Jaiku is, much like Twitter, a micro-blogging platform for social networking. It is not quite as successful and has experienced more success overseas than in the United States, but it is still very entertaining and is a website to watch in the upcoming years. If you’re looking for micro-blogging, there are not many sites with a more interactive, user-friendly, interface.

Jaiku was founded in 2006 by Jyri Engestrom and Petteri Koponen, two natives of Finland. Google later purchased the company, in October of 2007. For online reputation management services, you will not find many more useful websites.

People have long doubted how useful social media or online reputation management services can be. You continually hear about CEOs, small business owners, or celebrities who did not previously realize how potent a tool social media or online reputation management services could be. It is an important way to put a company in front of its prospective customers. There is evidence, though, of people recognizing the importance of social media.

Through more research, I found the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business looked at the relationship between social media and small businesses and found that the technology adoption rates in the U.S. have doubled in the past year from 12% to 24%. According to this survey small business owners now believe social media can help them on the lead generation front, and that is the main motivating factor for engaging in these new customer service channels.

If a small business can utilize social media and online reputation management effectively, then it can create an online buzz about the company and lead to greater profits.

Is Google going to compete with Bing in the realm of social searching? Probably not. Is that a bad thing? Also, probably not. For those who haven’t heard, Bing plans on integrating it’s data with Facebook’s social data in order to give you more precise and localized search results. John C. Dvorak, over at PCMag, gives us his opinion.

First of all, it doesn’t make any sense. If I am looking for a schedule of events in San Francisco, what does my Facebook data have to do with it? If I am trying to find the exact date Thomas Jefferson was born, then what does Facebook have to do with it?

This entire gambit is unfortunately about finding new ways to sucker advertisers into selling on the Bing search engine.

Dvorak goes on to explain why he thinks this idea will be such a catastrophic failure, a point he repeats multiple times. Basically, he believes the system is simply a marketing ploy in which you will eventually just receive ads for things you have liked on facebook–a system which facebook has already pretty much mastered. In the meantime, the competition regarding searches has been lost.

One of the most important services the Internet can offer is a blog. A blog is a simple online journal whereby the user or creator can post about a variety of topics–how their day went, what color is their favorite, what they think about a particular politician, how they think a particular problem can be handled, etc.

Blogs, once the exclusive property of people who were just jotting down their personal thoughts, have blown up and become websites that can pull down serious traffic or be intensely interesting or sophisticated.

If you want to own your own blog, it is not necessary that you build your own website from the ground up–it is as easy as going over to Bravenet and getting a free blog. They offer all of the structure and choices–you just have to sign up and choose what you would like your blog to look like. Anyone can use Bravenet’s simple interfacing system. It allows for people with no real knowledge of how websites work, or the inclination to learn, to still own a slick-looking and well-run blog.

LiveJournal is one of the oldest and most well-known social networking websites. It allows users to keep “journals” or blogs on their personal pages. They can record their moods, what they’re doing, and make entries. LiveJournal is free–it only requires individuals to sign up. People who need a profile site or free blogging site will find LiveJournal very helpful.

LiveJournal was started in 1999 by Brad Fitzpatrick as a way to keep his friends informed on his activities. The companty was eventually sold to SUP, a Russian media company. LiveJournal is basically a very basic setup that helps users to create a website and blog with virtually no technical skills.

Free blogs and profile sites are often useful to Online Reputation Management Services firms because they are used to promote a positive image and downgrade the visibility of other, more negative links.

Augie Ray, over at his blog, has a great post about the Return on Investment of Social Media Marketing. The most important part to people who follow the online reputation management industry is the part about how social media marketing effects risk management.

Traditionally, few brands have wholly evaluated their marketing in directly measurable financial terms, and my new Forrester report recommends a traditional measurement approach for innovative social media marketing programs.  Using a Social Media Marketing Balanced Scorecard, marketers can evaluate a diverse set of short- and long-term benefits that are both financial and not.  This approach furnishes several benefits, such as aligning measurement to all corporate objectives and not just sales; providing a means for gaining consensus from diverse stakeholders; and avoiding short-term gains at the expense of long-term brand health.

