Social Blogging

Filed under: citizen media, MSM

I just watched Hong Eun-taek,  Editor-In-Chief of the of South Korea based citizen journalism project OhMyNews speak at the NetSquared conference (disclosure: I work for Net Squared).  Amongst the interesting details of  Eun-taek's talk was a statement that the organization aims to become a global news wire similar to the AP and Reuters.  One of the most recent steps towards that end is a partnership begun in recent weeks to swap headlines between the prestigious International Herald Tribune.

I think there is an important difference between the recent high-profile partnerships between the AP and Technorati and between Sphere and Time Magazine and this partnership.  Specifically, while it is meaningful for a mainstream media organization to include links indicating "what the blogosphere is saying about this topic" - I would contend that it is meaningful in a different way for prominent parties in the citizen journalism camp and in the traditional media camp to permanently display each others' headlines in a box on their sites.  It's an interesting form of mutual recognition that goes beyond the relatively casual link list to the medium in general.

The IHT/OhMyNews partnership is also clearly important because it involves two parties that are not based in the United States.  Ethan Zuckerman from Global Voices Online is speaking now about the huge explosion of content producers from China, Africa, Brazil and the Middle East/North Africa that is on its way.  This partnership is liable to be remembered as a key development in the relationship between old media and new media on the global stage.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: citizen media, MSM

I just watched Hong Eun-taek,  Editor-In-Chief of the of South Korea based citizen journalism project OhMyNews speak at the NetSquared conference (disclosure: I work for Net Squared).  Amongst the interesting details of  Eun-taek's talk was a statement that the organization aims to become a global news wire similar to the AP and Reuters.  One of the most recent steps towards that end is a partnership begun in recent weeks to swap headlines between the prestigious International Herald Tribune.

I think there is an important difference between the recent high-profile partnerships between the AP and Technorati and between Sphere and Time Magazine and this partnership.  Specifically, while it is meaningful for a mainstream media organization to include links indicating "what the blogosphere is saying about this topic" - I would contend that it is meaningful in a different way for prominent parties in the citizen journalism camp and in the traditional media camp to permanently display each others' headlines in a box on their sites.  It's an interesting form of mutual recognition that goes beyond the relatively casual link list to the medium in general.

The IHT/OhMyNews partnership is also clearly important because it involves two parties that are not based in the United States.  Ethan Zuckerman from Global Voices Online is speaking now about the huge explosion of content producers from China, Africa, Brazil and the Middle East/North Africa that is on its way.  This partnership is liable to be remembered as a key development in the relationship between old media and new media on the global stage.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: citizen media, MSM

I just watched Hong Eun-taek,  Editor-In-Chief of the of South Korea based citizen journalism project OhMyNews speak at the NetSquared conference (disclosure: I work for Net Squared).  Amongst the interesting details of  Eun-taek's talk was a statement that the organization aims to become a global news wire similar to the AP and Reuters.  One of the most recent steps towards that end is a partnership begun in recent weeks to swap headlines between the prestigious International Herald Tribune.

I think there is an important difference between the recent high-profile partnerships between the AP and Technorati and between Sphere and Time Magazine and this partnership.  Specifically, while it is meaningful for a mainstream media organization to include links indicating "what the blogosphere is saying about this topic" - I would contend that it is meaningful in a different way for prominent parties in the citizen journalism camp and in the traditional media camp to permanently display each others' headlines in a box on their sites.  It's an interesting form of mutual recognition that goes beyond the relatively casual link list to the medium in general.

The IHT/OhMyNews partnership is also clearly important because it involves two parties that are not based in the United States.  Ethan Zuckerman from Global Voices Online is speaking now about the huge explosion of content producers from China, Africa, Brazil and the Middle East/North Africa that is on its way.  This partnership is liable to be remembered as a key development in the relationship between old media and new media on the global stage.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: aggregators

Call them memediggers, community moderated news sites, or digg clones. User submitted news moderated up or down by other users and available for comments. Call them whatever you wish, this new class of social media warrants close examination in order to make the most of the potential it presents. Which of these sites get the most use, see the most conversation and are most useful to their readers? How should people looking to launch new digg-style sites organize things in order to maximize adoption and impact?

