First Impressions:  LinkedIn is definitely a more professional and older member of the social networking family tree, a well succeeding business man, professional and clean-cut.  Immediately I see the benefits of being involved in this social networking site.

Second Impression:  How legitimate is it for me to add a Nutrition professor from my college back home (I’m pretty sure I’ve never spoken to him)? What about my past positions in companies-how professional does a part-time job as a domestic in a nursing home sound? What about business partners and professional service providers? – I think I may be a few years too early for LinkedIn??

How can a College student use LinkedIn among many different professionals and not feel overwhelmed or simply inferior due to the lack of professional experience?

The Answer: I found on LinkedIn itself, a presentation on the application ‘Slideshare’ that told me 10 things I could do as a student to brand myself as an expert-http://www.slideshare.net/shortdigs/linked-in-for-college-students-presentation

Ø  How to blog your work and work your blog

Ø  How to become a newsmaker

Ø  How to become a published author

These are just three things but all 10 of these tips link you to other application or websites which make these things DO-ABLE.  So despite the feeling of being LinkedIn’s younger more inferior, facebook-loving sibling, we as college students can brand ourselves as experts in some sort of manner.

As a newcomer to Twitter I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, what I did find though was ANOTHER social networking tool (surprise!) with a twist.  Twitter is quirky, I mean it has its own quirky vocabulary of Twitter words such as “tweets”, “Tweedeck” and “twhirls”, you could almost write a dictionary.  Twitter may on the surface seem cool and different but really how many social networking sites do we need?  I personally don’t need to be “following people” or for people to be “following me”, facebook takes up enough of my time.

So, maybe this will be the first and last time I log in to my new Twitter account, to me it isn’t useful but I began to wonder if I was trying to promote a business would I reconsider?

I found a great article that points out the business value of using Twitter; http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/, it includes your very own guide to twittering/tweeting/twizzling around including what to tweet, how to tweet, negatives people will throw at you and positives you can throw back including…

·        Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.

·        Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions

·        Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, often (especially if the news impacts online denizens).

·        Twitter gives your critics a forum, but that means you can study them.

·        Twitter at events helps people build an instant “backchannel.”

 Stumbleupon.com is basically the internet version of mass customization, it gives millions of users what they want but personalizes it to their own needs and wants.   I had never been on this site before but immediately found it addictive, it is so easy to spend hours surfing the net using stumbleupon because it cuts out a lot of the useless sites that regular search engines bring up.

I found it interesting that it’s not only a personalized recommendation engine but it also uses peer and social-networking principles.  It connects you with people who are have a lot of the same hobbies and interests, one-click blogging enables people to interact while “channel surfing” the web.  The only limit is that you can only have 200 friends, it’s really easy to share websites with other users and friends and so it combines social networking with a search engine-what a perfect combination!!

Online shopping has almost become more popular than stepping outdoors to face the stores, but is it easy to miss all the bargains over the internet?  Aren’t all the deals hidden in the backs of corners in the stores themselves?

Steep and Cheap are the ultimate online store for bargain buys!  They sell premium outdoor gear and clothing at ridiculously low prices, the only snag is that there is a time limit on their deals, this site has one deal active at a time and it only lasts until it has sold out so you have to get on fast and check regularly to find good deals!

The cool thing is you can add different types of alerts to inform you of a new deal whenever it comes up in the form of IM, SMS, desktop widget, email, and more.  It may take time before a deal you want pops up but when it does it’s definitely worth it!

There is a warning though:  It’s addictive!!

Ok, so most of us who are face book users are probably familiar with the frustration of logging on to find an abundance of requests for new applications, the majority of which are completely useless such as “Super poke” and “I am hungry”…

But what would you do if you found a request for a application that would connect you to a blood donation database that will contact you whenever your blood type is in need, using whatever contact method you choose.  The application “Takes all Types” does exactly that.

This is the first centralized national network of local blood donors and volunteers.  The goal is to improve communities’ local blood supplies by gathering a network of blood donors across the US and by boosting donor participation on a routine basis.

I feel like people may be more willing to give blood if they are informed of an immediate need in their area, but would this really make a change and encourage people to give blood or could this just be another face book application that may simply make us look good?