Mobilizing Youth

Twitter Visualization Shows Who Influences Who

Now here's a visualization with real practical data that *anyone* can use - by inputing their own data or the data of people they know. It's a great example of a single-purpose visualization that has broad applicability. The scary thing is that it makes implicit personal connections very very explicit. This is the world into which we are already in... for better or for worse. 

Article:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_inner_circles_of_10_geek_heroes_on_twitter.php

Visualization Tool:

http://twitter.mailana.com/

Example:

http://twitter.mailana.com/profile.php?person=timoreilly&

Image of Tim O'Rielly's influencers:

 

Value of Twitter

A lot of people have been asking me about Twitter recently... including my mom who called it "Tweeter" which made me laugh. Here's the chapter on it that got cut from my book:

http://blog.mobilevoter.org/microblogging.html

(although an interview with Evan Williams is still in there)

I found this great presentation recently which does a nice job of explaining (below) and also a bunch of recent links. So I can now send people to this blog post to explain. Hooray.

Pogue from the New York Times on Twitter:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/twittering-tips-for-beginners/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/technology/personaltech/12pogue.html

The Wall Street Journal on Twitter:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123638550095558381.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us

A great review of Twitter add-ons and resources:

http://www.typepadhacks.org/2008/03/twitter-tools-t.html

Political Tweeting:
http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/political-twitter-what-it-good-edition

Facebook faces off against Twitter: http://ow.ly/DJX
7-Twitter-Business-Applications

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Academic Work Business social media

8 Benefits of Having a Nonprofit Blog

Good summary of top reasons to have a nonprofit blog by Britt Bravo. Find it here:

http://havefundogood.blogspot.com/2009/02/8-benefits-of-having-nonprofit-blog.html

Blog, Blog, Blog

Thanks to Elliot Harmon for the kind words about Jacob and my session at the Craigslist Bootcamp. That was a fun one. At one point, I went down on one knee a-la Phil Donahue (I was sans coffee that day). He reinforced a point of our presentation which is that blogging is the easiest, cheapest, most effective gateway to "Web 2.0." If you do nothing else, blog.

In fact, I just wrote up an email about "the value of blogging" apropos an email exchange that a friend and i had. Reposted here:

picture this: we just had an interchange about breast cancer, crowdsourcing, and volunteering. truth is, that i'll probably be too lazy to document it on my intranet. so the idea will remain in our heads and may or may not be remembered in time. the email will be lost. if i'm very good, i'll write it up on the intranet and will be able to bring back the idea when it's relevant.

enter blogging: instead of sending you an email, i do a post about this topic on my blog and ask you to read it and respond to it there. the post is indexed by technorati, google, and the rest. over time, my blog starts to hit high on the keywords 'crowdsourcing' 'mobile phone' and 'volunteering' - and whenever people do a search for combinations thereof, my blog comes up. so when conference organizers want to know who the experts are, they call me. when the media wants to write a story, they call me (this happens all the time with "SMS" and "youth vote" as a result of this mobilzing youth blog). when Obama's transition team is looking for innovative ways to engage the young citizenry, they call me (this is theoretical, of course). this one post, although not much in and of itself, adds fuel to the fire of my blog, organization, and career.

but that's only the ancillary benefit. the real benefit is that i've documented the topic in a way that is accessible to me and my organization in the future - i browse my relevant blog tags to see all of these ideas over time. and they are also accessible to the community of people interested in the topic - so we have other like-minded people blog about it and link to it, which again adds fuel to the fire - and it's all gravy. i(we) barely did anything to attract all that extra fuel. we just had a text based exchange that normally would have been lost to email.

every meaty thought-laden interchange that i have with someone (that isn't private) - every bit of research that i do  - every article that i discover ... is an opportunity to increase the success of my organization and blog.

Blogging your way to discoverability (SEO)

For Mobilizing Generation 2.0, I wrote a passage about the search engine advantages related to blogging. My editor smartly cut it out, but I think there was a ton of good information there that still may be useful. So below, you'll find the original (un-edited) passage.

