Wednesday, October 20, 2010

PND Technology: Hashable

My weekly (kind of) recap of some of the interesting technology I've heard about at the tech meet-ups I've been going to (NYTech)

Making introductions can often be difficult even when the compatibility or mutual interest is so obvious. Along comes Hashable which is making connecting and establishing introductions easier and less painful.

The Hashable tool can be used to make introductions via Twitter or email and you can track the introductions you have initiated and those that your social group is building. You see who they are connecting with and potentially follow their lead in providing introductions. Hashable has an integrated address book so searching for people to connect with each other is simple and there is a gaming aspect to the site that enables you to see who 'ranks' highest (via a leaderboard) in introducing the most connections.

Here is the video from the recent NYTech Meetup and here are some more details from their website:
What do I use it for?
For starters, you can use it to track introductions you make and people you meet with. And you can discover new people by following your friends and seeing who they're connecting with. Your profile page shows your latest activity. You can also check out our leaderboard to see who the top movers and shakers are in our community at large.

How do I use Hashable via Hashable.com?

There is a simple tool on your hashable.com homepage that helps you make introductions. You can use the tool to make an introduction through twitter or email. Using our integrated address book, you'll be able to easily search your twitter or email contacts and find people you'd like to connect.

How do I use Hashable via Twitter?

With the #intro hashtag, Hashable makes Twitter intros not only socially acceptable but socially awesome. Send a tweet that includes the names of the people you'd like to introduce, the '#intro' hashtag, and our Twitter name @hashable. Then, we'll immediately send a follow-up tweet to the people you're introducing with a link to an icebreaker page. This page gets your friends started by showing them each others' information (photo, job title etc.) as well as their mutual connections on Twitter. We also give your friends an easy way to respond with the 'connect through twitter' button at the top of the page.

How do I use Hashable via Email?
If you want to keep making introductions through your email client, you can still get many of the benefits of using Hashable. From your email client, just cc 'post@hashable.com' to make your introduction public or cc 'dontpost@hashable.com' to make your introduction private. Private intros will not be posted to the public stream, but they still get archived and you still get points.
As Mike Yavonditte, CEO of the company notes in the demo that networking isn't always fun but it is a necessary thing. Hashable is making introductions easy and fun. Check it out in beta.

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