Chatterbox : observations

Geek Speak: Do you have a voice?

Steve Pham — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:17:00 GMT

Google Voice that is... but wait, what is Google Voice?

Google Voice is an internet based call forwarding service, FREE of charge unless placing international calls. It's currently released by invite only but it's pretty easy to get an invite. Just ask me how if you're interested. Now, I am sure your thinking "Whoopty Doo", what can it do for me? Well, here is what it did for me.

It gave me a local number (you can choose any number you want, from anywhere in the US). This helped a lot. I moved to Charleston not too long ago from another state and do not have a house line. Now I won't get a confused look when I give people my phone number.
It also seconds as a business line. I can make outward calls using the Google Voice number.
Another awesome feature from Google Voice is the option to screen all calls before answering. By screening, I do not mean caller-ID. I mean Google Voice informs you of who is on the other line and blocked numbers will not go through unless they announce themselves. No more random phone calls you send straight to voicemail.
Google voice also has phone management, which is similar to email management. If you are familiar with Gmail, then you will be familiar with Google Voice. You can manage all calls, voicemails, text messages, and contacts using Google Voice.
You also have a block list. You can block any calls from annoying telemarketers, relatives, exes, etc.
Oh yea, did I mention it transcribes your voicemails for you? Well it can! You can get an email, text, or both of your voicemail. No more "wait, what number did they say?" or "what do they want?"
A feature I haven't used yet but can see myself using in the future is the ability to add multiple lines to the Google Voice number. So instead of just forwarding it to my mobile, I can forward the number to my house, work, another sibiling (in the case it's your parents), and more.

As you can see, I've discovered a lot of great features and I just started using it on Tuesday. And knowing Google, I'm sure they will continue to develop it. One key note... Google is very smart about adding a revenue model into the majority, if not all, of their products. Make sure to pick a number that you like or otherwise it will cost you $10 to get a new number.

Don't forget to comment and let us know how you use Google Voice and what benefits or flaws you see. My one wish right now? I wish they would let you have more than one number.

Managing an Online Reputation

Lindsey Robbins — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:43:00 GMT

A while back, Steve and I wrote a blog post about brand reputation and how to discover what people are saying about you. Therefore, I was excited today to read an excellent article from the New York Times on the same subject (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/business/smallbusiness/30reputation.html?_r=1). Check out the article for even more thoughts about how you manage the task of your brand reputation with social media tools. While the article is meant to help small businesses, many nonprofits are in the same position. How do you handle this important, yet growing responsibility? Hopefully, with more awareness more great articles like this can provide resources and ideas for getting started.

Firefox 3.5: What's New?

Lindsey Robbins — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:42:00 GMT

I’ve had my head down for quite some time now (haven’t you noticed everyone is so busy lately?) and the launch of Firefox 3.5 almost passed me by without much notice. Well, it almost did until my browser kept crashing unexpectedly and I noticed it recommended I could update. Sure, why not I said because I was already losing time and I really was resisting the sage advice to reboot. Rebooting is my arch nemesis even if it somehow fixes things.

After downloading and installing, something in the new features jumped off the screen. It was a development I heard about but had completely forgotten about. Firefox 3.5 now supports HTML5 and embedded video. The idea being with the new version of HTML they could specify a common video codec for all browsers to use so you wouldn’t need to download any plug-ins like Flash, Silverlight, or JavaFX. They’ve run into some problems getting all companies to agree to this common video codec but there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Someday, we may be able to watch video on a website without any extra software installations. The browser would play the video based on the website’s code.

For me, this is a big deal because when the industry can agree on a common standard, then support for video on pages can improve. Someday, this could mean you would have the ability to see video on any computer, platform, or device. Uniformity can equal improved performance.

