BoldChat Basic Offers Pro Chat for Small Businesses

The recently enhanced live chat solution lets you invite site visitors to chat in encrypted windows and stores your chat history. Plus it won’t break a small biz budget.

A simplified version of the company’s robust live chat support software, the new BoldChat Basic was designed specifically for small online businesses and retailers, said Shea Sylvia, marketing retention manger for Bold Software. The software is to implement into any small business Web site, and Sylvia also noted that the new version is ideal for one-person shops and small businesses that don’t have immediate access to an IT support staff. 

BoldChat Basic Offers Pro Chat for Small Businesses
By Vangie Beal, November 30, 2009

Social Media Glossary

With social media it would seem that the terminology just doesn’t end. Here is the list of terms that are currently defined in the Webopedia Web 2.0> Social Media category:

@reply alerts A-List blogger astroturfing authenticity badge b-blog BiggerTwitter Blackbird bliki blog Blog and Ping blog storm blogroll Cisco Eos crisis blog del.icio.us Digg Digg This DM Facebook Facebook Connect Facebook forced invite Facebook Group Facebook Like Facebook Mini-Feed Facebook News Feed Facebook wall faceosphere Fail Whale follower forum glog hash tag influencer MFD microblog Microsoft Vine open media plog PocketTweets Retweet RSS social media social network social networking site social software tag cloud tagging Technorati TrackBack Twaffic Tweeple tweet twewbie Twidroid Twishing Twitosphere Twitter Twitter following Twitter Sparq Twitterers Twittermaps Twitturly Twittworking UGC Web 2.0 YouTube [Webopedia’s Social Media Category]

Source: Webopedia.com

Pixetell Adds Video and Voice to Online Listings

Pixetell lets sellers easily add a voice or video message to their online listing. It’s visual communication and collaboration software—but don’t let the non-auction lingo scare you.

In an online market where millions of sellers compete for sales, you have to be different in order to succeed.  When you use a Web-based  platform to sell—like eBay or Kijiji—your item listing page looks almost identical to millions of other listings.  One way you can stand out from the competition is to invest in tools to enhance your online listings.

Pixetell is a tool that online sellers may overlook. We say this because Pixetell is actually SaaS communication and collaboration software and not a typical tool that a seller would look for.  The platform offers many features for desktop collaboration, but it’s also an affordable tool that you can use just to create voice and video ads to post with an online listing.

As you create the visual display in the Pixetell software, you can add a voice narrative to describe the item and highlight its features. When you put your voice behind a product, you can humanize the nature of online selling and inspire trust in your prospective buyers by offering more than just a static picture and text descriptions.

Pixetell Adds Video and Voice to Online Listings
By Vangie Beal, August 26, 2009

Funky Tech Slang

Webopedia.com is an excellent resource for adding a little tech term creativity to your blog posts. Lamer, dilberted, e-nag, Tweeple and many other tech term oddities are defined in Webopedia’s slang category. Here is a list of all the slang tech terms currently defined:

133t speak  24-7  advermation  alpha geek  anonoblog  anticipointment  AOLese  astroturfing  bagbiter  banana code  barn doors  best practices  beyond-the-banner  Big Blue  Big Iron  bioidentification  blaudience  blawg  blog storm  blogola  blogroach  blook  burp  buzzword  cellphone novel  chips and salsa  churn  citizen journalism  clewbie  cobweb Site  compooter  connectile dysfunction  crackberries  crapplet  creeping featurism  crisis blog  crowdsourcing  customer bounty  cyber  cyberbuck  cyberbullying  cyberculture  cyberlawyer  cyberloafing  cybernaut  cyberprise  cyberpublisher  cybersuicide  CYS  cytizenship  dead tree edition  digital footprint  dilberted  DM  dooce  drexting  early adopter  ego-surfing  e-nag  enterprise whuffie  faceosphere  flog  floodgater  friendquest  future-proof  Google blips  Googlewhack  griefer  grok  GUIX  hairball  id10t error  influencer  Intarweb  internesia  jailbreak  lamer  linerd  lock-in  LOL  loss leader  mashboard  mopy  moved to Atlanta  Neo-Luddite  netroots  netscuse  PEBCAK  photoshopping  picnic  Retweet  screenager  spaghetti marketing  Splog  sploitz  sporn  swag  swivel chair interface  synchicity  TOSsed  Twaffic  Tweeple  Twidroid  Twitosphere  Twitterers  Twittworking  Uberveillance  virtual group  Web novel  Webinar  woot  wugging

Visit the Webopedia slang category to see the terms and definitions.

