Identity curation at its simplest

What is it?
About.me is a simple splash-page that allows you to manage your identity and personalize your online presence. There have been many attempts at allowing you to curate your identity, claimid comes to mind. And recently Google has been recently rumored to be working on Google.me, a service most people rumor to be a social network but I predict to be an identity curation layer to their popular search engine and profiles service. This site will allow us to find relevant sites associated to us.

Why is this important?
It’s not another social network. Thank God!! As more and more social and online services come out it is necessary to organize your online identity across these services. Think of it as one level above your profile pages.
Secondly you are able to track your online presence, status, tweets and reach. This simplified analytics screen brings you your online activity in a simplified dashboard.

Problems it solves?
You generally want people to find your true identity when people search for you or when you Google (or Bing) yourself. Its refreshing to see your true online identity in a fresh, personalized and well organized way.
You are also now able to keep track of your online influence from one screen (currently this is only useful if you use twitter or Facebook).

The negatives.
About.me decided to roll out this service in a private beta (land-grab) model. This means if you didn't grab "John Smith" or "JohnSmith" early millions of other John Smiths now claim that identity. Very annoying!
Secondly, looking at some of the impressive sample pages, I am concerned that most people will not be able to create splashy profile pages. Its pretty difficult for some of us to be that artistic. I fear if About.me reaches the mainstream it may become as chaotic as MySpace was and may be prone to scammers and spammers.


About.me/noble

in reference to: Welcome to About.me (view on Google Sidewiki)

Managed Company Adds Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 to our suite of services

Fully customizable CRM solution extends company's collaboration portfolio

Alexandria, VA (January 20, 2009) - Managed Company, an emerging software as a service (SaaS) provider specializing in messaging, eBusiness, and collaboration solutions, has announced that it is now offering Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 as a hosted service. This offering extends Managed Company's reach within the productivity and collaboration space, offering an easily deployable and customizable customer relationship management (CRM) solution to its existing hosted Exchange email and collaboration, SharePoint collaboration platform, and Office Communications Server instant messaging and presence services.

Unlike other one-size-fits-all hosted CRM offerings, Managed Company's hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is customizable to the specific needs of the individual end customer. This level of customization is possible because each CRM customer is guaranteed its own virtual dedicated server. Other vendors rely on shared server infrastructure and a basic control panel which limits their ability to meet every customer's specific needs. With Managed Company's new offering, customers gain a clear competitive edge because they are able to narrow sales leads, tactics, and sales and marketing campaigns to their unique core competencies and market demands. Managed Company's channel partners gain an enhanced revenue stream from the opportunity to fine-tune and tailor the CRM solution to the needs of each customer.

"Managed Company's hosted Dynamics CRM 4.0 enables us to add a high-margin recurring revenue stream offering into our product mix that tightly integrates into our existing hosted Exchange offerings," said Joseph Kowalenko, President of a mid-sized Chicago-based managed services provider and a Managed Company channel partner. "The flexibility of their service enables us to customize solutions for our customers, making us much more relevant to them than standard off-the-shelf software."

"CRM has become a business-critical application because optimizing and tracking the sales process has become more and more important to increasing sales and growing customer relationships," said Serguei Sofinski, Managed Company's CEO. "We're excited to provide a solution that will help our partners meet the specific needs of individual businesses, allowing them to increase revenue and form closer relationships with their customers."

In addition to customization benefits, Managed Company's Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is tightly integrated with our hosted Microsoft Exchange and Outlook, allowing a minimal learning curve and quick return on investment. It can be fully synchronized with email, tasks, contacts, and calendars. Users can also seamlessly export data into Excel for fast analysis and reporting.

Businesses around the globe looking for a trusted provider of SaaS, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, Microsoft Exchange 2007, SharePoint, Office Communications Server 2007, and Online Business Management tools, visit Managed Company's Exchange Hosting Web site at www.exchangeasaservice.com

eBusiness Articles

Trying to keep up with all the latest news in the world of online businesses can be tough. That's why Barry's chosen these articles to give you some tips and advice for your Online Business.

The 22 Step Social Media Marketing Plan from Mashable
"Over the past couple of months, I’ve been curating a list of social media marketing examples. The list started with 100 examples (including 35+ from Mashable) and has since tripled in size with the participation of over a hundred contributors with examples from companies around the world..."

How to Take Your Community To the Next Level from ThinkVitamin
"Ben Huh has built up (and monetized) some great community sites, like I Can Has Cheezburger and The Fail Blog. In this fantastic presentation, he shares some of his tips."

To Survive This Economy You Must Automate Your Small Business from Small Business Trends
"I've met enough small business owners to know that there are still plenty of you out there who have yet to move into the 21st century. For whatever reason, you're still doing plenty of stuff that could be automated in your business. Or you’re doing things yourself that could be accomplished more efficiently by outsourcing to an expert."