Coming Soon: Social Networking With The Feds | paidContent.org
Apr 29, 2009 General
Thanks to agreements that the US General Services Administration reached with the two companies this week, there should soon be lots of new profiles of government agencies on the social – networking sites. The GSA says that the agreements ..
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Coming Soon: Social Networking With The Feds | paidContent.org
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MTV and Justin Timberlake Try to Top Twitter With #thephone
Apr 29, 2009 General, Mashable, Mobile 2.0, Social Media, Social Networking, Video, Web, Web Apps
MTV’s new show produced by Justin Timberlake, The Phone , is a strange experiment in scripted reality television. The Phone challenges four strangers, in teams of two, to solve a mystery and win $50,000 (in the first episode, contestants had to find a fake car bomber). Instead of encouraging fan participation in the show, MTV and their agency Fanscape , have opted to create a Twitter telephone game that encourages retweets of misinformation.
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MTV and Justin Timberlake Try to Top Twitter With #thephone
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Tags: firefox, Google, Mashable, News, search, Social Networking, twitter, twitter games, Video, Web Apps
Tenant Txt: Apartment and Office Alerts via Texting
Apr 29, 2009 Mashable
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.
Name: Tenant Txt
Quick Pitch: Tenant Txt is a website that apartment management or apartment safety leaders can put in place in order to single or mass alert their community of any maintenance repairs, criminal activity, or community events by text message and email.
Genius Idea: In most apartment complexes, communication between management and tenants is sparse – a phone call emergency here, a complaint there. But when there’s an announcement or major damage at an apartment, a piece of paper posted on the front door just isn’t a good way to inform tenants. Emailing a neighborhood after a crime spree can be tough as well. Tenant Txt is a tool that attempts to remove the communication barrier between tenants and apartment managers.
Tenant Txt is a mass notification and communication tool – an apartment owner, office manager, or other designated administrator can send alerts or information via text or email to members of the apartment or community. Tenants sign up via the website; they choose whether to be emailed, texted, or both. Once signed up, they will receive updates whenever you send out a message. You can try out the demo to see how it works (you have to provide an email address).
Messages can be sent out via groups (Tenants, maintenance, etc.) and just to email or txt subscribers. Texts can only be 110 characters, instead of the standard 160 or even Twitter’s 140 character limit. Email is full HTML – there are a lot of formatting options, maybe even too many.
The service costs anywhere between $25 to $90 a month, although they are unclear about the differences between packages. At its core, it’s just a simple way to contact apartment tenants. Neighborhoods, clubs, offices, and other organizations could use this as their communication tool as well. Really, you’re not paying for the email services (there are cheaper methods), but instead paying for the texting services. People pay attention to their texts, so you may catch harder-to-reach tenants this way.
Tenant Txt could use a few more features like automatic rent payment reminders or contact via social media, but it’s a good start. Tenant Txt is simple and performs its function well. If you’re just looking to get updates to your tenants or office that they won’t ignore, then Tenant Txt might be a fit.
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
Reviews: DiggDigg reviews
, MashableMashable reviews
Tags: bizspark, SMS, text messaging
Popularity: 14% [?]
Social networking and that darn flu thing
Apr 29, 2009 General
A few extracts from my own interwebs social networking sites this morning. It’s a visual coda to my earlier post two days ago.
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Social networking and that darn flu thing
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Swine Flu on Twitter: How To Filter Out the Noise
Apr 29, 2009 Mashable
The Swine Flu continues to be the main topic of discussion on Twitter, and for good reason. The World Health Organization today raised its pandemic alert level to 5 on a 6 point scale.
But with more than 10,000 tweets per hour about the virus, keeping up with the news has become challenging – setting up a Twitter search or following a hashtag is pretty much worthless at this point, unless you want to dedicate your entire day to monitoring it.
A more useful way to stay informed without obsessing over every Tweet is to follow the health professionals, organizations, and on the ground reporters that are sharing accurate news and information as it happens. Here’s a look at some of those users:
Authoritative Information
@cdcemergency is the Twitter feed setup by The Center for Disease Control where they are tweeting official announcements (like posting a travel warning for Mexico) and the case count nationwide (for the US).
@whonews is the Twitter feed for the World Health Organization. Like the CDC, they are posting links to official announcements, but with an international focus, such as reporting that there are now known cases of Swine Flu in 6 different countries.
Healthcare Websites
@healthmap is the Twitter feed for the website HealthMap.org, a mashup that plots disease alerts of all kinds on a Google Map. The site and Twitter feed has obviously become a lot more interesting this week as Swine Flu grips the world’s interest.
@newscientist is the Twitter feed for the magazine sharing the same name. While they are publishing articles about Swine Flu, they are using their Twitter feed to supplement it, with other useful information and links.
Reporters
@sanjayguptacnn is perhaps the world’s most famous doctor, and he’s in Mexico covering Swine Flu for CNN. He’s talking to doctors and telling us what he sees on the ground through his Twitter account.
@mexicoreporter is the Twitter account for Deborah Bonello, another person on the ground where the epidemic is currently the worst. In addition to some great original reporting on MexicoReporter.com, she’s sharing more of what she’s seeing and hearing on Twitter.
@JamesJanega is a reporter with The Chicago Tribune, a city that has seen a number of Swine Flu cases so far. He’s providing lots of local coverage on Twitter, like school closings and tracking cases within the Chicago metro area.
Now What?
Once you’re following these folks, you’ll probably want to setup a separate group to track them within your Twitter client of choice. With TweetDeck, which I use, that means I’ll get a notification every time one of these sources posts something new.
This list is probably far from comprehensive, but for the sake of getting the information out there, we figured we’d start it off. Please feel free to add the names of users that you’re finding especially useful in the comments area.
More Health Resources from Mashable:
- HOW TO: Use Social Media for Better Health
- Top 10 Free iPhone Apps to Lose Weight
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, cornishman
Reviews: Twitter
Tags: health, swine flu, twitter
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