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Andy Plesser: Google's Real-time Search Surfaces Tweets, Blogs and Soon Facebook Updates

2009-12-23T21:12:19Z

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- Do a Google search for your favorite (embattled) celebrity or hot news story and the results will likely include Web sites, articles, recent blog posts and FriendFeed and Twitter updates.

The search giant recently rolled out what it calls "real-time search" to deliver the most up-to-the-second Web content on a search topic and Google product manager Dylan Casey explained how it worked when I traveled to the company's headquarters last week.

"Real-time search is about content that's being published right now so if you enter a query and it's something being talked about right now we'll surface that," Casey explained. "It's a whole new source of information reaching the Web."

Google is pulling content for real-time search from Twitter, FriendFeed, Jaiku and Identi.ca and will be adding Facebook and MySpace updates in the coming weeks. Many users have expressed concern about whether that means all their Facebook updates are now searchable. But there are ways to change your Facebook settings to protect your content.

With real-time search, Google users can also filter search results now by updates, blog posts, latest news and other types of content, Casey said.

You can find Daisy's post up on Beet.TV

The Case Against Reporting Sarah Palin's Status Updates

2009-12-23T13:55:08Z

Dave Weigel is, as usual, making a ton of sense, this time with regard to his unwillingness to do reporting on the neverending dispatches from Sarah Palin's Facebook account.

Last week, PolitiFact.com announced its "Lie of the Year": Sarah Palin's claim that the health care bill might create "death panels" that would kill elderly or disabled Americans. It was a lie, the editors pointed out, because Palin's claim was based on a mangling (by Michele Bachmann) of false claims by Betsey McCaughey -- that the bill would mandate end-of-life counseling, and that rationing would deny care based on "level of productivity in society." That phrase was Palin's invention.

Palin responded to the PolitiFact article with a post on her Facebook page, claiming that, actually, the CBO's assessment that it would be tough to cut the rate of increase in Medicare is the sort of thing she had been talking about all along. That's obviously not true. But political reporters are taking note, filing stories about what Palin wrote that don't add much more context. I really think this is a humiliating exercise.

The problem is that Palin has put the political press in a submissive position, one in which the only information it prints about her comes from prepared statements or from Q&As with friendly interviewers. This isn't something most politicians get away with, or would be allowed to get away with. But Palin has leveraged her celebrity -- her ability to get ratings, the ardor of her fans and the bitterness of her critics -- to win a truly unique relationship with the press. She is allowed to shape the public debate without actually engaging in it.

Weigel adds a lot more to his argument, so I'd urge you, as usual, to hie thee hence, and not limit yourself to my excerpting.

But I'd like to underscore the fact that Weigel is absolutely correct, here: Sarah Palin has won a tremendous concession from the media, in that she has gotten them to blithely accept a set of rules of engagement that she has invented. There are a number of reasons the media is willing to just accept these terms, and chief among them is traffic. Simply put, Sarah Palin is the clickiest thing the internet has going these days, and that creates an incentive to cover everything she does, up to and including ghost-written Facebook updates and word-soupy Twitter bleats. As I've said before, the irony of Sarah Palin's overarching anti-media pose is that she could do more harm to the media if she's just curb her prolific tendencies.

But the curbing works both ways, doesn't it? And by accepting Palin's terms, the press ends up cheating themselves on the back end. I'll once again point out how remarkable it is that Sarah Palin, who is universally acknowledged as a major player in the conservative movement (if not the Republican movement), a potential future Presidential contender, and a one-time candidate for the vice-presidency of the United States, has never once appeared on any of the traditional, Sunday-morning political shows. Now, I've been watching those shows faithfully for the past two years, and I am under no illusion that she will encounter some sort of intellectually rigorous interrogation, but the unalterable fact is that she refuses to participate in this forum out of pure cowardice.

So, yes: if reporters want to actually engage Sarah Palin in questioning, they should stop pretending her various posts to online social media -- to which no one in the world requires reporters to access or penetrate, anyway -- represents some sort of blockbuster, journalistic "get."

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Twitter: "An Information Network," Says Co-Founder

2009-12-23T09:50:42Z

Biz Stone told BoomTown that he wants everyone to start calling Twitter -- which has close to 60 million unique monthly visitors globally -- "an information network" and not a microblogging service.

Neil Patrick Harris: 'Tree Trimmed, Balls Hung' (PHOTO)

2009-12-23T08:32:04Z

Neil Patrick Harris has finally made it to New York after the snowstorm derailed his weekend travel plans, and he's showing his fans his Christmas spirit.

"Happy Harlem Holidays!! Finally arrived (layover in Vegas - won $9.50 in slots!), got us a tree, about to trim. Yeah, that kinda trim...," he tweeted on Monday.

A few hours later the decorating was done, and NPH summed up his work thusly:

"Tree trimmed. Balls hung. Good times. Lookie:"

PHOTO:

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Timothy Karr: Top 10 Internet Moments of 2009

2009-12-23T08:04:38Z

More than a decade ago, President Clinton pledged that every person in America would soon be able to go online "to order up every movie ever produced or every symphony ever created in a minute's time."

Well, we're already well into the next millennium and less than one out of every 10 Americans has a connection capable of those speeds. And it's not just the speed of our connection that's fallen behind. When we can get online in the United States, a free and open Internet is no longer guaranteed.

2009 was a year when the openness of the Internet was debated every where from Obama's White House to your house. As all media -- including TV, radio, newspapers and books -- converge via a digital connection, the controversial issue of who ultimately controls your clicks has taken center stage. Much will be decided in 2010, and 2009 helped set the stage.

The Top 10 Open Internet Moments of 2009 (in no particular order):

Stimulus Plan Embraces Access and Openness

In February, Congress passed a stimulus package including $7.2 billion to help get fast and open Internet to the nearly 40 percent of American homes that don't have it. Buried deep in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act is a line that brought a scowl to the faces of phone and cable industry lobbyists. It required that the billions of federal dollars directed to connect more Americans be spent on services that meet "nondiscrimination and network interconnection obligations." That means that stimulus money -- your money -- cannot be used by powerful Internet service providers to "manage," throttle or re-route you whenever you traverse the Web.

The FCC Pushes for Net Neutrality

Delivering on promises his boss made on the campaign trail, newly appointed Federal Communications Commission Chair Julius Genachowski announced plans for the agency to make Net Neutrality the rule -- giving teeth to efforts to protect the Internet's fundamental openness. The mere suggestion of a rule put the open Internet foes at AT&T, Verizon and Comcast into overdrive. In 2009, their lobbyists flooded lawmakers, regulators and the press with phony claims about the "unintended consequences" of FCC action. Listening to the lobbyists, one might think Net Neutrality was some radically new concoction. Yet it was baked into the Internet's original design by founders like Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Vinton Cerf, to ensure that open networks could foster growth, participation and new ideas on a level playing field. In 2010, The FCC must pass a rule that holds strong to this standard.

