Category Archives: Causes

What happens when over 200 cities invite all their Twitter followers to a festival benefiting a charity on one night? Twestival!

San Francisco’s Twestival was put on by a team of 20+ wonderful volunteers, once more. The event took place on March 25 at Horizon Lounge in North Beach, and raised over $9,000 for Concern Worldwide.

Joined by 2 wonderful title sponsors – Bing and Tap11, the night brought in more than the usual suspects!

@annaanisin, @pop17, @webwallflower, @krystyl

@sylviet, @nathanmcgee

@jennicricket - raffle ticket hustler

@briansolis and @chrissaad with winning raffle prize from @throwboy

Tons of raffle prizes!

Over 400 people were in attendance starting at 6 p.m. including raffle drawings every hour on the hour, and 2 great live bands! Sioux City Kid and the Revolutionary Ramblers were the openers, followed by Stroke 9 as the headliner.

*Photos by @eyeficard and @thekenyeung

To see all photos from the recent Twestival San Francisco, check out Flickr!

There is no limit to the quantity of iPhone apps out there. From apps that make silly noises to apps that calculate your tip on a dinner out, the selection is almost limitless. A new app, Zoetica, launched today offers a solution for those interested in the nonprofit world (an interest of mine). The Zoetica iPhone app aggregated nonprofit tech and social change blog posts, making sure the content is at your fingertips at all times. Continuing with the nonprofit theme, the application is free of cost in the iTunes store.

What makes Zoetica different than other news aggregators is that Beth Kanter, Social Media and Nonprofit expert, hand selects the blog feeds that are ultimately aggregated into the app, ensuring the user will receive the most relevant information in the space. The app was created through a partnership with AppMakr and is in itself an example of the possible use of such a tool for a nonprofit. The service makes app development possible for groups with limited budgets and limited tech skills, something many nonprofits can use. AppMakr offers different price points that allow for almost any marketing budget to include an app in the plan.

For more information about the application as well as possible uses for nonprofits, please visit Beth Kanter’s blog

A few weeks ago, it seemed like there was a contest held by Myspace and the Wall Street Journal to choose a citizen journalist. It might not have seemed like it was anything important, but in fact, this person who be undertaking a trip of a lifetime – to Davos-Klosters, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

So what happened? Interested contestants were invited to apply and after being judged by prominent judges Robert Thomson (Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal), Adrian Monck (Managing Director & Head of Communications of the World Economic Forum), Rebekah Brooks (CEO of News International), Owen Van Natta (CEO of Myspace) and Rebecca McQuiqq (the 2009 winner of the Myspace Journal contest), five finalists were selected. In order to truly make a citizen journalist that people would be interested in reading, the contest was also open to votes by the public – crowdsourcing, anyone?

So on December 18, 2009, it was announced that Sloane Berrent (@sloane) of New Orleans was named the winner of the 2010 “Myspace Citizen Journalist” competition. Her next steps are to travel to Davos-Klosters, Switzerland to report on the happenings of the 2010 World Economic Forum. As a winner, she’ll join the press corps and use the Myspace network to report back. You’ll also be able to see her reports on The Wall Street Journal’s website. According to Berrent, “it has been a lifelong dream of mine to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos.”

You might not know this about Berrent, but she’s all about cause reporting. She’s the founder of Cause It’s My Birthday (a movement to fight Malaria), the creator of TheCausemopolitan.com and is a former Kiva fellow and philanthropist. She’s helped raise over $19,000 to help purchase Malaria nets for people in Northern Ghana and is heavily passionate about social entrepreneurship and philantrophy. So I suppose it’s no wonder that she was interested in this important position.

As the winner of the competition, Berrent will receive:

Congratulations Sloane on your success and looking forward to reading more about your adventures in Davos next week on Myspace.com and The Wall Street Journal.

Photo Credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

I’m attending The Sundance Film Festival again this year and on Saturday, January 23rd, I will do so with a purpose.

During Sundance, The Parnassus Group is hosting the Tweet House to celebrate the uses and potential of Twitter in the entertainment and film industries. On Saturday from 5 to 7, the Tweet House will dedicate its efforts towards raising awareness and funds for Haiti.

LeVar Burton and The Parnassus Group are hosting “Tweet for Haiti,” a celebrity Tweetup that invites talent and other Sundance Festival attendees to gather and Tweet messages encouraging their followers to make donations to the organizations that are accepting funds related to the Haitian disaster. Proceeds raised from corporate sponsors of the event will be earmarked to benefit the victims. I’m supporting Unicef.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this crisis. I know from experience that members of the entertainment community can be counted on at times like this, and my partners and I are dedicated to doing what we can.” – LeVar Burton

The Tweetup will be held at The Tweet House, located at the SHOP Yoga Studio in Park City, Utah.

Click for map.

Connect with Brian Solis: Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, or Facebook

Talk about social media really becoming a catalyst for the Haiti relief efforts. Zynga, the social gaming developer, is running a special relief campaign in three of its games, letting users purchase items as a way of raising funds. Certain limited edition social goods can be bought directly in the game, and 100% of the proceeds are being used for emergency aid in Haiti.

The participating games are some of Zynga’s most popular, including FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Zynga Poker. Zynga is sending the proceeds to the World Food Programme, which already has a team distributing food and relief items to those affected by Haiti’s earthquake. The limited items include white corn in FarmVille, a Haitian drum in Mafia Wars, and a special chip package in Zynga Poker.

Already, Zynga reports having raised $1.2 million for Haiti through virtual social goods, from campaigns to fund Haitian school programs and revolving loan programs for Haitian women. With these, Zynga has taken on a social responsibility that is driven through the exchange of virtual goods, which could be a rather unique but effective method moving forward.

With social media having been an extremely effective way of spreading the news of Haiti to the world, it has also provided avenues through which people can rally together towards helping the Haiti people. From social networking pages, mobile apps and social network apps such as Zynga’s games, it’s clear that social media has an incredible power to make a large impact for a worthy cause.