As a technical communicator, when they can agree on how to improve watching video online, it can mean finding ways to embed video in help documentation. Currently, we can’t embed video without serious consideration for making sure your viewing experience is positive and headache free. If you have to install something extra, worry about browser stability, and consider performance issues (like internet bandwidth) then the help becomes not so helpful. Therefore, standards and consistency make me happy. Even I have to admit, I don’t like to have to stop my website browsing to install something just to watch a brief video. I also get upset when I can watch video on one website but not another on my iPhone.

It will take a while for this movement to take effect because websites will have to start authoring in HTML5 but now it’s more possible to see it taking effect when a browser like Firefox supports it.

Other notable features include: private browsing mode, location aware browsing, an improved awesome bar, one-click bookmarking, and more. More information is available on the Firefox website and this great overview video http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/video/. I think I’m just excited because the internet browser market is getting more competitive, faster, and more options to customize your experience.

An Intro to Social Media

Lindsey Robbins — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:52:00 GMT

We talk about social media, just a little bit , on our Blackbaud blogs. But maybe you're wondering why you should care or you know what it is but need to know more. Where do you go to find more information? I had a friend/professional peer ask me that very question this morning. Where do you begin? Specifically she wanted to know..."if I'm looking for basic, very basic information on social media do you know of any good sites to start with?"

Here's how I responded:

Hmmm... I'm not really sure. Most of social media education is just immersing yourself in the different types of social media/networking websites. I would recommend dabbling on different websites like - Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Delicious, StumbeUpon, feed aggregators like Google Reader, Plaxo, a wiki site like one from Wetpaint, Hulu, Flixster, Last.fm, LinkedIn, and Digg. To learn social media is to observe how different mediums online encourage community participation. How does bringing the community into the content development process change websites, media, etc? And honestly, the best sites for reading about emerging social media right now are blogs.
Here's a couple good ones to get started with -
Chris Brogan http://www.chrisbrogan.com/ (you can spend a long time on his site, he's a prolific blogger)
Beth Kanter (she does social media for nonprofits) http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/

And like I told my friend, I hope this helps! Good luck getting started and like my friend, feel free to ask questions (of me) and of those you find to observe on social media websites. I find immersion in the practice of social media the best way to learn!

Geek Speak: Twitter Tools to Twind Tweeps to Twollow

Steve Pham — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:57:00 GMT

Try to say that title one time fast (yeah, don't even bother with three times fast)! Phew!

Why the alliteration? Well I recently signed up for Twitter a few months ago to see what it was all about, and it wasn’t until I understood the power of it that I began to really dive in. After a month or so, I began to get frustrated because I wanted to find people to follow, but not just anyone. I wanted to follow those who had something to say or those who I could potentially build a professional relationship. So naturally I turned to Google to solve my conundrum. My results? Well, that's what I'm hoping to share here in this blog post. Here's a list of tools that helped me.

Twitter Search – I used Twitter Search to see if anyone I knew was on Twitter. You can also use it to find a conversation about a particular topic. Great to use when you're just getting started.
Twellow – Twellow is definitely not the prettiest tool to use, but it contains a massive database of users that you can search by location or category. Great tool, just a bit clunky.
LocalTweeps – Local Tweeps is fairly new. However, the database is growing and the main focus of this is to find Tweeps (Twitter people) that are in the same locale as you. I found quite a few people to follow using this tool.
WhoShouldIFollow – Who Should Follow is an interesting site, you enter your Twitter name and it finds users that match what you have tweeted, your bio, and who you are already following. This tool didn't help me as much because lately my focus has been finding people in my locale because I just moved to the area.
TwitterLocal – Twitter Local is an Adobe Air application that is great. Basically you follow conversations that happen in specific areas - based on city, zip code, state, etc. It's great to see what is going on locally and to see who the big players are in the area.

Each of these tools helped me find more people to follow.

