H(APP)Y Nurses

Mobile applications move to the hands of healthcare professionals

Communication network developer, Avaya has recently unveiled a iOS tool designed for health care professionals. Mobile Activity Assistant (MAA) provides a system of secure communication throughout the hospital using a text message format effectively allowing nurses to send and receive call alerts on patient conditions. The application eliminated the liability of nurses having to leave a patient and run back and forth to the nursing station, responding to alerts.

"Nurses did not have enough time to spend on direct patient care because they [were] spending a lot of time on other things like documentation and walking around," said Sanjeev Gupta, general manager of Avaya Healthcare Solutions. "They want to be able to get all communications while they're on the move, so they can spend more time with the patients rather than rushing back to the nursing station."

The APP can be downloaded and used on a personal device as long as its running on the hospitals secured Wi-Fi network. Many hospital professionals including doctors, nurses and therapisits can now all be networked on a shared patient’s status.

The application, initially designed for use on Apple products like the iPad, will eventually be compatible on other devices, like Android.

Tumblr, Microblogging and Business

By Joshua Smith

Tumblr has been described as “the space in between Twitter and Facebook.” – Mark Coatney

According to the sites “About Tumblr” section, Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors, to your theme's HTML. Mediaite.com posted a column by Anthony De Rosa who calls the combination of Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr “The Holy Trinity of Social Media.”

“There is a corner of the internet where actors, comedians, musicians, artists, writers, bloggers,directors, people from all walks of life are creating over 2 million posts per day, and are often meeting each other in person in over 50 different places around the world, from New York to London to Berlin to Tokyo. The place is Tumblr and it is quickly becoming the third member of the holy trinity of social media, along with Twitter and Facebook.”

Industries such as Rolling Stone, BlackBook Media Corporation, The Paris Review, The Huffington Post, Life Magazine and The New York Times have established a presence on Tumblr.
But what’s the hype? How can Tumblr help you connect with the audience “in between?”
Always, always, always do your research. Know who your target market is and where they participate online. Mr. Coatney has stated that U.S. Tumblr users tend to be younger – 56% of the services 25.2 million monthly visitors are under 34, and users skew slightly more male (52%). Knowing this and considering the growth of Tumblr, determine if it’s worth your time.
Social Media management is time consuming, especially if you target different groups on different sites. Some organizations have only a Facebook Fan Page. Some are just learning what a #hashtag means on Twitter. Others may struggle with Social Media overload as they desperately try to brand every corner of the internet.
Set measureable goals using Tumblr statistics. If you are not confident in your use of Tumblr you can always check the figures to see the impact your account has on the public. Adding the Tumblr Stat application to your site lets you analyze your blog posts for reposts, traffic and user information.
(applications instructions @ http://tumblring.net/track-tumblr-traffic-visitors/)
Other applications and site information to help you create your Tumblr account:
Automatic Twitter integration
Publish posts to Facebook
Community powered blogs
Own your work
Video posting
FeedBurner RSS support
No Ads or banners
+ dozens of third party apps

http://www.mediaite.com/online/tumblr-completes-the-holy-trinity-of-social-media/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/technology/02tumblr.html

Twitter Considers Face(book)-Lift

Twitter might introduce pages for brands similar to those on Facebook, according to reports.

The initiative, which Marketing Magazine reports is being lead by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and President of Revenue Adam Bain, is to give brands their own space on Twitter — a page they could point to and use to deliver content, while encouraging Twitter users to follow them.

In a similar move, Foursquare launched Pages Gallery
Monday, a showcase of different company pages on Foursquare.

The question is: Does Twitter really need branded pages? On Facebook, the entire brand experience revolves around the company’s page. That part of the experience is currently lacking on Twitter, where brands can only promote themselves through sponsored hashtags, lists and tweets.

However, one could argue that this constant flow of information, without many single static elements for users to grab onto, is part of Twitter’s appeal. What do you think? Could pages improve the Twitter experience for users and brands?

by Stan Schroeder

http://mashable.com/2011/04/05/twitter-pages-brands/

Social Media Subpoenas

Posted on Mashable.com

The Department of Justice issued Twitter a subpoena for access to the accounts of Julian Assange and several others in relation to its investigation of the whistle-blower organization, which released roughly2,000 classified cables.

