learnandteachonline.com

Essence magazine did nice job in integrating the site look into Ning for its community site.

The community has about 2,500 members, and doesn't look very old.

Yes, the Hardball host started a fundraising phenomenon in the 6th congressional district in Minnesota with his Oct. 17 MSNBC interview with incumbent Michele Bachmann. She called for a media investigation into members of congress to see which of them might be anti-American.

But, Chris, come on. Be a little generous to the internet effect. You implied on Monday night's show that it was entirely the power of your show that drove outraged viewers to contribute hundreds of thousands to Bachmann's opponent.

You did good, but what you did was to start a viral effect. Check out the blogs that helped spread the influence of your interview in the first few days. Factor in the rabid use among politics junkies of microblogging tools like Twitter that have replaced our RSS readers to pass around these blog and video links, and there you go.

A single interview in isolation would not have caused the Democratic National Committee to take notice of Elwyn Tinklenberg's campaign. Thank you for getting the snowball rolling, but individual contributions flooded in from the combined influence of your interview and the net effect. The DNC recognized the resultant phenomenon. There was a team at work here, and as quarterback it would be gracious of you to acknowledge the whole squad.

David Ignatius came up with one of those chocolate-and-peanut-butter ideas in his Washington Post column today.

After giving us a little lesson in Keynesian economics (the post-Depression guy against whom the Milton Friedman forces revolted), Ignatius wonders whether the bailout payback might be channeled to specific initiatives for the national good:

A truly Keynesian rescue plan should do more than bail out foolish investors. How might the pieces fit into a larger design? Well, if the taxpayers are going to acquire a stake in the nation's largest insurance company, perhaps that company can be the cornerstone of a new system of universal private health coverage. If the taxpayers are going to acquire $700 billion in real estate assets, perhaps the eventual profits can fund new investments in infrastructure or energy technology.

What a "neat idea," as Oliver North famously said about another pairing of disparate ideas -- Iran-Contra arms for hostages.

Odious and criminal though it was, the idea of paying for a pet project using funds from an unrelated source was a pretty creative out-of-the-box notion, you have to admit.

It turns out the scare at JFK this morning was about replica grenades. Jamie Turner says the news broke on Twitter.

When I heard about it on TV, that's where I turned first. Here's the Twitter search results page for tweets on 09/22 containing the keyword "JFK."

Given the almost real-time nature of Twitter search (formerly Summize), doesn't it seem like advanced search would allow a full timestamp, not just the date?

Maybe they're saving back that granularity for future paying customers.

I want it, too. It's only fair. I figure it's a little like the union voices you don't hear much anymore. They used to use the phrase "on the backs of the workers." Twitter's value is built on the backs of users.

Don't you get tired of reading comments like this one on a TechCrunch story?

TC has a habit of overestimating the impact of

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Filed Under: OnlineCommunity

Submitted by amyloo on Sun, 08/24/2008 - 07:52.

I captured something that made me giggle when I checked Facebook this morning. It illustrates how college high school and college students are using Facebook just for fun.

Related links:

- RIP Bakers Square FB group

- My post from last year about the uses by FB's original audience doesn't mesh so well with business use and getting things accomplished

Dave's been refining his experimental Flickr 2 Twitter app.

The picture part is a new wrinkle in TwitterGrams, a way to send an audio tweet -- by uploading an MP3 file, or much more easily by phoning it in using a gateway enabled by BlogTalk Radio.
It would be nice if the picstream had a little player like Blogger's Blogger Play.

I did make a no-Flash player for the audio TwitterGrams. I'm not sure I'd know where to start with a slide player (but might think on it! ;-) )

Kara Swisher reports on reaction to her post (s) about silly Facebook apps.

Yeah. Well. I guess.

True, so many of the apps are juvenile. The groups are silly and fanciful, too. When you consider that FB is still very much a place for college students -- some only five years weaned from Nickelodeon -- to kick back and distract themselves from the seriousness of their real work, it makes all kinds of sense. "Serious use of the site" is exactly what they don't want.

It's Sunni and Shiia in there, so I'll play Joe Biden and say "Balkanize the thing."

Facebook could make broad channels for the different worlds, built on top of the existing structure of groups and networks. Each segment would be more pleased.

(A loose federation would oversee the fair distribution of oil ad revenues, of course.)

Brent Schlenker muses on a Facebook TV show trivia quiz and how it might be a step closer to a Facebook LMS. (Facebook login required for that quiz link.)

He wonders why and ends up thinking why not. I'm not sure either, but I still think an assignments widget might be a good place to start with marrying the two related but conflicting types of applications.

Danah Boyd's story of how one company came to understand the viral power of the web just by watching something unfold.