Having your contact list be the central social hub for your Android phone is what Phonebook 2.0 is all about. You will be able to see things like social network updates, birthdays, how many times you call contacts and even recent activity with people in your contact list.

Phonebook 2.0 is a replacement for your contacts application. Your contacts and other information will automatically be imported into Phonebook 2.0. You will be able to initiate an email, SMS, see contact call history, contact groups, social network updates, birthdays and a lot more.

Social Stuff

Most applications come with some sort of connection to your social network accounts. Phonebook 2.0 is not exception. You can sign into several of the most popular social sites with more site options on the way.

Right now you can see Twitter feeds, Facebook updates, Myspace and LinkedIn. You may already have a mobile application with access to these sites. However, this application’s uniqueness is – only the feeds from your phone contacts show up. Not all of your Facebook friends. You may follow 20,000 on Twitter, but talk to 3 people in your everyday life. These 3 feeds will be displayed.

Activity

While your phone will track your incoming, outgoing and misses calls. Your phone won’t display messaging, email and social media updates all in the same window. The activity window reminds me of the Messages folder on a Blackberry.

If you are looking at the activity list, you will see a list of everyone you have communicated with. The social feeds don’t erase when you clear the activity log.

Birthdays

Some applications populate your calendar with birth dates for your contacts. Phonebook 2.0 gives you a tab dedicated to birthdays. You will see all of your contacts with birthdays coming up in order of closest birthday first.

Individual contacts

While you are viewing each individual contact, you have several options of information to view. You can see the contact information like you would be able to in the factory installed Android contact application.

When you choose a contact from you list, you will see a screen with options to contact that person. I think it is laid out much nicer than the pre-installed contacts application. You will also now have access to is any recent activity you have had with them and their most recent social media update.

Conclusion

I have been using Phonebook 2.0 for about 2 weeks now. I am really liking the all-in-one approach they took. Many applications that are add-ons to the factory applications aren’t always worth the space they take up.

It took a little bit of retraining myself to use this as a replacement for the Android contact application. Once I got in the habit, I saw how useful it was. I was not checking Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to see what my close friends are up to.

What applications do you use to manage your contacts?

Once you have created and logged in to your account, you will be prompted to create spaces. Each space is an area dedicated to a group of collaborators. You can create different spaces, each with different purposes. For example, in MakeTechEasier, I can create a space for authors to collaborate on topic ideas and another space for editors.

Just like any other collaboration platform, you will find email, contacts, calendars and tasks in every space. There is also a Twitter-like activity steam where members can post status update.

The most impressive feature of Podio is the app store. Here is where you can find plenty of apps to add to your account to increase its functionality. All of the apps are free and they covered categories from business development, project management, education, Sales and CRM, to Internet, Property and Retail Sales. I didn’t count the number of apps, but it seems to be an endless list and you could just keep scrolling to the next page and next page and next…

If that is not good enough for you, you can even modify the app to suit your liking. Feel that the team blog app is lacking a Google Map field? You can add a field to it. Feel that the Sales app is too complicated to use? Remove some of the fields to make it easier to handle.

The best thing is, if none of the apps can satisfy your needs, you can even build your own app. There is no programming knowledge required. As long as you know how to drag and drop, you can instantly build your own app.

Without a doubt, what really set Podio apart from the rest is definitely the app store and the app builder. Just like Apple’s iPhone. Without the app store, it is just a plain phone with a great design. But with the app store and hundreds of thousands of apps, it becomes a device with infinite possibilities. Similarly, the ability to create and add apps to the Podio platform makes it more than just a simple collaboration platform, and everyone can customize it to suit your own needs.

Podio is currently in closed beta and it requires an invite to get in. It will open its door to the public on 24th March 2011 (9 days as of this post) and you will be able to get your hands on it. The platform is free for company with less than 10 users. Those with more than 10 users will pay at a per-user basis.

Did I also mention that Podio also has an iPhone app? Check it out now.

Podio

Ever wished you could upload photos to multiple social sites from a central location? Ever wanted to cross post photos from your MySpace account to your Facebook account, without having to find an app, download some extension or sign up for yet another service ? Meet Dropico

Dropico is a brilliant web application which allows you to share photos across multiple social sites instantly. Dropico utilizes a very intuitive drag and drop interface so that you can easily transfer, upload and share photos from one social network to another.

