Both rely heavily on absolute / universal statements.

Twitter is NOT a Social Network, Says Twitter Exec

Social “Me”dia and the Evolving Twitter Egosystem

Twitter may try to define their product/service all they wish. The reality remains that the site’s users and visitors will define the brand.

A social network is defined by “patterns of ties” or relationships wherein people share common experiences and/or beliefs – among other things. See http://bit.ly/socialnetwork-defined for just a wee bit of history.

Me thinks Kevin Thau was doing some PR work on stage. He wishes to brand Twitter as something he can sell. This “Twitter is news” etc. meme serves his interests well.

It still doesn’t make his absolute statement – Twitter is not a social network – true.

Hate to break it to you, but Twitter is a social network for many people; ergo, Twitter is a social network – for some, if not many.

Here’s a thought.  Read a book.  Not your own.

While we’re  at  it,  AdAge does it again. Meet Simon Dumenco. Simon knows absolutely nothing about PR. Want proof? Read RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) — and Long Live the Tweet. Sigh. Another clueless wonder with a column in AdAge.

@jspepper: I’m beginning to hate @mrtweet.

I felt compelled to respond with the following:

RT @jspepper: I’m beginning to hate @mrtweet. ) Agreed. Relationships should grow organically, not en masse via flawed search algorithms.

@MrTweet ‘s use of the word “influencers” is a misnomer. They have vetted nothing more than keywords. Sigh.

By definition, algorithms solve problems. Mr. Tweet creates problems via enabling Twitter spam. @MrTweet

To expand upon that, I’m wondering who among us would choose an opt-out of Mr. Tweet search, if Mr. Tweet offered one? @MrTweet are you listening?

I wonder if Twitter is listening? Would they block access by one of their, I’m guessing, prized *46K plus followers* popular 3rd party apps? The number of ridiculous requests to follow has exponentially increased since Mr. Tweet came on the scene. Mr. Tweet, it seems, is more than happy to enable others to ping dozens, even hundreds or thousands, of users – as long as it broadens Mr. Tweet’s base.

I’m doubting Twitter would block @MrTweet as the app enables Twitter’s growth. Is @MrTweet a sign of a shark jump on the horizon?

This raises a question. Are third party applications actually detrimental to applications? We’ve seen 3rd party apps cause great unhappiness on Facebook. Now, as Twitter gains prominence, 3rd party apps are making people very unhappy, too.

Sites like Twitter find themselves in a quandry. They want to encourage 3rd pary applications as they help lead to greater numbers of users. The desire for growth, it seems, outweighs caring about spam and the opinions of current adopters.

I haven’t seen a lot of discussion about these quandries, so I’m wondering what you think?

Hey, that’s a pretty broad claim, after all.

I feel this needs to be addressed.

Marc Hausman makes the claim in PROpenMic. His post, Colleges Fail on Social Media is from October 16, 2008. He bases his bold broad claim on one visit to one class at one university. At least he admits, in the comments of that post, that “My sweeping conclusion was for the sake of drama as it is inappropriate for me to make a statement about all colleges from one class visit.”

Marc wasn’t happy to just cross-post at PROpenMic. No. See, it turns out he had cross-posted it again at MyRagan.com – Colleges Fail on Social Media on October 16, 2008. Today, October 20th, MyRagan sends it out as a featured post in their email promotions to drive traffic to their site.

Gee, I think, this looks familiar. Only, there is one difference. At MyRagan.com, Marc cross-posted the whole post from his blog – Colleges Fail on Social Media. Hmm? That title looks familiar, too.

We have a few problems with this practice. I honestly wouldn’t have written this, had I not known of the other cross-posting instance. But, hey … a university and class is being wrongly accused and they are being used to cast false assumptions on all colleges and universities. Let’s pick the low hanging fruit, first. Here is a comment I was going to post at MyRagan.com:

As I shared elsewhere (on another cross-posting of this same article), this anecdotal observation – solely for drama’s sake – does not truly represent either the student involvement & understanding of social media, nor the faculty involvement & understanding, either.