One first step could be to examine a variety of leading sites of this type and that is what I've done below. It's arbitrary, it's unscientific and I think it's interesting. Last Friday evening I looked at the front page of 4 interesting memedigger sites and wrote down some numbers. Digg is clearly the standard, but also examined below are Reddit, the Spanish-language site Meneame and Hugg.com, a project of the hugely popular environmental blog Treehugger. I would have liked to include Newsvine, but was unable to find numbers to compare.

An overview of some observations:

• Front page items are more commented on in Reddit than Digg, relative to the number of points those items have recieved.
• Meneame seems to be successful in terms of votes but receives fewer comments.
• Hugg isn't being used very much. I am curious why.

For each site I counted:

• the total number of points listed for all items on the front page of the site
• the number of items listed
• the age of the oldest and second oldest items on the front page
• the total number of comments listed on the front page
• the estimated number of registered users in the system

Based on those numbers I then:

• divided the average number of points held by each item on the front page of each service by the estimated number of registered users. This could be called the chance that any single item on the front page was given a point by any single registered users. This may serve to roughly estimate the breadth of participation in the system - a system where the items on the front page have received a relatively large number of votes relative to a relatively small number of users is one where there is greater agreement amongst users about what is important. This number may be more precise if it were calculated with the number of recently active users than total registered users.
• I did the same division as above with the number of comments listed. This may provide some insight into the amount of conversation that occurs on the various sites, at least regarding the items that are on the front page.

Obviously this is very unscientific, just a starting point to look at and talk about the differences in memedigger services and communities. I hope you find it interesting.

Four memediggers compared

Digg

6923 points on 15 items = 461 points per item on the front page

Oldest item listed is from 1 day 3 hours ago, 2nd oldest 21 hours ago.

832 comments = 55 comments per item on the front page.

There appears to be 178,625 total registered users.

Total points on front page divided by total users equals 0.04. That could mean that one out of roughly every 20 registered users has given a point to an item that is now on the front page.

Total comments divided by registered users equals 0.005. That could mean that one out of roughly every 200 registered users has left a comment on an item that is now on the front page.

Notes on Digg:

• There are 5955 pages of users. Users Thuglife and Diggitydank both appear after the 1000th page of most active users, in case you were wondering.
• The nearly 180,000 registered digg users is a far larger number than the 60,000 subscribers to Tech Crunch, lest you use the latter number to measure the impact of Web 2.0.
• Google search for site:http://digg.com/users has aprox 4 to 5 million results.

Reddit

3179 points on 25 items front page = 211 points per item

There are several items listed as from 1 day ago.

777 comments = 51 comments per item

Registered users appears to be undisclosed. Reddit representative has said that the site gets tens of thousands of users every day. Google search for site:http://reddit.com/user gets 209,000 results.

Note: Reddit has many additional features beyond news moderation.

Meneame, Spanish-language digg clone on tech

1882 points on 20 items = 94 points per item

Oldest post is 1 day and 10 hours, second oldest 1 day 5 hours.

192 comments on 20 items = 10 comments per item

There appears to be 4940 registered users.

Total points divided by total users = 0.38 That could mean that there is a roughly 40% chance that any single user has given a point to any item that is now on the front page. This could also mean that a high percentage of registered users continue to engage in ongoing use.

Total comments divided by total users = 0.04 That could mean that approximately 1 out of every 20 users have commented on a front page item.

Notes on Meneame:

Google site:http://meneame.net/user.php gets 22,000 results.

There were items with zero and 1 comment on the front page, both with more than 80 votes.

The site also includes a wiki for discussion of the service.

