By Ken Stewart of ChangeForge (Twitter/FriendFeed)

Nothing feels better than a pat on the back, and LinkedIn makes no exception to this rule!For those not familiar with LinkedIn, it is a professional social platform to share opportunities, ideas and information. According to LinkedIn, over 30 million professionals subscribe, and some might coin the service as Facebook for business professionals.

While I don’t know whether anyone has actually landed a job from using LinkedIn, it is a great way to stay connected with clients and business colleagues alike. In this fast-moving world, keeping up with changing e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and the who-knows-who game can be daunting. LinkedIn seeks to make that easier.While most everyone knows LinkedIn for its Bacon-esque Connections feature and it’s recent launch of groups and applications, I was surprised that many I talk with know very little about the recommendation feature – or worse – are intimidated to ask for a recommendation.

Recommetiquette:

Let’s look at some LinkedIn recommendation etiquette. Quite simply put, if you feel you are worth a recommendation, ask for it. Don’t wait for someone to think of it for you. Trust me, they are thinking about a million other things than you.

This doesn’t mean that a warm and friendly request by you won’t get read. Generally, people you are connected with respect you. So ask.The worst case is that you won’t get the recommendation, and the best case is you get a glowing review from a respecting colleague or client. Lastly, always change the generic message to something more personal (but not too familiar, mind you). More on this later.

Recommendations in a nutshell:

LinkedIn makes recommendations extremely simple once you make a connection. By simply clicking on Recommendations under the Profile heading, you are presented with the option to choose which job title for which you would like to seek recommendations.
As you can see in the example above, I have a few recommendations for two of my positions. The “thumbs-up” icon to the left indicates I have at least one recommendation, and I can choose to manage or ask to be endorsed.When asking to be endorsed, it is a simple 3 step process (see below).

1. Step 1 is confirming the position you wish to be recommended for.


2. In step 2, you must decide who you’ll ask.


3. To complete the process, simply create your message. You can choose to leave the default subject and body of the message intact, but I strongly recommend you make this more personal. (Tip: It’s always great to include something personal, e.g. “It was great to see you at the last lunch n’ learn.”).


4. (Optional): Wring your hands as you wait by your computer for a response.

What goes around comes around:

Once your colleague or client completes the recommendation, you will receive a message in your inbox inviting you to approve or decline the recommendation. This is a great way to ensure the recommendation meets with your high standards, right?Perhaps the best feature about this recommendation process, in my humble opinion, is the fact that LinkedIn really believes in returning the favor. As such, you are immediately taken to a screen that asks you to write up a recommendation, in kind.

For those of you who understand recruiting practices, this is genuinely the best opportunity you will ever have to ask for a flattering recommendation. So, if you receive a request for a recommendation – make sure you take a little time and pay it forward. You never know, the very next e-mail in your inbox might just be that recommendation you have been waiting for coming right back to you…… and there’s no better time than a recession to get that feel-good you get from a LinkedIn recommendation!

---

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. To learn more about Ken, visit his about page. You may also find Ken on FriendFeed, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

---

One of the bullets in my theoretical real-world resume for the better part of the last two decades has been that my driving record is spotless. No tickets. No accidents. I've never hit anyone and they've never hit me. I'd practically felt invincible. For whatever reason, through 15 years of being a licensed motorist, I've never had any points added to my record. I've never had a moving violation, or attracted much more than a warning from a police officer.

That line is going to have to change, because last night, I got pulled over for speeding, and sure enough, I got a real citation which I doubt I'll be able to contest and get out of.

The incident put an ugly exclamation point on what otherwise was a solid and enjoyable week and a half off from the office, punctuated by visits with extended family, many of whom I hadn't seen for years. But lingering behind late yesterday, while needing to get into work early today, likely put extra pressure to get home quickly. Starting the two-hour drive back to the Bay Area last night around 10:30 at night, we had open freeway for the most part, and were soon cruising around 80 miles an hour, with traffic, occasionally going a bit higher.

It's that "a bit higher" which no doubt attracted the attention of the highway patrol. As has happened hundreds of times before, I saw the patrol car alongside the freeway, lights off, waiting for its next victim. But I probably saw it too late, or didn't slow enough to make the officer happy. As the patrol car fell into my rear view mirror, his lights came on, and though I changed lanes to let him go by (hopefully), he chose instead to follow me, and ask me to pull over. Matthew and Sarah, asleep in their car seats, didn't notice.