In the movie, Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner stands in the middle of a cornfield dreaming about building a baseball diamond. A spectral presence whispers to him “If you build it, they will come.” Costner’s character goes on to construct the field of his dreams and it proceeds to attract thousands of players and fans from around the world. This phrase has become both mantra and mockery across the spectrum of occupations. Applying the principle to web software has led to rare successes but primarily to overbuilt and underused applications. In the case of blogging, it can be said with some certitude that ‘if you build it, there’s a much better chance that they will come.’

 

A blog rich with content and well connected to the blogosphere stands a very good chance of attracting new supporters. Typically, organizations will recruit supporters by going out to the places where they congregate. A blog reverses the model by seeding the Internet with sign posts that point back to it. This process hinges on reciprocal linking agreements with other bloggers and on a concept called “discoverability.” In this section I’ll discuss discoverability, leaving blogger relations for the upcoming section on the blogosphere.

 

Discoverability refers to the quality of being discoverable. In Internet terms, this self-reflexive definition translates into a high-ranking position on a search results page. Most people navigate the web by typing keywords into a search engine such as Google. Although a typical search generates many pages of listings, most people never go beyond the first page. In fact, most people don’t even read all of the results on the first page. One study has shown that the 1^st result is fourteen times more likely to be clicked than the 10^th.[1] A top ranking can make the difference between obscurity and thousands of daily visitors.

 

Although Google is the most well known search engine, many others exist. In the world of blogging, Technorati is king. Search engine providers like Google and Technorati protect their search algorithms with an Area-54 like secrecy. Except for a few insiders, no one is exactly sure how to obtain one of the top listings. Dozens of speculative books have been written on the subject and an industry of search engine optimization consultants attempt to help organizations navigate their way to a top listing. Each specialist offers a combination of science and black-art, but most agree that the following factors are critical to a high ranking:

1) Keyword density

2) Keywords in page titles

3) Inbound links

 

If your organization operates a blog, you’ll address all three factors without making any special effort. Keyword density refers to the number of times a short phrase or word appears in the text of a web page. For example, if your blog focuses on homeless shelters, it’s likely that the phrase “homeless shelter” will appear frequently. You’ll use the term in your posts as will the people who leave comments. The term may appear dozens of times on any given blog page. These pages will exhibit a high keyword density for the phrase “homes shelter.” When a searcher types this phrase into the search engine, your pages will score highly on the keyword density factor.[2]

 

You can further improve rankings by putting strategic thought into the keywords that are most relevant to your organization. By developing a list of about 50 keywords and using them frequently in blog posts, you can focus your search engine rankings around the topics that attract your target audience. Keywords in a web page’s title carry the most weight with search engines. By design, blogging software automatically converts the blog post title to the web page title. Sprinkle keywords into your blog posts titles and you’ll be well on your way to higher rankings.

 

[box: Since the debut of search engines, people have tried to “game” the system – or improve rankings by fooling the algorithm. Many gamers created pages that consisted of a single keyword repeated thousands of times. Search engine providers grew savvy to this ploy and have developed sophisticated methods to prevent bogus results. Pages that have a high, but natural distribution of keywords seem to achieve best results.]

 

In addition to analyzing keywords, search engines count the number of links to a page as an indicator of its relevance. Google describes their algorithm thusly:

 

“[It] relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B.”[3]

 

By operating a blog, you create many additional opportunities for inbound links. If you write pithy, original, interesting, or controversial posts, it’s likely that other bloggers will link to them. You can grow the number of inbound links by actively pursuing relationships with other bloggers. See the section on ‘Managing the Blogosphere.’

 

The three factors discussed in this section are not comprehensive. Search engine optimization has many facets and can consume days of research, implementation, and analysis. Without doing any of this work, blogging will improve your search engine rankings. You’ll achieve even better results if you put a small amount of effort into optimization, such as using strategic keywords.

