wonder of me x 100

Kristen knows she can get me to post when she tags me on a meme, although this time around she acknowledged that she might be pushing my aversion to "wonder of me" posts a bit too far.

Boy, did she ever.

I started this one the other night and needed to abandon it because it was just too gross. And, well, it's still pretty gross.

100 Amazing Things I've Already Done

This list is meant to be in response to those lists that are often generated about the things you want to do before you die to justify your time on the planet; the kind of list that will inevitably make you feel like sh*t as you look at your watch and realize that time is ticking and the top of Mount Everest isn't getting any closer to sea level.

So, yeah, this is a list of 100 thing that I have already done. Some are more impressive than others, some are about what has shaped me as a person, but all are things that I can pull out as story fodder ("Did I ever tell you about that time . . . ?"). There is a bit of starf*cking going on in here, so excuse me.

Enjoy. I tag everyone who feels the need for a little self affirmation. You can write the list in your notebook if you feel like it.

I have . . .

1. Surfed in Oregon
2. Won the gold medal in the National Latin Exam
3. Climbed the Acropolis in four-inch red heels
4. Salsa danced with Joan Baez and Desmond Tutu — at the same time
5. Been given ride home by Jackson Browne — from his concert
   
6. Talked to Maura Tierney in the bathroom at a movie premiere
7. Earned my master degree from Harvard
8. Driven cross-country — three times
9. Run Rock the Vote
10. Published a zine
11. Published a blog — for more than three years
12. Been a Salzburg Seminar faculty member
13. Traveled to South Africa – twice
14. Visited Nelson Mandela’s cell on Robben Island
15. Dipped my toes in the Indian Ocean
16. Met Al Gore
17. Met Ted Kennedy
18. Taken a class from Michael Ignatieff
19. Done an independent study with Samantha Power
20. Developed the strategy for the first-ever Cabinet member blog
21. Kissed a Heartbreaker
22. Met two members of Nirvana — and kissed one of them
23. Seen a woman take her clothes off in front of the presidential palace in Prague
24. Maintained a friendship with Chris for 20 years
25. Survived and overcome
26. Been a guest on Loveline
    
27. Avoided financial ruin after a medical emergency that occurred when I did not have insurance
28. Celebrated New Year’s Eve in Edinburgh
29. Moved to London with no job and no place to live when I was 24
30. Visited the Lower 9th Ward post-Katrina
31. Written and read an original essay on NPR
32. Walked through Sherwood Forest
33. Trained young political leaders in Cambodia
34. Sat in a green room with Ted Nugent
35. Appeared on CNN as a regular political commentator
36. Contributed to fighting the global health crisis
37. Created a career out of doing “good”
38. Visited Bonnie Raitt back stage
39. Seen Badlands in a movie theater
40. Managed to avoid ever going bowling
41. Dropped out of college for a year and a half — and gone back to school
42. Moved to San Francisco (from Connecticut) on a Greyhound bus when I was 20
43. Met Bill Clinton
44. Trained youth organizers in Mexico
45. Been on the merry-go-round near the Eiffel Tower
46. Been John Hughes’ pen pal
47. Stayed in David O. Russell's guest room
    
48. Gone from growing up on AFDC/welfare to now earning more than xx percent of the population (too tacky to actually write)
49. Been offered a job by Mary Robinson
50. Spoken at my grandmother’s funeral
51. Had an essay published by the Carnegie Corporation of New York
52. Attended a presidential debate
53. Met Bono
54. Met — and been quoted by in a speech by — Sting
55. Seen Wilco in concert (at least) 10 times
56. Climbed the Wicklow mountains in Ireland
57. Gone on a road trip to the Clinton Library
58. Talked on the phone with Katherine Hepburn
59. Shaken hands with John Edwards
60. Stood outside the Cambridge City Hall at 12:01 am on May 17, 2004 to congratulate the first-ever same sex couples to be married in Massachusetts
61. Voted in every local and national election since I turned 18
62. Attended the International AIDS Conference — in Barcelona and in Toronto
63. Maintained a database of everyone I have met for 10 years
64. Watched Taylor give birth to Victoria
65. Called John McCain a “wuss” on CNN
66. Received flowers from Martin Sheen
67. Managed to convince foundations and companies to give projects I am working on tens of millions of dollars
68. Been linked to by Jeff Jarvis
69. Had one of my ads used as set dressing (Zoey's dorm room) on The West Wing
70. Had another one of my ads used as an example of ad agency star Helen Hunt’s work in What Women Want
71. Overcome my fear of cockroaches
72. Had an essay published in How to Get Stupid White Men out of Office
73. Seen Edward Norton and Catherine Keener off-Broadway
74. Seen John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman on Broadway
75. Gone to an Ozzy Osborne concert — minus adult supervision — when I was 10
76. Seen Nation of Ulysses in concert
    
