Filed under: reader

The Pros and Cons of Hiring a Virtual Assistant


This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

You don’t have to be a big corporation to outsource. In fact, you don’t even have to be a company. As Timothy Ferriss outlined in his 2008 book The 4-Hour Workweek, you can just be a guy who wants to hit the beach while someone in Bangalore does your work.

That’s the dream, anyway. If you’re looking to outsource website design, SEO or other technical work, then the firm that Ferriss cites in his book, Your Man In India, may make sense. But if you want to get someone to do the non-technical stuff Ferriss outlines, like checking emails, screening his phone calls and sending gifts to family and friends, then Your Man in India will direct you to its subsidiary, Get Friday.

Get Friday does what’s known in the business as “virtual assistant” work. It’s a vague term that encompasses a host of activities including calendar management, secretarial, online research and travel scheduling, but the company’s website outlines some other “pretty crazy tasks,” including finding a lost dog and teaching algebra to a sixth grader.

Nevertheless, Get Friday doesn’t offer “specialized” work. For example, when I asked them if they could write this article for me, a representative said the company doesn’t have people on hand who can write, though there are people who can research an article. (I declined the offer.) If you’re looking for something that takes higher-level communication skills, then Get Friday will refer you to the Mountain View, Calif.-based Elance, in which case you’re back in the U.S., paying U.S. rates.

What are those rates? Elance declined to say, but Doreen DeJesus, president of the International Virtual Assistants Assocation, says you can expect to pay $40 and up, per hour, for a VA skilled in communications. (A VA with a lot of technical know-how might fetch you as much as $120 per hour.)

Despite the disparity in pricing — India-based VAs can cost as little as $1 a day — DeJesus says there are a lot of benefits to working with a U.S.- or Canada-based VA. At the very least, she says, you avoid the two major pitfalls of working with a far-flung VA: time zone differences and a language barrier.

Mumbai is 10 hours ahead of New York time, for instance, meaning that if it’s 9 a.m. and you need something done right away, you’ll probably have to wait a few hours. As for language, although India-based VAs generally are quite conversant in English, they can get tripped up by the nuances of the language, which could create misunderstandings. “I’ve had many people who’ve tried to outsource abroad,” says DeJesus, “but a lot of times the language barrier and the time difference send them back this way.”

Fabio Rosati, Elance’s CEO, says that despite such drawbacks, going with a foreign VA makes sense sometimes. For instance, for a project that’s not that time-sensitive, like a Christmas circular you’re preparing in August, going with a VA in India or the Philippines might be a good option. But generally, “You want to be able to pick up the phone any time and talk to your assistant,” he says.

That relative luxury may cost you more, but it fits Rosati’s conception of a VA, which is basically a cloned version of yourself that takes care of the duller tasks. When asked why someone should consider a VA, Rosati replied immediately: “You can amplify yourself and your business. You can do a lot more than you are able to do.” In Rosati’s estimation, those 15 minute periods you spend every day answering emails or entering data on Salesforce.com add up. If you don’t have to worry about executing such protean tasks, you can spend your time being more creative.

One challenge to this argument, though, is that hiring an assistant, virtual or otherwise, can also be a time suck. Despite the sour economy, it’s not uncommon to hear that good help is hard to find. Rosati has a couple of tips to make working with a VA easier, though. First, if you can afford it, hire two or three people for one opening and then, after a week, pick the best candidate. Second, work with your VA on a mutually agreed upon schedule. That way, you’ll avoid situations in which you need to hear back right away and your VA is MIA.

By this point, it should be clear that hiring a VA and then spending the rest of the day surfing, as Ferriss advocates, may be trickier than it appears. But if your workweek is more like 40 or 50 hours, hiring a good VA may ease your stress. If you’re on the other side of the equation, or the other side of the globe for that matter, it may also provide a lifeline in a brutal economic climate.

