Now that Google Buzz is out in the wild, your Google profile page deserves a little more attention.  So, what all have you done to spruce up your own profile page?  I’ll share with you some of the things I did to make this a much more informative page about me for Googlers to find.

First things first, you need to setup your Google profile page.  If you are logged into Google in any way (for example, with a Gmail account) this is fairly easy to do.  All you need to do is set it up at Google.com/profiles.

Once you fill out all the basic information, then you might want to start thinking about what pages you want to show up in the links section.

To add custom links, just go to your Google profile page, click on Edit Profile, then scroll down to the Links section.  You should see several links Google knows about, that you have given it before – then you can also add your own.  I have added links to all my various web pages, and then my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace profiles.

Next, you should setup Google Buzz via your Gmail account.  Once you do, anything you post via Google buzz – you will automatically share on your Google profile page.

Feel free to visit my Google profile page if you need some inspiration.

Now there are a lot more various boxes and basic you can fill out via the Google profile page, but they are all pretty self explanatory.  With the tips I gave you here, you can use your Google profile page as a social landing page for your own work and also a better way to let people know who you are and what you do.

Ok, first you are going to have to register and setup some accounts.  Do so at Ping.fm and TwitterFeed.com.   TwitterFeed.com will allow you to plug your RSS feeds into it to automatic sharing, and then you can plug your TwitterFeed.com account into Ping.fm – so it take your RSS posts, and shares them on the dozens of social network sites out there.

Where do the two mix together?

It all happens in step number one in setting up your feed at TwitterFeed.com.  Click on, “Show More Services” and select Ping.fm.

Now you should see a box where you can input your Ping.fm application key. To get your Ping.fm application key, login to your Ping.fm account, and under Services/Tools find the Application Keys link.

Now go back to TwitterFeed.com and finish setting up your feed.  Now, whenever a new item is posted to your RSS feed it will go to TwitterFeed.com, and then TwitterFeed.com takes it to Ping.fm to be published on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, FriendFeed and many more services.

You can now share your new blog posts as soon as you publish them to your web site.

I have three tools I like to use to help promote my stories and posts after I have gotten them written up.  If you follow me on Twitter or have befriended me on Facebook, you might have seen a do a lot of self-pluggage.  Want to know how I get my socializing done? 

Ping.fm – This has quickly become one of my favorite tools to use when it comes to all the various networking sites, micro blogs, and everything else I have joined.  From Ping.fm I can micromanage updates to over 30 different online sites.  That means instead of going to MySpace to update there, and Facebook to update there, then Twitter to update over there, I can save time and plug myself one place – and it gets sent into all the ones I am a member of. 

AddThis – For the left-overs that are a little harder to promote via Ping.fm (like leaving bulletins on MySpace) I use AddThis.  This is more of the public’s way of sharing my posts, but I love to use it to.  AddThis simply makes it easy for your visitors to bookmark and share your content with others.

ConveyThis – Also worth giving a shout-out to is ConveyThis.  Working much in the same way as AddThis does with bookmarking, Convey this lets you pick from a number of different translation services to translate the web page you are looking for.  This way, my wonderful foreign readers have a quick and easy way to get anything I have posted roughly translated into something they can read.  Now I am aware that no online translator is perfect – however with the multiple choices, ConveyThis will at least let you try a few to see which one you like best. 

Have a favorite socializing or sharing tool I might have missed?

Networking Junkies – You know the type.  They are those people who join every single social network out there, and all they have on their page is enlarged Hanna Montana fan-made glitter signs and copy that reads, “THIZ is MY MY MYSAPCE DuDeZ!  CoMES OUT AND LetS DO THE PARTY! WHOOOO!”

Firefox Add-ons – Just when you think you have found the Firefox extension that will solve all your problems, you go to read more about it and the description goes something like this…

“This tool lets you copy the video from the Youtubez.”

Come on, you spent month after month working on this great Firefox add-on and the only thing you can give me as the user, trying to sell me on your download is two sentences?

Carbon Copy Web Hosts – A good majority of the copy on web hosts’ web pages are just stolen from the guy down the street.  Copy and paste is too easy of a task for these guys, and come on, what do you expect?  They are trying to keep the three customers they have happy who happened to mistake them for somebody important.

