Beth’s Blog

One of the books in my summer reading pile is Eli Pariser's  The Filter Bubble:  What the Internet is Hiding From You.      Last week, my Networked Nonprofit co-author Alison Fine recently interviewed the author on her monthly  Chroncile of Philanthropy podcast.   She helps us understand exactly what a filter bubble is - and why it is potentially a big problem for activists.   Her thoughts: It’s a great book, but the idea of filter bubbles is crushing for those of us who believe that an open … [Read more...]

What we're witnessing with the hype and geek love swirling around Google+ follows  a well established pattern identified by Gartner analysts called "hype cycles."     It begins with a technology trigger, followed by the peak of inflated expectations and punditry.      And, of course, all the funny comics showing the demise of Twitter and Facebook anything else that stands in Google + way to getting more adoption or increasing it stock value. But remember, the platform is in its infancy and the … [Read more...]

What a day!   The platform war between Facebook and Google + officially launched with a press conference at Facebook announcing the new "awesome" features including one click skype/Facebook integration for video chat.   I watched live stream on Facebook and the real time snarky reactions coming across Google +.  The snark comes as no surprise given the characteristics of the users so far. The most popular snark was this photo of  Mark Zuckerberg.    The screen capture also illustrates the lack … [Read more...]

Yi-Tan Community hosts a weekly 40-minute conference call about navigating change in technology and society.  Jerry Michalski is the moderator.  I used to participate in the calls way back in 2005 in the early days of blogging and always found the calls informative. Yesterday's  Yi-Tan call with Jerry Michalski was about Google +.   Charles Warren who was on the Google + team was on the call. Google sees granular privacy controls as a way to spark more sharing because people will feel more … [Read more...]

On Friday,  I tripped down the rabbit hole of  Google + field test with many other social media early adopters and nonprofit technology (#nptech folks) who were kicking the tires.    Google + is Google's new social sharing platform.  (Here's the official announcement on the Google Blog and review in the New York Times.   You won't be able to play with until  Google does the full roll out, you'll have to click the keep me posted button: here).   Google + was just one of a series of new releases … [Read more...]

Yesterday, the Social Media for Nonprofit Conference series kicked off in San Francisco yesterday in War Memorial Green Room with support from Microsoft.   The conference shared practical tips and tools with expert speakers including, JD Lasica, Social Brite,  Susan Gordon of Causes.com, Jonah Sachs of Free Range Studios, Charles Porch of Facebook,  Susan Tenby of TechSoup Global and Kellie McElhaney, founding faculty director of the Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of … [Read more...]