Whose 'Internet Freedom' Is it?

Throughout the year Members of Congress engaged in rhetorical jousting over control of a term: "Internet Freedom." Representatives Ed Markey and Anna Eshoo launched the first salvo in July, introducing the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009." If passed, the Act would make Net Neutrality the standard, locking in the network's greatest strength: its ability to give everyone a chance to share ideas online without having to gain permission from their ISP. Powerful phone and cable lobbyists began to call in favors on Capitol Hill, turning to "the Maverick" himself to stake their own claim to the frame. Sen. John McCain answered the call, introducing the "Internet Freedom Act," a bill that would stop all FCC efforts to have a public discussion about Net Neutrality. Thanks to the transparency champions at Sunlight Foundation, we learned that McCain had numerous reasons for pushing his version of Internet Freedom: $894,379 to be exact.

Twitter Empowers Protesters. DPI Endangers Them.

Over the summer, Twitter turned into a powerful engine of social justice, as protesters in Iran took to the streets and the Internet to contest President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election. Western journalists were summarily escorted out of the country. Iranian Web activists filled the void, transmitting a stream of Twitter messages and YouTube videos, to let the world bear witness to the horrors unfolding on Tehran's streets. In that moment, the power of open social networks seemed undisputed. But it's a sword that cut both ways: The tools that connect, organize and empower people can also be used to hunt them down. The companies that profited from sales of this Web-spying technology to Iran (notably Nokia-Siemens) found themselves in the crosshairs of human rights advocates, as Iran's government began tracking Web transmissions to locate and imprison protesters. This technology -- insidiously dubbed "Deep Packet Inspection," or DPI -- became a concern back home. It has been widely deployed by ISPs across the country for commercial purposes, but in the wrong hands it can become a dangerous tool for a new era of political repression.

Obama White House Goes 2.0

Obama put open technology to work during his White House run, notably relying on social networks that gave users more control over the campaign message. On the day they settled in at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Obama's open government team began deploying open-source Drupal systems on all of its sites and opening them up to user comments, polling and feedback. They're now betting on the idea that the White House's commitment to open, transparent and participatory governance will filter outward through all executive agencies and departments and beyond. (White House bloggers themselves became targets on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" after their transparency drive went too far for some, colliding with the secrecy-minded bureaucrats at the NSA).

The Breaching of the Walled Garden

Mobile phone users had been conditioned to accept network blockades, opaque pricing plans and device locks as a natural feature of the wireless landscape. But that changed in 2007 when millions got a stunning glimpse of the new iPhone. It and the other "smart phones" that followed seemed to offer a seamless connection to the Internet. Consumers began to wonder why connecting to the Web via their handheld device should be any different than connecting via a laptop or desktop computer. The simple answer is that it shouldn't. But don't tell that to the cartel of carriers that in 2009 used their lobbyists to stall efforts at the FCC to apply Net Neutrality protections to both wired and wireless connections. Google upped the ante in December, confirming rumors of its plan to release the Nexus One, an unlocked, open-source phone that is a direct challenge to AT&T and Apples' mantra: to own the consumers, you must control their devices.

Open Source Operating Systems May Get Lost in the Cloud

Over the fall, Google released its latest version of the Chrome operating system to the open-source community. Chrome OS runs only Web-based applications, marking a major shift toward Web services, software and applications and away from hard drives weighted down with proprietary software. (Microsoft be warned.) The increased adoption of 'net-centric" computing could lead to a tipping point where the majority of users tap into the Web for virtually all their software needs. But it's a vision of the future that may turn less rosy if we lose control over access to the cloud's distributed architecture. Opening Chrome OS to developers around the world is a good sign, but cloud computing itself is fraught with obstacles to openness -- even in cases where everyone gets to tinker with the code. "A market that evolves toward a cloud-based infrastructure, gives even more power to the Internet service providers who control access to the cloud," warns Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner. "This raises all sorts of market power concerns should ISPs decide to discriminate in favor of some companies and applications in the cloud and slow or filter access to others."

A New Battle for Old Spectrum

2008 ended in a victory for open network advocates when the FCC decided to open up unused chunks of the television spectrum for high-speed Internet services. But that decision on "White Spaces" marked a fundamental shift in how we think about public airwaves -- and caused a rift between the titans of old media (with their cigar-chomping lobbyists at the NAB) and an eccentric coalition of open network proponents, consumer rights advocates and Internet and electronic device companies. In the fall of 2009, the FCC floated the idea of taking back some more of the spectrum now occupied by broadcasters. But this only works for openness if the FCC makes the new spectrum available for unlicensed use and increased competition. Simply handing it to incumbent carriers like AT&T and Verizon is not the solution. The mere suggestion itself triggered the hoarding reflex of spectrum's old guard, who still view the media as a river that flows one way -- from them to you.

Internet Video vs. the Cable Guy

How much control should television viewers be given over what, where, when and how they watch video? It's not a question that's new to media debates, but it took on new meaning in 2009 as more and more high-speed Americans sought to "cut the cord" connecting their TV sets to cable to view video via the Internet instead. Right now, this trend is limited to "early adopters," but if it plays out in both the marketplace and at the FCC, it could radically change the television world as we have come to know it, removing the cable company standing between video content and its audience. "Although not everyone would abandon their cable or satellite subscription," writes The Los Angeles Times' David Lazarus, "it's not hard to imagine more than a few people realizing they can suddenly make do with Internet access alone, eliminating the video portion of monthly telecom bills." Comcast's controversial plan to merge with NBC Universal (marrying video distribution and Internet access with video production) implies that cable giants aren't going to accept this shift without a fight.

National Broadband Plan: Under Construction

It turns out that the United States was the only developed nation without a national strategy to get affordable and fast broadband services into the hands of its citizenry. That status changed with the stimulus package, which tasked the FCC with crafting a national blueprint for getting everybody connected. While the plan isn't due to be delivered to Congress until February, the debate over the shape of the next generation Internet has been furious. Broadband is now an essential service like water, electricity and the telephone, argue public interest advocates (including my organization Free Press). It is essential infrastructure for the 21st century. While the phone and cable duopoly that controls more than 97 percent of fixed broadband home connections would rather see it as a private commodity, to be rationed and controlled in ways that maximize earnings. Whether openness, consumer choice and market competition are fostered by the plan still remains to be seen. We'll know more when it's unveiled to the world in 2010.

Andrew Brandt: Ochocinco's Retracted Tribute to Chris Henry: League Comes First

2009-12-23T05:49:28Z

The heartfelt proposal (later rescinded) by Chad Ochocinco to wear the jersey number of fallen teammate Chris Henry was met with no such sentimentality from the NFL. In fact, Ochocinco was given strict instructions from the league not to do so, for which he relented on the plan. The stonewalling of this seemingly sincere tribute is an example of the "me vs. we" push and pull that exists between the NFL and its players on a weekly basis.