 

You can improve your discoverability even further by pursuing blog-specific optimizations. Most blogging software will give you various options to accomplish this objective. For example, when you post an article, your blogging software will inform search engines such as Technorati that you’ve published new content. In blogger terms, your blog has pinged Technorati. Informed of your recent post, Technorati will load your post into its database so that it can be found the next time their search algorithm decides that it’s a match for a search term.[4]

 

Some search engines ask for help in categorizing posts. They allow you to tag your post. A tag is a word or short phrase that describes a unit of content. If I were to tag this section of the book, I might use “blogging, young people, recruitment, discoverability.” If a searcher typed any of these phrases, this piece of content would have a better chance of a high ranking.

 

Finally, you can improve discoverability by ensuring that your blog is available as a feed. In addition to making your blog accessible to people with feed readers (after they’ve discovered it), feeds convert your blog content into a format that is preferred by search engines. They’ll do a better job of categorizing your writing.

 

By improving your search engine rankings, you’ll begin to attract people who have already expressed an interest in your organization’s issue areas (this fact has driven the extraordinary growth of search engine advertising). Instead of casting a wide net to people who may or may not be interested in your issues, blogging entices your target audience to come to you. For young people who are skeptical of pitches, marketing, and hard-sells, discovering your blog of their own accord pre-disposes them to engage with your organization.

 

[box: tips for getting discovered]

• optimize      for search engines
• ping      blog aggregators
• tag      your posts
• use      feeds

---

[1] http://www.jimboykin.com/click-rate-for-top-10-search-results/

[2] Good reference on keyword density: http://aarronwalter.com/2007/01/16/search-engine-optimization-part-1-creating-keyword-density/

[3] http://www.google.com/technology/

[4] Tips for pinging: http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/internet/page5509.cfm?cg=searchterms&sg=blogosphere

Blogging + Microblogging: Summary

Lena's blogging+microblogging summary for book:

Blogging and Microblogging

What is it.

1. According to wikipedia, a weblog (also called blog) is a website with entries written in chronological order, usually reverse. Some blogs provide commentary on a particular subject, some are more personal diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, links and other media.
2. Blogs started spreading and evolving since approx. 1997. Today they are increasingly becoming part of the mainstream, affecting politics, culture, entertainment, businesses, corporate communications and blurring their limits with traditional media. Today there are more than 30 million blogs.
3. The minimum technical requirements to create and maintain a weblog have contributed to their popularity. The skill level needed to post basic entries on a blog is approximately the same that is needed to send email, and not previous knowledge of HTML is required.
4. The term “blogospehere” refers collectively to weblogs as a diverse social network. This network is supported by hypertext links and aggregation tools that establish relationships between weblogs. It is because of these links that messages are spread and sometimes massively disseminated.
5. The decentralized nature of the blogosphere allows some blogs to become prominent when others consider their content to be relevant, credible, high quality or noteworthy. Prominent bloggers, especially in politics, have acquired a significant role on the media landscape. On the blogosphere there are also awards and rankings that reinforce the meritocracy model for recognition. Bloggers often use promotion tools to become more relevant in search engines or in aggregators such as Technorati and Digg.
6. Bloggers are now facing new ethical issues related to their role as media and opinion leaders. There are also privacy issues in question, especially regarding young bloggers and the permanence of personal information that they're publishing on the web. Advertising in blogs and corporate blogging have also raised transparency and trust issues between bloggers and their audience.
7. The Pew Internet report on blogging shows that the blogging population in the United States is young, evenly split between women and men, and racially diverse. They are avid consumers and producers of information on the web, but only a relatively small group considers blogging a public endeavor or consider it to be journalism.
8. The ubiquity of low cost technology has enabled many variations of blogging: video blogs (blogs) are short video segments posted on the web with certain regularity, mobile blogs (moblogs) are messages posted from mobile devices such as mobile phones, smart phones and handheld computers, and digital photography blogs (photologs) also take advantage of digital cameras on mobile phones or regular digital cameras to post directly on the web.
9. Many weblogs are written on the style of a personal diary with the purpose of self expression and to share experiences. However over time, weblogs have expanded into many different writing styles. Political weblogs, for example, tend to have a more journalistic or editorial style. Other weblogs have developed a story based on real or fictional characters. Corporate weblogs tend to use a corporate communications style but they are also used to give a “face” to an organization and to create a more personal relationship with the public.
10. Microblogging is a form of blogging that allows the user to post short text updates via web browser, instant message, email or mobile text messaging. These short updates let others know of your “status” at the time. Main services for micro-blogging are Twitter and Jaiku, and the recently released Pownce that also integrates file sharing and event invitations.

