Three Local Not-For-Profits Compete for a Free Website  - Winner will be Announced at Lotus Boutique in Downtown Sarasota at One for One event on Saturday, April 17
 
[Sarasota , FL-March 28, 2010]  New World Collaborative, founded by three digital marketing professionals and their companies, is launching its One for One Website Initiative to build a free website for a not-for-profit for every corporate client website they develop.   This generous commitment to the community follows in the footsteps of the highly-publicized mission of Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS.
 
New World Collaborative (www.neWWWorld.com) has selected three not-for-profit organizations that provide basic human services which also are in need of a search engine friendly website that they can modify through content management and an integrated blog.  Each of the three organizations are featured on www.neWWWorld.com  where their supporters and the general public can cast their vote for the organization they wish to receive the website “make-over” and watch the competition as it heats up.  
The three organizations selected are Every Child, Inc. , Mothers Helping Mothers, and Second Chance Last Opportunity.  “We are honored that we can highlight three exceptional organizations that do so much for our community,” says New World Collaborative co-founder Gayle Williams of Vision PR & Marketing. “We’ll have one grand winner, but we hope that when we are done everyone will know of their good work and their support will be multiplied.”

On Saturday, April 17 from 10 am to 3 pm all three organizations will be highlighted at downtown Sarasota’s Lotus Boutique (1451 Main Street) where there will be TOMS Shoes for sale.   Visitors to the store have an opportunity to purchase a pair of TOMS shoes and give back to the community twofold.  By purchasing a pair of TOMS Shoes, each person will know a pair of new shoes has gone to a child in need.   They will also be given a Power Ticket (worth 5 votes) to cast in favor of their chosen not-for-profit.  At 3 pm votes will be tallied and the winning organization will be announced.
 
TOMS Shoes was founded on a simple premise: With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One. Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what they're all about. The TOMS One for One business model transforms customers into benefactors, which allows TOMS to grow a truly sustainable business rather than depending on fundraising for support.
 
“TOMS Shoes is a real inspiration and we couldn’t wait to put this One for One Website program into place because in this new world of marketing, a highly functional, visible and results oriented website is as essential as a pair shoes,” says New World co-founder Gabriel Marguglio of Destiny Technologies.
 
As part of TOMS Shoes “Style Your Soul” project,  downtown screen printing shop, Clothesline and  local artists will be there decorating your shoes for an additional benefit and special treat for your tootsies. TOMS takes it one step further asking “How do you express your individuality?” Your own design  could end up as part of a real TOMS limited edition shoe and sold on TOMS.com if you submit it for their Style Your Soul contest promoted at www.TOMS.com.  TOMS and TeenVogue will select 10 finalists, and then it’s up to you to pick the winner. The contest will run through the submission deadline on April 30, 2010.
 
“This is an exciting collaborative effort working with Wendy Getchell of Lotus and TOMS Shoes to raise awareness of how we can all make a difference in the world with the choices we make every day,” says co-founder Elizabeth Blair of Webjunkees. “We hope everyone will come out and show their support.”
 
About New World Collaborative – Founded by three marketing/PR/web development experts, each heading their own company, New World Collaborative came into being from the belief that collaboration among professionals on behalf of our clients and the community at large was the highest order of business.   Using the most current, most effective and most efficient strategies in this new digital world with streamlined operations, members of New World Collaborative offer clients the cost efficiency of a team of senior experts in marketing, PR, web development, Search Engine Optimization(SEO) and social media. Collectively, we determine the most effective strategies based on each client’s budget and goals, not big overhead.  Our community service is to empower our clients with the knowledge and tools to flourish and most importantly track the results of their programs in a meaningful way.  www.NeWWWorld.com    

New World Collaborative Co-Founders:  Elizabeth Blair / Webjunkees, Gabriel Marguglio / Destiny Technologies, and Gayle Williams/ Vision PR & Marketing.