The NFL has become the most successful sports venture in history in large part due to being built around an egalitarian league-first mentality. The mantra of the league is that the power of the shield (the NFL logo) is paramount and supersedes the brand of any other team, or certainly any other player. Indeed, the strength of the league is derived from the collective spirit of teams sharing the most revenues of any major sports league.

However, the "league first, individuals second" mentality tends to get a bit messy with characters such as Ochocinco. He and many others like him are brands unto themselves, promoting their brand in unique and interesting ways that don't necessarily mesh with the corporate bent of the league office. Whether it involves clever antics following scoring a touchdown, running his own news and information network, or the more sentimental wearing of a deceased friend's jersey, Ochocinco attracts attention and is very strategic in building his brand.

His team, the Bengals and the league, however, know that while Ochocinco is building his own brand, he is also marketing theirs. While we may rail about his self-serving and attention-seeking behavior -- which I have often done -- we still want to see it. How many of us feel disappointed when we see a highlight of one of these players scoring a touchdown that is not followed by an entertaining dance or celebration?

This is the contradiction of the "look-at-me" players like Ochocinco and others. While team and league officials shake their head at his antics, they -- in their private moments -- are happy that these players are on their rosters, bringing attention and the interest of casual fans to their product. Certainly, when Bengals officials socialize with their friends, do you think the subject is about blocking schemes? It probably is often about Chad and either "Did you see what he did?" or "What do you think he'll do next?"

An area that will continue to be at the forefront of where the individuality of players meets the collective good of the league is Twitter. The NFL instituted a Twitter policy prior to the season but it is directed at competitive issues such as tweeting before, during and right after games. The league -- perhaps on advice of counsel -- does not legislate what how a player expresses himself to his legions of followers. We will probably continue to see players' individual remarks/comments/observations bump up against the league interest in muting some expression.

As a collective business about shared interests and propping up the weakest link, the NFL wants players to care more about the name of the team than the name (or number) on the back of the jersey. The NFL has been successful having uniformity in everything, especially in the uniforms, fining for shoe color to sock length to untucked jerseys. However, the league wants some individuality as well as individuals market the league, especially individuals like Ochocinco, or for last week, Quince (15 for Chris Henry's number).

It is interesting that Ochocinco, once lumped in with Terrell Owens and other malingerers that were selfish and boorish, has become somewhat of a fan and media favorite. He is still the player who complains about his contract on an annual basis, flaunts the rules and regulations of the league and engages in much "look-at-me" behavior such as running a race against a horse. However, he has strategically and cleverly built a nice brand, aided by the recent success of the Bengals and his genuine suffering for the loss of a friend last week. Maybe the name change from Johnson to Ochocinco has helped the image.

Ochocinco perfectly illustrates the anxious relationship between the NFL and its players, wanting them to be the marketable commodities yet not overly individualistic in their expression. Ochocinco can be a delight to watch but can also upset the natural order of sameness the league so desires.

Job Hunting Tips: 5 Simple Ways To Get A Job This Holiday Season

2009-12-22T15:46:29Z

There are five easy things you can do right now, in December, while you're cramming your face with sugar and carbs, to set yourself up for a successful job search in January.

Mark Horvath: Twitter Magic Brings Miracle to Homeless Family

2009-12-21T15:10:41Z

On Saturday night, I was part of a miracle that I still cannot believe happened. When I woke up the next morning I had to watch this video several times for it all to sink in (I also have it later on in this post).

This miracle was broadcast to the world in real-time via social media. Twitter played a monumental role in bringing smiles to the faces of a homeless family on their first night in the shelter system.

Below are a few tweets that will allow you to witness the miracle unfold for yourself:

The winter shelter is no place for children so we drive families to a hotel and voucher them until we can find a more permanent solution. This single mom was living in a van with her 9 year-old son. When the city towed their van they lost EVERYTHING. I checked the family into hotel and then took them grocery shopping. Mom told me that they desperately needed a change of clothes. Another woman at the shelter has an urgent need for clothes so I broadcast the needs via twitter.

Almost instantly Pastor Matthew Barnett from Los Angeles Dream Center sent me the following direct messages:

Because the only clothes this mother and child had were on their backs I didn't feel we could wait another day. I searched the GPS on my phone and the closest store was Walmart. I tweet I was headed there. Soon I received this:

Pastor Matthew called me. He asked me to pick out a nice toy for the boy and suggested a Nintendo DS. The Los Angeles Dream Center is the church that helped me off the streets. Matthew Barnett has been caring for homeless people for over a decade. He knows people without housing cannot carry lots of stuff so a portable video game is a perfect gift. Even typing this now thinking about last night I get emotional. Last night I was a wreck!

I opened the Ustream app. and started to broadcast over the net. Ustream cuts up the clips so I edited them together. The following YouTube video is what I broadcast from my phone last night:

Response was immediate and overwhelming. Here are just a very few:

My friend Kat Armstrong wrote a post before we all got home. Please read her powerful post here.

For as long as I can remember I have hated this time of year. As a tradition I keep wherever I live 'Christmas free' to escape the holiday madness. No Christmas music, no Christmas decorations, and especially NO CHRISTMAS TREES! To reflect my holiday 'mood' I even change my avatar to the mean Grinch. While rushing to Walmart I must have been out of my mind and tweet that if someone helped this 9 year-old boy I'd change my avatar, and if someone helped the woman with clothes I'd get a tree.

I will be getting a tree this weekend! Merry Christmas!

Last night I learned that to see miracles one must be in a place where miracles happen - that place is helping other people.

Thanks to Union Rescue Mission and PATH Achieve Glendale for taking care of homeless families at the winter shelters around Los Angeles. Very special thanks to Matthew Barnett and everyone who donated to help give a little extra love this holiday season!

Twitter Turns Its FIRST Profit Selling Search To Google, Microsoft

2009-12-21T11:49:50Z

Twitter is ending 2009 on a high note. The microblogging site has reached profitability after inking $25 million of deals that make its content searchable by Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT), Bloomberg BusinessWeek has learned

Tila Tequila Pregnant? Twitter Says She's A Surrogate

2009-12-21T08:50:17Z

Self-made publicity magnet Tila Tequila is with child, she'll have us know.

The former reality star tweeted, "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: I am going to become a SURROGATE MOTHER for my brother & his Wife!!! That is my xmas present to them. Im pregnant!!!!"

This isn't the only big Christmas gift Tila has up her sleeve.

"I love my Mom & Dad more than anyone in the world. Especially my dad. I'm Daddy's girl & Daddys girl is going to buy him a new house! <3," she tweeted before setting the stage for her pregnancy announcement.