Strategic approaches

- Blogs can be a valuable space to communicate with an online audience. They can be used to put a “human face” to respond and talk for your organization or campaign, and interact with the public on a personal level. To be effective, this human voice should be authentic, credible and transparent: it is not the same to post press releases using a corporate communications voice, than posting opinions and different points of view.

- Some organizations have found strategic to offer their users a platform to create their own blogs or collaborate in group blogs on the issues they care about. Creating a community weblog can provide a wealth of content, knowledge and engagement. However, collaborators need to obtain value from this relationship, and they have to be guaranteed a space for freedom and creativity. To offer a blogging platform, an organization should be prepared to provided training or orientation on how to use it, general user support, and security and privacy practices.

- Many bloggers are embracing open content and Creative Commons licenses, as an alternative to Copyright. The Internet has enabled and expanded the culture of content sharing, and it is important to understand the conditions in which this happens. There is very little control over content on the blogosphere. A model that allows users to copy, mix and reproduce content while retaining rights such as attribution is a good option to match the conditions in which information exists and transforms on the Internet.

- Blogs can offer an alternative view or coverage of an issue, event or campaign, and create an editorial voice for interested audiences. There are millions of blogs, many of them covering the same topics. Original voices and points of view have a better chance to stand out. Many issues that are not covered or not covered enough by the mainstream media could be highlighted and brought forward through a blog.

- Relevant blogs are part of a blogging community (geographical, thematic or demographic) that shares links, visitors and refers to each other's content. It's the community that brings traffic, relevance and access to audiences that get to a blog indirectly by reference. Participation in a community also entails time and involvement, and a constant monitoring and reading of other blogs.

- Microblogging is being used to post quick event updates for people who are not attending or that is following the event closely, and last minute developments on a protest, campaign or breaking news. Microblogging allows posting and receiving updates easily from mobile devices, it requires less reading from the audience and limits the formatting options to be lightweight and fast.

- Encourage self expression and sharing personal experiences through blogging. Get original content from your organization, your partners and members. Blogs are not only for news: incorporate life stories, interviews, best practices, how-tos and book reviews. Use multimedia such as audio, video, photography, illustration and animation if you have the resources.

- Use blogs to create international links and bring a global perspective on issues. Blogs can reach a global audience but they can also feed from many global perspectives on the issues. A blog can support a campaign or an informative effort abroad.

- Bloggers can be a part of a communications strategy. Bloggers can be invited, along with the press, to cover issues and campaigns. Many organizations are including bloggers in their press lists, inviting them to events and campaign launches, sending them their publications for review and directly inviting them to support their campaigns, either by endorsement or simply by posting a banner or a link on their blog.

Use cases

Taking IT Global http://www.takingitglobal.org/

- A youth lead organization that created an online community that today has 150 000 members. Their objective is to bring together young people from around the world to get informed on social change issues and take action.
- Their online community offers useful project management and communications tools, including member's weblogs. Blogs give TIG a constant stream of relevant content created by their young user base from around the world.
- They encourage their young members to express themselves not only by writing on their weblogs but also creating artwork and creating their own projects and groups.
- TIG develops specific actions to mobilize youth offline, tapping into the wealth of online content and resources. They have programs to connect their users with local communities, organizations and educational programs.
- User-created content and a strong membership base allows TIG to obtain relevant research data on best practices and the role of youth and ICTs in global action.