As a result of its current law enforcement guidelines, Twitter is going to divulge the information. The provision is fairly typical for technology startups to include in their policies as a way to protect themselves from getting involved in legal issues pertaining to the platform’s users. With such a policy, Twitter is not held responsible, and in many ways it should not be. According to the media lawyers we interviewed, this kind of government request is not unique.

Jodi Olson, a spokeswoman at Twitter, would not comment on details about the subpoena, but she said that “to help users protect their rights, it’s our policy to notify users about law enforcement and governmental requests for their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing so.”

That’s because most of such requests come with a gag order, and so companies like Twitter and Googlecannot notify the user that his or her information is being requested. What’s unique about the recent Twitter subpoena is that it became public. In this case, Twitter challenged the gag order and won. It then notified the parties whose information was being requested, including Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of parliament in Iceland and former volunteer who is now challenging the order.

For a social service that has been regarded as a news source by many of its users, which include high-profile politicians, journalists and company CEOs, Twitter’s challenge to notify users when their information is being sought by a government entity is a step in the right direction in protecting users who may be exchanging sensitive information in the name of journalism.

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A Broken System

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Though it is not clear what sort of information the DOJ will find in the WikiLeaks Twitter accounts, it does have a possibility to yield correspondence with whistle-blowers. With such information being divulged, journalists should tread carefully when dealing with sources and sensitive information on the platform and not expect to provide any anonymity to sources reaching out to them via Twitter.

Prosecutors could simply seek a subpoena to obtain the information, regardless of the protection the news organization has promised. Although news organizations have often fought subpoenas, Twitter is a platform and simply provides a place for interaction between whistle-blowers and journalists to take place.

Many journalists, of course, are already cautious in any correspondence with whistle-blowers and dealing with sources who wish to remain to be anonymous.

Paul Lewis, an investigative journalist from the Guardian who uses Twitter regularly in his reporting, realizes Twitter is mostly a public forum where messages are sent in the open.

Lewis said for investigative journalists using social media, this requires a certain trade-off — often you have to let the online world, which includes competitors, know where you’re digging. But private direct messages are another matter, he said. When used by reporters, private messages on Twitter should be afforded the same journalistic privilege given to other private communication, such as e-mail or letters.

“But sometimes you have to presume someone will be watching or listening,” Lewis said. “If conducting a really sensitive online discussion with a source, I would never use Twitter, e-mail or even Skype. Private encrypted chat is the safest bet.”

But that cautious approach relies on the journalist reaching out, not a source who has contacted a journalist through a social site or e-mail using his or her real identity. The little anonymity and identity protection on the web highlights a challenge investigative journalists are facing in corresponding with sources in the digital age.

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Social Media’s Shield Law Loophole

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The journalist cannot adequately promise anonymity on social sites like Twitter or others, but that won’t stop whistle-blowers from contacting journalists on those sites. Whistle-blowers will still reach out to journalists on those platforms because that’s where they are often most accessible. Therefore, it ultimately starts with protection from the platform.

Journalists may be able to offer some protection in knowing that the platform will not disclose source information. But this would take a serious restructuring of the current culture of companies that do not stand up for their users. Twitter’s move to notify its users is a step in the right direction.

But notification is not enough to provide protection to journalists whose information is being subpoenaed by a federal court. In the U.S., 36 states and Washington, D.C. have journalist shield laws — legislation that provides reporters a privilege to refuse to disclose any information or sources obtained during their reporting. The rest of the states either provide some protection or none at all. But because there is no federal statutory reporter’s shield law, Jane Kirtley, who teaches media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, says that in all likelihood, there would be no protection for a journalist being subpoenaed on a federal level.

Kirtley notes there are federal attorney general guidelines, which discourage the use of subpoenas against the press, but nothing to outright prohibit them as long as the attorney general approves it.

