Tuesday April 17 was a big day for JugnooMe, the social business platform from parent company Jugnoo, as we launched a major update to the platform.

Originally launched as a private beta late last year, we’ve come a long way since these early days. A lot of this has been by listening to the feedback of our early beta users, as well as monitoring social media channels to understand the pain points of our target audience(s).

Couple that with a very cool and agile team that’s focused on bringing the most kick-ass social media all-in-one solution to market, and yesterday’s release was a very big step in the Jugnoo journey.

So, what is JugnooMe and what are these new features? Let’s begin.

The JugnooMe Vision

In a nutshell, JugnooMe is simply a way of bringing all the best features of various social media tools on the market today, and having them all live under a single, unified dashboard.

This then helps business owners that struggle with time and resources to manage their time more effectively, which results in them being able to focus more on ther core business and make profits.

It also helps the solo entrepreneur, the blogger, the stay-at-home parents, the franchisors, the non-profits and more be far more effective in their own use of social media, from content creation to distribution and measuring.

Simply put, we’re here to help anyone make the social web simple, accessible and monetizable. Because at the end of the day, while followers and friends are great, the mortgage people don’t let us pay for our homes by retweets…

JugnooMe is the first salvo in this overall goal of Jugnoo’s – there’s much more to come, but for now we’re solely concentrating on our social media dashboard offerings. Which brings us to the update.

JugnooMe 2.0 – More Than Just an Update

For anyone that used our early beta, the change is a pretty big one from that platform. But then, that’s to be expected for any company that wants to grow properly, as opposed to just turning up and hoping early buzz will be enough to gain you success.

For me, personally, it’s the difference between watching a young child struggle to find their balance and a confident youngster that throws away the training wheels on their new bike.

Yes, I’m incredibly biased, but I’m also incredibly proud of the whole team here and the strides they’ve taken. For example:

New and Improved User Interface and Navigation

Our design team completely revamped the experience inside the dashboard, and made the navigation a lot more user-friendly and intuitive. The side navigation is (currently) broken down into two key areas, Activity and Apps. This helps you get straight to the area that matters to you the most.

Our minimized top navigation keeps everything simple and uncluttered, and is more for the maintenance area of your experience, including setting up your business details, websites, social keywords and more.

It’s a far cry from our first iteration and kudos to our designers for the makeover.

It’s All About the Apps, Baby!

As JugnooMe continues our journey to help make social media simple for everyone, one of the ways we’re going to achieve this is by an apps-based system.

While I can’t go into too much detail here, since it’s proprietary and includes some cool new features scheduled for the next update, we want to make the JugnooMe experience your experience.

So, while we might offer X amount of solutions, you would only find benefit from a few. Instead of us cluttering up your dashboard, you now just have the apps that make sense to you.

This could be Social Dashboard, Analytics, Facebook Promotions and Video tools.

We think it’s a more elegant approach and also allows users to create their own plans as we introduce our premium solutions in the next couple of months (the beta of JugnooMe is currently free for everyone to use).

Currently the apps are all active, but the option to pick and choose is most definitely in the schedule for the next iteration.

Social Sentiment Beta

As human beings, we all want to be liked. We can say we don’t, and feign indifference, but criticism often stings while love and cookies make us smile (I think that’s the right comparison). Anyhoo…

Social media users are no different, and one of the ways to gauge whether we’re viewed as cookies or crankies is by sentiment analysis. This lets us know if we’re seen in a positive, negative or neutral light.

As part of this new JugnooMe release, we’ve opened up our sentiment engine (beta version) to our users, to help us educate the algorithm better for your needs.

This will allow you a simple overview of the sentiment behind a tweet or Facebook update, and reply immediately from within the dashboard area.

Our future sentiment engine will also include forums, blogs and other social networks, and offer more interactive features to help you protect your brand reputation whether you’re a business or solo professional. For now, though, it gives you an idea of where we’re going.

Facebook Promotions

While we’ve always had Facebook Promotions from the start in the form of simple coupons for special offers, we’ve significantly increased the number of templates available.

Additionally, you can also create a Facebook Slideshow app, complete with product/service description and URL to your dedicated sales page or store. The Slideshow sits on a tab on your Facebook Page, and you can create as many slideshows as you wish (for multiple products or storefronts).

Again, this is one of our new beta features and is just the start – look out for more Facebook apps in future releases.

Video Killed the Radio Star

At least, it did according to The Buggles. However, even though we know radio is still alive and well, there’s nothing quite like a cool promo video to either highlight your business, brand, products, events or more.

