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The Weekly Web Wonk, v7.8.11

By GNI Strategies - Interns on July 9th, 2011 / Facebook, Social Networking, Twitter / Leave a comment

Friday marks a very sad day for the NASA space program as the final flight of the space shuttle Atlantis drifts ever closer to the International Space Station. The four astronauts aboard plan to deliver necessary supplies to the floating station, and will rely on the Russian led Soyuz crew in the event of any emergency. This is the final manned flight in the U.S. space program. Looks like the Soviets dominated the space race in the end.

The Weekly Web Wonk, v7.1.11

By Dan on July 4th, 2011 / Facebook, GNI Strategies, Social Networking, Twitter / Leave a comment

The word of this week is most definitely Google. More specifically, Google+. If you are one of the lucky users who has access* to the newest wave of social media goodness, take a moment to pat yourself on the back. Google rolled out the new platform on Tuesday, as well as the stylish black menu bar. The web engine announced these changes via its blog and emphasized the three key principles of the design: focus, elasticity and effortlessness. The redesigned page is shadowed by the buzz of Google+. The new platform has received mixed reviews from various critics, but a majority of those who have been granted access to Google+ are impressed by the streamlined functionalityof the new feature.

The Weekly Web Wonk, v1.0

By Dan on May 13th, 2011 / Facebook, Mobile, Social Networking, Twitter, Uncategorized / 1 Comment

Welcome to The Weekly Web Wonk, where we wrestle wascally wabbits.

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself; alliterations are awesome (and I’m a big dork). What we actually do is aggregate the most relevant news from around the web (in English … apologies to those who publish in Esperanto) regarding emerging technologies and best practices for their use. So, if you want to work with me, perhaps we can all agree that keeping up with technology is a bit like hunting wabbits with a wisp.

To that end, The Weekly Web Wonk, brought to you by GNI Strategies and the letter Q and Not U, is here to ease the burden. Each week, you can count on T-Triple-Dub (T3W?) to keep you in the know on tech and social media matters that affect the ways and means by which we communicate. We might even crack a joke or two in the process (DISCLAIMER: By “joke” I mean that which is funny to people who like myself who go to movies by themselves … after inviting two-dozen-plus people to join).

All rright, enough pussy-footing, let’s cut to it!

We begin with Google’s announcement of the Chromebook, which will run Chrome OS (DISCLAIMER: I own a few shares of GOOG). Billed as “the computer for people who hate computers,” this is not just another faster-running update on laptops. As the Marketplace Tech Report explains, the Chromebook “has the potential to unleash cloud computing — especially in the workplace. That raises the prospect of huge cost savings to companies, and possible data security gains. It also raises some worries about trusting so much data to one company.” Before you get out your credit card, read ZDNet’s concerns.

Can Twitter save lives? Doctors involved in Japan quake relief efforts believe it can. Writes the BBC: “Twitter is proving ‘an excellent system‘ for communicating with chronically-ill patients, say doctors.” Even more, Twitter can apparently help investors trade stocks.

In other Twitter news, Politico tells us “You are what you tweet” in a story about how candidates are hiring firms to scrub up their online profiles and histories. At GNI Strategies, we couldn’t agree more, which is why we encourage candidates and the like to hire firms like us to ensure one’s online profile is done right the first time. Spend a little up front, save a lot on the back end. (Shameless plug for GNI Strategies? You bet it is a shameless plug for GNI Strategies! Did someone say ‘GNI Strategies?’)

ReadWriteWeb explains the term “love tap” is taking on new meaning — Japanese cell phones can now be physically tapped against each other so that users can instantly follow each other on Twitter (or is this a “follow tap” … or both?). It is only a matter of time before we ditch business cards altogether. (If you have the Bump app on your mobile phone, this is not really news.)

Also, Twitpic is taking some heat for the copyright issues surrounding usage by mainstream media of its users’ photos. (Is it cool for the BBC to use such an image to report this story?)

What is definitely cool is this BBC feature on East Africa’s digital revolution. Not so cool IMHO: Meredith Attwell Baker, a Republican-nominated FCC commissioner who oversaw the NBC-Comcast merger, is set to become a top lobbyist for Comcast. (Seriously? Seriously.) Trés cool: this infographic about how the #OBL death leak spread over Twitter. Also trés cool: Tre Cool and his bandmates are working on a movie with Tom Hanks.

For those of us who love online TV and are less-than-enthusiastic about cable, All Things Digital reports that Hulu is close to a deal with Alec Baldwin major network executives. Mashable notes: “What is likely to change are programming windows, the length of time that must pass after a show airs on television before it can be posted online and how long it can remain there.”

Limewire has been further squeezed, but don’t expect peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing to be going anywhere. All the same, online music sales hit a new high – was this in spite or because of P2P networks? Either way, I can think of at least one ‘N SYNC Napster alum who thinks this is a really cool figure. I’m not so sure what the same individual thinks of a Consumer Reports claim that 7.5 million Facebook users are under 13, a violation of Facebook policies; 5 million are apparently under 10.

