Ever since Facebook launched its open developers platform almost a year ago Facebook Apps have been all the rage, including a wide range of Apps developed in support of various charities. However, for anyone not especially into software development the idea of creating your own Facebook App may well never have occurred. Where do you start even if you want to have a go?
Well, based on the 30 mins I’ve just spent creating a simple little Facebook App for this blog (which you can add to your Facebook profile with just a couple of clicks here) a good place to start is at Widgetbox. As well as being a place to browse through over 50,000 web widgets, the site also enables you to create your own - through an incredibly easy to follow step-by-step, point-and-click process. There’s even a way to turn your widgets into cash - although I haven’t looked-into that as yet.
It’s free to use and, while the Widget and Facebook App I produced are very simple (actually a Blidget, apparently - a widget carrying a blog feed), if you’ve got more than half an hour to spend learning the ropes then you may well be able to come-up with something more sophisticated.
I just heard yesterday that this blog is now included in the Alltop Nonprofits listing at nonprofits.alltop.com - a very handy directory of all sorts of blogs relating to nonprofits, philanthropy, online fundraising, charities using social networks, etc. etc… with RSS feeds of their latest posts.
Take a look - it’s a nice easy way to catch-up with some really interesting content.
A bit of fun from telecoms company Orange, who have set-up a survey-based site that uses your responses to questions on internet use to calculate your ‘Internet Age’ - from ‘Online Toddler’ to ‘Virtual Vetran’.
I ended-up with 11 out of 16, making me ‘Dot Competent’ - which feels about right (having zeroed-out on the online dating questions - my dating days being back in a pre-internet age;-).
While undoubtedly intended as the basis for some future ‘research’-based PR activity, the range of questions asked is actually quite interesting as reference if you’re planning your own online research to determine levels of supporter internet use.
Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, has just released its first dedicated report on social networking in the UK. It’s free to download and makes very useful reading - essentially an extremely well researched one-stop primer on the whole subject. Alternately, if reading a report is just far too ‘old media’ for you, then you can watch a summary video - just click on the YouTube screen I’ve embedded above.
Largely based on Ofcom’s own quantitative and qualitative research, the report highlights a range of interesting usage findings - such as:
- The UK apparently has a higher level of social networking site take-up than the US, Japan, France, Germany and Italy. The only country where social networking is more popular is Canada.
- On average, adult social network users have profiles on 1.6 sites and check their profile at least every other day.
- Nearly a quarter of those who visit social networking sites are aged over 50.
Of particular interest to me is the attitudinally-based segmentation of social network users and rejectors developed on the back of the qualitative research, which provides some useful insights into different audiences for social networks.
The report also examines privacy and safety issues, including both primary research and a literature review.
Overall, it’s a must-read for UK-based marketers and fundraisers working with social media (or just wanting to know what it’s all about).
All this great research insight for free! Go on… hit download, grab a cup of tea, and go read it.
Last week marked the fifth anniversary of the Google Grants scheme, developed to support the online marketing activity of non-profits by providing free AdWords advertising to organisations selected through an online application process.
Currently available in 16 countries, and with more apparently on the way, the anniversary provides a useful reminder for any non-profits using, or looking to use, Search Engine Marketing to check out the scheme and see if it might be of use to them. Although, as reported in a comment to my earlier post about Google Grants, the programme may well be of more use to smaller organisations than those with a well developed SEM .
