Social Site Aggregators - Useful?

Ever take a break at work to check your friends' blogs? Then take another minute to see if any of those new MySpace comments are real? Then another five minutes to upload a few photos of your weekend to Flickr...and before you know it you've forgotten whether your password on Twitter is hotdog1 or 1hotdog and you realize you really should get back to work. Does this happen to you?

I don't have the solution...and perhaps just more to add to the problem. But how can we begin to catalog the multiple profiles, tag collections, photos, podcasts, etc that we all love to consume into one place? And how can we start to realistically digest the media jumbles our friends create?

Well, there are some new options to try. Each has some strengths and some wussiness too. My friend Lauren from Object Adjective (they designed the Sex::Tech website for us) recently reviewed Plaxo Pulse.

Some others are Flock, FriendFeed, ProfileLinker, Fuser, Spokeo and MyLifeBrand.

Flock seems promising. You can access and update many social sites (the usual suspects plus Piczo, del.icio.us, Twitter, etc.). Flock even supports massive (up to 1000) picture uploads. One major downfall is that you have to download it. Alas.

What does this have to do with ISIS and sex you ask? Well, I'm not entirely sure, however, we have this contest called Fresh Focus. To promote the contest we have MySpace pages, a Flickr account, a couple of blogs, friends and colleagues that blog about us, press releases, emails coming in, emails going out, podcast promos, youtube videos...you get the idea. How can we manage all this stuff, even with a stellar cast of 6? We're working on finding the best way.

Happy Turkey everyone, if you do that sort of thing.

Join us at Sex::Tech in 2008

ISIS is excited to announce the first conference focusing on technology and HIV/STD prevention for youth! Co-hosted by SFSU's National Sexuality Resource Center (NSRC) and Institute for Next Generation Internet (INGI).

When: January 22-23, 2008 Downtown San Francisco
Why: To re-focus technology based prevention efforts for youth in exciting new ways!
Who: Sex::Tech 2008 will bring together young people as well as public health professionals, researchers, teachers, writers, tech industry folks and many more!

We are currently accepting abstracts and workshop proposals.

The conference is limited to 300 attendees, so make your move and register now! To guarantee a youthful presence, we're offering full-time students and people 25 and younger the stellar registration rate of 20 bucks!

Visit SXTechconference.org for full details, and tell a friend about Sex::Tech using our e-card feature.

Shareideas.org - mobile technologies / social change

SEXINFO, ISIS' groundbreaking text based referral service for youth has been prominently featured on Shareideas.org. Shareideas is a wiki (supported by Nokia and Vodafone) that chronicles mobile communication innovations being used for social and environmental change.

Please feel free to comment on the SEXINFO wiki entry.

Initially when I went to edit the entry it blocked me because the word 'sex' was used. Needless to say, this issue has been resolved. Phew!

What can we do with Wiffiti?

If you're reading this, I hope you didn't miss the Wiffiti on the right side of this page. Too many people today have asked that the hell it is. I'm starting to wonder myself. Regardless it's fun, and could have some powerful uses in public health/health communications if executed correctly (I think).

So what is it? It's a screen that you can put anywhere that people can send text messages too and have them be visible to anyone who is watching the screen. Right now it's embedded in my blog, and if you click on the mini version in the left sidebar you'll be taken to a larger screen on the Wiffiti sight. If I wanted I could feed it to a gigantic screen at an event, or display it on a laptop at a coffee shop. Get it? The Wiffiti blog explains it better than I do.

How do you use it? Send a text message to 25622. In the body of the message type @isisinc. After @isisinc add your message. If I wanted to say "what's up?" the body of my text message would read: @isisinc what's up?

So what can you do with it? Lots of things I suppose, but are there uses in public health, particularly STD and HIV prevention? Sexual health? Here are some of my ideas. Please add yours.