For more on Facebook, check out Fast Company’s item “Why Facebook Photo Tags Are The New (And Possibly More Powerful) Likes.” The tech news site also has a winning feature for any aspiring user interface (UI) designers.

I’ll let Porky Pig take it from here.

My Trip to Egypt

By Katie on March 9th, 2011 / Facebook, Social Networking, Speaking/Training, Twitter / 1 Comment

In Jan. 2010 I spent 10 days in Egypt. At the time I was president of the College Democrats of America (from 2008 – 2010), and with that position I frequently worked with the youth leadership of progressive political parties from other countries. In September of 2009, I was contacted by the Egyptian Embassy on behalf of the National Democratic Party (NDP). They wanted to know how we (youth political activists) got young Americans to vote in the 2008 elections.

After speaking with a representative from the Embassy and visiting the embassy in subsequent visits to Washington, DC I was asked to help provide trainings to political youth in Egypt. Working with the National Democratic Institute (NDI) I met with the youth leadership of the four main political parties in Egypt – The Wafd, Democratic Front, NDP and Reform Democratic Party (RDP). My main focus was to discuss tools and successful techniques used to organize youth online during the 2008 elections.

After the first few days with the students, it became obvious that they feared the government and in many cases had been arrested, or assumed they would be arrested in the future for political organizing. Political organizing on college campuses was against the law, which made it difficult for students to build youth organizations. One of the groups that was impressive in particular was the RDP. The RDP was founded by Anwar Sadat’s son Anwar El Sadat, after leaving the NDP. The RDP started their organization online using Facebook. Not recognized by the government as an official political party, the RDP sought out Egyptian youth who were disgruntled with the decline in quality of life, inconsistencies in utilities provided, and lack of employment opportunities for professional jobs.

The Motley Crew

During my meetings with the RDP, it became obvious that they were willing to be creative and use social media tools to organize around the abusive laws enforced by the NDP and Egyptian government. After leaving Egypt I kept in touch with the organizers Abdullah, Karim, and Mohammad giving them tips on ways to reach out to new audiences, and organize their structure online. It was truly inspiring to see how they evolved over the last year to represent young professionals in Egypt.

Lessons Learned

1. A forceful government cannot succeed without the consent of its people. Laws preventing freedom of speech and assembly do not deter youth, who just get it when it comes to social media. Also, don’t underestimate the value of twitter, a platform not easily firewalled by foreign governments.

2. Have a clear message. As a part of the message, have clear and simple solutions to everyday problems affecting your target audience. Little steps can turn into running later down the road.

3. Facebook works. Once you have identified people who agree with your cause, get a unifying logo, visual, and set of policies in place that you advocate for. Also, Facebook ads allow you to target your target demographic by age, gender, geographic region, political interests, and social interests. Using this feature provided by Facebook, the RDP was able to see 500% increase in facebook group members within a month.

4. Listen. To build a coalition online, you want a two-way dialogue. In addition to proposing ideas on utility problems, and voter apathy, the RDP held essay contests to seek additional suggestions on issues facing Egyptians. They saw great success with hundreds of essays being submitted primarily from young professionals.

5. Count on the Women. In accordance with the Geneva Convention to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women, the Egyptian government created 64 additional seats in the people’s assembly. Egyptian women, excited by the opportunity to participate in their government, reached out to leaders of the RDP to run for elected office. The RDP seeking an opportunity to gain seats in the assembly welcomed the new candidates to their efforts.

Austin among top cities for social influence on Twitter

By Austin on January 25th, 2011 / Social Networking, Twitter / 1 Comment

As if Austinites need any more of a reason to love living in one of the most techie cities in the world, here’s some more proof. According to the online reputation evaluator TwitterGrader, Austin ranks 12th amongst cities in the world for social influence on Twitter. Beating out most major cities of the world; with regular access to the internet of course. The site, which is similar to Klout and Twittlyzer, grades individual twitter users on their social influence online. They applied similar methods to gauge the cities but mostly just looked at the number of users based on the “location” settings of them.

Austin’s high ranking surprised me a bit. We all know Austin has a very social media savvy population and would be ranked somewhat high, but 12th? Based solely on numbers it would seem that cities like Paris or Miami would have more of its population active on Twitter. Throw in a recent survey by the pew research center, which concluded only 8% of active users of the internet are also on twitter and Austin commands an impressive area of the internet. Most surprisingly Austin was higher than cities like Washington D.C., Houston, Tokyo, and Philadelphia. All cities with much much larger populations and seemingly comparable online communities.

Not Surprisingly the United States dominated the top 20 at 12 cities with 7 of the top 10 coming from America. London is ranked highest among all cities and Brighton, UK took the lowest rank at 100. The Most oddly ranked city goes to Earth, Texas which is 40th, above San Antonio. Although I have sneaking suspicion it’s just those who listed “earth” as their location. Unfortunately they don’t give numbers on the city level, but Twittergrader does lists the top tweeters within the respective cities offering ranking stats.

