Sending a text message is almost the only way you can be sure your target audience actually reads your message. An amazing 97 percent of mobile subscribers will read an SMS message within four minutes of receipt. But only 20 percent of listserv e-mails, depending on your industry, are ever opened at all. Here are six steps organizations of any size can use to add text messages to their communications mix: 1. Choose a text message delivery system. While there … [Read more...]
As Google+ Makes Waves (or Not), Be Water My Friend
July 12, 2011 by
“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my … [Read more...]
Top 12 Blogs to Help You Change the World
May 13, 2011 by
If you want to use social media and mobile applications to make the world a better place, a number of blogs can help you chart your way, even as technologies change. Among the many strong ones out there, here are my favorite 12: Beth's Blog—one of the most popular and useful blogs for nonprofits (and anybody else interested in making a difference)—provides the latest insights into social media, online networking, and transparent organizational management. Its … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Fast & Easy Story Curation
May 1, 2011 by
UPDATE: About 45 minutes after posting this article, I (like a million other people around the world) learned via Twitter that Osama bin Laden had been killed. That was about 45 minutes ahead of President Obama’s official announcement. Compare The New York Times' writeup on how the news leaked out with Australian Broadcasting Corp's Storify version to get a feel for the curation tool’s ability to provide context in an entertaining way and help readers make sense out … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Treesaver & Accessibility
April 1, 2011 by
My April 2011 video clip of the month features a pre-release demonstration of the free open source dynamic publishing platform Treesaver. Online publications created with Treesaver automatically adjust to the size of any screen (you've got to see it in action). Treesaver is a lot like the Flipboard iPad app except it's built with web standards—HTML, CSS, and Javascript. That means you can just design a publication once and the same code will work on any device … [Read more...]
Google Tests Crowdsourcing Search Result Quality
February 19, 2011 by
Did news of J.C. Penney successfully gaming Google to deliver its website No. 1 search results disgust you? How about news of the New York eyewear merchant who used cyberbullying to get top Google rankings and more business? Now you—and the wisdom of the crowd—can take matters into your own hands to stop content farms and websites using shady black-hat search engine optimization (SEO) methods from appearing high in Google search results. Thanks to an … [Read more...]
5 Reasons Why You Won’t Find Me Posting on Quora
January 25, 2011 by
The last few weeks I've been seeing all these articles about how Quora will be the next Twitter or Facebook and is the biggest blogging innovation in 10 years. Quora is a crowdsourced answer site that is a cross between LinkedIn's Q&A feature, Reddit, Yahoo Answers, and Wikipedia. With everyone so excited about it, I signed up and checked it out. After a week of use, however, I've concluded Quora is a lot of hype. I only see myself monitoring a few … [Read more...]
Google Mini Wave Quietly Washes Ashore
December 19, 2010 by
Have you ever received an e-mail with critical information about an event but an unrelated subject line? If you didn't flag it and needed it a few weeks or months later, you could end up wasting quite a bit of time digging for it. Solving this problem by keeping all related conversations in one chronologically organized spot was the genius behind Google Wave, the social networking platform Google launched with much fanfare last year. While many saw its … [Read more...]
Don’t Merge Your Facebook Page & Places Page
December 18, 2010 by
"Don't Merge Your Nonprofit Facebook Page with Places Page," warns the heading of an interesting Dec. 17 guest post on Beth's Blog. The post, by Ivan Boothe, explains if your organization accepts Facebook's invitation to claim your Facebook Places geolocation page, you'll lose your ability to specify a default landing tab on your regular Facebook page. That means all the time and money you put into creating a beautiful custom landing tab will go to waste. Since … [Read more...]
Google Wave to Live on as Apache Wave
December 8, 2010 by
Remember Google Wave? Last year I was pretty excited to get an invite to join what was suppose to be Google’s hot new social networking platform. With Google Wave, collaborators share—in real time or over time—e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking merged into topical waves (kind of a cross between chatting and threaded discussions on a blog). Like many people, I didn't end up doing much with it (in my case due to a lack of collaborators), so I … [Read more...]
Cyberbully Seeking High Google Rankings Arrested
December 8, 2010 by
I was glad to read in the Huffington Post today that cyberbullying is no longer helping New York eyewear merchant Vitaly Borker get top Google rankings and more business. Instead, Borker is behind bars charged with, among other crimes, fraud, interstate threats, and cyber stalking. A Manhattan judge has denied him bail. Accordingly to the New York Times, Borker intentionally created a customer experience so vile, his customers would rant about it on the Internet, … [Read more...]
From Wax & WordStar to Paper.li Daily ‘Newspapers’
November 28, 2010 by
Back when I was editor-in-chief of my university's student newspaper in the 1980s, it seemed we were on the cutting edge. We'd recently obtained some PCs, WordStar word-processing software, and a laser printer, so we could print out articles reporters typed themselves in columns ready for layout. It was so much easier than retyping and coding all the copy with an old phototypesetting machine. Even with the new technology, however, laying out the newspaper still … [Read more...]
Video Clip of the Month: Crowd Accelerated Innovation
October 1, 2010 by
My October 2009 video clip of the month features TED's Chris Anderson giving a fascinating talk on a new phenomenon he calls "Crowd Accelerated Innovation." Web video is driving the global phenomenon, a self-fueling cycle of innovation and learning that he says could be as significant as the invention of the printing press. By watching his video, Anderson says, "you're part of the crowd that may be about to launch the biggest learning cycle in human history, a cycle … [Read more...]
Newspapers & News Sites ‘Like’ New Tweet Button
August 14, 2010 by
Newspapers and news sites played an important role in Tuesday's launch of Twitter's new new “Tweet” button. More than 30 large websites secretly changed their designs overnight to begin using the new button on its launch day. Among those sporting the “Tweet” button Tuesday morning were: Arizona Republic/azcentral.com CBS Interactive CNN.com Detroit Free Press HuffingtonPost.com SFGate.com Sky News The Cincinnati Enquirer The Des Moines … [Read more...]
Google Says ‘Good-Bye’ to Google Wave
August 6, 2010 by
After a little more than a year, Google is waving "good-bye" to Google Wave. Google Wave was supposed to be the hot new social networking platform and for a time you were considered special if you had been one of the lucky ones to receive an invite. The only thing is many people, including me, couldn't find a pratical "real work" use for it. With Google Wave, collaborators share—in real time or over time—e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking … [Read more...]
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