3 Years ago I predicted that Google will create a Google OS (Android is out for mobile devices and netbooks, Google Chrome OS is coming in late 2010).

2 Years ago, I predicted that Facebook will be huge.

A year and a half ago,  I predicted that Twitter will be huge.

A year ago I predicted that FriendFeed will be very big! (Facebook bought it recently for a large 7 figure number).

2 Months ago I was thrilled to hear about (and get a developer account to review it) Google Wave.

Today I heard that Google is opening wave to non-developers users (power users that is) to give it a play ground review.

Today, I also predict that Google Wave will be the new big thing for the next 2 years at least.

Today, I had many friends asking me for a Google Wave invites, to them, I say: Sorry guys, I have zero invites to give, but just wait a week or 2 and you will get your own. Just make sure you have a Google account (and who doesn’t nowadays?!)

What is Google Wave?

In short: Google Wave is an open source server-side software platform for real-time collaboration and communication between any number of individuals. Utilizing the latest HTML 5 standard, Wave runs in any current compliant browser. (Watch the very long video above) (or watch the very short video preview below).

Many of you asked what happened to the Twitter addict I once was. The answer is: Wave, new Wahol, and project ‘W’ took all my time for the last 2 months!

Once you have Wave, send me a “wave” you know my name! Hint: Same as my Twitter name: @GuruOfSales

P.S.: Reason I had Wave as a developer, is that it’s open source, and I am working with a team on an eBay/Paypal app to be used in Wave

Enjoy Google Wave!

For more info on the #WIWG series, please click here

Have you every wanted to see your grandmother online through video?

Unless you live with her, you probably did!

Did you want to setup a video conference call but wasn’t sure which software the other party is using?

I can tell you exactly how long it will take you to setup everything so you can chat using video online with any person. 63 minutes!

That’s how long it took me on the phone (My call duration was 1:03:22) to a friend in another state just to start the video chat, download and setup skype, install the new driver for your cam because it didn’t support MAC computers, setup your mic (Her mic was muted the entire time!) setup your speakers source… ETC.

Sounds familiar?

What if I told you that on June 13th of 2009 while I was waiting patiently to snag my Facebook username (facebook.com/GuruOfSales) Pete Cashmore of Mashable.com along with 2 friends of his (one of which was actually in facebook’s HQ for the event) were all doing a video chat room on mashable, and you know how long it took them to set it up? 22 seconds! Not because they all had their cams already setup, not because they all knew how to use skype, but simply they created the chat room using the service that I heard of that night: TinyChat

At TinyChat.com all you need is just a twitter account, name your room, login to twitter and you have a high quality video audio and text chat, it took me 22 seconds to setup the entire room, didn’t even have to promote it, people just jumped in, how did they know? A tweet and a facebook status update was sent instantly to my friends and followers with the link to the room, even more, I had the option of tweeting every chat line I enter, which I think is a neat feature.

However, the coolness doesn’t stop there, many readers of this blog will love the next option: Screencast your desktop, NICE! With one click you can record or live stream (screencast) your desktop or website tuturial in a very high video quality, but for this option you will have to pay for the pro membership, and you will not believe this, it’s only $14.95 to get pro, Holly Cow! An entire $14.95 (Just being sarcastic), a screen cast or recording software like Camtasia will cost you $100′s of dollars, mean while this cool service will do almost the same job with the addition of live casting chat voice and text, I mean… come on, my Flickr pro Cost the double of that!

Anyways, check it out here: TinyChat.com

P.S. This was not a paid review nor I am an affiliate for the service, I just simply liked it and wanted to share it with you guys. Enjoy

Around this time last year I ‘Updated’ my old twitter account saying the following:

Prediction: “What Are You Doing?” will be the most asked question of the year in Times magazine. Thanks to Twitter!

It did happen, the question is asked millions of times every day on Twitter web, then I listened to a podcast with @EV from Twitter and when he was asked what it’s called to update your twitter feed? is it ‘to tweet’? He said I guess that’s what’s everyone calling it I guess. But secretly and behind the scene he went on and trademarked the verb ‘Tweet’ to be used ‘to tweet’ my status instead of ‘to update my status on twitter’. Cool

As of today, if you look on the top right corner of your twitter page (Twitter Web) you will see that your ‘updates’ are now your ‘Tweets’ as in the photo above.  I also heard that twitter will be integrating the term ‘tweet’ throughout the site and some API apps.

Also interesting to know is that the AP Stylebook has declared ‘to tweet’ as legitimate grammar.

