. Make your opinion known on important issues. Join in the discussion to get others’ opinions not just on the same line as yours but also the ones that present a different picture.

7. Join into the hype around a trending topic

Tweets with hashtags give shape to a trending topic on Twitter. As more people tweet on the trending topic, Twitter gets its own little revolution that molds people’s opinion. Be a part of it.

8. Use direct messages if you need privacy

Two people who follow each other on Twitter can interact through direct messages. If there is something you wish to say without sharing it with everyone, use a direct message.

9. Protect your tweets if you wish

The fun of Twitter lies in it being an open platform for interaction but if you wish to share your tweets only with the people you approve to follow you, then you have the option of protecting your tweets. Have uninhibited fun by interacting with close friends.

10. Keep abreast with information on your favorite celebrities

You need not look elsewhere for information about your favorite singers or movie stars when these celebrities too have a profile on Twitter. Get to know everything about them as they post information on their day to day life. As stars seek to interact with their fans, you may also get lucky and get a reply to your tweet.

11. Connect with people irrespective of their geographical location

This is the best thing about any social networking portal. Geographical location and timezone is no obstacle when it comes to interaction. Get to know people from around the world. Connect through shared interests.

12. Interact with interesting people without revealing your identity

Your Twitter handle is your identity on Twitter. Nobody actually cares to know your name unless people want to meet in real life. If you are not comfortable sharing your real world identity, you need not worry. It is in no way a hindrance to your interaction with people.

Twitter is a giant in the crowd of social networking portals. The famed 140 character networking site has crossed 140 million in terms of the number of users. Moreover, twitter power cannot be underestimated because now there is even a tweet run Mercedes Benz about to hit the roads soon. No wonder if soon people start donning social media garments that lets them tweet through their gestures. Sounds fun, right? Whether it’s fun or tech aspect twitter is giving everyone run for its money.

Advertising has only made its away now on Twitter but through a less intruding format of promoted tweets. The fun of tweet chats continues unabated. Changes are being implemented to make the interface better and to enhance the quality of user experience. The add-ons certainly add value but it is the interaction with people that matters above all.

Twitter Chat Image Credit : http://bit.ly/IKoHYq

Relationships are the hearts of humanity. Not only, do they exist for physical survival but more so they are at the core of Humanity’s very own reason of existence. While not every relationship is meant to last, there are means to nurture them in such a way that the meeting of two people becomes more than an exchange of experiences but truly the sharing of soulful truths.

Here is a list of 7 ways to best built long-lasting relationships through which souls can connect, thrive and grow in a continuous sense of harmony.

1). Path of Non-Judgment

The first ever rule of long lasting relationship is non-judgment. There is no room for connection where perceptions have no room to co-exist within their difference. Non-judgment is fundamental to create an atmosphere of safety and trust. For two people to find the space to share their truth is to give each the comfort to express their feelings, be heard and be loved beyond the words.

2). Path of Humility

Non-Judgment is possible when we realize the value of our own truth and value, with the same worth, the truth of another. Humility in relationship allows the mind to remain open to another perception with a great sense of detachment while being greatly attached to the person who shares it. The nature of another’s truth is Sacred and, as so, must be cared with honor.

3). Path of Gratitude

Those who are brought into our life are those we have attracted to mirror us our own Truth. While parts of this Truth may not always be the most beautiful one, they remain our very own belonging. Gratitude for those who walk by us and hold us accountable for our truth is an essential aspect of a long-lasting relationship. Remembering that while darkness is being shown, the Light is being pulled from below, only to come out and let us shine even more.

How To Build A Lasting Relationship | Credit : http://bit.ly/JEAkRP

4). Path of Kindness

The greatest sealer for relationships is kindness. Kindness represents the dearest expression of love. Undeniable evidence of care and attention, kindness offers a bridge for joy, happiness and harmony. Kindness is always possible even when disagreement is present. It is the blossoming of a philosophy of Life founded on gratitude. Kindness offers space for communication and self-expression. It is the flow through which souls find themselves sharing the most of their Truth.

5). Path of Curiosity

Long-lasting relationships are based on the continuous sense of curiosity about what Life is. Life that exists within the self and within all form. It also is the natural space for the inner-child to feel the freedom of its original source. When two can find themselves being curious, wanting to discover and explore their sense of Life or finding enough strength to wander into the wilderness of their existence, then life expands into a journey of eternal discoveries and endless creativity.

6). Path of Simplicity

The ultimate space where long-lasting relationships find themselves is in simplicity. People who can exist and share the moment for itself can enjoy life with nothing more than their own presence to fill it up. Realizing the excellence held in the moment only through presence offers the most realistic window onto life at the source where Love exists without need.

7). Path of Understanding

Two people who have chosen to connect have met on a common ground called Friendship. While this common ground is divinely sacred, it also is filled with societal stigmas that tend to set it apart from any other sense of relationship such as lovers or spouses. The common ground for all relationships is Friendship and the strongest stone to this ground is understanding. Understanding isn’t only precious, it is priceless and relationships that wish to grow in harmony and compassion must share life with a compassionate heart and a flexible mind where love guides thoughts into understanding and therefore acceptance.

Top Image Credit : eharmony