At first glance, I thought this is could be the least secure way to pay someone but a very innovative way to pay someone. They are calling the payments a “promise” to pay. When someone sends a payment through a tweet, Paypal send the money from the Tweeter’s account to the Tweet recipient’s account. From there, the two parties work out the transfer (payment) on Paypal and that is it. So, the payments aren’t direct payments but an offer (promise) and then the acceptance.

I have a few worries about Twittpay:

First, Twitter accounts have been hacked left and right since the launch in 2006, so these Tweets can be of Hijacked accounts and your money can be drained quickly. The safeguard to this problem is if the user only has a very small amount of funds in their Paypal account.

Second, all payments are public with a direct (@) Tweet. If I see a user giving out thousands of dollars a week I would worry about the safety of that person. I would worry about his person and his account.

Lastly, each user needs a Paypal account to make this work. If they don’t… where does the money go? I mean, you can just Tweet to a user a promise to pay, but why make it public? How about a Direct Message (private) to the person for an email address to transfer the money? They have to go through the Paypal steps anyways.

Though, there is a clever way to send money on Twitpay. On the Guide page is shows users that they can Tweet a beer or tea to another user. For example, you can tweet me (@tskaggs twitpay a beer) and it will send $3 to me. This gives Twitpay a lovable charm and brings more realism to the Twitter world.

Check it out for yourself. I think it’s a good start to a good idea.

**All Twitpay logos are propery of Twitpay

I tested the app by copying and pasting a test proposal from Microsoft Word into the WYSIWYG editor and it formatted perfectly. I had to upload the images into the image placeholders and that was about it. I couldn’t find a feature to add a header or footer, but I’m sure that is coming soon. The simplicity of using this web app is outstanding.

Oh, did I mention that there is an analytics feature to measure the times the proposal was viewed, the total time , first view date, last view date, and a pie chart showing the sections clicked or viewed. The analytics are crazy cool! I’ve been in the business with proposals and it’s a pain to wait for a client to notify me that they viewed the proposal. Deep down I know the client looked at it but they are just too busy to let me know. Now, I’ll know that a client viewed it and much more… I feel sneaky.

Proposable is an excellent application developed by Sproutbox and the brainchild of James Kappen.

Let me know what you think of Proposable!

**All logos are property of Proposable

For those of you stuck under a rock or on Bing, you might have missed the release of Google Buzz. Google Buzz is another status report/micro-blogging system like Twitter but for Google. Google gives you no choice but to use Buzz if you have a Gmail account. You’ll have to privatize your Buzzes and Google Profile if you don’t want your Google information to be see by billions.

There really isn’t much to say about Google Buzz other than it’s a Twitter knock-off and it’s kind of annoying. I’ve been using it for a few days now and I’m following my friends (who never post anything) and some tech people. When someone Buzzes that is internet famous, their Buzzes are lost in a sea of comments… I have probably 5 new Buzzes but it takes me 20 minutes to scroll through the garbage to read those Buzzes. Plus, now there is a popularity contest going on with Buzzers to get the most followers… random people are trying to follow me and they’re all boring!! Just because you have 1,200 followers in the first week of the release of Google Buzz doesn’t mean you are interesting.

Oh yeah, did I mention you can link your Buzz account to Twitter… blah.

The only good things to come out of this mess is that your Buzzers can be public, so when you Google your name the Buzzes show in the searches. That’s about it. So, I say to you reader(s), harness your Google Profile and make it worth using Buzz.

My Google Buzzes

My Google Profile

Let me know what you think and I might change my mind about Google Buzz.

Now, Seesmic has just released a downloadable new app for Windows called Seesmic Look. This app is based on Windows’ Silverlight technology, so OS X users can not use this Application. So far, the app is very pretty but definitely geared toward the simple consumer and computer user. If you like advance searches and trend seeking, then this isn’t going to work every well. But this app looks great for the simple computer user to understand Twitter and the information out in the world. The great thing is that the a user won’t need a twitter account to use this application.

There are a few not-so-great things about Seesmic Look. The application is Windows only… I’m a OS X fanboy, so I won’t be using it very often. The interface is too flashy and load time is slow, and there is no advanced trend options. Lastly, the launch and app seems like a very large branding commercial for Microsoft and all the people on the “channel” area on the application.

We’ll see how this goes and the updates to come. Look through my past posts and there are better solutions for Twitter management like Gist, HootSuite, or Brizzly.

#1. HootSuite : In my past post about the web app, you will notice I have a real attraction to the User Interface. Its so easy to manage your Twitter account in the HootSuite interface by scrolling left and right and inputing your message. Also, there is a feature to watch keywords used by users on Twitter, this is great to keep track of trends.

#2. Ow.ly : This is a URL shortener for those long-pesky URLs. This also works with HootSuite to keep track of your click-throughs. What an excellent way of seeing what your followers like and dislike. Don’t be afraid of the URL shortener, its good.

#3. WeFollow : This is the best Twitter directory out right now. There are a few other directories that are good but not great. Sign up is easy: Username, Password, Keywords and submit. Now when someone searches a keyword on WeFollow your username will appear on the list. You are ranked by followers or influence. So, go and get noticed!

#4. Twitpic : Submit your pictures and share! This is an excellent geo-tracking web application that works like flickr but its just for Twitter. This also places a geo-tag on your photo so it can be found by region, city, or town.

