Some people really thrive on the excitement of aggressively securing a new lead, while others are uncomfortable with the pursuit. In either case, there’s no excuse — especially with all the information available on the Internet these days — for not performing even the most basic research before reaching out to a prospect.

A couple weeks ago, I received an unsolicited sales email. Typically, I prefer to receive a phone call first, but if an email does arrive in my Inbox, I would hope that the sender would at least make sure that it’s relevant to the recipient.

But before I go into more detail about the email itself, I want to share a story from a few years back.

It was 8 PM on a weeknight and I had just arrived home from work a few minutes before. My 2yo daughter was wrapping up dinner. We were just about to head upstairs and get her ready for bed when we were both startled by a knock on the front door. I picked my daughter up in my arms and opened the door.

A young woman, most likely college-aged, stood on the front step with a clipboard in hand and a bag full of pamphlets thrown over her shoulder. It was dark out, so I couldn’t immediately determine what was printed on the literature or the reason for her visit.

Without introducing herself, she abruptly started in on her opening pitch and blurted out, “George Bush is ignoring climate change, hates the environment and wants to destroy it. Will join us in our fight to stop him?”

Before I could answer, she just kept right on talking. I stood there, staring at her as she spouted off several talking points filled with misinformation, distorted facts and partisan rhetoric. I let her continue for a minute or two, mostly because I wanted to hear what she had to say before I responded.

Unfortunately for her, it wasn’t a fair debate. I informed her that I was a White House staffer and had just posted several items to WhiteHouse.gov about President Bush’s commitment to the environment that very day including a “Setting the Record Straight” fact sheet entitled, “President Bush’s Strong Record of Addressing Climate Change.” How’s that for good timing?

Many of the statistics were still fresh in my mind and I picked apart her arguments one at a time with facts based on the president’s actual record. However, she was persistent. She kept looking to her clipboard for more talking point ammunition, even repeating a couple that I had just debunked.

All the while, I was holding my 2yo who had been observing our conversation quietly and patiently. My patience, on the other hand, was beginning to wear thin after 15 minutes or so. My 2yo was getting heavy, it was late, we all were tired and I still needed to get her ready for bed.

It was clear that we were just on different sides of the issue and that neither of us would budge so I needed politely end the discussion. In doing so, I offered a little advice:

“Look, I appreciate and respect the fact that you are going to door-to-door about an issue that you are passionate about. You have every right to do so and I commend you for getting involved and speaking out. However, you’re speaking to a President Bush supporter who is educated on the issues. Plus, you’re in a moderate to conservative neighborhood where misrepresenting facts and attacking the president probably won’t go over too well either. So, before you start knocking on doors, bothering people late at night in the privacy their homes and interrupting family time, I suggest you do the research.”

At that point, my 2yo (who was still learning to talk at the time) pumped her fist in the air and without missing a beat said, “Yeah, do the research!” I couldn’t have chosen a better way to end the conversation myself. We wished her a good night and closed the door.

I’ve told this story a number of times and that phrase, “Do the research!” has become a favorite among family and friends. I think about it now and again, particularly when someone isn’t diligent about obtaining general background information before tackling a project. Plus, it’s good advice — which brings me to the reason for the post.

As I mentioned, I received an email from a potential vendor that really missed the mark. I have included an image below but have redacted specifically identifiable information to protect the sender’s privacy.

My goal in writing this post is not to publicly embarrass anyone, but rather to point out ways to improve. There’s a right way and a wrong way to write effective email messages and much of it is plain common sense.

Here’s a list of where this email went wrong — along with some friendly “unsolicited” advice:

Time
Normally, messages sent at 2:23 AM ET wouldn’t be a problem except that my work email account is tied to my BlackBerry which buzzes when a new email arrives. Most of the time I sleep through it, but this one woke me up. Thanks for that.

Advice: Be considerate when choosing a day and time to send.

Subject
I know many rely heavily on catchy subject lines to increase open rates, but “Conference Call” is plain boring and misleading.

Advice: Get creative. If not, how about just using the name of the company, products, services or even something simple like “Introduction?”

Name
My name is David, not J.J. David is in my email address, as well. I have no idea who J.J. is or how I earned that nickname, but this email immediately lost credibility after I read that.

Advice: Use a person’s actual name. A formal salutation would be nice, as well.

Address
I live and work in Washington, DC — not Chicago. Perhaps Chicago is where J.J. lives.

Advice: Again, this could have been avoided with a little research. A simple Google search would’ve cleared this up.

Personalization
In the third paragraph, there’s some language about a “personalized and customized PDF presentation” which is attached to the email. The filename (VIP_J_J_Almacy.pdf) is quasi-personal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered to be considered a “VIP” even if it’s in a PDF filename and I have to go by J.J. to attain that status. However, I was disappointed to see that the PDF was four pages of standard marketing materials with “JJ Almacy” and the name of my employer stamped on every page. There was nothing in there at all that seemed to be directly relevant to my clients or even my line of business.

Advice: Slapping someone’s name and company (even the correct one) on a template is not personalization. Even if you can’t cite minute details, providing relevant case studies based on geography or industry specific examples demonstrates a more thoughtful approach.

Attachment
Since it’s not coming from a trusted source, I am always hesitant to click on attachments for fear that it may be malware or some type of computer virus. Also, larger file sizes may bounce back or could clog up Inboxes.

Advice: Avoid attachments in initial email communications. Instead, connect with your potential client first to learn a little about their business objectives & challenges. Then, follow-up with a customized document that offers solutions and demonstrates tangible value for partnership. Another option is to provide links directing people to Web based versions of your case studies on your company Website in the body of your email. Of course, an in-person meeting is typically a more effective and preferred method to walk through presentation materials, if possible.

