Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, has recently committed to donating $1 million to public schools through the online charity DonorsChoose.org.  Bing gives users two options.  They can simply click to donate $1 to any school Bing chooses.  However, if users set their homepage to Bing, they get a voucher they can use to donate $5 to the school of their choosing through DonorsChoose.org.

Wal-Mart’s crowdsourced giving strategy is somewhat different.  The company plans to donate $1.5 million to the communities who receive the highest number of votes (in the form of “Likes” on Facebook) on the Wal-Mart Fighting Hunger Together website.  The community that receives the most votes will get $1 million while the next five runners up will each receive $100,000.

Both campaigns certainly raise brand visibility but give consumers different types of influence over giving.  When someone sets Bing as his or her home page, he or she chooses a specific school to donate to and knows that school is going to get $5.  When someone votes for his or her community on Wal-Mart’s site, there is a high likelihood the community will get no money.  However, the $1 million one community gets from Wal-Mart has the potential to do more good that $5 will do for one school.

So which is better?  You decide!

I woke up yesterday to an email in my inbox reminding me of MySpace’s most recent attempt of revival: a merge with Facebook. Or rather, the creatively dubbed “Mashup with Facebook.”

On the verge of joining the hall of forgotten sites (Yahoo GeoCities, anyone?), the former social networking site that gave everyone the illusion that they had at least one friend (thanks, Tom) is now allowing users to log into their Facebook accounts through their MySpace pages. This then imports their likes and interests listed on their Zuckerberg-developed profiles to their Tom-lovin’ Spaces, allowing them to access a stream of entertainment content and other recommendations based on those likes and interests.

According to the press release:

“We are thrilled to further our collaboration with Facebook through Mashup with Facebook. This new feature is a great illustration of our strategy around social entertainment and enabling the real-time stream. The stream is one of our most popular features on Myspace, and it is now delivering an even richer entertainment experience of relevant content for our users to enjoy,” said Mike Jones, CEO of Myspace. “I’m particularly excited because so many people will be able to have the immediate satisfaction of enjoying their own entertainment program that they have customized themselves as well as connecting to all their passions and to the Myspace community at large.”

“Sharing entertainment and music interests is part of many of our friendships, online and off,” said Dan Rose, VP of Partnerships and Platform Marketing, Facebook. “Myspace is giving people an easy way to bring their favorite bands, celebrities and movies from Facebook to create a personalized experience on Myspace from the start.”

About Mashup with Facebook

Mashup with Facebook is an opt-in feature that is quick and easy to set up. Users can visit Myspace.com and click on the Mashup with Facebook button to begin. In just a few simple steps, a basic Myspace profile is created and users can immediately begin building their personal profile based on information they’ve listed in their Facebook profile. Built into the feature are robust algorithms that help enable the discovery, expression, and connection to entertainment content for a user to customize their Myspace profile. Specifically:
Facebook “likes” and “interests” are matched to relevant Myspace topic pages, profiles, video programming and other content in entertainment categories such as, music, celebrities, TV, and movies
Tailored recommendations of new topic pages and profiles are surfaced in real-time to enable discovery of new entertainment experiences and greater customization
Subscriptions to a broad array of entertainment programming, including originals, exclusives and content from around the Web are automatically enabled based on personal preferences and settings
Passionate fans within the Myspace community are connected through “friending” and “following” features of Myspace topic pages and profiles
Mashup with Facebook builds upon Sync with Facebook, a recently introduced popular feature that enables the syncing of a Myspace status update with a Facebook profile or Page. In just one month, Facebook Sync has reached over one million Myspace users and growing.

Mashup with Facebook is available now to Myspace users globally. Myspace will also soon be implementing the Facebook Like button across the site to give users an easy way to share their entertainment interests with their friends on Facebook.

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MySpace is no longer declaring Facebook as a rival but rather relinquishing the title of a social network and taking on the position of a social entertainment hub. I imagine it to be somewhat like a VH1 or MTV for Web 2.0 users (but even that makes it sound more fun that it probably really is). But will these newly combined forces really save the dying website? After all, there are already many other websites that offer endless video, music, and game entertainment and that are actually used by people. As of earlier this year, MySpace lost half it’s users in just a year’s span. Why would people return to something that has been deaded in their social spheres?

Who knows, maybe the intended positive effect of the super awesome logo change will finally kick in. At the very least, seeing what new ideas MySpace attempts is somewhat entertaining, right? We can learn some best practices along the way (or rather, practices to avoid).

