DocStoc, the online community that lets you share professional documents, is celebrating it’s one year birthday today. In honor of their birthday, they’ve added a new feature that makes DocStoc even easier to use.
You can now upload documents to your docstoc account just by sending an email. All you need to do is email uploads@docstoc.com with the attached document. You’ll receive an e-mail confirmation with a link to the newly uploaded document, at which point you can edit tags, titles, or just grab the embed code for your blog or website.
Docstoc has also released a couple of stats:
- Contributors using Docstoc are uploading an average of 100 documents per user.
- Since the release of Docstoc’s Sync and OneClick features, contribution has grown over 250% per month.
I can only imagine those numbers improving with the easy-to-use email feature.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be writing about some cool technology sites that focus on wine. Having just come back from the first ever Wine Bloggers Conference, it’s all fresh in my mind. My first big find was AbleGrape.
AbleGrape is a niche search engine, focusing on wine. It’s the brainchild of Doug Cook. Now, at the conference, I called Doug a wine superhero, considering he’s running a wine-related startup, he won the blind tasting challenge, and he showed up Saturday night with cases of some amazing (and older vintage) wine that was either donated by a San Francisco wine bar or straight out of his own cellar. Talking to him, and others, I learned more about the search engine.
Doug was once the VP of Search Engineering at Inktomi (bought by Yahoo!) before running off to make wine his focus in life. But as he was studying for his WSET, he discovered how hard it is to find up-to-date, authoritative information about wine on the Internet. I agree – you can find a lot of great academic information in books, but the Internet is lacking, or rather, the information is hidden. It’s why I often end up at the library when I’m writing an article, and I forego the Web.
Doug set out to change all that with AbleGrape.com, which indexes over 15 million pages from over 38,000 sites that focus on wine. The search engine lauched a soft beta in January, and has been indexing and improving ever since. AbleGrape thinks like a wine geek, which is nice. If you type in cab, you don’t get taxi. You get cabernet sauvignon.
According to their site, AbleGrape has some lofty goals, including indexing every trade, consumer, and scientific publication, as well as every organization, producer and academic research. Additionally, AbleGrape indexes “the best blogs in the world of wine, in any language.” (Full disclosure – my wine blog is indexed. Hooray!) AbleGrape offers filters you can use, including different types of press, commerce, and events, as well as regions, to narrow your search results. It also digs up those hidden search results, whether from academic wine associations to Wine Enthusiast magazine.
If you want to know more about a particular wine (as opposed to where to buy it), I highly recommend checking out AbleGrape. For wine writers and bloggers out there, AbleGrape also offers a widget to add wine search to your site. I haven’t done it yet, but it’s on my to-do list for this weekend. There is also a search plug-in for your browser.
One of the key points of the Wine Bloggers Conference is that to be successful, everyone should find their niche, even within the niche of wine blogging. I think AbleGrape has done that quite well with search. Someone at the conference asked Doug, “Why don’t you take on Google?” Doug had a great answer, and one I admire. “I can’t,” he said. “I focus on doing one thing, and doing that one thing well.”
It’s amazing how much happens in the tech world when you take a vacation. The latest news is that LinkedIn is taking the Facebook tact and adding applications. The difference is that LinkedIn Apps are all productivity focused and, in theory, will help promote your profile even more.
Right now, the following apps are available to spruce up your LinkedIn homepage and/or your LinkedIn profile:
Amazon Reading List
Slideshare
Linking your Wordpress or Typepad posts to your profile
Huddle Workspaces
TripIt
Box.net
Google Presentation
Company Buzz
According to Chris Brogan, you should drop everything and run over to LinkedIn and add Apps to your profile. I took his advice and added the WordPress and SlideShare apps. I’d love to be able to add my other blogs, but the BlogLink app seems to be a bit buggy. I assume that will work itself out. I think that the blogging apps (when they work) and the Slideshare apps are just brilliant.
That said, I’m a little worried about this development as well. I love that LinkedIn is actually doing something. However, you can’t control where the applications appear on your public profile – at least not that I could find. I’m afraid LinkedIn profiles might become as messy as the old Facebook profiles or MySpace. I hate clutter.