With this in mind, our updated SVM – social video marketing – platform now has more templates than ever before, ranging from Property (perfect for realtors) to Consultant (agency videos), Spotlight B&W (ideal for portfolios) to Simple (great for invites or special events).

We’ll be continuing to add templates with each new release, and may even drop the odd new one is just as a surprise in-between releases!

Statistics and More Statistics!

If there’s one thing we pretty much all agree on, it’s that it’s always nice to have a quick overview of just how you or your business is performing. Sure, individual stats and reports are cool, but a one-pager can be even cooler when in a rush.

Our new Activity Landing Page has a simple yet effective collection of your most important information – Social Search results (including sentiment), Website Analytics, Twitter statistics (for now) and Tasks (not as evil as they sound, but quick tips to get you more effective with our platform and social media).

From there, you can dive into the areas you need more information on, and then make the necessary changes to be more effective and share online via our universal J-Post option, that allows you to update your Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube and Posterous accounts.

It’s Cool But It’s Just the Beginning

These are just some of the main features in the new update. There are more inside – the ability to make default posting profiles (if you use more networks than others) as well as an optional social media plugin in the shape of a toolbar you can display on your website.

This lets visitors share your content as well as connect with you by email or visit your storefront. If you don’t have a business but still want to use the plugin, you can choose not to display your contact or Google Map information.

Note: If you do use the toolbar, it’s currently ad-supported (meaning pop-up ads will display briefly from the plugin). Future versions will allow paid opt-out or ad partnership options.

To say this is a major update would be an understatement – we really have released what is essentially a new product altogether. But it’s just the start.

We have a very aggressive release schedule for the rest of this year, including coming out of beta once our solutions are locked down, with some very cool features and tools coming your way that you won’t find anywhere else (promise!).

Add to that a huge social media event that Jugnoo is hosting in the fine city of Toronto this July (more details very soon!) and we’re definitely looking to make our statement about who we are and where we want to be.

And that includes you every step of the way. We’re always listening to feedback and this release is a result of that – and we’re not going to stop listening. We really want to make a platform that anyone and everyone can use, and want to use because it’s geared towards them.

Ready to have a look at JugnooMe? Check out our video below for a clearer idea on how we can help the everyday business owner, then hop on over to our sign-up page and we’ll get you onboard sharpish – see you on the other side!

This post contains a video. If you can\'t see it displayed properly in your feed, click here to view it directly.

The Art of Growing Up in Public as @JugnooMe v2.0 is Released originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Using the interactive features of the Livefyre comment system, my special guest will be Erika Napoletano, author of the new book The Power of Unpopular.

Erika is one of the smartest writers around today, and brings both smarts and a very sassy attitude (read – what you need to hear) to the business world.

Her new book has been praised as one of the best around when it comes to really resonating with the truly important people as far as your business goes, no matter how unpopular that may make you with certain decision-makers and audiences (hence the title).

Instead of me writing “just another book review” (although the book is that good, I’ll be breaking my “no book reviews” rule here again soon), Erika has agreed to be a “live guest” on this blog on Thursday.

So how’s it going to work?

Watch the video below, and let Erika give you a small overview of what Thursday will be about. Then, start thinking of questions you would like Erika to answer – on social media, branding, how unpopular can you be before you have no friends left, how to really connect (not just listen) and why it’s important, what part bloggers play in the new business landscape, and much, much more.

Seriously – if you have a question about “unpopularity” and its ramifications for your business, Erika is the gal to ask, and now’s your chance.

And to make you really get your thinking caps on, Erika will kindly be giving away a signed copy for the best question based around the book’s premise and your own business goals (or professional ones). 

The difference is, this will all happen in the comments section.

Because Livefyre offers real-time live updates, it’s more like a chat system than your normal blog commenting system.

The cool thing is, when a new comment has been posted and you’re on the page, a little alert box pops up to say there’s a new comment (or several, if more than one new comment has been posted as you read).

You can then click on each alert, and it takes you directly to the new comment, so you can see what questions and views are being shared as soon as they’re posted.

So all you need to do is ask your question for Erika via the comments, and she’ll be spinning her fingers all over the place to respond. You can then reply to Erika, or anyone else’s comments, and really make it an interactive book overview and discussion like no other.

To take part, all you need to do is the following:

• Choose your profile. Because Livefyre is a profile comment system, you need to either have a Livefyre account (which you can create here by using the Get Livefyre option), or sign in to comment using your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google or OpenID profile. You’ll see these options under the Comment As option to the right of the comment box.

• Set yourself a reminder (I’ll be tweeting and using Facebook to send out occasional reminders) to be here between 5-10 minutes before 1.00pm on Thursday April 12 to watch the video again as a reminder for the chat.

