Sarah Granger

June 15, 2011

Recent thoughts on open government and cybersecurity

The two biggest issue areas in IT policy that I’ve been working on the past few years include open government and cybersecurity. While they may sound like they’re in opposition, that’s not really the case. It is possible to have smart security and open government. Not everything can be open, not everything can be secured. The devil’s in the details.

Here’s a video of me talking about open government to the California Democratic Party’s Science & Technology Summit a few months ago: http://qik.com/swfs/qikPlayer5.swf

And on the cybersecurity side, I’ve been speaking on a lot of panels and providing training sessions trying to provide a framework where non-technical policy advisors and politicos can better understand the issues and proposed legislation.

This week I’ll be speaking at Netroots Nation on a panel entitled “Cyberwar: Wikileaks, Stuxnet, and the Proactive Progressive Response.” Last month, I spoke at the Truman National Security Project annual conference. Tomorrow I will be on WWL Radio’s “Think Tank” show for a few minutes talking about recent cyber attacks (Citibank, Lockheed, RSA, IMF, Sony, the Senate… the list keeps growing).

February 22, 2011

Facebook Birthdays

Filed under: culture,new media — Sarah Granger @ 11:26 am
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Today’s my birthday, and everyone knows it thanks to Facebook. But I’m OK with that because I have come to look forward to the birthday greetings once a year, particularly after my dad’s death. It’s been nice to know friends are nearby, sending kind notes and messages.

The Causes app is also great – I forgot to use it this year because I’ve been so preoccupied with everything else – I was hoping to ask people to contribute where my dad had asked for donations upon his death, the Children’s TLC (Therapeutic Learning Center) in Kansas City. So here’s my request, if anyone still wants to do so. Just send $10 online and they will appreciate it greatly. Donate here.

Thanks to all who have helped in many different ways online and off over the past month and a half. Thanks to you, hopefully this will be more of a happy than sad b-day.

February 18, 2011

Using social media while grieving

Filed under: health,new media — Sarah Granger @ 10:10 pm
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Today I put up a post at SFGate about what I went through online while grieving the first month following my dad’s death. It’s called “Stages of Grieving Online.” I took the commonly used stages of dealing with grief and transported it to the online experience I had. I hope it is helpful to people.

October 22, 2010

Social media in political campaigns

Filed under: new media,politics — Sarah Granger @ 10:13 pm
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I could write volumes about social media use in campaigns, but I put up a post at SFGate that explains where we are now, esp. in respect to local and statewide races for the 2010 election.

February 9, 2010

Social media for breaking gender barriers in government

Filed under: government,new media,women — Sarah Granger @ 10:25 pm
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One of the things I’ve tried to do with this blog – since it’s a casual one – is make a lot of useful lists for people. I’ve written some of those at other places as well, and put tips in other locations, but most of my notes, lists, tips tend to end up here.

Today I posted some useful tips at HuffPost about practical strategies for breaking gender barriers in government using social media. These tips can be transferred to other industries and sectors as well, but so far they’ve been well-received.

January 30, 2010

New media revenue models

Filed under: business,media,new media,women — Sarah Granger @ 4:49 am
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>At today’s Women in Periodical Publishing annual Women’s Leadership Conference, many of the sessions focused on the future of media and how to make money off the media (i.e. how to stay alive, adapt and thrive). Since the speakers were so kind to share what they have learned from their research and experience, I compiled a list.

In no particular order, here are some of the ways (emerging as well as traditional) to make money off of new media in consumer markets:
- advertising – not just banner ads, but used with e-mail, text, video and through third party or localized deals
- sponsorships – special deals where sponsors get extra promotion through events (online and off), articles, ads, buttons, etc.
- micropayments – tips, mini subscriptions, small donations or other crowdfunded models
- virtual goods – creation of virtual products that mimic real life products, sold for small amounts to the consumer for use in virtual environments
- print-on-demand systems – provide a physical publication that’s printed individually for the reader
- mobile applications – iPhone, Android, other – licensed app use to view content via mobile devices
- contests – provide a product or service to winners with sponsors or some sort of fee
- content licensing – paid syndication or other licensing agreements for creative content (posts, articles, photos, video)
- subscriptions or memberships – paid use of content either on the web and/or on tablet devices, such as iPad or Kindle (*note this has been more successful in the Kindle market than it has on web browsers)

Of course the panelists noted that some of these models are typically more successful than others, but it does depend on the content and the audience. For those who have research or more detailed information on which kinds of business models tend to be most successful in their own experiences, I look forward to your comments.

December 22, 2009

Social Networking How-To’s

Filed under: new media — Sarah Granger @ 12:38 pm
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I’ve written several articles for Digital Landing and it’s a great site for beginner tips on IT, cable, mobile and social media. Here’s a link to their social media page where there are links to articles I wrote about Twitter basics, Twitter Lists, Google Wave and more.

