The last week has gone by in a blur, with another successful NFPtweetup as well as some interesting tech development and stories:
Egyptian Facebook baby
Grateful for the role Facebook played in Egypt’s recent regime change, citizen Jamal Ibrahim has named his new-born daughter ‘Facebook Jamal Ibrahim’.
If we had heard this news in the celebrity gossip column <sarcasm>in our favorite red top newspaper</sarcasm>, we’d think it a cruel act that would haunt the child for the rest of its life.
However, thinking about what Facebook means to Egyptian society and the future of the country, it really is a beautiful thing. And for her, her family and friends it will be a lasting reminder of how social media aided a revolution and – we hope – changed their lives for the better.
Amnesty International in Egypt
As many of you may know, Fiona McLaren (@fionamclaren) from Amnesty International (AI) spoke at NFPtweetup 10 about how AI were involved in the Egyptian revolution.
According to Fiona, the aim of AI’s activity was to ‘become a part of the conversation and bring the human rights angle to coverage’ by following contacts on Twitter.
A new translation tool launched by Twitter will enable the scope of such activity such to widen significantly in future. Translation of tweets into more languages will allow more of the conversation to be monitored, and therefore, more of the story can be told. Could this be the end of the idea that ‘history is only written by the victor’?
You can see Fiona’s presentation on Slideshare, which according to Teri was ‘hot’ on Slideshare during the hour after being posted and featured on their homepage.
Zipcast
Speaking of Slideshare, we came across something very cool – Zipcast. This allows Slideshare users to live stream presentations over the web with audio and video if desired. Could be a great way to stream future presentations at NFPtweetup!
Think internet first
Third Sector this week featured an article by Martha Lane Fox, in which she urged charities to reap the rewards of ‘thinking Internet first’ and encouraged organisations in the sector to tap into the support offered by the Race Online 2012 programme she is leading on as the government’s ‘UK Digtital Champion’.
The Race Online 2012 programme is teaming up with organisations to help some of the 9 million adults in the UK, who have never used the Internet, to get online. This will help the currently offline population feel, and be, more included in society, and help many charities, not-for-profit and public sector organisations to reach and support more people, while potentially saving money in the process. Or, as Martha Lane Fox put it,
‛Smart use of technology can help you make the most of your time and your people, fundraise better, communicate your impact more powerfully and to more people, and operate and deliver services more effectively, accessibly and cheaply. All of which will ultimately help you help more people.’
Small charities such as Street League have reportedly saved £50,000 from using online tools, ‘£15,000 of which comes from making digital its default publishing channel’. If a small charity can make savings like this, what savings could the rest of the sector make?
Charities can read about this, and many other successful case studies from their peers in the ‘Survive & Thrive’ casebook that Race Online 2012 has just published.
The Tweeting homeless
Whether you spent Valentine’s day with love in your eyes and a dopey grin on your face, or with that face thrust nose deep into a tub of family-sized ice cream (or both if you were lucky!) you probably couldn’t have imagined what was going on in the minds and lives of four homeless men in New York – let alone have received best February 14th wishes from one. That is unless you were one of the few people following an inspiring social media experiment that was about to hit the Twittersphere.
Underheard in New York is an innovative scheme to help homeless New Yorkers find a voice through Twitter. Four homeless people — Danny (@putodanny), Derrick (@awitness2011), Albert (@albert814) and Carlos (@jessie550) — were given their own prepaid mobile phones with unlimited access to Twitter, and consequently to the arguably personal electronic spaces of other New Yorkers and people around the world.
It has been suggested by some that perhaps the price of the (admittedly basic) mobile phones and credit may have been put to better use as a warm drink and shelter for the night, whilst others felt the catalyst effect of the scheme could well produce far greater benefits, making the initial investment very worthwhile. One of the founders, intern Robert Weeks, takes the optimistic view and is convinced of the wider benefits, “these four men serve as a pilot group that the team hopes to expand with more Twitter accounts and voices from the New York area”.
Whilst the scheme is in its infancy, it has already garnered some attention, and although the four men don’t yet have huge followings, the brave and cutting-edge plan certainly has the potential to become a platform for something bigger.
What do you think of the scheme? Does it have staying power or is it simply an unusual headline grabber set to stay, much like it’s subjects, in the shadows?
Google updates social search
Google has recently updated its ‘social search’ feature. In search result pages, people are able to see links that their friends have already shared on social networking sites. This new feature has been developed based on the fact we trust recommendations from people we know:
According to Nielson (2009), ‘people are more 90% more likely to trust the recommendations of people they know… and 70% more likely to trust the recommendations of independent individuals.’
And, since 2009, the amount of trust people placed on friend recommendations has grown by 47.5% (see graph).
So is social search a good thing?
I’m undecided at the moment – simply because I have yet to come across this feature in a Google search (but I’m sure that will change as time goes on). From a user’s perspective, it will most certainly highlight niche articles or pages pertinent to you and your friends or colleagues – but how much of a value-add is this? Do people want to rely on information friends have shared before instead of searching for new, or perhaps, more relevant? Or is this just another layer of information users need to factor into an already complex Google algorithm-based set of recommendations?
This new form of search could also impact on SEO strategies in the future. Will keyword density have as much of an effect on driving click-through compared to a solid friend recommendation?
What I hope will come of this, is a further push to engage with current supporters or fans online. This seems to be a genuine opportunity to increase cold traffic through to online content if someone who already likes/follows your brand/cause recommends it on their chosen social network.
Until next week,
Ash
Tags: beautiful bytes, egypt, facebook baby, Google, NFPtweetup, Race Online 2012, SEO, social search, Twitter, Zipcast
