Road warriors, listen up. When it comes to making sales calls, you only get one shot to make a good impression. This means being punctual and having your schtick together - flight times, rental car and hotel confirmations, directions, and more. We all know what it’s like when things go awry.

Let a service like TripIt help you with the details. TripIt streamlines all your travel plans into a single web-based itinerary. Simply forward your electronic travel confirmations to plans@tripit.com - TripIt supports confirmations from over 250 major travel services, including airlines (domestic & international), hotel chains, train lines, travel agencies (AMEX, BCD, & Carlson Wagonlit), and travel sites like Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity. TripIt builds your itinerary as you go and even throws in helpful tidbits like local weather, driving directions, and travel guides. You can also send Tripit your business appointments, and for those who like to wine and dine their clients, restaurant reservations and event tickets.

Check out this sample TripIt itinerary:

What’s great about this service is you can access your travel plans from any computer or mobile device. The TripIt mobile interface is compatible with Apple iPhone, Palm Treo, Blackberry, and any cell phone with a web browser. You can even email basic commands like “get hotel” and the “TripIt To Me” service will send you details back.

By now, you are aware that there are several tools to help you gather and easily digest content across your favorite sites and blogs. But if the news source is secondary to the topic you are interested in, a self-populated RSS reader may not be the best solution.

Try Addict-o-matic instead. Addict-o-matic aggregates feeds from the biggest sites but only displays content relevant to the terms you supply. For example, if you only want to see news articles and blog posts pertaining to the Lizzer bookmarklet tool (heralded as a “godsend” by Mashable), Addict-o-matic does all the leg work for you. Results come back within seconds and are neatly displayed in mini RSS feed boxes.

Addict-o-matic pulls content from Google, Yahoo, Technorati, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Tweetscan, Delicious, and many more. However, if that’s too much of a good thing, Addict-o-matic lets you customize your results page.  In our example, we’re not concerned with Lizzer results on YouTube. Simply click on the x in right hand corner of the YouTube box, and that feed is deleted from the page. Or, drag and drop boxes to change their ordering on the page.  What’s really cool is with every modification you make, your url changes, so if you bookmark your Addict-o-matic page, those changes will remain the same.

Addict-o-matic is a great little tool for keeping tabs on people, products, brands, and just about anything else you can think of. You need only check back on your bookmarked page to see real-time results.

Thanks to a handful of apps, like Google Alerts (see our note entitled Danger, Will Robinson), you can keep tabs on any person, product, or conversation on the web. Still, you have to take the good with the bad with these services - the bad being unfiltered results that may have no bearing on the subject you are monitoring.

You might want to consider a service called Yotify. Like Google Alerts, Yotify tracks keywords across multiply sites; unlike Google Alerts, Yotify lets you refine your search criteria by location, price, or service. Yotify calls these searches “scouts”. For example, you can track apartments or job listings on Craigslist, put out an APB on a product you want to snag in a set price range, or just monitor your name or brand across a specific site (FoxNews.com, Reuters, USAToday, and more).

Yotify scouts are free and simple to set-up. Choose your topic - Shopping, Travel, Classifieds, News & Blogs, etc, - choose your media outlet (you can always default on all sites), enter your keywords, then specify how long you want the scout to last and how often you want to be notified of results. Yotify is a free service, though you do have to create an account to gain access to all site functionality.

There is only so much marketing can do to “sell” a product or service. Often, it comes down to the speed and acuity of your sales force to close the deal.

That’s where a service like EchoSign comes in handy. EchoSign is a web-based, signature workflow solution, which is really a fancy way of saying you can execute contracts digitally (and fast). EchoSign is part e-fax, part document repository, letting you send, sign, track, and store sales documents in a single system.

To get started, upload an electronic copy of your document to EchoSign. EchoSign supports Microsoft .doc & .xls, as well as text and PDF files. Then, enter the email address of the recipient(s) and click send. When your document arrives, they can e-sign instantly or print, sign, and fax back. EchoSign supplies a free fax number and special coversheet with your document. This coversheet contains a barcode, which EcoSign uses to route and store the document when it comes back to their system. When all parties have signed, EchoSign automatically sends a PDF copy to you, the signee, and your designated contact list (e.g. you may want to send a copy to the legal department or your assistant). The beauty of the system is you can always see the status of any document or quickly pull up a contract that has been executed and archived.