Let’s quickly learn how to set up Dropico.

Getting Started With Dropico

1. First, you have to create an account with Dropico which takes only 30 seconds. Once your account has been created, login to your Dropico profile and you will be taken to the “Connection wizard”, as shown below:

2. Hit “Next” and connect your existing Social Networking and Photo Sharing accounts to your Dropico Account in the following step.

3. When you hit the “Connect” button for a social website, you have to grant all the required permissions so that Dropico can post photos to your profile. As an example: for your Facebook account, you have to click “Allow” in the permission window page.

4. As soon as you have connected a social website with your Dropico account, the “Status” of that social website will be “ON” as shown below:

You may turn off the status of a particular social website to “OFF” at a later point of time. This is a very useful feature which lets you choose the social networks where you want to upload a selected group of photos. Simply toggle the status from “ON” to “OFF”, select the sites where you want to upload or share photos and it’s done.

5. When you are done connecting all the social sites to your Dropico account, hit the “Next” button and you will be given a unique Dropico MOBI email address, as shown below:

The Dropico MOBI service allows you to upload your photos to Dropico from any mobile device with an internet connection.  All you have to do is send it as an e-mail to your special Dropico MOBI E-mail address. Every photo sent to this e-mail address from your phone will be saved to your Dropico account

6. In the next step, you can enter your email credentials and invite friends from your email contact list to try out Dropico (optional step, you may skip it).

7. All right, you are done with the setup and ready for the Dropico experience.

How To Use Dropico And Upload Photos To Multiple Social Sites

When you login to your Dropico account, simply drag and drop the social widgets from the right top in the upload panel. Dropico will automatically load all the photo albums of the corresponding social networking site, as shown below:

To upload a photo, drag and drop the image from your desktop to the corresponding widget. All done, now Dropico will upload the image to your social profile automatically.

You may also specify the photo albums where the target picture is to be uploaded and the application will upload the photos to that particular album. You may further choose to create a new album and upload the images or choose to drop them in the “Dropico uploads” folder.

It should not be a big deal, because you can always move the images from one album to another at a later point of time.

Dropico also features Photo Tagging (title, description and tags) and album management tools such as creating a new Album, removing photos from selected albums etc. Hence, you do not need to fiddle around in all the social sites and manage your photo albums recursively, let Dropico take all the hassle of uploading your photos and managing them.

Editing Your photos Using Dropico’s Photo Editor

Dropico’s web based photo editor can be used to edit your photos on the fly. What this means is that you can edit your existing photos on any social network using Dropico’s web based photo editor and the changes will be reflected in the original photo that’s stored in your Facebook account, for example.

The images can be edited in three modes:

• Pixlr Express mode – for quick fixing.
• Pixlr Editor – for advanced editing options
• Pizap Editor – to make funny photos.

To start the Dropico photo editor, click the “Edit” button next to any photo and choose the mode, as shown below:

This will load the photo in Dropico’s photo editing app, you can apply basic photo fixes, add text, crop, pan, zoom, fix colors and other attributes of an image. These are pretty much self explanatory, all the basic and advanced photo editing tools are provided so that you can modify an image the way you want.

When you are done modifying the image, Dropico will post the changed photo to the corresponding social networking account. Isn’t that great ?

Overall, this is one of the best photo uploading and sharing apps we have discovered in recent times. You don’t need to download a desktop tool, any browser extension, bookmarklets, java plugins etc, Dropico works universally from any platform or mobile device.

Do you know any better alternative of Dropico for managing photos across all the social websites? Share your ideas in the comments below.

That’s why in the environment where you can’t really put a face to the name, trust is a very valuable currency. And that’s why the concept of word of mouth recommendation from friends that we know and trust is very powerful. Add some social networks to the mixture and the effect would be multiplied. That’s the idea behind TAF4Free.

Recommendation With Some Social Twist

TAF4Free (Tell A Friend For Free) is a web tool from SocialTwist which will allow you – as a web owner – to provide an easy way for your visitor to tell their friends about your site(s). TAF4Free allows your readers to contact people in their social networks as well as send emails to contacts in their address book.

