As someone who has co-workers all over the entire United States, I can honestly say,  there is a GAP here waiting to be filled. Want to buy someone a beer from afar? Someone figured out there was a need for that and yes, I can buy you a beer right here, right now, from my home office over in Texas. However, I don’t exactly want to buy my co-workers BEER (it doesn’t exactly send the right message, you know?), I’d like to buy them a cup of coffee. A $20 gift card to Starbucks isn’t quite right either. If we worked in the same office I’d hop on over to your cube and say hey, that was awesome how you pulled through for me yesterday! Let me treat to you a cup of coffee, come on, you deserve a break.

So where is this service? Apparently waiting for YOU to create it (yes, YOU – I can break the fourth wall here). In the mean time, if you like my work, feel free to Buy Me a Beer!

What follows here is a remarkable example of how to effectively use Web 2.0 to help market your product.

On Sunday, August 3rd, I published an entry explaining how little caffeine is really in Jolt gum. On Saturday, August 9th, I received a packet in the mail from Vroom Foods (wonderfully stamped “SERIOUSLY CAFFEINATED! CONTENTS” on the outside), containing FOUR samples of their Buzz Bites product.

Everything Vroom Foods did in this situation, they did properly. First, as someone unfamiliar with Vroom Foods, the stamp on the envelope quickly clued me in that this was NOT spam mail – this was a direct reply to the post I had published a few days prior. Second, enclosed along with the free samples was a personalized note explaining that she (the Business Development representative) had seen my blog entry about Jolt gum, and Third, I received not one free sample, but FOUR. Two tins of the Chocolate Energy Chews, and two tins of the Mint Chocolate Energy Chews were mine to sample in caffeinated delight.

Before sampling my newly received goodies, I noticed that on the product tin along with their comparison of a “chew” to an “energy drink” – they state the caffeine contact under their ingredient list. Yeah for Vroom Foods! Personally, I think the caffeine content of food and drinks should be required by the FDA, but it isn’t, so if you see it on a product it’s there because the company chose to make that information public.

Last but not least, Vroom Foods stated they have had the caffeine content tested by a third party, and sure enough, our friends over at Energy Fiend show that yes, Buzz Bites contains a WHOPPING 100 milligrams of caffeine!

I was eager to sample my new products, but also a little scared. 100 milligrams is a lot of caffeine! I expected a bitter product, something I wouldn’t necessarily enjoy chewing, and I was quite surprised to find the opposite. These aren’t something I would crave for taste alone, but they were definitely good enough to be consumed on a regular basis, making me sad they only sent 4 tins.

In addition to the free samples (of highly caffeinated candy no less), I was incredibly impressed with the manner in which I was contacted, as well as the speed. Vroom Foods is obviously keeping a close eye on what is said about their competition (or simply watching for mention of caffeine), and this is an example of how they just got free advertising out me by sending me something I might like. Two weeks ago I had not even heard of Buzz Bites, now they are something I would not only buy, but likely recommend. Now, I think I’m going to have to give their Foosh Energy Mints a try…

This past week I have been focused on customizing my Blogger Template, and I have to admit, I was shocked to find just HOW much information is available. Blogger can be tweaked to your own personal tastes and needs regardless of what it is you want it to do or how you want your site to appear.

One requirement to website development is having a non-production site that allows you to test changes without disturbing your “live” site. Although you can’t necessarily do this within your current blog, you can quickly and easily create a test blog that is private! In addition to making private test site, you want to make sure it isn’t being crawled by search engines, listed under your Blogger profile (but still visible to you in your Dashboard), and… well, let’s just say BloggerBuster did a great job of covering this from top to bottom and I highly recommend you take a look if you are planning a site overhaul.

One seemly apparent drawback to Blogger templates (provided by Blogger) is that they are ALL 2 column templates. The truth is, Blogger is so customizable that this isn’t necessarily a problem. You can find different Blogger templates in a variety of places and end up with a very non-Blogger-like site. You can even remove, or rather, hide the “Navbar” (that’s the bar across the top Blogger shows on your site by default) with 5 simple lines of code. I have turned mine on and off but I think I’m going to keep it since it doesn’t seem to interfere with my design.

As far as my personal choice for a template, I really liked the Minima Template for it’s simplicity in design, but wanted it to be 3 columns. I tried downloading versions that other people had created and found that they had tweaked too much and it was less like Minima than I wanted. I was then happy to find amazingly simple instructions on how to convert the template myself! To change Minima from 2 columns to 3, just follow some simple instructions from Tips for New Bloggers.