"I LOVE MY BROTHER TOO! CAN U GUESS WHAT I AM GOING TO GIVE HIM FOR CHRISTMAS?? THIS WILL CHANGE HIS LIFE & MINE FOREVER!!!!! ITS HUGE! GUESS" she tweeted later.

This is not the first time Tila has garnered attention online with talk of pregnancy. In June she took to her MySpace blog to "clear up the rumors"--rumors that she started on Twitter then deleted.

"First of all....the PREGNANCY rumors....the point is...maybe I was pregnant, or maybe I wasn't pregnant," she wrote. "I think that is something very personal but I'm going to clear that up now and say that I am not currently pregnant. So there you go! Let's move on now! NEXT!"

Earlier this month in a colorful display of affection on the red carpet, Tila announced her engagement to accused burglar and vibrator borrower Casey Johnson, heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune.

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Andy Borowitz: Iranian Twitter Hackers Briefly Silence Narcissists

2009-12-18T13:54:35Z

TEHRAN (The Borowitz Report) - A group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army briefly hacked the social messaging service Twitter last night, frustrating the efforts of narcissists to share their most mundane and banal thoughts.

Around the world, the Iranian hack attack made it impossible for Twitter users to post updates about their pets, music preferences, and TV viewing habits.

Carol Foyler, 37, a blogger from Madison, Wisconsin, said she was trying to report that she had just steeped a cup of herbal tea when the cyber attack disabled her Twitter account.

"I felt very violated," she said. "Fortunately, I was able to upload a video of me drinking the tea on YouTube." More here.

Blog To Book: How 6 Authors Did It

2009-12-18T11:50:39Z

Ever since roughly 2005, publishers have been looking toward the Internet in order to find new fodder for the printed page, and this year, those literary folk found themselves flush with talent.

Twitter HACKED By "Iranian Cyber Army" (UPDATED, PHOTO)

2009-12-18T02:36:12Z

UPDATE 8:06AM ET: A post to Twitter's status blog early Friday read:

Twitter's DNS records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed. We are looking into the underlying cause and will update with more information soon.

Tech Crunch also reports that for a period of time following the hack, a Google search for "Twitter" turned up a message in Farsi below the link:

The translation from Farsi/Persian reads: “In the name of God, As an Iranian this is a reaction to Twitter’s interference sly which was U.S. authorities ordered in the internal affairs of my country…”

See the screenshot below:

* * * * *

Twitter was hacked early Friday morning. Visitors to its homepage and domain saw a message from a group calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army":

THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMY

iRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.COM

U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don't, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To....

NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA?
WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST ;)
Take Care.

It's not clear who the Iranian Cyber Army is, or if the group is actually responsible for sabotaging Twitter. During the unrest that followed Iran's elections this past summer, people in Iran and around the world used Twitter to organize opposition protests and inspire dissent. At the U.S. State Department's request, Twitter even rescheduled an upgrade to minimize any problems for users in Tehran.

Twitter sent out a tweet at about 2:36 a.m. ET, acknowledging that the site's DNS records were temporarily compromised. It said that the problem was resolved and in a blog post that followed, explained that the site was "redirected for awhile," but that "API and platform applications were working."

Tech Crunch found a second web site that was compromised: mawjcamp.org. As of 3:23 a.m. Friday, the same message that visitors saw on Twitter's homepage was still posted to mawjcamp.org's page.

Kawika Mitchell Twitter TRASHES New Bills Teammate Richie Incognito

2009-12-17T16:11:06Z

Upon hearing of the Buffalo Bills' most recent signing, Kawika Mitchell was not happy, and he voiced that discontent on Twitter.

In response to the Bills signing offensive lineman Richie Incognito, Mitchell tweeted:

"RT @ProFootballTalk Bills add Richie Incognito http://is.gd/5qtmn #NFL--BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT THIS YR. THE GUYS A BUM. DIRTY AND ALWAYS..."

He continued, ".. WILL BE. REALLY WISH I WAS PLAYIN RITE NOW. SERIOUSLY... I KNO WE'RE N NEED OF OLINE BUT THIS GUY SUKS BALLS."

The tweets were quickly picked up on blogs in Western New York and elsewhere and generated significant controversy on Twitter itself.

Mitchell later said, "I was wrong 4 startin sumthin. Shouldve saved it."

Today he followed up with this tweet: "Work on buildin relationships today(LOL). Stay on track. Look 4 signs that u've fallin off. I c its time to adjust and improve not step back."

Kawika Mitchell's Twitter account is @Ka_Mitchell55.

Demi Moore: I'm 47, How Am I Supposed To Look? (PHOTO)

2009-12-17T14:23:26Z

Demi Moore can't win. Her recent W cover was widely regarded as a Photoshop disaster, though she maintained it was her real body. Now she's getting flack for an unretouched photo--for looking old.

On Wednesday Demi shared an outtake from a Santa Monica photoshoot for Harper's Bazaar.

"Had the priviledge of working with a giraffe yesterday he was beautiful gentle and so amazing!" she tweeted along with the picture below. Some responses were unforgiving:

"sorrydemi that your self esteem is so low you can't admit to a little Photoshopping. And Ghost sucked," one follower wrote.

"sorry but you look old. specially your neck & cheecks at the second shot.." added another.

"I'm 47 how am I supposed to look?" Demi responded.

Demi and Ashton have long been consumed with cultivating their Twitter presence. A couple of weeks ago they planned dinner and sex over Twitter from different rooms in their house, and then there was that butt picture.

PHOTO:

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Dr. Jim Taylor: Real-time Web, Unreal-time Life

2009-12-17T13:11:54Z

Pete Cashmore, the founder and CEO of Mashable, a well-read social-media blog, suggested in a recent CNN column that the real-time Web is one of the top 10 Web trends of 2010. Real-time Web means being able to send and receive information almost instantaneously.

Mr. Cashmore (great business name, by the way) argues that real-time Web is the next new thing for both technological and human reasons. From a tech standpoint, the simple reality is that it is now possible for people to communicate quickly and easily. Not only is there the 140-character update on Twitter, but there is also real-time location (Foursquare), search (Google), news (Thoora), auctions (StuffBuff), reviews (Yelp), and blog comments (Disqus).

As for the human drive for real-time Web, the emergence of real-time media has altered our expectations about the availability of information and our ability to communicate with others. Instantaneous connectivity is now the default and anything less feels like we've taken the "Wayback Machine" (if you know what that is, you're pretty old!) to those ancient days of the early 1990s. Also, there is neurological evidence indicating that this new media activates the same reward centers in the brain as that of drugs. That little chirp, ring, or vibration of incoming tweet, email, or text message sets our brains a-buzzing. Simply put, both psychologically and neurologically, we want it, we want it now, we want it without any effort, and we want it to never stop.

