Russ Alman

CEO/Visionary in Chief
Olympia, Washington

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Hardcore Online Networkers -- Take a Look at Yoono

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.

Written Oct 06, 2008, read 2697 times since then.

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!

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.

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.

Yesterday I was looking for an IM client that would also feed me my Twitter connections, and came across this nifty service called Yoono (www.yoono.com). 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.

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.

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.

There's a lot more to it than this, but these are the features I'll immediately use.

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.

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.

Update, 1 year later...

Just a quick update this article... there is also now an stand-alone application version of Yoono, and they continue to add features.

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. However, for a single user I think it's a great social media consolidation tool.

Also, be sure to check out Flock (www.flock.com). It runs on the same engine as Firefox, but has social media features built in.

Learn more about the author, Russ Alman.

Posted by Bliss Gurney, Bellingham, Washington | Oct 09, 2008

This sounds like something I have been searching for to help with all my Social Networking sights. I am off to try it and if it works it should save me tons of time. Thanks for sharing, I enjoy all the useful tools I am finding on Biznik. I think the more people that join Yoono the more IM's they will ad? Thanks again Bliss
Posted by D O, Lafayette, Colorado | Oct 10, 2008

I spend a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook so this is a perfect tool for me. I just downloaded it; thanks for the info!
Posted by Jim Carney, Bellingham, Washington | Oct 10, 2008

Wondered when someone would figure out how to tie some of this together! I send a Biznik invite and get back a linkedin invite or a plaxo invite. Got to admit though... Biznik gets you noticed on google. Signed up and went from page 72 on google to page 6 in a few hours!
Posted by Delanae Lindstrom, Reeds Spring, Missouri | Oct 10, 2008

I'm certainly going to look into this. Thank you.
Posted by Twylia Westling, Tacoma, Washington | Oct 11, 2008

Very cool! I've been trying to decide what to cut out in my efforts to conserve time...now maybe I can rethink that approach!
Posted by Chris Cliff, Lynnwood, Washington | Oct 12, 2008

Excellent tool, I will have to be trying that out today!
Posted by Russ Alman, Olympia, Washington | Oct 13, 2008

Just FYI... I talked to Yoono on Twitter (@Yoono) and they told me LinkedIn support is coming "very soon." I hope they hook up with Plaxo too!

I've been using Yoono for over a week now and it's really helping out a lot. Far less clutter on my screen.
Posted by Christine Durkin, St. Augustine, Florida | Oct 16, 2008

Here's another great time saver, which posts your videos on the social networking sites you want inclusion to, all at once. They also provide tracking of how much traffic which sites generated. you can find it at http://www.tubemogul.com/
Posted by Brent Haeseker, Ocala, Florida | Oct 19, 2008

Thanks Russ, as a big Firefox / addon user I'll definitely have to try it out.
Posted by Russ Alman, Olympia, Washington | Oct 07, 2009

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Posted by Russ Alman, Olympia, Washington | Feb 17, 2010

ZDNet posted an article today about Yoono. It appears that they have added quite a few new features to the desktop app, including a multi-paned view.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=30804&tag=nl.e539