Contact
Next, the author — this company’s CEO — indicates that his EA (executive assistant) will be giving me a call to set up a time to speak with him. Really? I understand that some people rely heavily on assistants to manage schedules, but I found the tone of that sentence a little off-putting. If you have the time to send an unsolicited email fraught with errors, you certainly have the time to pick up the phone and call me yourself. Besides, it has been a couple weeks and still no word.

Advice: Everyone’s time is valuable. Remember, you are the one who is seeking their attention. So, be polite and respectful in your tone. Lastly, if you say you are going to follow-up, then do it.

If your target database is too large and you can’t do these things in an individualized manner for each person, then you should rethink your strategy.

Bottom line: Know your audience. Treat them with respect. Connect in authentic ways. Personalize without getting too personal. Seek to understand their challenges. Offer solutions. Be sincere.

And, oh yeah, before you begin: Do the research!

Whether in news, entertainment, sports or politics, just about everyone launched a Twitter account this year. At the time of this post, Ashton Kutcher topped the list with 4.2 million followers with Britney Spears, Ellen DeGeneres, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, John Mayer, CNN, Twitter, Ryan Seacrest and Kim Kardashian rounding out the Top 10 Twitter users.

Facebook, with 350 million users, was the top search term in 2009 and hit #1 for the first time as the most visited site in the U.S. on Christmas and Christmas Eve.

Every minute, 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube and in 2009 the site served an estimated 75 billion video streams to 375 million unique visitors. According to the New York Times, “the average YouTube user watched 83 clips in October, compared with 53 a year earlier.” Also, with over 3.8 billion search queries on YouTube in 2009, it became the 2nd largest search engine behind Google, beating out Bing and Yahoo!.

On these sites, and countless others, users commented, shared, posted and even reported on their own in real time. Many news stories started online before making their way into the “mainstream media” and some merely took on lives of their own as the Web augmented coverage and reach.

In discussing some of the most memorable over the past 12 months with friends and colleagues, I decided to compile them in an end of the year list. So, here we go. Below is my Top 20 Social Media News Stories of 2009 (in chronological order).

1. Sully Lands on the Hudson
1/15/09 – A couple weeks into the new year, it seemed that there was apparently another tragic accident involving airline travel. Yet this time, it was an epic and heroic tale about Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, a skilled former USAF fighter pilot who landed US Airways #1549 on the Hudson River in New York after birds flew into the plane’s engines causing them to stall. Sully managed to successfully guide the plane in a textbook water landing (assuming there is such a thing), avoided Manhattan, saved the lives of everyone on board, then assisted the crew in evacuating more than 150 people to safety. Many first learned of the story from Twitter. The first photo after the incident emerged via TwitPic from Janis Krums who witnessed it and tweeted while aboard the ferry that was on its way to retrieve the passengers and the crew. An amazing story indeed.

2. Walking in Memphis
1/15/09 – Ironically, on the same day that Sully landed in the Hudson, former Ketchum VP James Andrews caught quite a bit of online heat when he disparagingly tweeted about Memphis after meeting with clients from FedEx — which is headquartered there. In an apology he later posted after FedEx voiced their displeasure, Andrews explained that he posted the comment after an interaction with an “intolerant” person and claimed that his sentiment was not aimed at the entire city. Either way, a good lesson that what you say, even in 140 characters or less, could certainly cause quite a stir.

3. Christian Goes Bale-istic
2/2/09 – While filming “T4: Terminator Salvation” at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, actor Christian Bale totally lost it after the director of photography accidentally walked onto the set, allegedly “ruining the shot.” Though the flare up actually occurred in July 2008, audio of the incident surfaced in February 2009 and spread quickly online. Warning: Strong language. Not appropriate for kids — or rational human beings who choose to respect each other regardless of one’s lot in life.

4. Susan Boyle’s Dream
4/11/09 – An unlikely star was born on “Britain’s Got Talent” when Susan Boyle, a Scottish woman, stepped to the microphone to perform. Given her plain appearance and shy demeanor, several snickered as she spoke with the judges about why she chose to appear on the British talent show. However, jeers turned to cheers just moments after she started. Boyle wowed the audience with her booming voice as she sang her version of “I Dreamed a Dream.” Several versions of her performance quickly made their way to YouTube and one post alone currently has more than 35 million views. According to Wikipedia, “Boyle’s first album, I Dreamed a Dream, was released on 23 November 2009, and has become Amazon’s best-selling album in pre-sales.” Billboard also reported that “The arrival of ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ … marks the best opening week for a female artist’s debut album since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991.”

5. Dom-Oh Nos!
4/13/09 – Anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant knows that there are strict laws that govern food preparation and safety procedures in an effort to protect the health of the patrons. Most of us understand that despite the best of intentions, health codes aren’t always followed to the letter 100% of the time. However, Kristy Hammonds and Michael Setzer, two employees from a Domino’s franchise in Conover, NC took that to a new level when they videotaped themselves deliberately performing unsanitary acts with food items and cleaning supplies in the store’s kitchen, then uploaded the clips to YouTube. Though the two claimed it was a “prank” and that they never actually delivered the food, they were still fired and faced felony charges for their actions. Once the video gained attention through Twitter and YouTube, it began to also dominate the search engines and Domino’s Pizza was immediately confronted with a public relations crisis that threatened the reputation of their 50 year-old brand. Domino’s spokesman Tim McIntyre aptly summed it up when he commented, “We got blindsided by two idiots with a video camera and an awful idea.” Patrick Doyle, President of Domino’s USA issued a video response and the company set up a Twitter account @DPZinfo to field inquiries though it looks like they have since moved over to @dominos. In December 2009, Domino’s launched a new marketing campaign in celebration of their 50th year called “The Pizza Turnaround” where they claim they’ve reinvented their pizza recipe (and possibly their tarnished image) from the crust up.