Image courtesy of Flickr, pawpaw67

More About: Business, features, mashable, outsourcing, virtual assistant, work

For more Business coverage:

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/12/17/virtual-assistants-pros-cons/?utm_source=feedb...

HBO GO Coming to Time Warner Cable


Time Warner Cable customers who subscribe to HBO or Cinemax will soon get to use HBO GO and MAX GO, the premium cable networks’ instant-streaming services.

TWC announced the deal Friday night, saying subscribers will be able to access movies, documentaries, original series and more on any computer, iPad or other mobile devices.

On HBO GO, viewers will have access to 1,400 titles such as Game of Thrones, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos Sex and the City and Deadwood. They’ll also get to watch HBO original films, miniseries, sports, documentaries, specials and blockbuster theatricals. MAX GO offers 400 titles including movies, indies, cult favorites, the MAX After Dark series and primetime series.

Most new content uploads to both services as the content premieres on the networks. Viewers also will get the “Watchlist” that keeps track of bookmarked content for later viewing; bonus content including interviews, recaps and behind-the-scenes extras; and customizable views showing titles in slideshow, grid or list format.

Once the services launch, Time Warner Cable customers can access them at HBOGO.com or MAXGO.com using their TWC usernames and passwords.

SEE ALSO: 5 Major Trends That Changed Digital Entertainment in 2011

Earlier this year, HBO released HBO GO apps for Android and iOS. HBO GO launched in February 2010 and already is available to HBO subscribers of AT&T U-verse, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, DirecTV, Dish Network, Google TV, Suddenlink Communications and Verizon FIOS.

More About: Cinemax, hbo, Movies, streaming movies, television, time warner cable

For more Entertainment coverage:

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/12/16/time-warner-cable-hbo-go-max-go/?utm_source=fe...

Which Republican Debate Got the Most Social Media Buzz? [CHART]

While the race to the GOP primary has been a long one, the candidates are in the home stretch and frequently taking the debate stage. And as we’ve seen for some time now, live TV lights up social networks like a Christmas tree.

Lots of news has been made at these debates — from contentious sparring matches to significant gaffes. But how did the social media buzz curve line up as the action went down? And which moments garnered the biggest reaction from Twitter and Facebook commentators? We’ve got the top five nationally broadcast debates as measured in social buzz, and the chart below may surprise you.

The data is compliments of our friends at Trendrr, who measure social activity (mentions, likes, checkins) related to TV broadcasts. The data spans across Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue and Miso. To see daily rankings, check out Trendrr.TV.


More About: 2012 election, data, features, Politics, republicans, Social Media

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/12/16/republican-debates-social-media/?utm_source=fe...

Cloth App Organizes Your Wardrobe on Your iPhone


The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Cloth

Quick Pitch: Create an easily accessible catalog of your favorite outfits.

Genius Idea: In the App Store, there are more than a few solutions for snapping, saving and sharing your outfits with others. None, however, offers as clean a user experience as Cloth [iTunes link], nor (in most cases) as many privacy options.

Unlike Fashism, Pose or Go Try It On, Cloth has no built-in social network and no registration is required. By default, any photos you take of your clothing are saved in the app alone — ideal for those of us who want to remember and organize our outfits, but don’t always (or ever) want to broadcast them to the world.

Still, those who would like to share your ensembles can: The app lets you cross-post your images to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. You can also send your photos to ClothApp.com to be featured on the site. (Sharing via email would be a welcome addition.)

Images can be allotted to one of several categories (such as work or evening) and tagged (I tag my outfits by season, color and designer), although there’s currently no way to browse looks by tag. You can also leave notes and save images to your device’s photo album.

Photograph enough outfits, and you’ll have an easily accessible thumbnail catalog of your entire wardrobe. You can also go back and edit your uploads at any time.

Cloth was developed by Maxim senior editor Seth Porges and his girlfriend, fashion designer Wray Serna. As the story goes, Porges recognized a need for the app after watching Serna use her iPhone to take photos of outfits she was packing for a trip.

