Social Media 4 Good

I’ve used the New Year’s break to do some minor housekeeping on the blog. Among other things, I updated to Wordpress 2.9 which has some really interesting new features. I also (finally) created a Facebook page for the blog so that you can see updates in your news feed – if that is something you want.
I had been hoping that “Networked Blogs” would help me to get the word out, but so far I’m a bit disappointed. While I get some traffic from[...]

Recent announcements by Google make me think, that the company might go down a path that would ultimately mean more inequality, a worse position for developing countries and a widening digital divide.
I’m referring specifically to Chrome OS, Google’s new operating system, and the announcement that Google would dump Google Gears, a service that makes it possible to use services like GoogleDocs offline. In both cases, Google emphasized the importance of cloud computing as opposed to working offline. The idea is that[...]

I love Facebook pages: they are an excellent, cheap way to connect with your supporters. More importantly, they make it extremely easy for them to take your message and share it with their own network of friends so that you are not only preaching to the converted.  However, apparently Facebook is planning a major overhaul of how Facebook pages work and many of these changes might impact non-profits. The “Nonprofit Tech 2.0″-blog has written an excellent overview of what these changes[...]

I’ve recently started to “play” Foursquare – and I’m equally fascinated, amazed, confused and slightly worried by the paradox it presents to me.
For those who have never heard of it, Foursquare is a web service that asks you to broadcast where you currently are – via Twitter if you want to – and leave comments about the places you visit. You can also track your friends locations and comments. In addition, you can get badges for certain activities and if you[...]

My organization recently held a big international conference in Nairobi with around 1,000 participants from all over the world. When our staff got back, almost every single one of them had a virus on their computers that would pop up pornographic ads every few minutes. Lovely. Apparently there was one central computer where everybody brought their USB sticks if they wanted to print something and that is how the virus spread. I know, it’s ironic for an organization that deals with[...]

Google Web History is a service that stores your Google searches and the results you clicked on. This can be helpful if you can’t find a site anymore which you found useful earlier.
What Google Web History is not supposed to do is to continue to log searches from a computer that you haven’t been using in months!
Spying with Google Web History
Here is what happened: About six weeks ago I logged into Web History when I noticed some strange entries. Apparently I[...]

Yesterday, around 3,000 people demonstrated against a WTO in Geneva. While coming back from the super market I saw a really bizarre scene in the middle of the riot police and dissipating clouds of tear gas: I was walking through my neighbourhood Paquis, a part of town where the streets are lined with middle-aged prostitutes and drug dealers.
At a street corner there was a big gaggle of riot police who had set up an improvised command post the and were processing a[...]

I know many NGOs who produce feature-length advocacy films to state their case against e.g. climate change, human trafficking, dragnet-fishing etc. And I am certain that many of them could be greatly enhanced by an approach like “Us Now”.