Archive for the 'Web 2.0' Category

Economic Development Groups On LinkedIn

Published
by
Ian Smith
on March 10, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development and Web 2.0
. 0 Comments

Part of having an economic development 2.0 strategy is participating in discussion groups on social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn.  The benefits of being members of groups related to economic development are:

  • Expanding your network beyond your region and areas of expertise
  • Sharing your expertise with other professionals in the field
  • Learning from others located around the world

Below are a few groups that are on LinkedIn that the team at Intelegia are members.

  • Business Retention & Expansion International (BREI) - This group is composed of economic development professionals that are dedicated to investment attraction initiatives.  Some of the common issues that serves as discussion points are incentives programs, business retention strategies and marketing initiatives for regions.
    Level of access: Open
    Number of members (as of March 9th, 2010): 129
    Owner: Ernest Strickland
  • Economic Development Network - This group is a collection of professionals from around the globe who are concerned about the engagement of research organisations with the economy.  Recent discussion topics include the use of social media marketing applications, marketing strategies and strategic planning issues.
    Level of access: Open
    Number of members (as of March 9th, 2010): 347
    Owner: Steven Brown
  • Economic Development Professionals - The Economic Development Professionals Linkedin group is geared towards individuals who wish to share and learn about best practices in field of economic development.  Lately, members have exchanged thoughts on subjects such as website design issues, search engine optimization strategies and incentive programs.
    Level of access: Open
    Number of members (as of March 9th, 2010): 2 468
    Owner:Gary Knight
  • Foreign Direct Investment - FDIexecutive - This LinkedIn group brings together professionals from all points around the globe in the field of foreign direct investment.  Issues such as attraction strategy, competitiveness, location selection and decision making are the major themes that members discuss.
    Level of access: Open
    Number of members (as of March 9th): 442
    Owner: Douglas van den Berghe
  • Next Gen Economic Development Marketers - As the name suggests, this group is meant for professionals focused on marketing in regards to economic development.  Members include economic development officers and consultants that talk about such issues as social media tools, website design and branding initiatives.
    Level of access: Open
    Number of members (as of March 9th): 171
    Owner: Ben Wright

Are we missing some other LinkedIn groups?  Let us know by leaving us a comment on this post.

Looking for an efficient way to manage your contacts on LinkedIn?  Read Intelegia’s tutorial, “Tag Function In LinkedIn“

Customizing Your Facebook Page For Economic Development

Published
by
Ian Smith
on January 6, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0
. 2 Comments

Now that you have created your Facebook Fan Page for your economic development agency, it is time to customize the page to make it is easier for fans to find information.  Not only can it be beneficially to your fans but to your economic development agency’s search engine optimization strategy.

Here are few examples of economic development agencies and cities that have selected to customizing their Facebook Fan Page.

Levelland, Texas

The City of Levelland’s Facebook Fan Page has a section that is customized thanks to boxes which contains content.   Figure 1 presents a look at the section.

Figure 1: City of Levelland’s Facebook Fan Page With Customized Boxes
Please Click On Image To Enlarge

Fans of the page has a “one-stop” point for news and information about Levelland.

To visit the City of Levelland’s Facebook Fan Page can, please click here.

Chaleur Region

The Chaleur Region, located on the northeast coast of New Brunswick, has a Facebook Fan Page with customized tabs to facilitate navigation of the page. This Web 2.0 initiative is managed by Entreprise Chaleur, an economic development agency. Figure 3 presents the tabs for the RegionChaleur page.

Figure 3: Navigational Tabs On RegionChaleur

Individuals interested in investing in the Chaleur Region can simply click on the “Invest” tab and access information on the industrial parks in the region as seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Information On Industrial Parks In The Chaleur Region

Customizing a Facebook Fan Page entails obtaining the assistance of a programmer and searching for different web applications available on Facebook that can be added to the page.

Are you seeking to build a Facebook Fan Page for economic development purposes?  Learn more about Intelegia’s seminar, “Optimize Investment Attraction Strategy Through Information and Social Media Applications“

Web 2.0 & Health Information Delivery

Published
by
Ian Smith
on December 16, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0
. 0 Comments

My colleague, Aicha Habiby, who blogs at Des Outils et Des Hommes, informed me on the use of social media tools to push health information to citizens.

The Public Health Agency of Canada provides health information in regards to the H1N1 flu via the following five Web 2.0 applications:

RSS Feeds

RSS Feeds allows the agency to disseminate information via users’ RSS readers.  As seen in Figure 1, there are four topics covered as of December 15th, 2009.