One college ‘class’ doesn’t measure up, yet we have a blanket condemnation – “Colleges Fail on Social Media”? Well, perhaps we have a failure here, but it isn’t on the shoulders of the students or academia.

At least MyRagan’s tease had a ‘might’ caveat in it: “Think Gen Y knows more about social media than you? Think again. Turns out 20-somethings might know less about social media than originally suspected.”

Come on, Marc. A declarative statement as your headline, but you offer nothing more than one anecdotal reference. If you’re going to make claims, at least have some broad evidence.

OK, that’s where my comment ended. I think posting it here, so I may elaborate, works better.

You see – don’t you? Marc is condemning a whole class of students and the university he visited – with no true evidence, just his one class visit experience. This Google search for “american university” public relations site:blogspot.com reveals many examples of students & faculty engaging in blogging at American University. Gee, Marc. Maybe you visited the wrong class? I do not think you’re being fair to American University – or, for that matter, all colleges.

Let’s not forget, Marc charged that all “Colleges Fail on Social Media”.

Hmm? Do they? Gee, here’s a list of the schools involved in PROpenMic. They seem to have some people interested in social media. ) Look. Here is a list of the college and university affiliations our users shared in their profiles.

1. Ivy Tech Community College
2. Immaculata University, PA
3. Algonquin College
4. American University
5. Appalachian State University
6. Arizona State University
7. Arkansas State University-Jonesboro
8. Artevelde University College
9. Arteveldehogeschool
10. ASE, Marketing
11. Atlantic Cape Community College
12. Auburn University
13. Ball State Univeristy
14. Baltic Film and Media School of Tallinn University
15. Baltic Film and Media School, Tallinn Univesity, Estonia
16. Banja Luka College of Communications
17. Boston University
18. Bournemouth Media School
19. Bournemouth University
20. Brock University
21. Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Faculty of International Economic Relations
22. Bucks County Community College
23. Budapest College of Communication and Business
24. Butte College
25. Cal State University
26. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
27. California State University Chico
28. California State University, Dominguez Hills
29. Cameron University
30. Capital University
31. Centennial College
32. Central Michigan University
33. Charles Sturt University
34. Christopher Newport University
35. Clarion University of PA
36. Clark Atlanta University
37. Clemson University
38. College of Charleston
39. Colorado State University
40. Columbia College Chicago
41. Columbia University
42. Columbus State University
43. CSUF
44. CSUN
45. Curtin University of Technology
46. De Montfort University
47. DePaul University
48. Dominican University of CA
49. Dundalk Institute of Technology
50. Durham College
51. IIM/EURO, Novi Sad, Serbia
52. E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University
53. East Carolina University
54. Eastern Connecticut State University
55. Elon University
56. Emerson College
57. Escola Superior de Comunicao Social – Sao Paulo
58. ESCS – School of Communication and Media Studies
59. Europa Fachhochschule Fresenius
60. Faculty for media and communication, University of Singidunum
61. Faculty of political science, University of Belgrade
62. Faculty of Technical Sciences, Novi Sad
63. fakultete organizacionih nauka
64. Falmouth ucf
65. Fanshawe College
66. FCRP
67. Ferris State University
68. Florida International
69. Florida A&M University
70. Florida Atlantic university
71. George Washington University
72. University of Kent in Brussels
73. Georgetown University
74. Georgia College and State University
75. Georgia Southern University
76. Georgia State University
77. Grand Valley State University
78. Hawaii Pacific University
79. High Technical School, Novi Sad
80. Hofstra University
81. Howard University
82. Humber College
83. Bournemouth University
84. Seneca College in Toronto
85. Harvard College
86. Illinois State University
87. Indiana University
88. Indiana University – Bloomington
89. Indiana University of Pennsylvania
90. INP – Instituto Superior de Novas Profissaµes
91. Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administrao do Porto
92. Intern (American Red Cross)
93. Iona College
94. ISCAP – Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administrao do Porto
95. ISCOM Paris
96. Istanbul Bilgi University
97. IULM University, Milano, Italy
98. James Madison
99. Johns Hopkins University
100. Johnson County Community College
101. Kennesaw State University
102. Kent State University
103. Kutztown University
104. La Salle University
105. Lancashire Business School
106. Leeds Metropolitan
107. Leeds Metropolitan University
108. Lehigh University
109. Lethbridge College and Athabasca University
110. Leverage Your Genius – Rejuvenate Your Practice
111. Liberty University
112. London College of Communication
113. Louisiana State University
114. Loyola University Chicago
115. Malardalen University College Sweden
116. Abo Academy Finland
117. Madonna University
118. Marketing Faculty
119. Marquette University, Milwaukee
120. Marquette University, Wisconsin
121. McGill
122. McGill University
123. McKendree University
124. MDH University of Applied Sciences Berlin
125. Michigan State University
(new addition) – Minnestoa State University, Mankato
126. Minnesota State University Moorhead
127. Missouri Southern State University
128. Morehead State University
129. moron university
130. Moron University
131. Mount Saint Vincent University
132. MSU
133. Mt Royal
134. Muhammadiyah Surakarta University
135. Murray State University
136. Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
