Twestival: I had been hearing quite a bit about Charity:Water over the last few months, from a semi-mysterious mailed invitation to a New York fundraiser party in December (I got thrown off by the lack of social media context) to my good friend Laura Fitton’s fundraising via TipJoy and Twitter. OK, I get it- a comparatively small amount of money helps get clean water for villages in places where that is indeed a difficult thing. You can’t knock that for a good cause.
Well, Charity:Water and all of its various volunteer friends have really kicked it up a notch with the Twestival idea. Starting in London, but blooming to s global scale, with at least 175 cities participating- simultaneously, on February 12. I plan to attend the Boston event that evening; not just for the charity- it’s easy to give $25 if you have it- but for the meatspace socialization. what a fantastic idea; I am looking forward to the aftermath.
I’ll let social media video star iJustine explain Charity:Water because she’s prettier than I am
The Obama “Hope” Poster; Intellectual Property Theft? Super media-blogger Dan Kennedy brought to my attention lawsuit brought by the Associated Press against artist Shepard Fairey because he used an AP photo to produce the poster. Kennedy thinks the suit will not go anywhere because the poster should qualify as a “transformative” work (read the post for a better explanation). I would like to agree, but frankly I don’t know the law well enough. Regardless, I do see this as another lost opportunity, a la the FedEx box furniture and other “takedown notice” public relations gaffes. The AP could embrace this– even coopt it (“steal it back,” if you must) and share in some of the reflected good feelings behind the poster. Instead, they’re succumbing to
the typically aggressive intellectual property lawyers’ advice. Understandable, but still….
..maybe I can get sued for this:
The Twitter Effect: a New Digg? Stephen Shankland writes in CNET about the “Twitter Effect,” where “Re-Tweets” – repeated sharing of a single link – can bring lots of traffic to a blog post or Web site. When Twitter is truly mainstream, I see the possibility; I sure get most of my traffic from Twitter, and when someone like Chris Brogan Tweets a blog post (and he has), the traffic surge is noticeable. Of course, I write a lot about social media, and lots of like-minded people hang out on Twitter, so of course it works for me. We will have to see if the Twitter Effect goes mainstream.
One thing I do like in this over Digg, is the relevance- Twitter (and StumbleUpon, by the way) is much more social than Digg has become, meaning that links are more heartfelt recommendations, rather than a relatively small cabal voting things up an down. So, does relevant count in these games?
Facebook Pokes- Not Completely Evil, If Jeff Pulver Says So I really have no time or patience for Pokes and Super pokes on Facebook, or any of the other meaningless (but, ok, fun) applications on the social network, but Jeff Pulver reminds us that the plain old “poke” is a way to find presence– are you there? Jeff plays that game, maybe I will a little, now. No Zombie bites though.
Idiots Threaten Social Networks ZDNet Editor-in-Chief Larry Dignan just blows off some steam at the the idiots that often crop up on the public Internet. My take? It’s not annoyance, it’s entertainment! Dumb moments on the social web are the “crotch shots” or pie in the face, and we hope we are never victims.