Global Voices http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/

- Global voices is a non-profit project that “seeks to aggregate, curate, and amplify the global conversation online”. It is created by a team of volunteer authors, regional editors and translators. all bloggers from around the world.
- They focus on under-represented issues and sources and aim to bring attention to them using a variety of technology resources such as weblogs, photo, video, chat etc.
- Part of their work is identifying content, summarizing, giving context and sometimes translating it to English and other languages. Some of their bloggers are interviewed by mainstream media and become reliable sources.
- They have created a partnership with Reuters that is mutually beneficial in terms of content sharing. They are also exploring “how professional journalism should interact with the world of blogs and citizen media.”

Amnesty USA Blogs http://blogs.amnestyusa.org/

- One of the most recognized Human Rights organizations in the world. Traditionally used one way newsletters and email alerts to communicate with their members and subscribers.
- Using blogs as part of their communications strategy has allowed them to interact with the public and receive immediate feedback and comments, creating a conversation around the issues.
- They have become part of the larger blogosphere and by doing so, they have gained access to different audiences.
- They educate their members on how to blog about human rights issues and even encouraged others to start blogs, hoping to engage more activists into the conversation.

Future Majority http://www.futuremajority.com/

- Three political activists and bloggers started this collective blog to report on the progressive youth movement. They were all participants and collaborators in youth engaging initiatives such as Music for America and Howard Dean's political campaign in 2003.
- They aim to “create an online space that covers the activities of these organizations, supplements them with our own creative ideas”. To do so, they blog about the latest news and political developments with a youth perspective, but they also include reference material for youth engagement in politics and link to relevant organizations and campaigns.
- The site has slowly integrated other resources such as a MySpace account, Facebook account, a Youtube account and a Flickr account where they reach different networks and expose their content.
- They have started a wiki and with the help of their readers they are creating a collaborative guide to progressive youth organizing.

Technical overview
Key tech features and mechanisms

- Several web companies such as Blogger.com and TypePad allow you to create a weblog in their servers, by creating a user account. They offer different sets of features and customization options and terms of service.
- You can also choose to install a content management systems (CMS) in your own server. The most popular blogging CMSs are published under Free or Open Source software licenses and can be downloaded from the web. Popular choices include WordPress and Movable Type. Blogging tools are relatively easy to install and customize. Larger CMS such as Drupal and Joomla also include blogs.
- Every major blogging tool offers an intuitive interface for publishing text content and links. Some tools offer WYSIWYG panels and content preview.
- Blogging tools also offer other options such as document uploading, different ways to include images on posts, different privacy levels for posts and the ability to include tags or keywords and to publish a post under user-created categories. Some tools also offer the option to create static pages outside the chronological blog order.
- Key features on a blog tool allow you to create connections with other blogs and aggregators. Blogrolls allow you to manage dynamic lists of links, tagrolls allow you to display your content by keyword and even link to other weblogs with similar content (using del.icio.us for example). Trackbacks and pingbacks let you know when someone has referenced your content from another site, and ping features allow you to notify aggregators and search engines every time you update your content.
- Bllogging software and third party services (i.e. Youtube) can be used to display embedded media in your posts, such as audio and video files. Normally this will take pasting a small block of code into your post.
- Most blogging software automatically generates RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds for your posts and comments. Users can subscribe to your feeds using a feed reader such as Bloglines or the included feed reader in the Firefox browser. You can also customize how your feeds are displayed on the user's reader.
- Most CMSs work with a system of templates to control the weblog design and layout. Very often, a Cascade Style-Sheet (CSS) file controls the overall layout and style, and other template files are built with html code that includes “tags” that refer to specific content in the database. Free hosted weblogs tend to offer less flexibility in terms of design.
- Some blogging software gives you the option to grant different access levels to registered users, for example, you can have some users registered as authors or editors allowing them to post and edit content collectively. You can also create private entries or restrict access to your weblog altogether.

Getting started

- Set up a weblog, either hosted on a service such as Blogger.com or TypePad, or install a Blog CMS on your own web server space. To do this you may need to get a hosting provider, buy a domain name in order to have more control over your blog branding and features.