  • H1N1 Flu Virus (Human Swine Flu)
  • Travel Health Advisories
  • Canada Communicable Disease Report (CCDR)
  • Chronic Diseases in Canada (CDIC)

Figure 1: Public Health Agency Of Canada’s RSS Feeds

Widgets

To help citizens access information easily, the agency has created a widget in which individuals can plug into a website, blog or a social media platform.  Figure 2 presents a look at the widget and the content that is updated in real time supply information about the H1N1 flu.

Figure 2: Public Health Agency Of Canada’s Widget For H1N1 Information

Twitter

Figure 3 illustrates the agency’s Twitter page with 1,433 followers.  Browsing the past tweets, the agency disseminates information on the H1N1 Flu.

Figure 3: Public Health Agency Of Canada’s Twitter For H1N1 Information

Facebook

The content of the agency’s Facebook Fan Page is divided amongst the following four sections:

  • Wall - The wall offers access to links to current news and information about the H1N1 flu.
  • Info - Fans have access to links to Public Health Agency of Canada and Fightflu websites in English and French.
  • Notes - The Notes section offers general information on the H1N1 flu with the ability to have fans to post comments.
  • H1N1 Information Centre - This section is the one-stop shop for H1N1 information.  The resource is divided into 10 activity modules as seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Public Health Agency Of Canada’s H1N1 Information Centre on Facebook

YouTube

The agency’s YouTube Channel is composed of a series of bilingual videos regarding H1N1 Flu and on-going initiatives to keep the public health.  The video below is a short 30 second clip about the H1N1 Immunization Campaign.

Google Introduces Real-Time Search

Published
by
Ian Smith
on October 28, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Internet tools, Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

Google has entered the market of real-time search without making a big deal nor a fancy new search interface.  If you blink quickly, you may miss the search option for content on social media platforms or Web 2.0 applications.

As enter your keyword(s) in Google and see the first page of result, click on the “Show options”  link located below the search box.  The link is highlighted in yellow in Figure 1 posted below.

Figure 1: Google Search Query For “Economic Development” For Real-Time Results
Please Click On Image To Enlarge

Once the link is clicked on, Google provides the option to access results by:

  • Source (ie, video, blogs, reviews, forums)
  • Time period (ie, Any time, Past hour, Past 24 hours, Past week, Past year, Specific date range)
  • Relevancy or date
  • Visited pages or Not yet visited

These options are available on the lefthand side of the result page.  The image below highlights the links to the options.

Figure 2: Google Search Real-Time Search Options
Please Click On Image To Enlarge

To access the real-time results, click on one of the links related to a time period.  In the case of the search query for “economic development”, clicking on “Past Hour” will provide hits from news sites and blogs as seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Google Search Real-Time Search Results For Keyword Search, “Economic Development”
Please Click On Image To Enlarge

If the Past 24 hours option was selected, chances are that you will see relevant hits from Twitter.

Google is available at www.google.com

Conversation Search With BackType

Published
by
Ian Smith
on October 19, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Economic Intelligence, Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

Search engines such as Google and Bing have been late arriving to the party when it comes to real time search capabilities.  Time will only time on whether or not these big players will buy up little niche players such as Samepoint or itpints when it comes to web 2.0 search applications.

In the meanwhile, online researchers can be content with another conversational search tool called BackType.

BackType allows users to find relevant content on blog applications and others social networking websites in real time.

Figure 1 presents the simple search interface of BackType.

Figure 1: Index page of BackType

Using the keywords, “foreign direct investment” to test BackType provides the results as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Results for “foreign direct investment”
Please click on image to enlarge

Highlighted in yellow are the number of relevant tweets that BackType has found on Twitter.

As of October 13th, 2009, the advanced search function for the tool was not online.

BackType is available at http://www.backtype.com

itpints…Another Real-Time Search Engine

Published
by
Ian Smith
on October 13, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Internet tools, Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

Another day, another real-time search tool to add to your competitive intelligence research toolkit.

itpints allows you to submit keyword(s) to search for relevant content on social networking platforms and blogs.  Figure 1 below illustrates a test for a query using the keywords, “Gourmet Magazine“, the very popular cuisine magazine that has ceased publication two weeks ago by Condé Nast.

Figure  1: Results of search for “Gourmet Magazine” on itpints
Please click on image to enlarge

By browsing through the results, one can see that the tool pulls content from such Web 2.0 applications as:

  • Twitter
  • Plurk
  • Facebook
  • Friendfeed

Any relevant content found by itpints on Digg and blogs will be presented as an abstract as seen in Figure 2.

