You might have heard of my friend and blogging consultant, Chris Garrett. He wrote the Problogger book with Darren Rowse.

Well he has a new ebook out that tells you everything you need to know to get quality authority links and a boost in traffic, all through a quick and easy approach to guest blogging.

Right now he is offering it for the crazy low introductory price of only $7! This price is sure to go up within days as the reviews and testimonials start to pour in, so make sure you grab your copy and check out all the bonuses fast.

Check it out here: Guest Posting Workbook

Where indeed? This is the title of  new e-book by Matthew Cornell that is a must-read. Cornell is a former NASA engineer and productivity expert (not kidding, he teaches productivity for a living!) and one of my mentors when I first started researching productivity methods and practices over three years ago.

Now he has taken the best practices of his business model and put them into an e-book that anybody should be able to understand and apply to their own life and work.

Productivity Practices Broken Down into Component Parts

Cornell addresses some of the most common problems that people have with getting their work done so that they can go live their lives:

• The importance of daily planning
• Being flexible with your schedule and accepting of change
• Be prepared to learn about your own strengths and weaknesses

One of my favorite parts of the book is at the end where he outlines a process for creating and monitoring experiments that you can use to improve your productivity and workflow practices:

Productivity Experiments

• How much time do I really have each day?
• How to analyze your interruptions
• Discover where you really spend your time
• Learn to estimate how long tasks and projects will take

All-in-all, this ebook is definitely worth the $27 dollar cover price, if it can save you even one hour per day, every day, it’ll pay for itself in short order!

You can get an immediate download (PDF) here: Where the !@#% did my day go? or, bundle it with his other e-book “You did what?” and save $5. Click here to view more details

[Editor's note to the FTC: I did receive access to this product for free in exchange for a review, no other compensation or expectation of a positive review was expressed or implied.]

On 22 December 2008 I compiled a list of predictions for the Social Media Space, and added some of my own. Here is the original post in its entirety:

It is that time of year again, time for prognosticating about the future. Roger Harris at Twitterthoughts has compiled his list of trends to look for, here I share the first five:

Here are my predictions for 10 social media trends during 2009. Of course, some of these will be wrong. I’ll miss others. But from a general perspective, it’s clear that social media is going to be changing fast. It’ll remain a moving target for marketers, yet an exciting technology for developers and users.

So here are my picks. What are yours?

1. Twitter will be more fully integrated with mainstream social networks (MySpace, Facebook, etc.)
2. More Fortune 500 businesses will set up Twitter accounts and C-level blogs
3. More social networking consolidation tools for one-stop profile and posting management will emerge
4. Marketers will explore novel approaches to ad strategies on social networks
5. Advertisers will implement improved tools and metrics to gauge the ROI of social media ad spend

Click the link above to see the whole list.

Peter Kim has assembled a resource of Social Media predictions as well. It includes:

Fourteen great minds on social media have shared thoughts on what 2009 may have in store for us.  Here’s some of what they’re thinking:

• “Although it is now cheaper to launch an initiative leveraging Web 2.0 technology – it requires qualified and passionate people to make them successful.” – David Armano
• “You may not always start the year as a leader, but you can certainly finish it that way.” – Rohit Bhargava
• “Intimacy touches emotion; emotion powers conversation.” – Pete Blackshaw
• “Doors are going to close all over the social web. Why? Because the money didn’t come the way people thought it would.” – Chris Brogan

You can download a PDF of this collection at Being Peter Kim.

I agree 100% that the field of Social Media communication is going to continue its rapid pace of change. In fact, I believe that the pace of change will actually slow the adoption and standardization of Social Media tools. In addition, Chris Brogan hits the nail on the head with his (somewhat cynical, but ultimately practical) insight on the ROI.

Here are a few of my own predictions:

1. As creative users work out the kinks and discover the possibilities of various applications (witness the explosion of Twitter-related tools!) new applications will arrive on the scene that answer calls for needs that have not yet been addressed.
2. Competition for market share between the iPhone and the Android will drive a new wave of mobile-based applications.
3. These mobile applications will drive the new look of the internet, blurring the line between online-personas and real-life persons. And make a lot more people start using the expression “Web 3.0″.
4. We will see a rash of failed attempts at Social Media Marketing by large corporations that still believe in two things:
   • pushing “Marketing Department-approved” content through their own pipes
   • controlling Brands through keeping their communities inside a walled garden
5. Authenticity and Transparency will become the watchwords of the Social Media community, and we will point to the aforementioned failures as examples of what not to do.
6. The “Little Brother” effect: [Def: You are very likely to be recorded in the background of someone's camera. All the time. And these recordings get posted to the internet for all to see.] The definition of “Privacy” will continue to evolve as the price of digital storage approaches zero and connection bandwidth becomes more ubiquitous. The convergence of these two trends will create the opportunity for millions of people to create their own “TV Networks”, narrow-casting their daily activities 24/7.

What say you? What do you think that the future holds for the Social Media Space? Please share in the comments.

Any thoughts on how these predictions held up? In my next post in this series we will look at some predictions and trends for 2010.