Code, Camera, Action

Stories, software and strategies to help nonprofits do web 2.0+ 
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October 21, 2009

Looking for the mouse: Clay Shirky

I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she's going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn't what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, "What you doing?" And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, "Looking for the mouse."

Here's something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here's something four-year-olds know: Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for.

via shirky.com

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Filed under  //   action   network   social media   volunteering  

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October 17, 2009

Volunteer Platforms for "Good" Need to Be Great | Social Citizens Blog

Sure, today’s unprecedented technology allows us to reach new audiences, or connect advocates to share their stories, but the call to action must be clear, it must be actionable, and it must show impact. Today’s volunteers may be savvier when it comes to finding volunteer opportunities on their iPhone, but they expect an experience that matches the ease to which they found it.
via socialcitizens.org

My colleague Kari Saratovsky on iPhone volunteering. While the technology holds so much promise, it's not clear that nonprofits are ready to provide the personalized experience that users of the technology have come to expect.

These networks can enable storytelling and storysharing -- but the volunteering business has yet to tap this power.

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Filed under  //   action   case foundation   network   volunteering  

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October 7, 2009

Do we need this many charities in America?

Paul Lamb writes:

So how we can innovate the sector as a whole so any nonprofit can do better regardless of the prevailing economic winds?

One radical idea is to adjust the nonprofit model and begin to let communities engage directly with causes and people in need.

Taking a page from the playbook of peer-to-peer services such as eBay, charity "buyers" and "sellers" could engage directly without the need for a middleman.

Instead of giving money to the United Way to support food banks, why not give the money directly to the hungry?

via csmonitor.com

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Filed under  //   economy   network   nonprofits   philanthropy   social enterprise  

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September 30, 2009

Even bad product reviews boost sales

AlpacaDirect.com, always offered a page full of cherry-picked customer comments raving about the site's alpaca sweaters, socks and yarn. But recently Hobart, [the owner,] decided to take the idea a step further: He hired PowerReviews, whose software lets shoppers write their own product reviews directly on the retailer's Web site.

It was a risky move for the four-year-old company, based in Brentwood, Calif. Hobart was effectively paying to host bad press -- such as posts by customers who described AlpacaDirect's golf cardigan as "kinda sweaty" and a "poor fit." Both awarded the cardigan three out of a possible five stars.

But a month after installing the PowerReviews service, Hobart saw sales climb 23% on items that had customer reviews.

via money.cnn.com

The increased sales include items that have negative reviews.

Your customers are already talking about your products. Why not make it convenient for them to do that onsite -- where everybody gets the benefit of their testimonials? 

Hat-tip to socialnomics.net, which goes on to talk about how companies can benefit from negative feedback.

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Filed under  //   business   economy   edge   network   social media  

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August 22, 2009

Post: For Apple and Google, it's a Battle of the Address Books

We use Macs at my house because Mobile Me keeps the family address book in sync. 

So yesterday, when Apple answered the FCC's questions about rejecting the Google Voice app for the iPhone, this paragraph caught my eye:

The iPhone user’s entire Contacts database is transferred to Google’s servers, and we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways. These factors present several new issues and questions to us that we are still pondering at this time.

via apple.com

Michael Arrington at Techcrunch claims this is patently false, and that the Google Voice app simply reads phone numbers from the iPhone's address book, in the approved Apple way. Either way, Apple's rejection of the GV app only gives Google an advantage.

What's the value proposition of Google Voice? For me, GV has three big ones:

  1. A single, free phone number for life
  2. Voicemail messages by email and SMS
  3. Transcription of voice mail to text

All of these are accessible from the web or -- via Safari or an app -- from the iPhone. None of these, except maybe free SMS, increases AT&T's costs or decreases its revenue. Google Voice is not a voice over IP. Rather, it's a switchboard. From the web or an app, you tell Google who you'd like to call, and from what phone. Google then calls you and the person you want to talk to, and connects the two of you. So you use just as many cellphone minutes as you otherwise would have, and AT&T probably does not care.

Coincidentally or not, Google Voice also presents Google's best chance of getting a user's address book data. Why does Google care about this? Because the address book -- uploaded to Google Contacts, combined with your Gmail history -- is Google's social network. So why on earth would Apple, home of Mobile Me, act to give this data to Google?

The Apple Ponders the Address Book

Who knows why Apple rejected an app like this? 

  • Maybe Apple is concerned that Google Contacts will undercut one of the primary reasons to subscribe to Apple's MobileMe service -- address book sync across multiple Macs 
  • Maybe Apple has plans for its own telephony service, perhaps tied to iChat 
  • Maybe, as Arrington surmises, it's an inferiority complex, with Apple seeing YouTube, Google Maps, Search and now Voice adding up to too much control of iPhone content

From my perspective as an iPhone and Google Voice user, the Google Voice iPhone app was Apple's last chance to keep the address book out of Google's hands.

Think about it: Google Voice the web application still provides tremendous value. On the web, I must upload my address book to Google's servers to unlock that value. That's the only way to really use the GV from the web, short of typing any phone number I care to call.

And what is Google doing with that address book? Recent work on Google Reader has shown, Google is using Contacts as the cornerstone of a Google social network. So by rejecting the Google Voice application, Apple helps Google compete against the giant of social networking, Facebook. Can anybody explain to me why this is in Apple's interest?

If Apple does become "just another hardware vendor" it will be Apple's own fault, as Apple's "pondering" -- or its inner control freak -- will have trumped innovation. 

We would all be the poorer for that. Come on, Apple, we're rooting for you. Get with the network. 

 

  

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Filed under  //   apps   code   iPhone   network   podcast   post  

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August 21, 2009

The Attention Economy

Michael H. Goldhaber writes on the emerging attention economy.  Now, the pursuit of attention "more and more fully comes to occupy most people’s efforts." Contrast traditional economics' preoccupation with industrial manufacture of standardized goods:

One of the first such standardized manufactured goods was money itself (in the form of coins). Now, increasingly, money tracks attention. Those with a great deal of attention can easily obtain money, should they want it. Those with little attention will have a much harder time obtaining money. But this relation between attention and money may itself be transitional. When and if we fully enter into the attention economy, money may lose any significant role.

via goldhaber.org

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Filed under  //   action   economy   edge   network  

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August 19, 2009

Not telecom policy, but a data policy

Andy Kessler's editiorial in today's Wall Street Journal says it's time for telecom policy that encourages innovation --

We need a national data policy, and here are four suggestions:

• End phone exclusivity. Any device should work on any network. Data flows freely.

• Transition away from "owning" airwaves. As we've seen with license-free bandwidth via Wi-Fi networking, we can share the airwaves without interfering with each other. Let new carriers emerge based on quality of service rather than spectrum owned. Cellphone coverage from huge cell towers will naturally migrate seamlessly into offices and even homes via Wi-Fi networking. No more dropped calls in the bathroom.

• End municipal exclusivity deals for cable companies. TV channels are like voice pipes, part of an era that is about to pass. A little competition for cable will help the transition to paying for shows instead of overpaying for little-watched networks. Competition brings de facto network neutrality and open access (if you don't like one service blocking apps, use another), thus one less set of artificial rules to be gamed.

• Encourage faster and faster data connections to our homes and phones. It should more than double every two years. To homes, five megabits today should be 10 megabits in 2011, 25 megabits in 2013 and 100 megabits in 2017. These data-connection speeds are technically doable today, with obsolete voice and video policy holding it back.

via online.wsj.com

 

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Filed under  //   network   policy  

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