Social media, public relations, trendwatching and common sense
Jun 5th, 2008 by Laura H.
Users of Web 2.0 services often find themselves wanting more substance than shine, and are always curious about what’s going on behind the scenes; third-
parties are responding with ways to display statistical information. YouTube’s Insight and Xefer’s Twitter Charts are two great examples:
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Jun 4th, 2008 by Laura H.
I found a great post over on ProBlogger that lists the 20 types of blog posts, and seeing them all laid out in a convenient list has given me an idea for mixing up the content on this blog - I’m going to write each type on a card, and draw randomly from the stack whenever I need inspiration for a new entry, during slow news periods.
A lot of my blogging process so far has been a process of discovery, as I try to find my voice and narrow my focus - it’s an ongoing process, so tips and methods like this, or anything else that helps me along the way, are welcome. My next step is to develop a lengthy list of topics to address on this blog in the future.
Jun 3rd, 2008 by Laura H.
A great feature-length dissection of the Emily Gould/Gawker Media empire, via an interesting post by AdAge.
Jun 3rd, 2008 by Laura H.
In this episode of Heads Up!, Laura discusses Twitter’s trends, interesting feeds, and the top 10 applications for the service.
Our Top 10 Twitter Applications:
1. Twistori
Twistori scans Twitter and anonymously displays users’ dreams and desires.2. Twappi
Twappi show’s twitter’s mood status based on the day’s messages.3. Hashtags
Using tags, this service is a great way to track group content.4. Twhirl
Twhirl is a popular Twitter client that runs off your computer’s desktop.5. Twitterholic
Twitterholic displays the top 100 twitter addicts based on number of followers, friends or updates.6. Tweet Scan
Tweet Scan lets you search Twitter content, billing itself as the most complete Twitter index outside of Twitter itself.7. Picobuzz
Picobuzz shows the most popular daily topics and displays what people are saying about them.8. Trackthis
Track this does what it says on the tin. You can use twitter to get information on package movements from FedEx, UPS, USPS and DHL.9. Twitter Blacklist
Twitter Blacklist collects IDs of spammer accounts.10. Strawpoll
Strawpoll organizes and displays short daily polls.
Additional links from the show are included behind the jump:
May 14th, 2008 by Laura H.
Yahoo! has just opened up the platform that powers the geolocation features on Flickr and Upcoming.org. I am fascinated by geolocation and it’s one of the trends I pay the most attention to. I think it has amazing potential for, among other things, immediately impacting our daily lives through tagging news stories that happen locally - something that I have heard most newspapers are talking about, but nobody is really implementing. Here’s hoping this release makes it that much more talked about and accepted as standard.
Welcome to the developer preview of the Yahoo! Internet Location Platform. The Yahoo! Internet Location Platform provides a resource for managing all geo-permanent named places on Earth. Our purpose in creating the Internet Location Platform is to provide the Yahoo! Geographic Developer Community with the vocabulary and grammar to describe the world’s geography in an unequivocal, permanent, and language-neutral manner.
The Internet Location Platform is designed to facilitate spatial interoperability and geographic discovery; users can traverse the spatial hierarchy, identify the geography relevant to their users and their business, and in turn, unambiguously geotag, geotarget, and geolocate data across the Web.
(via Waxy.org)
May 13th, 2008 by Laura H.
Smartmobs provides a great links summary of how Twitter helped spread the news about the earthquake in China faster than traditional news media, providing many real-time reports and videos.
May 13th, 2008 by Laura H.
Resourceful Idiot explains the progression from Web 1.0 to 2.0 from a development standpoint, and speculates about the next wave.
The main question that drove this movement, “How can I take this data and share it with other people?” Since this question was asked, sites have popped up all over the internet trying to answer this question with different approaches.
May 13th, 2008 by Laura H.
Another Pay-as-You-Wish Success Story with tips and caveats about this type of tale, and this BBC piece, via this LIST-onomics post.
Pope Benedict XVI will send religious text messages to thousands of young Catholics when he attends World Youth Day in Australia, organisers say.
The move aims to help the Pope connect with his technology-loving audience.
Digital prayer walls will also be set up and a web-based social networking site established, organisers say.
Re: the World Youth Day event - I applaud their effort to connect with “today’s tech-savvy youth” but I wonder if they will address actual social and cultural needs of the community, and if so, what those are (and why they’re not being addressed by local, physical groups or institutions).
May 13th, 2008 by Laura H.
On May 8, Sony customer Dustin wrote in to the Consumerist about receiving a form letter to every query made about a broken piece of hardware.
It looks like someone within Sony reads the page, because by May 12 Dustin received a personal phone call offering to replace (instead of just repair) his machine.
Appeasing the single consumer who speaks out in public is such a simple thing, and it provides evidence and positive associations for the unknown number of lurkers with the same problem. Nicely done, Sony!
May 13th, 2008 by Laura H.
Jeremiah Owyang offers some great strategies and tips for talking to executives about social media. One of the most frequently-asked questions I’ve heard is how to deal with the legal department, which he addresses here.
(via WOMMA)