77. Seen Circus Lupus in concert
78. Seen Lungfish in concert
79. Seen Beat Happening in concert
80. Advised three presidential campaigns on young voter outreach
81. Managed to have the most perfectly 80’s iconic first make out session ever: behind the Space Invaders game; at the roller skating rink; wearing sneaker skates, designer jeans, a velour Izod pullover and a turtleneck with a whale on the collar; while Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” played in the background
82. Interviewed Heather Armstrong and Robert Scoble
83. Saw Jawbox in concert in London
    
84. Worked on a diversity project that was cited by President Clinton's Initiative on Race as a “Promising Practice”
85. Had Carrie Fisher/Princess Leia ask me who she needed to f*ck to get into the VIP section
86. Exchanged emails with Pierre Omidyar
87. Met Walter Mondale
88. Gone to a rave in Southampton, England
89. Visited Angkor Wat
90. Shared "guest" status with Billy Baldwin on an ABCNews.com web chat
91. Served as an adviser on UNAIDS project
92. Attended four of five True False Film Festivals
93. Become a connoisseur of single malt scotch
    
94. Eaten dinner at a table next to Donald Rumsfeld
95. Served as a BBC political commentator on that fateful 2000 election eve
96. Worked on a documentary film project with Frances Reid
97. Organized a mayoral debate for young people in Kansas City
98. Driven the 101 from Los Angeles to San Francisco
99. Stayed at the oldest hotel in Savannah, Georgia
100. Attended one of two Dismemberment Plan reunion shows
     

del.icio.us tags 12.16.07

An old friend returns. Change.org tells you how to do it right. Greenpeace doesn't play games. Community is not one size fits all. Links abound for web designers. Japanese bloggers get covered in the Post. International Facebook users get covered by PBS, which also gives the 101 on hyper local blogs. And Steve Case gives away his money to determine how to get other people to do the same.

Digital Advocacy

Houtlust is back -- in the form of Osocio. All the best in advocacy campaigns from around the world. Inevitable jealousy for not having been the team that created the campaign is a side effect. Check out this great anti-drunk driving campaign. No subtle messages here, folks.

As the online community manager, Heather Mansfield at Change.org updates her Best Practices for Nonprofit Organizations on a monthly basis to ensure that users are getting the most out of the site.

Greenpeace, fresh off their triumph against Apple, turns its attention toward gaming consoles with Clash of the Consoles. Not as rad as Green My Apple (swoon), but they're using a similar strategy: ask fans to take pride in the objects of their affection and get them on your side. In other words, don't alienate those that you need most.

The Case Foundation is supporting efforts to determine how technology can best be used for philanthropy.

Word of Mouth

Ben McConnell at Church of the Customer breaks down what "community" means, suggesting that size and the level of devotion of the community members are the defining factors. As a Maker's Mark Ambassador, I am happy to inform you that I agree with his assessment that it is indeed a cult.

Around the World (and in the Neighborhood) in Social Media

Bloggers in Japan do it more often, quicker, on the run, under the covers and they do it politely. Blaine Harden at The Washington Post lets us know that not everyone has Technorati ranking envy and is trying to strengthen their personal brand.

Mark Glaser at PBS' Media Shift looks at how Facebook users from around the world are using the social network -- and why -- and talks about, while the site may have universal appeal, there is no question that it is American through and through. (Poke.)

Mark also provides an extensive overview of hyper-local news sites: defining what they are, demonstrating different ways they gather their news and talking about the different business models that these sites are following. Plus, best of all, he provides lots and lots of examples. Thanks, Mark.

Web Design

I tagged this -- 455 Helpful Links for Web Designers -- as a "tool," which it is, for someone. I sent it to Samantha, but I just realized her blog -- Bad Ass Ideas -- is listed as a resource, so I'm guessing she knows about it already. Who's stalking who now?

del.icio.us tags 10.21.07

While on the road in the country, Debbie Weil has pulled together her list of the "Best Links to Learn about Blogging, Social Media, Web 2.0 and Technology in China."