#5. Friend or Fellow : Do you have trouble finding the people who you are following but they’re not following you? This is the web app that will easily make the list of people that are not following you, so you can either suggest that they follow you or you can remove them from your follow list. Twitter has a give/take etiquette and if you follow someone they should follow you back, but you can use Twitter how you want because I follow about 50 people that will probably never follow me back.

That is it! Let me know what you think of the list…

Foursquare is a smart phone app. It uses GPS or signal triangulation to find where you are in a city. With your location found, the app will find a list of nearby restaurants, book stores… anything that can be named and located. So, I go to my favorite coffee shop, Pour House Cafe in Bloomington, and I click ‘check-in’, the app finds me and gives me the list. On the list I select Pour House Cafe and complete the check-in. This gives me points and I compete with my friends who are on my Foursquare social network. You can manage your friends and information via smart phone app, but the web app is bigger and easier to manage. You can not ‘check-in’ on your computer (or at least I haven’t found how) which is a down side, but it’s fun and you can keep track of your friends favorite places. Oh yeah, you get ‘badges’ for checking-in the most or at a number of different places. Lastly, there are Mayors of places on Foursquare. This means they have been there a lot.

Try it out! Have fun with friends and family, and let me know what you think about Foursquare.

Here are some screenshots:

Collabtive is an open source project manager that can be placed on your server. This project manager allows you to create projects, timelines, schedules, add/remove teammates, and adds a progress bar. Teammates can message each other about the project they are assigned and also upload files to the database. Installing is easy with Linux and MySQL and starting is a matter of creating an Admin account.

Here is the complete list taken from the site (http://collabtive.o-dyn.de/about.php):

Core functionality

• Unlimited projects, milestones, tasklists, and tasks
• Unlimited members with user profiles
• Role-based permission management
• Messaging and instant messaging
• File management
• Timetracking

Reporting and notifications

• Timetracker reports, activity logs and messages in PDF format
• Export user profiles as vCard
• RSS feeds for messages and tasks
• Synchronization of calendars via iCal task export
• Excel files from activity logs and timetracker reports
• E-mail notifications

Other

• Search, tags
• Basecamp import
• Fully themeable
• Available in more than 25 languages
• Full UTF8 support

Let me know what you think of this program! I love it and makes project management easy.

Here are a few tips to people who want/need a website, web design, or type of web presence:

1) In your first meeting with a web design company please be prepared to express what you need in great detail for your small company, a personal site, or a new company. The web designers will need know your company in detail, your goals, your target market (and “EVERYONE!” is not a target market), budget, your current situation, and what you are expecting.

2) Trust the web design company  because they need to know the information. They will not (and shouldn’t) judge you in your lack of knowledge in the web and you are there to get a good understanding of what is possible and what isn’t possible.

3) Bring material to the meeting. This material should be information you might want to display on the site or what you want to express on the site. Also, logos and print material with design and color will give the web designer a better understanding on what you want in a site design.

4) The web design company should ask a lot of questions about your company and what you need; and if they don’t, this should be a red flag about the company. It is in your best interest to get a great website developed to work best with your vision and your market. If they don’t know what you need or want, then they are just giving you a site based on assumptions and that is bad.

5) Finally, don’t be afraid to call or email any and all questions. After the quote and proposal is presented ask more questions to make sure you are getting what you are buying because you might give the designers information that they did not know.

HINT: When it comes to web design, you are getting what you pay for, so cheaper is not better.

The plan for your web design should include a SEO and Social Media plan. This will give you a great start in building your brand because websites are a huge in the current economy.

If you have any questions please send them via email or comments.

HootSuite makes managing your Social Media easy, much like Brizzly, by offering an interface to manage your feeds from Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. It’s easy to post new statuses and updates via the interface to just one account or all the account that you linked to HootSuite . The accounts are separated by tabs, so navigating the feeds are very simple! The Twitter account manager is split into five different sections and at a glance you can view the Twitter feed, Mentions, DM (Direct Messages), your profile feed, and Pending Tweets. The Pending section is offered to all accounts and this section is what sets HootSuite apart from the other web apps because this will allow you to post tweets or statuses at a different time. Why is this important? Keeping your account up-to-date will help build your brand by Social Media.

Lastly, HootSuite offers stats! It is very important to understand what your followers are clicking on your feeds. I can’t stress how important this feature is to your success on Social Media accounts. The stats will show your views by region, clicks, and links clicked. Analyzing the stats on your postings is huge! Did I mention signup and usage of HootSuite is free?

Please try this app and let me know what you think of it?

Now, I’ve reviewed other Social Media managing web applications in my other posts (Gist and Brizzly) and you know they have their pros and cons which I will highlight in a roundup article very soon.

Don’t worry, all of the features you find on the feeds of Twitter or Facebook remain the same; the ‘Like’ button, ‘Comment’ section, ‘Retweet’… etc. So, using it is intuitive and easily. This is a simple feed manager with some added security and bonuses, unlike Gist which is a secure feed and email manager and much much more (Read more about Gist).

Here is a video explaining Brizzly:
A video introduction. Getting started with Brizzly.

Brizzly is very cool and I hope you enjoy managing your feed now! Let me know what you think about it.