Other Helpful Hints -
It's also a good idea to see who the people you are following, who they themselves are following. Typically they are interested in the same people, so it's always good to check that out. Also, one of my favorite things to do is to check out the twitter user's ration. What's the ratio of who they follow to how many people follow them. I like to make sure its kind of close, however, if you are following a celebrity or a group or company, you cannot expect the ratio to be close. In addition, I also tend not to follow people without avatars, or a few quality updates. I do a quick twitter history check to verify quality and not just quantity. Sometimes those with quantity lack conciseness and worthwhile tweets.

These are just a few things to look out for when you are looking for more people to follow. Hope this helps and happy tweeting.

Feel Free to follow me @Phamtastik and Lindsey @lindseyrobbins

Little Tricks for Big Help!

Lindsey Robbins — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:11:00 GMT

Once and a while I find a cool, small detail about a tool or website that makes a huge difference to me – so much so, I feel the need to share. I especially appreciate them when they save me steps and time! Here are eight to get you started...

1. Merge Contacts in Gmail.
Gmail made me happy in early February when they announced several changes to Gmail contacts. This little tip will help you if you use Gmail for professional or personal reasons. When I discovered this new feature, I was relieved! I can recall too many experiences trying to update contacts who appear more than once in my Contacts list. I wanted to combine them and had a frustrating time with copy/paste because it would say a contact already existed with that information. Now, you can just select as many contacts as you want and click Merge these [ ] contacts in the far right pane. Sweet!

2. Multiple Attachment Selection in Gmail.
The other small feature from Gmail making me happy now is the ability to select multiple items for upload to an email in Gmail. Instead of painfully adding an attachment one at a time to the email form, you can now select multiple and watch them upload with progress bars.

3. TripIt Application for LinkedIn.
A professional colleague sent me a request for TripIt. Not only did I discover a fun site for tracking travel but I also discovered it integrated well as an application on LinkedIn. I love how it can update your network updates so people know when you are traveling for business. Could be an especially helpful tool for meeting up with colleagues you are “linked” to but hardly ever see!

4. Subscribe to Facebook Status Updates in a Feed Aggregator.
I don’t ever feel like I can keep up with my Facebook friends status updates. They just happen too quickly in real time. Then, one day I discovered you can actually subscribe to a feed of your friends’ status updates. On the top menu bar, click Friends. In the far left column, under Subscribe, click Friends’ Status Feed. This will give you the feed address to plug into your favorite blog aggregator or you can add to Google Reader like I do. Now, when I have time I can scroll through updates quickly and respond to the ones I feel worthy. This is especially helpful to fast readers who’d rather scroll quickly and spend more time writing goofy messages on friends’ walls or getting back to my “real” work.

**Additional suggestion** Subscribe to your LinkedIn Network Updates in your feed aggregator as well.

5. Blackberry CallsBlocker Application.
A great app for you crackberry addicts. You can now block unwanted calls on your phone using CallsBlocker. I haven’t tried this one out yet but it came highly recommended from Geek Speak Steve. Seems like I might have some R&D (research & development) in my near future.

6. Use Picnik to Edit Photos Online.
Picnik is a great site I recommend in my sidebar sites section. It's an online picture editing application. I love it because it gives me enough editing options for free without having to buy an expensive application with too many options. Now, the site is even more improved. You can open and save your photos from Flickr, Facebook, Myspace, Photobucket, Picasa, Webs, and Webshots, all within Picnik.

7. Check Your @Replies on Twitter.
Some people you aren’t following reply to your tweets. You might not be ready to follow them just yet but it’s important to regularly check your replies to make sure you don’t forget to respond. It’s a newer feature on Twitter but one that’s been on my Blackberry Twitter app for some time now.

8. Googlify Your Smart Phone!
Have a new smart phone? Or just have a smart phone that you never added all the awesome Google applications? (Because we all know Google makes some amazing free tools to make our lives easier!) Best place to start for adding Google applications is a website by Google (Google Mobile) that helps you find and download all the available applications for your phone. For example, my super awesome pink blackberry can download the Google Mobile App, Search, Maps, Gmail, Sync, Reader, Calendar, and more!

Hope you have fun with these tips and find that can help at least a little!

