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.

Fresh Focus buzz ... controversy and excitement!

The Fresh Focus Sex Ed Video Contest, a joint effort between ISIS and RH Reality Check, is making some waves...and we don't expect things to calm down before the videos premier at Sex::Tech!

Andy Carvin, internet activist, education technology expert and host of Learning.now, highlighted us in his article titled Social Media vs. Social Diseases. He brings up some very interesting issues and elaborates on one of our main goals, which is to let the young people who have the greatest need for frank sex education tell us exactly what they need:

"I’m so intrigued by this project, because it’s basically accepting the premise that students will likely participate on their own time, far away from the classroom, since that’s the only way for them to be frank and open about the issues. They want students to talk about a particular curriculum, but do an end-run around the entire educational system, using the Internet to engage students without interference by teachers or administrators."

Andy also reviews some of our current submissions (which you can watch here).

In related news, our Sex::Tech keynote hosts, creators of the Midwest Teen Sex Show, were just featured in the Wall Street Journal in an awesome article by Andrew LaVallee. The article discusses the satirical nature vs. educational value of the show, two things that aren't necessarily in opposition to each other. Ultimately a great article!

The podcast is No.7 in the Health category on iTunes with 50,000 subscribers. Way to go MTSS!

Youth Radio covers sexual health issues

Youth Radio offers media training to youth ages 14-17 to promote young people's intellectual and creative growth. Involved youth have access to industry professionals and get to participate in the production of award winning programming.

Youth Radio programming covers just about everything of interest to young adults. Here is a small taste of some of their STD, HIV and Sex Ed programming.

Get Tested

Shooting Down HPV

Latinos and AIDS

Changing the Course of Sex Education

To get involved as a youth check out these options.
To learn about supporting Youth Radio and their new expanded offices check out the Support Us page. A $200 donation provides field staff with recording equipment, and $50 provides teachers with supplies for after school tutoring.

Stay tuned to find out how Youth Radio may work with ISIS to report on the Sex::Tech conference.

Deb rocks on Real Life Real Talk radio

Deb Levine, ISIS Executive Director and founder, joined Real Life Real Talk yesterday for a radio interview. Check out Deb as she talks about ISIS' growth, inSPOT expansion, issues with verifying sex information online, and about the upcoming Sex::Tech conference and Fresh Focus Video Contest.

Check it out here. Go Deb!

Free (and informative) geek rags - from the CDC

A little known fact is that MMWR (CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) is free and you can sign up and have it sent to your inbox every week!

It sounds morbid, yes, but it is a great resource, with links to full length articles, podcasts and delicious statistics. So it doesn't always have sexual health related articles. An sample of what came this week:
"QuickStats: Death rates from poisoning, By State, United States 2004"
OR
"Ocular and Respiratory Illnesses Associated with an Indoor Swimming Pool, Nebraska 2006"

But several weeks back was this gem:
"QuickStats: Percentage of Adults aged >18 Years Who Reported Ever Being Tested for Human Immuno Deficiency Virus..."

To sign up for your free subscription, just name and email needed, go here.

Now, if you're really into infectious diseases (like me), you might want to read Emerging Infectious Diseases. This is also a free CDC publication and you can have it sent to your house in full glossy glory. Sign up here.

I look forward to it every month.

Podcast interviews: The stars of ISSTDR '07

I'm a little tardy with this one, but in early August Eric Whitney, ISIS' associate director, had the pleasure of going to the ISSTDR (International Society for STD Research) conference this year in Seattle. In this podcast interview Eric highlights the Sex::Tech conference (coming soon in January '08) as well as our tried and true, Inspot. Yay Eric.

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Here are the stellar voices of Doug Richardson from the Denver Public Health Department and Rachel Kachur from the CDC discussing the early days of the STD and Internet Center of Excellence (a Sex::Tech sponsor) and the future of mobile prevention tools.

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In this podcast, Don Clark, director of NCSD, bring us up to speed with national efforts to integrate HIV/STD/TB/Hep, STD funding fights in Washington and the state of the internet guidelines project of which two chapters may be released this fall at the annual NCSD meeting in New Orleans.

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