2009 October

What The Wall Street Journal Has, Few Will Match

by Jason Falls · October 30, 2009

Mediaweek magazine puts together a “Digital Hot List” each year of the websites or companies they see as having the potential to wow the web world. Their list never seems to be much of a surprise, especially when you consider Google, Facebook and Twitter are sort of default entries, but there’s always one or two on it that raise an eyebrow.

This year it’s the Wall Street Journal‘s website, WSJ.com, in at No. 8. Yep! The website property of a traditional media outlet is on Mediaweek‘s Digital Hot List. And no, it’s not a joke.

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Shave My Goatee For Male Cancer Research

by Jason Falls · October 29, 2009

A funny thing happened on Twitter last night. David Armano and I got into a (light hearted and fun) discussion about the two of us being sexy bitches. (I know … silly, but bear with me here.)

Somehow the notion of me shaving my goatee to raise money for a good cause came up. So, I’ve decided to support Movemeber, the male cancer awareness movement, by pledging to you that if we can raise $1,000.00 by Nov. 15, which I will donate to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, I will shave my goatee. Sure, it’s a small personal sacrifice (I’ve had my goat since roughly 1977), but it’s for a good cause. Click below and help us raise money for a great cause.

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Postrank Expands Engagement Measurement

by Jason Falls · October 28, 2009

Disclosure: Postrank is a sponsor of Social Media Explorer which pays to advertise in the right hand side bar space. I have written extensively about them before they became a sponsor and will continue to do so because they offer a service relevant to you. Their advertising here does not effect my editorial comments or recommendations about them (I’m free to criticize), but it’s safe to say I dig Postrank. Fair?

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A Moment In Social Media History: 7th Son

by Jason Falls · October 27, 2009

If you’ve ever had doubts about the power of the groundswell or social media, allow me the opportunity to introduce you to J.C. Hutchins. In 2006, the Louisville native (only one of the many reasons I dig the guy) was dutifully submitting his sci-fi trilogy novels called 7th Son to book publishers. No one would give him the time of day. The stories were about human cloning, complete with a conspiracy sparked by the assassination of an American president, but they were probably a bit too “out there” for publishers at the time.

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Understanding Natural Language Processing For Social Media Monitoring

by Jason Falls · October 23, 2009

In our explorations of social media monitoring firms, one differentiating factor between services is often the ability to parse out sentiment and tone of online conversations found about your brand. This task is performed by sophisticated computer functionality called natural language processing (NLP). It’s not the sexiest topic in the world, but it’s a very important one for public relations professionals, marketers and brand managers to understand.

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Filter Tweets By Location With MyTPSReport.com

by Jason Falls · October 20, 2009

Disclosure: The Humana Innovation Center is a client and I’ve been involved with this project. I trust you know I wouldn’t share it here if it weren’t relevant.

Yesterday, my friends at the Humana Innovation Center opened MyTPSReport.com to public beta. The tool (TPS stands for Tweet Positioning System) offers you the ability to filter Twitter conversations based on geography so you can zone in on trending topics or hot issues at a more local level. All you do is search for your topic (let’s say, “swine flu”) and you can see where conversations are happening around the topic.

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