But before you can use the tool, you need to sign up with SocialTwist. Signing up will allow you to change the configuration, view usage statistic, create and customize more widgets.

This sign up process also serves as the place where you can customize the aspects of your Tell A Friend campaign such as the size of TAF button, widget theme and the button usage. For example, I planned to use the TAF method for my WordPress blog, so I selected “Blog” from the drop down list.

Further customization appeared after I chose “Blog“. I selected “WordPress Engine Plugin“.

After finished with the setting up process, I clicked on the “Get Code” button. You can check or uncheck the first and third option boxes, but make sure that the second one is checked before you click the button.

Installing The WordPress Plugin

After I hit the “Get Code“, a download button appeared. I clicked this “Get It Now” button and the WordPress plugin was downloaded to my hard drive.

To install the plugin, go to the “Plugin – Install Plugins – Upload” menu from your WordPress admin area. Then click the “Choose File” button, locate the downloaded plugin, and click “Install now“.

The final step would be to activate the plugin. You can do this directly after installing it or later on from the plugin page.

Another Point Of View

So far we have seen the process from web owner point of view. Now let’s switch our perspective and see things from the visitor’s side. For example, you visit your friend’s blog and you want to share an article that you read to your other friends.

If the blog owner use TAF4Free, you will find the button at the end of the article. Hover your mouse over it and a list of available sharing methods will pop up. Click at the one that you want to use.

A pop up window will appear focusing to your choice of sharing method. Then you can continue with the sharing process. For example, if you choose “Facebook“, all you have to do is click on the “Share” button, fill in your login data, and the word is out.

Or if you choose “GMail“, you can fill in your user name and password before picking people up from your address book and sending them link to the article that you want to share.

TAF4Free makes it easy for visitors to switch between different sharing methods, so all they have left to do is finding worth sharing materials and share them.

Content Is Really The King

But everything goes back to the quality of your content. No matter how easy the sharing method is, nothing is going to work if you have no good quality content that people want to share.

If you give your reader top notch materials, the combination of your good content and TAF4Free will surely help you to spread the word about your website to the world. If one person recommends your web to some of his/her friends, and these friends do the same, you’ll have viral marketing working for you. Then you can stop worrying about getting readers to your site and focus on creating great materials.

What do you think about TAF4Free? Would you use it to help you spread the buzz about your site? Do you know other similar alternatives? Please share your thoughts using the comment below.

Image credit: See-ming Lee

Because of the digital trend toward the social aspect of the web, it is natural there would be applications to help you search and track information on the social web. 48ers is one of those.

On a Personal basis

For the everyday Joe, there are a few benefits to a social search engine like 48ers. One of the most popular reasons for using this type of search is for researching a product you’d like to purchase. You can enter in a product name and see what people are currently saying about that product.

Sure you can go onto Twitter and search there or ask the people who follow you what they think, then head over to Facebook and post a question there, then mozy on over to Google Buzz and do the same thing.

It is much easier to do it all in one search. Plus you will be searching other sites along with the 3 big name sites.

From Business point of view

Businesses are using social search engines for much more than being social. It is life or death these days to know what people are saying about you. More so than when you were the popular kid in high school.

Being able to search multiple sites at the same time is a real time saver for businesses taking social media and their online presence seriously. Tracking a hastag for an event, a brand, product or anything else is much easier when you can search multiple sites simultaneously.

What makes 48ers cool

If you are one of the 80% of the Googlers out there, you will see a striking similarity to your favorite search engine. The simplicity makes it feel like home when you are searching the social web.

In the left sidebar, you will see the sites 48ers is pulling results from. If you would like to filter your results you can do so by clicking on the site you want to see the results from. When filtering the results, you can only see one site at a time.

I really like how they have a “Useful Searches” section in the sidebar. There are some searches in there that are kind of “ah-ha moment” searches. I mean, they make complete sense when you see them, yet you didn’t think to search for.

What site is the result from?

When you perform a search for any term, you can see the logo of the social site at the beginning of each result in the list. Results from social bookmarking sites don’t always show a logo because they aren’t from a social site like Twitter.

