Stephanie Liu

Highlighters Are Now Digital

“i-Lighter is a cool way to highlight, grab, and save text and graphics from virtually any Web site and store it for future use.” – PC WORLD

The majority of my reading material is online and if you’re like me, the materials usually covered are articles, blogs, forums, reviews, RSS feeds and more. With all this information, I was notorious for printing pages and depleting the printer ink at home.

Now I can help the environment and my budget with i-Lighter. It’s useful and it’s free. I don’t have to print articles to highlight and I don’t waste any ink. I love it because i-Lighter gets over two hurdles with one leap. I can highlight text, tables, and images from any web page, have it organized in my account by subject, and share it with my colleagues.

In fact, earlier this month they released twitterlights. If you come across an interesting article online, use the i-Lighter to right-click and twitter it to your friends. The URL of the web page will automatically be sent as a TinyURL and your i-Light will be stored in your i-Lighter account for you to organize later.

See how i-Lighter works:

Stephanie Liu

Plurk in Action

I signed up for Plurk on Friday and am loving it! It’s so fun and super addicting – join me here.

For an awesome breakdown on the features of Plurk, check out ReadWriteWeb’s “Plurk: Unique or Just Another Twitter Clone?”

Don’t feel like reading? Check out Bwana’s video below:

[blip.tv ?posts_id=969743&dest=-1]

(Video Credit: Bwana)

Stephanie Liu

Mind Mapping Made Easier

“A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.” – Wikipedia

Mind maps are great when I need to get my ideas out on a page. In fact, I use mind maps exclusively to map out campaign concepts, types of medium, and prize categories before walking into and during a brainstorm meeting. I also use them for blogging concepts, story ideas, and other creative endeavors. So naturally, my notebook is filled with diagrams. Unfortunately, there are times when I map out ideas too quickly that when I go back and look at them, I don’t understand what I wrote… I had to find a way to do it better.

Just recently, I discovered mind42.com and nearly flipped out. Now I can create mind maps in my browser for free and collaborate with co-workers. I can assign icons and colors to specific nodes and best of all, I can add images too.

Here’s a quick overview of the features at mind42.com:

Now get mapping!

(Video Credit: Mind42)

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Stephanie Liu

Widgets: Strategies and Effectiveness

Tonight my colleagues and I will be attending the iMarketers event, Widgets: Strategies and Effectiveness, at the University of San Diego. The event will bring together interactive marketers and companies in San Diego to uncover how widgets work and how companies can optimize their marketing efforts through web, mobile, and desktop widgets.

Speakers:

  • Alex Funk, digital-telepathy, Part I Widget 101
  • Larry Marine, Intuitive Design, Part II Which Widgets Work

I’m looking forward to understanding what people understand and don’t understand about widgets as well as getting to know my peers in SD. Hope to see you there.

Stephanie Liu

UPDATE: Polyvore Video Tutorials

I received a lot of questions from friends about Polyvore (see previous post here). They didn’t understand the concept or how to create a set with Polyvore.

So instead of making you read, I’m going to share two videos that show you how to use Polyvore. I found these videos on Polyvore’s site here and here.

Watch how you can create sets composed of individual images using an easy to use, drag and drop editor. After you have created a set, you can publish and share it with your friends and the Polyvore community.

The Clipper easily lets you import items from other websites into Polyvore.

I hope this helps – if you have any other questions, please leave a comment.

(Video Credit: Polyvore)

Stephanie Liu

Polyvore – A Revolution in Online Shopping

Polyvore is an amazing website that’s revolutionizing the way we shop online. Their web-based application is user-friendly making it easy for you to import images from any online store and create a virtual ensemble in your browser. Each item used within a set will link back to the online store where it’s available for purchase. This makes it easy for you to track where you found the item or if you’re like me, discover new retailers from sets created by other Polyvore addicts.

One you publish a set, you can share it with your friends online to get their opinions. You can even print it out as a shopping guide or save your sets as a part of your fashion wish-list (that’s what I do).

Here’s a favorite of mine by Meg:

For an interesting post on how retailers can leverage Polyvore’s platform, read “Why should retailers pay more attention to social shopping on Polyvore?” by Sarah Simmons.

A couple of improvements I’d like to see on Polyvore is 1) the ability to move the clipper box when adding tags – it appears in the upper right hand corner and blocks my view of the products details. And 2) enable right-click so instead of having to go to my toolbar, I can right click an image directly to Polyvore.

Stephanie Liu

Crash Course in Social Media

What exactly is social media and how does it affect you and your company?

One place I’ve found to be helpful on the topic was SlideShare.net. They have over 30,000 results on social media.

Here are three presentations that helped me understand what social media is and how to benefit from it.

All presentations can be found at Slideshare.net.

Also, if you come across another presentation that can help explain the social media landscape, please post a link here.

Crucial Conversations In Social Media

Introduction to Social Media

Social Media Strategy