We all have various social media profiles for each aspect of our personal and professional lives. With all of this technology, it should be easier to connect to the people we meet out in the real world, whether it’s a good contact you meet out in the field or someone you strike up a conversation with that sounds like a good source for future stories.

My smartphone is very 2013, but my wallet looks very 1993, bursting with various business cards picked up along the way. Unless you’re diligent about it, they lose their value by the time you remember why you wanted to email them in the first place.

Maybe the last thing we all need is another app, but there are some useful ones out there to scan and connect to people on-the-go. Here are some I’ve been trying out.

 1. SocialLink

You can download this iPhone app for free and using Bluetooth,  connect to people via Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Once you sync your accounts, you can share your preferred contact information with someone, and there info is automatically shared with you. Then you just have to follow, friend, or connect at will. To avoid that awkward moment while your devices find each other in the Bluetooth cloud, or if someone doesn’t have the app, there’s also an option to type in someone’s email, and have your information automatically sent to their inbox. At that point, the ball’s in their court.

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Computer programmers looking to move into the news industry have a chance at getting their full tuition paid — that’s right, free grad school — at Northwestern’s Medill program, plus an internship at the Washington Post after graduation, thanks to a new partnership.

Washington Post joined the Knight Foundation in the scholarship program that lets computer programmers earn a master’s degree in journalism in a 12-month program at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.  The scholarship program, previously only funded by the Knight Foundation, has so far supported 9 programmers-gone-journalist since 2008, who are now some of the industry leaders:

• Brian Boyer, news applications editor at NPR, formerly at Chicago Tribune news apps
• Ryan Mark, director of digital product strategy and development at Chicago Tribune Media Group
• Manya Gupta, Web technical editor for theworld.org
• Steven Melendez, data news at WNYC
• Shane Shifflett, reporter and data engineer at the Center for Investigative Reporting

Spread the word to all your programmer friends.

What can you get in six seconds or less? A whole lot, apparently.

It’s been a week since Vine, Twitter’s new app for creating, curating, and sharing short videos, hit the iOS App Store and I can’t help viewing every one that comes my way.

The chance to create, post and share a short video means big things for journalists in the field. But as of yet, I’ve only seen one of breaking news and it was a very sad, and very fuzzy, video of the dolphin stuck in a New York City canal last week.

Instead, journalists seem most excited about sharing their view of the newsroom and documenting, very, very quickly, the process of putting together the next edition.

And yet, it’s hard to be skeptical about a new way to post video on the go. Remember when we were all skeptical about Twitter in the first place? Or was that just me? It’s since become our daily, morning briefing with our coffee and the rest of the news-breaking world.

There will be more bad Vine videos to come, and if you’re in the field, six seconds is not a lot of time for context. But let’s not give up just yet or just plug the view from our desks.

Can you think of a way you could use Vine to enhance a story? Have you already? Share them with us in the comments or @10,000Words.

Social media can be a boon and a bane to companies and consumers alike. It’s undoubtedly true that brands and consumers can have a constructive dialogue on Twitter and Facebook. Case in point: A WSJ subscriber misses an issue and tweets his displeasure to head honcho Rupert Murdoch himself. Not only did he get a reply, but some quality customer service as well!

Unfortunately, trolls abound in the online world and can drown out those offering constructive criticism. How can you tell the haters from those that are worth responding to? And how can you manage your time when it comes to responding to criticism? In the latest Mediabistro feature, social media experts weigh in on how to handle negative feedback in a way that’s best for you and your audience.

One big piece of advice: don’t just delete.

“How you handle a negative comment says much more about you than the comment itself,” said Shama Kabani, CEO of The Marketing Zen Group. “Removing a comment can lead to others accusing you of censorship and, at worst, can lead to a PR disaster.”

For more, read 7 Tips for Responding to Negative Social Media Feedback. [Mediabistro AvantGuild subscription required]

Ever hot on the heels of politicians, straightening the fact from the fiction, the Washington Post has decided to take their methods to real-time reporting with their new system, Truth Teller. Funded by a prototype grant from the Knight News Challenge, Truth Teller is a mobile and desktop app that will be able to record, transcribe and show disputed facts and statistics in real time for everyone. Although still in its nascent stages, the end result would be an app that simultaneously transcribes speeches obtained via video (or, ideally, a live feed), recognizes citations of data or popular keywords, and matches them with fact-checked information from the WaPo staff. It’s not only the cutting edge of fact-checking journalism — it has the capacity to change the way people consume their political media. Read more