Overall, there isn’t a lot to show with a search engine. Even though there is a lot of potential uses for a social search engine, everyone will use it differently. Play around a little and try different search types. Use the filters, try the suggested searches to see what you come up with.

The social web is not an exact science even though many people claim to know it all. Spend the time getting to know the basics and the rest of the time searching for and talking to people with similar interests. That’s what the whole social thing is all about.

What do you use social search engines for?

SocialCompare is a product comparison site with a social twist. Its objective is to become the “wikipedia of comparisons”, enabling any user to create and update easily and in a collaborative way any kind of comparison table.

There are four main things that you can do at SocialCompare: Check out existing comparison, create your own comparison, vote/participate/collaborate on the comparison or to embed and share the comparison on your blog/website.

Let’s explore all these features one by one:

Explore existing comparison

When you arrive at the main site, you can either click to go to the Directory to view the products that you are interested in or explore the popular/recently updated comparison list to see what other people are viewing.

In the Directory section, all the products are classified in respective categories so you can easily find the products you are interested to compare. Optionally, you can also use the search function to find the products you want.

When you click on a product comparison link, it will show you the detailed comparison between each product. For example, I clicked on the Apple iPod touch generations comparison and the following comparison table show up.

If you want to see iPhone 4 inside that comparison table, you can also click the “+” button to include it.

Create your own comparison

In situation where you can’t find the comparison table of the products you want, you can also create your own comparison table (note: you will need to create a user account to create your own comparison).

Once you are logged in, click on the “Create Comparison” button to get started.

First, give a name to your comparison. Choose a category and click the “Add Items and Criteria” button.

You can then add the products/items and select the criteria you want it to appear in the list, for example, the price, hardware specification and so on.

When you are happy with the result, you can then save it and optionally, publish it so the public can view it. If you select “Publish”, you can also select whether your comparison table is editable by everyone.

Participate and collaborate

What makes SocialCompare really social is the ability to vote up a comparison, leave a comment, share it in Facebook/Twitter and add it to your favorite. Additionally you can also be the editor and add/edit items or criteria to the list to make it more complete.

Embedding

One thing that I really like about SocialCompare is that I can easily a comparison table between two or more products and quickly embed it in my site. Just imagine, if you are running an online store carrying several products, you can use SocialCompare to do up a comparison table of your products and embed it into your site. It can save you a lot of time from entering the data into your database and code them into your site manually. Since all data in SocialCompare are open license and everyone can edit, you can be sure that the information is most up to date, better than you have to do it manually yourself.

Since the comparison table is not hosted on your server, you can also save bandwidth and storage space and at the same time, allowing your buyers to vote up/down the products.

Wrapping up

SocialCompare has been in beta all the while and only open up to the public on 15th November 2010 (which is today). Do give it a try and let us know if it is useful to you.

Internet made the sharing business a whole lot easier. You can instantly email your overseas friends about the latest and greatest song from your favorite rock band, or tweet about it to your followers. But why stop there? Why not join GetGlue – a community where people from all over the world share and discover things that they love?

Make Everything Stick

GetGlue describes itself as “a social network for entertainment“. Its goal is to add “fun” to the process of recommending things that you like (or not recommending things that you don’t like) by integrating itself to other popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter and by rewarding the users with virtual badges and freebies.

People can use GetGlue not only to recommend things to others, but also to get recommendations on things that they like. GetGlue can also be used as a place you go to every time you want to shop for specific items.

You can register for GetGlue account by simply choosing your user name and password, and writing down your email address.

Alternatively, you can use your Facebook or Twitter login info to get started quickly with GetGlue.

To enrich your GetGlue experience, expand it beyond the web interface. GetGlue is also available as extensions for major browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari) and apps for iDevices (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) and Android Phones. It means that you can access GetGlue anytime and anywhere.

To download and install the Glue extension for your favorite browser, find the item in the browser’s extensions repository. Here’s the example of Glue for Safari.

After the extension is installed, your browser will show a small recommendation bar at the bottom (or top) of your browser every time you visit sites that related to books, music, movies, or other “consumer” items.

