Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Martin Smith — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:55:46 -0000

Peter,

good times...thanks for clarification. let me know if there is anyway I can help.

martin

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Leslie Poston — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:34:37 -0000

Interesting debate going on in the comments here. In my opinion the potential for making it easy to get people involved outweighs any need for nanny-ing the Twitter stream on this one. The nice thing about Twitter - if something feels spammy, people will tell you, and you can stop. And if you don't stop, people can unfollow you. It's very a la carte and self directed and doesn't require a lot of policing or rules, which is why Twitter works so well in the first place.

I think this mashup is the start of something great, and I can't wait to see how it improves in the next iteration with rating tools and other matrixes.

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Christine Egger — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:29:50 -0000

Absolutely, Beth. We're using the 'fire hose' metaphor, too, to describe how overwhelming it is to suddenly be aware of just how many action-opportunities there are out there (13-16,000 campaigns on DonorsChoose alone -- yikes!). Aggregating each and every actionable opportunity we can find feels like the right first step, though, in creating a really rich, inclusive universe of actions that the rating/sourcing/filtering apps can then draw from. That segways into the reply to Martin Smith of JustMeans, below, for why he's surprised to see we're subscribing to his RSS feed...

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Peter Deitz — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:28:30 -0000

Hi Martin, We have been working with Marcus and Zach of JustMeans (from the NY office). I'll follow-up by email to explain the nature of the collaboration. For now, we are aggregating only the "events" posted to JustMeans via RSS. I've also signed up to be a regular blogger for All Things Reconsidered. Apologies for the confusion. All the best, Peter

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Beth Kanter — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:42:11 -0000

Christine - thanks for sharing that context! The holy grail would be some sort of rating or crowd sourcing layer - so the organizations or individuals behind those actions who have the passion, capacity, and determination to make sure their efforts have a true impact would rock.

Also, the rating system or crowd sourcing or some sort of filtering would also help when there are so many, many, many actions out there that it turns into drinking from Fire hose ...

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Martin Smith — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:27:41 -0000

I was not aware we are participating in this, in fact if we are, it is unknown to us. Maybe if someone from SocialActions reads this, they could reach out and tell us how we are participating without knowing about it or opening our API. Thanks!

Martin Smith
JustMeans

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Christine Egger — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:48:58 -0000

Beth, this is something the Social Actions community is concerned about, too. There are two parallel conversations/developments going on: one, get these opportunities to take action out in front of the people who would be compelled to get involved if they knew they existed; two, make sure that the opportunities you're inviting people to take are in line with everything they stand for, which includes the trustworthiness, value-match, and all of that other stuff that goes into 'vetting.' Right now, the API that these mashups draw from is pure action-description based, but we're all excited about finding ways to layer meta-data onto those action-descriptions that include vetting from sources that YOU trust (i.e. layer a StumbleUpon type rating from a blogger, issue-expert, yourself, or another source) onto the Social Actions API. That'll come as quickly as people can see the potential for building those kinds of mashups on top of this mashup. For now, it's a thrill to see this early example of the power of the Social Actions API to deliver opportunities to engage, and the sky is truly the limit as we think about how to layer trustworthiness onto this incredible aggregation.

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Peter Deitz — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:44:12 -0000

Hi Mashable, Thanks for covering the launch of our Twitterfeed app. We'll keep you posted on future mashups. The beauty of the Social Actions API is that anyone can create any kind of mashup for social change. For instance, Beth, if you want to vet your tweeted actions, I'm sure you, me, or someone we know could build out a web app that would do just that and still draw its recommendations from our API.

Social Actions maintains an open source / public domain database of 10,000+ actionable opportunities. The mashup possibilities are endless. If you have an idea for something you'd like to build, let us know or just get started on it.

Our API documentation can be found at: http://www.socialactions.co...

Congrats to @engagejoe and @mariomenti for a mashup well done.

All the best, Peter

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Beth Kanter — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:34:55 -0000

I love social actions and Joe Solomon who is awesome.. but I'm having a problem with this approach. Anything that I ask my friends or followers to support, I personally vet - I know the organization has the capacity to do what it says its going to do or know the individual - personally or by reputation. Something that is automatic and based on a keyword search takes a great leap of faith ..... I guess my personal philanthropy is just old fashioned .. and while I may be passionate about a particular issue, I really give based on knowing the person behind the cause or organization and have confidence that will do a good job with investment.

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Vi Wickam — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:51:08 -0000

Eric, I think you are right. If you aren't careful, you will end up spamming your twitter followers, and that would be bad. :(

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Brendan — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:31:42 -0000

I've always wondered: what's with the bad screenshots?

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

Easton Ellsworth — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:02:35 -0000

At Blog Action Day 2008, we've loved working with Joe Solomon and the gang at Social Actions. They've set up a widget that we'll use in connection with our big event on Oct. 15. Super exciting stuff! Thanks for the mention Leslie.

Re: Social Actions and TwitterFeed Mash Things Up for Social Change

olin lagon — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:13:10 -0000

Nice post! Good to see these types of efforts covered here.