I don't have a Moleskine because I don't quite buy the pretentious "cooler than thou" aspect of owning one. I have an aversion to the idea of belonging to any club whose members demonstrate their uniqueness by owning/doing/wearing the same thing. (It's like punk in the early 90's.) But I should own a Moleskine because I'm a notebook fetishist and because I have fallen prey to more than my share of, "I will buy this thing because it is cool -- at least that's what they told me." The folks at The Moleskine Project don't share my hang ups and are asking folks to send in their best Moleskine doodles.

my favorite so far from The Moleskine Project -- from lapin at les calapins de lapin

Bob Garfield is using his anger toward Comcast -- and their less than stellar customer service -- for good through ComcastMustDie.com, providing the cable company's clients with the opportunity to air their grievances via the blog's comments and calling on the company to, in response, reach out to these customers and resolve their issues. So far, everyone's playing their part.

Doonesbury's Garry Trudeau has been collecting content from members of the military deployed in Iraq in Afghanistan via The Sandbox (housed on Slate.com) and has now published a book of some of the best stuff.

According to The New York Times, young people in Poland are attempting to turn the political tide in the country by using social media to engage their peers and turn out the vote, comparing efforts like the "I Choose" campaign to similar efforts -- like Rock the Vote -- in the U.S. Update: Looks like the kids have had an impact. Overall voter turnout in the election was higher than it has been in nearly 20 years and the Civic Platform party -- which had more support among young voters than the party currently in power (Law and Justice) -- came out ahead in this weekend's parliamentary elections.

The folks at TechPresident launched 10 Questions last week in partnership with The New York Times and MSNBC. At this stage, they are gathering questions from voters, with the aim of identifying the top 10, which will then be shared with the candidates, who will be expected to respond via video. Two thoughts -- will the site be dominated by liberals and progressives? And, by this stage in the game, how much do the candidates regret ever having said this election is about conversation?

Mashable has a new list of 20+ "sporting" social networks, whether it's fishing, biking, golf or NASCAR. Presuming of course, you want to spend any time with these people.

del.icio.us tags 06.9.07

CoCreating CSR - Working Assets has been doing it for years -- asking its customers to tell them what they care about and then putting the funds behind the cause. It's a great idea (I unsuccessfully pitched a similar idea to an unnamed client a year or so ago) and something that American Express is currently undertaking through The Members Project. If you are a Cardmember, you've got eight days to weigh in with your idea for what "will do some good for our world." On July 3, an "expert panel" will pick the top 50 ideas and then throw it back out to members to vote on the best, which will receive up to $5 million in funding. Cause related marketing -- and corporate social responsibility -- should be in line with your customers' values (as well as your core brand values), so why not just ask them?

No Thank YouTube - YouTube is launching in China, but like the comments generated on the Mashable post sharing the news suggest, Western companies need to do more than provide translation -- and acknowledge that there is already a thriving world of homegrown web 2.0 sites that are doing fine without them, thank you very much.

Global Mobile - The world's top mobile web users live in the UK, the U.S., South Africa, India and Indonesia (via 901am).

If You Threw a Party and No One Came - MiGrito, the bilingual (Spanish/English) social network, has launched Tu Grito 2008 to allow presidential candidates to communicate with members. Unfortunately, so far, only Hillary Clinton has bothered to create a profile. Wait, I take that back. George Phillies has created a profile as well. But can someone tell me who Phillies is, please?

Putting Good Will in the Bank for a Rainy (Snowy) Day - Former CEO Dave Neeleman may be out of a job, but Jet Blue is still flying high. Despite the spanking the airline received earlier in the year when they left customers stranded on tarmacs in the name of weather delays, Consumer Reports says the company is still considered to be one of the best for customer service. As Spike at Brains on Fire points out, companies that start out with a good rep -- but encounter a little turbulence -- can pull themselves out of it if they continue to rely on their reputation for honesty and transparency and putting the customer first.

del.icio.us tags 06.04.07

Don't Mess with Tweedy. stereogum says that Sky Blue Sky isn't Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Fans (as Wilco fans are wont to do) act incredulous. And there's lots of video (four songs worth).

Mini-Tweedy. First it was Sponge Bob and now this. In other stereogum reported, Wilco-related news, Jeff Tweedy will be providing the voice of Lil' God on the new Comedy Central series Lil' Bush while Iggy Pop does Lil' Rummy (aka mini Donald Rumsfeld).

