Google Plus on HootSuite (@asaltdbe)

At last, HootSuite have made G+ more useable for churches, charities, any anyone with a page. Recently, they added the G+ network to the web version of their social network application. This means that if you use HootSuite to post to your social networks, you can now post to your church G+ page, schedule posts to G+, or post to multiple networks, including G+.

HootSuite (or any other android app provider) are yet to enable this network on their Android application, but perhaps that will be HootSuite’s next step.

For those who haven’t tried the network since my earlier post Google Plus – The Application on Android – using it as a #digidisciple then it’s worth revisiting. The Android application has a much richer look and feel, with more integration, including ‘local’ and ‘events’. In my opinion, G+ is superior to Facebook, and implemented in a much cleaner way. What google don’t have is the critical mass to pull enough people away from the Facebook network that they know and love.

G+ has the potential to be a ‘Facebook Killer’ but I don’t believe it’s a ‘faith killer’ as Jonathan Blundell mooted in his post Google+ – The faith killer? . As more tooling emerges, G+ becomes an increasingly viable network with which to outreach to. I don’t believe it yet has the power of Facebook or Twitter, and it isn’t on the top of my social media strategy, but well worth keeping an eye on.

(also published on BigBible)

Charity Events & Social Media (@asaltbde)

Nearly two months ago I wrote about how one of my friends was going on a 390 mile walk to raise funds for his church, from Camberley in Surrey, to Lindisfarne in Northumberland. Well, Rev’d Bruce Nicole from St Michael’s, a.k.a the ‘Roving Rev’, has completed that trek, and used social media every step of the way. Each day he blogged, Tweeted, Facebooked, uploaded photos to Flickr, videos to YouTube, audioBoo’s and even started using Storify. Each day of his walk was a fascinating insight into the lives of everyday people he met, and the places he saw. Social media allowed him to capture all of that, and share it live. His own church could monitor his progress, and he could even be tracked on a live map. His walk wasn’t just about fund raising, it was about connecting with people in real life, and social media is very good at that.

Back at HQ, we used social media to contact press and radio stations along the route, and to hook him up with some interesting people along the way. Twitter in particular allows one to contact famous or influential people directly, which is wonderful when arranging things. I was often surprised by the positive responses we got.

So did ‘Roving Rev’ carry a camera, video and array of other devices? No, he used a HTC Desire HD running Android. He has shown that a large number of social networks may be covered using a single device - a smart phone. He did carry a dedicated GPS, and had a netbook for writing his blog in the evenings, but whilst on the road, his phone was the piece of social media kit.

If you are thinking of organising a charity event that takes place over a period of time, be it a walk, cycle, drive, or whatever, I recommend you take your smart phone, and start recording your experiences. People will then start to connect with you, and they might even follow you on social media too.

Setting up the infrastructure can be relatively quick (website, social media accounts and connecting them all together). Supporting someone is a full time role for a social media officer. After a month of research, tweeting, coaching and technical trouble shooting, I’m ready for my holidays! It’s been a great experience, and the walk raised over £5000 so was a great success.

You can re-live the ‘Roving Rev’ on his journey at http://www.stmikesopen4all.org.uk/

À bientôt Tilley Dog

Very sad to announce the death of ‘Tilley Dog’ today, 17 April 2012. She died at the grand old age of 17, as the onset of arthritis in her back legs disabled her and she began to deteriorate.

Tilley Dog – 1995 – 2012 (picture taken 2007)

In Tilley’s last two weeks she was largely immobile, requiring assistance and care. She still had a good quality of life, and was very alert and interested in everything. Only a few days ago she was barking at the delivery man. She had all the time in the world for the children, even in her last days.

My first memory of Tilley as a young dog was of her running at high speed straight towards me, aiming to buzz past me within centimetres. She wasn’t a ‘doggy’ dog. She didn’t chase balls, hold her paw out, or do any of those funny things humans like dogs to do. She was just her own free spirit, very dainty and very loving.

We will miss her deeply. Over the years, we have shared many milestones in our lives with her, not least the birth of our two children. Tilley was a great friend, a playmate and a very special animal. She may be gone, but she will not be forgotten, and I look forward to seeing her again one day.

À bientôt Tilley Dog

How to add a profanity filter to Twitterfall @twfall

Ever wanted to use a Twitterfall in a public place, using a well known event hashtag, but put off by the risk of people swearing or using rude words?

  Worst feeling ever, such a **** result! now onto thursdays game! #justkeepscoring 'Nemo quote'

I have a requirement to use a twitterfall in a sensitive environment, where the event hashtag could be well publicised. The tweets will be seen live on the wall, in front of a large group of people of all ages. Seems like a highly desired feature to me, yet @twitterfall haven't yet implemented it, despite the suggestion back in 2009.

So my attention turned to Greasemonkey, as there are several scripts for this I could use in my browser. However, my browser is Google Chrome, which doesn't fully support Greasemonkey scripts, even when used with extensions like Tampermonkey (which is supposed to support greasemonkey scripts).

The obvious next step, was to find a Chrome extension to do the job, and I recommend Simple Profanity Filter. Once installed, I just updated the default profanity list from an online dictionary of profanities (not pleasant, but had to be done), and then fire up twitterfall. Within minutes, the filter could be seen doing its job, replacing rude and unpleasant words with ***. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough. I also realise no filter is ever going to do the job 100%, but at least this is a good start.

Caggie is such a mind ****. Poor spencer #madeinchelsea

If you know of a better solution, I’d love to hear it.