Crenk » google reader

Bit.ly Is Growing At a Rapid Pace

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:40:41 +0000

I’m more of a Twitpic man myself. All my Twitpic pictures are of random things I saw such as a cool old train on Sunday or a weird seal chilling in a harbour. The URL which links to my pictures is of course a Twitpic one. But now, what about the millions of other people who upload photos or send links via YouTube to their Twitter. Because twitter allows a maximum of 140 characters per tweet you must make everything count.

Now, Bitly (or bit.ly as you may see it in tweets) is teaming up with Yfrog to provide an image uploading service on twitter. Bitly were given their first big break when their URL was officially built into twitter, replacing the well-known TinyURL. The new image service which will allow users to upload images via the Bitly website and automatically sync it with their twitter is due to be live by the end of the month.

Bitly is certainly getting big now with other companies such as Google (Google Reader) and Typepad now using the shortened URLs as standard. CBS is also using the service on its website.

So, from now on expect to see a lot more Bitly URLs on Twitter.

The Ultimate Google Cheat Guide

Luis Sandoval — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:51:32 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

There’s a lot to find when surfing the net late at night, and thanks to RSS Feeds, a lot of the internet can come to you with some nice key words.

For those of you that want to sharpen your skills in searching, perhaps get more power out of Gmail, or even maximize your RSS efforts in Google Readers, this interactive guide is right up your alley.

This guide is not necessarily supported by Google, but they are aware of it, and having used some of these amazing “hacks” to get out of my google applications, it works and you’ll be happy to have used it.

Read the GOOGLE GUIDE!

Top 10 Google Tools for Entrepreneurs

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:16:28 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

2009 is here and for a great many of us are looking at some huge opportunities before us. Whether you’re suffering because of the economy, or taking your idea and making it a reality, there is always risk involved going out on your own. As an entrepreneur the rules of the game change, and while you are your own boss, there is a lot you have to answer to when it comes to ensuring your success and proper execution of your idea.

As such, there is a big need for the right tools for the right job. Just like approaching any big project, the right tools can make you, the wrong tools will break you. I’ve taken the time to do a post on the top 10 tools that an entrepreneur can use to keep their professional life and business life in check. I’ve chosen Google tools simply because they all sync with one another. There are a lot of people out there that may naysay Google products, but having everything sync together just makes things easier.

1. GMail
A lot of services out there offer great email services, but GMail was one of the first out of the gate to offer a substantial amount of storage with the ability to manipulate the interface. Many of the competitors could not offer what GMail has offered and since then have copiedGMail’s efforts in an attempt to eat up some of the market share for email users. There are a lot of Google Labs additions that make GMail more useful so make sure you get an account and explore what it has to offer.

2. GCal (Google Calendar)
Once again this calendar works hand in hand with its email companion. From GMail you can instantly add events to GCal, and within the GCal interface you can send email reminders for specific events. SMS messages are also available making this calendar even more useful by having your event reminders go straight to your mobile device. Within GCal you can color code different calendar needs, such as one color for personal appointments, another color for professional appointments, etc. This allows you to see everything at once, or only the calendar events you choose to see by deselecting the colored tabs you wish not to see. The diversity makes this a must have, and the ability to access it from any computer is the icing on the cake for any professional.

3. GDocs (Google Documents)
Microsoft Office has taken a lot of heat for not diversifying itself over the years. It’s still the most widely used software package out there for all of our project and document uses. Still, the idea of cloud computing, and online word processing has eaten up a lot of that market share, and as more and more turn to online alternatives,GDocs is a clear leader in this movement. You have the ability to type your documents and save them for access from any computer you canlogin from. Along with saving them “in the cloud,” you can also include contributors to your document or include other readers as well. The versatility once again shows how vital this tools is for everyday business use.

4. Google Alerts
If you’ve got a brand out there, whether it’s you or a specific product, find out what people are saying about you. Google Alerts allows you to setup announcements based on keywords. Google will then focus on these keywords and when they are mentioned will collect the information and alert you of the mention. It’s also useful when looking for trending topics, or what other people are saying about the market you are in. Take heed, if you’re not listening to the chatter of the global users, you’re missing a lot!

