Yesterday I posted a question on Twitter asking “what would you like to read about…” the most popular reply was “what social media tools do I use?” So I thought I’d make Friday’s blog posts a regular feature ‘One for your toolbox’. So, every Friday I’ll review online web based tools and ones that need downloading to your preferred computer system – I’ll cover both Mac and PC.
This weeks ‘One for your toolbox‘ post is on the website Ping.fm
So what is Ping?
In a nutshell…:
Ping.fm was created for the sole purpose of making it as easy as possible to share your posts with the world.” Now you don’t have to fumble around the web in order to post anymore, you can just post once from wherever you want, and be done with it
It’s an amazing online application that let’s you update your status, blogs, micro-blogs (e.g. twitter, yammer, identica) all from one place!
Registration is quick and easy: enter your email address and password and your in – no verification email is sent. After you’ve created your account, The first thing you’ll need to setup your Dashboard, which can take a little bit of time – depending on how many platforms you’re registered on and errr how quickly you type 
But as a guide, I’m registered with 25 different platforms that took about 45 minutes to set up in total – but one of the best 45 minutes I’ve ever spent online 
Dashboard Setup
List of networks that can be added to your Ping Dashboard
There are currently (29/1/2010) 45 different platforms that you can add to your Dashboard and I recommend before you start clicking the add network buttons to first look through the list and gather all the login details for each of the accounts that you want to add. If you see network in the list that your not currently register on, you can click on the ‘Add Network’ and then you get an opportunity to create a new account on that platform from within Ping – no jumping out of the site and then having to come back again
Adding a platform to your ping Dashboard couldn’t be simpler, just click the ‘Add Network’ and the next screen asks you for your login details for that network and select via the ‘Use For: tick boxes’ whether this network is a Status, Blog, Micro-Blog (NOTE: you can apply all 3 to a network, but if you do, when you send out your message you’ll get 3 posts in your stream of the same post and so will the people your connected to!)
Adding twitter to your Ping Dashboard
Then keep repeating that process for each of the networks you want to add – hence why I said gather all your login details beforehand
When you’ve finished, click the 
link to see your dashboard. You’ll see the list of all the networks you’ve added on the left hand side and a text entry box on the right. Write your post and select where you want to Ping to from the drop down menu.
How to post a message to your networks from your Ping Dashboard
Select which of the options to Ping
If you have any questions relating to posting, there’s an extensive Ping wiki.
But I don’t Ping from within Ping.fm – well not directly anyway. I Ping either from my own blog using the Sociable Wordpress plugin or via the iPhone app ‘QuickPing‘
Sociable Wordpress Plugin
When you’ve written your post, and you want to let people know about it,
click on the 
and all the post information is pre-filled in for you
Ping from your website using the ping bookmarklet using Sociable
QuickPing iPhone app
The QuickPing iPhone app is great – especially if you’re away from your ‘base’ and need to get a message out and costs only 59p! Well worth it
Screen shot of QuickPing iPhone app
Online applications like Ping.fm really help you make the most effective use of your time – which I think is something we all need.
Disclaimer: Just thought it was worth mentioning that I am in no way associated with ping.fm, QuickPing or Scoiable
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