Microsoft Office Winter Games Contest Semi-Finals Report

I came, I blogged, I tweeted, I e-mailed, I Facebooked (no, that's not a real verb although people are using it way too much these days) and put up requests on a range of lists and other sites for the past 13 days in an attempt to win two coveted trips to blog at the Olympics and CES plus a brand new laptop. (Here's more info on the contest.) Voting ceased at midnight Pacific time, and to my knowledge, this is the last of the voting for this contest.

Many people have been asking what happens next. To answer the question on whether I have any idea where I stand regarding votes, no - not yet. I hope they will give us totals. The link I created near the end of the second day at bit.ly provided statistics and I was able to see how many clicks I received through that link. Some of the data was skewed, but I think I generated approximately 3000 clicks to the contest website. That does not necessarily mean I received 3000 votes, however, due to random site visitors, site errors, visitors who did not wish to share their e-mail addresses, and visitors who voted for someone else. And it does not give any sense of what the other semi-finalists produced in terms of clicks or votes. Still, it was a good learning experience for me to track everything.

I've been told that it will take a couple of weeks to tally votes, verify authenticity and inform the top three vote-getters who will be named as official finalists. Once the top three women finalists are identified, the judges will look at the vote totals, the overall quality of work on our blogs, our submitted essays and the social media outreach we did during the voting period. Then they will make their decision as to the grand prize winner, to be announced at the OfficeWinterGames.com site on January 7th.

So the best thing you can do for me at this point - if you're still willing! - is to visit my blog and write comments on my posts. I would love it if every figure skating post had some comments there for the judges to read.

Please visit and comment on my blog at BlogHer - http://www.blogher.com/blog/sarah-granger

Thank you all who voted, e-mailed and tweeted on my behalf.

Recap of a busy week - politics, new media, gov 2.0 and more

Last week was a whirlwind on the local level... after Newsom dropped out of the CA governors' race, I wrote a piece about it that had a pretty good reception at The Huffington Post but was maimed by trolls at SFGate. Having seen this happen before for other writers, I reluctantly decided to remove all comments. I reviewed the problem with other blogger friends who confirmed it's a common problem for newspapers-turned-online publications.

I put up a detailed response at SFGate explaining the problem to readers and the community there and received a lot of letters via e-mail in support. The SFGate staff also were responsive as well, looking into what they can do with the system that will help solve their comment moderation problem. (IMO it shouldn't be that hard technically - they're using Moveable Type - it's more a matter of budgeting the staff time and having a smart plan in place.)

After spending way more time on that last week, I was able to shift gears back to tech, I finished an article about Twitter Lists for Digital Landing. I've been researching Twitter Lists since they first launched, and one of my lists of the Women in Politics & Tech group (WIPT) was put on the Change.org list of Ten Feminist Twitter Lists.

Saturday, I headed to CA Data Camp where I caught up with local government, non-profit and media people who are passionate about open government. We talked about data specifics, data transfer, local applications, data and media and the related national scope. I'll be putting up at least one post at the Personal Democracy Forum about that. Here's a great summary at Spot.Us. Meanwhile, I was invited this week to be on two more conference program committees. More on that when they're official.

Meanwhile, as we were finishing up with the data apps in SF, the House voted on their final version of the healthcare reform bill. It was interesting to follow that on Twitter while in a room full of government software developers. Finally, I was surprised this morning to be on a list of Top 20 Women Political Bloggers (I think the list is a subset of liberal bloggers who are also moms).

This week, I'm working on an article about Google Wave and editing a book on confidential information. I'm also working on a couple new gov 2.0 related projects that I hope to write more about soon.

Top Twitter Tools List

In working on my article for Digital Landing on how to make the most of Twitter, I researched dozens of great applications. Since I couldn't write about them all in my article there, I decided to post the list of what I looked at here, so anyone can have a look. Of course there are more that are not on this list, but I have other resource lists where those can be found at the top.

Is there something great I'm missing on the list? Add it in the comments or email me at sairy(at)sairy(dot)com - or just tweet to @sairy.