137. New York University
138. Newcastle University
139. Niagara College
140. NIU
141. Northeastern University
142. Northern Arizona University
143. Northern Kentucky University
144. Northwestern
145. Northwestern State University of Louisiana
146. Northwood University
147. NW Institute of Printing
148. NYU – Gallatin School of Individualized Study
149. NYU – School of Education
150. Ohio Northern University
151. Ohio University
152. Oklahoma State University
153. Otterbein College
154. Pearson Education
155. Peking University
156. Point Park University
157. Portland State University
158. Manchester Metropolitan
159. Universidade Luterana do Brazil
160. PUCPR
161. Queensland University of Technology
162. Quinnipiac University
163. Radford University
164. RMIT University
165. Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
166. Rochester Institute of Technology
167. Rosemont College
168. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
169. Ryerson University
170. Ryerson University
171. S. I. Newhouse School, Syracuse University
172. Saint Joseph’s College
173. Salem State College
174. Salisbury University
175. Salzburg University
176. Samford University
177. San Diego State
178. San Jose State University
179. Savannah College of Art and Design
180. School of Communication, Charles Sturt University
181. School of Communication, Edith Cowan University
182. School of Media Studies – Politecnic of Lisbon Institut
183. Seattle University
184. Seneca College
185. Seton Hall University, MASCL Program
186. Sheridan College
187. Simmons College
188. SNSPA-Comunicare si Relatii Publice
189. Sonoma State University
190. Southern Illinois Univeristy-Carbondale
191. Southern Illinois Universtiy-Edwardsville
192. St. Edward’s University
193. St. John’s University
194. Stirling University
195. SU St. Kliment Ohridski
196. Sunderland University
197. SUNY New Paltz
198. Swinburne University of Technology
199. Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune
200. Syracuse University
201. Tallinn University Baltic Film and Media School
202. Tartu University
203. Texas A&M University
204. The George Washington University
205. The University of Findlay
206. The University of Hawaii at Manoa
207. The University of Iowa
208. The University of Jyväskylä
209. The University of Memphis
210. The University of North Alabama
211. The University of South Florida
212. The University of Sydney
213. The University of York
214. The West University of Timisoara
215. Nelson Mandella MU in Port Elizabeth, South Africa (BAMCC)
216. Thomas Nelson Community College
217. Towson University
218. Troy University
219. Tulane University
220. U.N.A.T.C. “I.L. Caragiale”, Film Faculty, Bucharest – Romania
221. UC Davis Extension
222. UC Santa Barbara
223. UCLA
224. University of Central Lancaster Lancashire
225. Ulbra
226. University of North Carolina – Charlotte
227. Union University
228. Univ of Georgia
229. Univ. of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
230. Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera. Spain.
231. Universidad Jaime I
232. Universidade Catalica Portuguesa
233. Universidade de(University of) Sao Paulo – USP – www.usp.br
234. Universita Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
235. University at Buffalo
236. University College Falmouth
237. University Luterana do Brasil
238. University of Alabama
239. University of Arkansas at Little Rock
240. University of BORDEAUX (ISIC)
241. University of Bucharest
242. University of California, Irvine
243. University of Central Arkansas
244. University of Central Florida
245. University of Central Missouri
246. University of Chicago
247. University of Georgia – Grady College
248. University of Georgia, College of Environment and Design
249. University of Hawaii at Manoa
250. University of Houston
251. University of Iowa
252. University of Jyvaskyla¤, Finland
253. University of Leipzig, Dep. for Communication Management
254. University of Lugano
255. University of Malaradalen
256. University of Mary Washington
257. University of Maryland, College Park
258. University of Memphis
259. University of Miami, Ohio
260. University of Miami, Florida
261. University of Michigan
262. University of MInnesota
263. University of Nairobi
264. University of Nebraska- Lincoln
265. University of Nevada, Las Vegas
266. University of New York in Prague
267. University of North Alabama
268. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
269. University of North Carolina Wilmington
270. University of North Texas
271. University of Oklahoma
272. University of Oregon
273. University of Phoenix Online
274. University of Pittsburgh
275. University of Rhode Island
276. University Of Sao Paulo
277. University of South Alabama
278. University of South Carolina
279. University of South Florida
280. University of Southern Mississippi
281. University of Stirling (UK)
282. University of Sunderland
283. University of Sydney
284. University of Tartu
285. University of Technology Sydney
286. University of Tennessee
287. University of Texas at Austin
288. University of Texas at San Antonio
289. University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio
290. University of Virginia
291. University of Wales Institute, Cardiff
292. University of Washington
293. University of West Florida
294. University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh
295. University of Wisconsin Eau Claire
296. University of Wisconsin, Madison
297. Univrsity of Central Lancashire
298. Unversity of North Florida
299. UQAM
300. USC Annenberg School for Communication
301. UWF
302. ViA
303. Vidzeme University College
304. Virginia Tech
305. Washington State University
306. Wayne State University
307. Webster University
308. Western Kentucky University
309. Western Oregon University
310. Wilmington College
311. Yasar University, Izmir, Turkiye
312. York, UK

