The NewsCloud Blog

NewsCloud Receives Knight Foundation Grant to Launch Facebook Sites for Twelve News Organizations

Through April 2011, twelve news organizations will launch Facebook sites with NewsCloud's open source Facebook application technology, thanks to a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The goal of the grant is threefold:

1. To launch community news sites inside Facebook with twelve media partners showcasing different ways of leveraging the popular social network to reach new audiences.
   
   
2. To improve and expand the features and capabilities of the existing NewsCloud Facebook application.
   
   
3. To broaden participation in the open source development community around the NewsCloud Facebook application.

With these goals in mind, we've launched two new sites to make collaboration easier. We're posting most of our design and development documentation for review and discussion at http://support.newscloud.com. Open source developers can follow our progress and download the code from http://opensource.newscloud.com. 

While the NewsCloud Facebook application was initially developed in the PHP programming environment, this week we're releasing an alpha test version built for developers on the Ruby on Rails framework.

Media organizations interested in learning more about the grant program can also contact NewsCloud privately through the above support website.

Research results on the engagement of young people in news in Facebook from the Knight Foundation's 2008 grant to NewsCloud can be found at http://www.newscloud.com/research.

A New Open Source Preview Release and Community Support Area

We've got a new open source PHP-based preview release on GitHub. There's a simpler installation process, a generic design skin for your application and some cool new features. The first four developers to successfully install it and post feedback on the installation process will receive a $25 iTunes Gift Card. Learn more.

We're also expanding our open source community support online:

• Use our new open source developer community at http://support.newscloud.com, hosted generously for free by the great folks at TenderApp.com. It's a great place to share questions about the code, request features and tap in to our developer community.
• We have a new blog exclusively for our open source developer community at http://opensource.newscloud.com. Be sure to follow it and follow us on Twitter for updates.

Stay tuned in 2010 for ongoing announcements related to our open source Facebook application work.

Vote for Hot Dish in Mashable's Open Web Awards

Please consider voting for Hot Dish as Best Non-Profit Use of Social Media. Learn more about Hot Dish here.

Social Media Toolkit Release May '09 Preview

We've released the source code that serves as a base for Hot Dish and MnDaily applications - you can find it at http://github.com/newscloud/open-social-media-toolkit in the may09preview branch.

We encourage you to sign up for our developer forum at Google Groups. Please submit all feedback and questions to our developer community there: http://groups.google.com/group/newscloud/

Our next planned release is May 29, 2009. We'll include any necessary patches or helpers that we add based on feedback from the community.

Applying Hot Dish Technology to Online Organizing

Many organizations use news and current events to keep their websites fresh and engaging, but until recently, the tools to fully harness these features in organizing strategies has been missing.

Last week, NewsCloud announced Hot Dish, a joint research-driven project with Grist.org and University of Minnesota researchers, funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. With news readership among young people on the decline, we are seeking new ways of engaging this audience using news and current events on social networks where time online is skyrocketing.

Hot Dish is the first of several publications being used to experiment with engaging younger readers on Facebook.

For two months, 16- to 25- year old U.S. residents can sign up for the Hot Dish action team, share news and participate in one or more online and offline challenges. Completion of these challenges earn them points which place them in competition for some great eco-prizes: from a trip to the Arctic with Quark Expeditions complete with CO² offsets, to a green MacBook, a $100 nonprofit donation of their designation or $150 in yoga classes.

The kinds of challenges they can take on vary widely. Some challenges reward participation online in the Hot Dish community e.g. posting stories, sharing a comment, inviting their friends to the application. But many challenges require them to get involved in their communities e.g. installing a CFL light bulb, hanging their clothes out to dry, writing a letter to lawmakers or to the local newspaper, volunteering or taking part in an earth day activity. There is even a bonus challenge that allows for improvisation.

When young people submit their challenges, they are often required to share photo or video evidence of their accomplishments. After our Hot Dish moderator reviews these, points are awarded and the member’s story is shared with the entire Hot Dish community in the action feed.

We don’t think it’s necessary to provide prizes as incentives. For many communities, being seen as an active online member is enough recognition. However, for the purpose of building a large community quickly for this research, we decided to test the use of incentives for this project.

