@anywhere

When we designed Twitter, we took a different approach—we didn’t require a relationship model like that of a social network. Keeping things open meant you could browse our site to read tweets from friends, celebrities, companies, media outlets, fictional characters, and more. You could follow any account and be followed by any account. As a result, companies started interacting with customers, celebrities connected with fans, governments became more transparent, and people started discovering and sharing information in a new, participatory manner.

Twitter Announces @anywhere Platform

During his SXSW keynote interview today, Twitter's Evan Williams announced the service's new @platform. While the keynote interview itself was rather forgettable (a large part of the audience left before it was over), the @platform will have wide-reaching consequences for Twitter and its ecosystem. This new platform will allow publishers to integrate Twitter deeper into their site and recreate the "open, engaging interactions" their readers expect from using Twitter "without sending them to Twitter.com."

The Future of Display Advertising

The first online display advertisement — a simple, clickable image — appeared online over 16 years ago. Fast forward to 2010. You're likely to see display ads — image, text, video and rich-media formats — on most of the websites that you visit. These ads are crucial to the Internet. They provide information about thousands of products, services and businesses. They help to fund the web content and services that we all use. And they enable large and small advertisers to reach new customers, increase sales and grow their businesses.

9 Killer Tips for Location-Based Marketing

Social networking has finally become something valuable for brick-and-mortar businesses. Smartphones and location-based social networks allow users to interact, share, meet up, and recommend places based on their physical coordinates. This real-world connection to social media can mean more foot traffic and profits for business owners.

5 Emerging Social Media Sites to Watch in 2010

Just as marketers are getting a handle on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, a fresh group of social media networks are poised to make a splash in 2010.

These networks have not reached mass adoption yet, so it’s not necessary to get active on all of them immediately.  But remember, Facebook only took 6 years to reach 400 million registered users.  You should keep an eye on these five upstarts to see if their innovative services attract large audiences in the near future.

The New and Improved Heritage.org

No project has consumed more of my time at The Heritage Foundation than the redesign of Heritage.org. What started in fall 2008 and progressed through all of 2009 and the beginning of 2010 finally arrived today with a big splash. The modern look and improved organization of Heritage’s wealth of content are getting positive reviews.

This morning, the Heritage Foundation revealed a new website design. The goal - to make the site more user friendly for its 600,000+ members.

Take a moment to watch this video about their new design and read through these 6 points that showcase Heritage's methodology. I'm sure you'll find a nugget or two to implement for an upcoming project of your own.

1.  Simplified navigation that allows users to quickly access the content they are seeking. We now have tabs for both Issues and Research in the navigation, giving you the option to browse by public policy issues or, for the more familiar Heritage.org user, by the type of content.

2. The visual design showcases the strength, credibility and stature of The Heritage Foundation, our people and our work, while also encouraging users to explore our site. This is reflected in the multi-tonal Heritage blue color palette, uniform bands of content throughout the site and the introduction of visual icons which work in tandem with the new navigation.

3. An improved search function and new taxonomy should make finding content faster and easier. The biggest complaint about our previous website was its lack of organization. We’ve taken two major steps to improve that by adding a more robust search engine with the option to filter content. In addition, we’ve introduced a comprehensive taxonomy, which expands the number of issue areas from about 100 to nearly 1,000.

4. Our multimedia section features Heritage videos, info graphics and audio in one place. Whether you’re looking for one of our original productions such as “Let Me Rise” or a recent TV appearance of a Heritage analyst, you can now find it easily by clicking on the links above the search on each page.

5. We’ve introduced customized audience pages for the conservative community, government staff, press and media, job seekers and young leaders. By tailoring our content to these groups, we hope to better serve their needs. You can access these pages in the footer of every page.

6. The new footer gives Heritage an opportunity to showcase some of our signature research papers and communications products on the bottom of every page. Given the large amount of traffic Heritage.org received from search engines, we realize that not everyone entering the site is coming through the homepage.

Questions? Send the Heritage Foundation web team a note at redesign@heritage.org.

Shop Talk: Turk, Henke, Dybwad Join New Firm

Seasoned new media veterans Michael Turk, Jon Henke and Matthew Dybwad have signed on to the budding GOP media firm Craft Media Digital, which launched less than two months ago.