Social media can help to combat brand reputation management problems. But it would be interesting to see a breakdown of how social media marketing can effect long term risks associated with online libel.

http://blogs.forrester.com/augie_ray/10-07-19-roi_social_media_marketing_more_dollars_and_cents

Facebook has become a massive phenomenon that is used by businesses almost as widely and religiously as it is by individuals. Its appeal stems largely from the fact that it has a lot of different elements to offer visitors which keeps them and their friends coming back for more. It is used as a job hunting tool as well as a tool for prospective employers. It is used for social networking and staying in touch with friends and colleagues. It is even used for promoting businesses and managing online reputation.

During an interview with ABC News yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the site has attracted more than 500 million users since it first started six years ago. To put that in context, it’s approximately 1/12 of the world’s population and the UK is right up there with some of the heaviest hitters in terms of registered members. Approximately 1/3 of the UK population are registered with Facebook. Talking about whether the site would make 1 billion users, Zuckerberg said “who knows if we’ll get there”.

There were also positive words regarding “that” ongoing lawsuit with Paul Ceglia. Ceglia is a developer that attended college at the same time as Zuckerberg and claims to have a contract which states he should now own 84% of the Facebook site. However, there’s no need to panic as Zuckerberg has always defended his position on this and continued to do so last night saying “We are quite sure we did not sign a contract that says he has any right of ownership over Facebook.”

If you need to create a blog for Internet reputation management reasons, there is no better system than WordPress. They offer free blog hosting for anyone that can fill out some basic forms and utilize their platform.

WordPress blogs are clean-cut, easy to use, and attractive to look at. Free blog hosting is one of the best ways to stake out a place on the Internet and fight online defamation.

WordPress also offers all kinds of plugins for blogs which can be helpful. These plugins can do all kinds of things like monitor visitor’s IPs, analyze traffic statistics, etc. These are extremely helpful.

WordPress.com is where you go to sign up for a free blog. Most industry experts will suggest it over the competition. This is because they have shown a propensity for improving and innovating their product over time, and keeping everything free of charge.

One of the most popular social networking websites that is available online right now is Gather.com. It’s headquartered in Boston, Massachussets and is home to around 465,000 registered members. Like most social networking sites, it is free to join. It is a massive community of people who are able to share links, photos, thoughts, and messages with each other. Each user gets a registered sub-domain to themselves.

hi5 is another social networking site, one of the most popular in the world. It has never really caught on in the United States, but it is very popular internationally, with over 80,000,000 users worldwide. The site is particularly popular in Latin America.

Each of these sites could be a vital tool to someone looking to improve their reputation management.

Viadeo is a professional social networking site that  is used in over 200 countries around the world and recent survey results have shown just how effective it has proven to be for professionals with 40% of people even securing job interviews thanks to social networks like Viadeo.

Viadeo is an extremely large social network and it is widely used by professionals and businesses from virtually every continent. It enables users to set up a profile, network with existing and potentially new contacts, and it allows individuals to search for new employment. Recruiters are also finding it an extremely powerful way to search for the best candidates to fill high profile jobs.

The social networking site can even lay claim to being the broadest reching professional social networking site boasting claims that it is used in 226 countries, five continents, and 322 industries. CEO and co-founder of Viadeo, Dan Serfaty said that more than 70% of its members are senior or middle level management making it an equally appealing destination for recruitment agencies and head hunters too. What’s more, they have the figures to back it up following an extensive survey of their users.

In the UK, 1 in 4 recruiters claim to have used Viadeo to find and recruit candidates for at least one position so if you’re looking for a high profile career then you should seriously consider registering with Viadeo.

Over 80% of business executives said that they used the site in order to develop their own business showing the worth and potential that the site has for professionals, job seekers, and just about anybody in professional industries.