Though this is one train that can't be kept in the station, real-time Web is troubling to me.

First, they call it disruptive technology a reason, but not for the reason for which that term is usually intended. Real-time Web is disruptive because it disrupts the flow of work. As I've written about previously, research indicates that multitasking simply doesn't work, and the constant inflow of information and perceived need to respond immediately is an inevitable part of real-time Web that makes it virtually impossible to single task and maximize productivity. Real-time media also disrupts the flow of life, whether you're reading a book, watching a movie, eating, or having a conversation, it is distracting, often irrelevant, and just plain irritating (at least to me).

Also, unless real-time Web is what we're doing at the moment, it prevents us from fully experiencing what we are actually doing at that moment. I would guess that there aren't a lot of Zen Buddhist technologists out there because just about everything related to real-time media is the antithesis of Zen. We can't be "in the moment;" we are constantly forced to deal with the past (just-inputted info) and confront the future (your instantaneous output). We can't attain a Zen-like calm and inner peace because, as noted above, our brain's reward center is going bonkers and it's stressful trying to keep up with the torrent of information that never seems to stop. We can't connect with our spiritual life if we're connected with our cyber-world. And we can't just "be" with real-time media because, as the research indicates, the dopamine that it activated causes us to "do," that is, engage in seeking behavior that becomes a vicious feedback loop (seeking brings satisfaction which motivates more seeking, etc. ad infinitum).

Real-time communication also discourages us from engaging in deliberate thought; there's just no time! This immediacy of information precludes us from thoughtfully evaluating the information we receive: is it interesting, is it worthwhile, is it relevant to me, is it true? As the early computer-science saying goes, garbage in, garbage out, related to real-time Web, without proper consideration of the information, it's trash at both input and output (what turns input/output into knowledge, wisdom, and value is thought).

An important question to ask is: Do we need information in real time? There are industries that do require up-to-the-second data, for example, banking and the military. But for most of us, periodic information seems sufficient. Note how the meaning of periodic has changed in the past two decades. It used to mean getting the news twice a day: reading the morning newspaper and watching the network news at night (how quaint). There's really no such thing as periodic now. Do we really need to know everything - anything! - right away? Can't we finish what we're doing first?

As with all new media, real-time Web is neither good nor evil; it's up to each of us to make it so. Also, as with all new media, the most important thing we must do as individual users is to actually think about how we want to use it to its greatest advantage in our lives. If we don't, and adopt it just because we can, well, get ready for that dopamine roller-coaster ride.

The Village Church Updates Status Of Pastor Matt Chandler Via Twitter, Facebook

2009-12-16T18:09:01Z

The Village Church, a megachurch in Texas encompassing three communities, is utilizing the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook to update its parish and others on the status of its Pastor Matt Chandler.

Chandler was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and had a 7-hour surgery earlier this month to remove the tumor.

But today, Chandler's doctor said the tumor was not encapsulated.

This afternoon, The Village Church shared the grim news, posting to its more than 8,000 followers on Twitter (@villagechurchtx), "Pastor\'s Blog: Pathology results revealed http://bit.ly/6h4JYc."

Due to server overload on its Web site, The Village Church posted the information again but this time linking to Facebook as a note.

The Village Church, which has campuses in Flower Mound, Denton and Dallas Northway, has been overwhelmed with responses. The Twitter update has been circulating via tweets all day and the Facebook note has received 66 comments (and counting).

Caroline Giegerich: Picture Yourself in Times Square: I'm on TV

2009-12-16T17:06:26Z

Sunday, December 13th, 2009. 1:00PM. Times Square. If you happened to be walking through the tourist-infested crowd in Times Square over the weekend, you might have seen me and my red hoodie smiling back at you. My inner monologue would have been, "I don't know why you're braving Times Square at the holidays in the rain either."

As part of Toshiba's countdown to New Year's Eve, the company is launching a marketing campaign dubbed "I'm on TV." Eighteen videos will be selected each day to air up to three times on Toshiba's LED screen in Times Square. Participants are asked to record their vision for the next decade in eight seconds of silent video. Several of the submitted videos will then be chosen to air on New Year's Eve during the countdown festivities from 6 p.m. to midnight.

The social marketer in me feels like this campaign missed pretty much every aspect of social opportunity in focusing on the glamour of Times Square.

Viral Opportunities Lost

Video Post to Twitter, Facebook, etc: Give each user an easy way to post their video immediately to Twitter or Facebook and advertise the campaign to friends. Based on the Times Square Alliance, an ad in Times Square generates about 1.5 million impressions a day. On New Year's Eve, that number rises exponentially. So yes, Times Square generates some serious awareness. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter apply a different sort of marketing, one that prioritizes engagement over the number of impressions. As a marketer, the opportunity to have someone not only see something about your brand but interact with it is priceless. Quality and critical mass is the ideal.

Email videos to a friend. The Elf Yourself campaign has used this simple feature to virally spread their notes of personalized Christmas cheer. This campaign would clearly benefit. After a video has been selected and broadcast, Toshiba sends an email with a link to the 18 videos to each user. I don't want to see 18 videos. I just want to see mine. Plus, I'm guessing my friends and family don't want to sit through 17 videos to see my silly face either.

Facebook Connect: Simply, allowing a user to log in with their Facebook details provides additional demographic data and provides a seamless user experience. Log-in shouldn't be required but offered if so interested.

Foursquare: Create a Times Square badge for those users who have successfully made it to the big screen. If that user has enabled Twitter in their Foursquare settings, this new badge message will also been communicated via the social network.

Mash-ups: Allow friends and family to stitch their videos together with pre-selected music options to easily share and additionally personalize the experience.

Merchandise Opportunities: It's pretty cool to say that you were broadcast in Times Square. Allow users to remember and market the event with some merchandise.

So go, wax poetic about the New Year. I'll see you in Times Square.

Jason Pinter: Does Social Networking Kill the Author Mystique?

2009-12-16T14:42:33Z

Steven Spielberg does not record commentaries for the DVD editions of his movies. For film buffs like me, commentaries are an insightful play-by-play of just what went into the making of a film. I love listening as the director, cast, and crew provide entertaining and informative (ok, and sometimes boring) tidbits about what went into a particular scene, or sometimes simply amusing anecdotes from the set. Yet Spielberg, perhaps the most influential and popular director of the past fifty years, refuses to record commentaries. And it's not because Spielberg is an old fart, he has simply stated that he believes commentaries reduce some of the movie's magic. This got me thinking...

I have a Facebook account. Twitter page. MySpace page. Website. Blog. I even think I have an old Friendster account (come on, you know you used to have one too). All of these were started after my first book deal in the Spring of 2006, in the hopes of reaching readers and building an audience through the magic of online social networking. And I'm far from the only one who had that idea.