Hugg

92 points on 15 items = 6 comments per post on front page

Oldest item is from 1 day 3 hrs ago, 16 hrs is second oldest.

8 comments on front page.

There are 93 registered users.

Total points on front page divided by total users = .99 That could mean that every user has given a point to an item on the front page. The fact that this is unlikely demonstrates the inadequacy of this formula. I believe it indicates instead that the many of the relatively few active users find almost every item they give a point to appearing on the front page. Clearly the front page is of far less use to these readers than in other systems.

Total front page comments divided by total users = 0.09 That could mean that 1 in ten users have left a comment on an item on the front page. It is likely one or a few users have left more than one of the 8 comments.

Notes on Hugg:

Hugg is a project of the environmental blog Treehugger, for which Technorati has found 9,298 links from 2,943 sites. This indicates that the large Treehugger community is not into Hugg.

Of the 15 items on the front page, all were contributed by a total of 5 users.

One of the items on the front page when I visited was titled Jesus 'healed using cannabis'. I found that funny.

There are loads of big ads on Hugg, including from some of the biggest environmental organizations in the US.

Other memedigger or community moderated news sites that may be of interest:

Muti "Muti is a site inspired by Digg and reddit but dedicated to content of interest to Southern Africans or those interested in Southern Africa." See also the site's cool mashup of Google Maps and Yahoo News on Africa and elsewhere.

Crispynews Crispynews is hosted digg-clone software used by a wide variety of communities of interest. American Idol fans, Mormons, Brazillian hip-hop fans, etc.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: aggregators

Call them memediggers, community moderated news sites, or digg clones. User submitted news moderated up or down by other users and available for comments. Call them whatever you wish, this new class of social media warrants close examination in order to make the most of the potential it presents. Which of these sites get the most use, see the most conversation and are most useful to their readers? How should people looking to launch new digg-style sites organize things in order to maximize adoption and impact?

One first step could be to examine a variety of leading sites of this type and that is what I've done below. It's arbitrary, it's unscientific and I think it's interesting. Last Friday evening I looked at the front page of 4 interesting memedigger sites and wrote down some numbers. Digg is clearly the standard, but also examined below are Reddit, the Spanish-language site Meneame and Hugg.com, a project of the hugely popular environmental blog Treehugger. I would have liked to include Newsvine, but was unable to find numbers to compare.

An overview of some observations:

• Front page items are more commented on in Reddit than Digg, relative to the number of points those items have recieved.
• Meneame seems to be successful in terms of votes but receives fewer comments.
• Hugg isn't being used very much. I am curious why.

For each site I counted:

• the total number of points listed for all items on the front page of the site
• the number of items listed
• the age of the oldest and second oldest items on the front page
• the total number of comments listed on the front page
• the estimated number of registered users in the system

Based on those numbers I then:

• divided the average number of points held by each item on the front page of each service by the estimated number of registered users. This could be called the chance that any single item on the front page was given a point by any single registered users. This may serve to roughly estimate the breadth of participation in the system - a system where the items on the front page have received a relatively large number of votes relative to a relatively small number of users is one where there is greater agreement amongst users about what is important. This number may be more precise if it were calculated with the number of recently active users than total registered users.
• I did the same division as above with the number of comments listed. This may provide some insight into the amount of conversation that occurs on the various sites, at least regarding the items that are on the front page.

Obviously this is very unscientific, just a starting point to look at and talk about the differences in memedigger services and communities. I hope you find it interesting.

Four memediggers compared

Digg

6923 points on 15 items = 461 points per item on the front page

Oldest item listed is from 1 day 3 hours ago, 2nd oldest 21 hours ago.

832 comments = 55 comments per item on the front page.

There appears to be 178,625 total registered users.

Total points on front page divided by total users equals 0.04. That could mean that one out of roughly every 20 registered users has given a point to an item that is now on the front page.

Total comments divided by registered users equals 0.005. That could mean that one out of roughly every 200 registered users has left a comment on an item that is now on the front page.

