Dale Zak: Mobile Volunteerism This past Wednesday I had the honor of speaking on mobile volunteerism at Mobile Tech Training during Net Change Week in Toronto. In my talk I shared some examples how mobiles are aiding traditional volunteerism, are allowing new forms of micro-volunteerism as well as a few interesting ways devices are being used to indirectly volunteer for a cause. We are entering an incredibly exciting time. Google Latitude Google Latitude was retired on August 9th, 2013. Products retired include Google Latitude in Google Maps for Android, Latitude for iPhone, the Latitude API, the public badge, the iGoogle Gadget, and the Latitude website at maps.google.com/latitude. What does this mean for me? You are no longer able to share your location using Latitude. We haven’t included Latitude as a feature in the latest version of Google Maps for mobile on Android and you can no longer see Latitude for iPhone on the App Store.
8 Ideas, Techniques & Tricks for your Web Design Toolkit As important as information and interface design are, it's the satisfied feeling of designing something that just plain looks awesome that keeps us going during those times when the creative well is dry, when you've stared at a blank canvas for hours, when you've saved a hundred attempt.psd's, and when you're fed up of design. It's because you know that when you have that finished, polished, veritable work of art up on your screen, and you've switched Photoshop into full screen mode and you're looking at it from different angles around the room, and you're basking in the glory of your perfectly positioned pixels, you just know that this is the greatest profession in the world! 1 - Don't be Satisfied with 1 Iteration
How Three Businesses Scored Big with Gamification Ready or not, gamification is taking the business world by storm. For anyone unfamiliar with gamification, it's the application of game-like elements such as challenges, points, badges and levels to business and other nongame websites. An estimated 70 percent of the top 2,000 public companies in the world will have at least one gamified application by 2014, Stamford, Conn.-based research firm Gartner Inc. predicts. Patrick Salyer, CEO of gamification platform Gigya, believes there are two keys to success with gamification. "One is making sure that all gamified elements are inherently social," he says.
VolunteerMatch for iPhone Launched New app puts the power of VolunteerMatch.org into your pocket and demonstrates the potential of pro bono collaboration. SAN FRANCISCO, Mar. 15 /CSRwire/ - VolunteerMatch, the popular volunteer service, this week announced the availability of its first full-featured application for smart phone users, VolunteerMatch for iPhone. The free application, now available in the App Store, provides handheld users with an easy-to-use tool for finding great volunteer opportunities from a network of over 70,000 participating nonprofit organizations. Among its features, VolunteerMatch for iPhone lets prospective volunteers begin their search with their current location or ZIP code. Volunteers may also elect to find skills-based roles like graphic design, carpentry or accounting projects that can be found with just a few keywords.
5 awesome Twitter lists and 25 cool geeks worth listing Although Lists isn’t a new concept (Friendfeed has had them for months) they have proven to be a great addition to Twitter. Lists make it easier than ever to categorize users and curate content for your followers and yourself. The ability to create lists does indeed add fantastic value to Twitter, and lists can even be grabbed as an embeddable widget that can easily be customized and added to your personal website. Looking for cool twitterers for your lists? Look no further. Here are 25 notable geeks, picked from five excellent tech lists.
Samsung Among the First to Innovate with Badgeville's Behavior Platform Last week, Samsung was among the first to announce integration of Badgeville’s new behavior platform in Samsung Nation. Samsung has put their weight behind the rollout. Rather than gamify one marketing campaign or a single product site, the company brought gamification into the forefront and integrated the new features throughout the US corporate site.
Ushahidi Racking up Downloads The Ushahidi platform’s growing use has been astounding to say the least. The platform has been download almost 4,000 times. On top of that, our mobile applications (including the Android Oil Spill reporter by Henry Addo) have been downloaded more than 3,700 times. As an organization that is barely two years old, it is encouraging to see adoption of the platform in various countries and for diverse uses. Be it election monitoring in Burundi, Snowmaggedon in D.C., or preventing forest forest fires in Italy, it is very encouraging to the development team to see people around the world using the platform to solve local problems.