With just a few clicks, you can find hundreds if not thousands of authors divulging their innermost thoughts about their books, their writing process, and occasionally the intimate and mundane details of their life. Some of these comments are interesting and insightful, offering candid looks into the process of writing and the career of publishing. Some of them are pithy, funny, irreverent, about their lives and relationships. Some are pointless, nothing more than daily itineraries or dietary choices. Some turn you off from an author entirely due to lewdness, crudeness, or endless and shameless hawking of their own wares.

So in the end, with all of this detritus floating around, does online social networking actually help authors sell books?

John Scalzi, New York Times bestselling author of Zoe's Tale and proprietor of the popular blog "Whatever" says, "A lot of people who friend or follow me are already fans, so I expect they may already know what I'm doing in terms of sales. With new people my feeling is that over time, the feeling they "know" you may increase their likelihood to take a chance on a novel. In both cases, however, you probably shouldn't assume every Facebook friend or Twitter follower is going to buy your work."

I have no doubt that some people buy books based on their online connection or discovery of an author through those means. But I also believe that what helps can also hurt if not done in moderation. I have never seen a movie based on an interview with a star or director. As a matter of fact, the oversaturation of an artist might make me less apt to try out their work (unfair, perhaps, but it's the truth). If you are subjected to a person ad nauseum, you eventually lose the curiosity factor. It becomes redundant. Familiarity breeds contempt. So I wondered ... does knowing too much about authors take away some of the magic of their books?

Growing up, I was obsessed with Stephen King. As much as I loved his books, the man himself was something of an enigma. I learned about his life only through his entertaining "Authors Notes" included in the paperback editions of his books. Even his author photos looked creepy. You looked at them and thought to yourself, yeah, this guy totally looks like the kind of person who would write about child-murdering clowns.

Now, King has written a partial memoir, On Writing (a brilliant and inspiring book, by the way). He has a pop culture column in Entertainment Weekly. He contributes numerous reviews and stories to magazines on a monthly, if not weekly basis. Now, Stephen King is, shall I say, 'grandfathered in'. He is an American icon, and not just in the literary sense. He is perhaps the most recognizable authorial name alive today after J.K. Rowling. King has remained relevant, if not vital, to popular culture. But someone like King is also the recipient of hefty marketing campaigns for every one of his books. A poor seller for him will still net hundreds of thousands of copies. His name doesn't sit above the marquee -- it is the marquee. He doesn't need to put himself out there, doesn't need all those bylines -- I think he simply enjoys it.

Yet the vast majority of authors do not have anywhere near the following of a King, Rowling, Grisham, or Meyer. Most are forced to augment relatively meager marketing and publicity budgets by drumming up noise about their own work. Most authors, I believe, are introverts. I include myself in this statement. However, Social Media has made it easier than ever for authors to 'put themselves out there'. Even the most technologically inept writers can maintain Twitter pages, cross post to a Facebook page, or do a blog tour without leaving their couch. Many writers, myself included, post several updates a day and communicate regularly with readers. Not just about our work, but about our lives. Our likes and dislikes. Anything and everything that might (or often might not) interest readers. Anything that might help us rise about the cacophony of authors trying to do the exact same thing everyone else is ... only better.

But does all of this networking white noise drown out the books? Does knowing too much about an author kill the magic?

Not necessarily. Allison Winn Scotch, bestselling author of Time of My Life, says, "Facebook has been truly helpful because I've reconnected with so many people from my past, people who have a vested interest in me and who have definitely gone out and bought my books because at some point in my life, they knew me. Twitter has been amazing, in terms of getting my name out there to an audience I'd otherwise never have reached ... But yes, a small percentage have (they tweet me to let me know), and given that I enjoy tweeting and the entire idea of Twitter, that small percentage is worth my time AND who knows who else will buy my books in the future."

Yet there is something mysterious about J.K Rowling. Cormac McCarthy. Even King, who years from now I suspect might shed his skin and morph into some sort of giant winged creature or bloodthirsty zombie (don't believe me? Check out his author photo for Cell). The $64,000 question always asked by authors and publicists is how much does all of it really help? The prevailing feeling tends to be that it can't hurt (provided you don't have an Alice Hoffman or Anne Rice-ian freakout). And as long as it doesn't hurt -- and doesn't get in the way of the actual writing -- you will be encouraged to Tweet like your life depends on it.

That said, Winn Scotch seems to nail what every author hopes for when networking: "On places like Twitter, I really try to toe the line between personal and professional. What I mean by that is that I don't think readers just want to hear about my writing life - what they enjoy is sort of like what the general public enjoys in those "Stars, They're Just Like Us!" features: they like hearing about the mundane, albeit, hilarious details of your life, they like glancing behind the scenes, hearing how your kids are driving you crazy or your dog is totally bananas. It opens up a dialogue that you wouldn't have been able to have a few years ago with readers and you develop a common ground, and yes, you also develop friendships."

The trick seems to be, as Winn Scotch says, toeing the line between being a professional writer and a human being. Promoting your work without coming off as a used car salesmen. Writing posts that readers can relate to, coming off as someone they might even want to spend time with. If an author's Tweets or blogs are funny, inspiring or meaningful, it is reasonable to think their books might be as well.

Yet as Scalzi succinctly states, "People aren't stupid; they know when Twitter is being used for enjoyment's sake and when it's being used as a calculated marketing channel. Guess which they respond to better."

Penny C. Sansevieri: Marketing 101: Never (Ever) Sell Your Book

2009-12-16T13:02:02Z

So you're all ready to promote your book. You've got a great press kit, a polished bio, and a letter-perfect press release. Now you're ready to sell, sell, sell, right? Wrong. One of the biggest mistakes authors make is selling their book. Remember it's not about the book; it's about what the book can do for the reader.

Finding the benefits to your book might seem like a pretty simple task, but touting that "It's a great read!" won't get you very far. To determine what your book will do for your reader, you'll have to dig deep, sometimes deeper than you thought. Especially if your book is fiction, this task of finding benefits will require some serious brainstorming. The key here is, be different. If you have a diet book, don't offer the same benefits a million other books do: you'll lose weight. Instead, offer a benefit that is decidedly different than anything that's out there. Or, try to couch a similar benefit in a different way. At the end of the day, it's all about the WIIFM factor: what's in it for me? If your reader likes what's in it for them, they'll buy your book -- otherwise they'll just move on.

The idea of not selling your book also holds true when you're doing an interview. Never, ever answer an interviewer's question with: "You'll find it in my book." Because the fact is you're an author, of course the answer is in your book, but right now you're there to help them with their interview -- save the sales pitches for another time.