Notes on Digg:

• There are 5955 pages of users. Users Thuglife and Diggitydank both appear after the 1000th page of most active users, in case you were wondering.
• The nearly 180,000 registered digg users is a far larger number than the 60,000 subscribers to Tech Crunch, lest you use the latter number to measure the impact of Web 2.0.
• Google search for site:http://digg.com/users has aprox 4 to 5 million results.

Reddit

3179 points on 25 items front page = 211 points per item

There are several items listed as from 1 day ago.

777 comments = 51 comments per item

Registered users appears to be undisclosed. Reddit representative has said that the site gets tens of thousands of users every day. Google search for site:http://reddit.com/user gets 209,000 results.

Note: Reddit has many additional features beyond news moderation.

Meneame, Spanish-language digg clone on tech

1882 points on 20 items = 94 points per item

Oldest post is 1 day and 10 hours, second oldest 1 day 5 hours.

192 comments on 20 items = 10 comments per item

There appears to be 4940 registered users.

Total points divided by total users = 0.38 That could mean that there is a roughly 40% chance that any single user has given a point to any item that is now on the front page. This could also mean that a high percentage of registered users continue to engage in ongoing use.

Total comments divided by total users = 0.04 That could mean that approximately 1 out of every 20 users have commented on a front page item.

Notes on Meneame:

Google site:http://meneame.net/user.php gets 22,000 results.

There were items with zero and 1 comment on the front page, both with more than 80 votes.

The site also includes a wiki for discussion of the service.

Hugg

92 points on 15 items = 6 comments per post on front page

Oldest item is from 1 day 3 hrs ago, 16 hrs is second oldest.

8 comments on front page.

There are 93 registered users.

Total points on front page divided by total users = .99 That could mean that every user has given a point to an item on the front page. The fact that this is unlikely demonstrates the inadequacy of this formula. I believe it indicates instead that the many of the relatively few active users find almost every item they give a point to appearing on the front page. Clearly the front page is of far less use to these readers than in other systems.

Total front page comments divided by total users = 0.09 That could mean that 1 in ten users have left a comment on an item on the front page. It is likely one or a few users have left more than one of the 8 comments.

Notes on Hugg:

Hugg is a project of the environmental blog Treehugger, for which Technorati has found 9,298 links from 2,943 sites. This indicates that the large Treehugger community is not into Hugg.

Of the 15 items on the front page, all were contributed by a total of 5 users.

One of the items on the front page when I visited was titled Jesus 'healed using cannabis'. I found that funny.

There are loads of big ads on Hugg, including from some of the biggest environmental organizations in the US.

Other memedigger or community moderated news sites that may be of interest:

Muti "Muti is a site inspired by Digg and reddit but dedicated to content of interest to Southern Africans or those interested in Southern Africa." See also the site's cool mashup of Google Maps and Yahoo News on Africa and elsewhere.

Crispynews Crispynews is hosted digg-clone software used by a wide variety of communities of interest. American Idol fans, Mormons, Brazillian hip-hop fans, etc.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: aggregators

Call them memediggers, community moderated news sites, or digg clones. User submitted news moderated up or down by other users and available for comments. Call them whatever you wish, this new class of social media warrants close examination in order to make the most of the potential it presents. Which of these sites get the most use, see the most conversation and are most useful to their readers? How should people looking to launch new digg-style sites organize things in order to maximize adoption and impact?

One first step could be to examine a variety of leading sites of this type and that is what I've done below. It's arbitrary, it's unscientific and I think it's interesting. Last Friday evening I looked at the front page of 4 interesting memedigger sites and wrote down some numbers. Digg is clearly the standard, but also examined below are Reddit, the Spanish-language site Meneame and Hugg.com, a project of the hugely popular environmental blog Treehugger. I would have liked to include Newsvine, but was unable to find numbers to compare.

