When we first started working on Hiitch our focus was mainly on on-line dating. However, as we progressed, we realized that Hiitch was becoming more and more like a dedicated and secure social networking software than merely an on-line dating tool. We like to see ourselves as still in the process of allowing our users discover for themselves what Hiitch really is to them. In this article I would like to discuss a few examples of how you can make use of Hiitch for your own social networking purposes. Hiitch has many features that can help you deal with your everyday social networking needs that cannot be found in today’s instant messaging (IM) culture. Before I go on, I like to highlight the fact that Hiitch is not and never will be an IM software. IM is only a supported feature in Hiitch and not what it is about. Hiitch is about discovering new people on-line and providing a common ground to communicate and share yourself with others. OK lets proceed with the scenarios that Hiitch can be of use to you.

Scenario One: Work

You have a small company or team that you work with. Everyone is usually hard at work on their own desk all the time. Some of them are physically not in the office most of the time. You would like to setup a dedicated network with them so that you can share things on-line and communicate more simply together at real time. You thought about using MySpace, Facebook and etc to help you tie everyone together but you hate the idea of checking your web browser all the time for new information. You are also skeptical about all the negative publicity about security and etc from these service providers. You feel that the common IM software like MSN live, Yahoo messenger, and etc just isn’t cut out for your social networking needs. This is where Hiitch can help you.

Hiitch sits nicely on your system tray and notifies you when items of your interests are received. Your contact comes on-line, you are notified (only if you want to). Someone in the team sends you an urgent file, you get notified and that file remains available for you always at anytime and anywhere until you choose to remove it yourself. If you are offline, messages send to you are kept for you until you come on-line. You can even send quick messages to your teammates without disturbing them during their work through your contact list. Your on-line status on Hiitch will help maintain your intentions to others in the network. So, if you set ‘do not disturb’, then no one can IM you directly. If you set yourself to ‘private’ then only your contacts will see you as on-line and etc. A new team member comes aboard and you are interested to get to know him/her, you can simply browse their profile card and read more about them, browse their photographs and etc. You can post news about company events or instructions on the community interface and notify your team as soon as you post them. If you keep them private, only your teammates in your contact list will be able to read them. You can also get others outside your team involved when you require feedback on ideas, get advice from others or want to do a community survey. You can also setup appointments with your teammate in another country without worrying about time zone conversions, Hiitch does it for you automatically and notifies both of you when the appointment is due.

Scenario Two: Play

Have you ever considered your own secure private social network? You are old enough to be responsible for yourself. You want to meet new people and get others to notice you. However, you don’t want to look desperate and try those on-line match making sites like eHarmony, Match and etc. You like your social life to pick up but you want to do that at your own time and have it all in your own control. You would also like to keep your existing friends and family as part of your private social network. This is where Hiitch can also help you.

Hiitch allows you to setup your own prospect criteria and helps you find them automatically. You just need to make sure you put in the right information about yourself and the kind of people you are looking for and leave the rest to Hiitch. When Hiitch finds people that you may be interested in, you get notified about them. You can then choose to view their profile immediately or bookmark them for later browsing. If the person that you have bookmarked has also done like wise, then Hiitch will notify both sides to encourage you to get to know each other better. Hiitch helps you keep track on the interactivity with others on your contact list. When you see that your interactivity with your best friend is getting low, you can send him/her gifts to brighten his/her day or just simply message or IM to keep in touch. Hiitch is not just about serious social networking. You can also search for other people manually and browse their profiles and pictures at your own time. You can even vote for pictures that you think are cool or just purely interesting if you like them. If you find a handsome man or babe, give them the compliment by voting for their pictures. You can also publicize about yourself by writing articles for the Hiitch community at your own spare time to share your views and ideas with others. Who knows, may be you might just become the most popular person within our community.

Hiitch is made for you to reach out to others and also for others to reach out to you simply and easily! There is much you can discover with Hiitch. Try it for yourself today by signing up for our private invitation into Hiitch.

If you are a social networker like me, I’m sure you have seen plenty of them. Those profile, pictures and testimonials, they are just too good to be true. Now I always find it amusing when I come across such profiles because inevitably it always their picture that gave away their bogus identity. Personally I know friends who operate under the cover of a fake identity without any malicious intent. I have even heard of social networking sites creating such account for the purpose of driving up traffic. But why fake it? Its not going to add value the community, it will only destroy the credibility of a real community. I think its wrong to deceive user with fake identity and by the way if you really must use someone else picture, please kindly put a disclaimer note or give credit to the owner of the picture.

Ok now I’m going to use these picture below on my gallery as my friends, if you know anyone of them please let me know. I will contact them and give credit to them.

KitKat spot from Netherlands.

Yahoo has announced the launch of their latest round of desktop widget, Yahoo Widgets 4. Now I’m not a big fan of yahoo but this improved version has got alot interesting features that it’s hard to ignore. Yahoo claimed to have an amazing 4,000 widgets for you to choose, ranging from news feeds to games to utilities tools (yes they have anti-virus widgets too).

Yahoo! Widgets or Konfabulator is a collapsible docking palette that allows you to dock to any side of your OS. The docking interface is sleek and gorgeous to look at with all the added widgets arranged nicely in a tile like manner. If you find the dock obtrusive, you can even close it and it will sit on your system tray. I love system tray application simply because it doesn’t clutter up my taskbar area. For starter, I recommend getting the Yahoo! Widget Gallery before anything else. It allows you to search and download additional widgets faster without the need to open a web browser.

Desktop widget, not to be confused with web widget which lives inside a browser and completely rely on browser technologies is coming back in a big way. Yahoo isn’t the only one offering desktop widgets, just few days ago Yourminis well-known for their web widgets also roll out its own desktop version built on Apollo platform. The introduction of Apollo which allows application to run across all platform will definitely see more desktop widgets been developed.

The strength of desktop widget lies in their ability to mashup content from various sources. It is able to pull content out of the browser and integrating it into your desktop. As such, desktop widget is often been compare to a web browser in terms of functionality and accessibility. Desktop widget is also great for offline use with tools that is able to tap into your local reasources. Despite the many advantages, it seems that right now desktop widget only appeals to the tech-savvy user. I believed it will take some time before it is been embraced by the mainstream crowd.

Why being a geek is cool…