The uniqueness of your benefits can also directly relate to the particular audience you're speaking to. For example, if you have different levels of readers or readers from different backgrounds, it's a good idea to work up a set of benefits for each of them. Then any interview you do (or speaking engagement) will offer benefits with that audience in mind as opposed to a more generic form of, "Here's what my book can do for you!" Creating a list of benefits for your book can aid your campaign in a number of ways: first, it'll help you get away from a more "salesy" type of approach, and second, it will help you create the tip sheets that can add substance to your press kit. If you're working on the benefit angle of your book early enough, you can incorporate these into the back copy of your book.

The point is, never, ever sell your book. Be a step ahead of the competition and sell what your book can do for the reader, and let them know why it's better than the competition. In the end, that's all anyone will care about.

Jose Antonio Vargas: With The Rise of Social Media, No Privacy for Tiger Woods

2009-12-16T10:56:10Z

What do Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the Supreme Court of the United States and golfing giant Tiger Woods have in common?

Privacy.

More specifically, how we define privacy in our texting, tweeting, Facebooking, YouTubing, Googling era.

Earlier this month, after Sprint, Verizon and Yahoo were blasted following revelations that they've shared customer data with the authorities, Google's Eric Schmidt declared in an interview with CNBC: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Boom! It was as if Schmidt had planted a bomb in the blogosphere. And he wasn't done: Since Google is subject to the country's Patriot Act, "it is possible that information could be made available to the authorities," Schmidt went on. Ka-boom! Quite a statement coming from the head honcho of the Internet's biggest company. The reaction was swift and damning. Wrote John C. Dvorak of Market Watch: "For a chief executive to make what amounts to a threat to its users is absolutely astonishing."

And it's not just about Google. It's about privacy in our digital world at large, where data is shared in computers and phones, where information spreads from one social network to another. The issue has finally reached the highest court in the land. As the New York Times reported Monday, the Supreme Court will decide whether the Ontario Police Department in southern California violated the constitutional privacy rights of Sgt. Jeff Quon. The department inspected Quon's text messages that were sent and received on a government pager -- many of them "sexually explicit in nature," The Times wrote.

In an interview, Marc Rotenberg of the D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center told me that Quon's case is "without question the most important online privacy case, addressing all sorts of questions that we've all been grappling with." Rotenberg, one of the leading experts on digital privacy rights, defined what he calls "modern privacy" in a blog for HuffPostTech in September. First, "modern privacy begins with the understanding that personal information will be widely accessible," he wrote. In other words, we all leave digital footprints -- in our blogs, Twitter feeds and Facebook updates, etc. Second, "modern privacy is about what happens to information once it's held by others -- whether it's a government agency, a bank, a cell phone company, or a social network site." Translation: It's not about the technology, it's about how people use the technology. It's about our behavior.

More than a decade ago, Rotenberg predicted that "privacy will be to the information economy of the next century what consumer protection and environmental concerns have been to the industrial society of the 20th century." He was absolutely right. And privacy in our information economy extends far beyond our own individual, ordinary lives. It also impacts how we view others.

Which brings us to Tiger Woods, arguably the most private of our sports stars.

Last Friday, Woods posted a 165-word statement on his site, apologizing to his family and fans for his "infidelity." The statement ended with, "Again, I ask for privacy..." But the moment Woods crashed his Cadillac Escalade and hit a fire hydrant nearly three weeks ago, his privacy was gone. An unstoppable flood of information -- a hurricane, really -- continued circulating online: the list of women, the text messages from his phone, the voice mail he allegedly left to Jaimee Grubbs. And we -- yes, we , you and me -- started spreading them around. On Twitter, where #tigerwoods has been a popular hashtag since Thanksgiving weekend. On Facebook, where we posted the news and shared it with our "friends." There's even a Facebook group called "I Have Also Slept With Tiger Woods," and it has more than 139,000 members.

The relationship between athlete and fan, between celebrities and the people who follow their every move, has changed. In the past, celebrities dealt with only the media -- mainstream news organizations, from Sports Illustrated to 60 Minutes, but also the tabloids. It was the National Enquirer, after all, that published the story of Woods' alleged affair with nightclub manager Rachel Uchitel. But now, in addition to traditional media, celebrities are dealing with the rise of social media. That means us. As we pass around each nugget of Woods-related information -- may it be gossip or innuendo, serious or silly -- we chip away at the very privacy that Woods has asked for.

Privacy, as Woods probably defines it, is dead. Not even a billionaire athlete can afford to buy it. But "modern privacy," as Rotenberg explained it, is just beginning.

Rotenberg said: "This will be the defining issue of the next decade" -- whether you're Tiger Woods or just an ordinary citizen tweeting, Facebooking, YouTubing and Googling away.

David Saranga: Social Media as a Platform for Dialogue in the Middle East

2009-12-16T08:38:02Z

How can a conflict to which writers have devoted entire books, and which journalists attempt to explain in a few thousand words of copy be encapsulated in a mere 140 characters? This was the central question posed by the New York Times reporter who interviewed me for an article he was preparing about the initiative to hold a press conference on Twitter during the war in Gaza a year ago. This question was essentially a paraphrase on a comment by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who, in a tone that was part query and part criticism, voiced the same concern live, regarding the first press conference in history ever held by any governmental body on Twitter.

Last week the President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres, inaugurated a new YouTube channel, where he calls citizens from all over the world to share their thoughts with him, emphasizing his desire to "hear" what they have to say - to "hear" their words and not to "sound" his own. For the first time an Israeli leader is prepared and willing to engage in a non-hierarchical dialogue with world public opinion through a direct and unmediated channel. Coming from an Israeli leader, this development is unusual, unique, and extremely unexpected. With the initiative to create a YouTube channel, Peres has joined rank with a select number of world leaders who have embraced technological progress, among them President Obama, Pope Benedict XVI, and Queen Rania of Jordan.

For some time now I have been following with interest the dialogue that Queen Rania has been holding over the social network sites with citizens from around the world. The goal of this dialogue is to improve the image of the Arab world in Western eyes and to try and explain that Islam is not synonymous with terror, and that not every Arab citizen is a potential terrorist. This welcome initiative by Queen Rania, which has been harshly criticized in Jordan, is held only in English, and is oriented to the Western public. Yet since it is held in English it cannot be viewed as an internal Arab dialogue, in which citizens of the Arab world might also share their views with their leaders. Nonetheless, the initiative is important - a significant, if small step, indicating openness to dialogue.

Unlike Queen Rania, President Peres was chosen by the Israeli parliament; unlike the Queen, Peres has inaugurated the YouTube channel in Hebrew and in English, in order to engage in conversation with the citizens of his country aswell; and, unlike Queen Rania's, his YouTube channel will eventually be translated into other languages, Arabic among them. Despite the differences between the approaches of these two leaders, this is an important development, in which key statesmen and public figures are engaging in dialogue with citizens of the world and not only with the citizens of their own country. As such, it represents a new phase in the evolution of public diplomacy. Unlike the past, when transparency and accountability were demanded of democratic leaders vis-à-vis their voters, today these leaders are also involved in dialogue with international public opinion and with a global citizenry. This is a revolution that could only have taken place thanks to the existence of internet-based social networks.