The case with Twitter and other tech companies is that these are not considered to be subpoenas for journalists’ records, so even if there is a privilege, it is unlikely to apply to these records, Kirtley said. This is a loophole that gives journalists little protection or right to protect themselves in their reporting while using such sites.

If a journalist refuses to disclose information to a government entity requesting it in an investigation, the court can simply go to the platform of communication to get the records. With many social media sites playing a vital role in news distribution and watchdog journalism, this requires a stand from those sites against disclosing such information in a broken system that once recognized the value of protecting journalistic integrity.

But ultimately, the privilege of shield laws should also extend to the social platforms hosting the information that is shared between whistle-blowers and journalists. And until there is a federal shield law for reporters, protection for such newsgathering will be nonexistent. This is the only way to fix the broken system. Platforms can only protect their users to a certain extent. It then becomes a legislative issue around the protection of journalists and the Fourth Estate.

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, JordiDelgado and zimmytws

Social Media Half-life

By Joshua Smith

Evaluating the current trends and impact of younger generations is imperative when predicting the future of web 2.0 that is the social media storm of the late 2000’s and today.

Many current sources, like Newsweek and TheStreet.com are worried about a second dot-com burst like the one seen in 2001-2003. Lauren Bloom of TheStreet.com recently commented, “Investors who sold their dot-com stocks before the bubble burst made fortunes -- those who didn't lost their shirts.”

Fearful investors should consider the following in determining the profitability of dot-com investing in today’s market:

Newsweek recently posted an article about the stability of today’s internet infrastructure compared to that of a less developed internet nearly a decade ago. “The Internet was far less widely used than it is today, with many consumers feeling a little queasy about sharing personal and credit-card information with businesses that lacked brick-and-mortar facilities. Still, visionaries saw the potential for the Internet we have today, so virtual companies sprung up and grew like weeds as investors threw money their way.”

The internet has matured since 2000-03. So have the users. In a recent poll, conducted by social media guru Mashable.com, it was stated that the internet has far surpassed TV as a main sources of news for young adults. This includes newsfeeds from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. This trend helps investors predict the credibility and sustainability of the internet and social media for younger generations.

PewInternet.org, an internet research organization, released information obtained about internet usage by generation. It relays that, “Teens and Generation Y (internet users age 18-32) are the most likely groups to use the internet for entertainment and for communicating with friends and family. These younger generations are significantly more likely than their older counterparts to seek entertainment through online videos, online games and virtual worlds, and they are also more likely to download music to listen to later. Internet users ages 12-32 are more likely than older users to read other people's blogs and to write their own; they are also considerably more likely than older generations to use social networking.”

The bottom line is investors have matured from the dot-com crash and so have dot-coms.

However, there are other factors to consider when investing in an internet driven company; specifically the regulation and privacy of its users.

A Newsweeks article recently stated, “In December, the Federal Trade Commission issued a proposed framework that, among other things, would permit Facebook users to block advertisers from accessing information about their online interests. If that framework is implemented and widely used by Facebook subscribers, it could seriously impair the site's value as a potential platform for targeted marketing.” Consider the impact of investing if advertisers could no longer reach the consumer base. Sites would need to capture user information like Amazon and Ebay to convey consumer trends; selling the information it captures about its users as raw marketing data.

Corporations like Goldman Sachs have shown a significant interest in social media sites like Facebook. Some say the investment is a ploy to purposely inflate the Facebook value score to make a quick profit. However, the investment by Goldman Sachs has allowed Facebook to postpone issuing an IPO; meaning they do not have to disclose financial earnings or investor complaints.

Jeff Wilson, APR of CRT/tanaka recently stated on the company’s blog, TheBuzzBin, “Just yesterday, it was reported that LinkedIn could make an initial stock offering in the first three months of the year. The size of the offering is not known yet, but it is expected to be small relative to the company’s value. LinkedIn’s implied value on the private trading marketplace SharesPost is $2.2 billion.”

The social media “Big Three,” (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) have shown record growth over the past year. Admittedly those numbers are reaching their statistical peak, rapidly approaching the number of estimated online users.