EchoSign offers free accounts for the occasional user and $29.95/month for unlimited sending and signing. However, the true value here is removing the obstacles that stand between you and that signature. The longer a contract lingers, the less chance you have of making the sale.

While it might be nice to be the first to get your name as a username (johnsmith@gmail.com), don’t forget that you should be worried about doing the same for your brand. Question is, how can you know where your brand is still available (and importantly, where it has already been snagged as a username by someone else).

Consider using UserNameCheck.com. The name says it all- this service checks the availability of your username on the most popular and socially relevant web sites. Currently at 68 sites (and counting), UserNameCheck.com includes heavy hitters like:

• Digg
• Delicious
• StumbleUpon
• Blogger
• LinkedIn
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Disqus
• Flickr
• YouTube

UserNameCheck works by pinging the individual sites and requesting the username you enter in the search field. If “no user name” exists, the site reports back as so. Vice versa if your name is already taken. Results are displayed within seconds, providing a quick and easy solution for securing your online identity.

The idea here is to protect your brand, because you’ve worked hard to establish it. And, it doesn’t get any easier than this.

RSS feeds are excellent tools for content distribution, but they haven’t been adopted by the masses. Most customers still prefer to get their updates and promotions via an email newsletter.

Thanks to MailChimp’s RSS to Email service, modern day bloggers and old-fashioned email lovers can meet in the middle. The service automatically sends out an email campaign when you update your blog content. And while RSS to email is not a new concept (we discussed such a service in Really Hot Mail), MailChimp gives your more control over the design and delivery of your campaign:

• Style your email template so that it mirrors the look and feel of your web site. Or, just use the templates they have on hand. Either way, MailChimp pulls your RSS content and repackages it in a nice, neat email format.
• Take advantage of MailChimp’s advanced merge tagging system, which lets you target customers by geography and tailor the content they receive - a handy feature if you want to integrate advertising or promotions for a specific area.
• Manage your subscriptions and track who opens your email and clicks on links. You can even integrate Google Analytics!

MailChimp charges based on the size of your mailing list. Bottom line, if you’re a business who utilizes a blog to communicate with your customers- and you factor in the convenience of the platform, the design controls, and the value you get with the tracking and analytics - MailChimp might be a good investment, especially if it means that you can stop going through the regular hassle of creating a standalone HTML newsletter.

It’s becoming more and more common to use instant messaging and social media, like Facebook and Twitter, to connect with clients and customers. Problem is, if you rely on less-than-traditional methods of communication, what happens to business when you go offline?

Stay connected to all your buddies with Fring. Fring is an all-in-one mobile application that combines your contact lists from your phone, email, chat, and social networking platforms. With Fring, you can make phone calls, engage in live chat, transfer files, or just see who is online. Bonus -if you have a Skype or any other VoIP account, you can use Fring to make phone calls to both cell and landline numbers, without using any of your phone minutes.

Fring is a free - and simple - download for most major phone brands, and iPhone users can download Fring from the App Store. The Fring application is not computer dependent and doesn’t require any additional hardware to run. You do, however, need an internet-supported mobile phone with a data package and WiFi access.

Check out the Fring team (an interesting bunch) as they play with the application on the iPhone:

Twitter is a star on the social scene, but few advertisers have been able to capitalize on its success. The trick here- and with all advertising - is finding a way to reach your target audience, without crashing the party.

A service called Magpie may have found the way. MagPie is an unaffiliated Twitter ad network, where Twitter users lease out their “tweets” as advertising vehicles. Here’s how it works- advertisers create a simple text-based message, then bid on keywords associated with their campaign. If we were trying to drum up readership for feed growth! - we know, feed growth! sells itself, but bare with us for the example - we might bid on keywords like “digital marketing” or “social media”. The MagPie network matches Twitter users to our ad, based on the the topics they frequently Twitter on. So someone like Guy Kawasaki would be pay dirt for our campaign, as his Twitter followers number in the thousands.

The highest keyword bidder wins out, and that ad goes out as a tweet from the Twitter user, blending in with their tweet stream. The twitterer decides how frequently ads appear in their tweet stream - 1 ad for every 5 tweets is the default. Payout is based on the number of Twitter followers they have and the “hotness” (a.k.a. popularity) of the topic. Be a MagPie relies on the Twitter users in their network to keep quality control. In other words, don’t over-tweet your followers with ads to get a bigger payout from MagPie. You may lose followers and decrease your worth to advertisers.