What do you think? Will you add LinkedIn apps to your profile? Do you think they’ll help promote your talents? Are apps a bad idea, contributing to the clutter? Let us know in the comments.
Last year Brian Solis attended the NewTeeVee event in San Francisco and he was able to sum up his experiences quite nicely using one word…WOW!
So what is NewTeeVee Live?
NewTeeVee Live is a conference devoted to online video and seeks to answer the question of “what are the possibilities?”
Here is what Brian had to say about the NewTeeVee event last year:
“Most of the conference sessions were pretty incredible, insightful, and helpful for understanding the two views that separate traditional industry and new “new” media. Yes, new media has been part of Hollywood since the 90’s, but with Social Media propelling a new generation of stars, we’re witnessing not only an evolution in the creation and discovery of talent, but also a entirely new platform and industry that enables people to control their own destiny with or without the help of traditional power players.”
So before I go any further let me first mention that all of our wonderful readers get $200 off of the registration price! To use the discount just use this page to register.
With the all star lineup of speakers this year NewTeeVee Live promises to be an incredible event.
So who are some of the speakers?
KEYNOTES:
» Anthony Zuiker – Executive Producer, TV Show “CSI”
» Reed Hastings – CEO, Netflix
» Jason Kilar – CEO, Hulu
Other Confirmed Speakers:
» Alexis Rapo – VP, Digital Media, Disney-ABC Television Group
» Hardie Tankersley – VP Online Content & Strategy, FOX Broadcasting
» Jesse Alexander – Writer, Producer, TV Show “HEROES”
» Dan Beldy – Managing Partner, Steamboat Ventures
» David Verklin – CEO, Canoe Ventures
» Blake Krikorian – CEO, Sling Media
» John Edwards – CEO, Move Networks
» Ben Ling – Director of Platforms and Syndication, YouTube
» Mark Taylor – SVP, Emerging Opportunities, Content Markets, Level 3
» Eric Schmidt – Director of Media Delivery and Monetization Evangelism, Microsoft
» Greg Douglass – Managing Director, Media & Entertainment, Accenture
» Tania Yuki – Senior Product Manager, comScore
» James Slavet – Partner, Greylock
» Miles Beckett – CEO, EQAL
Here are some of the video stars that will also be attending
» Lucas Cruikshank of “Fred”
» Felicia Day of “The Guild”
» Michael Buckley of “What the Buck”
» Xeni Jardin of “Boing Boing TV”
» Brian Conley of “Alive in Baghdad”
» Jay Smooth of “ill doctrine”
I’m running late. Of course the beauty of video conferences is that they stick around far after the conference has ended. But if you want to participate in the discussion, you should visit http://www.solutionsstarsvideo.com/ today between 1 pm and 3 pm EST.
Network Solutions is presenting the “Solutions Stars Video Conference,” a free series of online videos and live discussions featuring 34 of the world’s leading small business and marketing experts. The live video conference is geared toward helping small business owners and entrepreneurs understand how the Internet can benefit their business.
Nine main content areas will be featured during the conference:
- Building Web Presence
- The Social Opportunity
- Start with Listening
- Strategy Drives Outreach
- You Need Social Networks
- To Blog or Not to Blog
- Visibility Through Search
- Rising Above the Noise
- Time Demands
Video participants include best-selling author Tim Ferriss, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, and All-To Co-Founder and top blogger Guy Kawasaki. Also featured will be marketing gurus Steve Hall, Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, Wendy Piersall, Lee Odden, Toby Bloomberg, Brian Solis, Liz Strauss and many more.
Attendees will be able to watch individual videos based on their content area preference, or view the conference in its entirety. While the videos are streaming, viewers can chat online with the Network Solutions team (Social Media Swami Shashi Bellamkonda and Now Is Gone Author Geoff Livingston), or participate in a live public chat. Select video participants will also be in the chat and there is also a twitter feed you can follow via #solutionsstars.