5. Google Bookmarks
There’s a lot to be said about social bookmarking, but what if you’re not into socializing with others, and simply want to keep a record of key sites you want access to from any computer. Google Bookmarks will sync on any computer you have the toolbar set up on, but if you’re traveling, simply login through Google site and you will find everything you marked as key for your studies, research, and product ideas. You can add notes to the bookmarks and even add keywords to make them searchable for later.

6. GReader (Google Reader)
Many of us subscribe to RSS feeds, but for those of us that don’t, it would be a good addition to our business arsenal. Google Reader takes all of our RSS subscriptions and groups them in one place for you to read. You can keep track of all the news you follow within your industry, or recreational purposes, and mark favorites, share with others, email them directly to your contacts. Keeping track of what’s happening on all the sites you visit through a tool like GReader can save you a lot of time.

7. Google AdSense
Have a site where your product is featured, or perhaps a blog promoting your company? Why not make money off the site with Google AdSense? It’s all possible by finding keywords that Google decides are searched enough to be of value. By matching ads to your sites content, the author can earn money when traffic to your site clicks on the ads. You have the choice of whether to offer ads via text or images, but either way the readers of your site will find them useful. The amount of money made varies on your traffic and the amount of ads.

8. Google Analytics
With a solid idea, a site with popular traffic, you can keep tabs on the success and popularity of the site by subscribing to Google Analytics. The tool basically monitors all back-end information for your site. where your traffic is coming from, how many visitors to you site daily, weekly, monthly, etc. It will share with you how long people are on your site and what they are reading, giving you the opportunity to market yourself just right to keep the readers coming to visit.

9. Google Pages
Any entrepreneur needs a place to display a portfolio of work, somewhere to share their resume, or feature ideas for a close group to critique. Google Pages gives you that opportunity to design a site with easy to follow templates to choose from and internal tools that make it easy to include text, images, and files. You have the ability to customize the URL and decide whether you want to keep the site private or publish it publicly. Either way, the opportunity is too good to pass up, create something now and let the world or a few close friends know what you’re up to.

10. Grand Central
Finally, an acquired entity, Grand Central is an amazingly easy way to customize all of your business calls. Think of Grand Central as a landing site for all of your phone calls. When calls come in, before they get to you, your Grand Central settings will kick in. Ring all your phones or just a few. Route calls to different voicemail boxes each with unique greetings, but have them all in the same inbox. Block callers, have callers leave the reason why they are calling before you answer. All of this is possible with Grand Central and never waste time with wrong numbers or pointless chatter again. During business time, make every minute count!

5 Google Reader Extensions for Firefox 3 That Are Worth Using

Steven Finch — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:01:30 +0000

Here at Crenk we really like talking about Firefox and extensions, as you can see from previous posts, but this time I wanted combined Firefox with the feed reader I use Google Reader. There are so many Google Reader Firefox extensions out there, but here are the top five I think are worth using.

As with any list of Firefox tools, please do not install all of these at once unless you’d like to slow down your browser. And, honestly, how many notifications do you need to show you that you have unread items in Reader?

AideRSS – Brings AideRSS to your Google Reader, allowing you to see ranks directly in your reader, as well as letting you group feeds by rank. Also allows you to add your own thoughts on each feed.

Better GReader – Combines several Greasemonkey scripts in one extension. Includes things such as skipping the iGoogle choice page, the ability to preview the item as it appears on the actual Web page, shows the favicon for each feed, and several other choices.

Google Reader Notifier – Shows you how many unread items there are, provides an itemized list, lets you customize where the information appears in your browser, different icon sets, and more.

Google Reader Watcher – Based on a Greasemonkey script by the same author, Google Reader Watcher will check your account at an interval you set and will show you how many unread items you have. It can show this broken down by feed and more.

IntenseDebate in Google Reader – This plugin will add a link to each item in your Google Reader to allow you to post comments directly to IntenseDebate.

Google Plugs Google Web ToolKit For iPhone

Steven Finch — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:58:06 +0000

Google have been push their Google Web ToolKit recently, mainly demonstrating an iPhone version of Google Reader. The key to Google plugging their Web Toolkit is to show it can be used to create iPhone specific application with the same code base. Thus hopefully providing the best of both worlds, mobile and desktop.