Top 10 Facebook charities?

Squidoo.com

According to Squidoo.com, there are several factors which account for a good charity application on Facebook. They include: “user value, charity value, viral factor, and interest longevity potential”. They acknowledge that the charities are getting more and more substantial every day, therefore the need to update this list will become apparent soon enough. However, they believe that this list currently lists the best charity applications via Facebook

The list

The following is their list:

1) Good Samaritan–offers surveys to users that they can fill out, and every time a survey is filled out, money is donated to a certain organization.

2) iRipple–uses PPC campaigns and ads to donate money one of four organizations

3) Good Search–a search engine which allows users to donate a portion of proceeds towards a charity

4) Social Vibe–connects social networks with a social vibe account.

5) Charity Trivia–trivia charity application which donates 10 grains of rice for every question users get correct.

6) Give Stream–this application lets you donate money to 14 different charities via an Amazon store. With each product you buy, you donate a portion of that money to a charity.

7) Every Click– a PPC (Pay Per Click) based app which generates money via sponsored links and ads.

8) Competition for a Cause–a Twin City benefit app in which local owners are sponsoring  an award amount, and teams are selected to choose how that award is donated.

9) Pennies at a Time–a shopping portal which charities “pennies at a time” every time you shop through their application.

10) New Year’s Card–an interesting “New Years wish” based app in which the most popular wishes receive 100 dollars.

My analysis

I thought the list was a very good one, mainly for the fact that it linked the readers to the applications, showed the pros, and showed the cons as well. Personally, I would have made a few changes. For example, I think Pennies at a Time should have been number ten, because it was stated that it is not clear where the spare change is actually going. For New Year’s Card however, it is quite clear that the most popular wish is the one that receives monetary support. Something to keep an eye open for: an updated list 6 months from now on Squidoo.com.

[Via http://onlinefundraisingblog.wordpress.com]

A very striking example...

Here folks, is an opportunity too good to pass up to illustrate one of my main points, that we have lost our focus.

Recently, UNI (my college) beat Kansas University in college basketball. It was all over the news here, and for good reason, it was apparently quite exciting and unprecedented. On my Facebook, I can only begin to express the amount of content that was being dedicated to this upset. Pages upon pages of people posting their ecstatic support for the UNI team, and groups and fan pages popping up left and right. In a matter of hours, the entire recent activity of the site (At least in my network) was nearly 100% dedicated to the upset. March 20th.

Even more recently a political upset occurs, passing perhaps the 3rd most influential health care bill in the history of the U.S. I hear the news, all excited, and come back to check my Facebook… Silent. Dead. Not a single person in the last two hours had said ANYTHING about this landmark event. Why is this? I respect that we are entitled to enjoy our play, but honestly, there is a time and a place to care about the serious things as well that have a HUGE impact on our society. It’s irresponsible, childish, and shows just how disconnected and out of focus we’ve gotten. This is something that affects EVERYONE, and while I know I may be generalizing from the firsthand lack of response that I saw, certainly SOMEONE, out of ALL the people I know should be regarding this as a serious event!!

Even the NPR and other news feeds that sometimes get massive responses to updates such as the disasters in Haiti and Chile are awfully quiet… I don’t just know one kind of person either. Even though most of the people I connect with are young, as I’ve already said, this is not something that pertains to just one group. Wake up individual Americans, realize your role in this country, take responsibility, be virtuous.

Keep Thinking

[Via http://aestheticvirtue.wordpress.com]

FacePAD v0.7.0 available for download!

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Greetings,

Earlier today Facebook changed its album databasing schema which caused havoc to FacePAD users.

I’ve fixed the problem (yay) and in the process I made FacePAD easier to use!

FacePAD users no longer need to set language preferences – FacePAD is now compatible with all languages!

The new version can be downloaded here: http://z.isosp.in/arhm9X

Here are the release notes:

Version 0.7.0 (March 18, 2010)

1. Removed language preferences

2. Works with all languages supported with Facebook

3. Compatible with Facebook’s new Album Databasing Schema

4. Compatible though Firefox 3.7a4pre

[Via http://lazyrussian.com]

Alert - Extra Long Weekend!

Well, today was something of a special day. Since it was PASS Week, I did not do much work in any of my classes. Nothing interesting happened at school today, except for the fact that in the Gym this morning someone threw up on one of my best friends. She went home early because she was embarrassed. I feel bad for her. I sure hope everyone forgets about it on Monday. I don’t have to go to school tomorrow, it’s a Teacher Workday. Yay me! After school today I went to Great Clips and got a haircut. It was one of the first haircuts I actually like. After that I went to an AT&T Corporate Store to get a new SIM Card for my phone. Then I went home and ate a Box O’ Pizza and some chocolate pudding. And as I write this I’m trying to debate whether I should get an iPhone or the Nexus One… It’s gonna be a hard choice. I like Apple’s modern style, but I also enjoy Google’s creativity. Oh well. I’m looking forward to the weekend. So I’m just gonna hit the hay once I’m done on Facebook. (I’ll probably over-sleep by a few hours!) …End!

