Latest posts from Danny Brown

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The Art of Growing Up in Public as @JugnooMe v2.0 is Released

Tuesday April 17 was a big day for JugnooMe, the social business platform from parent company Jugnoo, as we launched a major update to the platform.

Originally launched as a private beta late last year, we’ve come a long way since these early days. A lot of this has been by listening to the feedback of our early beta users, as well as monitoring social media channels to understand the pain points of our target audience(s).

Couple that with a very cool and agile team that’s focused on bringing the most kick-ass social media all-in-one solution to market, and yesterday’s release was a very big step in the Jugnoo journey.

So, what is JugnooMe and what are these new features? Let’s begin.

The JugnooMe Vision

In a nutshell, JugnooMe is simply a way of bringing all the best features of various social media tools on the market today, and having them all live under a single, unified dashboard.

This then helps business owners that struggle with time and resources to manage their time more effectively, which results in them being able to focus more on ther core business and make profits.

It also helps the solo entrepreneur, the blogger, the stay-at-home parents, the franchisors, the non-profits and more be far more effective in their own use of social media, from content creation to distribution and measuring.

Simply put, we’re here to help anyone make the social web simple, accessible and monetizable. Because at the end of the day, while followers and friends are great, the mortgage people don’t let us pay for our homes by retweets…

JugnooMe is the first salvo in this overall goal of Jugnoo’s – there’s much more to come, but for now we’re solely concentrating on our social media dashboard offerings. Which brings us to the update.

JugnooMe 2.0 – More Than Just an Update

For anyone that used our early beta, the change is a pretty big one from that platform. But then, that’s to be expected for any company that wants to grow properly, as opposed to just turning up and hoping early buzz will be enough to gain you success.

For me, personally, it’s the difference between watching a young child struggle to find their balance and a confident youngster that throws away the training wheels on their new bike.

Yes, I’m incredibly biased, but I’m also incredibly proud of the whole team here and the strides they’ve taken. For example:

New and Improved User Interface and Navigation

Our design team completely revamped the experience inside the dashboard, and made the navigation a lot more user-friendly and intuitive. The side navigation is (currently) broken down into two key areas, Activity and Apps. This helps you get straight to the area that matters to you the most.

Our minimized top navigation keeps everything simple and uncluttered, and is more for the maintenance area of your experience, including setting up your business details, websites, social keywords and more.

It’s a far cry from our first iteration and kudos to our designers for the makeover.

It’s All About the Apps, Baby!

As JugnooMe continues our journey to help make social media simple for everyone, one of the ways we’re going to achieve this is by an apps-based system.

While I can’t go into too much detail here, since it’s proprietary and includes some cool new features scheduled for the next update, we want to make the JugnooMe experience your experience.

So, while we might offer X amount of solutions, you would only find benefit from a few. Instead of us cluttering up your dashboard, you now just have the apps that make sense to you.

This could be Social Dashboard, Analytics, Facebook Promotions and Video tools.

We think it’s a more elegant approach and also allows users to create their own plans as we introduce our premium solutions in the next couple of months (the beta of JugnooMe is currently free for everyone to use).

Currently the apps are all active, but the option to pick and choose is most definitely in the schedule for the next iteration.

Social Sentiment Beta

As human beings, we all want to be liked. We can say we don’t, and feign indifference, but criticism often stings while love and cookies make us smile (I think that’s the right comparison). Anyhoo…

Social media users are no different, and one of the ways to gauge whether we’re viewed as cookies or crankies is by sentiment analysis. This lets us know if we’re seen in a positive, negative or neutral light.

As part of this new JugnooMe release, we’ve opened up our sentiment engine (beta version) to our users, to help us educate the algorithm better for your needs.

This will allow you a simple overview of the sentiment behind a tweet or Facebook update, and reply immediately from within the dashboard area.

Our future sentiment engine will also include forums, blogs and other social networks, and offer more interactive features to help you protect your brand reputation whether you’re a business or solo professional. For now, though, it gives you an idea of where we’re going.

Facebook Promotions

While we’ve always had Facebook Promotions from the start in the form of simple coupons for special offers, we’ve significantly increased the number of templates available.