See below for a video tutorial of how to the Mashup works.

Mashup your Facebook Likes on Myspace

Myspace | Myspace Video

Web Director Kate Sands Adams considers the IRC online strategies surrounding the earthquake in Haiti last winter to be among its biggest successes.  The IRC was able to raise an extraordinary amount of money in a short time as well as contribute to increased media coverage of the disaster.

Furthermore, the IRC raised $10,000 on the Facebook Causes application.  This is especially impressive because, according to the Washington Post, fewer than 50 of the approximately 179,000 groups using Causes have been able to raise this amount. The organization also has frequent smaller scale success like when New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof retweeted an IRC tweet, which exponentially expanded the tweet’s reach.

Do not be fooled into thinking these successes are due to luck or public concern during disasters alone.  The IRC’s successful fundraising and advocacy are the result of strategic planning and careful analysis of past online trends.

According to Adams, the organization used to keep a relatively low profile in all aspects of its work.  However, in 2006, the IRC underwent a major rebranding campaign to raise its visibility.  Adams says that external communications have been ramping up ever since and the web has become especially important as a marketing tool to reach new audiences.  Although the IRC has a solid core of long-term supporters, the organization knows the importance of reaching new people.

Ruth Fertig, Online Community Builder at the IRC, adds that cultivating new audiences is a primary goal of the social media strategy as well.  The IRC hopes to turn people who follow the organization on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube into activists, donors, volunteers and sometimes even employees.

Another important goal is to raise unrestricted funds, which the organization can allocate wherever they are most needed.  According to Adams, this type of funding is crucial for sustaining the IRC’s ongoing work as well as responding quickly and effectively during emergencies.

In order to achieve its goals, the IRC has made a priority of tracking its successes. In evaluating advocacy campaigns, the IRC looks at how different types of content drive users to sign petitions or write to leaders.  In terms of fundraising, the IRC monitors criteria like the number of individual online donors, donation amounts and repeat donations.  On the social media platforms, a successful post or tweet is one that many users share or one that sparks conversation via comments or wall posts on Facebook.  Here, a challenge is to pinpoint exactly what it is about a particular post or tweet that makes it go viral.

As a result of tracking trends, Adams, Fertig and the other members of the web team at the IRC have amassed a collection of best practices for engaging potential activists and donors.  Fertig emphasized that forming best practices is key.  It saves her time and allows her to do her job better

Adams has found an important practice is to react quickly to website analytics data. During their efforts surrounding the earthquake in Haiti, the IRC found that it was extremely effective to rapidly post new content, photos and video from the ground.  It allowed them to communicate the urgency of the situation and inspire people to help.

The IRC has found that maximizing use of multimedia in general is very effective.  Analysis of IRC website traffic shows that most people tend to click on pictures and video and will stay on a page longer if it utilizes multimedia.

Another lesson is to listen to users and let their needs drive content.  Fertig describes social media platforms as “places for a two way conversation.”  As the IRC’s Online Community Builder, she spends a large portion of her time listening to and monitoring what the IRC’s online community is saying in addition to putting out their own content. She adds that asking questions on social media platforms is a great way to engage people and spark conversations.

Fertig also reaches out to bloggers and generally encourages others to be the IRC’s “megaphone.”  She has found that messages are more effective in the community if “they take the cause upon themselves.”  In response to the many requests for support they receive from individuals hoping to hold awareness or fundraising events, the IRC recently launched iRESCUE.  This “Do-It-Yourself Fundraising” site gives people the resources they need to spread the word to family and friends.

Similarly, through its research, the IRC has found that people are moved by individual stories as well as what is happening on the ground.  The IRC’s Blog, Voices from the Field, was created to give the IRC’s field staff a place to write about their experiences and share their pictures and videos.  Adams says that it is the place where her colleagues in the field “take center stage.”

However, because staff in the field are busy with a variety of lifesaving tasks, they have less capacity to contribute content, photos or video to the blog.  To address the challenge, the team now has four information officers around the world who work closely with field staff and the external communications team to share that important perspective from the ground.

In addition to listening to their audience, Adams finds it important for the IRC to “talk to them in a language they understand.”  Although most of the IRC online community is well informed about a variety of issues, web content producers must use everyday vocabulary and refrain from being overly technical.

The IRC’s web strategy can set an example for other international nonprofits seeking to enter the Web 2.0 world.  Learning from best practices and listening to target audiences can help a small team reach big goals.