The firm's two founding partners, Brian Donahue and Justin Germany, count among their clients Republican Reps. Joe Wilson (S.C.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), and Thad McCotter (Mich.).

Yahoo Partners with Twitter to Boost Social Features

The partnership will allow web surfers to view the short, 140-character messages created by Twitter users, dubbed Tweets, directly within Yahoo sites as well as to publish their own Twitter messages without leaving Yahoo.

The move, which Yahoo announced late on Tuesday, comes a couple of months after Yahoo announced a similar deal with Facebook, the world's No.1 social networking site.

Facebook's Capitol Presence

Facebook doesn’t just run itself — especially not in Washington.

At the helm of the D.C. bureau is a three-man team with one goal: to expand the site’s political presence in  Washington.

And this operation is not just about amassing friends. Tim Sparapani, director of public policy, says politicians are learning to see Facebook as “a tool that continues communications both to their constituents that they’re serving and from their constituents that they’re serving.”

How to Use "Us v. Them" Stories to Create Social Media Envangelists

Us vs them is one of the oldest, and most powerful marketing ideas. Apple is a quintessential example: from their beginnings they’ve portrayed themselves as the small guy against the big powerful bully. In 1983 it was IBM and more recently its been Microsoft. The company turns customers into evangelists who are more than happy to spread the word about the good fight, but how exactly does it work?

13 Ways to Move Your Facebook Fans to Action

Perhaps you have a Facebook Fan Page and even some fans.  But now what?  How can you encourage your fans to act and interact?

In my prior post I covered the various sources and types of content you can post on your Facebook fan page. I also talked about the importance of consistent updates.

And if you're in the DC area, you won't want to miss this Heritage Foundation event taking place tomorrow, Thursday, February 25th at 12:00noon in its Lehrman Auditorium.

Telecosm Revisited: Why the Government Should Not Set Rules of the Road for the Internet

Speaker:

George Gilder; Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute

Host:

James Gattuso; Senior Research Fellow in Regulatory Policy,
Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies,
The Heritage Foundation

Details:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski warns that we are at a crossroads and should act now to set "rules of the road to protect the free and open Internet."  George Gilder - author of Wealth and Poverty and Telecosm - argues this is exactly the wrong prescription.  Instead, he maintains, that the Internet will only fulfill its promise of freedom and prosperity if government does not intervene.

As the FCC and Congress move forward with plans for Internet regulation, we hope you can join George Gilder for a look at the evolving technology of the Internet and its implications for competition, innovation, and the future.

Be sure to RSVP.

The Heritage Foundation, with the support of the David All Group,
is ramping up its efforts to connect with conservatives through social
networking sites and encouraging its members to share needed information
with their peers online.

Last week, the Heritage Foundation launched NoEnergyTax.com - a fully integrated and interactive site powered by Act.iv.ist to "shed light on energy taxes."

Robert Bluey, Heritage's Director of Online Strategy, had this to say about the initiative -

The real and ugly truths about cap-and-trade are not being exposed by the media. Therefore, we've created this powerful site to directly empower our nearly 70,000 Facebook Fan Page supporters with the tools they need to expose myths about this policy through their network...The power of social media is being realized through a strategic deployment of technology and a common goal.

Act.iv.ist is a sophisticated new web tool that helps organizations push their message out to the communities in which people are already active, including Facebook and Twitter.

To see for myself, I signed up as a member simply by clicking the Facebook Connect option at the top right hand corner of the site. From there, I could earn points by reading, commenting, signing up for email updates, inviting friends, and sharing information with friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. I don't even have to go to NoEnergyTax.com - I can access the site through the Facebook fan page.

There are limitless things you can do as a supporter to win points and spread information through your personal social networks.
In fact, the more information I consume and share, the more points I can earn.

Other sticky site features include:

• A dynamic points counter at the top of the page
• A Leaderboard to track and reward supporters for taking action elsewhere
• Seamless integration with the Facebook Connect Platform that lowers the barrier of entry for first-time site visitors

Not only are these new modern media initiatives working to help spread its conservative message, they're working to grow the Heritage Foundation's support base.