- Define a style and a scope for your content strategy. Decide what type of content you want to post and what are the topics you want to post about. For example, you could have a weblog to distribute your organization's news and press releases, or you could have an editorial weblog to comment and highlight the issues you work on from a different perspective. Some weblogs are based almost entirely on original content, others tend to post links and quotes found on the web and other blogs. You may want to define from the start if you're going to cover your topic on a local, national or global scale, or if you want to write for urban or rural populations. Make sure you dedicate some time to think about who you want to write for, and what is the language and format that is more attractive to them. Find if there are any blogs already covering your topic and identify your contribution to the community.

- Assign time and responsibilities for creating high quality content. Blogging takes time and although it requires little technical skills, creating high quality content requires good writing, confident Internet skills and careful editing. Original content, written with a good sense of humor and good style will attract new visitors and create loyalty from your regulars. Blog readers expect regularity on the updates: an abandoned blog quickly loses readership and relevance.

- Personalize your design and layout. Most blogging platforms offer default templates that can be modified to fit your basic needs. However, you may want to consider getting your weblog designed by a professional specially if you need your organizational branding, image or campaign graphics to be integrated into the weblog, or if you want to integrate your new weblog as a section of your website. Designing a template from scratch requires better knwoledge of CSS, HTML, tagging and sometimes PHP and Javascript, as well as a good knowledge of your blogging platform.

- Create linkrolls and tagrolls. Link to your allies, your networks and your supporters. Make sure you also link to other relevant websites and weblogs that your readership may find interesting. Don't be afraid of sending your readers to other sites: the blogosphere will send other visitors back to you over time. A linkroll can usually be managed from the administrative interface of the blogging software, which could also give you options on how to display it on your template. Tagrolls generate when you've tagged your entries with different keywords. These tags will accumulate over time and a tag roll allows your users to find information through that classification.

- Make sure your blog is on technorati and other major relevant sites. It is important that your content is indexed by search engines and listed on relevant directories and aggregators. Visitors will be able to find your content through external mechanisms and you will be able to account for your efforts on promoting and getting your blog linked.

- Track your statistics. Most hosting providers will tell you how to check on your global website statistics. You can also use external services such as Google Analytics. Statistics allow you not only to have an idea of how many people are visiting your blog and from what locations, but will also guide you on website design and content strategy. Statistics often show what keywords are users looking on your blog, what posts are more or less read, and what websites and search engines are directing traffic your way.

- Use RSS feeds. Most of the current blogging platforms generate RSS feeds (Real simple syndication) automatically, both for your posts and your comments. Meke sure your users can easily access your feeds. If you have time and skills, you can customize your feeds to show specific headlines, order, length etc. Services such as Bloglines and Google Reader will tell you how many of their users are subscribed to your blog.

- Explore other services that could complement your blog. For example, you could include your latest bookmarks or your tagcloud from del.idio.us, post your videos on youtube and embed them into your posts, show your latest Twitter updates in your blog, display your latest Flickr pictures, or show your public bloglines subscription list to your visitors.

- Perhaps the most important step to create a readership is to visit other weblogs on your subject area or geographical location, comment on their posts and become part of the bloggers community. Create links with others and refer to your content when appropriate. Don't abuse of self-promotion on other people's weblogs, just make interesting comments and visitors will be attracted to your own blog.

Looking forward

- Increasing need to define bloggers as media practitioners, with the guarantees of the law but also subject to ethics, transparency and quality standards.
- Multimedia content is increasingly being more and more prominent in blogs. The availability of broadband allows better integration of video, flash, audio into weblogs.
- Blogs are becoming sources of information for mainstream media to “pick up” stories or bringing them back to the spotlight.
- Open APIs are allowing multiple mash-ups and increasing integration of maps, photos, microblogging and the use of mobile devices.
- Blogs being integrated as a feature in larger social networking sites such as facebook and myspace, as well as a user feature in more issue-specific sites.

From Many Tweets, One Loud Voice on the Internet

What: NYT: From Many Tweets, One Loud Voice on the Internet
When: April 2007
Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/business/yourmoney/22stream.html?ex=1186113600&en=4dafb98f3fd8fd1f&ei=5070

Reading Notes:
John Edwards responded to Robert Scoble on a tweet about running a carbon neutral campaign.

