IN THIS ISSUE:

• WebWarriors: The 'Our Country Deserves Better PAC'
• Drill-Down Info on Twitter with Topsy.com
• Wanted: 'Do Follow' Bookmarking sites that actually do follow...anyone, anyone?
• 'Citizen Journalism' vs. Journalism
• 13.4 Gigapixel Camera (for your gadget gurus)

WEBWARRIORS: THE 'OUR COUNTRY DESERVES BETTER PAC'

When I put out a call on Facebook last month for nominations for WebWarriors, Joe Wierzbicki nominated his team at the Our Country Deserves Better PAC, specifically in regard to their successful efforts on Facebook:

I love what you’re doing with the web-based push, Jenn. Keep it up!

Conservatives have GOT to do a better job at this if we’re truly going to experience a conservative comeback and “revolution” in 2010 and 2012.

Nathan Tabor [of the Faith, Family, Freedom Alliance] wrote a piece at Townhall.com about our efforts to grow the movement using Facebook. At the time he wrote the piece (a little more than a week ago) we were at 10,000 members…

Well, today, the group has over 64,000 members on Facebook (click HERE to join). Very impressive.

The Our Country Deserves Better PAC is also active on YouTube, on MySpace, and on Twitter. To learn about what they stand for, visit www.OurCountryPAC.com, and clickon “ISSUES.”

DRILL-DOWN INFO ON TWITTER WITH TOPSY.COM

 One of the problems with social networking versus blogging for “numbers-minded” online activsts is that it is more difficult to measure effectiveness in terms of statistics. I’m personally not one of those people (I’m not really even sure my brain actually has a left side), but for those of you who are, this site might help fill that void, at least on Twitter. It’s called Topsy.

Topsy is ultra user-friendly. Just enter a search term (any search term), and you’ll be given easy-to-read statistics on how many times that search term has been used. Try entering your blog name (or url), your username, your real name, your favorite hobby, or any topic of interest to you, and you can see how many times that term is mentioned on Twitter in the last hour, day, week, month, and ever. It’ll also give you the links and number of times those links have been tweeted/re-tweeted on Twitter. If you click on the little orange number next to the link, it’ll show you which Tweeters are talking about your topic.

This is especially great for tracking how much attention a particular link is getting, or for finding fellow Tweeps who like to discuss your favorite topics. Learn more, HERE, or try it for yourself, at Topsy.com.

WANTED: 'DO FOLLOW BOOKMARKING SITES THAT ACTUALLY DO FOLLOW...ANYONE, ANYONE?

 I’ve been hearing a lot lately about social networking sites that are great for “back-links,” on Google.

What’s a back-link? This happens when you post a link to your own blog on another site (usually a social bookmarking site, or the comment section of another blog), which has a Google Page Rank of 4/10 or better, and that site or blog actually links back to your blog without using rel=”nofollow”, preventing that link from “counting” on Technorati or Google. (For more info on why this is important, see Using [and Abusing] rel=”nofollow to Preserve Page Rank.) Note: There is no code for “do follow,” it just happens automatically if there are no “no follow” instructions.

How do you know if you’re getting back-links? They’ll show up as trackbacks or pings in your comments section. They’ll also show up as links on Technorati, and (eventually) under a reverse-search for your blog on Google. If they don’t it’s probably because the site that linked to you is using the rel=”nofollow” code.

So, as you can imagine, a lot of bloggers are anxious to know which social networking sites will give them good back-links. There are a lot of “lists” out there. Socializer.com has one (click on the “Do Follow” link), and there are numerous blogs on Google that have lists, most of which are splogs (”spam blogs”). Many of the lists are out-dated, and contain links to sites that used to be good for back-links but aren’t anymore. I’ve actually tested a good number of the social networking sites on these lists recently and have not been successful in gaining ANY back-links.

So, here’s my question: Has anyone out there been successful in gaining back-links from ANY social networking site in the last 60-90 days? If so, please leave a link to that site HERE, and we’ll check it out. We’re hoping to develop a list of sites that are useful for this purpose. If we’re successful in compiling such a list, we’ll keep you updated.

Also see: Better Ways to Get some Link Love

'CITIZEN JOURNALISM VS. JOURNALISM

 Dan Wooding has an article this week on GoodNewsDaily.net entitled, ‘Citizen Journalism’ is transforming the news business. But is it good or bad?

When I first entered secular journalism in London, England, back in the late sixties, my colleagues warned me against the dangers of “Citizen Journalism.”

In those days, you had to have a National Union of Journalists (NUJ) card to even been get a job on a newspaper and the perks of being a union member were terrific.

We “worked” a four-day week and were pressing for a three-day week because of the “stress” of the four-day week. We got seven weeks paid vacation and wanted even more time off.

My newspaper, the Sunday People, wouldn’t allow us to use electric typewriters as that would make it too efficient.

While on assignment, reporters were not allowed to take photographs as that would deprive our unionized photographers of their living.

No wonder, we didn’t want “Citizen Journalism” as we just wanted “professionals” to ply our trade and, because if they did, we would lose much of our power in shaping the thinking of our readers.

But Rupert Murdoch changed everything in Fleet Street, the center of British journalism, where I “worked.”

His transformation was called the “Wapping Revolution” and in 1986, the owner of News International, moved production of his major titles (The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and The News of the World) from Fleet Street to Wapping, set in London’s Docklands area, and in so doing, he set about an irreversible chain reaction in the structure of journalism in the UK.

It was one of the most dramatic industrial disputes of the last century…

[...]

Reading the tweets from the streets of Tehran as protestors rail against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad, and the intractability of the theocracy of the mullahs, is like entering an entirely new category of reporting. It goes beyond the ground-level observations and interviews of even the finest reporting to deliver something close to a longitudinal study of mass consciousness…Continue reading on GoodNewsDaily.net >>

Also, be sure to follow @GoodNewsDaily on Twitter.

13.4 GIGAPIXEL CAMERA (FOR YOU GADGE GURUS)

by Orlando

Think of the possibilities with a 13.4 Gigapixel Camera. This fascinating video shows you some of those things.

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