Definitions to 1,125 Text message Abbreviations

The Text Messaging Abbreviations Quick Reference has been updated over on Webopedia.com, and now contains the definitions to more than 1,125 chat abbreviations.

• APAC—All praise and credit
• ASL—Age/sex/location
• BFFLNMW—Best friends for life, no matter what
• GRATZ—Congratulations
• SIG2R—Sorry, I got to run
• VN—Very nice
• YBS—You’ll be sorry
• ZUP—Meaning “What’s up?”

You can read the full list of chat abbreviations here.

Webopedia’s Online Chat Guide is compiled and maintained by Vangie Beal
Last updated: May 21, 2009

Socialcast Adds to Expanding Field of Enterprise Social Networking

Social media networks and real-time communication tools like instant messaging and Twitter are used by millions; including employees who want to save time and share knowledge with geographically dispersed co-workers.

The problem is that consumer applications are not designed for the enterprise, and while employees are ready to bring them into the workplace, most are not compatible with their organization’s security and archiving policies.

One platform available to the enterprise is Socialcast—a secure real-time communications tool that puts the best features of consumer social networking and communication tools into a secure enterprise package that meets enterprise archiving needs.

Socialcast Adds to Expanding Field of Enterprise Social Networking
By Vangie Beal, April 21, 2009

Tools to Tweak Your Tweets

When it comes to social media services, Twitter is now up there in popularity with Facebook, blogs, Digg and YouTube. A microblogging service that wants you to provide the answer to “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less is used to post links to pages and Web content they like, to randomly update friends’ on what’s new, and also to market their own products and services via online tweets.

When you create your Twitter account, the site offers a basic update form box where you can send out your tweets. Outside of using Twitter’s own Web interface, there are a number of applications, clients, tools add-ons and helpers you can download to make tweeting a better, faster process. To help you sort out the best options for tweaking your Tweeter tactics, we take a look at several cool and useful Twitter tools including URL shrinks, Twitter clients and Twitter Web widgets to get you started.

Tools to Tweak Your Tweets
By Vangie Beal, Last updated April 17, 2009

YGTBKM! Definitions to more than 1,100 chat abbreviations

If you have ever received an instant message or text message that seemed to be written in a foreign language, this Webopedia Quick Reference will help you decipher the text chat lingo by providing the definitions to more than 1,100 chat abbreviations.

Text Messaging Abbreviations
Webopedia’s Online Chat Guide is compiled and maintained by Vangie Beal
Last updated: April 03, 2009

Cross-Platform, Multi-Net Instantbird Brings XUL to IM

Instantbird is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client lets you connect simultaneously to multiple IM networks including AIM, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, XMPP-based services, ICQ, IRC, and several of the less commonly supported platforms, like Novell GroupWise and MySpaceIM.

Another important aspect of Instantbird is that it is free and open source software, so anyone is free to distribute and modify it, something that will appeal to many developers. Instantbird merges two popular open source projects; it uses Pidgin’s libpurple to connect to the different networks. This library, which is used for developing IM programs, is also used by Pidgin, Adium, Meebo, and several other popular IM programs.

Cross-Platform, Multi-Net Instantbird Brings XUL to IM
By Vangie Beal, March 24, 2009

Chat With Your Visitors Using AIM’s Wimzi

AIM’s Wimzi widget offers a way to chat with visitors to a Web site or social network profile without having to provide your AIM username.

Wimzi can be used by any AIM user with a Web presence. Once embedded on your page this widget enables you to privately chat with visitors while they are on your site. If you use a personal AIM account—and not a work account—you can still incorporate the widget on your business or work page without giving away your personal AIM name.

You will need version 6.1 or higher of the AIM Client if you want to integrate the widget with your AIM Buddy List. This will let you chat with a Web site visitor in the same way you IM your buddies, using the AIM client.

Chat With Your Visitors Using AIM’s Wimzi
By Vangie Beal, March 10, 2009