What are people saying about you?

Steve Pham — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:31:00 GMT

Your brand reputation (either personal or professional) is an important aspect of your business. Being "in the know" about what people are saying about your brand is important. Unfortunately, branding is not like the world of glitz and glamour where any publicity is good publicity.

For instance, you may be one of the top players in professional baseball, a role model for kids, and yet admit to taking steroids to gain a professional advantage. While when Alex Rodriguez took the drugs, they were not banned by Major League Baseball, he still tarnished his reputation and that of the sport. It's the same for organizations. If you are a financial institution and you require assistance to maintain your ability to do business, it does not project stability. You may scare your current and potential customers away. General Motors is the same. People are concerned about buying cars from a brand that may no longer exist in a few years. Branding is sensitive to public opinion. These examples show how your brand can be severely damaged or even ruined.

In the always competitive market of business, you may want to know what your competitors are doing. You may want to know what people have to say about your products and services. You may want to find out how you can improve. Or, you may just want the opportunity to reach out to your customers.

Enter Google Alerts! Google Alerts is a great tool that will send you an alert (you set up) whenever any of your search criteria is mentioned on the Internet. Pretty simple right? By being constantly vigilant about what is being said, you can stay current with damage control, be aware of what people like and dislike, improve your products, or maintain a close watch on your competitors. You can set up alerts for anything your heart desires including watching the news for when the iPhone goes open source (I can dream!).

Twitter is another great resource for monitoring your brand. With nearly six million unique visitors a month (according to compete.com), you can assume the number of active users is massive. Those active users represent current customers or potential customers. They also represent a powerful social network who can spread information instantly to a domino network. Reach out to them and be aware. Practice listening and responding to feedback even when it's bad. Acknowledge potential for improvement if needed. You don't have to be perfect, just transparent, honest, and willing to improve. Besides developing a network of followers, you can search Twitter for key information. As well, Monitter is a great site for seeing real time tweets of your key words. Enter in up to three key words on the page and see a live stream of what people are saying. A great resource if you want live feedback.

With Google Alerts and Twitter, why waste time crawling the web to see what people have to say. Instead, spend the time wisely listening and then use it to improve your brand, your products, and your services. Afterwards, you can reap in the praise and rewards. When that happens, you can come back and thank me.

Co-Authored By: Lindsey Robbins

How do you coordinate your profiles?

Lindsey Robbins — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:46:00 GMT

Sometimes when you experiment with social media and learn (like I do), you amass a ton of online profiles. For example, recently I remembered I had a yahoo profile and email address. Wow, wonder how long it’s been since I last checked that email?! I updated my profile and then my address book in yahoo with my gmail account - that seemed pretty easy. But it got me thinking, how do we keep up with all the profiles and sites we create online?

Sure, it’s pretty great we can create so many profiles and online presences especially when you need to be as creative as possible to reach and connect with your audience and peers, but still? When does it all become a little too confusing? After all, having so many profiles and presences can make updating information tedious and time-consuming if you do happen to change something about your life.

This is one post where I don’t really have an answer or suggestion for you, just a recommendation that you develop a strategy. I haven’t figured mine out yet, but I know it must be done because I’m floating all over the interwebs. I used to think it was cool to Google myself, now when I do it, I think about all the work it takes to maintain. But then again, I smile because it also means I’ve spent some good time researching and learning cool things about social media, technology, and the internet.
Okay, so now I just need to find some time to develop a strategy to tackle the online profiles. Do I sound like a Dilbert comic strip or what?

Co-Authoring in Microsoft SharePoint

Lindsey Robbins — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:55:00 GMT

Authoring in SharePoint – a world unto its own for those of you brave enough to venture into adding web parts, setting up sites and workspaces, and playing around with site settings. I find it’s often more like a treasure hunt than a systematic process. I’m not entirely complaining; I have had the opportunity to keep some skills fresh including the creation of a wiki for my team’s internal documentation.

