Quick Hits — August 21, 2011

With final assembly taking place to Houses of the Holy and then some Muddy Waters, sitting at a table on the front porch of Dos Gringos on Mt Pleasant Street as afternoon thunder and lightning rolled through…DC in the late, slow summertime.

• Here’s the Dish On ‘Tweeter’-Using Texan Rick Perry’s Online Presidential Campaign as (The Fix notes) Rick Perry swoops in on Twitter traffic. But If You’re Measuring Buzz Online, Measure the Buzzworthy, Not the ‘Top Tier’. Related: Is Michele Bachmann losing her buzz? “Since Perry’s entry in the 2012 race, Twitter statistics shed new light on her popularity.”
• Right-Wing Group Using Perry’s (Email) ‘Response’ List for Christian Voter Mobilization. Meanwhile, A Fight Begins Over Rick Perry’s Internet Persona (see also Epol coverage of Perryfor PresidentFML).
• Fox & Friends Turns To KISS Singer Gene Simmons’ Twitter Feed To Hype Perry.
• Going Even More Rogue: @JonHuntsman’s Twitter Gambit, taking place as Ron Paul launches a moneybomb, via Facebook’s US Politics page.
• Online Contribution Profile of Members of the Deficit “Super Committee”.
• Obama Campaign Staffer Sends Out Email Bashing Paul Krugman And The ‘Firebagger Lefty Blogosphere’, with predictable results.
• Hackers Expose San Francisco Subway Police Data.
• The Twitter Hordes: A Fictional Trip Inside David Cameron’s Head.
• Word of the Day: Atrotweeting.
• LOLBarack! Why Obama gets so much love on the Internet.
• The social media pleasure of a riot, from my friend Charlie Beckett.
• U.S. Politics: Five Years of YouTube’s Impact and History, via K Street Cafe.
• Chris Hughes’s Jumo And GOOD Join Forces, via Kevin Bondelli. C.f. 6 lessons to take away from Jumo’s fail.
• The Onion uses a real social media strategy for fake news.
• ESPN Ups Its Mobile Game, with lessons for us all. C.f. A Mobile-Optimized Landing Page Versus A Video: Lego Tries Both, and ask, Could Mobile Apps Be Wilting in the Heat of Summer?
• Intro to Social Media for Organizations, a presentation by Farra Trompeter, and Heather Mansfield’s new book, Social Media for Social Good: A How-To Guide for Nonprofits. C.f. this infographic, Social Media Marketing By the Numbers.
• Designers Lash Out at the Huffington Post’s Call for a Free Logo.
• Don’t blame tools of social media for how people use them, via Fission Strategies.
• White Paper: Social Media Measurement for ROI, via @IdeaGov.
• Elizabeth Warren exploratory site up, via Ben Smith.
• (Australian) Tree-huggers now e-huggers in the world of environmental activism, via this guy.
• News Cycle Time-Lapse: BBC.com vs. NYTimes.com.
• Save Growlery! The Social Networks Built of Old Words.
• Is Google +1 Going To Help You Take Back The Internet From Google?
• Facebook, Twitter Drew Record Numbers Of U.S. Visitors In July.
• How CNET Grew 5X on Facebook and Twitter Without Ads.
• Has Social Media Fundraising Finally Arrived?
• (The need for) Mobile Advocacy Strategy meets From Monitor To Mobile: Optimizing Email Newsletters With CSS.
• Sorry, This Is Not the End of the PC Era.
• QR Codes in Action. Five Nonprofits Share their Experiences, and How to Combine QR Codes With the Power of Facebook.
• How to Hold a Facebook Town Hall Meeting in a Custom Tab.
• Lessons Learned from a Twitter Robot, via K Street Cafe. Humans, beware!.
• Less-evil robot arrives at asteriod Vesta and films full-frontal rotation.
• Twitter: we control your redirects illuminates an annoying new Twitter practice, via Amanda Carufel.
• Mr. Swift’s Moronic Proposal: Ebooks Will Keep Writers From Writing!
• On Synchrony, Technology and Revolutions: The Political Power of Synchronized Resistance.
• (Could a) A Global Revolution (Take Place) in Alternate Reality? Sent around by Joe Brewer. Ghost of a chance in the machine?
• The Shape of the Future. Dude, whoa….
• And finally: Pentagon’s Lightning Gun Sold for Scraps on eBay. Judging from the leftovers, the shape of the future is suspiciously turd-like.

Past is prologue: check out previous editions of Quick Hits.

– cpd