• Get your questions ready, and fire away with your questions in the comment section from 1.00pm onwards.

• Be interactive – if you use the little “@” function when commenting, you can bring your friends from Facebook or Twitter into the conversation too. So if you think someone specific could be a great addition to the chat, invite away!

Like any live chat, there could be some technical gremlins, but hopefully not. The Livefyre guys are working behind the scenes to try and make it as smooth an experience for you as possible. And Erika has her gremlin-slapping gloves ready, just in case.

Hopefully you’ll join us on Thursday and have a bunch of great questions for Erika. I think this could be a lot of fun, and something to show how blog comments can really come alive, as well as learn about your business from a truly smart hostess.

Look forward to seeing you here – cheers!

This post contains a video. If you can\'t see it displayed properly in your feed, click here to view it directly.

A Special Livefyre Q&A with Erika Napoletano AKA @RedHeadWriting originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Back in November, I shared a brief introduction to JugnooMe, the first salvo from the Toronto-based start-up I joined that month.

Since then, we’ve been working like crazy loons to bring our product(s) from creation, to private beta, to fixes, changes and more. Yesterday, all that hard work came to fruition as we launched the first release into open beta, with the JugnooMe social dashboard.

So what is it and how can it help you?

Taking Your Business Social

At Jugnoo, our goal is simple – to make the social web simple, accessible and monetizable for everyone, regardless of expertise, budget and resources.

To do this, we’re creating a suite of tools that will enable both people and businesses to make the most of their presence online, as well as transfer that to success offline. These include mobile, media and social properties, the first of which is JugnooMe.

The product itself is constantly evolving (with the next set of updates coming in March), but the first release includes features such as:

• Single social media dashboard supporting multiple platforms and accounts
• Aggregated Twitter dashboard
• Social Search and keyword tracking
• SVM, or social video marketing suite
• Social post to multiple accounts and social networks
• In-house analytics to track web campaigns and visitor behaviour

While there are tools already on the market that offer this, our “advantage”, if you like, is that we bring everything under one roof.

This ties back into our ethos of making the social web easy for everyone. And the easier something is, the more time you can spend concentrating on ways to make money from your time online.

We’re Just Getting Started

As I mentioned, JugnooMe launched into Open Beta yesterday. Because of the beta status, we’ll be listening to our users and adding the kind of tools to really make the evolving JugnooMe experience one that helps our community grow they way they want to, at the speed they’re comfortable with.

This will include educational tools like Social Advisor, that will help break down the intricacies of social media with newsletters, webinars, videos and more. And one thing we guarantee at Jugnoo is that we’re always listening, so if a feature makes sense, we’ll add it.

We have an aggressive release schedule in the next 3-6 months, as we move from open beta into full production mode. Social commerce and business will be a key part of these releases, and the tools for our users will reflect that. Oh, and did I mention JugnooMe is free?

For now, here’s a short overview of the beta, made with our very own SVM video platform that’s part of our dashboard.

This post contains a video. If you can\'t see it displayed properly in your feed, click here to view it directly.

I’m really excited at what’s in store, and would love to have you in the beta and help us make the platform the kind of social dashboard and business tool that makes sense of the social web for you.

If you’re interested, you can get more details and sign up here.

See you there?

Woot Woot, JugnooMe is Here – And You’re Invited to the Open Beta! originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Hey there! So I really wanted to add the Something Borrowed option too, but couldn’t think of anything, so the three in the title will have to do. So…

It’s been a little quiet here last week, since Kevin Green’s great guest post about LinkedIn (and if you haven’t read it yet, you’re missing a great ongoing discussion in the comments). But there’s a good reason for that, which is where the Something New and Something Old part comes in. And yes, I’m the something old part in the image at the start of this post…

Last Thursday, February 2nd at 11.52am, my wife Jacki gave birth to our second child, this time a daughter to join her brother Ewan, who showed his excitement at the news by offering back-up vocals to his favourite Thomas the Tank song.

This post contains a video. If you can\'t see it displayed properly in your feed, click here to view it directly.

Salem McKellan Brown weighed in at 6lbs and 15oz, and both mama and daughter are well (they came home on Saturday morning). She’s a cute little tyke, and very wriggly – fun when it comes to diaper time!

So, obviously, my energies have been elsewhere. Normal service will be resumed shortly. In the meantime, you can hop over to Sarah Robinson’s blog where I guest as part of her 28 Days… series. This month, she’s looking at how you can encourage fierce loyalty from your community.