An overview of some observations:

• Front page items are more commented on in Reddit than Digg, relative to the number of points those items have recieved.
• Meneame seems to be successful in terms of votes but receives fewer comments.
• Hugg isn't being used very much. I am curious why.

For each site I counted:

• the total number of points listed for all items on the front page of the site
• the number of items listed
• the age of the oldest and second oldest items on the front page
• the total number of comments listed on the front page
• the estimated number of registered users in the system

Based on those numbers I then:

• divided the average number of points held by each item on the front page of each service by the estimated number of registered users. This could be called the chance that any single item on the front page was given a point by any single registered users. This may serve to roughly estimate the breadth of participation in the system - a system where the items on the front page have received a relatively large number of votes relative to a relatively small number of users is one where there is greater agreement amongst users about what is important. This number may be more precise if it were calculated with the number of recently active users than total registered users.
• I did the same division as above with the number of comments listed. This may provide some insight into the amount of conversation that occurs on the various sites, at least regarding the items that are on the front page.

Obviously this is very unscientific, just a starting point to look at and talk about the differences in memedigger services and communities. I hope you find it interesting.

Four memediggers compared

Digg

6923 points on 15 items = 461 points per item on the front page

Oldest item listed is from 1 day 3 hours ago, 2nd oldest 21 hours ago.

832 comments = 55 comments per item on the front page.

There appears to be 178,625 total registered users.

Total points on front page divided by total users equals 0.04. That could mean that one out of roughly every 20 registered users has given a point to an item that is now on the front page.

Total comments divided by registered users equals 0.005. That could mean that one out of roughly every 200 registered users has left a comment on an item that is now on the front page.

Notes on Digg:

• There are 5955 pages of users. Users Thuglife and Diggitydank both appear after the 1000th page of most active users, in case you were wondering.
• The nearly 180,000 registered digg users is a far larger number than the 60,000 subscribers to Tech Crunch, lest you use the latter number to measure the impact of Web 2.0.
• Google search for site:http://digg.com/users has aprox 4 to 5 million results.

Reddit

3179 points on 25 items front page = 211 points per item

There are several items listed as from 1 day ago.

777 comments = 51 comments per item

Registered users appears to be undisclosed. Reddit representative has said that the site gets tens of thousands of users every day. Google search for site:http://reddit.com/user gets 209,000 results.

Note: Reddit has many additional features beyond news moderation.

Meneame, Spanish-language digg clone on tech

1882 points on 20 items = 94 points per item

Oldest post is 1 day and 10 hours, second oldest 1 day 5 hours.

192 comments on 20 items = 10 comments per item

There appears to be 4940 registered users.

Total points divided by total users = 0.38 That could mean that there is a roughly 40% chance that any single user has given a point to any item that is now on the front page. This could also mean that a high percentage of registered users continue to engage in ongoing use.

Total comments divided by total users = 0.04 That could mean that approximately 1 out of every 20 users have commented on a front page item.

Notes on Meneame:

Google site:http://meneame.net/user.php gets 22,000 results.

There were items with zero and 1 comment on the front page, both with more than 80 votes.

The site also includes a wiki for discussion of the service.

Hugg

92 points on 15 items = 6 comments per post on front page

Oldest item is from 1 day 3 hrs ago, 16 hrs is second oldest.

8 comments on front page.

There are 93 registered users.

Total points on front page divided by total users = .99 That could mean that every user has given a point to an item on the front page. The fact that this is unlikely demonstrates the inadequacy of this formula. I believe it indicates instead that the many of the relatively few active users find almost every item they give a point to appearing on the front page. Clearly the front page is of far less use to these readers than in other systems.

Total front page comments divided by total users = 0.09 That could mean that 1 in ten users have left a comment on an item on the front page. It is likely one or a few users have left more than one of the 8 comments.

Notes on Hugg:

Hugg is a project of the environmental blog Treehugger, for which Technorati has found 9,298 links from 2,943 sites. This indicates that the large Treehugger community is not into Hugg.

