Ilana Kavadlo
As an Interactive Services Project Manager, Ilana does her best to keep up with the quickly changing, and ever expanding interactive landscape. She also likes to crochet - and wear - super chunky scarves.
Posts by Ilana
What’s the deal with Twitter?
Everyone from this guy to Edison Research has pondered this same question over the past year or so. We’ve all become familiar with that pervasive little blue bird, yet for most ordinary folks (and a decent share of communications professionals), the question lingers: What is the deal with Twitter?
It’s fairly safe to assume that you’re one of the 87% of Americans aware of Twitter, and you probably have a pretty decent sense of how it operates. But for those of you actually using Twitter, you’re in the company of only 7% of Americans. Seven percent!? For the sake of comparison, approximately 41% of Americans are on Facebook, including my mom.
Without a doubt, Twitter has made itself useful. How else would Lindsay Lohan have let us all know – within minutes of the incident – that she got punched in the face by a waitress? But is Twitter anything more than the latest PR channel for celebrities?
Of course. The beauty and the challenge of Twitter is its simplicity. Unlike Facebook – which takes a hold and never lets you go thanks to its supremely robust platform – Twitter is more of a social utility than a social network. There is success to be had; however it requires creative thinking to identify the ways in which Twitter can be useful to you or your organization.
Putting aside the celebrity phenomenon, the most noteworthy Twitter success stories involve identifying a solution to a given challenge. The challenges faced by the following businesses and organizations would exist in a world with or without Twitter; the use of Twitter to solve for these challenges is noteworthy in that someone simply saw new opportunity afforded by a new technology.
Kogi BBQ – Their twitter success is the stuff of legends. It’s the tale of a popular L.A. food truck that leapt at the real-time nature of Twitter to keep Angelinos abreast of current locations, wait times, and to provide a steady stream of good-humored, street-wise updates. Kogi BBQ currently has over 72,000 followers, a good deal more than McDonald’s. Their success has cemented social media – namely Twitter – as a marketing must for similar businesses.
Tweetsgiving.org – Clever in its simplicity, this was a highly effective viral fundraising effort from epic change. With the goal of raising $10,000 (via Chip-in) to build a classroom in Tanzania, influential twitterers got the ball rolling as folks were asked to tweet their gratitude alongside the web address and the hashtag #tweetsgiving. Look for the effort to return around Thanksgiving 2010.
Your challenge could be as simple as distributing organizational news quickly and efficiently. This may not be a noteworthy use of Twitter, but it’s certainly a good one.
A lot of discussion is taking place over who uses Twitter and why (Twitter collects only scant information about its users), and about just where it will settle within the pantheon of social media. Is it a B2B space for industry insiders? Is it the ultimate celebrity news fix? Is it our collective consciousness streamed live?
Twitter is all of these things, all at once, because it’s up to its users to make of it what they will. The question becomes: What is Twitter for you?
Filed under: Social Media
The long arm of the law: Web accessibility guidelines
It’s easy to feel like no one is policing the Internet, so therefore no rules apply, but guess what – they do. Case in point: Web accessibility and Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act .
8.5% of the population has a disability – including visual, audio, motor and cognitive impairments – that affects their computer use. To understand how portions of the Web may or may not be accessible to this population install a developer toolbar and turn off all styles (CSS) and images within your browser. It’s quite a different experience, no?
See the above example of a properly accessible webpage. On the left: How the page www.loseyourexcuse.gov/parents looks to an average Web user. On the right: How the same page would look to a user dependant on a screen reader.
Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act outlines standards for the means by which Web content is to be made accessible to all types of users. Online properties of the federal government must adhere to these standards as a matter of law. However, as a matter of good practice, other organizations should likewise adhere to such standards.
And while not legislatively mandated to follow a particular set of guidelines, non-government entities aren’t exactly immune to the will of the law either. The retailer Target was compelled to make changes to its e-commerce website – and pay settlement costs – as the result of a disability claim.
While its purpose is abundantly clear, unfortunately, adherence to Section 508 can become terribly murky. By virtue of the legislative process, language is hugely subject to interpretation, and there are loopholes. And it should be noted that Section 508 was finalized in 2001 (albeit updates are currently in draft form); the majority of the Web in those days was straight HTML (which is easy-peasy to make accessible), unlike the more immersive and media-rich Web to which we’ve since become accustomed.
So, yes there are challenges to designing a website that is in accordance with the standards of Section 508, however it is to one’s advantage to meet the intent, if not the letter of the law. In addition to being inclusive of all users, the same techniques which make a site highly accessible also benefit search engine optimization (SEO), usability, and browser compatibility to name a few – all good things in terms of website success.
Resources to explore:
1. For the technical and legal wonks: Read Section 508. It’s a real page-scroller!!
2. Check out WebAIM: the foremost advocate for Web accessibility and provider of resources on the topic.
3. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG):
These are guidelines of The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community with the mission of developing Web standards. They tend to be more in line with the evolutionary nature of Web technology. Rather than prescribing specific tactics (images must contain tags), they are principal-based and suggest a range of tactics to make content accessible. For the most part, a site developed to these standards will in turn also be Section 508 compliant (but since there is always that room for interpretation, this can’t be stated definitively).
Filed under: Internet
My facebook Profile Was Hacked!
So THAT is what a hacker looks like.
Google the above sentence, and it’s clear I’m not alone. It felt icky and personally invasive that unbeknownst to me I was recommending diet and cleaning products to all of my friends, but luckily, the damage was minimal, and a new password did the trick.
Cyber-security is a hot topic of late, one of those matters of prudence which is easy to overlook when distracted by the excitement and possibility of new technology.
I’ll trust your organization has a crackerjack IT department keeping your computing network safe from intruders, but social media profiles are yet another point of vulnerability to be mindful of.
It’s a bit of a “no duh,” but the same rules that apply to protecting your personal online identity should likewise be applied to that of your organization.
Tips we already know, but don’t always follow:
- Use different passwords for different sites – 33% of people use the same password for every site! And don’t fret, there are a variety of nifty solutions on the market for managing that endless collection of passwords.
- Don’t use actual words as your password. Pick something difficult that combines letters and numbers
- Be aware of current hacker scams and hoaxes by following security news. Facebook’s official security page and Wired Magazine’s Threat Level are good places to start.
The silver lining:
In the case one of your organization’s profiles were to be hacked, the good news is that most people will recognize any ensuing oddball communiqués as hacking – “Why is the Ad Council pushing diet pills on me? Do they think I’m fat!?” – and once the situation is resolved, be sympathetic to your plight.
Your fans, friends and followers are equal participants in the social media space, and understand its particular vulnerabilities. After all, hacking can happen to the best of us.
Filed under: Internet, Social Media
Tags: cyber-security, facebook, hacked
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