To access GetGlue when you are away from your computer, use GetGlue app for your smart phone. Armed with the app, you can recommend the movie that you are watching at the theatre without having to wait until you get home.

The Web Interface

Now let’s explore the web interface. After logging in, you will be greeted by quick status update and recommended item(s).

There’s the “utility” bar at the right side of the page which consist of many things. For example: your personal data, link to GetGlue apps,

… To Dos, Quick Rate Button, earned stickers, etc.

Clicking the “Launch Quick Rate” button will open the quick rating window. Choose one of the items’ type to start rating things.

Your friends and relatives will appear under “My Subscriptions” and “My Subscribers” category. This is something like following and followers in Twitter. You can increase the number of your cult by inviting more people to subscribe to you.

And in the main page, there’s the update of what activities that currently happening among GetGlue users.

Bonus For Bloggers

If you happen to be a blogger, you can add GetGlue service in your blog. To do that, navigate to the bottom of the sidebar in the web interface and click on the “Install Glue on your blog or website” link.

The Glue widget window will open and you can choose your blog’s publishing platform. There are ready-to-use widgets for Blogger and Typad users, while other blogging platforms users can use the provided script instead.

Are you a GetGlue users? What do you think after using it? Would you recommend GetGlue to your friends and family? Share your thoughts in the comment below.

Image credit: GetGlue

For those who are still unaware, the new Open Graph protocol and the social plugins are set of tools newly launched by Facebook that allow you to integrate Facebook deeply into your site and make your site more “sociable”. Things such as the “Like” button can now be easily added to your page and enable your users to share your content in their Facebook account.

How do I add a “Like” button to my site? (The easy way)

To add a “Like” button, simply paste the following iframe code to any part of the page (or the location where you want it to appear).

<iframe src=”http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?layout=standard&show_faces=true&width=450&action=like&colorscheme=light” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” style=”border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:px”></iframe>

To change the setting of the “Like” button, go to this Facebook Like button page, customize the setting, grab the iframe code and paste it to your site.

Alternatively, install the Like plugin which can automate most of the basic stuffs for you.

Is that all? What if I want more?

You asked for it. So here you are, the method to integrate Facebook deeply into your site (and turn your site into a social graph).

There are basically two ways to implement Facebook social plugins in your site:

1. iFrame
2. XFBML

I would recommend using XFBML as it allows you to access to the whole wide range of plugins. The following method will be done using the XFBML protocol.

1. Register a Facebook app

Don’t worry, we don’t need you to learn programming and whip up an ad. All you need to do here is to register for a Facebook app (In short, just fill up a form and submit it).

Go to Facebook Application Creation page and create an app (you’ll need to login to your Facebook account).

Once the application is created successfully, you will see your application dashboard. Record down the Application ID (you will be using it later).

2. Adding custom <html> tag

Now, go to your Theme folder and open the header.php file. Change the <html> tag to the following:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/" 
xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml" <?php language_attributes(); ?>>

3. Adding custom meta tags to your <head> tag

Still in your header.php, add the following line in between the <head> </head> tag.

<meta property="fb:admins" content="USER_ID"/>
<meta property="og:title" content="<?php wp_title(' ',true,'right'); ?>"/>
<meta property="og:site_name" content="YOUR SITE NAME"/>
<meta property="og:type" content="blog" />
<meta property="og:image" content="URL TO YOUR THUMBNAIL IMAGE"/>
<meta property="og:description" content="<?php bloginfo('description'); ?>"/>

Note:

• Remember to change all the CAPS field to your site setting in the meta tags.
• To find out what is your Facebook USER_ID, go to http://graph.facebook.com/your-username. You will see your FB user ID.

• Check out this page for full explanation of the meta tags and other meta tags that you can include

4. Adding of javascript sdk

To make use of the XFBML, we need to add the javascript SDK to your <body> tag.

Add the following lines right after the <body> tag.

<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>
  window.fbAsyncInit = function() {
    FB.init({appId: 'YOUR APP ID', status: true, cookie: true,
             xfbml: true});
  };
  (function() {
    var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true;
    e.src = document.location.protocol +
      '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js';
    document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e);
  }());
</script>

Now, you will need to replace “YOUR APP ID” with the application ID that you have created just now.