Of the 15 items on the front page, all were contributed by a total of 5 users.

One of the items on the front page when I visited was titled Jesus 'healed using cannabis'. I found that funny.

There are loads of big ads on Hugg, including from some of the biggest environmental organizations in the US.

Other memedigger or community moderated news sites that may be of interest:

Muti "Muti is a site inspired by Digg and reddit but dedicated to content of interest to Southern Africans or those interested in Southern Africa." See also the site's cool mashup of Google Maps and Yahoo News on Africa and elsewhere.

Crispynews Crispynews is hosted digg-clone software used by a wide variety of communities of interest. American Idol fans, Mormons, Brazillian hip-hop fans, etc.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: mashups

ActorTracker.com is a very impressive mashup of feeds from TV talk shows, movies and more mixed with affiliate links for videos and other memorabilia concerning your favorite actors.  Most commercially oriented mashups seem a step away from cheesy splogs, but this one is very nice.  Many features and a nice aesthetic let you know that the people behind ActorTracker spent a lot of time on it.  Unfortunately, there appears to be some problem with the  MyTracker feature, as I'm not able to log in to accounts I create.

The site has been around for awhile, but it may take some time before mass media loving consumer audiences are comfortable dealing with data like persistent search results and the like.  If and when that day comes, the right marketing (and a log in proccess that works) could put this site in a good place to get many users.  The service has an unintimidating interface, including e-mail subscription for new results.  It's a good example of the way that RSS could end up being implemented by small players for mass audiences without waving the acronym around too much.

Given the huge amount of consumer goods available online around various celebrities and pop culture, matching affiliate links and listings shouldn't be too hard.  Not always perfect, though, as the 700 Club's listing ends up next to an affiliate link to buy the movie Fight Club.  I suppose millenarians do have to stick together!

Found via Programmable Web.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: mashups

ActorTracker.com is a very impressive mashup of feeds from TV talk shows, movies and more mixed with affiliate links for videos and other memorabilia concerning your favorite actors.  Most commercially oriented mashups seem a step away from cheesy splogs, but this one is very nice.  Many features and a nice aesthetic let you know that the people behind ActorTracker spent a lot of time on it.  Unfortunately, there appears to be some problem with the  MyTracker feature, as I'm not able to log in to accounts I create.

The site has been around for awhile, but it may take some time before mass media loving consumer audiences are comfortable dealing with data like persistent search results and the like.  If and when that day comes, the right marketing (and a log in proccess that works) could put this site in a good place to get many users.  The service has an unintimidating interface, including e-mail subscription for new results.  It's a good example of the way that RSS could end up being implemented by small players for mass audiences without waving the acronym around too much.

Given the huge amount of consumer goods available online around various celebrities and pop culture, matching affiliate links and listings shouldn't be too hard.  Not always perfect, though, as the 700 Club's listing ends up next to an affiliate link to buy the movie Fight Club.  I suppose millenarians do have to stick together!

Found via Programmable Web.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: mashups

ActorTracker.com is a very impressive mashup of feeds from TV talk shows, movies and more mixed with affiliate links for videos and other memorabilia concerning your favorite actors.  Most commercially oriented mashups seem a step away from cheesy splogs, but this one is very nice.  Many features and a nice aesthetic let you know that the people behind ActorTracker spent a lot of time on it.  Unfortunately, there appears to be some problem with the  MyTracker feature, as I'm not able to log in to accounts I create.

The site has been around for awhile, but it may take some time before mass media loving consumer audiences are comfortable dealing with data like persistent search results and the like.  If and when that day comes, the right marketing (and a log in proccess that works) could put this site in a good place to get many users.  The service has an unintimidating interface, including e-mail subscription for new results.  It's a good example of the way that RSS could end up being implemented by small players for mass audiences without waving the acronym around too much.