1. Text the location of services at large spring break events, such as where condoms can be found, or clinical services like STD testing.
2. Use in a classroom setting as a silent brainstorming tool.
3. Embed in a website and use as an easy way to get feedback from people about your projects, artwork, web design, etc.
4. Use as a billboard in an urban area with designated people updating it with prevention messages. Perhaps using a health department sponsor.

Are these boring? What do you think? Post your thoughts here or on my Wiffiti. Click the pink arrow to activate.

SEXINFO, tree on a plane, badge of honor

So, as I mentioned before, ISIS was awarded a Techie from Grassroots.org for our project SEXINFO. The money arrived, the tabel at the innovations plaza went great, the statue...well, it has a little life of it's own.

I didn't return directly to SF from the NTC in DC. I took a cab to Dulles, then a plane to Boston, then a bus, then a train, then trucked by foot to my friends house. The statue came with me. It didn't fit in my suitcase; it had to be carried. It wasn't until I walked, trained, bussed and crossed security in Boston to head home again that someone actually commented on the statue (there has been plenty of stares). An airport security guard was so excited about it that he offered his own little LCD flashlight into the tree's trunk and the security line got to see the wonderful branches illuminate.

Anyway, It made it home. I made it home. SEXINFO is more known to the world, and I am forever thankful that the tree is in the office and I never have to take it in a train, plane or cab again. Check out these additional Flickr shots of other Techie award recipients.

Technology take up is natural for "digital natives"

I was reading the NTEN blog and found a great little article about reaching low income people with technology which features Joyce Raby from Legal Services Corporation, and some words from Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet and American Life Project , a non-profit research center studying the effect of the internet on American's. Anyway, particularly interesting for public health is Rainie's idea of "digital natives," or kids born after 1985 who have basically grown up with the Internet, and who are excellent targets for technology based messaging.

With our SEXINFO project (sexual health resource guide via text message), 90+ % of youth who remembered seeing the ad campaign for the text messaging service had their own phone. This was really surprising to us because all of these youth were from one of the lowest income neighborhoods in San Francisco.

The latest report from pew is a demogrpahic report about latinos with less english proficiency remaining a disporportionatly low percentage of total Internet users in the U.S. So, while the digital divide doesn't extend to youth in a general sense, non-english speakers (including youth), still don't have adequate access to Internet resources, even if they have access to computers.

InSPOT, our online STD/HIV partner notification system will soon be translated into Spanish. Perhaps translating SEXINFO as well will extend its benefit even farther.

SEXINFO wins a Techie from Grassroots.org!

SEXINFO, ISIS-Inc's (with SF DPH support) San Francisco-based text messaging service for youth, has won a Techie from Grassroots.org. Our prize you ask? We get a $1000 travel scholarship to attend the Non-profit Technology Conference in DC next week, promotional space on both the NTEN and Grassroots.org websites, and a sculpture! We will also be showcasing InSPOT.org along with SEXINFO at the Innovations Plaza during the conference, handing out other project related print materials, giving SEXINFO and InSPOT demonstrations, and handing out condoms.

Yay.

NTEN Innovation Plaza

ISIS-Inc. has been selected to participate in the Innovations Plaza at the NTEN 2007 Nonprofit Technology Conference! We are very excited and plan on showcasing several of our projects: InSPOT and SEXINFO. We'll of course be able to answer questions about some of our other projects too: Eavesdrop, Californiamen, Massmen, Hookinguponline, STDtest.org.

So far nearly 1000 attendees are listed for NTC, along with numerous exciting guest speakers. Among others, we're excited to meet the following speakers:

Heidi J. Boisvert, Suzanne Seggerman, Benjamin Stokes, Barry Joseph, Karen Michaelson: "Video Games for Social Change: a New Movement"

Jonathon D. Colman: "Using Online Social Networks to Build Buzz..."

Beth Kanter, involved in 4 different sessions: widgits, Flickr, vlogging, etc.

Dale L. Larson, "Think Mobile! More than Text Messaging"

Look for ISIS at the Innovations Plaza on thursday April 5th.