6. Dude, Where Are Your Followers?
4/17/09 – Besides being married to actress Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher is probably best known for his role as Michael on “That 70’s Show,” his prank TV show “Punk’d” and movies such as “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and this past summer’s release “Spread.” Kutcher gained early popularity on Twitter and in April, took on the Cable News Network (CNN) in a race to be the first Twitter account to reach 1 million followers. Who would’ve thought that @aplusk would be able to top the cable giant (and everyone else in the Twitterverse) but alas, he did. And, as mentioned above, he still sits atop the Twitter throne as the most followed at 4.2 million. CNN is ranked #7 with 2.8 million.

7. Iranian Election
6/12/09 – Perhaps the most compelling and meaningful global use of social media in 2009 occurred when Iranians took to the streets in protest after the 2009 presidential election results in Iran. Mainstream media was slow to provide coverage and the government run media operation in Iran was obviously not going to profile any form of dissent for the world to witness. So, the protestors turned to the Internet to tell their stories. Dave Levy and I co-authored a piece that ran in PRWeek called “Twitter Revolt Against Mainstream Media” where we wrote, “The crowd felt a sense of entitlement for news they wanted covered, and it left the media world playing defense to users who had turned the trending topics sidebar on Twitter’s home page into their own headlines; a user-generated ‘above the fold’ that reflected the group’s dissatisfaction through leads like #CNNFail. Twitter became the instant ombudsman for the media establishment, holding media accountable for what they were – or were not – broadcasting.” The impact online was massive. Twitter delayed their scheduled site maintenance because of the important communications role it was playing. Twitter users changed their profile photo green to demonstrate their support and updated their “Location” to Tehran in an effort to confuse Iranian authorities searching for dissidents. Obviously, the future of the Iranian people still hangs in the balance, yet many Americans are better informed about their plight under a controversial dictator and stand in solidarity with them in their quest for peace and freedom.

8. Saying Goodbye to the King of Pop
6/25/09 – Clearly, the death of Michael Jackson would have been a worldwide story even without the Internet. However, TMZ was the first to break the news that the pop singer had died of cardiac arrest at the age of 50. The Web traffic surrounding his death was massive as millions flocked to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs to share, comment and learn more. Facebook slowed but held its own. Twitter traffic caused the site to temporarily fall — even the Fail Whale ceased to make an appearance — but the “Michael Jackson” related tweets would top Twitter trends for weeks to come.

9. United Breaks Guitars
7/6/09 – While traveling on a United Airlines flight in 2008 with his band “Sons of Maxwell”, musician Dave Carroll overheard fellow passengers commenting that United baggage handlers were throwing guitars around the tarmac. Attempts to alert the flight attendants were met with indifference. Upon landing, he learned that his $3,500 Taylor guitar had been broken during the trip. After nine months of back and forth communication and failed attempts to obtain a satisfactory resolution, United finally refused to take responsibility or provide any form of reimbursement. So, Carroll wrote a song called “United Breaks Guitars” and produced a video and, of course, posted it to YouTube. It was an instant hit and stirred up additional ire among airline travelers.

10. Erin Andrews Stalked
7/16/09 – ESPN reporter Erin Andrews went public after video of her naked in her hotel room surfaced on the Internet. The video was secretly shot without her knowledge from a video camera set-up to record her through a peephole. In December, Illinois businessman Michael David Barrett pleaded guilty to interstate stalking. He admitted that he followed Andrews and stayed in hotel rooms next door on three occasions. He shot two videos of her while she was nude and was accused of posting them online, as well as attempting to sell them to TMZ.

11. Dancing Down the Aisle
7/19/09 – After the popularity of the December 2007 “Baby Got Back” wedding reception choreography video, it was only a matter of time before others would follow suit. This past summer, Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz treated their wedding guests to a real show when the entire wedding party — seven bridesmaids, five groomsmen and four ushers — danced down the aisle to Chris Brown’s “Forever” during their ceremony in St. Paul, Minnesota. The “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” even served as inspiration for Jim and Pam’s long awaited wedding on NBC’s “The Office.” In December, another wedding video was posted to YouTube featuring Dana Hanna, a groom who paused during his the middle of his wedding ceremony to update his Facebook marital status and tweet out from the altar.

12. Healthcare Town Hall Protests & SEIU “Thugs”
8/2/09 – In the wake of the conservative Tea Party movement, President Obama and the Democrats continued to try and sell their proposed healthcare program this summer. Several Members of Congress hosted town hall meetings back in their districts alongside Obama Administration officials to answer specific questions and solicit feedback from constituents. Perhaps unexpectedly, many turned out and the discussions were quite heated — and posted on YouTube. U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius were booed in Philadelphia at one such meeting after their comments about the bill’s length and the need to move fast. In the Tampa Bay area, approximately 1,500 showed up for a “pep rally” co-hosted by the SEIU and attended by U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor. One of the attendees, Barry Osteen, was pushed and slapped by Obama supporter Karen Miracle after debating her husband, Garry. “We have the best health care system in the world and I’m completely happy with what we have,” Osteen said. The violence escalated further when Kenneth Gladney, a self-described black conservative, was physically beaten by SEIU members after U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan’s town hall meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. The video of Gladney’s attack generated almost instant online outrage that prompted some select mainstream outlets to cover the story.

13. Fired on Facebook
8/14/09 – In my opinion, one of the cardinal rules in social media is to avoid publishing anything online that you wouldn’t say in person. A British woman learned this the hard way after she posted comments about her “pervvy wanker” boss — perhaps forgetting that they were “friends” on Facebook. Of course, he saw the post and responded to her rant via the public Facebook thread. He hit back pretty hard, got a little personal and eventually fired her. And yes, he’s serious.