Summer in the City. If you're in DC this summer, the Fort Reno schedule has been posted, with shows beginning on June 18. All shows start at 7:15 and end by 9:30, which is great for old people like me who want to go to bed. Get there on time because, like a friend said the other night, when you go to a show, the opening act could always be the next Nation of Ulysses. All shows are free.

Geek Porn. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at D5. And, yes, Jobs is wearing a mock turtleneck but, no, they do not beat each other up and, no, they do not make out.




So Much More to Facebook. Malene Charlotte Larsen, a PhD student in Denmark, lists the 25 ways to look at social networks.

Questioning Your Loyalty. Greg Verdino questions using RSS feed subscriptions as a measurement of loyalty because of how he uses subscriptions -- which is (generally) how I use them.

Short Attention Span. threebillon agrees to describe 1.83 billion people (young people in Asia) in a (nearly) two minute video for MTV. (Did you know that people in China spend 10 times more online than people in the west?)

One Handed Activism. Residents of Xiamen China prevent the construction of a chemical plant in their community via mobile protest -- one million text messages. Carpal tunnel syndrome is better than cancer.

del.icio.us tags 05.25.07

Pretty Pictures. Flickrvision is like Twittervision (also from David Troy) except that, instead of inane comments that say absolutely nothing about what people who have too much time on their hands are doing, photos pop up. Still not as hot as the Flickr Related Tag Browser -- which is desperately in need of a better name.

Caught on Film. It's like Alberto Gonzales getting pissed at the Democrats for posting CSPAN videos of him testifying in front of Congress on YouTube. Except that Gonzales is the Croatian Interior Minister and the Democrats are the primary opposition party in Croatia. Read Boing Boing. Mrak will explain everything.

Whoever is Reading This. Remember those notes that your roommate posted on the refrigerator door, asking you not to eat their food, which they have now labeled with masking tape and a Sharpie? Yeah, there are more like it on the Passive Aggressive Notes from Roommates, Neighbors, Co-Workers and Strangers blog. Good stuff.

Truth is More Convenient. Mashable lists 10 social environmental sites, some of which have been listed here before. At least a couple of the sites are walking the talk and hosted on servers that are powered by renewable energy. Green is everywhere, folks.

I Meant to Do That. Andrea Learned posts — at Marketing Profs Daily — about new research from Packaged Facts about what it means to be single in 2007. We're older than you think and, yes, some of us actually choose to be this way. And, oh yeah, marketers might want to think about the fact that we have more money to spend than our younger singles and our married and parenting peers.

Fancy Name for Democracy. Business Week has launched a new blog — Next — about trends in innovation. One of the bloggers, Jessi Hempel, is looking for ideas from the crowd, coincidentally, on crowdsourcing. He wants to know which web sites are using crowdsourcing strategies in the most "promising" way. Help him out.

Come All Ye Faithful. MSNBC reported this past week on the new trend of religious social networks, including Xianz (Christian), Shmooze (Jewish) and Naseeb (Muslim).

Small Favors. Marketing Vox reports that China is not going to require bloggers to register with the government. A victory for free speech!

Not So Much. GM's Vice Chairman, Bob Lutz, wants to assure you that, no, he is not bored with blogging. He just has a day job, folks.

del.icio.us tags 05.22.07

Everyone Loves MySpace. Facebook is growing faster these days, but MySpace still rules the roost, with nearly 80 percent of visits to social networks being to MySpace. It's also responsible for 25 percent of the traffic heading to other social networks (via Mashable).

Not YourSpace. Now MySpace has landed in China, bringing with it concern that it will provide an opportunity for censorship and human rights abuses. The admin functions on the site prevent the discussion of controversial topics and discussion forums on religion and politics -- popular in the U.S. -- do not exist (via Taipei Times).

I'm Engaged. David Armano at Logic + Emotion has yet another fabulous infographic, this one illustrating three types of Internet users: the Navigator, the Explorer and the Engaged Participant. Folks, I'm an Engaged Participant. And you?

When Your Care Enough. Someecards are for people with an inappropriate sense of humor. Like me. And Steve.