Hot Dish helps us keep tabs on the demographic of our community, as well as the issues and stories that are driving participation and growing in importance. We can even link challenges to specific stories. For example, later this month, we’ll be sharing stories with the Hot Dish community about the need for Earth to return to levels of 350 ppm CO². With each story, we’ll encourage members to take specific actions related to the 350 movement.

By leveraging Facebook, Hot Dish helps mission-driven organizations reach not just their members – but also their members’ friends. Hot Dish features have been designed to drive and reward interactions between readers and between readers and their friends. This makes Hot Dish an outstanding recruitment and retention solution.

Hot Dish provides support for many of the advanced Facebook application elements: minifeed stories, the profile box, the wall publisher, email attachments, the application tab, notifications and requests. With Facebook, we can quickly determine which of our members are the most highly networked and the Hot Dish leader board helps us identify our most active community members.

   

 

 

Not only does Hot Dish provide mechanisms for tracking member activity online and offline, but it gathers statistics about the activities of the community for our research, data which is also helpful to organizations wanting to learn more about their online membership. Facebook also provides statistics data with each application. And, integration with Google Analytics is also quite easy.

The technology behind Hot Dish has been built to be easily replicable. In fact, next month, we’re launching two more sites for the University of Minnesota and University of Washington (these two will go lighter on the action team).

Facebook applications on any topic can be easily constructed, either as branded, private label sites or as cooperative coalitions of organizations working together to build support for specific topics.

Organizations can work cooperatively publishing and sharing news on a specific topic, building community online on Facebook, even if they user different web platform technologies or are separated widely by geography.

In the future, NewsCloud hopes to expand its support for PHP and build Drupal and Plone extensions – these features will allow any organization running these website technologies to collaborate in Facebook with other organizations while presenting the entire news and action team concept within their existing website.

The source code for Hot Dish will be released to the open source community at the end of our project. You can learn more about the research here.If you are interested in learning more about Hot Dish technology, please feel free to contact me at jeff at newscloud dot com.

NewsCloud launches Hot Dish: a climate change news application on Facebook

Yesterday, NewsCloud launched a new Facebook application called Hot Dish in partnership with Grist.org, the leading online environmental news source. Hot Dish allows Facebook users to read, discuss, post and share news about climate change, the most serious issue facing our planet.

16- to 25-year old U.S. residents who participate in the Hot Dish Action Team can earn points through online and offline actions and compete for rewards. Top eligible participants can win a grand prize trip for two to the Arctic from Quark Expeditions, an Amazon Kindle 2, a "green" Apple MacBook and much more. Prizes will be awarded each week through May 3, 2009. Please read the official rules for full eligibility details.

The Hot Dish application is part of a study being conducted by University of Minnesota researchers to find new ways of engaging young people in current events inside social networks such as Facebook. The research is funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The research results will be published later this year. The software behind Hot Dish will be released to the open source community at the end of the project.

Visit the Hot Dish application on Facebook

I hope you'll check it out and share it with your friends. We'd love to hear your feedback!

New Facebook Applications to Engage Youth in News

For immediate release: December 15, 2008

Contact:
Ryan Maus, University News Service, (612) 624-1690, maus@umn.edu
Marc Fest, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, (305) 908-2677, fest@knightfoundation.org

Zibby Wilder, NewsCloud, (206) 898-7872, press@newscloud.com

New Facebook Applications to Engage Youth in News
Knight Foundation grant to support research highlighting social networking’s impact on teens and young adults

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL—University of Minnesota researcher Christine Greenhow and Seattle-based news aggregator NewsCloud will test new ways to engage youth in news and information by launching two social media publications on the popular social networking site Facebook. The project is being made possible by a $249,529 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. 

U of M researchers,  led by Greenhow, will investigate how online social network sites such as Facebook can engage youth in world events, build community and generate real world impact. Greenhow’s previous work investigated the learning benefits of online social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook) for teenagers.

“Understanding how youth not only consume online information but manipulate, produce and talk through it for social and educational purposes will move us closer to understanding how to design and develop successful media-rich environments,” Greenhow said.  

The study, which will be published next year, will seek to discover which strategies work best to engage 16 to 25 year-olds in current events and how the Internet can be used to deliver educational materials in innovative and effective ways.

