Ads Off @ Ma.gnolia

With their new Ads Off subscriptions, the gang at Ma.gnolia continue to "pay it forward" and talk the talk when it comes to community and a social experience.

No matter which subscription you choose (there are two plans) you extend the ad-free experience to others interested in what you're doing on Ma.gnolia. So you can feel free to share your profile and your bookmarks with others and they, too, will have an ad-free experience.

We think this offering is a 3-way win

A win for Ma.gnolia, with affordable support that goes right back into R&D. We’re not buying jets or writing our own browser here.

A win for people interested in your links, and your group members win with a more focussed Ma.gnolia experience.

A win for you, with a benefit that works for you on every Ma.gnolia page, for a full year, costing at most about a week’s worth of lattes. And unlike a week’s worth of lattes, Ads Off has no calories.

http://ma.gnolia.com/blog/2008/10/07/ads-on-and-ads-off

Our government partners are often hesitant to use ad-based services since they don't want constituents to think they are endorsing any particular products or services. If YouTube offered a subscription service that would essentially remove all the chaff from your profile and video pages, I'm confident it would be a major success.

Kudos to Ma.gnolia for once again thinking outside of the box. Here's hoping more services start thinking this way.

Sunlight and Tweeting

The Sunlight Foundation is once again taking on "the deepest darkest holes" in all of government -- i.e. the House floor, according to Congressman John Culberson (R- TX).

Culberson recently started a bit of a firestorm on Twitter.com regarding his ability to use social networking sites and other live streaming technologies (think Twitter, Qik, etc.) from the floor of Congress.



Aaron Brazell (Technosailor.com) wrote a very thorough post that does a good job of highlighting both sides of the issue. I won't attempt to go into the nitty gritty, so if you want the gory details check out his lengthy post, which includes the documents and proposals in question.

Back to my lead -- the Sunlight Foundation launched a very cool Twitter-based "petition" called Let Our Congress Tweet. The premise of the "petition" is simple: "Congressional rules should not prevent lawmakers from joining us in online conversations."

But why do you keep putting quotes around "petition," you ask? Well, because signing it is as simple as including the following text in your tweet: #LOCT08

For people not completely familiar with the ins and outs of Twitter, that's called a "hashtag," and several services track them via search: hashtags.org, twemes.com, and summize.com. (Summize is a great overall search engine for Twitter, but many developers are building Summize search directly into their application if you click on a #hashtag. Click and see for yourself.)

So, the Sunlight Foundation is simply tracking the use of the #LOCT08 hashtag -- you are not necessarily "signing" anything. They are being somewhat pretty straightforward about this, using the language "join our petition," instead of "sign," and saying "track...the latest tweets about #LOCT08". I focus on this, because a) I think it's a brilliant new use for Twitter and advocacy, and b) since it's the first of its kind, I wonder about people indiscriminately using the #LOCT08 hashtag (for or against) and getting "counted" in the petition.

The value of social networking and social software for politicians is definitely up for debate, but the hope is that these new technologies can help shed some light on the processes and people at work in our government. Just as Twitter has done for coporations like JetBlue, Zappos, Comcast, and others, the hope is that this new line of communication can bridge the gap between politicians and their constituents. The exciting part? It's interactive and real time.

Update: Avelino Maestas has a great entry over at the Huffington Post.

Update 2: NPR spoke with Technosailor himself this morning, and is covering the story.

Update 3: Speaker Pelosi responds! She says that "inaccurate rumors have been circulated."

The Web's Most Useful Sites (according to PC Magazine)

PC Magazine profiles the heavy-hitters of Web 2.0. Event calendars, to-do lists, word processors, bookmark managers, desktop widgets, etc. Not too many surprises, but a couple of smaller companies make a big splash (congrats 30 Boxes!).

I'm happy to say that several of the winners are on my daily hit-list: 30 Boxes, Upcoming.org (I don't visit daily, but my upcoming events are pulled into 30B), Remember the Milk, Del.icio.us, Meebo, Yelp... even Pandora FM made the list!

while you're at it, check out Mike Arrington's list of web 2.0 companies he can't live without. [digg it!]

read more | digg it!

Zooomr Pro Accounts for FREE

Zooomr (think "flickr delta" -- get it, instead of gamma? oh boy.) is giving away free Pro accounts to any blogger who hosts an image for their blog through Zooomr. Sounds like a great way to start experimenting with this site!

So, here is my dear dog doing what she does best (and most):

Lola the Diva DogHosted on Zooomr

flickr no longer in beta

flickr has moved out of beta and into... gamma! pretty cool for them to acknowledge that it's still a work in progress, a web app that can only get better. i predict others will follow suit, to be trendy. though google may be stubborn and keep everything in beta... forever! ;)

anyway, other than the new gamma logo, the changes are very cool, too. the new "organizr" is my favorite upgrade, very useful stuff.