Posted by: DeAnn Farha

I want to share an article from Mashable.com written by Geoff Livingston about  Twitter’s Hope 140 application  to raise awareness for non-profit organizations. Last week,  #EndMalaria Campaign users participated by retweeting and donating $10 for World Malaria Day, through Hope 140 and TwitPay.  Twitter chooses what non-profit organization will be able to use Hope 140. Organizations such as Room to Read and Partners in Health will be launching its Hope 140 through retweets, public announcements and donations.

How Does Twitter’s New Social Good Initiative Stack Up?

Last month saw the latest Twitter (Twitter) foray into social good efforts with the launch of the new Hope140 initiative. Its #EndMalaria campaign over the past week featured the TwitPay platform for donations, creating a new call to action for Hope140. Twitter users participated in World Malaria Day by retweeting and donating $10. The Case Foundation matched donations with a $25,000 grant.

#EndMalaria demonstrated that Twitter can be more than an awareness mechanism for non-profits. Further, Twitter is using its Promoted Tweets feature as public service vehicle, launching with two charities; Room to Read, which is campaigning to promote the building of their 10,000th library, and Partners in Health. Now Twitter’s non-profit offering provides comprehensive capabilities, from click-throughs and retweets to bona fide donations and public service announcements.

(Read more)

Posted By: Jared Cook

I want to share this Mashable.com article written by Adam Ostrow about how to embed a tweet.

HOW TO: Embed a Tweet

As expected, Twitter has rolled out a new tool that lets you embed a tweet on a website. The feature –- which we confirmed was on its way on Monday –- replaces the need to take a screenshot and crop tweets, like we often do in blog posts when we want to quote someone via Twitter.

Using “Blackbird pie,” you can create an embeddable tweet by first entering the URL for the chosen message in the form that Twitter has created (that URL can be found using the timestamp on a tweet – i.e. –- where it says “3 hours ago”).

From there, click “Bake It,” and Blackbird will generate the code needed to embed the tweet on your website. Twitter notes when “you paste it into your site, the tweet will pick up some of your styling, e.g. the font-family you use on your p tags. That’s intentional!” Here’s what the end result looks like:

(Read More)

Posted by: DeAnn Farha

I want to share an article written by Julie O’Dell from Mashable.com about Matt Mullenwegm, founder of blogging software WordPress. The nonprofit WordPress Foundation plans to compete with Tumblr by offering free services such as PollDaddy, Akisment and buddyPress since the collapse of Ning.

WordPress Founder Talks About the Platform’s Future [VIDEO]

At WordCamp SF yesterday, we got to talk to WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg. He’s the man behind the Automattic empire, a collection of blogging software and complementary services, such as PollDaddy and the spam filtration system Akisment.

Mullenweg chatted with us about the demise of Ning and how buddyPress, his solution for communities, can help those folks who are left wondering about free alternatives. He also talked about how WordPress (WordPress) plans to compete with Tumblr (Tumblr), the status of the nonprofit WordPress Foundation, acquisition plans in 2010, WordPress’ focus on themes and even his favorite non-WordPress blogs.

(Read More)

Posted by: Maya Tao

I would like to share an article by Ben Parr from mashable.com regarding the new following feature of LinkedIn. Users now can get automatic promotional and hiring updates from companies they follow, and they can also set up the frequencies as well as the types of information they would like to receive. Companies are expected to take the advantage of LinkedIn follow button to promote their profiles and seeking potential employees.

LinkedIn Gives Users the Ability to Follow Companies

LinkedIn has made it easier for users to connect with their favorites companies with the launch of “Follow Company,” a new feature that allows users to get notifications about activity happening from the companies they follow.

The new feature, which rolled out overnight, clearly takes cues from Facebook and Twitter — you can think of Follow Company as LinkedIn’s version of the Facebook Fan Page. However, instead of receiving status updates from the companies you follow, you will instead get information such as recent hires and promotions, new job opportunities and company profile updates.

Read More