Given the huge amount of consumer goods available online around various celebrities and pop culture, matching affiliate links and listings shouldn't be too hard.  Not always perfect, though, as the 700 Club's listing ends up next to an affiliate link to buy the movie Fight Club.  I suppose millenarians do have to stick together!

Found via Programmable Web.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: nptech, social networking

Being bought by the owner of the Fox empire hasn't scared MySpace away from partnering with Al Gore's high profile film about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."  Announced last week but receiving little play in the blogosphere to date, the partnership appears to be more low-key online than the previous X-Men promotion but set to leverage the online community for real-world public events.  The movie's main site doesn't appear to make any reference to the partnership, as it is described on MediaPost, but MySpace friend to all Tom does have a Truth badge and link to the film's MySpace profile.

According to MediaPost,  "the campaign will culminate in a 10-city MySpace theater buyout on June 16, with free tickets going to select members of the film's MySpace community.  MediaPost also reports that MySpace is contributing a significant amount of ad space to raise climate change awareness.  The MySpace music channel is reported to be planning  an artist-on-artist interview between the former vice president and a to-be-announced rock star who is also happens to be part of the MySpace community. The MySpace movies channel will spotlight an interview with the film's director, Davis Guggenheim.

The partnership between the film and the high profile online social network appears to be remarkably low-profile.  No press releases appear on PR Web, few bloggers outside of MySpace have written about it and a Google News search brings back surprisingly few results.  The MySpace community itself appears to be responding well, however, as almost 45,000 users have added the films as a friend to their profile in just less than a week.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: nptech, social networking

Being bought by the owner of the Fox empire hasn't scared MySpace away from partnering with Al Gore's high profile film about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."  Announced last week but receiving little play in the blogosphere to date, the partnership appears to be more low-key online than the previous X-Men promotion but set to leverage the online community for real-world public events.  The movie's main site doesn't appear to make any reference to the partnership, as it is described on MediaPost, but MySpace friend to all Tom does have a Truth badge and link to the film's MySpace profile.

According to MediaPost,  "the campaign will culminate in a 10-city MySpace theater buyout on June 16, with free tickets going to select members of the film's MySpace community.  MediaPost also reports that MySpace is contributing a significant amount of ad space to raise climate change awareness.  The MySpace music channel is reported to be planning  an artist-on-artist interview between the former vice president and a to-be-announced rock star who is also happens to be part of the MySpace community. The MySpace movies channel will spotlight an interview with the film's director, Davis Guggenheim.

The partnership between the film and the high profile online social network appears to be remarkably low-profile.  No press releases appear on PR Web, few bloggers outside of MySpace have written about it and a Google News search brings back surprisingly few results.  The MySpace community itself appears to be responding well, however, as almost 45,000 users have added the films as a friend to their profile in just less than a week.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: nptech, social networking

Being bought by the owner of the Fox empire hasn't scared MySpace away from partnering with Al Gore's high profile film about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."  Announced last week but receiving little play in the blogosphere to date, the partnership appears to be more low-key online than the previous X-Men promotion but set to leverage the online community for real-world public events.  The movie's main site doesn't appear to make any reference to the partnership, as it is described on MediaPost, but MySpace friend to all Tom does have a Truth badge and link to the film's MySpace profile.

According to MediaPost,  "the campaign will culminate in a 10-city MySpace theater buyout on June 16, with free tickets going to select members of the film's MySpace community.  MediaPost also reports that MySpace is contributing a significant amount of ad space to raise climate change awareness.  The MySpace music channel is reported to be planning  an artist-on-artist interview between the former vice president and a to-be-announced rock star who is also happens to be part of the MySpace community. The MySpace movies channel will spotlight an interview with the film's director, Davis Guggenheim.