Ready to make a leap beyond a simple web version of your old resumé?

LinkedIn is taking a cue from its younger, hipper, and definitely, more social cousin, Facebook. Now you can add applications to your LinkedIn profile (or homepage or both).

Until now, the professional social network functioned more as an interactive business card - a way to find people, opportunities, and better jobs. The new suite of applications are designed to enhance your ability to communicate and collaborate with your LinkedIn connections. In other words, these are sales tools in disguise.

Consider the insight you could gain (or on the flip side, how you could better market yourself) with one or more of the following:

• Reading List by Amazon - Share books you’ve read or find out what books you should be reading.
• WordPress - Sync your blog and your LinkedIn profile. Let one sell the other.
• Box.net Files & Huddle Workspaces - Compact project collaboration tools that make it easy to work with your colleagues.
• Company Buzz - Follow Twitter activity associated with your company. Don’t Twitter? Your naysayers (or praisers) might, and that’s reason enough. Remember What’s on Tweety’s mind?
• SlideShare & Google Presentation - Two great presentation options here. Upload existing PowerPoint docs and embed in your profile.
• My Travel - Update your profile with travel plans or see who’s coming into town.

This is just the beta rollout, so expect more LinkedIn applications in the future.

As we discussed in Moe’s Tavern, if you’ve got an RSS feed, you can create a mobile version of a web site or blog. But why stop with a mere site?

AppLoop is a web-based tool that takes that same RSS feed and converts it into a brandable iPhone application . . . for free! Why an application? Well, for one, applications store data locally, so content is easily accessible, regardless of your internet connection. More importantly, mobile apps are a hot commodity - your application could generate revenue. Most iPhone users gladly pay $1-$5 for their applications. While you have the option of putting a price tag on your content, the ability to distribute your application through iTunes or the iPhone web app store elevates your blog or web site to whole new level.

Currently, AppLoop requires publishers to submit their site for approval before you can generate your application - a minor formality. But once you are approved, it takes only a couple of minutes to setup your iPhone application. The system will ask for your URL and email, as well as icons, logos, and color schemes to customize your application. When finished, AppLoop submits your application to Apple for final approval. Check out this demo to see how easy the process is:

iPhone Application Generator Demo from AppLoop on Vimeo.

Bottom line, if you’re less than technically inclined but want to make it easy for your iPhone-using customers to stay connected with you, here’s an easy way to create and distribute an iPhone app. Or, if you think your customers will pay for your information, here’s a great process and platform for generating some incremental revenue.

While the web rules, there’s still room to play on the desktop.

One example is Twhirl - a social software client that lets Twitter users take their conversations out of the browser and onto the desktop. Built on the Adobe Air platform, Twhirl functions like your IM chat client but gives you all the capabilities and features of the Twitter platform - you can tweet, receive other tweets, look up user profiles, or cross post to other social platforms like Pownce and Jaiku.

Twhirl is a free software, compatible with both Mac OSX and Windows systems. You will need to download Adobe Air, a development tool and environment that lets you utilize web technologies, like XHTML/CSS and Flash, in desktop software. It too is a free download.

Need to create a display ad but not a wizard with Photoshop (despite the online version we described in Don’t we all love to shop?)

Google’s Display Ad Builder may be perfect for you. This ad creation tool is the latest addition to the Google Adwords family, and of course, it is free of charge. Display Ad Builder lets you choose from 40 professionally designed templates and gives you step-by-step instruction on how to customize your display ad with text, images, logos, and color treatments. Google automatically generates multiple versions of your ad to fit all the standard sizes on the Google Content Network; you choose what works best and where it should go. Check out this demo to see how easy the process is:

To get started, login to your Adwords account (don’t have one? You should, it’s free) and choose the Campaign Management tool. You can create a keyword-targeted display ad, where Google shows your ad to customers based on the content they view, or cherry pick the sites where you want your ad to be served. Next, use the Display Ad Builder (found under Ad Variations) to design and brand your advertisement. When you’re finished, specify your ad model, either Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per Impression (CPM), and publish.

Pretty easy, huh? You can monitor how you ad is selling across the Google Content Network with their automatic performance metrics that show clicks, impressions, costs, and conversions.