14. Undercover at ACORN
9/9/09 – Wikipedia describes the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) as a liberal collection of community-based organizations in the United States that advocate for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. In recent years, the organization has come under fire under allegations of voter registration fraud and embezzlement. In an attempt to expose ACORN’s possible unethical and illegal practices, filmmakers James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles teamed up in an undercover sting operation and blogged about it on Andrew Breitbart’s site BigGovernment. While secretly videotaping a meeting with ACORN staff members in Baltimore, Giles posed as a prostitute seeking counsel on how to manipulate the tax code to hide her profession. O’Keefe passed himself off as a pimp looking to funnel proceeds from a brothel full of underage, illegal immigrant sex workers into a potential political campaign. In both cases, two ACORN staff members were complicit in their efforts to assist O’Keefe and Giles in supporting their illegal activity and subverting the law. Though the story initially gained little attention in the mainstream media, the first two videos rapidly gained steam on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. As news of the scandal grew, the U.S. Census Bureau and the IRS both severed ties with ACORN and eventually both the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut 2009 taxpayer funding of the embattled organization.

15. Best Award Show Interruption of ALL TIME!
9/15/09 – No one quite knew what Kayne West was thinking when he jumped up on stage during the MTV Video Music Awards to interrupt Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video. He grabbed the microphone out of her hand and exclaimed, “Yo, Taylor! I’m really happy for you. I’ma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.” Everyone was stunned, including Beyoncé. Swift’s confused reaction was short, but classy. Meme sites soon popped up such as this Kanyegate Tumblr feed and ImaLetYouFinish where users can upload their own Kanye-isms. There was also this Kanye-Obama-Wilson mash-up remix which was quite clever. Regardless of one’s opinions on the quality of the music videos, just about everyone was appalled at West’s behavior – including President Obama who off-handedly called the rapper a “jackass” after the incident. Since the remark was caught on tape during an off-the-record portion of a CNBC interview, ABC reporter Terry Moran prematurely tweeted but later deleted begging the question as to whether anything is really off-the-record these days.

16. Meghan McCain TwitPic
10/15/09 – Can’t the daughter of a former presidential candidate and current U.S. Senator lay around her home in a low-cut tanktop, read a little about Andy Warhol over takeout, snap a picture of it and upload it to TwitPic without being called horrible names? Evidently not if you’re last name is McCain.

17. College Sock-Her
11/5/09 – Elizabeth Lambert, a junior defender on the women’s soccer team at the University of New Mexico was captured on video being physically abusive on the playing field vs. BYU in the semifinals of the Mountain West Conference tournament. Lambert (#15) was caught tripping, elbowing and even pulling one player to the ground by her hair. Two BYU forwards/midfielders, freshman Carlee Payne (#7) and junior Kassidy Shumway (#21) seemed to be the primary targets of her attacks. Video of the unsportsmanlike behavior was posted to YouTube by the Associated Press and earned Lambert an indefinite suspension. According to Lambert’s player bio on UNM’s GoLobos athletic site, she is “is majoring in University Studies with a focus on Occupational Therapy.” Ironic, considering her opponents will probably require physical therapy! The best response, however, came from Payne: Scoreboard! BYU won the match 1-0.

18. Vetting Crashers
11/24/09 – The saga of Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the White House party crashers, seems to get more bizarre as time goes on and we may never know all the answers. Apparently, bluffing their way into the White House State Dinner without an official invitation is just the tip of the iceberg. A video of the Salahi wedding (with 1,836 guests) sets the stage quite nicely. Then there were stories of unpaid bills around town, followed by accusations of fraudulent charities via polo matches to save a family owned winery, lies about Michaele’s past (aka Missy Holt, if that is her real name) as a former Redskins cheerleader — all leading up to their quest to appear on the reality show “The Real Housewives of DC.” Sadly, it appears that the only thing real about these two is how much trouble they got themselves into after posting photos of their White House breach on Facebook which provided plenty of fodder in feeding the media frenzy surrounding the details of this still-developing story.

19. Tiger Woods
11/27/09 – Yet again, it was TMZ, the Los Angeles based celebrity gossip site that beat out all the other outlets by reporting that Tiger’s injuries were not caused by a car accident while behind the wheel of his SUV but rather “were inflicted by his wife, Elin Nordegren.” According to reports, she and Tiger were arguing after she had learned about his extramarital affair with Rachel Uchitel (as well as others, we’d learn about later) and an altercation ensued. In the absence of actual B-roll footage to visually support the story, a Taiwanese news station used animation to dramatically reenact the event during their broadcast. Though it’s in Chinese, the images seem quite realistic and probably not too far off from what actually happened that night.

20. DC Snowball Fight
12/19/09 – In late December, the Washington, DC area was hit by a major snowstorm that made its way across the east coast. Total snow accumulation varied between 12 and 22 inches in some areas when it was all said and done. Hashtags such as #snOMG, #thundersnow, #blizzard and #snopocalypse dominated social media sites across the region. Then, someone came up with the idea of organizing a good, old-fashioned neighborhood snowball fight at 14th & U Streets. Word traveled quickly online and about 150 DC residents gathered for the epic showdown. Though the battle was intense (in a lighthearted way), people did take timeouts for passing cars and to help bail vehicles out of multiple snowbound predicaments. Police officers soon arrived on the scene to monitor the activity. A red Hummer H2 pulled up and the driver was none too pleased when snowballs descended upon him and his vehicle as he stepped out. Turns out that he was an off-duty DC detective and one point, drew his sidearm which prompted chants of “You don’t bring a gun to a snowball fight!” and “Fenty killed Christmas!” directed at the Capital City’s current mayor. The situation was eventually resolved by the authorities and much of the event ultimatlely played out on YouTube before making national news the following morning.

I’m sure there are other stories, so feel free to comment and provide links below. Happy 2010!