5. Choose the social plugins that you want to use

Go to the Facebook social plugins site, you will see a series of tools that you can implement in your site.

Like button: Show a “Like” button on your site. The most commonly used plugin.
Recommendations: Show users personalized suggestions for pages on your site they might like.
Login with Faces: Allow the users to sign up to your site with their Facebook account. it also shows a list of the user’s friends who have also signed up for your site.
Comments: Allow users to comment on your site. The comments will also be posted back to the users Facebook wall.
Activity Feed: shows users what their friends are doing on your site through likes and comments.
Like Box: This is previously known as the Fan box.
Facepile: Shows profile pictures of the user’s friends who have already signed up for your site.
Live Stream: Lets your users share activity and comments in real-time as they interact during a live event.

6. Configure the social plugins

Choose the social plugin that you want to use on your site. In this example, I will use the “Like” button since it is the most commonly used among all.

Click on the Like Button link

Configure your “Like” button settings. Leave the URL field blank. Click on the “Get Code” button at the end to grab the source code.

Highlight and copy the XFBML code

Paste it to the places (either in the widgets area or the single.php file) where you want the “Like” button to appear.

Do the same for any other social plugins that you use.

That’s it!

Implementing of social plugins in MakeTechEasier

“Like” button for every post entry

Like box in the sidebar

Recommend box in the post footer

References

Here are some useful links for your reference:

• Facebook OpenGraph protocol
• Facebook Javascript SDK
• Facebook Social Plugins
• Facebook Application Dashboard

If you find this post useful, don’t forget to “Like” it and share it with your friends. Do let us know in the comments how have you make use of the social plugins in your site.

Office Medium is a web-based collaborative suite and office intranet built with the open source Drupal. It is easy to use and comes with several useful features (especially in the social aspect) that the small business users will come to appreciate.

I were introduced to OfficeMedium a while back and my first impression is that it is well designed with plenty of useful collaborative and social features.

When you first logged in, you will be greeted by the dashboard. This is where you can get an overview of what happening in your business social area.

The interior of OfficeMedium is organized into several sections, namely Tasks, Events, Calendar, Contacts, Resouces, Files, Polls, Shoutbox and Blog. Each section plays an important role.

Tasks allows you to create to do lists and track the progress of your work. Events shows all your upcoming events and the Calendar allows you to schedule appointments and add events. There is also a group calendar where you can view your colleague’s schedule. The Resources, Files and Polls sections are some of the useful collaborative tools while the Shoutbox enables you to update your status so your colleagues/clients know what you are busy with.

Client management

The best part about OfficeMedium is the integration of client management into the software. You can create a limited user account for your clients and allows them to participate in the collaboration/discussion process. The limited user account give the client permission to view/submit tasks, events, and files, and are only allowed to see content and data that is meant for, or created by them. It is more like Google wave, but with more flexibility and usability.

One caveat – Not able to backup data

While OfficeMedium provides a great platform for the end user, there is one thing that I am concern of – the inability to back up your data. Unlike your self-hosted intranet where you can keep everything in your control, Office Medium does not provide any way for you to backup all your data (Perhaps it does, but I can’t find any backup option in the interface). That means, if one day they were to close down, all your data will go down with them. If you keep plenty of confidential data online, this is definitely a cause for concern.

Office Medium is currently priced at $6 per user and comes with a free 512MB account. Extra space can be purchased at $1 per Gb per month. New users get a 1 month free usage before they are required to pay the subscription fee.

Promotion for Make Tech Easier readers

Office Medium allows anyone to use the software free for 30 days before you are required to make any payment. Now, for MakeTechEasier readers, as long as you email ‘MAKETECHEASIER‘ to support@officemedium.com within 24 hours of this post, you will get 60 days of free usage. Don’t wait, GET IT NOW!

Like many other types of social sites, these document sharing sites have the same basic idea to them; post all of your documents and presentations for all to see. Large companies like Ford use these sites to share fact sheets and marketing PDFs. They can be a really great place to research a topic or get ideas for a project you you may be stuck on.

Some of the sites offer the option to buy documents such as contracts, invoices and even ebooks. I noticed, while perusing through some of the sites, quite a few publishers and online magazines have accounts.