So after 11 p.m., when most people are in bed, or at least thinking about it, I was left telling this officer that yes, I had seen his car, and yes, I understood I had been going faster than the marked limit of 65. I said I had been doing 80, and he countered with 89. What can you do? He probably was right, at that moment in time. On a clear night with little traffic, the car is certainly capable. That I was driving the Toyota Rav-4, which doesn't look like an old clunker, like practically every other car I've ever owned, probably had something to do with my not sliding by this time as well.

So he wrote me up and I'm getting a citation. All my "Yes sir"s and "No sir"s in the world, and the lack of alcohol or anything else exciting weren't enough to get me out of it. So now, I have to live with the fact not that I'm a law-breaker... but that I finally got caught. Dang.

See Also:
louisgray.com:
California's New Sport: Balancing the Cell Phone Below the Dashboard
Web Robin:
Police: Was Louis Driving Drunk Friday?

By Eric Berlin of Online Media Cultist (FriendFeed/Twitter)

I spent the weekend recovering from holiday activities. I did manage to do some housework, watched The Sopranos Season Five (a key component of the holiday loot), and consumed a deluge of "end of year" blog posts from around the Interwebs.

I love this kind of thing, and it was fun to try to get a Big Picture take on what some of my favorite writers and thinkers are writing and thinking on the eve of the new year.

Plans for 2009
Many one-person blogger operations did an end-of-year assessment of how things went in 2008 and looked at changes and upgrades for the year ahead. It was a chance too for personal writing styles to shine, such as was the case with the curmudgeonly yet loveable Steven Hodson:

While not the most important (that one will come in a minute or two) I want to thank Duncan Riley at The Inquisitr for being willing to hire a cranky old fart. While much of the tech blogosphere is centered around the warm and fuzzy goodness of things like Web 2.0 and social media Duncan gives me the freedom; and the rapidly growing platform, to poke as many holes in that hot air balloon as I like. Thanks Duncan.

Rob Diana reported that he plans on "bringing the geek back," or focusing more on technologies and APIs that drive the social web, while also committing to shorter posts. Jason Kaneshiro of webomatica, a blogger who writes about tech and pop culture, discusses how he will look to balance posts out between tech (Apple, iPhone apps, digital video), movies, and television (more Mad Men reviews, yes!) in '09.

Louis Gray brought his own unique perspective on this kind of post, turning in 10 Things I Wish I Would Do Better On the Web Come 2009. These include commenting more on his own site as well as others, becoming more active on Twitter, and spreading the love (read = attention and coverage) to more sites in the coming year.

And I turned in my own State of the Blog report, in which I talk about my desire to "chase quality" and "follow passion."

Predictions
Predictions were big, both reviewing how those made for 2008 panned out as well as prognosticating out on 2009. MG Siegler of ParisLemon graded himself highly on correctly predicting the rise of social network aggregation and that NBC would return to iTunes, but not so much on Digg getting acquired or Apple releasing "a new kind of mouse with multi-touch capabilities."

Meanwhile, Adam Ostrow of Mashable reports that his 2008 predictions both "rocked" and were "highly accurate," noting the growth in Hulu's popularity, Facebook's now mainstream status, and blogs becoming "hot acquisition targets" (Ars Technica, PaidContent). For 2009, Ostrow sees Google Chrome's market share increasing, a "big newspaper" going all digital, and Facebook and MySpace ramping up their own acquisition efforts:

As startup consolidation continues, look for the two biggest social networks to become aggressive acquirers. The reason? Both have ambitions as not only media companies (side bet: look for Facebook to buy or take a stake in a big music app), but as identity providers. One sure-fire way to gain market share as an identity provider is to buy up popular but profitless sites and make their own identity system the standard. This is exactly what Google and Yahoo have done with properties they’ve acquired through the years (see: Flickr, Del.icio.us, Blogger, FeedBurner, etc.).

Steve Rubel predicts that The Web 2.0 Blogs Will Be Fine in 09, pointing out that "these sites [will] diversify their revenue streams beyond advertising and events. Research is a good area and one that probably leaves other, older companies exposed on price." (Do any sites refer to themselves as "web 2.0 blogs" these days though?)