OK, I have not completely combed the list for duplicates. I’m sure there are some. I’ll do that combing later. Suffice to say, there seem to at least be 200+ schools in the list. Now, some are alma maters by some that are no longer students. Some are the schools of faculty members, too.

Still, seems like there is at least some potential real evidence to counter Marc’s claims.

What do you think?

P.S. Marc, I guess you’re probably going to think I’m picking on you. I’m not. I’m trying to make a point to my students about best practice. You can believe me or not. But, that’s the truth.

Our social network for public relations students, PROpenMic.org will celebrate six months online on October 1st.

Allow me to begin by thanking all of the members. So many people have helped with advice and guidance along the way. I appreciate all of your help. I also appreciate the involvement of our volunteer administrators (in no particular order): Phil Gomes, Edelman; Kelli Matthews, University of Oregon; Tiffany Derville Gallicano, University of Oregon; Mihaela Vorvoreanu, Clemson University; Karen Russell, University of Georgia; Kaye Sweetser, University of Georgia; and, Barbara Nixon, Georgia Southern University. Not only do they help with the site, but they allow me to bother them asking questions all the time. ) I really do appreciate their contributions.

Ironically, we started on April Fool’s Day. Some people suggested there really wasn’t a need for such a site. I’ll admit that I had no idea how the site would be received. Although having thought (for a few years) about how we could create a site that truly pulled people together from around the world, I actually built and launched the site in one evening. Funny, huh?

As of this writing, PROpenMic has 2,366 members listed. They hail from well over 40 countries around the world and over 140 different colleges and universities. Further, we have practitioners from hundreds of large and small agencies all over the world. Also, you’ll find internal PR practitioners from Fortune 500 firms, state governments, nonprofits, education and much more.

I’ll write another post later about stories from PROpenMic members and how the site has helped people make connections. This post is more of a “how are we doing” in our efforts to attract an audience.

