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By stacey
So here’s the question: does social media influence political policy? Over the last few years, the rise of social media as a medium in which to interact with people locally and around the world has created a dramatically different landscape for those hoping to be elected as well as for those in power. Social media exemplified by Twitter, Facebook, and a whole host of blogs, has produced an entire generation of people that can not only get their viewpoints out to the public vis a vie the internet, but also be contacted by politicians in a new way.
For instance, let’s say that you’re sitting at your computer when you hear a knock at your door. You get up, open the door and see a politician running in a local election. Now let’s say you’re sitting at your computer and you see that the same politician is following your twitter account, or has added you as a friend on Facebook; or maybe they made a comment on your blog. To which are you more receptive? Read more »
Filed under:
Canadian Politics,
Charter of Rights,
Cool Technology,
DIY,
Liberal Party,
Media and Politics,
N.D.P.,
Open Source Activism,
Regina Municipal Election 2009,
Regina Politics,
Regina Streets,
Saskatchewan Party,
Saskatchewan Politics,
Social Media,
Social Media and Politics,
Twitter
By Greg Hluska
Over the last few weeks, I have tried to write something of an introduction to web site marketing. I tried to teach you how a search engine ‘thinks’, showed you the basic tools you can use to drive search traffic to your site, and wrote an article on some tools you can use to research various keywords.
Today, I am going to write about a topic that will especially interest people who have just started a web site. The sandbox refers to a probationary period that all new sites must go through with major search engines. I am writing about it because it is a topic that very few new webmasters know about it, despite the fact that it should play a huge role in how they plan and administer their web sites. Read more »
By Greg Hluska
Canopy - June 2009 Issue
While this site currently runs Wordpress only, we have some serious changes waiting in the wings. What you see is a default templated version of one small section of the larger dream for reginastreets.ca. My plan is to eventually adopt dual Content Management Systems (CMS) to run this site – the magazine will be run on Wordpress, but the rest of the site (the business directory, the event calendar, our Guide to Regina Downtown, and the associated Google Maps tie-ins) will run on a CMS called Joomla. Complex? Yes. A cool experiment and learning experience? Definitely.
I know much more about Joomla than I know about Wordpress and the Joomla forum is one of my serious online hangouts. Joomla was actually a big factor in the formation of my open source for non-profits concept, but that is another topic for another time. A very interesting topic came up in the Joomla forum and this article was born moments after reading it. Read more »
By Greg Hluska
In my previous installments, I have introduced search engine optimization and the three most important optimization tools at at your disposal. This is an oversimplification, but if you want to get good search rankings, write good content, get good links and write good titles for your articles. But what does this have to do with the Regina Streets Magazine?
The RSM is a street publication, founded in the tradition of great street publications like the Nashville Contributor and the Edmonton’s Our Voice. I helped start the magazine and remain heavily involved – I write articles, edit articles do the layouts and work with/recruit our vendors. So, once again, why am I writing about search engines? Read more »
By Greg Hluska
Yesterday, I introduced the topic of search optimization and attempted to illustrate how search engines work with a simple analogy. To learn to think like a search engine, imagine that you are working on a research project in a massive, poorly indexed library. To find the right resources, you would likely look at titles, ask people you trust and flip through books to make sure a particular book is of interest and on topic.
So what does this have to do with search engines? Read more »
By Greg Hluska
When Stacey and I first started talking about going online, I decided that I was going to write about what I doing behind the scenes of this site. My goal was to write about my strategies and tactics in real time so that others could learn from my failures and successes. This site was going to become a repository of best practices and horrible comedies of errors.
This post is both a culmination and a beginning. The culmination of months of dreaming and planning and the beginning of (hopefully years) worth of material. The last few weeks have had rather similar impacts upon the world of search, so that is where I will begin. Read more »