And Duncan Riley at The Inquisitr believes that 2009 Will Be The Year of the Uber Blog, noting that large web publications such as ReadWriteWeb, Silicon Alley Insider, and Gawker Media are moving toward an "uber blog model":

The reasoning behind the move is remarkably simple: it’s easy to sell ads on one blog vs many blogs, for a couple of reasons. The biggest is simply traffic: having one big blog means increased traffic to the core blog making the sales pitch more appealing. Second, advertisers will often want to target the one blog and not buy the subsidiary blogs; maybe not always, but none the less common in my experience. If you have one big blog with various streams you’ve got better odds of getting high value advertising against all the content.

ReadWriteWeb, for its part, takes the temperature on 2009's social media outlook from a number of well known figures, such as Chris Brogran, Dave Kellog, and Om Malik. Interesting tip from Malik (pulled from GigaOM) is on financial web community Tip'd: "If it can get itself embedded into the financial blog ecosystem the way Digg has plugged in the tech world, Tip'd could become a daily destination."

Staying with RWW, Richard MacManus clued me into a fun slideshow from TrendsSpotting highlighting social media influencers predictions for 2009 (embed not working unfortunately but check it out here).

The great debates ahead
Whatever happens, we know there's going to be no shortage of things to talk about, hash over, debate, and bitchmeme about in the year ahead. One of the most interesting topics I came across that in some ways combines all of the above involves Robert Scoble's post, called Did I harm my blog by FriendFeeding this year? Not only did it open up a flood of discussion on FriendFeed and elsewhere, but in my view is intriguing because it touches on a bunch of themes that bloggers, microbloggers, and social media superfans will be thinking about for some time, including:

• Social media balance – Which social media destinations will bring back the most value on time spent?
• Influence – Is it better to be a big fish on FriendFeed, a "think piecing" blogger competing against the bigs, or something in between?
• Monetization and ownership – Does it "pay" in all senses of the word to spend a great deal of time and passion on sites that you don't own?
• Distributed conversations – How do you best harness ideas and conversations in this new distributed age?

Just some food for thought as we enter the final bend on 2008.

And happy new year everyone!

Read more by Eric Berlin at Online Media Cultist

At the end of the year, it's a tradition for many sites and blogs to pick "best of" lists, offer predictions, show their best posts and the like. At louisgray.com, we're no different. In fact, we're probably worse than most when it comes to liking to sort, use statistics, find trends and display highlights. I thought it'd be fun (at least for me) to do a quick run through the year soon to be completed, looking at how things progressed - the good, bad, interesting, and not so much. Below is a quick summary, somewhat, of how each month went, including the top stories and new companies and people we encountered along the way.

Question is... what's the most common word in this wrap-up? My guess? The word "debuted." See why below.

January

In January, I said I didn't care much for the year's MacWorld Expo, discovered ReadBurner in stealth mode, which led to the introduction of Shared Reader... considered joining Twitter... got in a quick tiff with Mashable... actually joined Twitter... hit the Techmeme leaderboard for the first time (which was short lived)... noted the passing of church president Gordon B. Hinckley... saw the launch of AssetBar, and became part of the Elite Tech News Reddit. And at the end of the month, Rating Burner debuted.

February

February saw Microsoft and Yahoo! start their mating dance, as I admitted rooting for the underdog, but voted for Hillary anyway... saw RSSmeme debut to compete with ReadBurner, the introduction of LinkRiver... I introduced the LouisGray.com logo and revamped the site... and revealed my wife and I were expecting twins. I noted issues with FeedBurner, and saw FriendFeed open up to the public with Series A funding. At the end of the month, I met Chris Brogan, and wasn't so impressed with MyBlogLog's lifestream.

March

In March, we discovered Yokway! incubating in alpha before launch, saw the debut of Mergelab and Shyftr, but in the bad news camp, ReadBurner shut down (temporarily). To welcome new readers, I gave a history of the site... and started highlighting new blogs for the first time. Meanwhile FriendFeed started to take off, even if I said Duncan Riley didn't get it right away. I also managed to smash my laptop at Spring Training. Later in the month, Toluu debuted.