So, I thought I’d do a little research into how well we’re doing regarding traffic and compare PROpenMic’s activity to similar sites with a public relations focus. That proved to be a bit difficult, because there really isn’t any other social network site similar to PROpenMic with regard to its primary focus on PR students and faculty. So, I chose the closest examples I could find.

Below, you’ll see a comparison of PROpenMic to the following sites:

• propenmic.org
• myragan.com
• holmesreport.com
• odwyerpr.com
• communitelligence.com
• sncr.org
• higheredexperts.com

Some caveats before we begin. (Nope, I just want the numbers/graphs, please.)

These are just stats from sites that are used by others to gauge a site’s activity level. With regard to all of the stats below, we must retain perspective. Some of this is a bit of apples and oranges. The seven sites cover similar issues, but they all have a different focus with regard to who they are trying to reach and how they are going about it.

PROpenMic.org is the only nonprofit education site among the seven that never charges anything for anything. And, only two of the sites are nonprofit: PROpenMic and SNCR. ) By that, I mean PROpenMic.org has no ads, does not require a paid subscription to view, and it is not being used to sell/market other services. So, that distinguishes PROpenMic from all six other sites. But, there really aren’t any sites similar to PROpenMic, so I chose some that I feel are at least similar in some ways. The primary similarity is, of course, all seven sites have public relations as their focus, at least in part.

OK, sorry if some of that is redundant, but I feel it is important to retain that perspective. Read the following and let me know what you think. Is this surprising, or does it make perfect sense? The traffic and participation numbers / rate for PROpenMic seem to compare well to some other public relations sites. Some of them are social networks. The others are public relations news sites.

PROpenMic.org has only been online for six months (as of October 1st). The others have been online for more than a year. Some have been online for three years to almost a decade.

• MyRagan.com is at least 18 months old.
• SNCR.org dates back to July of 2005.
• Communitelligence.com dates back to May of 2004.
• HigherEdExperts.com dates back to February of 2002.
• HolmesReport.com dates back to at least February of 2001.
• ODwyerPR.com dates back to December of 1998.

Source for those dates is the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Please also note that some of them may not have been operating as networks. For instance, I don’t think HigherEdExperts.com has actually been in operation for more than three years in its present form.

Over 50% of PROpenMic.org’s membership are practitioners or faculty members. So, we aren’t exactly a predominately youth driven site.

That’s one of the reasons why I’m a bit surprised at how well we stack up against such sites as MyRagan, O’Dwyer’s and the Holmes Report.

Unique visitors to sites as tallied by Compete.com. (See graphs of these stats below.)

• propenmic.org: 6,172
• myragan.com: 6,100
• holmesreport.com: 1,900
• odwyerpr.com: 8,593
• communitelligence.com: 3,028
• sncr.org: 8,280
• higheredexperts.com: 2,035

Rank monthly from Compete.com. Compete ranks the top one million websites in the U.S. based on the number of people the domain attracts each month. Important: The lower the number, the better your site’s ranking. For instance, Yahoo’s rank is 1. They have the most traffic of all. (See graphs of these stats below.)

• propenmic.org: 216,328
• myragan.com: 218,496
• holmesreport.com: 570,293
• odwyerpr.com: 163,953
• communitelligence.com: 391,514
• SNCR.org: 169,221
• higheredexperts.com: 539,344

The number of visits made to a site. A person can only be counted as one person in a month, but can make multiple site visits. (See graphs of these stats below.)

• propenmic.org: 8,954
• myragan.com: 7,062
• holmesreport.com: 2,176
• odwyerpr.com: 9,963
• communitelligence.com: 3,195
• SNCR.org: 10,979
• higheredexperts.com: 2,035

The number of pages an average person views on each visit to a domain. (See graphs of these stats below.)

• propenmic.org: 16.0
• myragan.com: 4.5
• holmesreport.com: 3.9
• odwyerpr.com: 2.5
• communitelligence.com: 1.5
• SNCR.org: 3.2
• higheredexperts.com: 8.4

The number of minutes an average visitor spends on a site during each visit. (See graphs of these stats below.)

