May 21, 2009, Business Week — A question: If you have 347 followers on the Twitter microblogging service, what are the chances that they'll click on the same online ad you clicked on last night? Advertisers are dying to know. Or, say you and a colleague exchange e-mails on a Saturday night. Can managers assume that you have a tight working relationship? Researchers at IBM and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are investigating.
Ah, the Internet. The easy access. The openness. The freedom. And … the total lack of control. The way anyone can say anything about you and post it anywhere.
June 1, 2009 — Social media tools like Twitter and Facebook present exciting new opportunities for nonprofits to do online outreach, but many organizations lack the resources to explore them – especially right now.
May 29, 2009, The Chronicle of Philanthropy — Even your most cash-strapped donors have the wherewithal to contribute “twollars” — a virtual “currency of appreciation” in circulation on the social networking site, Twitter, designed to raise awareness and money for charity.
May 22, 2009, Wired Magazine — Bill Gates once derided open source advocates with the worst epithet a capitalist can muster. These folks, he said, were a "new modern-day sort of communists," a malevolent force bent on destroying the monopolistic incentive that helps support the American dream. Gates was wrong: Open source zealots are more likely to be libertarians than commie pinkos. Yet there is some truth to his allegation. The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism.
May 28, 2009, The Chicago Tribune — You don't have to be a Twillionaire to donate to a charity in the Twittersphere.
May 28, 2009, The New York Times — The results are in, and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital is the winner of the Target Corporation’s “Bullseye Gives” contest on Facebook, in which 10 charities vied for votes from the social network’s users.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, May 26, 2009 — The Nonprofit Commons, a project of TechSoup Global (TSG), today announced an all-day, innovative online event in Second Life to showcase recent developments in health care research, and to connect efforts in fighting disease and creating a cooperative and supportive environment for patients and their providers. The Health Panel Expo, an international online conference sponsored by FasterCures.org, will be held on Wednesday, May 27, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PDT (also called Second Life Time, SLT) in the virtual world of Second Life and simultaneously in the real world, being broadcast live at the fourth annual NetSquared Conference at Cisco in San Jose, CA. The Second Life online event is free to attend and open to all interested participants. It will be accessible through Second Life, and all information will be available at http://www.nonprofitcommons.org/healthpanel.
Murfreesboro, TN, May 25, 2009 — The AlumniCard Network announced today that it has launched an online forum for alumni associations. The forum “Alumni Talk” allows associations from across the nation to converse about common issues.
Chicago, IL, May 18, 2009 — The MacArthur Foundation Island opened today in the virtual world of Second Life. The island is a new laboratory for MacArthur’s two-year exploration of virtual worlds, led by the University of Southern California and the nonprofit Global Kids.