At any rate, I have become pretty reliant on Hootsuite and use it almost exclusively when tweeting from my desk. When on Blackberry, I use ÜberTwitter which also offers built in bit.ly URL shortening functionality.

Basically, I was curious to see which of my tweets generated the most interest in 2009. The challenge, however, comes in determining how to measure that. The closest I can estimate is by looking at those with the most clicks.

As mentioned in a previous post (TweetLevel: Ratting Twitter’s Influence), I try to strike a 30/30/30/10 balance between politics, communications, personal and miscellaneous tweets. Given the link popularity, looks like that strategy has worked pretty well.

Here’s how they stacked up in 2009:

1. http://ow.ly/dWXc
   Arlington (Va): The Rap http://ow.ly/dWXc So when people tell me Remy where you calling from? I say a straight up thug town called Arlington 
   1083 Clicks

2. http://ow.ly/NYZ5
   TMZ reporting that actress Brittany Murphy, 32, died this morning after suffering full cardiac arrest http://ow.ly/NYZ5
   1023 Clicks

3. http://ow.ly/HDqs
   Congress’ Best (And Worst) Committee Web Sites http://ow.ly/HDqs (via @nationaljournal) Reviewers @sheiladcusa @cheeky_geeky @JohnWonderlich
   847 Clicks

4. http://ow.ly/HZFW
   Tiger Woods, Obama On Golf Digest Cover Together (PHOTO) http://ow.ly/HZFW
   750 Clicks

5. http://ow.ly/AjxV
   George W. Bush Secretly Visits Fort Hood Victims http://ow.ly/AjxV
   671 Clicks

6. http://ow.ly/s1pr
   @DanaPerino is all fired up! RT @rooseveltroom VIDEO: Unfit to Host? http://ow.ly/s1pr #olympics #chicago2016 
   217 Clicks

7. http://ow.ly/kutI
   Ex-Bush flacks find footing http://ow.ly/kutI w/ Ari @DanaPerino @ScottStanzel @TonyFratto @ksullie Nice pic, Dan B! (via @politico) 
   167 Clicks

8. http://ow.ly/ufHl
   VIDEO: Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol and Debra Burlingame launch new group “Keep America Safe” http://ow.ly/ufHl
   136 Clicks

9. http://ow.ly/gO4a
   Goodbye to dot com domains? Yes ICANN! http://ow.ly/gO4a But @Slate says don’t do it!
   122 Clicks

10. http://ow.ly/40Pp
    Why Google Wants You To Google Yourself (TIME) http://ow.ly/40Pp Interesting take on the future of the “vanity search”
    109 Clicks

My two most popular bit.ly links were retweets (RT) that generated 680 and 143 clicks each which would’ve placed them at #5 and #8 respectively on the list above.

http://bit.ly/10nuR7
Take Action on Climate Bill http://bit.ly/10nuR7
680 Clicks (client)

http://bit.ly/76ycSL
In the world’s largest democracy, they’re missing George W. Bush http://bit.ly/76ycSL
143 Clicks

For those who haven’t given in to peer pressure to join the site yet, Twitter is a “microblog” that enables users to share thoughts, activities and news via 140 character text updates.

Twitter’s founders had a pretty basic, yet novel idea. They wanted to create a platform where users could connect with each other online to answer one simple question, “What are you doing?”

I’ll admit that when I first joined (@almacy), I just didn’t get it. Besides a few close family members and friends, I remember thinking, “Who really cares what I’m doing?” In fact, my first tweet isn’t exactly going to assist in solving global strife.

Regardless, I pressed on and started to “follow” a few folks that I was interested in hearing from including those engaged in politics, public relations, press, social media and technology. Pretty soon, I started to build a bit of a community. I soon realized that I was learning a lot from them and hoped others found value in my contributions, as well.

As far as what I tweet, I try to strike a 30/30/30/10 balanced philosophy for tweets, retweets (RT) and tweet buzz (HT, via):

• 30% Politics: White House, Congress, government, E-Gov, campaigns, issues, advocacy
• 30% Communications: Internet, media, social networks, public relations, marketing, advertising, technology, tips, tricks, trends, insights
• 30% Personal: life, family, work, travel, hobbies, blog
• 10% Miscellaneous: Whatever doesn’t fall in the categories above i.e. humor, wit, thoughts, randomness, etc.

However, I often wonder whether any of it makes a bit of difference. So, I gave TweetLevel a try and scored 61. Not too bad.

TweetLevel then provided some uselful insights on how to improve my score which is based on four primary “result metrics” including influence, popularity, engagement and trust. The site also offers some sound advice regarding Twitter best practices and influence tips.

That’s why I really like this tool. Unlike previous attempts by other sites to measure a user’s level of influence based on pure number of followers or amount of tweets, Edelman developed a complex evaluation formula for TweetLevel in order to arrive at a more thoughtful conclusion:

Twitter itself is also rapidly evolving with the addition of periodic new features and functionality – and who knows where all this is going.

According to a recent Pew study in October 2009, Twitter’s future looks bright. Though the median user age is currently 31, the site’s popularity continues to grow, especially among younger audiences.

In addition to learning new things and meeting new people via Twitter, it can be fulfilling to know that the information you are “putting out there” has the potential to positivelty affect someone else.

Whether for an individual, company, brand, product or issue, TweetLevel results could be quite helpful in gaining a better understanding of one’s effectiveness in leveraging the Twitter platform and, thus… increasing influence.

Full disclosure: Edelman is my employer, but opinions expressed are my own.

For those not familiar with what this actually means, a CMS is basically the back-end (not visible to visitors) of a website that allows the administrators (owners) of the site — often non-programmers — to easily organize site navigation and add content designed to appear on the front-end.