• propenmic.org: 05:30
• myragan.com: 03:15
• holmesreport.com: 04:12
• odwyerpr.com: 02:49
• communitelligence.com: 04:08
• SNCR.org: 03:26
• higheredexperts.com: 06:36

Alexa rankings for five sites: (See graphs of these stats below.)

• propenmic.org – 268,760
• myragan.com – 294,649
• holmesreport.com – 1,177,977
• odwyerpr.com – 267,961
• communitelligence.com – 924,497
• sncr.org – 404,336
• higheredexperts.com – 1,140,315

(Permalink)

The graphs below help illustrate the results above. I had to place them at the end because they are wider than my blog’s layout allows higher up in the post. Please note, both Alexa and Compete only allow you to compare five sites at one time, so that explains the missing results for SNCR.org and HigherEdExperts.com. But, you can follow the links in the stats above and search for those sites, if you wish.

In MarketLeap.com, I searched for the links existing to the sites. Here is the resulting link popularity check table. Note: The link popularity check determines the number of links to a site found in the search engines like: Google, AOL, HotBot, Yahoo!, FAST, AltaVista. Remember, PROpenMic.org is (a) only six months old and (b) only our first page, the front page, is indexed by search engines. (The other sites listed in the table are provided by MarketLeap so you may compare your site to others with similar link totals.)

Here is one Alexa graph from searches for the sites. We are the blue line. Look, I’m not trying to be cocky here, but note how we tend to spike way above the other sites from time to time. Some of that is due to the people that share the site with others, like Peter Shankman, for example, through his Help A Reporter (HARO) emails. Peter has sent us more members than anyone else. Many thanks for that, too.

The following five graphs are representative of results from Compete.com.

We have a very respectable length of time spent on the site per visitor. Remember, this is an average. Some stay longer, some scoot away quickly. We are the blue line, and as you’ll see, we’re ahead of all others. Pretty cool, huh.

For pages per visit, we are again way above the other sites. Our users visit almost twice the number of pages than the closest other site. We’re four times ahead of others.

Our number of unique visitors is exceeded by only ODwyerPR.com.

Our traffic rank is exceeded only by ODwyerPR.com and SNCR.org, and not by much considering the relative youth of our site.

Finally, our overall visits are higher than all other sites, except ODwyerPR.com. And, we feel compelled to remind you … they are a business with actual staff, writers and budgets. ;o) They pay people. What a concept.

First, apologies for the length of the post. Second, I think this is a good example of how an idea, with no funding behind it, can serve a niche audience and compare very well to other commercial sites.

Examples?

MyRagan.com, HolmesReport.com, Communitelligence.com and ODwyerPR.com are businesses. They have enormous resources behind them. They pay writers. They have IT staffs. They have, um … what’s the word? Money! )

MyRagan.com doesn’t charge for you to participate in their site, but it has ads (for their own products/services, like their store) and they do use email to members to market their services. Essentially, they built the site to capture an audience and market the many fee based services, seminars and more offered by Ragan Communications, like: MyRagan, MyRaganTV, Jobs and Message Boards, eNewsletters, Newsletters, eTraining and Consulting.

The Holmes Report costs $50 a month, or $295 a year, for an individual subscription.

ODwyer’s PR/Marcom costs $25 a month, or $150 a year, for an individual subscription.

Communitelligence does not charge a fee for you to participate in their site, but it does have ads and they use the site to market the many fee based services, seminars and more offered by Communitelligence Inc. You’ll see examples of their family of Web sites at that link.

Hey, I’m not faulting any of those businesses for trying to make a buck. I’m saying that you don’t have to have all of those resources – in some instances – to build a site where many people will find utility and value.

Now, SNCR.org is the Society for New Communications Research. It “is a global nonprofit 501(c)(3) think tank dedicated to the advanced study of the latest developments in new media and communications, and their effect on traditional media and business models, communications, culture and society.” And, full disclosure required, I’m a founding fellow of the organization. Bless Jennifer McClure’s heart, there isn’t much of an infrastructure behind all of her work and efforts compared to those businesses. But, look at the success the SNCR site has garnered. Again, you don’t necessarily need money to attract an audience. True, SNCR does use its site to market publications and conferences, but hardly close to the level of those other sites.

