A Look At Failed Social Networks

Many social networking sites have come and gone, though it's easy to forget about most of them with monsters like Youtube and Facebook acting like they are the only kids in the classroom.  Social networking online began with a site called Six Degrees which basically invented the social-circle networking guidelines that are used by so many sites today. ...

The New New York Times Website

In looking over our data for this year's Newspaper Report due out later on this month it’s easy to see American newspaper studies are in dire straights. With subscription rates falling and more people getting their news online newspapers have had to revamp their old business model. No American newspaper seems to be taking a more proactive attitude towards the threat of the web then The New York Times....

Techmeme: News Automation Doesn’t Work

<Cross post from our ImpactWatch blog>

I am a big fan of the tech news aggregator Techmeme as well as its politically focused sister site Memeorandum (not so much the gossip focused WeSmirch).   Both sites use complex algorithms to discover and group new content in real time.  I read both sites on a daily basis as a way of getting a sort of Cliffs Notes summary of what is going on in the tech and political blogosphere on a given day. ...

Using Digg to Your Best Advantage

Utilizing Digg can be one of the best ways to generate large amounts of traffic to your site or blog, however, before you start getting your hands dirty remember, regardless what social media application you use, the biggest thing you can bring to the table is value.

This applies to Digg....

Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner Wants to Tweet

This afternoon I attended the Conservative Bloggers Briefing during which The Heritage Foundation's President Ed Feulner discussed the current state of conservatism. 

I expected to hear that Feulner is optimistic, but I was pleasantly surprised to listen to him extol the importance of new and social media.  He spoke about how often he hears congressmen and women mention that they were thrilled to receive a flood of e-mails urging them to vote one way or another on a piece of legislation and ignore the potential to use those e-mail addresses to promote action and improve constituent relationships. ...