Figure  2: Abstracts from Digg and a blog for keyword search, “Gourmet Magazine”
Please click on image to enlarge

The beta version of itpints can found at www.itpints.com

Tell us how itpints compares with Samepoint, OneRiot and Collecta.


Real-Time Search With OneRiot

Published
by
Ian Smith
on October 7, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Internet tools, Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

Here is one more search tool for content on social media platforms in  real time.

OneRiot, which is in the beta testing phase, is a tool that crawls such platforms as Twitter, Digg and other Web 2.0 applications in order to provide users with real time results.  Figure 1 is a screen shot of the index page of OneRiot.

Figure 1: OneRiot’s Index Page
Please click on the image to enlarge

Users of OneRiot have the option of searching content on the web (in text and image format) or video clips courtesy of YouTube.  Figure 2 illustrates  the results for a web search using the keywords, “Investment attraction”.

Figure 2: OneRiot’s Result Page For “investment attraction”
Please click on the image to enlarge

Be sure to sort the results by either clicking on “Pulse” or “Realtime” when looking through the hits.

OneRiot is available at www.oneriot.com

Tell us what you think about OneRiot? How does it compare to Collecta?

Real-Time Search With Collecta

Published
by
Ian Smith
on October 5, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Internet tools, Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

Real-time search engines are amazing.  Within a matter of keystrokes and a mouse clicks, you can have access of what is being said on social networks minute by minute.

With Collecta, you may track what is posted on an individual’s Twitter page and blog. Figure 1 is the index page of Collecta.

Collecta's Index Collecta

Figure 1: Collecta’s Index Page
Please click on the image to enlarge

Testing this web 2.0 search tool with the keywords, “iPhone” provides the results as of 10:36 am presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Collecta’s Results for “iPhone”
Please click on the image to enlarge

Two minutes later, the page with the results is modified with new content.  In this case, a blog enter is found by Collecta as seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Collecta’s Results for “iPhone” Two Minutes Later
Please click on the image to enlarge

Collecta is a  tool that should be apart of your toolkit of search applications for the internet searching or competitive intelligence research.

Collecta is available at www.collecta.com

Samepoint - A Powerful Social Media Search Tool

Published
by
Ian Smith
on October 2, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Internet tools, Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search
. 1 Comment

Content on Web 2.0 is no longer a laughing matter.  Yes, everyone enjoys a funny or cute video on YouTube however, the amount of strategic intelligence or competitive intelligence that is made available on web 2.0 is growing.

What is one of the best ways to access this intelligence?  Use Google?… Use Bing?… Use Samepoint?

Samepoint???

SamePoint is a search tool that digs for information amongst the “social conversations” that are taking place on blogs and social networks.  Figure 1 shows the index page of Samepoint.

Figure 1: Index Page of Samepoint
(Click on the image to enlarge)

Testing out the tool with the keywords, “foreign direct investment”, Samepoint will provide results or “social mentions” on such social media platforms as Wikipedia, Ning and blog applications.  In addition, on the same page, you will see on the right hand side a series of Tweets that are classified as, “Recent Conversations”.  Figure 2. illustrates this point highlighted in yellow.

Figure 2: Results from Twitter on the Samepoint Result Page
(Click on the image to enlarge)

The value added feature of Samepoint is the ability to conduct an array of different queries based on the type of web 2.0 application.  Here is the exhaustive list of the applications.

  • Real-Time
  • Bookmarks
  • Wikis
  • Q&A
  • Networks
  • B2B Networks
  • Groups
  • Life Casting
  • MicroBlogs
  • Reviews
  • Podcasts
  • Documents
  • Video
  • Images
  • News

Figure 3 demonstrate the results (”mentions”) Samepoint supplies for a search on B2B Networks using the keywords, “Foreign Direct Investment”.

Figure 3: “Mentions” of “Foreign Direct Investment”
(Click on the image to enlarge)

To begin using Samepoint, visit www.samepoint.com

Real Time Searching With Addictomatic

Published
by
Ian Smith
on September 9, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Economic Intelligence, Internet tools, Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

This tool is not new however; it is very handy for individuals who need to conduct real time searches when it comes to the web 2.0.

Addictomatic permits users to perform internet searches taking into account the content available on a wide array of web 2.0 or online social media platforms such as Digg, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr just to list a few.

Screenshot of Index page of Addictomatic

Here is screenshot of the result page for a search query using the keywords, “foreign direct investment”.

Please click on the image to enlarge

It is recommended that you test out this tool to see the long list of resources that are consulted to supply you with relevant results.

Addictomatic is available at http://addictomatic.com/