There are probably hundreds of Blogger resources available, but BloggerBuster and Tips for New Bloggers together truly make up your Swiss Army knife of Blogger goodness. Between the two of them, I have plenty of information to keep me busy improving my site for a long time to come.

This week I came across some great finds that I want to share with my readers:

1. The Social Path, A blog by David Griner with a focus on Social Media
2. SheenOnline, A blog by Rahsheen Porter with a focus on Web 2.0, Social Media and a splash of GTD. I found several of his posts very inspiring!
3. Chris Brogan shared 20 free e-books about Social Media
4. Sarah Perez with ReadWriteWeb shared with us Three New AIR Apps to bring Facebook to your Desktop
5. The Paisano explained How to Export from Google Docs
6. If you have been trying to decide if Groundswell is for you, take a look at the free PDF excerpt (I really need to buy this book!)

That takes care of this week, I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend!

Now more than ever, we don’t want to be caught on the go without power. Addictions run high with our phones and iPods given all that we can do with them, and the APC UPB10 Mobile Power Pack comes to the rescue. This is not a new product, but somehow, many people still don’t know about this jewel. If you travel, this is a must have item. If you don’t travel, it’s just very handy to have around.

The actual power pack is very similar in size to my BlackBerry Curve, just a bit shorter and a tad slimmer. It weighs 3.4 ounces (again, less than my Curve) and is with me everywhere I go. Originally, it came with a Power Only USB cord (no data) and an AC Power Adapter (the wall plug). The Power Only USB is worthless to me because it doesn’t make sense to carry TWO USB cords when you’re on the go, and the point of this device is to be mobile. Instead, I carry a regular USB mini-retractable cord – and the power pack. The power pack can charge my phone for more than two cycles without needing to be recharged (perfect for a 2-3 day trip), AND, it can even charge my device, WHILE being recharged by my laptop. If I am carrying an iPod then I bring along the iPod power/sync cord along with my regular USB.

I originally purchased the power pack about a year and half ago at Sam’s Club for around $50. The price is still hovering at $61 on Amazon, but you may be able to find it at another retailer for less. Either way, after a year and a half, I’m still toting this around and singing it’s praises.
Be Mobile. Be Happy.

Like most people in the tech community, I consider caffeine to be my friend. It helps me slog through my morning a little faster, and begin to think clearly hours before I would normally. Sometimes a beverage with caffeine just isn’t handy, or maybe not readily available. Gum is almost always handy, and quite portable, so I decided to take a deeper look at Jolt Gum (which I blame completely on a random surf through ThinkGeek).

If you look at the web site for Jolt Gum, you will see the same statement that is on every package, “2 pcs of Jolt Gum = 1 Cup of Coffee.” Well, after trying it, I wondered, did they mean Instant Coffee? I mean, I’m a coffee drinker…and 2 pieces of Jolt certainly doesn’t, well, give me any kind of a “Jolt.” I had remembered seeing a Caffeine count on ThinkGeek stating “each piece of gum is approximately 45 milligrams of caffeine!” and I LIKE ThinkGeek – they’re cool over there, so I wanted to trust them – but I couldn’t take their site as the full authority. I mean, a cup of coffee is often described as having approximately 45 milligrams of caffeine, so perhaps they were just rewording what is already stated on the package of Jolt Gum.

Unfortunately, according to Energy Fiend, Jolt Gum only contains 12.7 milligrams in each piece. That’s very interesting, considering you can order a Grande Decaf of the Week from Starbucks and receive almost the exact same amount of Caffeine as in TWO pieces of Jolt Gum. Yes, a Starbucks Grande is 16oz, and their decaf of the week contains 25 milligrams of caffeine.

Not to rain on your parade, but if you are a fan of Penguin Mints, they too pull the same claim and fall short. They claim that “3 Penguins are the caffeine equivalent of 1 cola beverage,” yet Energy Fiend again shows us the light and states that each mint only has 7 milligrams of caffeine. If you want to call Coke Classic a “cola” you would be looking at 34 milligrams of caffeine in a typical 12 ounce can. Honestly, you could just simply have a 6 oz. Dannon Coffee Yogurt and surpass them all with a whopping 36 milligrams of caffeine.

Now, if you really want to have some fun, you can see how much caffeine it would take to kill you – just pick your poison. Apparently, it would take more than 534 pieces of Jolt Gum to kill me by way of caffeine, and that’s just way too much chewing.