Facebook was chosen because it has 120 million active members and is the most-trafficked social media site in the world. More than 85 percent of four-year U.S. university students use Facebook, making it an ideal space in which to gather this data.

The first Facebook publication will be focused on climate change, and will be produced in partnership with Grist.org, the country's leading online source for environmental news, opinion and advice. The second publication will provide news sharing and community features for Minnesota students.

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, the proportion of young people getting no news on a typical day has increased from 25 to 34 percent since 1998. 

“It’s important that we find new ways to reverse these trends by engaging young people where they increasingly spend time – online in social networks,” said Gary Kebbel, Knight Foundation journalism program director.

“We’re excited to apply our technology to support Dr. Greenhow’s research,” said NewsCloud founder Jeff Reifman. “We hope these publications serve as a model for using Facebook to engage younger readers in important current events.”

About NewsCloud

Launched in 2005, NewsCloud is a community-driven news aggregator and an open source solutions provider for social media. At the end of the project, NewsCloud will release the source code to these Facebook applications via open source license. Visit www.newscloud.com/research for more information.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation 

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation invests in journalism excellence worldwide and in the vitality of U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Since 1950, the foundation has granted more than $400 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression. Knight Foundation focuses on projects with the potential to create transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org. 

Social Media Toolkit Updated: RSS, Twitter, SiteMaps, SimplePie et al.

I've updated the Social Media Toolkit to v0.11 with a number of features taken from the NewsCloud platform:

• RSS feeds e.g. http://election.newsi.us/?p=rss
• Mobile pages e.g. http://election.newsi.us/m
• Twitter posting e.g. http://twitter.com/smtelection
• ReCaptcha for registration e.g. http://election.newsi.us/?p=signin
• Google SiteMaps e.g. http://election.newsi.us/sitemap.xml
• Ad Rotator e.g. see the banner rotate at http://election.newsi.us
• Blog page: matrix style display of incoming RSS feeds with SimplePie integration e.g. http://election.newsi.us?p=blogs

I'm particularly excited about these because I think they show the relative power of the Social Media Toolkit platform.

You can download the v0.11 from SourceForge. You will need to run your database configuration again (it won't harm your existing data) and review the readme.txt and /Sites/election/constants.php in the Sites/election directory for some new settings related to these features.

Please send any feedback or feature requests to me at jeff@newscloud.com. I will be talking about the Social Media Toolkit at Aspiration's 2008 Nonprofit Software Development Summit.

Learn more about the Social Media Toolkit.

Read the Social Media Toolkit application to the 2008/2009 Knight Foundation News Challenge

Review NewsCloud's Knight News Challenge Applications for 2009

This year, Knight's News Challenge applications are open for public review. We're encouraging NewsCloud readers and open source developers to take a look at and rate our applications. This year, we are entering three related projects:

• Social Media Toolkit: an open source solution for social media publishing and website integration
• Open Topics: semi-automated, community-driven topic pages for news
• Get Involved Widgets: A service for online news sites and blogs

If you are interested in entering, the deadline is Saturday, November 1st, 2008.

You can rate and post comments on each proposal at the News Challenge website using the above links.

2008 Nonprofit Software Development Summit

I'll be attending Aspiration's 2008 Nonprofit Software Development Summit in Oakland Nov 17-19 to talk about NewsCloud's Social Media Toolkit and network with other socially-minded open source developers.

If you are interested in social media or our toolkit, feel free to meet me there!

Are you a developer writing code to support nonprofit needs? Are you a nonprofit user with strong opinions about what software you need developed to empower your programs and operations? Are you someone who just cares about seeing better technology developed to address the broad range of issues we face as a global community?

The 2008 Nonprofit Software Development Summit will be the second annual convening of people and organizations developing software tools, web applications and other technology to support social justice causes. Bringing together a diverse range of developers, technologists, managers, eRiders, integrators, users and other practitioners who self-identify under the umbrella of roles around “developing nonprofit software”, the 2008 DevSummit will provide an opportunity both to gather as a community and to take stock of the field, while building connections and capacity.

Looks like a great session list.

Hope to see you there!