Pick The Right Twitter Tool: Mobile Apps

You've decided to take the plunge into Twitter. You even have some idea of how you're going to use it (gasp – a real Twitter strategy!). But since this is *online* marketing we're discussing, you now have a array of options facing you for exactly how to do that and which tools to use. Which one has the features you'll need? How do you answer that question without spending endless hours testing and wondering? Which one has the lowest learning curve?

If I can ease the anxiety a bit on this one, I actually don't think this is a place to worry too much about making the "right" decision from the start. If you know (and abide by) these three reasons you'll be able to switch tools at a whim without much, if any, remorse:

Free! - pretty much all the tools have a free version that will work for the majority of people. You don't have to make any financial investment to try the tool out.

Low Learning Curve - the tools don't take a lot of time to learn how to use – so you don't have to invest inordinate amounts of your time to discover if one of them is going to work for you.

Won't horde your content - because the tools are basically taking content from Twitter itself in a more useful and user friendly way, your core content is on Twitter, not stuck inside the tool. You can even use more than one tool to read the same content in different ways if that's what works for you.

Think of your goal as finding one or two tools and then being mindful not to do anything that *removes* content from the Twitter database while using them.

So without further ado, here are some Twitter tools that can help you put in play your tweeting master plan.

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Mobile Apps - Twitter Tools to Manage Accounts, Posts, Replies and Multiple Users

Let's face it, some of our best ideas happen when we're in the car, brushing our teeth, just about to fall asleep or otherwise un-tethered to a traditional computer. Here are some great Twitter tools for the mobile in you:

Seesmic - this application is especially nice for devices operating on Android. It has a clean, thorough interface and connects with URL shorteners and photo/video sharing. It's a great tool if you want a single software for both mobile and desktop.

TwitterBerry - If you've got a BlackBerry, this is a must-have app. It provides most of the basic Twitter functionality you experience at your desktop including the ability to tweet pictures, view timelines, search, and send and receive direct messages. Note however this is only for BlackBerry and as of the time of this article does not have a desktop version.

Tweetie - in addition to the Twitter functionality you'd expect, Tweetie can also do a restoration of your user interface if you're interrupted by a phone call and your offline Twitter actions can also be synced up when you come back online. Note that as of this article this tool does not have a desktop version.

What do you like/dislike about these mobile twitter tools? Which ones did I leave out?

Next time we'll talk about desktop apps, tools to boost engagement and tools for measuring your success.

Follow me on Twitter at @maishawalker. Special thanks to Dave Clarke, Communications Strategist at Churnless, for his excellent help in compiling the data for this article! You can ask Dave about his favorite Twitter tools at @thedaveclarke.

Read Related Articles by Maisha

8 Types of People on TwitterYour Social Media Marketing "Killer App"A Guide to Social Media Tools and their Uses

Source: http://www.inc.com/maisha-walker/pick-the-right-twitter-tool-mobile-apps.html

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Start-Ups 2010: Turning a Passion for the Slopes Into a Business

FlyLow Gear

Co-Founders: Dan Abrams, 33; and Greg Steen, 32
Location: Denver
Employees: Six full time; about six part time, plus three owner-operators
Funding: $38,000, borrowed on credit cards
2009 Revenue: $375,000
Start-Up Year: 2004
Breakeven: Winter 2004–05
Insider Insight: Sell to yourself. Abrams was at the heart of the changing ski scene, so he understood the trendsetters to whom he would be selling.
Blind Spot: At first, it was hard to get manufacturers to fill small and out-of-the-ordinary orders. He learned to sell them on his company's future: "I'd say, 'FlyLow is going to be the next North Face.' "

The first few rips didn't bother Dan Abrams. In fact, the flaws in his backcountry skiwear could feel downright rewarding: the sound of a crotch seam tearing while taking that final step atop an 11,000-foot peak; the worn out Cordura knees that proved how hard he was lunging back down the mountain. After all, beat-up gear is a badge of honor for so-called soul skiers like Abrams, athletes who venture into the backcountry to hike up and ski down unpatrolled, ungroomed powder.

"My friends and I were living in Jackson, Wyoming, after college, and we spent so much time in the backcountry that we were literally tearing apart our pants and jackets every few weeks or months," says the 33-year-old. "Fortunately, the manufacturers who made that stuff were good about honoring their warranties, so we could always send our gear in for repair or replacements." But if no one was making stuff that he was totally happy with, Abrams wondered, "why not just make it myself?"