Cloth costs $1.99 in the App Store, a price Porges hopes people will be willing to pay because the app doesn’t require them to fork over their personal details or view ads. “We’ve seen a huge trend towards free, ad-supported business models online, and I think people are so burnt out on always having to sell their souls to use anything,” he observed in an email to Mashable. “[I think] there may be a movement towards people willing to pay a few bucks for a no-strings-attached utility such as this.”


Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: bizspark, cloth, fashion, iphone app, mashable, spark-of-genius

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/12/16/cloth-iphone-app/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_me...

Does Zynga’s IPO Fizzle Signal the End of the Social Media Bubble?


Game over? Zynga‘s IPO may have ended the social media IPO era with a whimper, rather than a bang, as its stock closed at $9.50 — down $.50 from its asking price.

The lackluster performance contrasted with other recent social media IPOs, including LinkedIn’s debut in May, in which the company’s stock price doubled and Groupon’s, which rose $6 from the asking $20 asking price, on Nov. 4, the day the company went public.

Is this a sign that Wall Street is over its infatuation with social media IPOs? Kevin Pleines, an analyst at Birinyi Associates in Westport, Conn., thinks that may be case. Pleines says that investors have learned their lesson from recent social media IPOs and are curbing their enthusiasm, in this case, at least. “People are a little more skeptical,” Pleines says, noting that Zynga’s valuation of around $9 billion is absurd when compared to rival EA’s $6.9 billion.

Jeffrey Sica, owner of Sica Wealth Management in Morristown, N.J.,agrees. “It’s a very telltale sign of how people feel about social media IPOs in general,” Sica says, adding that he likes Zynga as a company, but feels the market is too spooked at the moment. “They have become very shortsighted,” Sica says of investors. “There’s a lot of fear in the market right now.”

The fatigue, however, may be justified. Pleines’s research shows that 60% of social media stocks that have gone pubic since 2010 are below their asking price. If you aggregate all those social media stocks, the average price is down 32% from their IPO price.

That said, Zynga’s debut on Nasdaq could have been worse. The stock opened at $11, which is 10% above the asking price. It didn’t hold on to that gain, but it didn’t fall very far, either. Still, Zynga’s IPO’s fate seems less a reflection on the company itself than on past social media debuts. After all, Zynga is profitable, boasts 227 million active users and is expanding into platforms beyond Facebook, like Google+. “People are focused on the valuation rather than the story,” Sica says of Zynga. “Zynga has a very upbeat story to tell.”

Meanwhile, Pleines says, the other big social media, Facebook’s, may not be subject to the same investor malaise that dogged Zynga. Says Pleines: “They’re a different animal because of their sheer size and scope.”

More About: Facebook, ipo, Zynga

For more Business coverage:

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/12/16/zynga-ipo-bubble-social-media/?utm_source=feed...

Time Warner finally cuts a deal for HBO Go streaming, launches 'in the next month'

Ever since it launched early last year, the HBO Go library has quickly become one of the best parts of having the premium channel, however it wasn't part of the package for Time Warner Cable customers -- until now. The two companies just announced they have to an agreement which will see access to the streaming back catalog of films and TV shows (including Max Go) open up to TWC subscribers "in the next month" after a short beta period. We're not sure if this access extends to streaming via the Roku box or if it will be blocked (as it is on Comcast and DirecTV), but iOS and Android mobile devices are definitely in on the action. Check the Time Warner blog or press release ( after the break) for more details.

Continue reading Time Warner finally cuts a deal for HBO Go streaming, launches 'in the next month'

Time Warner finally cuts a deal for HBO Go streaming, launches 'in the next month' originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceTWCableUntangled  | Email this | Comments

from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/16/time-warner-finally-cuts-a-deal-for-hbo-go...

SocialFolders Is Like Dropbox for Social Media


The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: SocialFolders

Quick Pitch: SocialFolders automatically backs up social media content and allows you to easily transfer photos, videos and files between services.