As of TODAY, you can now try out the Beta version of Agendus for BlackBerry. Because this is a Public Beta, you can snag it for $9.95 (the cost will increase to $19.95 once it is out of Beta, so if you plan to go for it, now is the time).

BUT, before you spend any money on Agendus, just keep in mind that Pocket Informant BlackBerry will release “in August 2008” for $19.95. BerryReview.com has some screenshots on their site of Pocket Informant if you’d like to take a look.

Personally, I’m torn between the two. I currently use PocketDay, paired with PocketDay Lists, and I’m ready to move on to something… well, better.

Any suggestions?

If you are not familiar with Twitter, it’s one of the more popular “micro-blogging” applications around at the moment (both for positive as well as negative reasons, but I’ll get to that later). For a wiki-rific explanation, Wikipedia explains Twitter very well and provides more insight to the application and it’s use.

So, why use Twitter? I’ve been using Twitter since September of 2007 as my virtual hallway conversations, to replace a part of my work day that simply doesn’t exist. I am a full time “remote” worker, collaborating with folks all over the US – but no one within 100 miles of me. Granted, I love working remotely, but there are some aspects of “traditional office life” that are useful and even appreciated. For me, Twitter fills that gap. Here is an example from my Twitter stream:

Okay, so no, this wouldn’t happen at a “real” office, but if I experienced something that I thought was funny (that wasn’t appropriate to share with my conference call), I would probably tell the folks on the other side of my cube. So, instead, I tell my Twitterverse.

I find Twitter to be good company when I’m bored, people I can access with something in common if need be, or even just a sounding board when I need an opinion. When I wanted to research eye surgeons prior to having PRK, I asked for some insight on how to find out about a doctor’s background. A friend of mine reached out to me after seeing my “Tweet” and gave me a link to the Texas Medical Board, and in essence, assisted in my decision in choosing a surgeon. Twitter can be all sorts of things to all sorts of people.

Now, Twitter hasn’t been 100% perfect. Call it growing pains, call it mis-management, no matter what you call it, there are lots of people talking about it. I’m more leery about Twitter now than I had been months ago – will Twitter still exist in 6 months? Will I lose contact with the people on Twitter I have begun to know on a personal level? In the last month a new Twitter-like service has been born called Identi.ca. Identi.ca is similar, but different. One common theme among many people on Identi.ca is that they are fed up with Twitter, and ready to jump ship, almost. It’s difficult to cut ties completely if you have an established network and don’t want to leave your network behind. Many are doing what I am doing and cross-posting to both Identi.ca and Twitter at the same time – which allows us to grow our network at Identi.ca, and not leave our friends behind at Twitter.

Will both survive? Hopefully this isn’t a “Neither can live while the other survives” kinda thing. Personally, I believe there is a place for BOTH services, and I look forward to watching Identi.ca grow, as I too continue to meet more folks there. It’s kind of like moving into a new neighborhood, everyone is friendly and eager to meet their neighbors.

You can find me at either service at the following addresses:
http://twitter.com/SharnAtlanta
http://identi.ca/sharnatlanta

See you online!

Is 2008 the year of Social Networking? Sure, before 2008 we had MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook – but doesn’t it seem like things really exploded this year like never before?

Now you can also be found on FriendFeed, Twitter, Identi.ca, Pownce, Tumblr, Plurk, Brightkite, and probably a few dozen more. A few days ago I learned about Kwippy, and today I just learned about a new one called Chi.mp that is currently in Alpha (because Beta just isn’t good enough anymore).

This is a picture I linked to from my Tumblr page on January 3rd, 2008. I felt like this picture really said what the article title claimed “This Is How The Internet Is Describe In One Photo.” Of course, now I can think of a lot of things missing from the photo. My perspective has changed quite a bit in 6 months, but then again, so has the scene of Social Media.

Do you have any opinions about where you think this is going, or how you feel about making your life a collection of data streams? I’d love to hear it!

I don’t know how long I have been hearing that Del.icio.us was going to finally have a face lift, but it’s been a long time coming. Along with some new enhancements, the DOMAIN is now changing to simply Delicious.com, so no more worrying about where to place the silly dots. Currently there is an automatic redirect from the proper spelling to the dot-filled domain, so I would imagine once the change is in effect the reverse will be true as well.

Whether this is happy news for you, or simply just news – this is a good time to make sure you know either your login, password, or email your account is associated with. The strange thing is, where is the launch date in this “announcement“?