Here's a great video showing how Social media is changing everything and why you should be doing it. Incredible numbers that show how marketing changed in the past years and why it is so important to be part of this change.

del.icio.us is a web-based bookmarking site. Delicious users save their bookmarks on the website so they can access them from any browser. A website that has many bookmarking it is generally popular and will get more traffic. You can use del.icio.us bookmarks to help improve your SEO campaign. The public social component of del.icio.us makes it a great tool to make your website stand out form your competition. 

Here's a video explaining how to use del.icio.us and why is it SOCIAL:

We believe there really is a new era emerging in the Web's evolution. So what's next?  What will define Web 3.0?

One explanation is that:

Here are a few trends that are distilling the conversation and, in the process, defining Web 3.0:

1. Aggregators

 No one wants to manage accounts on 25 different social sites. This frustration has driven the creation of tools like iGoogle, FriendFeed and Netvibes — all aimed at streamlining your social Web into one space. But more importantly, it has led to the reinvention of Facebook as the ultimate social aggregator.

Recent redesigns of Facebook have turned it into a place where your photos, videos and blog posts can be easily (and automatically) funneled into one place. That's an approach that FriendFeed pioneered years ago, but there's a big difference: Your friends are actually using Facebook.

And now they can even comment on your shared items without leaving the social network. That's bad news for YouTube and other sites that need traffic to create ad revenue, but it's good news for users who don't want to scramble all over creation just to say "Cute video!"

2. Simple sharing

 We've all been seeing those "Share this!" buttons for years now. If you're a marketer or PR person, you've probably plastered them all over your work in hopes of helping it "go viral." But the reality is that these links to sites like Digg or Reddit just haven't been that useful.

That's finally starting to change thanks to Web and smartphone tools that simplify the sharing process.

A few examples:

 • Hootsuite's Ow.ly Social Bar: A bit more comprehensive than TBuzz, this tool shares sites but then also makes it easy for the viewer to share it again. So if you like the link I send you to, you can click a button at the top of the page and keep the share train rolling.

• Smub.it: Designed to make sharing easier on an iPhone, Smub actually works on just about any device with a Web browser. You simply add "smub.it/" in front of any URL, and it will pull up a page of simple buttons to share that site on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc.

3. Un-Sites

The design-heavy microsite has been under serious assault lately. Why? Because businesses and marketers are realizing that there's an infinite supply of content out there, being refreshed every day. Why go through all the trouble of creating 100% of your site's content yourself?

And here's another point: A few years ago, if you wanted video on your site, you had to write or find a code that would let you host the video. Big pain in the butt. Now Google is dumping millions of dollars into making YouTube the best, most advanced video service on the planet. Why would you still go it alone, when you can just embed YouTube on your own site for free?

Right now, this concept is being pushed to its limits by ad agencies and others who want to get buzz by showing how minimalist their Web design can be. The most notable examples are Modernista's pop-up home page, the similar Skittles project by Agency.com, and most recently BooneOakley's bizarre conversion of its agency site into a YouTube video. (watch bellow)

For now, these kinds of projects are mostly just publicity stunts. But there's no denying that repurposed content from sites like Twitter and YouTube is going to become the norm with almost any site design in the near future.

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On another angle we've heard that if Web 1.0 was characterized by connecting people to content, and Web 2.0 is connecting people to people, then Web 3.0 is certainly connecting objects to people and to eachother. The Internet of things. Tim O’Reilly has also been talking about this for a while.

Inanimate objects can be embedded with sensors and connected wirelessly to the Internet. This enables us mere human objects to effectively communicate with those formerly inanimate objects. The hope is that as we are able to collect data from these embedded objects and analyze it we’ll be able to make better, more informed decisions based on all the available information we have.

This requires, of course, better analytics to makes sense of it all. But coupled together (data+ analytics) it’s truly the next transformative era of computing. 

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So what's your take on the term "Web 3.0"? Is it a bold new era? Or just a reorganization of all the information we have today? I'd love to hear what trends you've noticed and where you think they're taking us.