After today, I no longer have to correct peeps when they say: I will twitter you back! it is now official ;-p

This is the first article in the ‘While I was Gone‘ series and one of many about the cool Google products and changes.

I’m starting the series with a great product from Google that was launched recently, Google Profiles.

A Google profile is simply how you present yourself on Google products to other Google users. It allows you to control how you appear on Google and tell others a bit more about who you are. With a Google profile, you can easily share your web content on one central location. You can include, for example, links to your blog, online photos, and other profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. You have control over what others see. Your profile won’t display any private information unless you’ve explicitly added it.

You can also allow people to find you more easily by enabling your profile to be searched by your name. Simply set your existing profile to show your full name publicly.

Google also allow your profile to become featured on Google.com’s search results, for example, Google my name right now ‘Alex Mohamed’ and you will see the last section of the first page on the results displayibng my Google profile Photo and link to the profile.

Best way to learn  more about Google s from the example below:

In the screen shot above you will find the following from my profile:

1. My photo, name and my job title.

2. send me a message without knowing my email address (Unless you are in my Gmail contacts list), other wise this is great to connect with people minus the spam mail.

3. This section of the profile will link you to every possible profile of mine that is online (at least the ones I remembered ) such as facebook and twitter. This section is great for people that’s as busy online as myself, it also saves me the dozen of links that I used to have on the top right corner of this blog to connect with me outside of this blog and even more (Thanks for the YouTube subscriptions guys).

4. Another section for more about myself, includes a bio, education, jobs, etc.

5. They didn’t forget how cool I am on Flickr, so they link to my most recent photos uploaded to flickr

Also there is a section on the lower side of the page of places that I have been to on a mini Google maps version, that will even show my reviews about the good eats and restaurants that I have visited and reviewed (Nice eh?!)

On my side, I will post the link to my profile on this blog to be as a permanent ‘connect with me’ link so people can find most of my online profiles easier, and I may include it on my twitter account as my URL instead of this blog

Where will you link to your Google profile from?

Post a comment with your Google profile and I will connect with you

Within the last 2 days I heard about 2 new services that is very useful so I thought I would share.

The first one is We Follow (wefollow.com) and it’s been called the new Twitter yellow pages.

The service is a tag based service and shows the top twitter user on each tag/category based on their followers number, so it’s a directory made by the people for the people.

We Follow was created by non other than Digg founder and power tweeter @kevinrose.

I (@GuruOfSales) made 2nd position under #sales and the 51st position under #blogger, not bad for the “Guru” of “sales”

You can add yourself to be in the directory by tweeting the following:

The second service I heard about it this morning when I got a @reply from @ShaneGibson ( something about the Canadian water makes Canadians really smart!) That he made second after me under the category “sales” in all of Twitter. Woot! to us

TweetTop.com was created by @jordanwillms as the alltop.com of Twitter. I’ve personally found and followed at least 20 new interesting people through TweetTop today.

If you’re not following me on Twitter yet, please do so by going here.

If you’re not my friend on Facebook yet, why not friend me here.

Do you get every update from GuruOfSales.com? Subscribe here.

My Friend is Hugh Briss, and one of his companies is www.TwitterImage.com (Hugh also offer other cool designing services like the new service for YouTube backgrounds, blog skins and even logos).

I have first came to know Hugh through following some of my all time power twitter users, I noticed they had some brand new Twitter backgrounds, they all had one thing in common: A tiny logo somewhere on the design that says: Made By “TwitterImage.com”

So I headed over to TwitterImage.com and found out all of Hugh’s examples and clients, I think I browsed his samples for over an hour that day, they are very impressive.

Hugh had a very smart business approach, he offered a free background design for any power twitter user (back then the cap was 3000 followers) in exchange of adding a small note that it was made by TwitterImage.

A very clever marketing strategy, that made me apply for one, and I knew it would be a while to get it done since I applied right before Christmas time, and I was right. It took Hugh and his team about a month, and I am assuming it was because of the huge respond he probably got from his smart marketing strategy.

You can still get a free premium design if you have over 5000 users (That’s the cap at the time I’m writing this) or you can buy the same design for just $100 directly from his site.

To see examples, just go to TwitterImage.com or you can see the one he did for me here: Twitter.com/GuruOfSales

If you’re not following me on Twitter yet, do so by going here.
Want to be my friend on Facebook, do so by going here.
And if you are not an RSS subscriber yet, do so by going here.

Time for a new contest at Guru Of Sales.
This one is easy, here is what to do:
1. Follow me on Twitter by going here.
2. Your done.