Additionally, you can also create a Facebook Slideshow app, complete with product/service description and URL to your dedicated sales page or store. The Slideshow sits on a tab on your Facebook Page, and you can create as many slideshows as you wish (for multiple products or storefronts).

Again, this is one of our new beta features and is just the start – look out for more Facebook apps in future releases.

Video Killed the Radio Star

At least, it did according to The Buggles. However, even though we know radio is still alive and well, there’s nothing quite like a cool promo video to either highlight your business, brand, products, events or more.

With this in mind, our updated SVM – social video marketing – platform now has more templates than ever before, ranging from Property (perfect for realtors) to Consultant (agency videos), Spotlight B&W (ideal for portfolios) to Simple (great for invites or special events).

We’ll be continuing to add templates with each new release, and may even drop the odd new one is just as a surprise in-between releases!

Statistics and More Statistics!

If there’s one thing we pretty much all agree on, it’s that it’s always nice to have a quick overview of just how you or your business is performing. Sure, individual stats and reports are cool, but a one-pager can be even cooler when in a rush.

Our new Activity Landing Page has a simple yet effective collection of your most important information – Social Search results (including sentiment), Website Analytics, Twitter statistics (for now) and Tasks (not as evil as they sound, but quick tips to get you more effective with our platform and social media).

From there, you can dive into the areas you need more information on, and then make the necessary changes to be more effective and share online via our universal J-Post option, that allows you to update your Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube and Posterous accounts.

It’s Cool But It’s Just the Beginning

These are just some of the main features in the new update. There are more inside – the ability to make default posting profiles (if you use more networks than others) as well as an optional social media plugin in the shape of a toolbar you can display on your website.

This lets visitors share your content as well as connect with you by email or visit your storefront. If you don’t have a business but still want to use the plugin, you can choose not to display your contact or Google Map information.

Note: If you do use the toolbar, it’s currently ad-supported (meaning pop-up ads will display briefly from the plugin). Future versions will allow paid opt-out or ad partnership options.

To say this is a major update would be an understatement – we really have released what is essentially a new product altogether. But it’s just the start.

We have a very aggressive release schedule for the rest of this year, including coming out of beta once our solutions are locked down, with some very cool features and tools coming your way that you won’t find anywhere else (promise!).

Add to that a huge social media event that Jugnoo is hosting in the fine city of Toronto this July (more details very soon!) and we’re definitely looking to make our statement about who we are and where we want to be.

And that includes you every step of the way. We’re always listening to feedback and this release is a result of that – and we’re not going to stop listening. We really want to make a platform that anyone and everyone can use, and want to use because it’s geared towards them.

Ready to have a look at JugnooMe? Check out our video below for a clearer idea on how we can help the everyday business owner, then hop on over to our sign-up page and we’ll get you onboard sharpish – see you on the other side!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQuHRICtXmk[/youtube]

Sergey Brin Paints His Kettle Pot Black Over Facebook and Apple

Over at UK newspaper The Guardian, Google co-founder Sergey Brin shares his views on the future of the Internet, including web freedom and the restrictive practices of Facebook and Apple.

Brin makes some great points, particularly about the ongoing battles certain web users of the world have due to the firewall nature of their governments.

But on other issues, he clearly drank some alternative reality juice, since he conveniently ignores the fact that Google are just as bad (if not more so) than the two companies he’s taking issue with.

Google’s Short-Term Memory

From the Brin interview:

You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive. The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation.

It’s a point that most web users would agree with – yet it’s a point that Google seem to be doing themselves with their new approaches to how Google products interact with each other, and what you can and can’t do within Google.

Look at Google Plus Your World , for example, that gives more credence to search results with your Google Plus account, versus other social networks or websites.

Or the fact that Google had to “punish itself” when it was revealed there were a bunch of sponsored posts written about Google Chrome, violating Google’s own policy of search result bias (at least that’s Google’s story).

Kinda seems like Google themselves are a little guilty of stifling innovation and closing down the web, when their own platforms are given such prominence by Google.

Adding to that is something Brin says further in the interview, when criticizing Facebook for making it difficult to switch data to other platforms:

Facebook has been sucking down Gmail contacts for many years.

Perhaps – although Facebook (currently) is a private company and, as such, doesn’t need to share squat.