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Original Blog Posts: thesocialpath.com  and  asmarterplanet.com

At Destiny Tech we believe that if you reduce travel and meet virtually and collaborate online instead, you can save both time and money. We know that there is a time and place for travel, but we believe that with the right tools, a little know-how, and some adventurous spirit, you can save money, be more productive, and lower your environmental impact.
 

   V.S. 

We use these tools in every project, meet remotely, use IP phone technology to teleconference with professionals and customers all over the world and best of all, save you time and Money. This collaboration saves us time and money so we extrapolate these savings into your final price.

Personally we prefer CITRIX GoTo Meeting (To do online meetings) but there are a lot of collaboration tools (and a lot of free ones online). We also use Google Docs (to share documents), instant messaging tools for easy & fast communication and Ip phones for free international teleconferences. We also have these tools working with our mobile devices (iphones) to help everybody be connected at all times, updated with the project growth and also communicated with new requests, changes, etc.

Commuting to work and traveling for business is often unavoidable. There are many good reasons to travel: There is nothing like a face-to-face meeting to forge a relationship or read subtle body language cues; spending time immersed in a different culture opens our eyes, minds and hearts; traveling to a client, partner or donor shows them that they are important to you and your organization. However, many of us travel when not necessary. Not only does travel use up money and valuable time that you could be spending in other ways, but it's costly to the environment.

We are rethinking work-related travel (including commuting), just like may non-profits and for-profit companies. Here you have a list of 10 recommendations for reducing or eliminate business travel without completely losing the advantages of meeting face-to-face. We encourage everyone to use these suggestions so organizations and individuals can use technology to save time, reduce travel costs, and reduce impact on the environment at the same time.

10 Ways to Change (Save TIME, Save MONEY & Save the environment too):

Here are 10 technology tips to help you reduce your need to travel:

1. Measure your travel: Determine your organization's travel and commuting environmental footprint as well as the amount of money your organization is spending on travel. Make a list of meetings, training's, and events attended by your staff or volunteers that might be suitable for teleconferencing, Web or video conferencing.

 

2. Attend online trainings using a webbing service or screen-casting to observe its effectiveness, and how you might use it to substitute for a meeting or training at your organization.

 

3. Try out one or more telephone conferencing services. Some good options are: Ready-Talk, Care2Call, and FreeConferenceCall.com, Skype, Vonage, etc. GotoMeeting has its own phone component for teleconferencing wile having the WEB conference.

 

4. Try one or more Web conferencing services. Some good options are: GotoMeeting, ReadyTalk, Microsoft Communicator, and WebEx.

 

5. Check into video conferencing services. Some basic free options are: Skype and gmail voice and video chat.

 

6. Explore an online virtual world environment like Second Life to see how that tool might provide a fun and more personal meeting environment.

 

7. Use instant messaging technologies (chat/IM) like Skype, Pidgin, or AOL Instant Messaging (AIM) to allow more spontaneous communications. Or consider tools like Communicator 2007 that include instant messaging as part of a robust online communications package.

 

8. Collaborate and share documents online. Some free services are: 4shared.com, GoogleApps Education, Google Docs, Microsoft Office Online, Google Groups, and Yahoo Groups.

 

9. Encourage staff to telecommute. Technologies like remote desktop software like pcAnywhere, virtual private networking (VPN), voice over IP (VoIP), and virtual PBX can help make working at home as effective as coming into the office. Many corporations and very large non-profits have used custom-built VoIP infrastructures to facilitate unified communications for years, but VoIP products and systems have recently become more accessible for small-to-medium organizations too making it easier to effectively work from home and stay in touch (Vonage ip phones is a great example of this technology coming available for people and small organizations)

 

10. Look for conferences that have a virtual component or will be recorded and can be accessed online, such as the Craigslist Foundation's Nonprofit Boot Camp. Or ask a local volunteer or board member to attend and report back to your group instead of asking someone to travel.