[Via http://frankieslife.wordpress.com]

facebook: the frenemie

I have a love/hate relationship with facebook. I love analyzing people’s statuses (yes, I know how creepy this sounds) but I hate how much time I spend on it. At risk of making myself sound even more lazy than I already seem, I could spend about 6 hours on facebook every day. See? Major time-suck.

I also hate facebook for another reason: it takes me, and I believe anyone else who spends too much time on it, out of the real world. There were days I actually found myself forgetting about what was going on in my life because I was so busy trying to find out about everyone else’s.

Let’s face it- facebook is not just a social networking site. It’s a stalker’s wetdream, a miserable person’s crutch and procrastinator’s kryptonite. In short, it’s the devil. Okay, not really, but I am giving it up for Lent in the hope that I will break my facebook habit.

[Via http://mrsnoel16.wordpress.com]

Social Media Meltdown

If it hasn’t happened to you yet, you will inevitably hear the words “We need to be on Facebook and Twitter.”  Now mind you this isn’t coming from some profound strategy or remarkable use for the technology — but simply because that is what all the lemmings are doing.  You”ll find these words freshly dripping from the mouth of many senior and mid-level  leadership returning from business conference who ironically have:

a)  never been on Facebook.

b) if they have, still don’t have a profile picture.

or my personal favorite

c) sign their name/initials to all of their posts.

As much as I enjoy social media and the many humorous laughs it affords, I don’t think marketer’s (and especially trade journals that cater to marketers) really understand that Social Media has its limits.  From reading Ad Age you would think that the Apocalypse will now happen in 140 characters or less.

Many marketers suffer from the delusion that customer’s want to have a personal connection or relationship with a brand.  I hate to burst your  bubble, but they actually just really like your product.  Don’t get  me wrong, but as much as I like Coca-Cola, I could care less if they are trying to get their 2 millioneth fan on Facebook . . . I just want a refreshing drink when I’m thirsty.  Of particular interest to me are the businesses like steel manufacturers getting fan pages.  Really?

I certainly hope every business joins Facebook soon so that I can become a fan . . . because afterall, fans = sales, right?  Well . . . not necessarily . . . someone put it like this:  If a restaurant has 1,000 people sitting in its establishment because they like it, but no one buys a meals . . . you aren’t going to make any money – shocking, I know.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate social media at all.  It’s a tool . . . but just that a tool.  If you are going to use Social Media have a plan, stick to your plan but don’t make it your business plan.

Rememeber, that your business made money long before facebook and it will continue to make money long after facebook.  I hope that businesses will realize the folly of hiring twitter experts or facebook gurus with proven experience in social media (how does one even define proven experience . . . ?)  If you’ve hired one of these so-called experts, I hope you see a return on your investment, a real one – not simply 20 comments in response to your post of “Will the groundhog see his shadow?”

Just as we learned the hard way in the late 1990’s with the dot-com burst.  I won’t be a bit surprised to hear of the Social Media Meltdown of 2011.  You’ve heard it from me, consider yourself warned . . . the writing is on the wall – literally?

[Via http://cornercubicle.wordpress.com]

Social Media, it can eat you alive.

This article was originally written for my Posterous account, it has been left in it’s entirety.

Social Media, It Can Eat You Alive

Social Media, it can eat you alive if you let it. There’s so much to learn, so much to do, so the question is which ones do you participate in and why? I have friends who do Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. As time goes on I find that I like the flexibility of a self-hosted WordPress site, so I have that. Already got the different twitter accounts for various interest. Got the Facebook account. Use Hootsuite to manage those and have some things on “auto”.  I’ve had an account with Posterous but was working on my WordPress blog so no time. Then I saw something that reminded me, “Hey, I have followers on my Posterous, but I haven’t put anything there, I don’t have time to write something for each site!”  So, as I’m now looking at it, I remember why I signed up for the great “P” – it’s a simple blog that will post to your other social networking sites and there – you’re pau! (done in Hawaiian)

So I thought as I always do, how can I be more efficient? How do I connect everything and what do I want to share with the other sites? I use LinkedIn for professional/business stuff. I like to do mindless things like Foursquare which goes on my personal Twitter account @mLehua. I use my Facebook account to keep in touch with friends and family, people I already have relationships with – it’s more personal so I don’t have that account open to “everyone”.  So what am I doing now that I wouldn’t mind everyone and their dog seeing? Posterous!

Posterous, according to their Wikipedia definition is “particularly for mobile blogging”.  I was at BarCamp in Miami 2010 and one of the speakers said he was going to an Asian country for work and was told that he couldn’t blog, but wanted to keep his readers updated as to what he was doing as it was for his adventure travel company.  One of the guys in the audience said, “Just send it by email to Posterous”.  Well, that’s why we go to these things (BarCamps and networking). The speaker knew about getting his business online and blogging but was too busy doing his job; than keeping up with all the cool social networking things – so he said, “pasta what?” – The young man in the back said, “Posterous, you send it by email and it post to your blog and wherever else you want.” The speaker said something like, ‘really that would solve my problems.’ It’s awesome, that one piece of info just reminded me that when you go anywhere, if you can walk away with one small piece of new information, it maybe worth tons to your business or whatever you are working on.

Gotta run now… I’ll be back to write more.

[Via http://theoriginalmlb.wordpress.com]