SocialMedia Archives - Page 16 of 26

Useful links: Web Directions, HTML5 Watch, Pew on Reputation

Web Directions North has a new web site and an announced lineup for the Atlanta, GA, conference September 21–25. This group includes a lot of people interested in web education, InterACT, and OWEA. You don’t see it on the agenda, but there will be plenty of people there who want to engage in conversation about web education. If you are a web educator, this might be the conference for you!

HTML5 Watch is a Tumblr blog collecting links to projects in HTML5. Not only can you find HTML5 projects that way, you can contribute links if you know of anything that isn’t already there.

“When compared with older users, young adults are more likely to restrict what they share and whom they share it with.” That’s according to the Pew report on Reputation Management and Social Media. The report also states, “Young adults, far from being indifferent about their digital footprints, are the most active online reputation managers in several dimensions.” Read the full report online here.

The InterACT Summit I mentioned a couple of days ago is already filled. If you wanted to attend, I hope you registered in time. (There is a waiting list, if you want to keep your fingers crossed.)

SWIX your way into social media analytics

SWIX is an analytics tool that tracks your success in social media. You can check how you’re doing over various time periods in your social media campaigns.

Right now you can try it free while it’s in beta. When the beta testing is over, there will still be a 14 day free trial. After that it’s $9 a month for a personal account, $29 a month for a professional account or $99 a month for a business account.

Here’s a company video that explains what the product does. It’s short, and there’s a blooper that makes it worth watching to the end.

TechCrunch makes their SWIX information public. You can see what kind of information they are tracking to get an idea of how your or your business could make use of SWIX.

Each data stream of information is called a “pod.” A pod is simply a social media tool that can be tracked, for example blog subscribers, Twitter followers, Facebook profiles or groups, YouTube channels, and others—you can see them all in the image.

You click the plus sign by one of the pod icons to add it to your pods. You can then add the metrics from that pod to your “reports” by clicking the plus sign in the pod window.

You use the menu items at the bottom of the pod window to display graphs, edit, refresh, collapse or remove that pod from your pod choices. I tracked my Twitter account for 2 whole days and got this graph as a visual for how I’m doing.

The graphs also appear as part of your report page, which you can see in the TechCrunch example in you click the menu item “Report.”

Mentions and reviews of SWIX

Some conclusions

If you are running a business and investing money and hours in social media campaigns, this tool can help you track your success. Check it out.

For a blogger or a small web site owner, SWIX might not be something you need to spend your money on. There are other anlytics tools that might be more helpful such as Post Rank, Woopra or Google Analytics.

Useful Links: DW CS5 HTML5 Pack, Togetherville, synthetic cells, something’s happening here

Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 HTML5 Pack is a free extension. Sorry, it only runs on CS5—can’t retrofit older versions of Dreamweaver.

Togetherville: Walled Garden Social Networking for the Younger Set. There have been social networks for young children before, but this one is making news right now. I’m wondering what educators will do with this new site.

Scientists Create First ‘Synthetic Cells’ is a bit off-the-web-design-topic, but it’s fascinating news from the scientific world that may have far reaching implications.

Something’s happening here. People used to be either a Windows person or a Mac person. Now Android is outselling iPhone, Google has a new store in direct competition with iTunes, the number of Android apps is growing fast. When we weren’t looking the world changed to a place in which you are either a Google person or a Mac person.

Useful links: site specific browsers, social media stats, Web 2.0

Fluid–Create Site Specific Browsers from ATMac is a new concept to me and has interesting potential.

This stat filled video about social media is eye-opening.

Speaking of video, O’Reilly Media has a lot of video from the Web 2.0 Expo up on YouTube, including this interview with a good deal of talk about HTML5, Flash, and other technology from Brady Forrest, Eric Meyer, and Ge Wang.

Trend spotting at SXSWi

SXSW Interactive, a yearly geekfest in Austin, TX, is where I spent most of last week. I picked up on a lot of trendy new ideas, apps, and goings on in the tech world. Some of them may be of interest.

Gowalla

Everyone was using Gowalla and talking about Gowalla, comparing Gowalla with Foursquare, and even dreaming about Gowalla. There’s a constant stream of Twitter chatter about it. As you see in this tweet from @Goodwitch, you can set up Gowalla to tweet your whereabouts when you check in at a particular location.