HigherEdExperts.com is the baby of Karine Joly. It, too, does not have the wealth of resources behind it in comparison to the businesses above. It is also likely one of the most niche sites of all in this list of seven. Karine has, what – maybe 20-30,000 people in the U.S. to draw from (as in Higher Education Web practitioners?). I’m probably way too high in that estimate, actually. Karine does not run ads, but does promote her own Webinars and other offerings on the site and via email.

Karine has a Web designer, a graphic designer and … well, Karine. ) She also has a great advisory board. Oh, and lest I forget … she has her great social network participants.

OK, that wraps up my overview of where we are, how we compare to other sites and, I hope, a persuasive example of how an unfunded project (I pay for everything, so I do it for as little as I can pay) can actually bring a lot of people together for a positive purpose.

What do you think?

Hmm? Well, it would be a first. I must admit to a wee bit (OK, a lot) of skepticism on this one. All the news organizations are signed up for all of his mailing lists, after all. They also see mailing lists we never see. So, will his supporters really be the first to know?

Yep, this VP announcement by SMS and email is a ploy for buzz. Yes, I bit. But, you have to admit. This would be quite remarkable. We’ll see how it pans out.

One thing I’ve noticed for many years. Democrats are way ahead of Republicans when it comes to online activity.   Now, they also rule in digital / social media, too.

Here’s the e-mail I received. 

Barack Obama is about to make one of the most important decisions of this campaign — choosing a running mate.

You have helped build this movement from the bottom up, and Barack wants you to be the first to know his choice.

Sign up today to be the first to know:

http://my.barackobama.com/vp

You will receive an email the moment Barack makes his decision, or you can text VP to 62262 to receive a text message on your mobile phone.

Once you’ve signed up, please forward this email to your friends, family, and coworkers to let them know about this special opportunity.

No other campaign has done this before. You can be part of this important moment.

Update: This video is being used by the Obama campaign in a targeted pitch to reach 2 million donors. I’m continually amazed at how far ahead the Democrats are in the area of online activity. Great ad, which was apparently created just for this email pitch.

Find more videos like this on PROpenMic

My goal in starting PROpenMic, the social network for students & faculty, was to provide a resource that would help all of us.

I’m happy to report one particular success story from that site. I’m looking for others, too. So, if you have such a story, please share it in the comments or write to me. See the post and video below.

PROpenMic is not even three months old. Its third month anniversary is Tuesday. The social network will become what the members make of it. So far, we have a large group – over 1,300 faculty, students and practitioners. They are adding content on a daily basis, from blog posts to videos – and more. The success of the site is very heart warming, to me. I thank all of you that have joined and I look forward to Fall semester when I believe the site’s student population will really increase.

Now, the post: Allie Osmar :: PROpenMic Success Story

I had the pleasure of meeting Allie Osmar in person at the Edelman Academic Summit in Chicago. She stopped me between sessions and said, in effect, she owed a bit of praise to PROpenMic. Well, that certainly got my attention, so I asked her for an interview to find out why. Here ya’ go!

Find more videos like this on PROpenMic

Allie is a truly smart, lovely and kind lady. PROpenMic offered Allie a network that helped her find the job that makes her happy. Whether it be a job, internship or contact with that special person that enlightens you on a PR topic of interest, that’s what we hope PROpenMic does for all of you.

Are there any other success stories out there? If so, please visit my page in PROpenMic and send me a message. I’d love to hear from you!

As you can tell by the video’s opening graphics, I’m trying out ideas to create a PROpenMic theme for all the videos I’ll be posting.

More Videos Are Coming Almost Every Day

I have another 10 or so videos I’ll share from the Edelman Academic Summit. Also, our great members have been sharing videos, too. I’ve embedded two of the most recent on the PROpenMic front page. And you may go to the main video page and check out all the videos!