The slowdown is coming, but a forecasted crash is unlikely.

http://www.newsweek.com/

http://www.thestreet.com/

http://pewinternet.org/

http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/

Social Media Marketing Won’t Fix Your Infrastructure Problem

December 28th, 2010View Comments

Originally posted on Logic + Emotion.

I’m fortunate to be sitting in a nice room, sipping a cup of tea on a cold English morning as opposed to being stranded on a hard airport floor as hundreds of others are (for now). Though I hope to get home soon and really have no idea when that will be, I’m having a bit of an epiphany—which solidifies what my perspective for has been for years now.

Infrastructure (or the lack of) is the ALWAYS at the core of most issues

By infrastructure, what I mean is a certain set of resources, preparedness, technological relevance, tools, people, hardware, guts, nerve system. The essentials. As the British government debates on whether it makes sense to invest further in their transport infrastructure, the debate hinges on a certain question:

Will it be this cold in the years to come?

This question is an important one, as it’s a pragmatic way to look at the problem. If the answer is no, then perhaps there is no need to invest in better systems. If the answer is an absolute yes, then an investment over time might be wise. Let’s look at another question:

Has social technology fundamentally impacted how we view media, and conduct business?

Ok, this is a two part question. Let’s say your answer is yes to media and no to business. On the surface level what seems to make sense is to invest in the media part (whatever that is) and ignore the business part. Problem is, as you dip your toes into social media waters, it quickly becomes apparent that media as we know it has changed. Networks don’t operate the same way media operations worked. They have their own economies. They in fact blur lines between employees, customers, advocates, detractors and empower individuals to become stakeholders in the areas you wish to do business in.

So, the lines between media and business become less clear than we imagine and marketing doesn’t live in it’s own blissful bubble anymore. In the networked world, the expectation is that being a node on the network means you are representing the entire organization/business and not just the marketing arm.

Back to Heathrow, London, Infrastructure and my uncertain near term prospect of leaving. Heathrow provides a service and is a business. Like any business, it does marketing—has employees, conducts communications initiatives, manages crisis situations (right now) and operates a series of systems that allows it to function. It can’t market itself out of this scenario, but it can look at its systems moving forward.

Food for thought in 2011. Every business has a series of systems and infrastructure in place to keep it running. Even if the goal is to EVOLVE the communications/marketing arm of your organization because you fundamentally believe that the game is changing—there is no way to do it without picking up the hood and looking at the engine. Not just the oil or the windshield fluid level, but the ENTIRE engine.

Only then can you diagnose what needs to be fixed, so that engine can run how it needs to. Take a lesson from Heathrow and think about your own infrastructure as you plan initiatives for 2011. Does anything need fixing BEFORE that snowstorm hits?

David Armano
Edelman Digital, Chicago
http://davidarmano.com
Follow on Twitter @armano

The Google Blacklist - words blocked by Google

(Mashable Samuel Axon) -

Some folks at the Hacker publication 2600 decided to compile a list of words that are restricted by Google Instant.

Except in extreme and special cases, Google () is known for anything but censorship, but as we’ve said before, there are some terms the web giant’s new instant search feature won’t work with.

We understand Google’s intentions; the team over there is trying to make sure that no one sees pornographic or violent results they might find disturbing unless they really mean to search for them. When asked about this feature a few weeks ago, Google’s Johanna Wright said the restrictions are in place to protect children.

But Google has opened itself up to a potential PR problem, because some of these omissions will be at best bewildering and at worst offensive to particularly sensitive (or progressive) users who don’t understand how Google Instant actually works.

For example, “bisexual” and “lesbian” are among the restricted words. Type them in to Google and the instant search will immediately stop delivering new results. You have to hit enter to confirm, yes, you really do want to know about something in some way related to bisexuals or lesbians.

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Why Did Google Block These Words?

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You can still search for these terms. The issue is that when you type them, Google Instant stops reporting results on the fly, and you must hit “enter” to see results.

That happens because Google Instant doesn’t just use what you’ve typed to display results. It reads data collected over the years about previous users’ searches to predict what you’re going to type. It’s the same algorithm that handles auto-complete, or the Google Suggest pop-ups in the old, not-so-instant Google search. Google searches only display for the exact text that you’ve typed after you’ve hit enter.