However, I’ve been thinking recently about SharePoint and the concept of community or team authoring. I find if you’re tasked with authoring a SharePoint site, at minimum get regular feedback and at best get a couple of co-authors. Why?

Well as an example, another fun role I have at Blackbaud is on a voluntary team of employees who promote philanthropy and volunteerism within the organization. Participating on Team Blackbaud – Charleston is rewarding in so many ways but especially within context of our corporate value that Service to Others Makes the World a Better Place.

One of my fun tasks for Team Blackbaud – Charleston has been to update our SharePoint website. We encourage opportunities to volunteer, recognize employees’ philanthropic achievements, and promote our philanthropic quarterly initiatives. We need to educate, advertise, and encourage participation. But, for a while I was the only one working on the page. I’m not saying I’m terrible at SharePoint web design but I did learn that if you only have one perspective (and limited time to devote to the site) you can quickly find yourself on a sinking ship. We started off small and received input. However, with every quarter we kept adding content to our page. A year later and we suddenly had this lightbulb moment where we realized the page wasn’t working for us. It wasn’t achieving the desired result.

How to clean up an out of control page?

#1 – Get a couple people to thoroughly evaluate the website including an evaluation of what the desired result would be. If you have some subject matter experts in design, by all means solicit their help.

#2 – Find Help! We decided to change this position on Team Blackbaud – Charleston this year from one person to two. And instead of being the main contributer, I’m stepping back to a more supportive role. If you work on something too long, you can easily lose that fresh perspective.

#3 – Don’t let a page sit static for too long, keep the feedback ongoing and the content engaging.

#4 – If all else above fails, just delete everything and start from scratch. Seems drastic but if your site isn’t being used because it’s so unfriendly, then what do you really have to lose?

If we have some success re-inventing our site, I’ll be sure to share our results with you.

In the meantime, remember that your time and skills can be just as valuable to a nonprofit as your wallet!

Can you Digg It?

Lindsey Robbins — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:35:00 GMT

I confess. I don’t Digg and I have no idea what to use it for. In fact, just the other day I submitted my first article. And it doesn’t even really count since it’s one of my own blog posts. I just wanted to test the process. Sadly, as of today, 6 days after posting, I still only have 1 digg (my own). I’m sure it’s because it was my own content and I have no idea what I’m doing. However, I wanted to see if I could make sense out of this tool everyone else seems to be using but me. Maybe I’m not really at the cool kids lunch table?...

In case you need an intro to Digg like I do, here’s an overview of the website:

Digg is a place for people to share with others their favorite content they find anywhere on the internet.
Once you post, others vote on your submissions. The more diggs, the better.
People, collectively, determine the value of content.
Most content people submit are news articles, videos, and images.
If your content really rocks - people will submit your content, you’ll get digg’d a lot, and then you’ll get published on their front page. And published on the front page means you are really awesome and will get a lot more publicity.
They make it pretty easy to comment and share the stuff you find on Digg.
And, you can even make friends because you might trust their opinion on good or bad content and want to follow what they digg. And if not, you can always digg for content by topic category (technology, science, gaming, entertainment, etc).

So what do you think? Should I Digg it and how should I use this site?

Supporting Your Causes in Facebook

Lindsey Robbins — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:58:00 GMT

I noticed this week that Causes in Facebook seem to have improved their ease of recruiting. I was recruited to a couple of my favorite local nonprofits and in return could invite others all without much effort. The other nice part about Causes in Facebook? Once you invite someone and they join, you can thank them! We all like thank you’s and it shows that you appreciated someone supporting your causes. The value of social networking – shared philanthropy and hope of making the world a better place.

Other Causes features I love:

Easy to Feature the cause on your profile (on your wall, info, and boxes tabs)
When you thank or recruit someone, it can show up in yours and their news feed. From the news feed, people can click to join, view, or invite people to the cause.
Hall of Fame for top recruiters – recognition!
Media Board to share links, photos, and videos
Discussion Board and Wall to spark conversations.
Easy to Donate!
And lots more, check out http://apps.facebook.com/causes for more information and to see how you too can make an impact. Halos and Fields to Families are great examples of two small nonprofits jumping into social meda!