Let me explain Gowalla, so you’ll have some idea if you want to give it a try. It’s a mobile phone app that does several things. It’s a social networking app that connects you with friends. It uses geo location to check you in to places where you go. Once you’re checked into to a place, a game-like part of the app kicks in. If you’re the first person to check in somewhere, you become the “founder” of that location and you get some video game style prizes. If others have been there before you, you can see who they were and when they were there. If a friend of yours is there when you are, you can see that. You can collect or redeem some of your prizes in whatever location you are in. You can download it for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and palm at Gowalla.

AOL Seed

There was a huge AOL display at SXSW, touting their new network called Seed. For writers, photographers and bloggers, Seed is of interest because it pays you for writing and photos. You can make from $15 to $100 on stories of various lengths that get accespted by Seed. But, be aware that you’re giving up all rights to the material for that money. Go to the site and see what current assignments they are seeking contributors for. If you’re interested, you can’t miss all the Get Started and Sign Up buttons.

QR Codes

Every badge at SXSW held a QR Code with contact information or URLs for the badgeholder. These codes can be read with a mobile phone that contains an appropriate app for capturing the information and adding it to your contacts. I saw very few cards change hands, but I saw a lot of people pointing their phone camera at someone else’s QR code.

You can get the apps here:

iPhone: I-Nigma
Windows Mobile: Bee Tagg
BlackBerry: I-Nigma or BeeTagg or Open the BlackBerry Messenger 5 application -> click on invite -> Scan the code
Android: Google Zxing Reader
Nokia: I-Nigma

A handout in the schwag bag was from Stickybits. It contained a packet of stick-ons with QR Codes that you activate at the website and then use to identify your phone, computer or attach to something like a business card or photo. The QR code can contain whatever information you want. For example, the code block on a business card might contain the URL to your resumé.

Not long ago, Facebook started playing with QR Codes in Facebook profiles, according to TechCrunch. Are you ready to wear your Facebook profile on your tee shirt as a QR Code?

Fast Company found a cupcake company that is making QR Code Cupcakes. First you download it, then you down it. Tasty.

Useful Links: Captions, your college on Facebook, Web Education Rocks at SXSW

The Future will be Captioned at the YouTube blog explains their new auto-captioning function, which works only for English videos at this point.

I saw a presentation from the social media team at Central New Mexico Community College last week. They talked about how they interact with the college’s 25,000 students on Facebook. The rule they gave for social media interaction was 80% fun and 20% serious. They are getting good results with what they are doing. If your college is not having much luck getting into social media, take a look at the way CNM is doing things. It’s an instructive model.

Will you be at SXSW Interactive? I hope you’ll attend the Web Education Rocks: 2010 WaSP InterAct Annual Meeting. In the past, this session was billed as the WaSP annual meeting, but this year most of the things going on within WaSP relate to InterAct–both the web standards curriculum and the web standards book. You’ll find out what the new courses are that have been added to the curriculum, and more about the book that will come out soon. Hope to see you there.

What response do you want to your blog posts?

What do you do when you read a great blog post? Do you comment, do you tweet a link, do you stumble it or bookmark it somewhere like delicious?

I find it depends. Sometimes I really enjoy a post but don’t comment. Instead I do something to support the blogger like tweet or stumble. Sometimes I really enjoy a post, want to comment with my thoughts on the topic, and don’t bother to tweet or stumble.

And, sometimes, I wonder what the blogger would most like his or her readers to do.

I think it’s safe to say that the bloggers who are trying to make a living off advertising income want the traffic driving tweet or stumble or digg.

Other bloggers might want the engagement, the conversation, and not care at all about traffic.

Then there are bloggers like me, who appreciate every comment, tweet, and stumble. I’m never sure anyone is reading. Any sort of response gives me a bit of feedback that lets me know at least someone read a post.

I asked this question on Twitter. A couple of people shared their thoughts. Elaine Nelson who is @epersonae, said this and added this and wrapped up with a final thought. Laurie White, @lauriewrites, responded with this tweet. I want to thank them both for responding because they pointed out some of the thinking behind what people want you to do with their posts, and what they like to do for others’ posts.

On BlogHer, I wrote a post called What Women Do with Twitter. Check the comments. Some commenters couldn’t care less about getting links or retweets from Twitter.

I know there are bloggers with a sharp focus on one thing—like building traffic—but for a small blogger like myself I think the answer is “it depends.” What is the answer for you?