So, I used Foursquare and Gowalla for a whopping month. And I got bored and ready to drop these applications faster than a rock in still water. It was fun to check in and show points and all that. It was fun to see that there were some restaurants and bars I’ve been to that were listed. At some point, I was tempted to create a ‘location’ for my apartment. And then I realized that I get absolutely no value from Foursquare, nor from Gowalla.

To be quite frank, I downloaded Gowalla more as an equalizer (e.g. not to be favoring Foursquare), but I am equally bored of both. Everybody and their mother has said that geo-location services are here to stay and that they are the future of social media. Uh, no, not really. Unless you have a data plan, and have set up push notifications, they are pretty much useless, because you can’t check-in unless you can broadcast it to the Internet.

What, if any value, do YOU get from Foursquare or Gowalla? What business-value is there with Foursquare and Gowalla? I see none, and I triple-dare anyone to demonstrate with a convincing, cogent and articulate argument that I am wrong.

Related posts:

1. Reconsider your Foursquare-to-Twitter behaviour in 2011
2. On the importance of spatial analysis in social media
3. Cross-linking content across social media platforms

I am quite wary of increasing the number of people I follow on Twitter (something that has led more than one person to try to “force” me to follow them – which, actually, most of the time goes horribly wrong because I react very, very badly to being pressured to do anything). This has led more than a few thousands of people to unfollow me (which, to be quite frank, is quite alright).

I don’t think I’m an elitist, but I just have a limited amount of brain to process stuff. Plus, I HATE receiving direct messages that can easily be either emails or public replies. I just HATE IT. I am even more careful about the people I add on Facebook, because there mostly I have family members, close friends, a few selected members of the social media community that I’m not that close friends with but whom I like to get to know, and many of my academic research colleagues.

The one network I am delighted to Olympically ignore is LinkedIn. And the irony is, lots of people seem to think I’m committing a mistake by ignoring LinkedIn. Now I can’t really ignore it that much since I sit on the Executive Committee of the Social Media Club Vancouver, and they have created a LinkedIn group (why this is the case still escapes me, but then again, I ignore LinkedIn). I have heard so many different stories as to who should I accept to connect on LinkedIn that I just simply try to ignore it. I have a few of my friends (mostly, close friends) on LinkedIn. People with whom I have interacted mostly on a professional level. Even if they’re my friends, I can indeed vouch for their work.

But adding everyone and their mother to my LinkedIn kind of worries me, because contrary to Facebook or Twitter, being connected on LinkedIn seems to appear as a tacit endorsement. And admittedly, in my case, for the most part, I think I am more than happy to endorse those who ARE already on my LinkedIn connections. That said, I don’t have a professional connection with everyone who has me or whom I have on my LinkedIn list. SOME of those connections are, indeed, professional (particularly those related to my research). But a vast majority, are my friends, and some folks whom I know through social media.

But what happens when you don’t accept those connections? That does NOT mean, in my opinion, that I wouldn’t be willing to endorse the person with whom I’m not connected. I just hate all these assumptions about social networks. If I follow you, people assume it’s because I find you interesting or whatever. And if I don’t, people assume that I am not interested in what they have to say.

Life in a networked society, it seems, is filled with assumptions. As for me, I would like people to stop assuming how I think and what I think. If you need to know, ask me point blank. Don’t assume anything about my relationship with you on account of any social networking connection we may (or may not) have.

Related posts:

1. Ning-based social networks
2. When to say NO on LinkedIn?
3. Studying the behavior of social networks and scholarship

I love graphical representations of phenomena, even though I have a terrible hand at drawing. I remember how envious I used to be that all four of my brothers were capable of not only drawing beautifully but even painting. I guess my artistic capabilities are mostly motion-based (dancing). Anyway, I digress… the thing is, I can’t draw to save my life.

And why draw by hand if I can do it online? So, this gives you context on the reason why I needed mind mapping software was that I thoroughly enjoy systematizing ideas and creating graphical representations of the projects I’m undertaking. So I threw a lazyweb question on Twitter and requested ideas on freeware for mind mapping.

What follows below is a quick list of the ideas that were provided to me on Twitter and a few hat tips to those who provided them.

- Shane Birley suggested FreeMind (which he uses).

- Alex Shipillo suggested Mind Meister.

- Susheel K suggested Edraw Mind Map.

- Rebecca Coleman suggested FreeMind as well, as she references in her post on how she does mind mapping for her site.

Hat tips and thanks to everyone! Feel free to drop a comment on my site and weigh in on other mind mapping tools.

Related posts:

1. BillingBoss.com [Software review]
2. Being an academic and a blogger – two models, one mind
3. The economics of free or why I won’t do things for free anymore

One of the questions I asked the community about was how to pick the right kind of software to invoice my clients. Many of my fellow tech/freelancers suggested FreshBooks. I tested three online billing systems. One of them was from the UK and never got to really test it. The other one was Cashboard (which deserves a commentary here insofar it had nice templates for invoices) and the third one I used was BillingBoss, as my friend Victoria Taylor asked me if I’d be interested in reviewing BillingBoss.

The first thing that really attracted me to BillingBoss was that it was free (yeah, I am saying that even after posting that entry on the economics of free or why I don’t do things gratis anymore). But let’s face it. We all like free stuff. I’m a human like everybody else, so I definitely liked the fact that BillingBoss was free. I found the interface really easy to use, and right now I have it set up so that the invoices of two of my freelance writing clients are submitted via BillingBoss.

Three things I did not like were (a) the limited number of invoice templates, (b) the fact that it doesn’t actually track hours (it’s more for invoices for products/services where you bill by the project or by the item, rather than by the hour, unless you do a walk-around this limitation), and (c) the fact that it doesn’t allow for hard breaks (e.g. Ctrl +13, a hard return) in the invoices. Thus, my freelance writing invoice was really cluttered.

Overall, I would give BillingBoss a 8/10 in terms of how easy it is to use as a billing/invoicing software. That said, I am sure the next version (which probably will have a cost) will be better. I can definitely see room for improvement. The interface is really easy to use, although as I mentioned, it doesn’t allow to track billable hours.

You can follow BillingBoss on Twitter.

Related posts:

1. Searching for mind mapping free software
2. Suggestions for software to design business cards