Spotting Trends: Seven Myths About Blogging

Today at BlogWorld New Media Expo 2009 in Las Vegas, BlogCatalog will release excerpts from a research study “An Analysis of the Blogosphere: Its Present & Future Impact,” which was conducted by SPECTRUM Brand Strategy Group, LLC (SBSG). The finding are based on a compilation of interviews with influential bloggers; a quantitative survey of BlogCatalog members; and a qualitative discussion moderated by the SBSG...

Recognizing Literacy: A Student Success Story

As seen through the eyes of people who can read.In 1990, Tommy Gray could not fill out a job application, draw money out of his bank account, or purchase groceries without easily identifiable pictures. Today, he can accomplish all these tasks that most take for granted. In fact, Tommy not only reads and writes, but actively supports the program that continues to teach him how to read — Computer Assisted Literacy in Libraries (C.A.L.L.).“When you learn one word, it’s like someone giving you a hundred dollars and saying you don’t...

Uniting People: International Literacy Day

"Teaching children and adults to read, write, and comprehend is not only our essential duty and investment in America's future; it is also an act of love." — John CorcoranIf you are unfamiliar with the name, John Corcoran is an extraordinary man who graduated from high school and college to go on to become a secondary school teacher before becoming a businessman. What makes his particular story extraordinary is that...

Sharing Quietly: Bloggers Unite For Hunger And Hope

In Fernley, Nevada, the Fernley High School National Honor Society hosted a spaghetti dinner that allowed families to enjoy a meal for free or with an optional donation. Sixty families were served, and $300 donated to Heifer International.In Elizabethtown, Kentucky, 70 students hosted a “llama mama” picnic, which capped off a series of events to raise money for Heifer International. They raised $3,270, which was matched...

Blogging For Hope: Hunger And Hope

Scientific American recently published an article that asks a question designed to strike at the heart of everything we know: Could food shortages bring down civilization? The article, by Lester R. Brown, included three key concepts, before calling for a massive and rapid intervention.• Food scarcity and the resulting higher food prices are pushing poor countries into chaos.• “Failed states” that export disease, terrorism,...

Uniting People: Bloggers Unite For Hunger & Hope

With each passing second, one person will die of hunger. Every fourth second, that person will be a child. In fact, hunger accounts for almost 60 percent of all deaths in the world, making starvation the single greatest killer on the planet. There is no need to discover a cure. There is no scientific breakthrough waiting to be discovered. And yet, they die.On April 29, thousands of bloggers will call for change. Not...

Playing Favorites: BloggersUnite.org

Although I was unable to attend SXSW this year, I was able to send a small piece along in my place. (For those that don't know, the SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of panel content and parties, simultaneously with film and music festivals in Austin, Texas.)My small piece was a quick and quirky animated video that illustrates the history of BloggersUnite.org, which started as a BlogCatalog initiative two years ago. But more than that, it demonstrates how ideas are made real via the Internet. Simply put, one person...

Changing The World: BloggersUnite.org

"How can we bring bloggers together to do good?" — Antony Berkman, BlogCatalog.comIn early 2007, it seemed like a simple enough question posed to his business partner Angelica Alaniz, designer Oscar Tijerina, and programmer Daniel Tijerina. So, within a week, the BlogCatalog team created a landing page, encouraging bloggers to support classroom supplies for students though the Omidyar Network-supported DonorsChoose.org....

Tracking Topics: Tweetfeed Adds Value To Twitter

Twitter, the real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices, continues to grow exponentially, increasing its membership from 500,000 in Dec. 2007 to 4.43 million in Dec. 2008. Membership is not the only area Twitter has grown. So has the number of tools. There were approximately 60 tools noted by Mashable's Palin Ningthoujam in Sept. 2007. He added 140 in May 2008. One of my favorite...

