Archive for October 2009

Bernard Moon, Managing Director of the Lunsford Group, writes for Mashable about 4 Emerging Trends of the Real-Time Web. This brief article takes a look at four upcoming real-time Web trends such as search, (ie. Twitter), collaboration, (ie. Google Wave), analytics, and Ecommerce.

OnlineCourses.org has compiled a mega-list of 100 Incredible Open Courses for the Ultimate Tech Geek. This comprehensive guide presents 100 free resources to develop your tech skill set. The courses are divided into the following categories:

• Computer Science and Engineering
• Computer Security
• Programming
• The Web
• Software
• Information Technology
• Communication Technology
• Technology in Education
• Tech Math
• Technology and Society

The Non-profit Tech 2.0 blog recommends 10 Tips for Managing Social Media Burnout. If you’re on the brink of information overload, you’ll want to scan this helpful list of suggestions. Here are their top five:

1. Don’t update your organization’s profiles on the weekend.
2. Pick a time to quit in the evening and stick to it.
3. Pick one social networking profile and keep it entirely for fun and your personal life.
4. Sometimes just leave the smartphone at home.
5. Take time for lunch.

Ross Kimbarovsky, co-founder of crowdSPRING, gives Mashable readers 10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips. Each recommendation outlines both basic and advanced strategies for leveraging social media tools to reach your goals. Some of the tools & suggestions discussed include:

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. Company Blog
4. LinkedIn
5. Participate On Other Blogs
6. Mobile Social Networks and other Local Strategies
7. Comments and Conversations About Your Company
8. Multimedia
9. Maintain Brand Consistency
10. Leverage Combinations of Social Media Tools

Robin Broitman at IIG has pulled together over 50 resources to identify and target social media influencers in How-To Influence Influencers- Bloggers, Tweeters & Others. If you want to learn strategies for word-of-mouth marketing, you’ll want to check out this list which is divided into the following categories:

• Identifying, Targeting and Courting Key Influencers
• Blogger Outreach and Relations
• Tools and Lists

The Nonprofit Tech 2.0 blog has a quick guide to Five Essential Apps for Your Nonprofit’s Facebook Page. Many of these apps would also be particularly useful for a library’s FB page as well. During my presentation at the Suffolk County Library Association yesterday, I suggested two of these five for library Facebook pages, I can’t wait to check out the other three.

1. The Static FBML App
2. Causes App
3. Involver Apps
4. Social RSS App
5. Links App

You may also want to check out the blog’s Five Most Common Mistakes Made by Nonprofit Admins on Facebook.

Christina Warren at Mashable has put together a guide to How to Measure Social Media ROI. If you’re curious about how to measure the impact your social media initiatives are having, you’ll want to check out this helpful guide along with the not-to-be-missed Social Media ROI introductory presentation by Olivier Blanchard.

• ROI Reality Check
• Defining Clear Goals
• Metrics Tools
• Sentiment Analysis
• Social Media Product Suites
• Making the Data Usable

Charles W. Bryant writes for HowStuffWorks about the Top 10 Things You Should Not Share on Social Networks. Even if you think you’ve got social networking figured out, you will want to read through the author’s discussion and warnings for each item on the list. Here are items 10 through 5:

• Personal Conversations
• Social Plans
• Linking Sites
• Company Information
• Photos of Your Kids
• Your Address and Phone Number

Educause has published the annual ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology for 2009. Some of their key findings include:

• Desktop computer ownership has decreased 27% while laptop ownership increased nearly 23%.
• Despite the state of the economy 8 out of 10 freshman entered school with a laptop which was one year old or less.
• 9 out of 10 students use the college & university library website.
• Over 44% of students have contributed content to video websites, over 41% to wikis, and over 37% have contributed to blogs. 35% of students use podcasts.
• Social networking websites and text messaging were used by 9 out of 10 respondents.

Both Google and Microsoft Bing announced yesterday that they have partnered with Twitter to include their updates in all search results. According to All Things Digital, Microsoft has also reached an agreement with Facebook to provide real-time status updates in Bing’s search results as well. These new partnerships are particularly significant as the Pew Internet and American Life Project has recently reported that the number of people who now publish status updates has increased from 11% in December 2008 to 19% as of April 2009.

Chris Brogan talks about how to use social media to promote real-time events in How to Market an Offline Event Online. Be sure to check out the full post for more on his recommendations:

• Always a URL. Always
• Extend onto Event Sites
• Status, Status, Status
• Email Marketing
• Flickr and YouTube
• Blog Posts Matter
• Twitter on the Day Of the Event

WordPress announced today that they have launched two new mobile themes which will be automatically displayed when readers access a WP blog via a mobile device. The first theme is a version of WPtouch and will be used with modern Web browsers such as those found in iPhone and Android phones and the second is a modification of the WordPress Mobile Edition and will be displayed on all other devices.

Technorati has published their annual State of the Blogosphere Report for 2009. The entire report will be released this week over five consecutive days. For this year’s study, Technorati took a closeup look at professional blogging and conducted interviews with several successful bloggers. Here’s a summary of what’s new for the 2009 report:

• “We took a deeper dive into the entire blogosphere, with a focus on professional bloggers
• Professional blogging activities
• Brands in the blogosphere
• Monetization
• Twitter & micro-blogging
• Bloggers impact on US and World events
• Our largest survey ever conducted by market research firm Penn Schoen and Berland: 2,900 bloggers
• Interviews and profiles of some of the leading professional bloggers
• In addition to Technorati index data, we’re also looking at data from search tool provider Lijit.”"

The folks at MakeUseOf have published a 53-page Complete Guide to Twitter. If you want to get up to speed on how to effectively tweet, you’ll want to check out this guide which includes sections about:

• Hashtags
• ReTweeting
• Searching for Twitter Trends
• Managing Your Reputation on Twitter
• Twitter Apps and Bots You Should Know About
• Scheduling Your Tweets for Later

Jeff Young at The Chronicle of Higher Ed’s Wired Campus asks: Could Google Wave Replace Course-Management Systems?

“Google argues that its new Google Wave system could replace e-mail by blending instant messaging, wikis, and image and document sharing into one seamless communication interface. But some college professors and administrators are more excited about Wave’s potential to be a course-management-system killer.”