Using the Web to Save Darfur

Here at TBG, we firmly believe that our clients, whether they be corporations, non-profits, or political candidates, should use their websites as conduits for relaying narratives that will spur visitors to action.  Amnesty International's new Eyes on Darfur website (screenshot below) is probably the best example of this tactic that I have ever seen.

 A collaboration between Amnesty International and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Eyes on Darfur makes the atrocities happening in Sudan a reality for people otherwise removed from the situation.  Using satellite imagery, Eyes on Darfur shows the destruction of individual villages in Darfur and Chad, providing pre-crisis imagery of villages and pinpointing structures that have since been destroyed.  The site also uses this technology to identify villages that are still currently at risk. Satellite photos are accompanied by statistics, first-hand accounts, and official reports explaining the events in specific villages.  Visitors to the site can also read background information of the conflict, view photos from villages, and learn about the international response to the situation and what life in Darfur is actually like.

Mona Younis, director of the Science and Human Rights Program at the AAAS told the Washington Post that "The initiative is an example of how science and technology can be applied to expose human rights violations."

Not only is Eyes on Darfur a source of information, but it is also a platform for taking action.  Visitors can sign petitions, send messages to officials, and forward information to friends directly through the website.  The detailed visual information and emotional narrative about the situation in Darfur provide visitors with extremely compelling reasons to get involved, and the site infrastructure makes it really easy to do so.

It's great to see Amnesty harnessing the web for such an important cause.  I really encourage everyone to visit the site and show your support.

Washington Post Local Explorer

Today Cyberjournalist points to a feature on the Washington Post website called Local Explorer. Cyberjournalist summarizes:

You can map information on recent area home sales, crime incidents, schools, fire and police stations, restaurants, bars, hospitals, movie theaters and more. Local Explorer also has facts and figures, local news, classifieds and upcoming events that will help take users further inside area communities.

This is one of the better Google Maps mashups I’ve seen. If you don’t live in the DC area, click here to see the results for zip code 20007 (our office zip).

NBC’s iPredict: Predicting the News?

MSNBC.com has an interesting interactive feature named iPredict in which people can guess future developments in news stories (hat tip: Mathew Ingram).  The program has a digg-like voting system in which participants can the likelihood of a specific event by voting “Very likely,” “Likely,” “Toss up,” “Unlikely,” or “Very unlikely.” Right now there are topics from “Harry Potter will die in the final book” to “Gas prices will hit $4 a gallon by Labor Day.”

Interesting (and kind of morbid when it comes to Harry)…

Let’s see how popular this feature is. I wonder how group predictions will fare.

Howard Kurtz, will you be one of my Facebook friends?

Breaking news: Washington Post media critic and CNN's Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz has joined Facebook!

Okay, that isn't breaking news, but he chronicles his first venture into the social networking site in his column in the Post today titled "Searching for Friends." 

First off, he reveals that his college-age daughter "essentially indicated she would rather torch her computer than give me access to her page" by accepting his invitation to "friend."  Yikes!  Tricks are for kids, Howie, and I doubt you would like to see that computer, which you likely paid for, go up in flames.

Further, he states how he has waited and waited (and waited) for others to honor his friending requests with some people he actually knows while receiving random requests from people who simply wanted to see their friend totals burgeon. 

Thanks to Facebook's newsfeed — which I argue is a great marketing tool — he learned a lot about his new "friend" Kelly from Toronto as she joined highly focused groups that typically only comprise of a small set of her friends.  "Maybe this is the 21st-century equivalent of hanging out," Howie wonders.

While Howie is still trying to figure out Facebook along with an outright rejection from his daughter, he has 35 friends — including BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis, Portfolio's Matt Cooper, Time's Karen Tumulty, and Slate's Emily Yoffe – as of this posting (make that 36 if he accepts my friending request).  He's catching on. 

In fact, grown ups like Emily Yoffe have proven that Tricks aren't just for kids on sites like Facebook since she has over 1,000 "friends."  Perhaps that since she wrote "Facebook for Fiftysomethings" for Slate and enjoys the honor of a group dedicated to her.  Most importantly, she has played by the rules: join and accept random friend requests.  Granted, Yoffe probably has just a smidgen of what a 2008 Presidential hopeful has, but she's not doing that bad.  We'll see how Howie does.

Now joining a social network in the first place and accepting random friend requests might seem ridiculous for fiftysomethings on Facebook, but it is one way to be hip and cool like teenagers and twentysomethings.  On the other hand, this technique does diminish the social network's ability to aptly maintain your real world friendships. 

However, I wonder what happens when young Facebook friends want to make their social network relationships less trivial and actually meet and interact with their famous "friends."  Does anyone know of any such occurrence, or are high schoolers and twentysomethings simply content with on-line friendships?  If Facebook celebrities like Yoffee and Barack Obama honor such requests, good on em'!

Oh yeah, Howie, if you decide to accept my friend request, I would like to speak with you about one of your books…  Would that make our friending on Facebook more meaningful for you?

CNN Launches New Beta Website

This morning, Steve pointed to me to the new beta version of the CNN.com website, which is now available for public testing. You can view it here and take a guided tour of the new site here. Following are a few things that jumped out at me: Continue reading “CNN Launches New Beta Website” »