Then again, maybe the real reason Brin is upset is because every new Gmail user is automatically logged as a new active Google Plus user whether they use the platform or not. Google is still seeing their social network struggling to find ground, so any extra numbers (real or otherwise) would ease investor burdens.

Pick The Right Fights

Brin also complains about the garden wall approach of Facebook and Apple and how this inhibits search pulling details about iTunes apps and Facebook statuses, etc.

This in turn leaves less information for Google to share with advertisers.

But is this really surprising, when Google themselves have been found to give preference to their own results and networks? Why should anyone else – especially a competitor – give over information that helps line the pockets of a competing company that gives bias to their own ads and services?

There’s no doubt Google is smarting, especially given the fact that Facebook continues to beat them hands down in pretty much every department, and Apple still has the upper hand in the smartphone and tablet market?when it comes to hard profits.

But I can’t help but feel Brin is picking the wrong battle here.

Instead, why not counter with the consumer victories the Google brand has? Or how YouTube aims to be the go-to network for rich multi-social media and ad revenue for channel partners?

There are many ways to counter your competition – unfortunately, examples of where you’re just as bad isn’t a great strategy…

The 2×4 Interview: Productivity

Towards the end of last year, my friend?Michael Schechter?was kind enough to invite me to chat on his?2×4 series.

The idea behind 2×4 is simple: one?series that examines?two?topics, creativity and productivity, by asking those who make things on the web the same?four?questions on both subjects.

I had a blast answering Mike’s questions, and thought it’d be cool to share the answers here. In this second part, we talk Productivity – make sure you drop by Monday’s post for the creativity answers.

Can you describe your current personal and professional responsibilities?

Personally, I?m a father and husband, so my main responsibility is making sure they have food on the table and a roof over their heads, and that they feel secure in my ability to look after them. This leads to my professional responsibility ? I?m the VP, Product Intelligence at Jugnoo, Inc., and my responsibilities there see me making sure we look after our users by providing the best tools possible, to ensure they can be truly effective on social media. It also sees me working on bringing products to the market that will make the social web simple, accessible and monetizable for everyone.

How do you go about balancing the personal, professional and digital?

Easy ? I keep them separate, and dedicate the time solely to each one when I?m ?there?. During the day, I?m in professional mode, so you?ll rarely see me online. In the evenings and at weekends, that?s my family time. Once the kids and wife have gone to bed, that?s my digital playtime, to catch up on all I?ve missed. You might get the occasional crossover, but generally I keep all three separate. It?s why I don?t do a lot of conferences or speaking ? I like putting my son and daughter to bed, and waking up under the same roof as them and my wife. I wouldn?t swap that for the world.

What tools and techniques do you find yourself counting on to get through your workload?

I simply use a lot of Google?s tools ? Docs, chat, calendar, etc. They?re good enough for what I need. I?m also a big fan of?Hootsuite?and how they’ve made social media dashboards so effective. Of course, there’s now a certain product called JugnooMe, which we’re creating for everyone from businesses to bloggers, franchisees, realtors, agencies, non-profits and more. And the reviews so far are pretty positive, which is nice, and with the update we’re releasing next week, hopefully that will continue!

What is the best starting point for the unproductive amongst us, who are looking to get more organized?

A notepad and pen. Seriously. Take an hour out of your day, and sit down with a notepad and pen, and divide a page into two columns ? Must Have and Optional. Then write down all the stuff you do during the day ? personally and professionally ? and separate them into these two lists. Then prioritize what you need to do every single day to make your life easier/better, whatever, and begin to work from that. If you don?t recognize what?s really important versus what you can do if you want to, you?re never going to be more productive.

image: inju

The $1 Billion Instagram Success Story, Instagram Style

Okay, so by now everyone and their mother has more than likely heard about the sale of photo app Instagram to Facebook for $1 billion in shares and cash.

There are already a phalanx (awesome word, if maybe misplaced here) of posts from bloggers and analysts talking about the reasons for the sale, and what it means for Facebook and, more importantly perhaps, Instagram. So, I won’t bore you with more here.

Instead, here’s the perfect overview of what turns a cool idea between friends into a billion dollar business in less than two years – the Instagram story, Instagram infographic style, from the creative guys over at Visual.ly (click image to enlarge).

Enjoy.

by visually. Browse more Social Media infographics.