Social Media Magic

Lindsey Robbins — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:29:00 GMT

Participating in social media can perform magic. How? It can magically take all your time and make it disappear! You started working on a short blog post. It’s only a couple paragraphs long. You write and re-write. Read it aloud to yourself. Change some words. Research some information on Google. Add a link for more information. You even insert an image to make the post more attractive to potential readers.

You’re feeling pretty good about your blog post. Well, until you look at the time. What?! Wait a minute, what happened? How is it hours later? Did Michael J. Fox take you back to the future? No, you just learned a valuable lesson in social media. Often the simplest of actions takes the most time.

Why? When you have a limited amount of time and space to capture your audience and bring them into your organization’s efforts every piece of social media communication becomes valuable and worthy of your time. Even for me, writing a blog takes up more time than I’d like and I’m supposed to be a professional writer. Words are not just words.

When you participate in social media, your every move needs time and thought. The details really do matter because there aren’t as many to observe. Most social media efforts take place in tiny bite sized information dispersed in several forms meant to drive your audience to your website, to your events, and ultimately to the bank to support your mission.

So how do you balance the demands on your time? If you’re like me you go through valleys and mountains of social media activity. You also are more patient with yourself and don’t expect to master all social media mediums instantaneously. Add efforts on a site-by-site basis. For a month or two, start your blog. Tweak how it looks until it presents the image of your organization you’re hoping for. Play with the links and the type of information you are providing. And, start writing posts. Think realistically about how often you can and should write. Minimum of one post a week is good. I’ve fallen victim to this one. If you don’t post often enough you lose readers, too often and people will skim over your information too much. When you’re blogging on a regular basis and feel comfortable with the demands then start expanding. Promote your blog on other sites. And maybe consider what other efforts you want to explore. Perhaps it’s time to promote the blog and your organization’s website on Facebook. Perhaps you want to twitter your posts and timely information. Either way, don’t take leaps, take small measured hops. I’ll take quality over quantity any day.

Paring Down the Tweets

Lindsey Robbins — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:25:00 GMT

A week later and my experiment with paring down the number of people I follow has worked wonders (so far). I’m back to following people without as much anxiety and I can keep up without dedicating my every working moment to watching the stream of collective thought dumps.

Talk much?

My excessive tweeters somewhat followed the same people Joe Meehan mentioned in his comment:

"But as I've discovered, the excessive tweets I've experienced fall into two categories: One - from news orgs I follow (USA Today, LA Times Busines section, CNN Breaking News). A bit much at times - but it's news (at least to someone).
The other category is people who tweet their every action/thought/response to others. If I have to scroll though a full web page of tweets by the same person, it's the virtual equal to the guy at the party who doesn't know when to end a conversation.”

My addition to his two is a third category of people I felt I should follow but wasn’t learning anything particularly valuable from. Don’t we all have these people we keep around because someone else thought they were important yet you’re not really sure what to do with them once you start listening?

I still find tweets from people (I value and want to listen to) with links to relevant information particularly useful. In fact, now that I can find and read them much more quickly I’m able to follow their thoughts and links much more easily.

Who went and who stayed?

I don’t want to divulge too many specifics but here’s in general who I dropped.

Technical communication people in my field who weren’t contributing valuable information, tweeted too much, or weren’t tweeting at all.
People I find vaguely interesting because they have a huge following on Twitter but in general I don’t really care what they have to say on a day-to-day basis.
Large organizations I have no personal ties to and the government feeds I initially liked but had no use for after the general intrigue wore off.

I kept many people. In fact, I’m still following 82 people/orgs. Who and why?