Just yesterday, Heritage accrued over 8,000 Facebook fans in one day - that's multiple times more than most organizations' total friend counts.

How do they do it? 

By taking charge and taking notice in a threefold process:

1.  Setting Achievable Goals

The Heritage Foundation's goal was to reach 75,000 fans. As of this afternoon, they sat at 84,448. But why stop there? The new goal is to reach 100,000 fans by 2010. They're well on their way to achieving that goal.

Why you're goals may not be that high, you can start by setting smaller, more achievable goals. Once you reach them, your members are encouraged by the momentum, and are more likely to help you reach your next goal by inviting their own friends to become supporters of your organization or campaign.

2.  Recognizing Benchmarks

When the Heritage Foundation reached its 75,000 fans goal, it updated its fan page picture to recognize that achievement.

3.  Thanking Supporters 

One of the most important things the Heritage Foundation is doing so far is recognizing individual supporters through its Featured Fan campaign.

What are you doing to reach your goals & recognized your featured fans?

Disclosure: David All, president of the David All Group, founded TechRepublican.com

With my induction into the world of social media just a few months ago, I came upon the subject of net neutrality and tried to educate myself quickly. I became confused.

Most social media sites like Mashable or TechCrunch (which I was told to follow daily for my education) told me I should be for it. With a unified voice they proclaimed that net neutrality meant a more free and open Internet.

A September posting on the Mashable site read, “the web will not work if a few Internet providers control what can and cannot be streamed to your computer.” I definitely agreed with this anti-monopoly principle. ‘Freedom for all’ was their mantra. So I thought, “I guess I should be for net neutrality.”

However, my general hesitancy towards government regulation in any case prohibited me from jumping head first onto the bandwagon.

My sneaking suspicion turned out to be right. Thanks to the blogger’s briefing at the Heritage foundation today, I had a chance to hear firsthand FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell talk on the subject.

McDowell informed that 27 months ago the Federal Trade Commission examined the integrity of the whole broadband and determined that everything was fine, that there was no need for government regulation. So what is the shift that made the FCC want to regulate?

“There is not really a factual case being made. It’s mostly just opinions at this point,” McDowell said. He said the fact sheets that have been presented are about 10% fact 90% opinion.

In addition to that, Multichannel news reported that McDowell said “it would be a bad time to ‘heap new regulations’ on broadcasters already hurting. He pointed out he had just met with some of those broadcasters who told him that about half their ad revenue came from the decimated auto category.“

It seems to me that this issue of net neutrality is being fueled by the political climate of our day. Big Businesses equals danger and government equals our savior.

McDowell agreed with my sentiments by acknowledging that ‘discrimination’ is often seen as a dirty word in this debate, but to network engineers, it often just means prioritization, which is a large part of network management.

Can we please get off these catalytic words and look at what’s really going on here?

We’re talking about giving more power to the federal government to regulate what, you the consumer, will have access. I do not claim to be a computer engineer, so here is the issue in layman’s terms:
“Pipes” that deliver your computer information have limitations. Congestion can occur in those pipes and it is left to the network operators to work out their differences on what info gets through to you. Engineers got together to try and resolve this and used something called peer to peer software to help alleviate the congestion. What I learned today was that instead of encouraging innovation from these engineers and people who know most about these things “net neutrality” gives that power over to the government.

McDowell said he and the other FCC commissioners “don’t have engineering degrees, we’re liberal arts majors.” He wants to encourage private sector collaboration.

Ars Technica is another tech. site that labeled McDowell’s criticism of net neutrality a “crusade to define the Fairness Doctrine.” They called him a lone Republican and pointed to party politics as the reason for his disapproval. I wonder if Ars Technica knows that the Clinton administration’s policy was to encourage private sector innovation and not government regulatory “net neutrality?”

I’m tired of all logical opposition being labeled as party politics, it’s getting old.  

McDowell has done his research and he says that, “countries that regulate the Internet are less free, and countries that regulate the Internet less are more free.” This whole thing could lead to the government being one big service provider while smaller independent ones are crowded out. Even if that is not in the immediate future, why take a step in that direction if it’s not necessary?

