As a savvy business owner, you want to learn ways to save time and money. Here’s a great overview of some apps that will simplify your life!

1) Evernote

**is available for most smart phones, FREE

Why it’s cool: Captures your ideas, docs, photos, audio recording in one place.  Here’s a list of 21 ways to use it: http://christianpf.com/how-to-use-evernote-creative-uses/

Features: Geo location, Multi-language support

2) Vlingo

**available for most smart Phones, FREE

Why it’s cool: Voice interfacing technology lets you dictate texts and emails, look up contacts, and search web by voice.

Features: Google Maps &  Twitter Integration

3) Omni Invoice

**$4.99, iPhone only

Why it’s cool: Creates quotes and invoices, spans multiple products and services categories, can add discounts & tax exemptions, & tabs on delinquent payments.

Features: Contact integration & HTML templates

4) Poynt

**Works on the iPhone, Android, & Blackberry, FREE

Why it’s cool: Great for a traveling business person! Location Aware Yellow Pages, it identifies where you are and everything you need on the road: gas station, retailers, restaurants.

Features: Google Map directions, Address Book integration & Search Results

5) Inertrak

**iPhone only, $4.99

Why it’s cool: Task management tool designed for business owners to juggle projects. The app does calculates how each workday is spent, adding up the hourly billing for each client.

Features: Detailed product view & desktop integration

6) Linked In

**iPhone, Blackberry, and Palm, FREE

Why it’s cool: Helps you stay connected, access the social network online, real status updates and messaging tools.

Features: Search and Invites.

7) Appbox Pro

**iPhone, 99cents

Why it’s cool: All in one alarm clock, flashlight, currency convertor, loan calculator, random generator. Also does Google services such as News, Docs, Calendar and Reader. I think this is my favorite app right now, so many uses!

Features: Fun Icons & Background to choose from!

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• Mobile Payments – Send money by phone

Imagine you are a vendor at a conference & you need a way to accept credit cards & process them quickly. Before your options were:

1) collecting credit card #s and processing them over the phone, but taking a risk if the credit cards were expired or bad

2) getting a virtual terminal and paying extra costs to process credit cards in real time

Enter 2010, a new world for Point of Sale with your mobile device. Here’s a just few of the new players that are part of the new wave of virtual POS.

Square is based on a tiny, square-shaped credit card readers — each roughly the size of a quarter that plugs into your iPhone. Along with it,  you use an iPhone application to authorize a credit card, capture a signature, and even email a receipt. They also have a magistripe reader that plugs into your iPhone.

Read the rest of this entry »

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One of my fascinations with the latest version of the IPhone was an app called “Foursquare“.  I constantly see updates on Twitter about someone checking in at a location around town, maybe a restaurant or coffee shop, using this app.

Ok, so how does Foursquare work?  The idea is that the app helps you explore your own city or a new place you might be checking out, using the internal GPS system.  You can let your friends know where you are by “checking in“. Each time you check in,  you earn points. Ultimately, the idea is if you earn a certain amount of points or checkins, it can add up to badgets or free food/perks and becoming a mayor of certain bars/restaurants. (I’m still not clear on what advantages a mayor has, please email me if you know.)

On the flip side, if you own a bar or restaurant, Foursquare wants to help you to connect with your customers buy rewarding points.  As a restaurant, for example, you could offer a free appetizer or drink after someone’s 3rd checkin and any other kind of promotion you can think of. I’ve only noticed a few places around Portland giving discounts so I’m not sure if it’s a working model.

I’ve noticed how easy it is to check in to any place if you are in the vicinity. When I first used the app to do a “checkin”, it searched for the nearby businesses in the vicnity of around a few miles. There’s nothing preventing me from checking in to all of these businesses except my honesty.  Cheating, to me, seems like it could be a potential issue -  here’s an interesting article about how one guy learned to hack his way through Foursquare http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/16/foursquare-cheating/

What does the future hold for Foursquare – it sounds like they’ve made an interesting deal with Zagat  (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/foursquare-inks-a-deal-with-zagat/) which hopefully will launch into a better situation and could provide some groundwork on taking their business to the next level.

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• Social Media Predictions for 2010

Some folks are really great at connecting with people. Shona Lepis from Eye Design Studio has figured it out. I got to know her through Twitter and have really enjoyed the links and projects she’s shared. How can you personally brand yourself through Twitter?

What’s your business?
I have a boutique design studio called Eye Design Studio. Eye Design Studio creates artisan handcrafted design for web and print. We work with lifestyle brands to build their business with creative design solutions. We work with a lot of small to medium sized business to help them build their brand.  Eye Design Studio focuses on Visual Identity suites (logo design, custom Web site design, branded social media, email templates, business cards, letterhead).

When did you start using social media and why?
I happen to be a bit of a technology geek and love to learn and try out new things. I was at first skeptical about how social media. I decided to keep current and relevant I really needed to just jump in and embrace social media. I have to say I love it and find that it has been an amazing resource. I love to share links and useful tools and resources I find.

Has social media changed your business?
Social media has allowed me to build my personal and business brand online. By frequently sharing tips, design projects I’m working on,etc. People get to know me a bit more personally so they know my design style. I’m a bit personal in what I share but believe if you are authentic people are interested and get to know me a little more so they can tell if my design style would be a good fit for them.

What are you looking forward to social media changing in the future?
I think social media will just become part of our social fabric and everyday life. I think as technology keeps moving it’s exciting to see how many new tools are there and that “there is an app for that”. I love how the tools keep us connected and like we are part of a community. I work with an international team of with colleges in Paris, France and Bali, Indonesia and the tools make it possible.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?
In fact I do have a funny antidote. I was recently at a Halloween party of a designer friend. The invite asked that we bring a dish to share. I had just gone to another holiday party with the food and of course tweeted about it. (Going to a pumpkin carving party w/ pumpkin cheesecake dip served in a carved pumpkin w/ ginger snaps. http://yfrog.com/iyv1lj) When I got to the party someone said hey “I think I follow you on twitter, I saw you post about the dip.”. It was a funny moment and a great example of how real life connections are made in person from sharing and building a community online.

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• Chatting with one of the Wealthy Freelancers

I recently spoke with Bo, from KOifusion about his successful use of Twitter to promote his food cart.

KOifusion is a food cart that produces a mashup of Korean BBQ along with Mexican, American,  and Italian flavors. Bo’s cart travels to different locations across the city to feed cart lovers alike. Their company is only 2 months old, but they have driven their marketing through Twitter, using it to share promotions, their cart locations, as well as what’s going on day to day.

Bo can’t believe the connections he’s made in such little time, he doesn’t just talk about the cart, Bo said he tweeted about his car breaking down and had 5 different folks come to him with lunches and a willingness to help.

He mentioned that Twitter allows folks to give suggestions while feeling safe and easy to reach out. Bo really likes Twitter because he can update from his iPhone, it’s fast and is the best way to spread news. He can’t wait till there’s a way to sync with other media tools to make updating even easier and looks forward to the ease of use of social media in the months to come.

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