1. Doc Share

Doc Share offers a great variety of documents to view and download. Four categories (Business and Legal, eBooks, Essays or Guides and Instructions) make finding the type of document you are looking for easier, While these categories are fairly broad, they do help narrow your search.

The Social Part

You can give “kudos” up or down similar to Reddit or Stumbleupon. Of the three, Doc Share seems a little more laid back. When I went to the site for the first time, one of the recently added documents on the homepage was song lyrics and another was celebrity mug shots. The layout is a bit bland too.

2. Doc Stoc

Doc Stoc has millions of documents, both pay and free, in an easy to use layout. The layout is a little more categorized than others making it much easier to sift through the myriad of shared documents. (*note – while writing this post, I found A LOT of spam documents on this site. They were really easy to spot though.)

The Social Part

If you find something you like, you can save it to a folder. These don’t need to be files you have uploaded, anything on the site can saved. What I have used this particular site for in the past is finding great templates or inspirational presentations.

Of the three, this seems to be the least social on-site. It has basic sharing options like a Twitter button and you can embed a document into your site. To me, this one feels more like going to the library versus a Barnes and Noble or used bookstore.

3. Scribd

Scribd seems to be the most hip site of the three. They overhauled the site this past summer and added all kinds of features. Simple things like signing in with your Facebook info or Open ID show these guys are a bit more in-tune with whats going on.

There are plenty of categories to help narrow your searches. In addition to categories, the community tab lets you search for popular people you may want to follow.

The Social Part

This is the most social of the three. Scribd lets subscribe to other peoples feeds. You can update your on-site status with what you are reading by pasting a link to the document you are reading or publishing. This update is called a “Scribble”.

If you come across a presentation you want your Facebook or Twitter followers to know about, you have the buttons share. Others are also available along with the the code to embed it into your site.

How do social document site help you share your documents with your other communities?

image credit: Saxoji

This is one of the most powerful way for a site to be discovered by the world and then become popular. Who wouldn’t like to be famous? (Digg effect, anyone?) We all know the power of having popular site(s), right? I mean, the money, the fame, the money, the money, that sort of things… That is why most Webmasters are doing their best to maximize this bookmarking trends.

The problem is, because so many people addicted to the bookmarking sharing trends, more and more bookmarking services are popping out everywhere and it has become a bit difficult to keep up with all of them. I can’t begin to imagine the tedious job of having to submit each and every of your posts/articles to each and every bookmarking services out there.

The Only Wire you’ll ever need

Luckily, many people are also having this problem, and some of them came up with a solution: OnlyWire – a bookmarking submitter service. Basically what this service do is help the user to submit his/her (or anyone’s) posts to many bookmarking services with just one push of a button.

There are several steps that users need to complete in order to use their service.

1. First is register with OnlyWire. They have two options: paid and free.

“Pay” version – use fully-supported OnlyWire “ad free” by paying $2.99 per month or prepaying for 1 year ($24.99). Pay customers are encouraged to embed the Bookmark & Share Button on your website to drive traffic and backlinks. You will also have the option to turn off OnlyWire advertisements.

“Promote” version – use fully-supported OnlyWire for FREE by adding the Bookmark & Share Button to your website or blog. You still enjoy the same functionality as the “Pay” version of OnlyWire, but promote the continued operation of the site through advertising.

2. Then you have to install the Bookmark & Share Button in your site. The term “install” here actually means copy and paste few lines of code, or for WordPress users, use OnlyWire plugins.

3. After that, enter your Username and Password for the websites that you wish to utilize. To date, OnlyWire supports twenty social sites, including: Del.icio.us, Facebook, Technorati, Twitter and Multiply. Of course you have to register with these services first.

Up-up and away

Suppose that everything is done, you can enjoy your effort. Everytime you post something in your blog, it will be automatically posted to the social sites that you’ve set above. And, everytime your readers click on the Bookmark & Share button, the post will also be submitted to the social sites which your readers choose.

Now you can have more free time to write and worry less about the tedious job of submitting your site(s)/blog(s) to the social sites.

Share your opinion about social bookmarking and other method of popularize your site/blog in the comment below.