Overall Twitter resources:

Twitter Fan Wiki - Everything you ever wanted to know about Twitter

Alltop Twitter Page - great blogs all about Twitter and related apps

@Twitter_Tips - great fed of all kinds of Twitter tools

@TweetingTools - more good tips on Twitter, with random quotes to boot

Twitter search and display:

Twitter Search - official Twitter search

Twitterfall - view tweets via subject as they "fall" like a waterfall down the screen

Multi-account and multi-user applications:

Tweetdeck - desktop & mobile apps (Mac, Windows, Linux) that allows for groupings and advanced features; top favorite of all apps

PeopleBrowsr - highly configurable, full featured web-based series of apps for Twitter use - includes search and configurable groupings apps

Tweetie - multi-account viewer for the Mac

Cotweet - multi-user twitter, ideal for businesses; the standard-bearer in business Twitter use

Twhirl - multi-account viewer for Windows & Mac (based on Adobe Air)

Tweetvisor - browser-based Twitter that allows for viewing tweets, @replies and DMs all at one on a quick interface

Nambu - robust viewer for the Mac

HootSuite - sleek, web-based multi-account Twitter interface; also comes with a Hootlet toolbar mini-app that works with Firefox, Safari and IE

Twibble - desktop app for Mac, Linux and Windows, supports multiple accounts

Seesmic Desktop - well reputed desktop app for Mac or Windows (based on Adobe Air)

Seesmic Web App - very clean UI for single-account Twitter view

For the iPhone:

Tweetie - easy-to-use, full-featured multi-account application

Twitterific - multi-account Twitter, but minus a few features

Tweetdeck - multiple accounts, syncs, works with yfrog and Twitpic, URL shorteners; configurable

Nambu - fairly sophisticated app for single-Twitter use, integrated with FriendFeed, pic.im and tr.im

Twitterfon - basic, clear interface

Seesmic - iPhone app coming soon

Birdfeed - clean app with local caching and timestamps

For the Blackberry:

Twitterberry - most popular Twitter updating software for Blackberry

Twibble - mobile version of desktop app integrated with Twitpic

UberTwitter - full featured app; integrated with Google Talk

For Windows Mobile:

TinyTwitter - basic app for using Twitter (note: entire site optimized for mobile devices, not traditional browsers)

ceTwit - full featured client that works with Twitpic and Ping.fm

Quakk - open source Twitter app

Twitter Feed Tools:

Twitterfeed - efficiently feeds blogs to twitter, allowing for added text configuration and timing

FriendFeed - view multiple twitter & other social media feeds

Posterous - posts to blogs and twitter feeds on a wide range of platforms; recommended by Guy Kawasaki

Lazyfeed - allows for blog feeds (like a feed reader) as well as input to personal feeds; similar to FriendFeed but a more professional UI

Stats & Analysis:

Twitter Grader - gives grades based on a 100% scale, based on number of followers, power of followers, number of updates, update recency, engagement level and follower/following ratio

Twitterank - ranking algorithm built by a Google programmer, rates percentages of accounts

Twitalyzer & Twitalyzer Pro - analyzes overall influence, retweets, references to and mentions of the account, with Pro features showing top influencers in your network

Twitterholic.com - tracks followers, friends and updates over time

Socialtoo - allows for surveys & stats but have to pay for Twitter stats

Twitter Analyzer - has nice graphs of usage by keyword, hashtags, etc.

TweetStats - graphs tweets per hour, month, etc.

Tweet Counter - sends reminders when users are close to major milestones like 100, 1000, etc.

twInfluence - provides sleek graphs of usage by interface, @replies, RT's, by month, days of the week, and time of day

Follower Management:

Twerp Scan - "anti-fool contact management" system; can manage by followers or those being followed and is quick to add/subtract - much more efficient than follower management in Twitter

Mr. Tweet - recommendation engine

WeFollow - adds users to searchable threads

SocialNewsWatch List of Top 237 Twitter Users Who Will Follow You Back - what it says it is, based on number of followers

Tweet Friends - compares 2 twitter feeds for common friends added over past 24 hours (or so)

Browser Plug-Ins:

Twitter Friend Bios - plugin for Firefox browser

Shareaholic - drop-down plugin for viewing multiple social networking feeds

Twitbin - sidebar plugin for Firefox

Marketing & Advertising Tools:

EasyTweets - cost depends on number of feeds, accounts, and continuous searches; posts automatically to Twitter

Twittad - affinity network that connects twitter feeds with advertisers; works on mobile devices

TweetROI - tweet about whatever you want (from their list of advertisers) and get paid for it

Magpie - embedded ads into user timelines

Izea - boasting 25,000 advertisers and 250,000 bloggers, they produce "sponsored conversations"

Payment Engines:

twitpay - allows for Twitter payments via PayPal; for all kinds of purposes via RT2Buy system

tipjoy - makes it easy to pay other Twitter users or to let them pay you with a simple 'p $x @user' command

Twitter Backgrounds:

PrettyTweet - creates twitter backgrounds

Images & Videos via Twitter:

yfrog - enables image & video sharing

Twitpic - sends photos to Twitter, view photos posted by others

pic.im - photo URLs and stats, usable with Twitter

Assistive Tools:

Twitwoop - allows you to record tweets by voice