Why Special?  Well, Inspire is special because it is nothing short of the official Al-Qaeda’s online magazine, which « surfaced with frank essays, creatively designed imagery and ominous terror tips », write CNN journalists Joe Sterling and Mohammed Jamjoon.

The first issue of the magazine, which was posted in July 2010, clearly announced the type of target the Jihadi editors were looking for: provide bomb instructions and offer English translation of Osama Bin-Laden speeches to young American and British readers.

One month Ago, in October 2010, the magazine issued its second edition in which various articles encourage terror attacks on U.S. soil, suggesting that followers open fire at a Washington, D.C. restaurant or use a pickup truck to “mow down” pedestrians.

Unaware of what that magazine was all about in the first place, my firs read was really boring: The magazine looked like one of the million tasteless humoristic magazines that blossoming websites and humor forums are offering on the net on a monthly basis.

In the same vein as the world famous video of Ahmad the Dead terrorist , reading the magazine first gave me the impression of a new humoristic attempt to make fun of terrorists –their sign language, their beards and clothes, their solemn tone when they speak, their mottos, expressions and gestures.

Am I exaggerating it using “humoristic” as an adjective to describe my first impression reading the latest October edition of the magazine? Judge by yourself:

In an article called “The Ultimate Mowing Machine”, editors explain how readers should proceed: “To achieve maximum carnage, you need to pick up as much speed as you can while still retaining good control of your vehicle in order to maximize your inertia and be able to strike as many people as possible in your first run”.

Going a bit further, there are some key lessons one should take away.

First, Social Internet has become an unavoidable marketing tool and an inevitable means of communication, whether you are an individual blogger, a profit company, a non-profit organization or a Jihadist group.

Second, the alleged depravation of the western world as always described by Al-Qaeda is not that “bad” as the terrorist organization does not hesitate to use some of its characteristic features when it can benefit from them.

Last but not least, If we take seriously the impact of such a magazine on “weak and influential” people living in English-speaking countries targeted by Al-Qaeda, it seems that the undoubtedly positive improvement represented by social networks and Web 2.0 could play as the Free West’s Achilles Heel: augmenting its general well-being and at the same time, increasing risk exposure to Enemies of Freedom.

That is the question many people seem to be asking about Procter & Gamble (P&G)’s newest Give Health Clean Water Blogivation campaign.  And the answer seems to be that it is a little bit of both.

The campaign aims to show the power of female bloggers to bring about social change.  P&G has recently invited them to apply for the code to embed the widget pictured below into their blogs.

By entering an email address and clicking, blog readers can donate 1 day of clean drinking water, defined as 2 liters, to someone in the developing world.  P&G’s goal is to click away 100,000 days of clean water.  Since the widget launched on November 1, they have already made it almost a quarter of the way there.

The widget is part of P&G’s larger Children’s Safe Drinking Water Project through which the company works with 16 partners including NGOs like CARE and World Vision.  They have already donated over 1.6 billion liters of clean water- that’s a shocking 8,000 times their donation goal for the widget campaign!

So if P&G is already giving away so much water, what’s the point of the widget?

Enter the skeptics.

Between stamping the P&G logo across a variety of blogs and presenting readers with a coupon for a P&G product after they click to donate water, the effort may appear less than genuine.  Is this simply the symbiotic relationship of doing good mixed with publicity inherent to corporate social responsibility?  Or has P&G gone a step further?

Image courtesy of Mashable.

Since the very first launch of the very first Iphone, I have been interested in acquiring one for myself. Like millions around the world, I was seduced by the user-friendly way of doing things on that device. As a rational homo-oeconomicus, I inquired about all the different ways to smartly purchase this and doing so, I had to stop by Apple stores all over the place (the one is Paris when I was living there, then more recently to some in New York City) to ask questions.

Each time I went there to ask about the product, the friendly apple salespersons always gave me the same answers: “Well, this new Iphone is great, I have one myself, but I think you should wait for the next one which will be launched very soon. You dont want your product to be sort of backward three months after you bought it, right??”

So convincing…Those threats worked wonders and I didn’t go for the very first Iphone. Neither did I buy the 3G, or the 3Gs. I kept my archeological Nokia and was sure I was doing the right thing.

But when the fourth version of that revolutionary thing was launched, I deliberately decided to go for it! The reason was that I came to the
conclusion that I could wait all my life for the next generation of Iphones.

That made me think of Apple’s strategy. They make you “ideolize” in January what they will have you “despise” in December…Unlike ancient alchemy, Apple’s strategy focuses on the attempt (always successful) to change Gold (each Iphone is great in its essence, and the fact that the new generation is better doesn’t really alter the greatness of the previous one) into base metals, and that process allows the launch of new products. Always giving Gold a new look!