He's Not Nutty. FixingthePlanet is Ed Begley Jr.'s new sustainable living web site launched recently. Begley has a great deal of credibility in this space, as he's been walking the talk for a long time now. This isn't just someone trying to make a buck off of a new trend. In fact, last Sunday's New York Times Magazine had a great profile of Begley in which he acknowledges that 15 years ago, people thought he was "nutty."

Be Green/Earn Green. Green Mountain Energy, "the nation's leading provider of cleaner energy and carbon offset solutions," has launched Be Green Now to provide consumers with the opportunity to offset their "carbon footprint." Sure, the company's making a profit off of people's growing interest in sustainable living, but they've create an engaging site and they offer up solutions that don't necessarily include signing up as one of their customers.

Guy in a Cage. The Harvard Business Review thinks companies that are using "adversarial value-extracting strategies" to keep their customers need to rethink that plan. What's an adversarial value-extracting strategy? It's the equivalent of thinking that the guy you have in a cage next to your bed is sticking around because he loves you. Okay, that was a weird metaphor, but hopefully you get what I mean. Plus, you can check out what The Consumerist had to say about it, because that's where I found it.

del.icio.us tags 05.20.07

Not So Much. According to a new survey from the Guardian, most British youngsters don't give a toss about having social networking functions on their cell phones. Cost is one factor, but they also like the "bigger screens, easier navigation and faster speeds" of a PC.

Americans are Simple. Chris at RedKemp posts about the difference between American and Chinese web design. Chinese sites, says Chris (an American living in China), tend to be "packed full of stuff." When they're not, he suggests, Chinese users think there's nothing going on and nothing for them to do.

del.icio.us tags 05.12.07

They Keep Coming. There's a new Indian social network in town called BigAdda (via Mashable).

OMG, Why Do You Want to Be President? MySpace is going to be hosting a series of town halls with presidential candidates between September and December of this year. The events will be held on college campuses, but young people will also be able to participate via instant messenger and, says Mashable, questions will be unfiltered (yeah, but someone will need to moderate and pick the "best" ones, folks). This announcement follows an earlier announcement that MySpace will be holding an online primary in January 2008.

Read the Blog. Susan Getgood at Marketing Roadmaps spells out the steps for effective blogger relations. Her best piece of advice? "Make some decisions about the bloggers that you want to reach based on what you've read, not on how they are categorized on some list."

del.icio.us tags 04.08.07

I took the day off on Friday and spent most of the three day weekend trying to catch up on life: taxes, laundry, newspapers, Target runs -- and not a lick of work.

It was punctuated by the best hour and a half I've spent in a long time, walking through the Sackler Gallery with an old friend: the most rewarding "catching up" I did all weekend.

In the spirit of catching up, here are way too many del.icio.us tags and an empty promise to try to stay on top of things around here.

Twitter Will Save the World - Andy Carvin wants to put Twitter to good use and is thinking creatively about new features that could take the service from "what am I doing right now" to "what do I need right now to save someone's life".

Stop Your Whining - The folks at Business Week shouldn't be so terrified of the venomous mobs attacking brands left and right. Even the folks at Chevy managed to make it out alive, guys. In fact, despite your suggestion otherwise, opening up their brand to be "attacked" was a big success for Chevy. The campaign micro site brought in nearly 650,000 visitors who spent an average of nine minutes on the site. Two-thirds went on to visit Chevy.com, driving more traffic to the site than Google and Yahoo! during that same period. And, yes, sales increased.

Pay Attention - I sent John a del.icio.us link to Compete's announcement of their new measurement for engagement, which they call "Attention". John got around to posting about it before I did because he has less work to do than I do ("I'm sorry too, Dmitri . . . I'm very sorry . . . Alright, you're sorrier than I am, but I am sorry as well . . . I am as sorry as you are, Dmitri!"). Good stuff from John, who thinks the measurement for engagement needs to go further and gives his recommendations for what needs to be measured.

Have Fun, Wonder Why - I spent an insane amount of time creating something that looked like a book cover circa 1983 (except that my teen idol was Jeff Tweedy) after discovering ScrapBlog. But, in the end, I didn't know what the h*ll to do with it. It's easy and fun and has loads of features. If you figure out how I can use it, tell me.

The State of Things - Dave Sifry posted on the State of the Web on Thursday, expanding on his regular State of the Blogosphere feature (can we retire that term once and for all?). It's interesting to see Sifry assert, in his explanation of the expansion, that Technorati is not only the "leading blog search engine*," (until someone else actually manages to do it right, without excluding content and using a more complex measurement of authority) it is also "the main aggregation point for all forms of social media on the Web". (Well, la-di-f*cking-da.)

