July articles: Web Hosting Providers and Software for Knowledge Management

Our July articles are up! We have a Few Good Tools article on Web Hosting Providers, which provides an even more detailed look than usual at the different types of services available and how to choose one that meets your needs.

And we have an article suggesting15 Ways to Use Software to Improve Your Organization’s Knowledge Management. Did someone tell you to get a “knowledge management” system? That term doesn’t mean much, but we offer suggestions of software tools that can help you solve some typical knowledge management problems.

We’ll be taking a break from new articles in August, but will be back with new reviews and information in September. In the meantime, I’ll continue blogging news, as well as additional commentary on things going on in the nonprofit software space.

News and Articles for the Week of July 17th

Blogs and Community (Full Circle)
A very interesting article (in multiple parts) from Nancy White, with some thoughts about the various types of blogging communities, and how blogs and communities interact.

Bloggers: A portrait of the internet's new storytellers (Pew Internet Project)
From the research masters over at Pew, the results of a national phone survey of bloggers. It finds that most are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that personal expression is a main goal

ExactTarget 2005 Response Rate Study (ExactTarget)
A detailed look at typical open and click through by day of the week, list size, and more.
http://email.exacttarget.com/ETWeb/whitepapers_form.aspx?id=466

Survey of Organizational Blog Owners (Porter Novelli)
In a recent survey of corporate blog owners, respondents reported increases in website traffic and media attention, although many had no specific goals for their blog

Observations on Nonprofit Software, Corporate Software, and APIs (ONE/NW)
Steve Andersen at ONE/NW provides some salient observations about using software targeted at other markets and extending them for nonprofit needs

AOL launches corporate IM service (CNet)
If instant messaging software is creating a headache for your IT staff, this more secure and managable (and free) corporate version from AOL may be of interest.

News and Articles for the Week of July 10th

Technically, it's not actually the week of July 10th anymore, but here are the news and articles that we found most useful for last week. In my defense, it was a particularly big week for nonprofit software articles for some reason...

A Screencast Introducing Plone
An overview, including video screenshots, of the Plone Content Management System.

Using new tools in non-tech orgs: an interview with Seth Mazow of Interplast (Netsquared)
A great, practical look at how Interplast is using Web 2.0 tools and how they are working for their needs, staff, and constituents.

Testing LAMP vs Windows environments (eWeek)
An interesting and detailed look at how a Linux/ Apache/ MySQL/ PHP environment compares to a Windows/ IIS/ SQL/ ASP environment and hybrid environments in terms of performance.

A Roundup of Mashups (Christine.net)
Christine Herron describes a number of mashups (applications that automatically draw functionality or content from multiple sources). It's a useful overview of what people are currently doing with mashups, and what the possibilities might be

Collaboration (Tools) That Work at ONE/Northwest (Jon Stahl's Blog)
A description from Jon Stahl of the tools and techniques that the ONE/NW team uses to stay in synch.

Social Bookmarking Resources (Marnie Webb, CompuMentor)
Marnie Webb at CompuMentor provides a list of social bookmarking tools (i.e. tools like del.icio.us and furl) with additional links and references. The list is hosted at H20 Playlist, an interesting website in it's own right.

What Web Analytics Do for You (Small Business Computing)
A great overview of what web site analytics tools are and how you can use them.

Quick survey about centralizing grantmaking info

Michael Gilbert is conducting a quick survey to assess the potential of centralizing information about grants made through RSS. Take a minute (or 90 seconds, as Michael says) to give your feedback: http://news.gilbert.org/clickThru/redir/6096/rms

News and Articles for the Week of June 3rd

Skirmish Over OpenDocument Ends in Truce (ComputerWorld)
Microsoft said it plans to sponsor an open-source project to create software that will convert Office documents to OpenDocument, in apparent response to high profile government clients' support for the format

The Best Backup Solutions (PC Magazine)
You need to be backing up and you need to be using a reliable product to do it. PC Maganize tested and reviewed the tools they found to be the best.

Amazon's Mechanical Turk (Amazon)
I've been hearing a lot about the Mechanical Turk recently, and it might have some interesting nonprofit applications. The system links up small tasks that humans can easily do (for instance, doing data entry or determining if there's a pizza parlor in a photograph) with humans willing to do them for pennies a tasks.

Wufoo makes online forms easy (Netsquared)
Marshall Kirkpatrick highlights a useful new Web 2.0 service for nonprofits: Wufoo allows you to make online forms that can be inserted into your web page or used as separate pages.

The Ten Most-Ignored Email Best Practices (Email Labs)
A great overview of ten best practices for email newsletters that most people don't follow.

WHY “MASH UPS” MATTER (Outside Innovation)
From back in March, but a great overview of what a "mash up" is and why organizations should care. Focused on businesses, but very relevant for nonprofits.

News and Articles for the Week of June 25th

Some of the most interesting nonprofit software news and articles for the week of June 25th:

Using Web 2.0 Technologies for Internal Uses (CNet)
While focused on corporations, this article offers an interesting look at the potential of using wikis, blogs, and tagging for internal knowledge sharing

Do Images in eNewsletters Help or Hurt? (M&R Strategic Services)
A summary of three different tests of eNewsletters with an without images - with some surprising results. Some good food for thought as you consider what features you need in an eNewsletter tool.

Google Releases Google Checkout (Small Business Computing)
Google unveils Google Checkout, a payment processing system that some feel is a direct competitor to PayPal. Small Business Computing offers a good overview.

Using Wikis on the Intranet: The British Council Case Study (pebbleRoad)
A case study of how wikis are used in the Singapore branch of the British Council, along with the work practices that accommodate them.

Blogging the Software Selection of an Accounting Package to Handle Fiscal Sponsorships (NetSquared)
Deborah Elizabeth Finn blogs about the challenges and some of the tools they're reviewing to find an accounting package up to handling Third Sector New England's fiscal sponsorship program.