Social News Headlines – For an example on this one, go to Digg.com and check out any headline on the page.  Enough said.  Ok, that in itself if the main problem here.  Not only do they give us a crappy headline, then they try to sell us on the point that their headline did all the work.  Come on diggeruzer987, the headline does not say it all!

So do you agree with me yet?  If you can think of anymore copyrighting offenders please feel free to let us all know in the comments.

Now they don’t win any points for being the best looking service, the design is a ‘bit ugly and bland.  The concept though, of having just about every search provider for video on the left and your results on the right is one that works.

You can also add them to your search bar too in the browser to have easy access to the searching.  VideoFetcher is worth a shot if your find yourself browsing around the video sites in your spare time.

Well, that was the case till I figured I would give it a shot.  Drag and drop think link on to your bookmarks toolbar:

Add to MySpace!

To cover all my bases, here is what you do – depending on the browser you use:

Firefox – Drag and drop the above link to your bookmarks toolbar or right-click the link and select "bookmark this link".

Internet Explorer – Right click on the link above, and select "add to favorites".

Safari – Drag and drop the link to your bookmarks toolbar.

I hope this helps out anybody else looking to quickly share interesting articles and sites with your friends and stalkers on MySpace.  If anybody wishes to be my bud – you can find my MySpace profile and add me there!

Attack of the Web 2.0 Clones!

• Del.icio.us Clone? Scuttle
• Digg Clone? Pligg
• MySpace Clone? PHPfox *
• Facebook Clone? Kootali Facebook *
• PopURLS Clone? ezUrls *
• TinyURLs Clone? lilURL
• YouTube Clone? PHPmotion
• Twitter Clone? Folkstr *
• Wikipedia Clone? MediaWiki **
• Reddit Clone? Drupaligg
• Rapidshare Clone? UploadScript
• HotScripts.com Clone? MS Directory Script *

* = need to pay for it
** = not really a clone, is the software used to run Wikipedia

See, even you can run your own Web 2.0 masterpiece! All you need is a little time, a solid hosting account and your own origional take, version or spin on the already popular idea.

Flickr – I really need to get back into photography, guess I can’t blame this one on Yahoo or Flickr. It is my fault I can’t find time to pick up the ol’ camera.

MyBlogLog – This used to be really active and exciting – well, until everybody wanted to be friends with everybody and I started getting messages from threatening strippers.

Pownce – * See MyBlogLog (really don’t even visit this much anymore)

LinkedIn – I am amazed I use Linkedin as much as I do. At first, it was just a kind of MySpace for “grown ups” but now it is a useful tool to get in contact with some of the movers and shakers in the hosting industry.

Twitter – I like to skim through Twitter a few times a day, and I do have to say even though I wasn’t a believer at first I really like this tool for a lot of reasons. I sipped the Kool-aid, and I like the taste.

Facebook – This is another one of those tools that I probably should spend more time playing with but I don’t. Login once a day, skim through the news feed – put I promise I’ll change, well perhaps.

MySpace – I hate MySpace to death, but since I know more people on it than anywhere else I am stuck with it. Kind of like the old girlfriend you know has done you wrong but you keep coming back because the other girls just don’t look at you the same way. Oh yeah, and the strippers on MySpace are friendlier.

Am I missing out on one? I like to get everything a shot – but with a dozen coming out daily it is hard to try them all. Maybe I should just start up a Ning! network for one of my projects and be done with it?

To get this done all you need to do is login to Facebook and then find on the left sidebar your “Notes” application. Now you should see your friends’ notes and what they have posted or imported in. Next you’ll need to look for the “Import a Blog” link.

In good ol’ cooking show fashion I have an RSS feed all ready to plug in from our creating an ego feed with Yahoo! Pipes tutorial that has been pushed through FeedBurner. Now put your RSS feed address into the box marked “Web URL”. Click the check mark, hit the “Start Importing” button and you are ready to go.

Now all of your Facebook friends can keep up to date with you via your notes section. Need a friend? Feel free to add me!

• Should You Hire A Copywriter?
• Navigation Menus on Left or Right?
• Content Ideas and Inspiration
• Using MySpace to Build a Cult
• WordPress Theme Generator

Know of any other Web development topics, links or questions you’d like to see me cover? Send them my way and I’ll do my best to get it done.