For most CMS solutions, the user experience is pretty simple, usually consisting of a password protected login, options for varied user permissions for approval and forms with specific fields based on type of content such as text, photos, audio and video. Once entered and saved, the CMS stores the information in the back-end database and displays the content on the front-end when called up by a site visitor.

In the early days of the Internet, many developers created unique proprietary CMS solutions for their staff and clients to save time and streamline the process of maintaining a timely and relevant site. Today, there are hundreds of options out there to choose from. Check out this list from CMS Matrix.

Open source is basically the idea that code doesn’t have to be authored or owned by one person, group or company but rather by a public community of developers free to collaborate, write code, make updates and help advance newer software versions for all to share and benefit. For a more specific description of open source, let’s go to Wikipedia which is, ironically, a type of open source resource for defintions:

Open source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software’s source code. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations. Before open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; the term open source gained popularity with the rise of the Internet, which provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities.

Before commenting on the recent upgrade, I did want to set the record straight on a couple things regarding the history of WhiteHouse.gov and the previous CMS.

To get a better understanding of the complete background, I spoke with a couple of my former White House colleagues who were federal government employees in the Office of Administration (OA) of the Executive Office of the President (EOP) back during the transition from President Clinton (42) to President Bush (43).

As I have mentioned before, in my opinion, President Clinton is truly the first Internet president, meaning he was the first to launch a White House website. Here’s what WhiteHouse.gov looked like circa November 1995. Not too shabby at the time. Evidently, in the late 90’s, updates to the site were a bit of a chore. They had to be made manually via files copied to tapes, then physically carried between floors to upload them onto the server a few times a day. Typos could mean a little more exercise that day. Toward the very end of President Clinton’s second term, an automated system was put in place but it wasn’t capable of managing an entire new site for the next four to eight years.

In 2000, with the transition to President George W. Bush’s Administration approaching, a few EOP programmers got together to create an internal homegrown Perl based solution designed to manage basic content needs for the new president’s site. Why Perl? Two reasons. First, Perl was a common programming language at the time, generally used for similar projects. Second, out of the other programming options available, those who were actually developing it knew Perl the best!

(Update from a former EOP insider: “It should also be noted that Perl was picked because the Tool started out as an e-mail to web page processing script. The original tool was developed to solve the problem of posting press releases to the web site automatically. On weekends and after hours, there was no IT staff to do it … so the tool was born of that. Perl as handler script to parse e-mail text into an HTML form and post to the web site. Then it just grew and grew… initially it was all about automation. Only during the later years [sic] did it start into more of your standard (term used loosely) CMS.”)

Out of this collaboration, a completely new and unique solution was born which we affectionately (most of the time) called, “The Tool.”

Over time, as newer site versions and features were rolled out on the front-end, the Tool scaled with it and was updated accordingly to support them including many things it wasn’t originally designed to do such as creating on-the-fly printer friendly alternative text pages (508 compliance) and digital image processing.

In March of 2007, we launched a new (and final) version of WhiteHouse.gov under President Bush. However, even with the new design and improved functionality for users, the Tool remained in place on the back-end. It was tweaked and updated, but the foundation was the same. We considered options to deploy a new CMS, but personally I wanted to be a good steward of taxpayer money and didn’t think it was prudent to spend a couple million dollars on something that was only going to be used for a year and a half or so before being shipped off to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in January 2009. As a result, the site continued using the Tool all the way up until Inauguration Day.

Several months prior to Election Day, and in a very similar scenario to the Clinton-Bush transition preparation in 2000, career federal employess in EOP’s OA division gathered to begin planning for the next president’s website — whether for Sen. McCain or Sen. Obama, nobody knew. They initiated a review of the most effificient, secure CMS solutions. After the completion of the thoughtful, competitive procurement process, General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) was awarded the contract and immediately began work on a new CMS for the 44th President of the United States.

Many stories have reported that President Obama’s team inherited an “old proprietary CMS which has been used by WhiteHouse.gov since the Bush Administration” built and executed by GDIT. However, that isn’t true. As I mentioned earlier, President Bush’s website, CMS Tool and all, was taken offline at 12:00 PM ET on January 20, 2009, President Obama’s Inauguration Day, and ultimately sent to NARA.

President George W. Bush is the first digital president, meaning that he is the first to have his entire presidency captured online via WhiteHouse.gov in the form of transcripts, photos, video and audio. However, Web 2.0 and social media was just gearing up around the time I left the White House in May 2007.

Clearly, the campaign had a huge impact on the growth of the Internet through social media and rapid programming advancements (WordPress 2.8.5 is now available already? I just upgraded to 2.8.4 two weeks ago!) but many of the tools that are being used today either weren’t available to us or hadn’t been tested or matured to the point that we could utilize them effectively within the E-Gov guidelines, privacy policies, security procedures and budgetary limitations that often presented challenges.

To put it in perspective, from 2005-2007, MySpace was the most popular social network, Facebook was locked down to only college students with .edu email addresses, YouTube had recently been purchased by Google but was still growing and Twitter had just launched in March 2007 at SXSW in Austin.

There’s no question that the increased adoption of open source backend solutions in the private sector, and now in government, represents yet another evolutionary step in the rapid growth of the Internet. As these tools become more prevalent, users will be able to better connect and collaborate on shared platforms which only improves the potential for digital public engagement in shaping our democracy.

Congrats to the entire White House new media team!

Want to give it a try? You can actually demo Drupal yourself (and many other open source solutions) courtesy of opensourceCMS.com or you could save yourself some time and just go hire the best in the business!

