Suzanne Morrow's blog

When it comes to telephone interviews you'd think that something as simple as talking on the phone would be easy but with a lack of visual signals and having to rely just on auditory feedback it's difficult to stay focussed. They can be tricky things.

We've put together a few pointers to get you in the right frame of mind before taking that career-changing call:

1. First off it would be helpful to record a mock interview so you can detect any little niggling things that could work against you. You'll be able to hear any "ums", "uhs" "ehs" that you might not realise you're doing.

Google's One Pass hurriedly graduated yesterday from University in Berlin hot on the heels of the announcement of Apple's subscription service.

The online content payment platform is available to publishers in the UK, US, Canada, France, Italy, Germany and Spain. The subscription billing application will be making its way onto smart phones, tablets and computers in the UK, mainland Europe and the States now.

How it works?

Readers who purchase content from a One Pass publisher can access their content on tablets, smart phones and websites after signing in with their Gmail email and password.

Founded by ex University College London student Rich Martel, Floxx, "dating" social network Floxx is hitting the headlines. In its first day online the site managed to attract a whopping 6,000 visitors and, over the following few days, over 1,000 posts.

Pretty impressive but could it be the next Facebook?

Floxx officially went live on Jan 10th this year but quietly sneaked online a few days before that on the 3rd. Like its old incarnation Fit Finder, Floxx is aimed at students; letting them post messages online, on a public platform, about an attractive stranger who has caught their eye.

Cyber Monday is traditionally THE day for cyber sales. The Monday after Thanksgiving is usually an online shopping free for all but this year the day beat the lot of for the number of online sales. Are things looking up or is it just a sign of online promotions and discounts doing the trick?

According to the latest figures from ComScore, online sales were up 16% on last year. The purchases taking place during those 24 hours generated a massive one billion dollars - for the first time in history and the greatest ever spent online in one day. At the same time, holiday spending increased by 13% over the same period in 2009.

With their most recent development Facebook will be bringing together Facebook chat, email and SMS into one location for users: Facebook Messaging.

Facebook released their unified social inbox just two days ago. Facebook messages will now be aggregated together, including emails and every Facebook user will be able to get a @facebook.com email ID.

Researchers have discovered that tweets can predict the outcome of the stock market, with an accuracy of around 90%.

Johan Bollen, associate professor of informatics at America’s Indiana University discovered the correlation between the Dow Jones Index and the collective mood of the public, via Twitter, 6 days ahead of schedule.

The study analysed more than 9.8 million tweets, from over 2.7 million users, between February and December of 2008.

With uptake rates on the rise and journalists increasingly using Twitter to tinyurl their stories, nab quick quotes from their followers, are the days of the lowly PR numbered?

The thing that really got me into Twitter were the G20 riots in London; the day when the Royal Bank of Scotland was raided. Journalists were tweeting live updates, as they unfolded. The "by the grace of God" landing of US Airways flight 154 on the Hudson River, back in January 2009, was another one.

That near miss, not only elevated the pilot, one Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, to hero book status but also showed the disconnect between new media and old.

Twitter’s trend page flagged up the key terms #USAirways, #Hudsonplane and #crash, instantly. FlightStats.com, the aviation information site, on the other hand, was showing the downed flight as being late, but still en route to its destination. An hour after the accident, Google’s trending service was showing no signs of those keywords, even an hour after the accident.

Hiring companies are moving away from jobs boards and recruitment companies and moving towards social media as their dominant recruiting tool.

Between current economic conditions, the evolution of the internet and dwindling HR budgets, the traditional approach of finding a candidate is becoming increasingly redundant. Are we counting down the days to the demise of the recruitment consultant?

A recent online survey, the Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey 2010 asked 600 participants between May and June if they plan to use social media. 92% of those answered that they were planning on using social media to find future candidates.

Foursquare is Google Latitude meets Facebook, with a dash of Twitter and a dollop of Qype. It’s more addictive than a big stew of smack and crack. In less than a year, the geo-location gaming platform managed to rack up 275,000 users. Today, it’s more like 3 million.

But should we really be worried about privacy? We’ve been posting our information online, in one form or another, for ages. Common sense shall surely prevail.

If you're interviewing with a start-up, in digital there are thousands, there are a whole bunch of interview questions you should ask.

It's not just a chance to make yourself sound smart, but to find out if the company who are interviewing you are going steady, not just in the financial sense.

It's something you'll want to know before you commit yourself.

Interviewing; it's just like dating.

Things like burn rate, financial backing and their current profit/loss situation should all be subtly investigated.  Here's our list of the top questions to ask in a start-up job interview:

As brands steadily move into social media and online PR Facebook and Twitter et al are no longer dirty words in the office.

But it's applicants who are missing a trick. A random CV sample by digital recruitment firm Major Players has found that social media mentions are missing in the majority of applications.

The survey sampled 4,500 CVs over the last two years. Only 6% referenced social media, 9% mentioned Twitter, a tiny 2% talked about blogging and only 13% included Facebook (often only highlighted in the interests section).

eBay and Amazon may be the twin giants of online shopping but there's still plenty of space for specialist retailers with strong communities of buyers.

Meet Martingale, an alumni of the Digital Mission to NYC 2009. They’re helping to transform the world of buying classic toys by making things much more socially interactive.

Are you currently freelancing to pay the bills? It's great working in your pyjamas but are you running low on office banter? Fed up with talking to the wall?

A new digital freelance space has opened up in the heart of Shoreditch, Central London, and it's cheap, cheap like the proverbial budgie.

Update: Meet Jemima at Monkeys Tweetup, part of Social Media Week London.

Two years and countless coffees later Jemima Gibbons', Monkeys with Typewriters: The Myths and Realities of Social Media goes far in debunking the belief that social media is a bad influence in today's modern office; a mere distracter from the real work.

We got in touch with the lovely Jemima to find out how businesses will be incorporating social media in 2010.

The book gets to grips with social media's ability to democratise, errode value chains and remove restrictions on never-questioned-before codes of conduct. In the process it outlines a practical framework for happier, more productive working environments.

BandCentral have been shortlisted for a BidemNet Lab award at the world's premier music festival, Midem, Cannes.

The Online Band Management company, that lets anyone be a music manager, have recenty launched a revamped version of their site with souped-up features and cutting edge enhancements. 

It was only a few short weeks ago that BandCentral joined the Digital Mission to New York, run in conjunction with UK Trade & Investment.