That was in 2001, the same year that Abrams ripped something else: the meniscus cartilage in his knee. The injury turned out to be a blessing. Laid up after surgery, Abrams, then in his mid-20s, made two life-changing decisions. First, he enrolled in business school at the University of Denver. Second, he decided to bolster his education by starting his own line of backcountry ski apparel, with the partnership of soul-skier pal Greg Steen.

Naming the business was easy. "A friend once told us, 'You guys don't ski fast; you fly low.' " Done. Abrams, who had been bartending by night to pay rent at his mother's house while in grad school, sank a few grand from his tip jar into an order of FlyLow T-shirts in the winter of 2003–04. "We sold -- and gave away -- shirts and stickers in ski-area parking lots all over Colorado," says Abrams. "It was an easy way to test our logo and brand and get our name circulating throughout the skiing community."

As luck would have it, that community was entering a long-awaited growth spurt. Thanks to the advent of wide skis and alpine touring gear (bindings and boots that allow you to cross-country ski to the top of a mountain and then ski down), more skiers were hitting the backcountry. Resorts were letting skiers ski out of bounds at their own peril. Suddenly, the ski industry, which had been in decline, was on its way to the $4.5 billion mark.

In the winter of 2004–05, using several credit cards, Abrams spent $38,000 on his first real order, from New Zealand and China: 1,000 jackets and 200 pairs of pants, all stitched and layered (sometimes triple-layered) for durability. He also equipped the pants with side zippers for ventilation, so skiers could stay cool when slogging up slopes for hours at a time. "Backcountry skiers are very particular about gear," says Abrams. "And people appreciated that we were a small company making improvements so they could enjoy the sport even more."

FlyLow sold its entire first production run. Debt settled, Abrams pulled out his credit cards again, applied for a few others, and put in another order. The result was $180,000 in sales. Revenue climbed to $280,000 in 2007–08, $375,000 in 2008–09, and $500,000 in 2009–10. FlyLow now offers a full line of pants, jackets, and gloves that are available in 125 retail stores, and expects to break $1 million in revenue by the end of the 2010–11 season -- not bad for a couple of guys who ski a combined 200 days a year.

Ski - Dan Abrams - University of Denver - North Face - Backcountry skiing

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/inc/channel/start-up/~3/shASMNLlDrE/start-ups-2010-turning-a-passion-for-the-slopes-into-a-business.html

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How to Get Financing When Banks Won't Lend

The recession may be over, but traditional forms of business financing remain stubbornly difficult to nail down: A recent Pepperdine University survey showed that though banks report an increase in the volume and quality of loan applications, they continue to turn down the vast majority of loan applications that they review. It's no surprise, then, that businesses are turning to less conventional means of raising money. One increasingly useful technique is finding customers willing to make small investments to fund start-up operations and expansion. Here are three variations on that theme.

Direct Public Offerings
DPOs have existed for decades as a way for small businesses to raise capital from wealthy individuals. The hurdles were high, however, and the rules were arcane, making the technique impractical for most businesses. In 1989, the requirements changed; a decade later, they were greatly simplified. Regulators in 47 states have been allowing businesses to raise up to $1 million a year through shares priced as low as $1 using a financing technique called the small corporate offering registration, or SCOR. When bank lending was easy, SCOR was seldom used. Now, all sorts of businesses are using SCOR to invite customers to invest via their websites or product labels.

Gary Steszewski is using this method to get expansion funding for his Buffalo-based company, CityMade. CityMade's websites sell locally made gifts and souvenirs online from 12 cities, including New York; Washington, D.C.; and Toronto. Steszewski recently raised $250,000 through SCOR to launch 14 new "MadeIn" sites. Because he registered with New York State, only New York–based customers can invest. There's one major drawback for investors, though: They are unlikely to see a payout on their investment unless the company is acquired or goes public.

CSA Financing
Community supported agriculture, or CSA, programs were first popularized by eco-conscious foodies; they pay local farmers a lump sum at the beginning of the year in exchange for regular deliveries of produce. Now, the model has been extended to nonproduce businesses. In the past five years, LocalHarvest.org, a database of local businesses around the country, has seen CSAs triple to 3,732. Director Erin Barnett says that's owing in part to "creative entrepreneurs" who have played with the concept. There is nothing preventing any business from adopting the technique, says Barnett. "The CSA model is infinitely variable," she says. Already, there are winery CSAs, soap CSAs, bacon CSAs, even art CSAs (members pay up front for at least three months' worth of monthly "art-in-a-box" installments). Susan Gibbs turned her part-time hobby into a going business when she financed her yarn company, Juniper Moon Farm, with CSA investments: Members pay $175 per share in return for about 1,800 yards of yarn a year. "I think it can work for a lot of industries," says Gibbs. "It just requires a customer base that's passionate."