MEDIA

Podcast: The Right Doctor with David Almacy

(Dr. Melissa Clouthier, The Right Doctor, 11/05/09)

WhiteHouse.gov goes Drupal (techPresident, 10/24/09)

RELATED

White House opens Web site programming to public (Associated Press)

Before Drupal, There Was “The Tool” (techPresident, 10/30/09)

For Drupal Enterprise Software in White House, It’s One Step Forward, One Step Back (IT Business Edge)

Whitehouse.gov could be a springboard for Open Source for America (InfoWorld)

WhiteHouse.gov on Drupal: A skeptic weighs in (OhMyGov)

Whitehouse using Drupal? (Drupal News)

The Internet is certainly playing a key role. In fact, YouTube may have officially reached its digital advocacy “tipping point” when a handful of videos were recently uploaded featuring flustered politicians struggling to answer tough healthcare questions during several Congressional town hall meetings.

Many Democrats in support of the bill have moved to characterize opponents as an organized, astroturfing, angry right wing mob. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) even went so far as to call the protests “un-American.” On the contrary, it was the SEIU who was caught on tape beating a black conservative who voiced dissent over the plan.

However, this wasn’t an organized gotcha campaign tactic like the infamous “Macaca” incident that many credit for the derailment of Sen. Allen’s re-election campaign in Virginia. Rather, these videos were shot, edited and posted by average, passionate American citizens who gathered to exercise their First Amendment right and demonstrate their concern over President Obama’s proposed healthcare legislation.

As Congress heads into their summer recess, some Members may wish they were spending more time on the beach instead of answering questions from frustrated constituents about government-run universal healthcare. I say let them vacation. After all, it will give them time to actually read the 1,000 page bill, perfect for a little summer reading.

In the midst of all this debate, the Internet continues to ramp up full throttle on both sides of the issue.

The Obama White House is attempting to utilize the Web, just as they did so masterfully during the campaign, in an effort to push the legislation through. How? Well, for starters, Linda Douglass took on the Drudge Report and asks users to “snitch” on fellow citizens if they see “fishy” information online about the healthcare discussion. They even set up an email address (flag@whitehouse.gov) to ease the reporting process.

The primary issue I have with this approach is that the White House Website is taxpayer funded and shouldn’t be used as a tool to gather information about Americans for pure political gain. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) agrees and promptly sent a letter to the White House asking President Obama to bring the program to an end.

If the DNC or BarackObama.com/Organizing for America wants to do this (i.e. Tweet Your Senator = brilliant way to build buzz and your E-mail lists!), fine by me. However, WhiteHouse.gov should steer clear especially when the data collected is not subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and new questions are arising about federal government privacy policies.

Is there a double standard here? Former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino makes an excellent point in Politico’s Arena:

“What would have happened if President George W. Bush had asked Americans to forward to the White House emails they’d received that spread “disinformation” or seemed “fishy” regarding any topic, such as the war on terror, immigration reform, tax cuts? How soon would the New York Times have splashed it on the front page, that moveon.org would have flipped its lid, and the Congressional Democrats called for new legislation to strip the President of his wildly expanding powers?”

Just today, WhiteHouse.gov launched a new “Health Insurance Reform Reality Check” feature which offers “facts about the stability and security you get from health insurance reform.”

Those at the National ObamaCare Opt Out (NOOO!) Registry disagree and have launched a site designed to motivate opponents of the bill to join the fight against it by registering and tweeting out with the #optout hashtag on Twitter.

I was recently reminded of the Internet’s infancy about a month ago when Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) appeared on FOX News with Megyn Kelly to discuss H.R. 615. The resolution would require Members of Congress who vote for public option healthcare to give up their current federal employee healthcare plan (as currently written, those serving House and Senate are exempt for five years). While on the program, Rep. Fleming encouraged viewers to visit his Website fleming.house.gov to track the bill’s cosponsors – all Republicans at the time. Interest was so great that increased traffic crashed the server for almost 45 minutes resulting in a 403.9 Error: Too Much Democracy All At Once!

Instead of using some of the more traditional methods, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) chose to outline his thoughts regarding healthcare reform via a video he posted on Facebook. Of course, I learned about this during a talk radio interview with the congressman as I drove into work one morning last week. See, MSM isn’t dead!

As the showdown continues to heat up after the break, one thing is for sure: This is fight is real and the implications are huge. Since Inauguration, many have wondered if Obama would be able to leverage his online campaign supporters into governing once he transitioned to the Oval Office. I think we are about to find out.

UPDATE

Megyn Kelly discusses healthcare “flag” email lists and the Presidential Records Act with Deputy White House Press Secretary Bill Burton on FOX News. (Politico.com, 8/12/09)

‘Omnipotent Clarity’
At last Thursday’s (8/13/09) press briefing, Major Garrett of FOX News asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about many who claim to have received unsolicited healthcare related emails from David Axelrod at the White House.

On Sunday, 8/15/09, Nick Shapiro, White House spokesman for New Media released the following statement, with a follow-up posted on the FOX News White House blog, Row 2, Seat 4:

The White House email list is made up of email addresses obtained solely through the White House website. The White House doesn’t purchase, upload or merge from any other list, again, all emails come from the White House website as we have no interest in emailing anyone who does not want to receive an email. If an individual received the email because someone else or a group signed them up or forwarded the email, we hope they were not too inconvenienced. Further, we suggest that they unsubscribe from the list by clicking the link at the bottom of the email or tell whomever forwarded it to them not to forward such information anymore. We are implementing measures to make subscribing to emails clearer, including preventing advocacy organizations from signing people up to our lists without their permission when they deliver petition signatures and other messages on individual’s behalf.”

Related

White House will change e-mail rules (Politico, 8/16/09)

White House Passes Blame on Unsolicited Health Care E-Mails (FOXNews.com, 8/16/09) The White House suggests third-party groups are to blame for unsolicited health care e-mails.