When results fail to appear after you’ve typed “lesbian” or “butt,” it’s not because the results are being censored. Google is struggling to prevent the text of offensive searches users have made in the past (there have been other controversies on this subject before) from jumping up in front of you when you’re looking for something innocuous.

Since countless users may have followed the word lesbian with “porn,” generating results inappropriate for children, Google’s algorithm has decided not to immediately throw 20 links to lesbian porn sites in your face when you type “lesbian,” even if that’s the most common search based on the algorithmic data.

When we contacted Google for comment, we received this statement from a spokesperson:

“There are a number of reasons you may not be seeing search queries for a particular topic. Among other things, we apply a narrow set of removal policies for pornography, violence, and hate speech. It’s important to note that removing queries from Autocomplete is a hard problem, and not as simple as blacklisting particular terms and phrases.

In search, we get more than one billion searches each day. Because of this, we take an algorithmic approach to removals, and just like our search algorithms, these are imperfect. We will continue to work to improve our approach to removals in Autocomplete, and are listening carefully to feedback from our users.

Our algorithms look not only at specific words, but compound queries based on those words, and across all languages. So, for example, if there’s a bad word in Russian, we may remove a compound word including the transliteration of the Russian word into English. We also look at the search results themselves for given queries. So, for example, if the results for a particular query seem pornographic, our algorithms may remove that query from Autocomplete, even if the query itself wouldn’t otherwise violate our policies. This system is neither perfect nor instantaneous, and we will continue to work to make it better.”

Google’s highly effective SafeSearch algorithm still applies to instant search results. SafeSearch can filter out potentially offensive search results quite effectively after a user has hit “enter” — the first page of results for “lesbian” with moderate safe search enabled is completely innocuous — and it works for searches in progress too.

Google’s current implementation is far from perfect — the company rep admitted that. If nothing else, we’d like to see Google manually re-enter safe suggestions for some common terms that have been restricted because they’re sometimes connected with sexual, violent or hateful results.

The rep told us that Google is working on improving the system, but wouldn’t give us any specifics about future changes. In the meantime, check out the complete list at 2600 if you’re curious.

How Facebook users interact with Brands

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum and Mashable.com

While much of finding what works for your business on social media sites is a process of trial and error, recent stats from e-mail marketing firm ExactTarget (which recently acquired social CRM platform CoTweet) shed some light on how the Facebook population uses the site, and specifically, how it interacts with brands.

First, the good news: Based on its study of 1,500 Facebook users, ExactTarget concluded that 38% of online U.S. consumers “Like” (formerly “Fan”) a brand on the social networking site. And the average fan Likes nine different brands, giving you plenty of opportunity to find your way into potential customers’ news feeds.

The news that presents a challenge to businesses looking to benefit from Facebook, however, is that just because someone has Liked you doesn’t mean they’re ready to see your promotional messages. Citing an earlier study, ExactTarget reports that 70% of consumers don’t think becoming a fan equates to opting in to marketing.

Fortunately, ExactTarget didn’t stop there, and did some research into what motivates users to Like companies on Facebook. The results offer some insight into what you can do as a business to keep the fans you accumulate engaged and not hitting the “hide” button in their news feeds. Here’s the breakdown of why users might “Like” your brand, illustrated by the percentage of respondents who said that they use Facebook for the listed activity:

• 40% to receive discounts and promotions
• 39% to show my support for the company to others
• 36% to get a “freebie”
• 34% to stay informed about the activities of the company
• 33% to get updates on future products
• 30% to get updates on upcoming sales
• 29% for fun or entertainment
• 25% to get access to exclusive content
• 22% someone recommended it to me
• 21% to learn more about the company
• 13% for education about company topics
• 13% to interact

On the surface, some of these findings seem to conflict with the idea of users being resistant to marketing messages. But the real takeaway is that users like brands for a wide variety of reasons, and the mix of content you post to your Facebook Page should reflect that.