• One 4,150 KM (2,578 mile) flight emits 762 pounds of CO2 per person, which is equivalent to 5% of the CO2 emissions from the electricity use of an average home for one year. The IPCC estimates that aviation emissions are currently 492 million tons per year and growing at a rate of 6% annually.
• Telecommuters last year saved 840 million gallons of gasoline and reduced carbon emissions by almost 14 million tons.
• The Telework Coalition estimates that $20,000 per year can be added to the bottom-line of your organization per full-time teleworking employee in reduced real estate needs and related overhead expenses.
• Allowing your staff and volunteers to work remotely has proven to increase both productivity and job satisfaction.

Original Blog post: techsoup.org

First of all, what is a WIKI?, well lets go to the WIKIPEDIA definition of WIKI:

A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked Web pages, using a simple text editor, within the browser. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites, and for note taking. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis. Wikis are used in business to provide intranet and knowledge management systems.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIKI

A wiki could be use for collaborative projects, events and more. In business all this is going to be published online so you could use it to promote your events and products by creating a wiki about them and having the members of these events or product collaborate. Remember to create links back to your blog (were you talk about the event) or to your website, were you have information about yout product.

Here is a good video about how wikis work and how you can create one.

Destiny.

Google Wave was released at the recent Google I/O event as a demo product. It is an amazing real time collaboration and communication platform with email, instant messaging and heaps more combined to form an awesome product.

The demo product is an HTML 5 applicaion built using the Google Web Toolkit. Wave is being released as an open source product. Its open platform encourages developers to build other Wave clients, extensions and embed waves in other web pages and platforms. The product is characterised by the 3P’s namely product, platform and protocol.

The brothers Jens and Lars Rasmussen from Google Australia are the creators of this incredible product. Their previous creation was Google Maps which is now the defacto standard for online mapping of geographical locations. This has taken a good couple of years to develop and bring it to its current form. Jens stressed this fact to the audience - You must remember that all this is happening in your browser.

A “wave” contains equal parts document and conversation where people can simultaneously work and communicate together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps and more.

How Google Wave Works

You create a wave and add contacts to it. All the contacts on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, videos, gadgets and feeds from other sites on the web. All members can edit the wave directly and also insert replies. You can see all the edits in real time as the changes are made to the wave by others.You can be running a Firefox browser and your friend can be on Safari browser. You can add as many contacts as you want.

The playback feature is a very powerful feature. If a new contact joins the wave, she can see the collaboration and communication that has taken place in a certain form at that point of time. By clicking playback, she can see how the whole wave has evolved from the beginning to the point of time she joined the wave. This is a very powerful feature especially when teams are working on different parts of the same project document.

Some of the really cool features are:

• Google Wave offers plain vanilla type email conversation where you can send emails to contacts you choose to.
• Instant messaging where unlike the typical IM chat, you see the message - Sarah is typing
  before you get to see the message once Sarah is done typing, in a wave, you see the chat transferred character by character in real time
• Use playback to see how the wave has evolved to its current shape
• Drag and drop attachments, say photos, into the wave from your desktop and everyone else on the wave can see it almost instantly
• API for embedding your wave to web pages such as a blog
• Wave can be embedded in social media sites like Orkut
• You can participate in a wave from your mobile phone
• Editing of the wave in real time and edits appear instantly with markups denoting the different edits
• Ability to send a private message to a particular contact which others cannot see
• Teams working on a project document can collaborate in real time and communicate simultaneously when working on it

Google Wave can be viewed as a platform with a rich collection of open APIs. This allows developers to build new extensions that can work with waves and also embed waves in other web services.

The Google Wave Federation Protocol is the basis for storing and sharing waves with the all important live concurrency mechanism which allows edits to be viewed in real time across contacts and services. This protocol is designed such that any user’s wave services can communicate with each other and with the Google Wave service. This is going to be achieved by making the Google Wave protocol code open source.

An excellent video on the Google Wave demo by the development team will give you a great idea of the amazing features that have been built into it.

Google is encouraging the developer community to create some cool apps that can be incorporated into the Google Wave before it is made public. You can sign up at http://wave.google.com to be notified of the release date when Google Wave is launched as a public product.

 Original Blog Post: www.naturalsearchblog.com