Networking Non-profits effectively - 'The Real News' experience

An Open Letter

To:
The Real News Network
Re: Web Design, Web Optimization, Web Page Coding


From:
Michael Holloway
Web Developer
TRNN Ambassador
TRNN Blog Squad



Firstly, from a meeting of TRNN Ambassadors - in Toronto, 2010, I understand that your strategy is to drive eyes to the main site - www.therealnews.com - I question whether this should be a focus for a non-profit - when your content and a link to Donate page can be posted anywhere on the net. But I do understand the value of the main site in presenting all the content in one place, and creating the TRNN brand --- I think it is AS important as networking TRNN content - but not MORE so.

A TRNN story has yet to 'go viral' - I think this is a function of ineffective networking. I believe TRNN content is spread mainly though the Social Tools, via *links* in micro-blogging applications like Twitter; and link posts in democratic, social news forums like Reddit and Digg; and *embeds* in blogs like Blogger  and WordPress, and in social networking platforms like Facebook and Google+ .

TRNN needs to optimize it's content pages to help "Blog Squad" members spread TRNN content with these tools.

Whether you think that driving eyes to the web site is paramount - or if you see my point about spreading your content as far and as wide as possible - some small changes I propose below will make both meme work better.


Please help the Blog Squad do their work, with these easy coding changes at therealnews.com and at your Youtube Channel, "TheRealNews":


Every time someone watches TRNN content they have the opportunity to donate via your well placed Donate Buttons. The more people who see TRNN stories, the greater the number of people who are likely to donate. Therefor spreading TRNN stories as widely as possible is key to the health of the network. I believe that TRNN stories are spread through the internet via people embedding or linking TRNN video in the social tools.

The Youtube user interface is the standard for linking video in the social tools.

Democracy Now! has the metric inside Youtube correct, I think.

Under each story that "Democracy Now!" posts in Youtube - in the video's description area (which allows live links) - they add a brief description of the item, and the following 'set copy' - and all the links they can think of to their web presence:

________________________

To watch the entire weekday independent news hour, read the transcript, download the podcast, search our vast archive, or to find more information about Democracy Now! and Amy Goodman, visit http://www.democracynow.org.

Democracy Now!, an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on 1,100+ TV and radio stations Monday through Friday.

FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/democracynow
Twitter: @democracynow
Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/democracynow
Listen on SoundCloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/democracynow
Daily Email News Digest: http://www.democracynow.org/subscribe

Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today, visit http://www.democracynow.org/donate/YT
_________________________

At www.therealnews.com portal - some suggestions as well:

The 'Embed this Video' link under each video at therealnews.com should open the link in new tab or window, or in a pop-up (some way that leaves the content window open). As it is now, clicking on the embed button closes the content window. When a TRNN 'Blog Squad' team member is Crafting their embed, they need the story page open (in order to cut and paste content from the transcript (to create accurate, correctly spelled copy; correct spelling of names and organizations - to ensure proper placement in Search); link the URL at therealnews.com; grab the handy description of TRNN that you have at "About" tab (this description should be under each video wherever you post content).

The embed widget at therealnews.com, is clunky and unprofessional looking. Adding a "width" and "height" attribute to the coding for the "Embed Video" "grab this code" Form, would make the page look a lot better (now it's set to the W3C default, form setting).


Sincerely,
Michael Holloway
Leslieville, Toronto



mh

Digital Rights Management could save Public Libraries, the Open Internet - and vise versa

Originally published on my Wall, at Facebook


This really cool:

I'm reading "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt" by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco on my desktop!

I went to Toronto Public Library (TPL) online, searched the title; found the ebook entry and clicked on the preview button (a blurb beside the ebook entry says all 4 copies are out already.
(??? '4 Copies' 'Out' ? - that doesn't make any sense - one copy is an infinite number of copies - it's an ebook!!!)

