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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The smartphone has become an indispensable tool for capturing news in the field. We’ve covered ways to use your iPhone as a reporting tool here on 10,000 Words, but with Android nearing 50% market share worldwide, Google’s operating system is proving to be a viable alternative for mobile reporting. With well over 250,000 apps in the Android Market, storytellers have a plethora of choices for publishing their stories to the world. One app which recently caught my eye is Live Reporter, which lets you capture, publish, save, and broadcast live video directly from your Android device.

Usage of the app requires an account with the LivingScoop website, and registration takes less than a minute. Once registered, any videos you broadcast will be published there and your audience can either watch them on the LivingScoop website, or you can embed them on your own site or share them on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or via email.

The Live Reporter interface is very simple. Once you’re logged in, there are just three buttons to navigate the app. Select the Create new stream button, select the appropriate video category from the 20+ categories listed, add an optional description, then select the I’m ready to stream! Let’s go button. Select the Go live now button, and you’re ready to broadcast. While the live video creation process could be smoother, keep in mind that once the video has been published, you can easily change any of this information.

While there are other live video apps on Android — Ustream, Qik and Justin.tv are just a few — Live Reporter dubs itself as “the first and only video sharing site with unlimited free speech and freedom of all expressions”. Live Reporter is currently available in the Android Market, and requires Adobe AIR for installation.

Download Live Reporter | Download Adobe AIR

When reporters are in the field with their smartphones and they have a story to tell where both photo and location are vital, a stream of Flickr photos imported into a Google Map will do the trick.

In light of Los Angeles’ recent Carmageddon, above is a geotagged Flickr map of the empty 405 highway.

For example, if you have a reporter covering a huge parade, a bike tour, travelling along the coastline, taking a wine tour across the country, or you want to collect reader photos from a highway closure — really, the use cases are endless — an easy way to get interactive, live content from the field is through a Flickr map. And, you can accomplish it all from email, with no extra apps or training required. Read more

Increasingly, iPhones are becoming a credible, convenient and reliable tool for journalists –both amateur and professional– to use in the field. Mobile reporting was even the topic of a UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism course taught by Jeremy Rue to help journalists learn how to get the most out of reporting from a mobile device.

Will Sullivan at the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri also put together an incredible guide which outlines the various hardware and applications every journalist should have — definitely a recommended read. (Update 4/16: this post originally stated, incorrectly, that Will Sullivan’s guide was a project out of UC Berkeley. In fact, the funding, support and resources for his mobile tools guide came from RJI where he is a 2010-2011 fellow studying mobile and tablet development).

But that’s not what I’m writing about here. Aside from the must-have apps, these are some practical tips and tricks — the dirty, simple basics for day-to-day reporting — that can help you get the most out of your iPhone as a reporting tool. Read more