So which option would you prefer? I say “we the people” will always come up with better ways to solve problems than the government’s regulation.  

I do not know the ins and outs of broadband, but I plead with anyone reading to think about this from an ideological standpoint. If your ideology is not in place, than any idea produced from it, no matter how clever, will lead in the wrong direction.

With all this talk on the Democrat's HR 3200 proposed health care bill, many Republicans are left not knowing how to respond. One thing is for sure, we keep getting labeled as right wing radicals. What should the Republican response be?

Should we try to "reach across the aisle," a phrase that many politicians like John McCain have made popular, and compromise? Should we give in a little on health care to make everyone happy, so as not to be overly ardent? After all, in his speech Wednesday night Obama basically labeled all Republican congressional objection as "partisan spectacle" and "scare tactics."

I was encouraged to hear Tony Perkins, President of Family Research Council (FRC), address this issue today at the Heritage Foundation's blogger's briefing. He confirmed my gut feeling that Rebulicans, instead of shrinking back in fear of being antithetical, need to be as vocal as we can about why we believe what we believe. 

The answer for our party is to not believe the lies the Democrats are intimidating us with. We need to stand for small government in all issues, including health care. Tony Perkins said today that the, "2010 election will be helped if republicans stick to siding with the American taxpayer. Republicans are treading on thin ice if all we do is trim it (the proposed HR 3200 health care bill) and do not oppose government health care completely."

This is a crucial time for our party, and more importantly, the ideals that shaped our country. Today, they are known as "conservative." But weren't we founded on principles of small responsible government? Tony Perkins reminded us of the need to hold republican members of congress to these principles.   

The FRC and The Heritage Foundation are two of the sponsors for this weekend's Value Voters Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. Perkins said that the goal of the summit is for everyone to work together and send a message out for conservative values in all areas of government. "Americans are looking for conservative leadership," Perkins said this afternoon. I hope this conference gives the American people and members of congress the confidence to be unashamedly conservative. 

The Bloggers Briefing

Yesterday, Robert Bluey and the Heritage Foundation launched its new website centered around the weekly Bloggers Briefing: http://thebloggersbriefing.com/

The site's launch is exciting news and a direct correlation to the success of Robert's weekly meeting. Now, the conservative blogosphere has a central place to grab conservative content and follow the weekly message or campaign each week.

Here's what Robert Bluey had to say about the site's launch:

Back in May 2006 when I started hosting The Bloggers Briefing with Tim Chapman, I never expected that I'd still be doing it every week more than three years later. What started as an off-the-record meeting is now a place where guests regularly come to break news. So naturally I'm very excited to announce the launch of TheBloggersBriefing.com, a website that will aggregate all of the great content -- from videos and photos to your blog posts and tweets (hashtag #TBB).

Obama to Kids: Want to be President? Be Careful on Facebook

Prior to his live Internet broadcast to students across the country earlier today, President Obama answered questions at a Virginia high school.

Asked by one student how he could become President someday, Obama issued a warning about Facebook. “I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life. That’s number one,” he said, according to Bloomberg.

5 Rules for Better Web Writing

Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of putting together a website or social media campaign is the copy. Many people assume that the same words that work for print campaigns or materials can just be copied and pasted for the web, but that’s just not true. The web is an entirely different medium, and copy needs to be treated with the same respect that design and user interface elements get.

Text is a very important part of user experience on the web, so it needs and deserves the same sort of design consideration. You must make your text usable in the same manner that you do the rest of your website or social media campaign materials. In short: text is user interface. Here are five rules for writing better for the web.

Are Conservative Bloggers More Bark than Bite? How to Fix it.

Is the conservative blogosphere more bark than bite?

Over the years, I've observed several instances where prominent conservative bloggers have unilaterally urged a certain action -- only to see it fall flat. This has included failed efforts to oust an incumbent RINO Congressman -- as well as attempts to expunge embarrassing elements from the conservative movement.

At today’s Conservative Blogger’s Briefing, hosted by Robert Bluey at the Heritage Foundation, Onvia CEO Mike Pickett and CTO Eric Gillespie spoke about their project, Recovery.org – a new website designed to track where YOUR taxpayer money is going.