Genius Idea: Applying a Dropbox concept to the cloud.


There are many solutions like Dropbox that make moving files stored on your computer easier. Philippe Honigman has been running one such service, ftopia, for the past three years. But he’s the first to admit a gap in its functionality that is widening as people store more of their content in the cloud.

“We realized that there were a lot of solutions like ours to share the content that you have on your maschines and servers,” Honigman says, “but there were no solutions to organize and keep track of all the information on web services.”

The startup he is launching on Thursday, SocialFolder, is like Dropbox for your social profiles. The service automatically syncs your photos, videos and files from the web with a desktop filing app that you can access offline. You can, for instance, work on your Google docs while offline. When you connect to the Internet again, the changes will automatically be made in the online versions.

SocialFolder also syncs content from one service with another, allowing you to have all albums in your Flickr account automatically added to your Facebook account.

Most other services that have attempted to sync the cloud with the desktop have either narrowed their focus to one service such as Google Docs or Instagram. But SocialFolder casts a much wider net, synching with Twitter, Instagram, SmugMug, Facebook, Flickr, Picassa, Google Docs and YouTube.

Even with this advantage, the question still remains why someone would need to backup all of their social media files in the first place. Isn’t the whole point of storing files in the cloud that they are accessible from everywhere and not lost when your computer gets stolen? And when is the last time that Facebook accidentally deleted its users’ content?

“People want to have their content in their hands,” Honigman argues. They upload it through mobile applications or its tucked somewhere in a web service that they don’t want to use anymore, and they want to get it back.”

Not only do they want to get it back, SocialFlow’s business model predicts, they want to get all of it back. The paid version allows users to connect 5,000 files instead of 500 and sync with all available services instead of just three.

Eventually, the company hopes to also collect fees by serving as a secure web delivery system for bank statements, payroll and other sensitive information.


Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: bizspark, SocialFolder

For more Business coverage:

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/12/15/socialfolders/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_mediu...

How We Shared Media in 2011 [Infographic]

So, it turns out we use the internet to share things. A lot of things to be exact. Clearspring, a Washington, DC-based company shows us exactly what was passed around the internet this year and just how it was shared with some fancy looking graphics to boot.

Clearspring owns the sharing platform ‘AddThis’, which you’ve almost certainly scene if you’ve visited a website in the past two years. Given that AddThis is on over 11 million sites, there’s a lot of data to be collected. Here are some of the most interesting things they found from 2011.

Facebook Owns Web Sharing - Not too much of a surprise, but Facebook makes up over 52% of web sharing.

People Love Sharing News About Death, Especially When It’s Osama Bin Laden’s - 73% of the top 10 shares were related to death and disaster. Ad Age’s Simon Dumenco notes that 28% of AddThis shares this year were about Bin Laden’s death and came on May 1st and 2nd.

Google Kills It With Chrome, Not So Much with Google + – Google’s totally awesome browser surpassed Firefox this year in social shares by browser. If they follow the same trajectory, they’ll soon overtake Internet Explorer as the most social web browser…Seriously, who still uses Internet Explorer. Google + grew a ton this year with it’s Beta launch, but has plateaued.

Way More People Shared Stories About The East Coast Quake Than the Japanese Tsunami – This is just a good example that social sharing is not always proportional to the magnitude of the event.  Need more proof? Kim Kardashian’s divorce was shared almost as much on the web as news about the Super Bowl. Gross.

Big Takeaway: Huge Growth in Mobile Sharing – 2011 was big for mobile shares as it grew by 6x this year. Expect to see this stat continue to grow as more and more people bring their obsession with Facebook and Twitter to their wireless devices. We saw the power of social media to make social change in the Middle East this year and I expect mobile sharing will soon dominate the way we share information. The Occupy movement alone caused a 217% spike in mobile shares in one day alone. Can’t underestimate mobile sharing’s importance moving forward.

from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2011/12/13/how-we-shared-media-in-2011-infographic/