Hope you all can make it tonight. 7pm. Wieden+Kennedy. Portland is packed with mass transit, so I hope with the venue being downtown you can find a way to there. Make sure to RSVP for the event at our EventBrite page - it’s easy!
Marshall Kirkpatrick will be leading an excellent discussion on “Problems and Solutions in Social Media Production”. He’s commandeered four people to share their experience with creating or using social media and we hope everyone will take away something valuable from the discussion.
I’d say to arrive a few minutes early at W+K - it’s near Peet’s Coffee; I’d suggest you grab a cup of Peet’s, but that’s just me. Please “knock” on the large metal doors just outside of W+K if they are locked - knock real hard. Margaret or someone who works at W+K will hear you.
Tell them you are there are for the Social Media Workshop, and that we are meeting on the 3rd floor Nike space for the event.
AGAIN: We are meeting on the 3rd floor Nike space for the event.
This is Truth and Gauss from a new social media service called “Public Press”. Public Press is a digital newspaper where anybody can instantly publish, organize, and archive news and information about their neighborhood or community. Citizen reporters can upload hyperlocal content anytime from any device that can send email or access the web. Readers can subscribe to newspaper feeds and browse neighborhood news 24×7.
We’ve been working on Public Press for over 18 months. We’re ready to open our website to the world next week. To help us work out last minute bugs and create a smooth social media experience, we’re looking for users to help us finish beta testing the site. Please go to http://www.publicpress.org/alchemy/invitation.jsp to sign up for an account. The invitation code is “community”. Starting next week, you won’t need an invitation code or need to be logged in to see the site.
Our hope is to enrich local communities by improving communication between neighbors. Public Press is a Portland-based company. Please join us and help make Portland the epicenter for social media and citizen journalism.
I love the idea of Etsy. I love that it exists. The site was started by young entrepreneurs for artists and crafty people to sell their creations to others. Etsy started in 2005 and has since grown to over 250,000 members with 50,000 sellers and there are over 500,000 items for sale. Etsy isn’t an auction site, or a sleazy affliliate, internet marketing, sell-you-something website. Etsy only accepts handmade items that will be listed on your own store on the site. It’s very cool.
Etsy has a great relationship with their members and they hold a monthly Workshop. This site and community around it is a great example of passionate people sharing and selling what they love.
The video below is a short HOW-TO created by Etsy for others. Check it out, you can even download the template, print it out, and tag-up Portland with Etsy’s logo Oh I kid.
I attended SEMpdx’s SearchFest 07 on Wednesday, had a great time and I met some interesting people involved in search marketing. John Hartman (he’s in our group) was on a panel, and did a great job presenting and taking care of all the audio/visual demands.
While listening to the Web 2.0/RSS panel I really liked the presentation by Dan Harbison, the Internet Marketing Manager at the Portland Trail Blazers. I was surprised by Dan’s and the Blazer organization’s energy in adopting social media; did you know there’s a social networking site just for Blazers’ fans? The site is called I Am A Trail Blazers Fan. Even though there’s been some rough years for the Blazers and their fans, Portland still loves their only professional sport, and the success of the online community is a testament to that.
I asked Dan if he’d like to present at our next Portland Social Media meeting and he was happy to accept. So, that’s the first item to add to the agenda; I think you’ll really benefit from hearing what a large organization has done with social media.
Now, I’m in the process of securing a place and time; so here’s the big question you need to answer: Is the evening of March 27th accommodating to a majority of members?
By Tim
Oh I kid.