November 9, 2009

Recap of a busy week – politics, new media, gov 2.0 and more

>Last week was a whirlwind on the local level… after Newsom dropped out of the CA governors’ race, I wrote a piece about it that had a pretty good reception at The Huffington Post but was maimed by trolls at SFGate. Having seen this happen before for other writers, I reluctantly decided to remove all comments. I reviewed the problem with other blogger friends who confirmed it’s a common problem for newspapers-turned-online publications.

I put up a detailed response at SFGate explaining the problem to readers and the community there and received a lot of letters via e-mail in support. The SFGate staff also were responsive as well, looking into what they can do with the system that will help solve their comment moderation problem. (IMO it shouldn’t be that hard technically – they’re using Moveable Type – it’s more a matter of budgeting the staff time and having a smart plan in place.)

After spending way more time on that last week, I was able to shift gears back to tech, I finished an article about Twitter Lists for Digital Landing. I’ve been researching Twitter Lists since they first launched, and one of my lists of the Women in Politics & Tech group (WIPT) was put on the Change.org list of Ten Feminist Twitter Lists.

Saturday, I headed to CA Data Camp where I caught up with local government, non-profit and media people who are passionate about open government. We talked about data specifics, data transfer, local applications, data and media and the related national scope. I’ll be putting up at least one post at the Personal Democracy Forum about that. Here’s a great summary at Spot.Us. Meanwhile, I was invited this week to be on two more conference program committees. More on that when they’re official.

Meanwhile, as we were finishing up with the data apps in SF, the House voted on their final version of the healthcare reform bill. It was interesting to follow that on Twitter while in a room full of government software developers. Finally, I was surprised this morning to be on a list of Top 20 Women Political Bloggers (I think the list is a subset of liberal bloggers who are also moms).

This week, I’m working on an article about Google Wave and editing a book on confidential information. I’m also working on a couple new gov 2.0 related projects that I hope to write more about soon.

October 23, 2009

Geek Summit, Social Media Style

Filed under: new media,sfbay area,technology — Sarah Granger @ 6:07 pm
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>In a flurry of panels, one-on-one dialogues, product promos and surprise guests, the three day Web 2.0 Summit just held in San Francisco felt a bit like speed dating for tech companies:

“Hi, my name’s HP and I’m eco-friendly. What’s your sign?”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Google, and I can search your shared social media and make sure you’re not too creepy.”
“I’m MySpace. I’m a sensitive artist. Wanna come over and see my etchings?”

Bringing together Silicon Valley execs, media moguls, content producers and techie elite in one place wasn’t an easy feat, but O’Reilly Media and TechWeb did a bang-up job, overflowing the ballroom at The Westin San Francisco Market Street.

Not afraid to bring out a little tension from high stakes competitors in the growing new media marketplace, John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly asked some sharp and intriguing questions of the speakers, enticing a Battle of the Bands style presentation as many presenters made major product announcements during the conference, including large screen demos and glossy booths. Wednesday’s sponsoring headliner was Microsoft, introducing Bing’s Twitter search, just before Google’s encore performance announcing a Twitter deal and their upcoming Social Search.

The metropolitan crowd came laptops in-hand and left with plenty of exciting new ideas to take home and prepare for the next new new thing, but the waves rippling across the twitterverse will continue. Meanwhile, check out John Battelle’s conference play list.

(Reposted from my column at SFGate.com.)

July 26, 2009

Top Twitter Tools List

>In working on my article for Digital Landing on how to make the most of Twitter, I researched dozens of great applications. Since I couldn’t write about them all in my article there, I decided to post the list of what I looked at here, so anyone can have a look. Of course there are more that are not on this list, but I have other resource lists where those can be found at the top.

Is there something great I’m missing on the list? Add it in the comments or email me at sairy(at)sairy(dot)com – or just tweet to @sairy.

Overall Twitter resources:

  • Twitter Fan Wiki – Everything you ever wanted to know about Twitter
  • Alltop Twitter Page – great blogs all about Twitter and related apps
  • @Twitter_Tips – great fed of all kinds of Twitter tools
  • @TweetingTools – more good tips on Twitter, with random quotes to boot 

    Twitter search and display:

  • Twitter Search – official Twitter search
  • Twitterfall – view tweets via subject as they “fall” like a waterfall down the screen 

    Multi-account and multi-user applications:

  • Tweetdeck – desktop & mobile apps (Mac, Windows, Linux) that allows for groupings and advanced features; top favorite of all apps
  • PeopleBrowsr – highly configurable, full featured web-based series of apps for Twitter use – includes search and configurable groupings apps
  • Tweetie – multi-account viewer for the Mac
  • Cotweet – multi-user twitter, ideal for businesses; the standard-bearer in business Twitter use
  • Twhirl – multi-account viewer for Windows & Mac (based on Adobe Air)
  • Tweetvisor – browser-based Twitter that allows for viewing tweets, @replies and DMs all at one on a quick interface
  • Nambu – robust viewer for the Mac
  • HootSuite – sleek, web-based multi-account Twitter interface; also comes with a Hootlet toolbar mini-app that works with Firefox, Safari and IE
  • Twibble – desktop app for Mac, Linux and Windows, supports multiple accounts
  • Seesmic Desktop – well reputed desktop app for Mac or Windows (based on Adobe Air)
  • Seesmic Web App – very clean UI for single-account Twitter view 

    For the iPhone:

  • Tweetie – easy-to-use, full-featured multi-account application
  • Twitterific – multi-account Twitter, but minus a few features
  • Tweetdeck – multiple accounts, syncs, works with yfrog and Twitpic, URL shorteners; configurable
  • Nambu – fairly sophisticated app for single-Twitter use, integrated with FriendFeed, pic.im and tr.im
  • Twitterfon – basic, clear interface
  • Seesmic – iPhone app coming soon
  • Birdfeed – clean app with local caching and timestamps 

    For the Blackberry:

  • Twitterberry – most popular Twitter updating software for Blackberry
  • Twibble – mobile version of desktop app integrated with Twitpic
  • UberTwitter – full featured app; integrated with Google Talk 

    For Windows Mobile:

  • TinyTwitter – basic app for using Twitter (note: entire site optimized for mobile devices, not traditional browsers)
  • ceTwit – full featured client that works with Twitpic and Ping.fm
  • Quakk – open source Twitter app 

    Twitter Feed Tools:

  • Twitterfeed – efficiently feeds blogs to twitter, allowing for added text configuration and timing
  • FriendFeed – view multiple twitter & other social media feeds
  • Posterous – posts to blogs and twitter feeds on a wide range of platforms; recommended by Guy Kawasaki
  • Lazyfeed – allows for blog feeds (like a feed reader) as well as input to personal feeds; similar to FriendFeed but a more professional UI 

    Stats & Analysis:

  • Twitter Grader – gives grades based on a 100% scale, based on number of followers, power of followers, number of updates, update recency, engagement level and follower/following ratio
  • Twitterank – ranking algorithm built by a Google programmer, rates percentages of accounts
  • Twitalyzer & Twitalyzer Pro – analyzes overall influence, retweets, references to and mentions of the account, with Pro features showing top influencers in your network
  • Twitterholic.com – tracks followers, friends and updates over time
  • Socialtoo – allows for surveys & stats but have to pay for Twitter stats
  • Twitter Analyzer – has nice graphs of usage by keyword, hashtags, etc.
  • TweetStats – graphs tweets per hour, month, etc.
  • Tweet Counter – sends reminders when users are close to major milestones like 100, 1000, etc.
  • twInfluence – provides sleek graphs of usage by interface, @replies, RT’s, by month, days of the week, and time of day 

    Follower Management:

  • Twerp Scan – “anti-fool contact management” system; can manage by followers or those being followed and is quick to add/subtract – much more efficient than follower management in Twitter
  • Mr. Tweet – recommendation engine
  • WeFollow – adds users to searchable threads
  • SocialNewsWatch List of Top 237 Twitter Users Who Will Follow You Back – what it says it is, based on number of followers
  • Tweet Friends – compares 2 twitter feeds for common friends added over past 24 hours (or so) 

    Browser Plug-Ins:

  • Twitter Friend Bios – plugin for Firefox browser
  • Shareaholic – drop-down plugin for viewing multiple social networking feeds
  • Twitbin – sidebar plugin for Firefox 

    Marketing & Advertising Tools:

  • EasyTweets – cost depends on number of feeds, accounts, and continuous searches; posts automatically to Twitter
  • Twittad – affinity network that connects twitter feeds with advertisers; works on mobile devices
  • TweetROI – tweet about whatever you want (from their list of advertisers) and get paid for it
  • Magpie – embedded ads into user timelines
  • Izea – boasting 25,000 advertisers and 250,000 bloggers, they produce “sponsored conversations” 

    Payment Engines:

  • twitpay – allows for Twitter payments via PayPal; for all kinds of purposes via RT2Buy system
  • tipjoy – makes it easy to pay other Twitter users or to let them pay you with a simple ‘p $x @user’ command 

    Twitter Backgrounds:

  • PrettyTweet – creates twitter backgrounds 

    Images & Videos via Twitter:

  • yfrog – enables image & video sharing
  • Twitpic – sends photos to Twitter, view photos posted by others
  • pic.im – photo URLs and stats, usable with Twitter 

    Assistive Tools:

  • Twitwoop – allows you to record tweets by voice
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