"Mr. Williams says, Twitter is best understood as a highly flexible messaging system that swiftly routes messages, composed on a variety of devices, to the people who have elected to receive them in the medium the recipients prefer. It is a technology that encourages a new mode of communication, he contends."

can keep in touch with a lot of people in very little time.

get a much better picture of someone's life

author dislikes radical self-revelation. thinks there should be secretiveness

Notes from Call with Andrew Hoppin on Microblogging / Jaiku

Talked with Andrew Hoppin the other day about microblogging, Jaiku, and Nasa. Here are some notes:
Manypeople still think of it as a frivolous technology. 
Used internally at organizations, it can help to break through hierarchy. It creates ”situational awareness.” This kind of thing can be really critical at a place like NASA where there are 1000 stovepipes operating independently. It helps build links between them, enhancing community and collaboration.

There is always more going on that you can keep track of. MB creates an organic passive awareness. It allows you to help someone or communicate with someone without making a specific effort to do so.

Virtual offices are so common these days and you don't have the benefit of dynamic social interaction. Products like basecamp are great, but they require specific and somewhat structured action. It's work. MB is simple. It's not a lot of work.

Jaiku has some advantages over Twitter b/c you can create groups which makes it easier to prioritize the information coming in.

At NASA, in Andrew’s “CoLab” working group, MB is the heartbeat. It's unfiltered and uncensored. This is great for public outreach b/c NASA has been so insular over the years—a black box to the public. We can now share the direct experience of what it's like to work at NASA with people who love to be insiders. It's like they're in on the CB radio of the organization. They can feel part of it, get back stage access.

MB is a moment to moment tool.

Biz Stone (of Twitter) has a crushed ice theory, which explains the value of Twitter. The more surface area you expose, the greater effect you have by exposing more points of contact. You can solve problems so quickly by spreading them out to lots of people. You're going to bounce into a bunch of different conversations.

Possible uses
* broadcast news
* promotions: events/marketing
* networking
* breaking news
* mobilizations

In the future it will probably integrate with open ID - and there will be aggregations of MBs.

The Top 5 Ways Smart People Use Twitter

What: article on making use of twitter
When: march 2007
Link: http://www.901am.com/2007/the-top-5-ways-smart-people-use-twitter.html

Reading Notes:
* marketing and communication - tell the evolving story of a brand
* brief concise facts. this happened. that happened. story leads.
* networking (among people)
* streamlining inboxes
* breaking news.

New Establishment Rising? The End Of the Flat Blogosphere

What: article on blogs becoming establishment
When: July, 2007
Link: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=13

Reading Notes:
In reference to leftist political blogs:
* blogs used to be solitary productions
* now have co-writers, guest writers, diarists
* used to follow five characteristics
    - individual
    - independent
    - hobbies
    - limited communities
    - less varied and original content

* 1% of progressive political blogs receive 95% of traffic

* every blog in the shorthead has shed one of the above file characteristics
* b/c of higher entry and maintenance costs
* there is now an establishment in the blogosphere
* has become an indispensable part of the left ecosphere

today:
* group blogging is the norm = lots and lots of content
* institutional blogs on the rise = salaried employees
* professional bloggers emerge
* self-reinforcing communities = you start blogging by blogging on someone else's blog
* blogs are more than blogs now = boutique media and activist outlets
* joining the A-list is all but impossible for a new blogger. Last one to join was started before nov2005.

* these barriers to entry could choke the power of blogs by making it elitist

"The progressive blogosphere has done all of the following: played a key exposed a number of Republican scandals; kept the activist base engaged and informed on a daily basis; expanded progressive political activism over the past five years; reinvigorated moribund Democratic campaigns and local parties; made the fifty state strategy both a reality and a success; challenged a lapdog, corporatist press on a daily basis; and catalyzed every single progressive improvement in the American political scene over the last four years. We have come a long way from exposing Trent Lott."