<p>I'm fairly new to the whole online social networking arena. I know this sounds crazy for someone who has been in the computer industry for 20 years -- I had my own business website up in 1995. I made a conscious effort to stay out of mySpace and similar services because I knew it would suck up a lot of my time... and I already have enough of a problem managing that!</p> <p>But we're certainly at the point now where online social networking is a viable way to connect with others professionally, which was my trigger to jump on the bandwagon.</p> <p>I've been working on my online presence on Facebook and LinkedIn for a couple of months now, and am starting to develop the other aspects of my online social arena, including blogging, tweeting and bookmarking... and I'm quickly realizing that it can all become difficult to keep track of.</p> <p>Yesterday I was looking for an IM client that would also feed me my Twitter connections, and came across this nifty service called Yoono (<a href="http://www.yoono.com">www.yoono.com</a>). It's part social networking site, part Firefox plug-in, and it's primarily touted as a convenient way to share online links with your network.</p> <p>But what I am particularly interested in is how Yoono connects and integrates all of your social networking, IM connections, blogging, and tweeting into one convenient sidebar. Visualize one feed displaying all of your activity in all of your online connections, and you're starting to get the picture.</p> <p>I've been playing around with Yoono today, and while there are still a few holes, I think it's going to save me a ton of time. Now I have my IM access for AIM, Yahoo, and Windows Live right in my browser. I have my contact list from all my IM accounts, Facebook and Myspace in one searchable list. I can post a tweet to Yoono, Twitter and Facebook simultaneously. And I can drop blogs into Blogger right from my sidebar, including images, videos and other multimedia files.</p> <p>There's a lot more to it than this, but these are the features I'll immediately use.</p> <p>The only major drawbacks I see right now are lack of support for multiple IM accounts on the same service, and a limited number of services supported for both IM and social networking sites. Hopefully they'll add support for LinkedIn, Plaxo, and some of the other, newer services soon.</p> <p>If you're a serious online networker, you should really take a look at this. I think it will help you get better organized, and save you a lot of time keeping all of your connections up to date.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong><em>Update, 1 year later...</em></strong></p> <p><em>Just a quick update this article... there is also now an stand-alone application version of Yoono, and they continue to add features.<br /><br />Because I work with social media management for multiple clients, Yoono can't really handle my needs because it's designed for only one account per service.&nbsp; However, for a single user I think it's a great social media consolidation tool.<br /><br />Also, be sure to check out Flock (<a href="http://www.flock.com">www.flock.com</a>).&nbsp; It runs on the same engine as Firefox, but has social media features built in.</em></p> 2008-10-06T08:49:45Z -16.7142 991 1865 true 4 18452 hardcore-online-networkers-take-a-look-at-yoono 10 2008-10-09T16:54:08Z 2008-10-09T16:54:08Z

Relates my initial experience with Yoono, a Firefox plug-in that integrates many online social networking sites and multiple instant messaging services into a convenient browser sidebar.

0 2009-10-07T07:42:19Z