My post is titled If You Want Fierce Loyalty, You Need to Be Fiercely Loyal First. I kind of cuss a few times and talk about dog poo. Hence the Something Blue reference. Check it out if you have time, and make sure to check the rest of the series out too, there are some wicked smart people in it.

Cheers, have a great week and see you soon!

Something Old, Something New, Something Blue originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Sure, brands and products are important – but if you don’t touch that inner emotion that takes a potential customer from intent to the buying trigger, then you won’t get the sale, simple as.

Israeli creative agency smoyz clearly understand this, as their recent Facebook campaign for Kleenex shows.

The goal was simple – to create buzz around the Kleenex product in Israel using social media. The delivery by smoyz was simple too, when you think about it – Kleenex makes tissues, so let’s find people that need tissues and help them out.

Using Facebook and social search keywords, smoyz soon began to find the target audience on Facebook, and with the help of friends of those targeted, made their winter blues a little bit easier to overcome.

Watch the video below to see how it all happened, and the results that smoyz achieved for their client – they’re pretty impressive (as are the turnaround times for delivery of the Kleenex Feel Good care packages).

Just goes to show, if you create a great story and deliver that to your audience, you’ll get the success you’re looking for.

Simple when you think about it, eh?

This post contains a video. If you can\'t see it displayed properly in your feed, click here to view it directly.

How smoyz Helped Kleenex Deliver the Feel Good Factor Online and Offline originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Here’s to more of the same in 2012 and beyond – let’s continue to grow together. Personally and professionally, let’s make 2012 the year that we truly come together and make all the real magic happen.

In the meantime… this is for you, and see you on the other side of Christmas!

This post contains a video. If you can\'t see it displayed properly in your feed, click here to view it directly.

A Christmas Video Message originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

There’s nothing special about it. It’s a simple piece of video, made with Windows Movie Maker then put up on Youtube for the creator’s friends to see. And yet…

Its simplicity is also its strength. The mood and pace of the video complement the song perfectly, and doesn’t take away from the song itself. There are no garish images, no fast edits, no multiple screen tricks – just a simple video for a simple song.

Creative agencies often try to come up with elaborate advertising, PR or marketing messages. The feeling is the more elaborate the message is, the more mystique (and therefore interest) around the brand. And it can work, if done properly.

But you know what? Sometimes it’s the simplest things that are the most elaborate of all.

The comments below this video on Youtube show that many people thought it was the official Dashboard Confessional video for the song.

That has to tell us something about simplicity, no?

This post contains a video. If you can\'t see it displayed properly in your feed, click here to view it directly.

The Powerful Act of Simplicity originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

This is a guest post by Bruce Aristeo.

It was late, and after a long day I stretched out my arms, took a deep breath, and let out a huge sigh. My hands reached out and I began clicking, swiping, and typing as my shoulders curled inward around my chest as if humped over in pain.

My eyes were focusing and scanning the screen, my receptors acting as the light on a copy machine, pin-pointing each pixel and assigning the meaning to each symbol creating structure to what I was seeing.

My TweetDeck was doing its usual fly-by, email accounts were reaching out to their respective servers, Facebook Page was at a standstill while deals were secretly being made in the chat area, and my brain was on stimulus overload from subconsciously keeping track of it all.

No television or iTunes music to breakup the live feed chatter streaming into my mind, only this continued dull hum that my defense mechanism creates to keep me sane.

Breaking The Silence of Social Media

Damn, I forgot to check my Google+ account, I was interested in huddling with a new friend and forgot the time.

Exhausted, my graphic designs began to look as if tie-dye was making a comeback from the sixties, loud and no sharp edges, so it was time to take a short break anyway. I opened my Google+ account and clicked through the various areas looking for something to break the deafening silence of watching social media.

A post… Danny Brown? Wow, I forgot he was in one of my circles. Even visiting Danny’s blog on occasion didn’t break the armor piercing rounds of my focus.

You’d think that reading a great story would stop the world, if only for a moment, but each story only enforced the realization of how much time was passing; the visits became fewer as the weeks slid by. My visit to Danny’s articles were long over due, so I stopped to read this post, a chance to smell the roses –so to speak.

A Musical Rose Garden

Huh! Nothing to read, only this posting of a video and a small blip, “Loving this version of ‘Livin’ on a Prayer” from Desmond Child, the guy that co-wrote it with Bon Jovi. Very soulful.”

Okay, I know the song; I grew up in Philly and live in New Jersey. Keep in mind that Social Media was still racing, running, streaming and posting with one eye on the accounts and the other on Danny’s post. I know, …not exactly the full attention I should be giving another human, let alone the artistic expression embedded with a “play” button.