If you don’t have a Twitter account, you will be asked to sign up for one, it takes 1 minute to sign up.

I am celebrating getting close to 5000 followers, so the winner will be the 5000th follower.

If you win, I will contact you on Twitter though DM (Direct Message) to send you the cash.

The only rule is this: The prize will go to a brand new follower only. You will be disqualified if you un-follow then follow back, I have a list of all the current followers.

All the current followers will have a better treat soon.

Best of luck to all.

If you’re not following me on Twitter yet, do so by going here.
Want to be my friend on Facebook, do so by going here.
And if you are not an RSS subscriber yet, do so by going here.

Technorati Tags: twitter, contest

Almost 3 months ago I posted a message on every online profile that I have, stating that I will not shave my head nor my facial hair until the day before my Birthday on April 25th.
Without going into further details, I decided to change that statement.
And to help me make my decision, I created a poll to share with all of my friends and contacts, because I believe that sharing is giving.

Using polls will help you decide and make a lot of decisions no matter what you’re asking. In the example below I put almost every possible option a man could have for shaving. And I put a deadline for voting at 2 PM EST today, and I will obey the majority of votes that I will get by 2 PM.
 


 

Twtpoll.com is a new startup application from a new startup company called Twtapps. The company has a lot of cool applications to share with or without your Twitter account.

The way it works is very simple: Create the question, create the options, and submit. Then share the link on your Facebook profile or on your Twitter page.
You will have the option to embed the question or the results in your website or blog. That’s all.

Create your question at Twtpoll.com and share it with your friends

Another thing I should mention is “WpPolls” which is a WordPress free plugin to create polls on your WP blog. Easy to install and easy to use.

Bottom line is that you will get an answer or make your decision if you only ask and share. I would love to participate in your questions, so go ahead, create a poll anywhere and share it with us, send it to me on twitter, facebook or comment below and I will participate

If you’re not following me on Twitter yet, do so by going here.
Want to be my friend on Facebook, do so by going here.
And if you are not an RSS subscriber yet, do so by going here.

Technorati Tags: polls, twitter, facebook, blog, blogging, sharing

The idea is very simple: Tweet the following:

@GuruOfSales twitpay $5 for green earth cause

And I will get $5 from you in the form of an Amazon gift card (That I might use for the Green Earth group).

That’s it!

This is how simple it is.

More details?

OK, so you don’t have to send me money right now (Although I will take it to start the group)

I think that this is  great idea and a great business model, it’s simple and easy.
The way it works, is that you send someone a tweet (Twitter update) like the example above, you can send anywhere between $0.01 and $50.00.
Twitpay will keep track of your messages (Promises) and will send the recipient an amazon gift card every time they have reach just $10 in their twitpay account.
You can keep your promise or cancel it. it’s up to you.
Other ways to spend your twitpay money is to twitpay a charity or to twitpay (The company). However you need to remember that they will charge you a flat $0.05 for any payment that’s over $0.99

How do you check your twitpay account?

Just go to http://twitpay.me/yourtwittername (Replace ‘yourtwittername’ with your twitter name!) and you will see how much money you have or owe!

For more on twitpay you can visit the service here or read the FAQ here.
Please note: At the time of writing this, twitpay is stil under beta, they are still looking into more ways to integrate their payment systems. Please becarful if you’re sending money to any one. except if you’re sending it to me ;-p

If you’re not following me on Twitter yet, do so by going here.
And if you are not an RSS subscriber yet, do so by going here.

Technorati Tags: twitter, twitpay, send money, paypal

After Facebook workspace, comes the next giant: Twitter!
Scouting the “non-virtual” real world of web 2.0 workspace,  the behind the scene of Twitter is here.
Twitter quickly becoming already became a huge social media player, big corporates like Dell and big news media companies are using Twitter to reach out to their clients and viewers.
If you are reading this, chances are that you came here linking from my Twitter update (Tweet) on my Twitter page.
As of the time I am writing this, there are 4390 Twitter followers that’s getting my updates (Including any new blog posts). That’s close to half of the number of RSS subscribers that I have for this blog. In a very short time Twitter became as powerful as it is.

Why is Twitter powerful?

It’s not what the software does, it’s what the people do with it. And Twitter was built based on sharing.

If you’re not following me on Twitter yet, do so by going here.
And if you are not an RSS subscriber yet, do so by going here.

There will be a lot more talk about Twitter in the near future, but for now, I bring to you the workspace of Twitter in this photo gallery:

Photos credit: “kohtzy” and Scott Beale / Laughing Squid @ laughingsquid.com