What's new? Here's what perked up my ears/eyes:

• We're now at 70 million blogs.
  
• Spam blogs continue to be a pain in the ass that make me hope that they will be the only reading material in h*ll for those who have created them.
  
• The number of blogs ranked in the Top 100 most popular sites has grown from 12 to 22 in the past quarter and users are becoming less likely to distinguish between the two.
  
• Farsi is now in the 10 of blogging languages.

*Okay, okay, Compete backs up Sify's claim that Technorati is the leading blog search engine. But there has to be something better out there!

Sorting out South African Blogs - Amatomu, from South Africa's Mail and Guardian, is the go-to blog search engine if you're looking for content from South Africa. Fascinating stuff, as they're tracking trends. I'd be interested to know a little bit more about the people behind the blogs.

Flickr Fun - FlickrSpy tracks photos as they are uploaded, which is cool, but also occasionally a less than flattering portrait of user-generated content. I'm not quite as in love as I am with Flickr Related Tag Browser, but it's still fabulous -- just don't dawdle if you want to click on a photo, it'll be gone in a blink of an eye.

Searching in China - Read/Write Web says that 87 percent of the 105 million Internet users in China use search (more than 91 million people) and the majority of them are using Baidu, with Google coming in second and making "significant progress" in the past couple of years.

del.icio.us tags 03.27.07

Mobile in Africa — In Kenya (via PSFK), mobile company Safaricom has launched M-PESA, a new service to transfer money via cell phone/SMS. According to PSFK, Kenya has one of the fastest growing rates of cell phone use in the world. I'm a fan of of the photo of the laughing woman farmer who has apparently just received money from her dutiful son in Nairobi.

Asian Social Networks — Mashable shared the news of two new social networks (it still astounds me how many of these things pop up every day). IndyaRocks was launched in private beta (you need to ask for an invite), but Naveen from It's Me . . . Just Me writes over at India Blog Watch that he received his invite within an hour of making his request. While I was traveling in Europe last week, CNN International had a week long special on "India's Generation Next". According to CNN, "Nearly one out of 10 people on the planet are under 25 years old and living in India." While the percentage of Internet users in that group is relatively small — I think one of the segments I watched said it was about 25 percent — that's still a pretty enormous potential pool of users for IndyaRocks, particularly if the network also draws in Indian youth living outside of India.

The other notable social network was also for Asians: Ningin. I'm trying to figure out who exactly they're trying to target, as "Asians" is a pretty enormous category. With everyone going niche, a social network that appears to be relevant to more than half the world's population is about as far as you can go in the opposite direction.

Katie and the Edwards — You may be ignoring my poll, but folks out there can't shut up about Katie Couric's sit down with John and Elizabeth Edwards on this week's 60 Minutes. The comments on the CBSNews.com page are now up to page 87 . . .

Speaking of Health Issues — I've got one last social network item. TauMed, the health social network which has apparently been around for a while, is going to be adding some new features next week, including a social bookmarking feature that I'm interested to see. (As always, thanks to Mashable.)

de.icio.us tags 02.18.07

I like the interviews (do you?), but I still feel like I have been cheating and not writing much of my own stuff this week.

Time to catch up on del.icio.us.

Digital Influence

eMarketer released research this past week on global Internet penetration. China is gaining fast on the U.S. in terms of numbers, but still well behind in terms of percentages. I'd be interested in seeing a comparable chart on mobile penetration (does anyone want to point me in the direction?) considering the fact that North America, Europe and Asia dominate and Africa is nowhere to be seen (falling into the "rest of the world" category).

We Media and Zogby teamed up to release a poll this past week on the rise of citizen journalism. According to the poll, the majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the current state of mainstream media and believe that the Internet is having a positive impact on journalism overall. The greatest level of dissatisfaction is among older Americans and conservatives.

Digital Advocacy

Global Cool is trying to make taking a stand against global warming cool -- as if Al Gore isn't doing just fine on his own. I like the Be Cool page because I'm a fan of making it simple for people to do the right thing. But the site might benefit from a little less cool (aka vapid celebrity interviews) and little more confidence in our ability to grasp that, if we don't get our act together, the sh*t is going to hit the fan.