Communicating Need: Bloggers Unite For Refugees

In Iraq, it’s people like 29-year-old television producer Alaa, who covered the trial of Saddam Hussein and was then forced to flee his country and escape to Stockholm, Sweden. He is one of the more fortunate. More than 2 million Iraqis have left Iraq since 2003 and more than 1.6 million are still displaced in their own country with fears that the United States will pull out too soon. In the Democratic Republic of Congo,...

Blogging Right: Bloggers Unite

About six months ago, BlogCatalog members, together with Amnesty International USA and Copywrite, Ink., asked bloggers from around the world to Blog for Human Rights. On May 15, they did.Although BlogCatalog has been the epicenter for several such events, no one expected what happened next. By 6 a.m., CNN had tracked 1.2 million blog posts ranging from heartfelt posts about Darfur to Myanmar. And then?If you read some...

Working With Bloggers: On Being The Dog

Every time I teach social media, I always reference a cartoon once used in a PowerPoint presentation by Gary Gerdemann, director of account services for Peritus Public Relations. The cartoon features two dogs on the Internet with a hilarious caption. “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”I felt a little like that yesterday, shortly after Veronica De La Cruz, Internet correspondent for CNN's flagship morning news...

Blogging For Rights: BlogCatalog.com

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” — Thomas JeffersonAbout a year ago, Antony Berkman, president of BlogCatalog.com, had an idea. He noted the media attention other social networks received were often based on raising investment capital.He decided to do something else. He wanted to raise social capital instead. “We had yet to see an online...

Adding Data Portability: BlogCatalog

Just days after beating MyBlogLog out of the gate with its Social Dashboard feature, BlogCatalog has moved forward to launch SocialStream, an RSS feed enabled widget that makes “lifestreaming” data portable. The widget makes it possible for BlogCatalog members to share their activity on BlogCatalog and 12 other social networks anywhere they want.“Any network we add to our Dashboard feature can be added to the SocialStream...

Blogging For Kindness: My Den

Sometimes the old saying that “children are a reflection of their parents” holds some truth. At least that seems to be the case for Dan, a hobby blogger who writes My Den. After learning about the Bloggers Unite social awareness campaign Acts of Kindness, which asked bloggers from around the world to perform an act of kindness and share a post, picture, or video about it, Dan turned to his daughter. They set out to...

Making Friends: Social Networks, Much Like Life

Discussions about what constitutes online “friendship” abound about places like Twitter, Facebook, BlogCatalog, whatever. Some people, it seems, are criticizing groups of friends that develop over time as if they are somehow an exclusive club, which Geoff Livingston rebutted yesterday. Ho hum. As if social media doesn’t somehow mirror real life. It’s mostly the same.It’s much ado about nothing. Friends are what you...

Blogging For Kindness: Original Me Tees

Not all blogs are cut from the same cloth. Original Me Tees is a good example. Nathania Johnson, an online marketing consultant, uses the Original Me Tees blog as a promotional tool for her online T-shirt store. The idea originated as an extension of a CaféPress store, which she recently switched to another online print on demand service called Printfection, where you can see her designs.”The idea is that people dress...

Blogging For Kindness: Ark Of Hope For Children

Last November, I had the pleasure of getting to know the Corbett family through Bloggers Unite, a social awareness campaign spearheaded by BlogCatalog. The Corbetts are raising 10 children, five of which were adopted from the foster care system (there are 13 family members in all). They are planning to adopt more children as their vision, Ark Of Hope For Children, becomes a reality. The Ark Of Hope For Children is...

Blogging For Kindness: Mental Stimulation

“The world, Rich, needs more togetherness,” she said. “More healing. And I feel Bloggers Unite brings people closer together.”Simply stated, but inspired.Dee Graham (a.k.a Iriegal) is one of those bloggers, like many I have met through BlogCatalog’s Bloggers Unite social awareness campaigns, who turns blogging stereotypes inside out and upside down. And maybe that’s because there is no “them.”You see, Graham was diagnosed...