April

In April, we looked at changes on the Techmeme leaderboard... I was not impressed with Favorit... Yuvi put me under the microscope... BlogRize and Socialmedian debuted on back to back days... and we first discussed fractured conversations. Alphatwitter debuted... ReadBurner relaunched... and I made no friends in the blogosphere by ranting against ads. FriendFeedMachine was introduced... I went to Web 2.0 Expo... where I learned about the Profy platform... and then ticked everyone off on Twitter by making up a "Noise Ratio". I later added Disqus comments and discussed my social media consumption workflow.

May

In May, the StatBot launched, but Mergelab closed down while still in beta. I noted Socialmedian's early growth... and Duncan Riley's first week at the Inquisitr.... started the weekly FriendFeed Friday tip series... saw LetsProve start up... and the introduction of FFToGo, which took FriendFeed mobile. I also added Lijit to my blog... and noted who first brought stories to Techmeme. The end of the month saw TweetSmart launch.

June

In June, we talked a lot about comments. Were they conversations or replies... and was FriendFeed stealing them away... I slammed TiVo for having no social media presence... saw FriendBinder debut... our 18 year old beagle passed away... we discussed five stages of early adopter behavior... I praised Disqus... and saw the debuts of Feedly, OneSpot and Loud3r... Sarah and Matthew were born... and I told you my expectations... Browzmi launched... as did NoiseRiver and MioNews, as new interfaces to FriendFeed.

July

By July 1, Sarah came home from the hospital... TweetDeck was introduced... and AssetBar relaunched with FanFlows... we encountered blatant racism online... Ballhype was purchased... and I mocked the title of social media expert. Twitter started limiting API requests... as Gnip went live... Socialmedian gave me an iPhone... Identica rose as an alternative to Twitter as the site found new ways to fail... Cuil was a dud... I joined SmugMug... and Matthew lost his job at CenterNetworks.

August

In August, I told you about a creepy would-be online stalker... California banned driving without a hands-free cell phone... the twins started slowing me down online... Feedheads launched on the Web... I joined ReadBurner as an advisor... YooPlace launched... we discussed why the embargo process was broken... rumors flew the church would buy Facebook... Strands debuted, as did BackType.

September

September saw the introduction of Google Chrome... FriendFeed rolled out lists... i.TV came to the iPhone... the falling stock market started to hit my wallet... Sitemeter laid an egg... I went to BlogWorld Expo... and I thought Chi.mp was a waste of time...

October

In October, I noted Obama's widespread support at tech companies... saw Spokeo give up on Web 2.0... started e-mailing RSS items... forecast the future of social media... and saw FriendFeed launch real-time updates. Guest posts gained momentum... and my kids got embedded in social media early... Twine launched... we discussed Prop 8... as Socialmedian made an election news hub.

November

November brought us instant streaming films via Netflix... Strands went mobile... I started using Wakoopa... Twitter promised (and failed) to open the firehose by Thanksgiving... I said to be a "real friend" to social networking friends... saw the Twitterank controversy... participated in an emerging media panel... watched Glue launch... saw the MotrinMoms issue explode... SocialToo added surveys... I kept losing money... slept next to the iPhone for comfort... and enjoyed new apps for the device.

December

I started off December annoyed at TiVo and Amazon... but still loved the iPhone... talked about Secret Santas and Amazon Wish Lists... PeopleBrowsr debuted... as did Kallow... ESPN.com introduced a beta version... and my wife started a family-oriented blog... Netflix came to my TiVo... BlogRize returned... I picked my top ten 2008 debuts... Twitter kept growing like mad... but last year's predictions sucked... TwitOrFit launched... Steve Jobs bailed from MacWorld... Gawkk opened up... Embargoes flared up again... Socialmedian was acquired... I got a new TiVo XL... promised to get better... Scrapplet debuted as did TechFuga... I even retold the Christmas Story through Twitter...

And... that just about catches you up. So if you're just visiting the site for the first time, started late, or missed a few months, you probably have a pretty good idea of how the year went, what we wrote about, and where we went. All in all, it reminds me of a lot of stories of months past, and services that need a revisit. It also tells me we had a pretty busy year. Should be interesting to see if 2009 is more crazy, or if I burn out. My money is on... "more crazy" - the exception being I don't plan on having two more kids next year. So... did I leave anything out?