There’s a bit more to it than that, however, if you dive further into some of ExactTarget’s findings relating to demographics and usage patterns. For instance, 65% of Facebook users only access the site when they’re not at work or school – typically meaning early morning or evening. That means that if you’re making social media only a part of a 9 to 5 work day, you might be missing out on connecting with consumers during the times they’re likely to be online.

There are also differences in how men and women use the site, with women indicating that their primary focus on the site is on maintaining relationships (by a margin of 63% to 54%), implying that they have less time for engaging with businesses.

Hopefully, by combining some of these broader findings with your own analytics and anecdotal successes and failures, you can refine your strategy to grow both your fan base and your levels of engagement.

(CNET) -- For Stanford University student Feross Aboukhadijeh, what started off as a bet fueled by youthful ambition and technical bravado, ended up an Internet hit and quite possibly a job.

Last week, Aboukhadijeh, 19, was just an ordinary, albeit talented, college student as he tested out Google Instant, the Web giant's new predictive search results feature. He was immediatelyimpressed on its debut Wednesday but also inspired. To his roommate, he said, "I bet you I can build YouTube Instant in an hour." And his roommate took him up on the bet.

Aboukhadijeh didn't quite make the hour deadline, but three hours later, YouTube Instant was born. The site lets people search the enormous YouTube video database in real time.

He spent a couple more hours Thursday sprucing up the user interface. And before going to sleep that night, he posted his work to his Facebook page.

"When I woke up Friday morning there was craziness," he said.

By "craziness," Aboukhadijeh means countless e-mails congratulating him, a bevy of interview requests, a server flooded with Web traffic, the creation of a Wikipedia entry in his name, and -- perhaps most notably -- a job offer from YouTube CEO Chad Hurley via Twitter.

Unsure just how seriously to take the tweeted job offer, Aboukhadijeh replied along the lines of "Is this a for-real offer?" Hurley then e-mailed him to set up a meeting, which is scheduled for Monday at YouTube's San Bruno, Calif., headquarters, Aboukhadijeh said.

YouTube officials didn't respond to an e-mail request sent Friday from CNET seeking confirmation of the job offer or meeting.

Aboukhadijeh is just finishing up a summer internship with Facebook, but he doesn't see how that would prohibit his taking a job at YouTube, which is owned by Google.

"I'd like to finish college," he added, which he agreed could pose the bigger problem.

Much like Google Instant, YouTube Instant lets people type in what they're looking for, and the engine guesses what that video is. By design, it plays the video immediately. However, based on feedback, Aboukhadijeh said he's working on play and pause features, among other improvements.

"It's not as useful as Google Instant if you know exactly what you're looking for, since you're shown distracting YouTube videos on the way to your destination," Aboukhadijeh told All Thing Digital's Peter Kafka. "But I think this is perfect for many Internet users."

He built the site using the YouTube API but scraped YouTube search suggestions after Google blocked his server for making too many repeated requests to the search suggestion endpoint. Aboukhadijeh ended up re-writing the site to instead query YouTube directly for search suggestions, "eliminating the round-trip to my server," he said.

Aboukhadijeh, who is from Sacramento, California, said he's been blown away by how quickly his tool went viral and is grateful for all the supportive feedback.

"I'm amazed and humbled by all the attention it's received. So thank you," he said.

But imitation is the highest form of flattery, and it appears he's got that, too. TechCrunch on Saturday pointed to Alabama-based developer Michael Hart, who, inspired by Aboukhadijeh, used jQuery and the Google Maps API to build Google Maps Instant. And the same blogger later pointed to an all-encompassing Instantise page that gives a home to the evidently quickly growing number of sites with instant, predictive search results.

Instantise was reportedly designed by Scottish engineer Tam Denholm, TechCrunch said.

Aboukhadijeh is a majoring in computer science, but his technical expertise has been developing over many years.

Around age 5, when his parents bought a new microwave oven, he took the manual and learned how to turn on the child lock, something his parents never learned to do. That knowledge came in handy when he was old enough to get grounded -- he would lock it up and use it as a bargaining chip.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/14/cnet.youtube.instant.creator/index.html