So, like I said, I clicked on the preview instead - and nothing happens - my OS says it will search the internet for the right program to open the file, so I say OK. It came back with nothing. So I copy and searched "Adobe EPUB eBook" (which sits rather innocuously under everything in the Library listing) and that gets me to Adobe's site - where I searched the term internally, and that gets me to the download for the Adobe ebook reader, "Adobe Digital Editions" - http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/

(Adobe is a victim of their marketing department - which turns English into brand names - which inside the sub-culture of the company become actual English - and then they try to use those words to communicate with us out here - and it doesn't work. I don't understand the words "Adobe Digital Editions", it sounds like a place where I would find ebooks - but I wasn't looking for an ebook, I was looking for an ebook reader - so search didn't work, trial and error got me to the page - it took me some time to get there; turns out "Digital Editions" is the brand name of Adobe's DRM enabled, ebook reader.)

The preview TPL is offering outside of the 'copies' it's being allowed to dole out 4 at a time, is Chapter 1 of the book, the story of Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

I've changed my mind about Digital Rights Management. Hither-to I've been a devote of Cory Doctorow's take on the digital revolution with regards to book publishing. He makes all of his book available online in full from the moment they are published in paper. His take is that he'll make his wages through 'reputation', he makes enough money to keep writing full time by doing speaking engagements, readings of his books etc. - more than he'll earn from the actual sale of the books themselves.

I'm of the opinion now that DRM is great - because it allows Public Libraries to get inexpensive, digital copies of books immediately upon publication - to loan out.

The entire book downloads onto your hard drive - but it's in a kind of Temporary File that erases after a certain amount of time. Users can request a renewal of the ebook - and that is allowed depending on the settings the publisher sets in the loan agreement.

Now - if I was a hacker - intent on defeating DRM there IS a way - as soon as the text of the book makes it's way to my computer screen it IS copy-able - Somehow; I don't know how, but I am as sure as I am that the sun will rise - there is an interface that can be constructed to copy what appears on one's computer screen.

Print Screen of "Days of  Destruction, Days of Revolt" by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco  - page 13 (Chaper 1) in ebook reader "Adobe Digital Editions"

So then I am victorious-cyberpunk-hacker-champion !!! But what''s the point? The book's available at the Library for free. :)

This is the best argument for DRM I have ever heard.

And I came up with it !

But then the gobbledygook coming out of the special interest media towers isn't much competition - blinded as they are by greed, and the popular media of greed - money.

 * * *


Originally published on my Wall, at Facebook (edited for clarity) (https://www.facebook.com/michael.holloway.90281/posts/441346309243176)




(I want a widget that can take posts I create in FB and posts them here if I click that button on my browser - I say browser because I know FB would never allow the app - at Faceboook it's Everything in - Nothing out.)



mh

Twitter Beginning To Define Itself

The social networking site Twitter seemed innocuous even irrelevant when I first went there. What grabbed me was the idea of a Timeline.

(click to see Twitter Timeline, a complimentary application written by Andy James Davies.)

One of the qualities of the web 2.0 world is the multi-dimensionality of it. Unlike tv - which set the time and date - requiring you had to make it home in time to watch your show - the pc in web 2.0 gives you the ability to choose not just when and where to watch, but also record, edit, create, download, upload, post, or delete!

Now along comes twitter with a real time network that has, due to each entry's brevity, an historical dimension as well. It's not just 'What are you doing?', but by scrolling back you can easily see the forth dimension as well, time. What WERE you doing, who were you following, who did you stop following, and what were the ones you follow doing when you were doing?

Alexa Traffic Stats - Daily Reach for Twitter, Blogger, and Facebook over one year.

A Tweeter shitmydadsays is one of Twitter's exploding (see graph) address's with 347,276 Followers. His bio says it all:

"I'm 29. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down shit that he says."

Funny as hell.

I'm using Twitter to tell people what I've just posted on FilterBlogs (my Blogger account), Twitter then automatically posts to my Facebook 'Wall' - thus informing both my friends (who love me) on Facebook and my 'Followers' who found me through Subject, on Twitter.

In the future I see a new social networking site that includes all the bells and widgets from all these sites (+Youtube) in one. It could be a further developed Facebook - as it has open code - but Facebook still lacks a lot of the widgets in Blogger that I find really useful. Facebook also seems to have core software problems, it is almost as slow as many Microsoft applications, indicating to me it will have to be re-written from the bottom up at some point.

