Her and her husbands company make games for iPhones. This summer one of their games was the third most popular in the iTunes store!
According to Natalia:
In the extremely competitive market of iPhone games, they must stand apart from the rest. They use social media as one of these markers.They have actually integrated Twitter into their games. Users can tweet their score from the game--and a link goes back to their game. Social media allows you to create an extended reality space that you carry with you everywhere.
Nice to see another journalist now in social media
Shel Israel gave a broad overview of the benefits that Twitter offers to us today. His main points:
- Social media allows any institution to listen and respond in ways that they could not previously.
- We don't hate large institutions because they're large. We hate them because they reduce us to eyeballs. We have had no recourse to respond to a deaf TV set. Now that we have Twitter, we have an avenue to respond.
- Twitter allows us see the real people behind the real jobs.
Woah, a second ending!
- What's the future of social media? We've gone through a period of an enormous innovation of tools. This is disruptive to most people in the world. They can't do what they've always done.
- The next step will be more boring: We will learn to implement these new social media tools. Social media will "normalize."
Great question from @sokunthea, of the Case Foundation, on social media and the future of journalism:
- Journalism schools are preparing students for jobs that won't exist. (Personally, I think this depends on the journalism school. I'm thankful for my j school education.)
- The journalism model started crumbling long before social media arrived.
- Israel believes social media has stepped into that void.
- Twitter is very fast and very shallow.
- There needs to be a professional organization that operates as a watch dog. We social media amateurs can't fill that void. But now there is a feed of citizen folks. These two components need to figure out how to work together.
Beth spoke about three areas as the wave of the future for organizations (especially nonprofits) and social media:
1. Working in networks - creating and modeling groups of people or organization for social change.
2. Learning to work in transparency.
3. Working with our clients or within our organization as change agents behind the firewall. Create transparency and be leaders in using social media.
She also provided a list of some barriers to creating a social culture at nonprofits. Here are some of them.
- It will open us to criticism.
- It wil hurt our organization’s brand.
- The floodgates of information will overwhelm us.
- Staffers or volunteers will write something libelous.
- We could get sued.
- Staffers will waste time on social media.
- All this stuff will ruin our ability for reflection.
My favorite idea from this session of the idea of using social media to think in movements. Be deliberate about building networks--then use it for social good and teach others.
The most recent tune in my head. (I know this video won't host on Posterous, but click through to YouTube. It's worth it.)
Feed your Star Wars enthusiasm.
The Tauntuan sleeping bag is now a reality, according to Gizmodo! After ThinkGeek featured the prank product for April Fools Day, the idea became so popular that the company went ahead and sought approval from Lucasfilms. And now, thank the Heavens, we can all ""simulate the warmth of a Tauntaun carcass." Brilliant! Major points to ThinkGeek for taking a completely fake idea and making an actual product out of it. This is innovation at its best.
By @noelleee
It's Pinky and the Brain!
