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.

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.

If you’ve ever been roped into coordinating an event or a business meeting, then you know that even the smallest change can lead to a logistical nightmare. Locations change, times get pushed back, and unless you plan on calling everyone on your list (or have a small minion at your disposal), you need a way to kill 1000 birds with one stone.

Let Tatango do the gruntwork for you. Tatango is a text and voicemail service that lets you send mass messages to members of a designated group (i.e. it’s the text message / voicemail equivalent of an email blast). Tatango is an easy service to use and free for both the message sender and recipients. Check out this short demo:

To send a Tatango mass message, you will need to register with the service and provide your cell phone number and an email address (for account purposes). Once your account is confirmed, you can start creating groups, adding members by hand or sending them invites through the Tatango platform. There’s no limit on the number of groups or the number of people within the group, so you can create highly targeted lists of individuals. When you’re ready to create a message, prompt Tatango to “record message” and the service will actually call you and guide you through the process. Group members receive a text message alert that tells them you have sent them a voice message. It’s up to them when they listen, so unlike the annoying pre-recorded phone spammer, recipients simply text “CALL” back to the service and voila!, your message awaits.

Recipients can reply to your message and responses are sent directly to your phone or to your Tatango account.

Ever get the sneaking suspicion someone is talking about you (or your products)? An influx of social media sites and applications has turned the world wide web into a high school hallway – everyone’s talking, but you’re not privy to the details. What-ev-er.

That’s where Social Mention comes in. It’s a social media search engine that monitors conversations across multiple sources, including Google blog search, Twitter, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Digg, and YouTube. Results are aggregated and categorized by social media type – blogs, micro-blogs, comment sections, bookmarking services, news, and more.

Using and navigating the Social Mention search engine is second nature. That’s because it was built on Yahoo BOSS, the open search API we discussed in Move over Springsteen. Social Mention even throws in the most popular and au courant conversations in a “Hot Conversations” section, so you can see what’s really got the internet buzzing.

The reality is, you can’t sit in chat rooms or roam social sites all day, monitoring your brand’s public perception. Even Google can’t return the real-time results you need to keep your finger on the pulse. It takes less than 5 seconds to search for your product or company on Social Mention and see what all the gossip is about.

Getting into the C-suite usually requires an invitation. Or maybe buying an expensive ad in a business magazine.

Now you can target decision makers by company size, job function, industry, and more by using LinkedIn DirectAds. If you don’t know, LinkedIn is the premier professional social network, with over 25 million users, who use the network daily to build business contacts and industry presence. LinkedIn has opened its doors to advertisers, provided they are a member of the LinkedIn community. While anyone can join (and it’s free), potential advertisers must have a legitimate profile and a minimum number of connections (the equivalent of friends). LinkedIn does this to protect the integrity of the network and keep spammers at bay.

At this time, LinkedIn only offers text display advertising, but the price is right and the location is unbeatable. Typically, ads go for $25 for a 30-day run, with minimal upcharges for increased impressions or audience targeting. Ads are placed on a CPM basis (no cost per click at this time). So if you want to specifically reach senior marketing executives or salespeople in a specific geography, you can for a few extra bucks. Ads appear above the fold on the member’s profile page or the LinkedIn homepage, displaying your text content, url, and a link to the advertiser’s LinkedIn profile.

Is your company hesitant to embrace social networking? Maybe you need a light version.

Such is the case with Livebar, the latest offering from white label, social networking solution, Liveworld. Livebar lets you run a “mini social network” on top of your existing website. Imagine the functionality of Facebook or Twitter – chat, forums, blog posts, short format messaging – but running in tandem with your website content – no redirects necessary.

Livebar hibernates on your site until a user activates it – appearing as a translucent box at the bottom of the screen. Check out the screenshots of Tulane University’s Livebar which will go live at the end of this month. Users can engage each other in conversation, “soapbox” (the equivalent of blog posts), or send out a “shout” (similar to Twitter tweets, maximum of 140 characters). Conversations are contextually-relevant to the page visitors are on – i.e. Livebar knows where you are and only serves up conversations about that page.

There is no pricey web design or development costs associated – Livebar runs on a single line of JavaScript and can be deployed within minutes. So if you aren’t ready to jump into the deep end, investing in a small-scale social networking app like Livebar is an easy way to create a community experience for your company or brand.

Sometimes the standard car colors just won’t work. That’s when you make the big decision to pimp your ride. Adding customization can also be a great way to build or advance your business.

If you want to customize or build a search service for your customers, check out Yahoo! Search BOSS (short for Build your own Search Service). It lets third-party developers build new search products by utilizing the Yahoo search API. Basically, the same technology that powers the 2nd most powerful search engine is at your disposal. Create a new search application or your own mashup using existing technologies (like Yahoo Search & Google Maps). You’re only limited by your creativity and the skills of your web team (or just let us know if you need help).