How do we act on social networks? How should we act on social networks?

What is the best way to leverage the branding, marketing and communications possibilities provided by social networking tools?

Faris Yakob, Chief Technology Strategist, McCann-Erickson New York, has a surprisingly simple answer: Be Nice, Or Leave.

It’s a simple dictum, one that he takes from our social interactions in the “real” world and applies to our digital lives.

For example, it doesn’t take much social grace to understand you’re boorish if you perpetually interrupt conversations, shout others down, always talk about how great you are, or constantly fixate on just you and not on the community within which you exist and operate. Doing so is not the way to win friends and influence people despite how we see some brands and organizations acting online.

Through a number of examples, Faris discusses how the art of listening, communicating and most importantly, participating as an equal — albeit important — voice among many is a path towards increasing brand trust, transparency and influence.

The video above was filmed in Spring 2009. I think its insight will last much longer.

Mike Smith led us this week with an excellent account of his experience in grass roots organizing during the Obama presidential campaign. More importantly — and if we listened well — he discussed how we might learn lessons from the campaign for future political advocacy whether that advocacy revolves around an election or the promotion of specific issues.

One of the key takeaways is to embrace potential allies and enable them to pursue their own online messaging in support of the issue at hand. This necessitates a relinquishing of top down control, and relinquishing such control is something many struggle with throughout all industries be they corporations, advocacy organizations, political campaigns or community organizers.

At issue, of course, is the actual message. What is it? How is it said and how is it presented? This is a classic case of who controls the messenger. In the parlance of the day, are there mechanisms to prevent others from going rogue? Or is that just the cost of doing business in the digital age?

The answer is not simple and the conversation about the answer is quite long. If we cut to the short of it though the answer is yes, no matter the vertical we need to give up our attempts to control every aspect of a brand or message and instead realize that we are a participant in an ever evolving conversation about it.

That the digital medium no longer allows top down control is not a new idea. However, many still struggle in their interactions with others who are engaging a message, and reinterpreting that message for their particular audience.

Our success in doing so is partly based on our ability to relinquish control while simultaneously maintaining active engagement with the interpretation of our message and the endless reinterpretation — and indeed misinterpretation — that is bound to take place.

How to actually do so will be tackled elsewhere. Let us now acknowledge it though and flag for later debate.

After Mike’s presentation we workshopped and tried to create grassroots campaigns that could affect a global issue (in this case, the climate change in Copenhagen). As we came out of that workshop and listened to what individual groups proposed, an interesting mix of online advocacy and physical world gathering was suggested.

While the offline advocacy was concrete (eg, we will hold events across the country and this is who we’ll target), online strategies remained somewhat vague. With each group’s presentation, we heard something along the lines of, “We’ll pursue social media, we’ll have a Web site.”

A Web site is all well and good, but to what end? What is this “social media” site that everyone leans towards and believes they must have?

I mentioned that these hypothetical sites do not need to include much. Some media around the advocacy is important. Updates for targeted communities are also important. But in the role playing we pursued the general consensus was that traditional in-person events still trump virtual communications in our efforts to engage audience support.

So where does that leave an organization’s Web site and, by extension, Internet strategy?

In this case, with others. That is, to hand our message over to advocates in the blogosphere and let them run with it.

This requires a number of important qualities, namely authenticity and transparency so that Bloggers will believe enough in your story to run it, promote it, and engage with it as they engage their Web audiences.

Equally important, it requires that after demonstrating your authenticity you accept that your idea and mission is “out there” for interpretation, manipulation and sometimes, unfortunately, condemnation.

The idea here is that you’ve put your idea, mission, thought or brand into the public and you will receive both feedback and backlash. This is important. This is expected. This is what you must navigate to be successful. At least, this is what you need to navigate to succeed in the online space.

All of which is a very long way to get to the video that starts this post: CarrotMobs.

Each cluster working on our climate change exercise advocated in-person and event oriented action. I suggested Carrot Mob techniques and the video above gives a good sense of what those may be, and how they could be engaged.

The point is rather simple, and the Jujutsu (柔術) should be clear. Take your target’s greatest strength and turn it to your advantage.

I’m interested in hearing how you can advocate and get those you target to come on board with your message.

I’m doubly interested in whether you’re willing to pass your advocacy message along to the digital world, and then engage it as it transforms, or wanders off in directions you may not have planned for.