I clicked the play button and the music began, …slowly, …a familiarity to the original yet different. My mind stopped to synchronize my recollection of the original version to this new version. Matching beat, tempo, breaks in the lyrics, but I’m analyzing and still not really free to enjoy the music.

The Shift in Reality

Visually, I broke from the video 30 seconds in, scanning other posts.

Something changed, a shift …not what I was looking at, but how I was looking. I was reading and not scanning posts, each one in fact. The music slowed down all my inputs.

Vision, hearing, movement, and thought were as if warped by Star Trek’s “Q” and the Space Time Continuum. I guess I just dated myself…

I began thinking about the speed at which social media moves, and I correlated it with my studies in child psychology.

It’s interesting that my mind and reactions slowed to the tempo of the music.

Reading the posts became something that happened without intention. It was as if walking through a garden, not intending to smell the roses, but they were there and I happen to think of smelling them.

Stimulation: 10 Second Countdown

Studying child psychology was enjoyable because there were answers to that which gave reason to rhyme.

One such study described how television shows, such as Sesame Street and The Electric Company were delivering a 10 second lesson, meaning the child watching would learn something new every 10 seconds. That philosophy gave rise to the theory that children are being conditioned with over stimulation, thus causing attention spans to decrease.

Being a teacher (K-12), I can attest to how much teachers have to add into lesson plans to maintain student attention.

Listen + Communicate = Intimacy

Now, back to us adults. What are we doing to ourselves by over stimulating our senses with the speed of social media? Are we destroying our ability to sit and listen to another Being by conditioning ourselves with communication void of intimacy?

Our children find text messaging each other while in the same room, sometimes next to each other, is more appropriate than speaking.

Intimacy, the bedrock of communication and the factor dividing us from other animals, is not something transmitted through text, email, Tweets, or Huddles. Intimacy is offered from within each of us, as a means to authentically connect and touch one another with the intention of personal growth.

Some might say that intimacy was part of my social media experience. This is true, but was it Danny’s intention to deliver his personal experience in the link? Only he could answer what his intention was, but my experience came from within. I was only reminded of that place of slowing down, …my personal rose garden.

Giving Thanks and Slowing Down

My engagement with Danny, I couldn’t thank him enough for being in the right place at the right time. Although my message of thanks to Danny was brief, I could not verbalize the shift that occurred within me. Danny’s post reminded me of slowing down, taking a breath, and truly seeing and being in the moment.

Of course you hear “Stop and smell the roses” everyday, but do you ever feel it? I did…

As I part from this experience in social media, and I walk away from the roses, I will always keep that particular garden in mind.

The one I walked through when I was exhausted, and the feeling I experienced when stopping to smell the roses…

This post contains a video. If you can\'t see it displayed properly in your feed, click here to view it directly.

About the author: Bruce Aristeo is an artist, entrepreneur, and a lecturer/teacher of mathematics and psychology. In the spirit of North American Indians, he is a Magician and co-creates the world around him. You can read more from Bruce at AB2BC.Net, or connect with him on Google+ and Facebook.

image: Adventures in Librarianship

A Lesson In Smelling Roses At The Speed Of Social Media originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Personally, I’m in the second camp. Probably because I don’t feel you can measure influence purely by what you do online, and most definitely because there are so many variations that make up a single decision that – to me – it’s impossible to say what influenced that decision the most.

But whether you think Klout has value or not, it’s now a lot of fun – because you can game the system and show its flaws, and this is all done by one of Klout’s own tools, the new +K option.

The +K option allows you to vote for people’s expertise on a certain topic. The idea is, the more votes someone gets on a topic, the more recognized they are by Klout as an expert in that field. Which, as the video below shows, can lead to completely ridiculous results .

So, yeah – well done, Klout, for showing your flaws better than any critic could. Now that deserves a +K!

This post contains a video. If you can\'t see it displayed properly in your feed, click here to view it directly.

Note: Big props to Dino Dogan for the idea of this mock interview to highlight how to game Klout.

Make Yourself An Influencer By Playing The Klout +K Game originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Sadly, this is commonplace among stalking victims. Many victims begin being stalked when they are young. In Canada, for example, 11% of women aged 15 and older have been stalked. In the U.S., 14 in every 1,000 women of 18 and above are victims of stalking.

Jodi’s Voice aims to change the law on stalking. In this video, I share why 12for12k is trying to help Jodi’s Voice change the law on stalking and why the current laws are so outdated.

This post contains a video. If you can\'t see it displayed properly in your feed, click here to view it directly.

Why The Law on Stalking Needs to Change originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.