Fan Funding
The most popular type of customer financing is probably fan funding, which involves websites like Kickstarter soliciting donations to finance creative projects. Now, however, some fan funding sites are offering customers a return on their investment. FashionStake.com, co-founded by Vivian Weng and Daniel Gulati, lets designers upload their collections along with their production funding goals. Customers can then invest $50 or $500 in the designs they like most. When a designer meets his or her financing goal, the collection goes up for sale on FashionStake's site. The better it sells, the more store credit investors get. The New York City–based site launched in September, and it has raised about $75,000 from 500 customers.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/inc/channel/start-up/~3/CL6tHCnE2fo/how-to-get-financing-when-banks-wont-lend.html

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Start-Ups 2010: How to Launch a Co-Working Facility

New Work City

Founder: Tony Bacigalupo, 27
Location: New York City
Employees: None
Funding: Self-funded; savings of $4,000 spent on a semifurnished sublet
2009 Revenue: $75,000
Start-Up Year: 2008
Breakeven: Immediate -- from membership dues, which range from $30 a month to $550
Insider Insight: No outside funding is necessary. Because co-working centers charge recurring fees, they can be bootstrapped easily.
Blind Spot: It's hard to make a lot of money on memberships alone. Like health clubs that augment revenue with personal training and massages, co-working centers need additional revenue streams, such as classes and events.

When Tony Bacigalupo's boss announced his company was going virtual, Bacigalupo was thrilled to ditch the office. "I'd always dreaded the idea of dragging myself to a 9-to-5 job," he says. "This seemed like the perfect way out."

But after a year spent working out of his childhood bedroom in Greenlawn, New York, Bacigalupo badly missed the office. He had few friends nearby, and his parents had their own jobs, leaving him alone for hours at a time. Personal hygiene and normal social skills fell by the wayside. "That winter, I spent three days in a row without leaving the house," he says. "I was going crazy."

Bacigalupo started wondering why there wasn't a place where freelancers could congregate to work and socialize. He imagined an office with Internet access, desks, conference rooms, and, most important, other people. Unfortunately, nothing like that existed nearby. But he did find a bimonthly meet-up in a New York City apartment in which freelancers, entrepreneurs, and other soloists got together to work and socialize. "I went there as this lonely Long Islander, and I suddenly had 20 incredibly bright friends," he says. "I was hooked on co-working immediately."

Bacigalupo liked it so much that when the organizer left New York for San Francisco, Bacigalupo took charge of the meet-ups. Soon he was encouraging his fellow co-workers to meet in a local coffee shop every day. But taking client phone calls over the hiss of an espresso machine seemed somehow unseemly, so, within a few months, he went looking for a proper office.

New Work City launched in a semifurnished downtown sublet in late 2008. Bacigalupo signed up 15 members, who paid $25 to $500 a month depending on how many days they used the space. He has added members slowly -- there are now 45 -- and the company booked a modest profit in 2009.

Bacigalupo still hasn't taken a salary. Like many entrepreneurs, he bootstrapped the company while working a second job and only recently left it to run New Work City full time. In the meantime, he tried to automate most of the day-to-day tasks involved in managing the company. Members sign up for automatic recurring payments on PayPal, a vast improvement over having to pester a bunch of broke freelancers for the monthly membership fee. He also instituted an honor system for printing costs (free, unless a member prints a superexorbitant amount), food and drinks (members drop $1 in the jar for a Coke), and closing time ("We close when the last person we trust to lock up leaves," Bacigalupo says).

This fall, New Work City will move into a permanent home, a 4,700-square-foot space that will more than double its current capacity and, Bacigalupo hopes, generate enough revenue to allow him to hire an employee or two to handle customer service.

The new space will have 50 desks, as well as couches, beanbag chairs, and a bar. Once the move is complete, Bacigalupo plans to begin offering additional services: classes in how to go into business for oneself and sponsored events for freelancers (hence the bar). New Work City may also make money by offering consulting services to other co-working centers -- last year, the company booked its first such assignment, helping the nonprofit Alliance for Downtown New York set up its own co-working center.

"We're in the middle of a revolution in which huge swaths of the work force will shift to working from home," Bacigalupo says. "New Work City is a platform to take advantage of that."

New Work City - New York - New York City - Tony Bacigalupo - San Francisco

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/inc/channel/start-up/~3/IP7TSdWoOOY/start-ups-2010-how-to-launch-a-co-working-facility.html

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The WP Swag Store has Launched (Weblogtoolscollection.com)

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Amazon Boots WikiLeaks Off its Cloud (websphere.sys-con.com)

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