The latest BOSS release includes web, news, image search, and spelling suggestions from the Yahoo search engine, but you can index and integrate your own data, content, and technology in a custom solution. The BOSS API is open source (ergo, free) and unlike previous releases and competitors, it includes:

• Unlimited queries
• No restrictions on presentation
• Reordering
• Product co-branding (Yahoo search content + your proprietary content)

Building and launching your own search service is no easy feat and requires an understanding of programming languages (i.e. you really need to know what you are doing). If you’ve ever wanted to put your face or brand on a search service, this is an opportunity to put your hands on the technology that powers it.

We’re fans of free search tools, especially when the biggest search engine in the world offers their wealth of knowledge (and raw data) to us so willingly. We talked about Google Trends in Popularity Contest, and now there is Google Insights for Search.

Google Insights for Search is exactly what it sounds like. Google is giving the public a glimpse of Google search volume and patterns by specific term(s). Results can be filtered by category, region, or time frame, and as a bonus, Google throws in the top searches related to your term(s) and the “rising searches” (searches that have shown the most improvement by percentage). Just about anything is fair game, provided the search term is popular enough for inclusion.

Let say I want to chart the popularity of Web 2.0 technologies for direction in future feed growth! articles. Specifically, I want to see how well “RSS” feeds are doing when compared to “widgets“. Insights graphs search results for both terms and provides headline suggestions (popular new stories) that correspond with search volume spikes. I can see that there is a dominant interest in RSS in Japan, and that “Google Reader” is enjoying a 920% rise in search popularity.

Insights is a public offering (and quite fun to play with), but Google is no fool. This is a tool aimed at marketers and advertisers. Search patterns drive many marketing decisions, from the the language used to describe a product or service to the time of year it’s released. All the information provided by Insights for Search can be used in your personal paid search strategy. The top related searches and rising searches may provide new direction in an already saturated market.

There are several analytics services on the market to help you gauge your web site’s traffic and overall popularity. But if all you really want to know is how you are faring against your biggest competitors, there’s a new, but very big kid on the block.

Google Trends for websites is essentially a tool for showing how popular your website is. It generates a snapshot of site traffic and compares results with (up to 4) other sites. Instantly see:

• daily unique visitors (with graph)

• where they are located

• what other sites they have visited

• what they are searching for (by terms)

Google Trends is free and available to Google accounts holders (which is also free). See if your big competitor offline is really your biggest competitor online by comparing the number of unique visitors. Find out what search terms your visitors are typing beside your brand name, then reevaluate your SEM strategy. You can even identify stealth competitors by seeing what other sites your visitors flock to.

So whether you’re looking for competitive intelligence or just plain curious, check out Google Trends for websites and see where your site stands.

Every market has its “lighthouse customers” – those that are going to be out ahead of all of the others (and ideally the ones that will show everyone else the way). The challenge – how do you find them?

One easy way is to submit your product to ThisNext. It’s a community of people who are such enthusiastic shoppers that they want to tell the world about their latest purchase – ranging from what’s a good baby gift to where should you buy tires. The site lets its users engage in shopcasting – a combination of shopping and broadcasting.

In any case, if you are looking to introduce your product to potential buyers, you can submit your product to the site and they will consider sharing it with their mavens (their most enthusiastic shoppers and reviewers).

This is an easy way to engage in some targeted sampling that may help give your new product a little more oomph in the marketplace.

Despite the appeal of the web, not everyone spends every waking moment in front of a screen. Sometimes your customers are just whipping up something in the kitchen. So, the important question is … how do you reach them when they seem to be beyond reach?

Enter the wireless refrigerator magnet-widget offered by Coolshrank. It’s just what it sounds like – the web enabled version of everyone’s favorite – the refrigerator magnet. However, now that the old refrigerator magnet is wireless and able to pull in feeds (and your advertising), what’s old is new again. Consumers are able to configure their Coolshrank widgets with a web-based administrators tools. Advertisers, on the other hand, can target Coolshrank users with text, display, and MP3 ads. Don’t you think it would be helpful to target refrigerators in certain zip codes or IP address zones.

The next time your target consumer opens the refrigerator door, you can actually ask the question out loud … got milk? Brands like Heineken, Land o’Lakes, and Absolut have climbed on board to exhort consumers right at the point of consumption. Don’t you think that your consumer brands deserve the same level of attention?

Many people have just given up trying to guess correct domain names for companies or brands. They’ve gotten to the point where they just type everything into the search bar first, then go from there. This behavior might be something you can capitalize on if you have a domain name that’s not just perfect for your brand or company.

Try advertising your search terms, in addition to your domain. For example, local Atlanta running store Phidippides has a very difficult domain name – it’s nearly impossible to spell. In case you were wondering, the company was named after the original marathon runner. While the brand name has authenticity in spades, what makes it tough is the fact that even spelling champions hesitate before all of those p’s and d’s. In addition to using its domain name, Phidippides should tell customers and prospects that they can find their website by simply Googling “running shoes atlanta.”

Because the company comes up as the first result in a Google search, it’s a great way to reinforce that they are indeed the definitive leader in running shoes and apparel. And, even better, by driving more people to their site with search, they’ll only reinforce their number 1 position. Oh, and of course, they will be able to stop worrying about the fact that no one can spell their name.