Blogging and Social Media Presentation

Creating Blogs, Podcasts and Use of Social Media Tools with Screen Readers

CSUN 2008 Session BLV1016

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 1:50 - 2:50 PM

Presented by
Mika Pyyhkala
Association of Blind Citizens

1. Introduction
2. Defining Social Media Concepts
3. Advantages Of Using Social Media Tools
4. Twitter
5. Facebook
6. WordPress
7. Other Blogging Tools
8. Overview Of Publishing Podcasts
9. Social Media Resources
10. Related Accessibility Resources
11. Questions and Answers, Demonstrations

Description

Social media use the “wisdom of crowds” to connect information in a collaborative manner. Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies such as blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, group creation and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), and Flickr (photo sharing).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

In social media, its important to make your message engaging, relevant, and to make the end user an equal participant in the communication process. Pitfalls to be avoided include:

• Content should not be similar to old style brochures, press releases, etc.
• Content should be “real,” your readers will know if your content is exclusively writtten by your PR department
• Social media is often a communication paradyme shift especially for organizations used to closely controlled communication styles and tools and mechanisms of the past. E.g. Does your organization think like a web 1.0 or web 2.0 entity?
• Do not overemphasize selling your product or service, see video below

Youtube Video Don’t Be That Guy, Chris Brogan

• Anyone can create content, become media makers
• Low barrier to entry
• Ease of use, accessibility, and versatility of the tools
• Facilitates diverse and niche information sharing and colaboration
• Rapid delivery of information with audience interaction
• Importance of getting the AT story, message, and users out in the blogging world

How we know the message is not quite out there?
Google Blog Search On CSUN Conference

If the AT user and professional community do not more proactively get involved in the blogosphere, we will be left with comments like this (which are not that uncommon) being written about accessibility issues:
Does The iPhone Shaft The Blind

Twitter

is a versatile tool largely used for microblogging short posts of 140 characters or less. Users can interact with Twitter via web, SMS mobile phone messages, or via instant messaging programs such as AOL Instant Messenger or Google Talk. Through third party plug ins, users can also interact with Twitter via email. Twitter also can be integrated in to Facebook, WordPress, and many other new media platforms and technologies.

Sign Up For Twitter Here

Twitter Resources and Tools
Youtube Video, Twitter In Plain English

Twitter Mail is a service that allows Twitter interaction via email instead of or in addition to interaction over the web.

is a service that allows you to subscribe to syndicated content, and be notified with in Twitter as new material is posted.

http://www.twittersearch.com allows you to search recent Twitter posts. Twitter posts generally also appear in Google and other search engines.

Example Uses and Implimentations

ACB Radio Main Menu Show and Podcast
Mika Pyyhkala micro blog
Chris Brogan micro blog
Darrell Schandro micro blog
Use of Twitterfeed to monitor syndicated content in Twitter
Woot.com Advertisements Via Twitter
CNN via Twitter
Today Show links via Twitter.

GCAL is a Twitter bot that facilitates updating Google Calendar via any Twitter input mechanism, web, cell phone SMS, or instant messaging.

Facebook
is another leading social networking platform and tool. Originally designed to serve college students, the site has expanded and now hosts networks based on geography, organizations, as well as schools.

The core of a Facebook account is a user profile, and users can add a variety of applications to enhance and expand the core Facebook functionality. There are also applications that can syncranize status updates between Twitter & Facebook for users on both services.

How Stuff Works Facebook Article

Jeff Pulver is a leading Facebook evangelist, and highlights the use of this platform for both business and social networking. Mr. Pulver now routinely uses Facebook instead of more conventional business web 1.0 tools like email. Jeff’s blog also covers the social media technology space in detail.

Facebook now has an audio captcha, but it may not work with Internet Explorer 7. If this is an issue, the user should install Firefox and then will be able to use the audio captcha. While much of Facebook is accessible, certain functions like drag and drop, and adjusting slider settings may not work with screen readers.

There is a sign up form for Facebook directly on the home page linked above.

WordPress is a leading blogging tool, and to a lesser extent, could be used as a content management system (CMS).

WordPress allows users to quikcly publish web pages, blogs, and other material with little or know experience in HTML coding. Furthermore, once published, the material is made avaialble in an RSS feed which enables readers to subscribe in a variety of applications in order to receive updates from the content publisher. Subscription pushes the content to the user, where as having to manually check web pages requires a pull of information from the user.