The partnership between the film and the high profile online social network appears to be remarkably low-profile.  No press releases appear on PR Web, few bloggers outside of MySpace have written about it and a Google News search brings back surprisingly few results.  The MySpace community itself appears to be responding well, however, as almost 45,000 users have added the films as a friend to their profile in just less than a week.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: wireless media

EarthLink announced today that they have been approved to provide wifi service to New Orleans.  According to the company's blog:
"The network will have two tiers -- a free (and ad-free) service at up to 300kbps during the city's rebuilding efforts, and a paid service at 1mbps up/down. EarthLink will also allow other providers to offer their services over the network, allowing for open access and competition."

There was some seriously strange legal wranglings about whether the city would be allowed to contract with anyone to provide this service and apparently it was the local state of emergency that allowed it.  Given that, and the incredible reliance on the wireless network there during the rebuilding - why doesn't the federal government just subsidize the top-tier service for everyone?  That's a silly question, such a policy would obviously interfere with the market's ability to monetize human suffering.  I can't imagine that Earthlink would mind.  At least permission has now been granted for the market  to partner with local government so that some service at all is available.

I'll be watching Esme Vos's Muniwireless.com for analysis of this deal.  See also New Orleans Voices for Peace, a liberal grass roots group "providing Internet access, website hostng, media development and training for partnering organizations and communities effected by the Hurricanes Rita and Katrina."

Update:  There's an email excerpt just added to the Earthlink blog from the New Orleans CIO about he's having people hug him on the street about the fact that free wifi is on its way.  It's an interesting account, nearly a tear jerker.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: wireless media

EarthLink announced today that they have been approved to provide wifi service to New Orleans.  According to the company's blog:
"The network will have two tiers -- a free (and ad-free) service at up to 300kbps during the city's rebuilding efforts, and a paid service at 1mbps up/down. EarthLink will also allow other providers to offer their services over the network, allowing for open access and competition."

There was some seriously strange legal wranglings about whether the city would be allowed to contract with anyone to provide this service and apparently it was the local state of emergency that allowed it.  Given that, and the incredible reliance on the wireless network there during the rebuilding - why doesn't the federal government just subsidize the top-tier service for everyone?  That's a silly question, such a policy would obviously interfere with the market's ability to monetize human suffering.  I can't imagine that Earthlink would mind.  At least permission has now been granted for the market  to partner with local government so that some service at all is available.

I'll be watching Esme Vos's Muniwireless.com for analysis of this deal.  See also New Orleans Voices for Peace, a liberal grass roots group "providing Internet access, website hostng, media development and training for partnering organizations and communities effected by the Hurricanes Rita and Katrina."

Update:  There's an email excerpt just added to the Earthlink blog from the New Orleans CIO about he's having people hug him on the street about the fact that free wifi is on its way.  It's an interesting account, nearly a tear jerker.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: wireless media

EarthLink announced today that they have been approved to provide wifi service to New Orleans.  According to the company's blog:
"The network will have two tiers -- a free (and ad-free) service at up to 300kbps during the city's rebuilding efforts, and a paid service at 1mbps up/down. EarthLink will also allow other providers to offer their services over the network, allowing for open access and competition."

There was some seriously strange legal wranglings about whether the city would be allowed to contract with anyone to provide this service and apparently it was the local state of emergency that allowed it.  Given that, and the incredible reliance on the wireless network there during the rebuilding - why doesn't the federal government just subsidize the top-tier service for everyone?  That's a silly question, such a policy would obviously interfere with the market's ability to monetize human suffering.  I can't imagine that Earthlink would mind.  At least permission has now been granted for the market  to partner with local government so that some service at all is available.

I'll be watching Esme Vos's Muniwireless.com for analysis of this deal.  See also New Orleans Voices for Peace, a liberal grass roots group "providing Internet access, website hostng, media development and training for partnering organizations and communities effected by the Hurricanes Rita and Katrina."

Update:  There's an email excerpt just added to the Earthlink blog from the New Orleans CIO about he's having people hug him on the street about the fact that free wifi is on its way.  It's an interesting account, nearly a tear jerker.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.