Recovery.org is a technological solution to government transparency that is doing exactly what the White House intended to do already, but hasn’t yet done with Recovery.gov.

The Company:
Onvia is a for-profit entity, that is, for the last 10 years, tracking government spending at over 90,000 government agencies.  Onvia takes a complicated process using advanced technologies to capture pieces of data and within 24 hours field that data into a database that is accessible to their clients (mainly small businesses.)

Recovery.org currently breaks down and sheds light on stimilus spending for over 9,800 government projects.  The website tracks spending by state, by county, and by city.

Soon, you’ll be able to track requests for proposals and also determine award data so that citizens and organizations know exactly what contractors are being awarded what money, for what projects.

Our goal is to take all of that disparate information that is out there and put it into something that is useable and trackable.

In the next few weeks, Onvia will create an API (Application Programming Interface) that allows users to download the entire file of information to use for any purpose.

The bottom line is that if you put the two websites alongside one another (Onvia’s Recovery.org and Obama’s Recovery.gov) – Recovery.org is better meeting the public's expectations for government transparency.

The Outcome:
For an average subscription of $200/month, Onvia’s clients are immediately more competitive in this economic climate, having been armed with the power of information at their fingertips and having a better understanding of their position in the marketplace of government contracts.

For more information on Recovery.gov and for an update from Heartbeat International, you can listen to the entire Conservative Bloggers Briefing on Blog Talk Radio.

This week, Barack Obama launched a campaign commercial entitled "Try This" to try and clarify (distort) his position on taxes. As you might expect, the ad pushes viewers to a website to see how Barack's plan would impact "you."

The ad also features a quote made by a senior policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, Rea Hederman, which leads viewers to believe that Heritage supports Barack's tax plan:

The problem?

As explained in a letter to Obama by a lawyer representing Heritage blogged yesterday at the Foundry, Rea Hederman never said the quote:

The print ad on your Website as well as your ad entitled “Try This” reference a quote from policy analyst Rea Hederman. In fact, Mr. Hederman never said what is quoted there. Rather, the words you quote are from a New York Sun reporter who interviewed Mr. Hederman and summarized his views erroneously.

That the reporter’s summary is erroneous is evident from the actual quotes from Mr. Hederman presented in the article, which make it quite clear that Mr. Hederman believes your tax plan would be bad not only for the country, but for the middle class. By omitting the direct quotes from Heritage that are contained in the article and attributing to Heritage a conflicting statement not made by its analyst, the advertisement appears to be an intentional attempt to mislead.

Today, with Obama's false ads still airing, Heritage has released a YouTube video from the very policy analyst quoted throughout to help clarify the situation:

Heritage's recent actions interest me because I'm seeing and feeling a shift among the conservative infrastructure where they are perhaps willing to engage the modern world to push-back on false narratives to try and set the record straight. This is a strong step in the right direction.

[Disclosure that we do some work with Heritage but had no role in this effort.]

At today's Blogger's Briefing at the Heritage Foundation, Andrew Wheeler, Director of the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works expressed the importance of getting out the conservative response to June's Climate Security Act.

Wheeler hopes the Committee's website is a one-stop shop for bloggers to get important information. I checked out the site and noticed that EPW also has a blog that's updated several times a month. To go a step further, the committee can consider incorporating the blog into its homepage to make the process easier for bloggers looking for more information.

Today, Wheeler offered a 10-page summary of an Amendment to the Act that would cost American taxpayers & consumers a hefty $1.2 trillion in new spending through 2050.

The Leiberman-Warner Climate Security Act calls for the largest tax increase in American political history and arguably, is the largest re-distribution of wealth, ever.

Wheeler believes that a majority of Senate Republicans will want a full debate on this Act, even though a majority oppose it.

The goal: to get our conservative message out.

To Republicans, a 2-3 week debate on "climate change" is ideal, but may be stifled my Senate democrats like Harry Reid who will try to play gatekeeper on amendments. I hope the blogosphere can serve as an extension to the debate that will take place on the Senate floor.

Bloggers can get more information on this Act at the EPW's Committee Website.