Twitter is becoming a regular 'came from' entry in my blogs STATCOUNTER widget, an application that lets me know how many visitors have been to my site, and where they came from. It helps me learn how to optimize my wording for search engine hits and to see what topics my readers are interested in. The combination of Twitter and Facebook are bringing more readers.

(You can view Twitters effect on FilterBlogs by clicking on the StatCounter icon in the sidebar. ---->)



mh

People Like To Talk About The Weather...

My "F4 Tornado Hits Elie Manitoba" post was a real hit, according to my blogs' Stat Counter. FilterBlogs experienced a 19 fold increase in 'visits'!

In this example, with the search words, "tornado + elie + manitoba" my choice of words got me top billing. This is a picture of that Google search.

Sign in

Google

Web Images Groups News Maps Scholar more » Advanced Search Preferences Search: the web pages from Canada

Web	Results 1 - 10 of about 185,000 for tornado elie manitoba. (0.09 seconds)

News results for tornado elie manitoba - View today's top stories
	Violent tornado spares town's residents - Globe and Mail - 21 hours ago

MICHAEL HOLLOWAY'S FilterBlogs: F4 Tornado Hits Elie Manitoba

F4 Tornado Hits Elie Manitoba. Images from CTV.ca Photo Gallery Saturday June 23,2007 Photo: Sara Tkachyk Photo: Sara Tkachyk Photo: Sara Tkachyk ... filter--blog.blogspot.com/2007/06/f4-tornado-hits-elie-manitoba.html - 77k - Cached - Similar pages

globeandmail.com: Tornado cleanup begins in southern Manitoba

A tornado touches down near Elie, Manitoba on Friday. At least four homes were destroyed and several others damaged after a tornado hit the small town west ... www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070623.wtornadonew0623/BNStory/National/home - 50k - Cached - Similar pages

CTV.ca | Manitoba town cleans up after destructive tornado

A damaged flour mill and a truck are shown in Elie, Manitoba after reports of ... Hudek said the Elie tornado will be especially memorable for one group. ... www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070622/tornado_070623/20070623?hub=TopStories - Similar pages

...

Lots of different ways to talk about the weather, but there are surprisingly few words in the language that describe a tornado hitting Elie Manitoba.

Here's page one of four, from Stat Counters, "recent keyword activity" results (percentage of 100 'visits').

elie manitoba tornado
	7	8.54%	tornado elie manitoba
	6	7.32%	f4 tornado manitoba
	4	4.88%	tornado in elie manitoba
	4	4.88%	tornado in elie
	3	3.66%	tornado elie mb
	3	3.66%	tornado and elie and manitoba and june and 2007
	3	3.66%	elie manitoba
	3	3.66%	elie mb. tornado
	2	2.44%	tornado in elie, manitoba
	2	2.44%	f4 tornado in manitoba
	2	2.44%	tornado hits manitoba
	1	1.22%	tornadoes in elie, manitoba
	1	1.22%	elie tornado photos
	1	1.22%	elie, manitoba tornado
	1	1.22%	tornado elie, mb
	1	1.22%	manitoba f4 tornado
	1	1.22%	tornadoes i
	1	1.22%	elie mb tornado photos
	1	1.22%	elie manito
	1	1.22%	elie manitoba, tornado, 2007
	1	1.22%	tornado, elie,mb
	1	1.22%	tornadoe in elie manitoba
	1	1.22%	tornadoes in elie mb pictures
	1	1.22%	tornadoes in
	1	1.22%	elie f 4
	1	1.22%	elie f4 tornado
	1	1.22%	tornadoes in elie mb
	1	1.22%	elie f4
	1	1.22%	elie, manitoba, tornado
	1	1.22%	tornadoes in elie manitoba
	1	1.22%	tornado in elie mb.
	1	1.22%	tornadoes from elie
	1	1.22%	tornado photo elie mb
	1	1.22%	tornadoes elie manitoba
	1	1.22%	tornado in elie mb
	1	1.22%	tornado and elie
	1	1.22%	manitoba tornado photos

Unfortunaly, the deluge has rendered temporarily, useless the functionality of my free Stat Counter account.

FilterBlog's Stat Counter button is in side bar; you're welcome to browse through it, at any time.

Interesting stuff.



mh