The Kids

I was putting together research recently on the online habits among communities of color and was appalled by the lack of material out there on Asian Americans. (If you know of any good stuff, please share.) Anastasia at YPulse covers some new focus group research from SnapDragon which, while not quantitative and not focused on Internet use, still helps to begin to fill the void. My only question is, who doesn't like Lite FM?

Via threebillion, The Korea Herald says that 1/3 of young people in Korea self-identify as Internet addicts. "Withdrawal symptoms" include blowing off school to spend time online and fighting with parents. Drama.

2008 Election

Via my friends over at EchoDitto, Personal Democracy Forum has launched techPresident to cover how the presidential candidates are using the Internet to make their way to the White House. The easy to read charts about who's doing what and where are great -- particularly because they make it clear that Dems are making better use of social media. By the way, I want to go to the PDF conference in May . . .

del.icio.us tags 02.11.07

Digital Influence in Asia

• John Bell is still in Asia and has been posting throughout his trip if you want to check out his posts at Digital Influence Mapping Project or John Bell's Other Blog, although he reports today that random acts of Chinese censorship are preventing him from posting to the latter of the two (the first is TypePad and the second is Vox -- you explain the logic). I particularly liked his post from yesterday about the inadequacy of tools being used to assess influence among bloggers in Asia, in part because of my frustration with the open source tools available here in the U.S.

I'm posting a picture of JB from his trip that I swiped
from his blog because I miss him.
Plus, he's got the Great Wall behind him.

• Last Monday, The New York Times had a profile of "China's hottest Internet company" and its president, Pony Ma. The company is making the government nervous because, with its access to 100 million users, they have the capacity to start a political or economic revolution.
• Elsewhere in Asia, on Thursday the BBC had a piece about young people in India using the Internet for worship.

Web Metrics

• Movers 2.0 tracks the popularity of Web 2.0 sites, using Alexa rankings. The Compete snapshot shouldn't be so many layers down, nor should the blog search, but I'm still a fan of the one stop shop style.
  

Politics

• With his announcement yesterday that he was officially joining the race, Barack Obama ("Barry" is what the Post says he went by back in high school) also launched his campaign web site. It looks like it has most of the features featured on Edwards' site, with a better presentation (less chaotic). I don't know why, but I actually feel a little depressed that the use of social media has become so run of the mill. I mean, you can use the toys, but do you know the rules of the game? Pete Cashmore at Mashable says the folks at the campaign might, in fact, not know. The opportunity to mark your own territory -- for self expression -- just aren't there. "In other words," says Cashmore, "it's Obama's space, not yours."
• From the February 19 issue of Newsweek, Jonathan Darman wonders if the real John Edwards has finally stood up.
  

Research

• Jupiter says that 22 percent of teens are watching online video once a week or more. And these kids are more active online overall -- and more socially influential.
• comScore breaks the generations down according to their views on cell phones. It's official. I'm old. Give me a phone that rings and takes messages and leave me alone.

Digital Advocacy

• Change.org launched on Wednesday as a social network for "social causes". Global warming is the most popular "change" people want to see right now (as it is for Richard Branson) although Amnesty International is the most popular nonprofit, demonstrating how important good branding is. As with all social networks, Change.org will be judged by who joins up and, without a critical mass just yet, that's hard to determine.
• The 2007 Nonprofit Technology Conference takes place April 4-6 here in DC. I'll talk to John about going . . .

Toys

• Is Memory Miner "a key transformative moment in the evolution of photography" or just really f*cking cool? (Thanks to Josh Spear for giving me something new to drool over.)
• Instant messaging provides about as much appeal to me as chewing tinfoil -- but Meebo makes it easier for those people who apparently have an urge to be instantly accessible to their friends, family, co-workers and ladies who want to show you a good time.
• Online Education Database has a post from this past Tuesday about the Top 25 Web 2.0 search engines. I don't really know what I am going to use it for, but retrievr, which allows you to search by "sketch" or uploaded image, could be hours of fun. This is one of the results from me using that picture of John from up there.

John Bell in a remake of "Big".

Other Stuff

• I don't need your stinkin' money, but these people do. Take a gamble on folks with ideas and no credit via Prosper.
• Mommy bloggers are bringing down Matt and Meredith's and Diane's numbers.
• Jon Pack Approves or Disapproves. I approve. (Thanks, Jason.)
• Media Geek thinks cassette tapes could be making a retro cool comeback.