ACLU – Apologists for Obama? (Scott Stanzel)

Remember when protest was patriotic? (Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Washington Examiner)

Obama’s Authoritarian Style (Wall Street Journal)

Cartoon: Get Out of the Way (John Trever, The Albuquerque Journal)

This time, Will.i.am from Black Eyed Peas fame, created a music video based on Senator Barack Obama’s speech after his loss to Sen. Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary.

The catchy and inspiring song, entitled “Yes We Can” officially lives at Dipdive.com, and features a number of celebrities from sports, stage, music, television and film.

Admittedly, as a true Gen X’er with kids, most of the faces were unfamiliar to me but I’m sure the average high schooler could rattle their names off faster than I could identify “Boots” as Dora the Explorer’s trusty companion.

ABC News’ Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper, reports on Political Punch:

There’s Scarlett Johansson, Herbie Hancock, Kate “Private Practice” Walsh, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Dartmouth grad Aisha Tyler, John Legend, Adam “CSI: Miami” Rodriquez, Kelly Hu, Amber Valletta (the dead woman from “What Lies Beneath”), Nick Cannon, Tatyani Ali, Eric “Six Feet Under” Balfour, Nicole Scherzinger…Harold Perrineau from LOST….

Although I am at odds with Senator Obama’s politics, I am impressed with his ability to communicate his message. As a result, he has effectively positioned himself well as an alternative to Senator Clinton in the Democratic nomination battle come Super Tuesday and beyond.

Related:

John McCain: No You Can’t (john.he.is)

However, what Network Solutions is doing is no laughing matter.  The domain registration mega-site has recently started a new practice which is – well, in my opinion, un-American! 

Have you ever tried to purchase a domain name?  It’s really pretty easy and there are a number of web based registration choices out there such as GoDaddy, Register, MyDomain and, of course, Network Solutions.  

The first basic step is to visit one of these sites and search to determine if your domain name is still available.  Chances are that someone out there may have had the same idea and beaten you to the punch. 

Believe me, CapitalGig.com was not the first domain I attempted to register for this site but I was thrilled to learn that it wasn’t yet taken.  Then, after a little comparison shopping, I chose my registrar and host provider and was off the races.

If I had chosen to search via Network Solutions, it would have cost me.  Evidently, if you use their site just to check availability, NetSol automatically locks it up and holds it ransom – to the tune of $35/year. 

For example, I just searched for “wittynamewebsite.com” and it’s available!  Thanks, NetSol.  Then, I went to GoDaddy and MyDomain to compare prices and was told that the name was taken, but that I can “make an offer” to buy from the owner.  The owner?  Odd, it was available literally two minutes ago.  What happened?

So, I went the NetSol’s WHOIS page and searched for the owner info and here’s what I saw:

Your WHOIS Search Results

wittynamewebsite.com is Available – Register it Now!

600,000 domain names are registered daily! Don’t delay; there’s no guarantee that a domain name you see today will still be here tomorrow!

Registrant: This Domain is available at NetworkSolutions.com

Administrative Contact :
Network Solutions, LLC
domainsupport@networksolutions.com
13681 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 300
HERNDON, VA 20171  US
Phone: 1-888-642-9675
Fax: 571-434-4620

Domain Name: WITTYNAMEWEBSITE.COM

Administrative Contact :
Network Solutions, LLC
domainsupport@networksolutions.com
13681 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 300
HERNDON, VA 20171
US
Phone: 1-888-642-9675
Fax: 571-434-4620

Technical Contact :
Network Solutions, LLC
domainsupport@networksolutions.com
13681 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 300
HERNDON, VA 20171
US
Phone: 1-888-642-9675
Fax: 571-434-4620

Record expires on 21-Jan-2009
Record created on 21-Jan-2008
Database last updated on 21-Jan-2008

Current Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
Lock Status: clientHold

So, they scooped it up (record created today) and now I can only buy from them for $35 as opposed to approx. $10 at competitor sites.  I don’t know how long they hold it, but according to the record, it expires a year from the day I searched for it.

This monopolistic approach is akin to price gouging and I’m sure many have fallen victim and paid $35 to NetSol unaware of their options.  

How is this legal?  Would it be tolerated if sellers in other markets bought up items and ran up the price after a potential buyer simply indicates interest?  What happened to the concepts of free enterprise, competition and a true market economy?

I understand that many are searching for ways to profit online, but limiting consumer choice and hiking up prices seems contrary to the precepts upon which the Internet was founded.

The New York Ave location is home to approximately 15 Googlers for now – with ample room to expand.  In keeping with Silicon Valley style, the space itself looks more like the Googleplex in Mountain View, rather than a traditional, stodgy law firm which is a welcome departure – and an indication that times, they are a changin’! 

Individual work areas are complete with colorful yoga balls, curved desks and open air studio celings.  Various other meeting spaces including conference rooms, a game room lunch room and kitchen bear names familiar to the DC power set such as the Situation Room, Camp David, and even, yes, a Secret Undisclosed Location - which isn’t too secret considering the bold-lettered sign by the door. 

Google CEO Eric Schmidt attended the event, as well as members of Google DC’s leadership team including Alan Davidson, senior policy counsel, Dr. Vint Cerf, chief Internet evangelist, and Bob Boorstin, corporate communications.  

As guests, we were treated to an open bar and lite fare of mini-beef or turkey burgers, coconut shrimp, lamb, sushi, corn pudding and tiny ice cream cones for dessert.  Vodka and cranberry juice shooters also made the rounds served in test tubes, appropriately named “YouTubes“ after the popular video sharing site that Google acquired in October 2006.  However, no worries for parents of Hill staffers, these “series of tubes” were consumed responsibly.

Related:

D.C. Googleplex: 1,100 sq. ft. per worker, and built to party (CNET)

A Night Out: Google Opens a DC Office (Washingtonian)

Google Welcomes Washington (TechRepublican)