The answer I gave to the New York Times correspondent one year ago is still valid today:

Since the definition of war has changed, the definition of public diplomacy has to change as well.

I was referring to the need of governments to adapt to progress. This answer is also true in times of peace: as the definition of the media has changed, now that social networks have emerged as a central source for information, governments and state leaders must embrace social networks and use them as a platform for conveying their messages in a direct and unmediated fashion. It is time for direct and frank dialogue between governments and global public opinion. Today this is a real possibility for leaders, and it lies directly at their fingertips, within reach of the keyboard.

Catie Lazarus: The Year of the Man-Child

2009-12-15T19:41:23Z

What Did You Learn in 2009? Test your knowledge by answering these objectively scientific questions about the celebrities, politicians and fifteen minute famers who made headlines.

You would describe 2009: "THE YEAR OF
A) Undermining Uninsured, Unemployed, and Underrepresented Minorities.
B) The Man-Child
C) Hope in a Bottle
(You can answer differently than the scorekeeper)

If a female celebrity accepts an award for her work, a male peer should:
A) Corner her with an unsolicited kiss, you'll never get the chance again and not just because she is married!
B) Interrupt her speech to say she didn't deserve to win.
C) Promote a political cause, even if he can't pronounce Ahmadinejad.

When exploiting children for commercial gain:
A) Buy them matching uniforms.
B) Never read them books, it sends subliminal message to viewers.
C) Keep copies of the footage for their future shrink appointments.

If a male physically abuses his girlfriend or female colleague, he might:
A) Ditch her in their shared office, McMansion, or rental car.
B) Blame the media.
C) Apologize via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or a YouTube video; someone else can forward her the link.

If a married politician or celebrity cheats, he ought to:
A) Engage in unprotected sex with as many people as possible, because if she takes you back, you may be stuck with her.
B) Do a prostitute or escort, she won't get how to sexually exploit someone for money.
C) Invent an original alibi, as coming out of the closet, hiking, and a fetish for S & M in trouser socks is already taken.
D) Hide any athletic gear or sharp objects from his spurned wife.

When gunning for your fifteen minutes of fame from infidelity:
A) Swipe toiletries from the hotel for proof of your lover's lust and hygiene practices.
B) Keep receipts of your rendezvous for taxes.
C) You want to hone your reality show pitch, like Skanks Doing Pranks or Males Are Hos Too.

After a failed Presidential campaign, politicians will:
A) Serve boxed wine in exchange for donors buying your memoir at full price.
B) Decry reform as socialism, while collecting government subsidized health care.
C) Consult on national security, when your international experience consists of finding a parking spot near the U.N.

If after skipping out on bail, you should:
A) Find a spokesperson whose own biological son is his brother-in-law, ex is his mother-in-law to stump on your behalf.
B) Describe his admitted drugging and raping a minor as not "rape rape."
C) Move to Europe where sexual assault is a poet's personal beeswax.

Say you carry a weapon, you want to:
A) Wear sweatpants without pockets.
B) Test it out on college campus, military bases, or crowded piazza, and then run!
C) Deploy to Afghanistan, apparently we need more armed bodies there.

For religious reasons, people will:
A) Veto gays and lesbian's liberal causes like marriage and the military.
B) Kill other humans, especially over holy land.
C) Practice polygamy, but only if the women dress in corduroy prairie dresses.

To win a US political election, a candidate should:
A) Spend $200 on behalf of voters in lieu of giving them cash during a recession.
B) Rant about immigrants, even if he's not Native-American.
C) Invest hundreds of dollars in hair care (true for tennis players too).

The Banking industry needs to:
A) Build sturdier pyramids.
B) Merge with the other conglomerates to form all we need: US Treasury-Google-Apple-Twitter-HBO-Netflix-H&M-CVS-Ikea-Trader Joe's-US Government.
C) Be paid more than less intelligent peers, like rocket scientists, doctors, teachers, professors, public servants, therapists, engineers, and nurses.

To ring in 2010, US Citizens will:
A) Blog, text, drink red wine, call their congressman, exercise more, eat less, take a second job, sanitize their hands, vote for viral videos, all while driving.
B) Crash a political function, just remember C-Spanners tuck in before the ball drops.
C) Fist bump.

Anna Brones: This Season, Holiday Giving is Online

2009-12-15T17:24:51Z

Bell-ringing Salvation Army volunteers are always a telltale sign of the holiday season, and although they certainly still have their place, this year holiday giving has turned to a new outlet: social media.

From The Baltimore Sun:

Organizations such as the United Way, Salvation Army and the American Red Cross are using Facebook pages and Twitter accounts to reach younger volunteers and donors.

Facebook fans of the Salvation Army can create virtual kettles on their pages and ask their friends to make donations without ever visiting a real storefront kettle. The United Way and Red Cross are tweeting their latest news of families helped and fund drives launched.

No one can yet say whether the new social media approaches are effective ways to raise money, but that's the goal, charities say. "We're hoping to get this new audience, and we hope in the end there is a fundraising component with it," said Amrit Dhillon, communications director for the United Way of Central Maryland.

But for organizations that seek out donations online via social media channels, there are plenty of success stories. Take Passports With Purpose, a campaign to raise funds to build a school in Cambodia. Having already reached their goal of $13,000 thanks to many efforts on blogs, Facebook and in the Twitter-verse, the initiative's co-founders upped the stakes and doubled the donation goal to $26,000, which will help to cover costs like providing a school nurse and building a garden.

Matador Network is raising money for the Brave New Travelers Youth Scholarship Fund, which will send as many as 15 inner city students abroad for the first time. Knowing that not everyone that wants to give has an extra pile of cash lying around, they allow donations to be as little as $1 and Matador Network has already raised 10 percent of its total goal.

International charity organizations are also seeing the benefits, like charity: water. The organization has a whole section of their website devoted to Twitter backgrounds that users can download and put on their Twitter pages to help spread the word as well as facts about water on the micro-blogging network. At the beginning of this year charity: water also hosted a Twestival (Twitter + festival) to bring communities from all over the world together. The result? They raised $250,000. Is social media a helpful tool for nonprofits and charities? Most definitely!

But why are social media tools so helpful to causes like these? Because it helps spread the word, quickly and efficiently, without the need for large investments in labor time or printing and sending out letters asking for annual donations.

"I'm a huge fan of Twitter for instant concise communication and it's been a great place for people to ask us, "How can I help?" It's not the be-all end-all, but it's an excellent place to initiate conversation and to help spread the word," says Passports With Purpose co-founder Pam Mandel.

Now all you have to do is go decide which of the many online holiday campaigns to donate to!

This post has been cross-posted from Under Solen Media's blog.