There are two ways to use WordPress:
http://www.wordpress.com
offers a hosted solution with free and paid membership plans. Alternatively, users can download a free copy of WordPress from
http://www.wordpress.org
and install the software in a web hosting account or on a web server. This approach provides a much more robust yet largely simple ability to customize the web site and WordPress software.

As a user grows with WordPress there are a number of plugins that can be added for increased functionality and connection to other web services. WordPress plugins also facilitate integration of Twitter content.

Most WordPress functions are accessible to screen reader users.

WordPress Resources
WordPress Podcast

Upstart Blogger WordPress Tutorial With Links ToOfficial Documentation

WordPress Accessibility Statement

A variety of other blogging tools are also available. Which tool to use depends largely on:

• personal preference
• Degree of customization and sophistication required initially and as project grows
• Experience and desire of the author or content publisher to learn new technologies

and

• Cost.

Small Sample Of Other Tools To Consider

http://www.blogger.com
http://www.livejournal.com
http://www.libsyn.com

• Introduction, brief overview, podcasting could be own session
• Define what you want to do with the podcast and who you want to reach
• Recording the audio either on the web, via desktop software, over the telephone, or with an external recorder
• Optional steps include Editting, adding music, and creating text show notes based on the audio content
• If necessary convert the audio file to MP3
• Place the audio file on the hosting server typically via ftp or web upload
• Use either your blogging software, or software on the web host to publish your show, and make it available to listeners both on the web and via subscription

Podcasting Resources
http://www.libsyn.com is a wweb hosting company specializing in multimedia file storage. It can be used alone for those namely interested in podcasting, or it can be used in conjunction with other blogging software like WordPress.

http://www.utterz.com
allows free multimedia posting from the telephone, from the web, or via SMS. Furthermore, the site integrates well with Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, and many other blogging and social networking tools.

http://www.archive.org is a free multimedia web hosting open source project.

http://www.audioblog.com is another commercial web hosting company specializing in multimedia content.

Podcamp is a series of worldwide unconferences that teach and demonstrate the use of both social media concepts and tools through presentations, exhibits, and networking. Conferences are free or nominally priced.

LifeHacker is a web site with articles, tips and tricks, and forums describing the use of new media tools as well as other topics. Often articles contain step by step tutorials.

Chris Brogan is a community evangelist who seeks to help people find tools that have the best fit to their individual or organizational strategies. Chris frequently writes about new media topics, and speaks at events such as Podcamp and other conferences.

Geek News Central is a podcast largely exploring technology trends, news, and new media. The producer, Todd Cochrin, has written on podcasting and frequently speaks at industry and consumer conferences on the topic. The show is published twice per week, and Todd now podcasts full time as CEO of his Raw Voice organization. Todd has also helped in the past with publisizing accessibility issues surrounding technology.

New Comm Road is a podcast largely describing the use of new media tools. The content is somewhat geared to organizational use of social media, but can certainly be used for personal sites and personal positioning and branding on the web.

The New Media Expo is an annual professional oriented conference for both organizational and individual media content producers. This is perhaps the largest professional podcasting event bringing about 3,000 attendees to recent shows. While some members of the broad AT community have attended in the past, more recently, I am not sure that accessibility interests were either well (or even at all) represented at this mainstream trade show.

Mika Pyyhkala Twitter is where I post most day to day updates, as well as news or observations about accessibility, AT, or the state of the blind community among other topics. Once you sign up with Twitter you can follow this id from your own account. Or you can access the content on the web page.

Blind Access Journal is a blog and podcast regarding accessibility evangelism, as well as discussing other blindness issues. The Journal has largely been responsible for the implimentation of audio captcha on a number of high profile web sites such as Google.

DC Night Out is a blog and podcast that discusses any number of blindness related topics and trends. The typical, though not exclusive, format for the shows involves a group meeting for happy hour in Washington DC and recording the podcast at a local restaurant after dinner and over drinks. The podcast has also covered CSUN, NFB, and ACB related events, as well as other general interest and reality topics regarding blindness, technology, and travel.

ACB Radio hosts a technology show called Main Menu. The program covers a broad array of AT issues, and is also available in podcast form.

ReCaptcha is a provider of captcha services that has implimented an audio captcha solution. This may be helpful as you encounter web sites that have visual only captchas that are not accessible to blind users. ReCaptcha is the solution in place for both Facebook and Twitter so the technology is quite scalable to meet varying needs.