Among Austin twitter users, Wholefoods is the top ranked social influencer on Twitter with over 1.8 million followers and 13,622 updates. Lance Armstrong is ranked 6th with 2.7 million followers but only 6,487. A figure which shows it’s how much you have but what you’re doing with it. Other notables include Statesman and Gowalla at 11th and 12th respectively, SXSW at 29th, and Austin360 at 41. You had to at least have 12,395 followers to break the top 50 in Austin. I doubt this is something the Mayor will be bragging about anytime soon, but it is just another indicator of the power Austin has online and what it could shape in the future.

To see the full results click here

Pew Releases Study on American Internet Users, Twitter

By Matt on December 9th, 2010 / Social Networking, Twitter / Leave a comment

Today, Pew Internet released it’s first study on whether internet users implement Twitter. This is the first time we have seen outside numbers, from a reliable source, on who uses Twitter. They found, simply, 8% of all American internet users, use Twitter.

Eight percent of the American adults who use the internet are Twitter users. Some of the groups who are notable for their relatively high levels of Twitter use include:

Young adults – Internet users ages 18-29 are significantly more likely to use Twitter than older adults.

African-Americans and Latinos – Minority internet users are more than twice as likely to use Twitter as are white internet users.

Urbanites – Urban residents are roughly twice as likely to use Twitter as rural dwellers.

Pew solidifies what we have seen on campaigns for political and non-profit campaigns. We have seen from practical application that minorities, urban dwellers and women are more likely to use the social networking tool.

What is interesting is the lack of impact income and education seem to play.

The other interesting and important piece of information for organizations looking at Twitter as an organizing or communication tool is that 45% of Twitter users check in one or more times per day. From an internal stand point, this shows a diverse and well implemented calendar can make a major difference.

The most detailed part of the report is how do people use the service.

Overall, observations related to users’ personal or professional lives are the most popular types of updates, while location-based tweets and links to videos are the least commonly mentioned:

72% of Twitter users in our sample say that they post updates related to theirpersonal life, activities or interests. A total of one in five Twitter users (19%) say they post personal updates once a day or more.

62% of those we queried said they post updates related to their work life, activities or interests, with 12% doing so on a daily basis.

55% of these Twitter users share links to news stories. One in ten (12%) do this at least once a day.

54% of these Twitter users say they post humorous or philosophical observations about life in general, with 16% doing so on a daily basis.

53% of these Twitter users use Twitter to retweet material posted by others, with 18% doing so on a daily basis.

52% of these Twitter users send direct messages to other users, with 11% doing so on a daily basis.

40% use Twitter to share photos with others, with 12% going so at least once a day.

28% use Twitter to share videos with others. Fewer than one in ten Twitter users (8%) do this once a day or more.

24% use the service to tweet their location, with 7% of users doing so on a daily basis.

It’s an interesting and well done report. If you are interested in the full details, read the complete report here.

Tweet for Good

By Matt on November 13th, 2010 / Fundraising, Non-Profit, Twitter / 4 Comments

I know I am bias. I love the idea and action oriented incentives HelpAttack! creates. Twitter is a powerful messaging tool, now it might be a powerful fundraising tool because of inventive people like David Neff, Sarah Vela and Ehren Foss. If you are a non-profit, there is no excuse not to use HelpAttack!

HelpAttack! Offers Easy End of Year Giving Model

NOVEMBER 12 – (AUSTIN) HelpAttack!, a new Austin-based start-up, offers nonprofit organizations the opportunity to collect year-end gifts through Twitter. The online service allows social media users the ability to give to their favorite philanthropic causes, simply by updating their social status online.

Online fundraising is the most rapidly growing way for nonprofits to receive funds from individuals. According to Convio, 35-42 percent of online giving occurs in the last two months of the year. HelpAttack! supports nonprofit organizations’ fundraising goals by collecting donations through a stream that readily syncs with users’ daily activities. Furthermore, the unique platform encourages repeat monthly giving, catalyzing the shift from year-end gifts to year-long giving.

With over $1,100 already given through the HelpAttack! post-to-pledge system, funds are currently being funneled to nonprofits throughout the United States. There are nearly 6,000 nonprofits to choose from, and new causes being adding every day, so anyone with a favorite cause and a Twitter account can take part.

“This new way to donate is easy, fun and offers a layer of social responsibility to online activities,” said Sarah Vela, HelpAttack!’s CEO. “We invite all nonprofit organizations seeking new ways to collect funding through year-end campaigns to visit the site, add themselves if they’re not already listed, and share this new way of giving with their supporters.”

While the pledge system offers nonprofit organizations a new-found funding stream, it also raises the organizations’ visibility on social networks. Many users choose to promote their personal pledge to their followers, and once engaged, are apt to support their organizations’ messages focused around fund drives and special events.

“Right from the start, HelpAttack! expanded CASA’s awareness in the community by featuring us on their site” stated Callie Langford, Communications Manager of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). “HelpAttack! has really been a no-fuss way for us to receive additional donations, engage with new and old donors, and share details about our upcoming events.”

Currently focused on giving through Twitter, HelpAttack! has plans to soon engage with other social communities, allowing people the opportunity to pledge and give across multiple platforms.

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