I’m still following people I work with. I find it important to know what’s going on at work and we can feed each other great content (and sometimes funny fluff too).
I follow select technical communication people who I respect and can continue to develop a networking relationship.
Friends. You can’t drop your friends! Even if I use twitter mainly for work related items, I still find it comforting to see funny or meaningful things from non-work people.
Local organizations and organizations I have ties to. I kept the local news, local nonprofits, and even Clemson football feed (although the way they are playing, I might have to drop them than think about the season).

Going Forward

I still find it difficult on busy days to follow the thread of information thoughts floating on twitter. However, following only the people that can meaningfully contribute to my day makes it much easier. And I plan to hope, as Chad commented in my last post, that Twitter figures out the social filtering. I would have liked to follow many of the people and organizations I dropped, just not on a daily basis.

So my recommendation to those out there considering to tweet and considering who to follow, sometimes it’s okay to join the fray and make some mistakes. But, as you go along, watch the trends of what you like to see and what you don’t. And most importantly, don’t twitter everything!

Your Government in Action

Lindsey Robbins — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:42:00 GMT

Did you know your government – federal, state, and local – is in the grassroots information network? If you thought twitter was just micro blogging the latest celebrity or personal news gossip then you’re missing out on the information underground. I keep finding cool people/organizations to follow. Recently, I found a bunch of interesting government related ones I’m excited about. I can’t wait to see how they tweet.

Thought, I’d share of a few notable ones but remember to check on the person you are following to make sure they are the real deal.

Dipnote	http://twitter.com/dipnote	Department of State
Greenversations	http://twitter.com/Greenversations	U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
CSIState	http://twitter.com/CSIState	State Dept travel warnings
HomelandSecurit	http://twitter.com/HomelandSecurit	US Homeland Security
NIHforHealth	http://twitter.com/NIHforHealth	NIH Communications — the voice of the nation's medical research agency.
TSABlogTeam	http://twitter.com/TSABlogTeam	TSA quick notes about their blog. (did you know TSA had their own blog?)
NASA	http://twitter.com/NASA	NASA news feed. (they have separate twitter feeds for specific nasa missions)
SenateFloor	http://twitter.com/SenateFloor	United States Senate floor vote links
HouseFloor	http://twitter.com/HouseFloor	United States House floor
USAgov	http://twitter.com/USAgov	Official web portal of the U.S. federal government
SCGOV	http://twitter.com/SCGOV	The Official Web Site of the State of South Carolina
5541111 / Crime Stoppers - CHS	http://twitter.com/5541111	Latest News from Crime Stoppers of the Lowcountry; a citizen, media and police co-operative program designed to involve the public in the fight against crime.

My favorites to watch so far are the State and House floor. No one really wants to watch CSPAN but don't you kinda want to know what your government is doing during the day? Also, I see a lot of potential in twitter for feeds like the crimestoppers. They could do amber alerts and breaking news alerts right to your feed. News in the twitter world can faster than the real news. This has all be fun for me to watch. It's your government, by the people, for the people - in action!

A reverse invasion of media

Lindsey Robbins — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:36:00 GMT

We all know in the last year or two tv and movies have invaded the Internet in all new ways. (My favorite... hulu.com). But yesterday, when I got home from work I was flipping through the channels and stumbled onto Oprah using Skype on her tv show. What? When did that happen? She had a regular show on her favorite music artist discovery of the summer Charice. I don't know much about Charice and would have changed the channel except Oprah had two regular ordinary people on the show participate via Skype (phone and video). I think they were just fans of the singer. They participated from their own home. I thought that was pretty cool. Usually TV is heavily produced but bringing the audience into the show, even if they can't come to Chicago, is sweet and oddly feels more authentic!

This week's task is to finally bite the bullet and learn some more about Skype. After all, if Oprah starts using it, you know all the rest of the media are going to jump on the bandwagon.

Are the emerging social media tools becoming ingrained in mainstream media? If yes, I guess we need to start looking further on the horizon for even cooler ways to interact.