• YouTube's (GOOG) Secret Ad Plan Revealed: 'Buzz Targeting'
  "YouTube says it's now ready to talk about part of it: A system called "buzz targeting," which figures out which videos are about to "go viral", and lets marketers stick overlay ads on them."
• Blogs Selected For 2008 Democratic National Convention 'State Blogger Corps'
  here ye here ye

• The coolest products used by your favorite celebrities. All spotted by you. | Coolspotters
  ...and EchoDitto. We are in some fine, fine company.

• The Mysterious “Save For Web” Color Shift | Web Design Blog: Web Design & Innovation in web standards : Viget Labs
  useful!
• at mount zoomer
• Twitter breaks the China earthquake news?
  on the ground reporting via SMS and twitter
• 2008 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study -- how do you measure up?
  size doesn't matter, until you compare yourself to others; MRSS and NTEN hit a home-run with this one, a valuable service to the community

• When Obama wins is your new Barack Obama is your new bicycle
  interesting that it's grabbing data from Twitter, anyway
• The Lightbox Clones Matrix « planetOzh
• CJR: The Future of Reading
  Thoughts on the Kindle

• Nearly 1 in 4 emails to opt-in addresses lands in junk/bulk folders
  From 10/1/07 - 12/31/07, Lyris HQ EmailAdvisor monitored the full delivery trajectories of 436,558 production level, permission-based email marketing messages sent from 69 different businesses and non-profit orgs to multiple accounts at 59 domains...

• The Gluten Free Insider
  This is maybe my favorite corporate blog ever.
• Skitch.com > akeenan
  maybe my new favorite thing ever.

• Feature: Easy Ways to Go Green with Your Computer
  I can't believe I missed this in all of the earth day frenzy. Helpful.
• Links and Resources for the Chronically Disorganized | 43 Folders
  So many more ways to simplify.
• Signing Off, And What Does A TechCrunch Writer Actually Use?
  Which apps are the best? Duncan Riley offers his fave 7.
• Welcome to Google Apps
  Google Apps team edition

I feel as if I am in a secret club.

Backstory: One of my best friends, Sarie, works at MoMA, and pretty much anything I know about contemporary art is due to our friendship. Things like: the new Olafur Eliasson microsite that user Flickr to sort user-generated photos, or the fact that you can get AudioGuides on your iPhone or on iTunesU, or PopRally. Aka the secret club.

PopRally describes itself as

a program of events at The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center that features collaborations with artists and musical acts, performances, film screenings, receptions, and special viewings of exhibitions at moderate prices.

I would describe it as

MoMA hosts amazing events featuring art, film, performance and music, with free booze for $8, aimed at a younger, hipper audience.

So pretty much: a dream come true/secret club.

Take, for example, this past Sunday night. An 8:30 screening of Graffiti Research Lab, the Complete First Season, followed by Q&A, followed by open access to the Design and the Elastic Mind show, followed by a dance party featuring Grolsch beer, Fred water, and fluorescent hot pants-ed dancers. Almost sensory overload. Since you probably couldn’t be there, I’ve got a few highlights for you.

1. Graffiti Research Lab creates open-source tools for graffiti artists, including things like Throwies and Laser Tag. The video, which was made out of all repurposed content they had already shot/stole from the internet, has the energy of a summer night roaming around the city your friends, making trouble. Definitely worth checking out. Once you’ve watched it, hit me up, and we can discuss.
2. The discussion afterwards had a few rough spots, but I was really struck by some of the tensions that GRL faces, for instance, between wanting to do all of your projects in an open-source way and supporting yourself. Or between creating agnostic tools and promoting a message. They were very open about making it up as they go along and creating hacks to suit their purposes. At the end I had a question that I didn’t ask, but will ask now. It seems as if their most popular graffiti projects are temporary, which takes a big chunk of graffiti’s rebellion away. MoMA and BAM and Sundance can support Laser Tag (and why wouldn’t they, it’s gorgeous and sophisticated and amazing) partly because at the end of the day they don’t have to repaint their exterior. Is it still graffiti if it isn’t permanent?
3. Design and the Elastic Mind is a nerd’s dream, featuring maps drawn from internet queries, fruit stickers that indicate ripeness, and bubble screens that spell out messages. It’s only open until 5/12, so hurry on down. If that seems impossible, check out their online exhibition which I think captures the best (so many amazing projects) and most challenging (so many words) aspects of the show. Maybe I’ll listen to the podcast of the audioguide to help me make sense of it all.

And... okay, I’ll let you into the secret club, too. You can sign up for emails here, and see upcoming events here. But if next time the event I want to go to is sold out, I am so never talking to you again.

P.S. JP just asked me if other museums are doing cool things. While I am obviously biased towards MoMA, Museums and the Web is a whole conference based on innovative online projects. You can check out their 2008 winners here.

• stickK.com - Put a contract out on yourself!
  Stop weasling out of your commitments -- use this site to put money on the line or get reminders; Colin Delany asks the right question: can it work for nonprofits or organizations to help increase action rates?

• An Extremely Pleasing Video Involving Metronomes
  A departure from serious links, sure, but self-organization like this is too pleasing not to be shared on a Friday.
• Thurday at Noon is the best time post and be noticed (PST)
  Major analysis of Digg, del.icio.us, etc. trends. 12PM Thursday is best, 10AM - 2PM Tues-Fri is the best range. 'Nuff said.
• Nielsen: Mobile Web Matters, big time
  "Mobile Internet Extends The Reach Of Leading Internet Sites By 13%", it's time to leave the WAP mindset behind.

• Morgan Stanley’s March Internet Trends Report: Social Applications Dominating
  Interesting stats on the popularity of social networking sites
• Email Insanity & the 0.001 Challenge | 43 Folders
  Imagine that the person receiving the email you’re composing receives 1,000 other message each day more or less identical to yours. What would you do to distinguish yours from the others? What change would make your email amazingly easy to deal with and
• Social Citizens
  new paper by Alison Fine, sponsored by Case Foundation; summary: "individuals who are energetic and passionate about social causes are equipped with the digital tools and people power to make it happen"

• Guy imprisoned in Egypt twitters his way out of jail

• The Miss Rockaway Armada
  Wow. My friend A'yen is part of this group. Maybe there should be a EchoDitto Cambridge trip to MassMOCA?
• Expanded Facebook blurs line between boss and employee - The Boston Globe
  Is your boss your friend? Or just your facebook friend?

• EEN's Avatars Campaign Brings Online Marketing to Life
• SEO Rapper Design Coding (youtube)
  THIS is what SEO is all about...SEO experts best be prepared to battle.
• Find The Best Cell Phone Plan For You | BillShrink
  finds the best cell plan for you based on avg minutes used per month and location
• Facebook Publishes “Insider’s Guide To Viral Marketing”
  useful tips for Facebook Pages

In honor of Earth Day today, we at EchoDitto are joining with individuals around the world who are committing to do something to combat climate change. Most of us already walk, bike, or take public transportation to work; we're adamant recyclers; and we use environmentally-friendly cleaning products from Seventh Generation. But today we're especially proud to contribute to the fight against global warming with the relaunch of 1Sky.org.

1Sky was created in 2007 with one primary objective: to harness the power of the millions of Americans who are concerned about climate change in order to pass federal legislation by 2010 that can reverse global warming. Since its founding, 1Sky has built a platform of specific solutions, partnered with organizations and allies around the country, and activated a network of over 50,000 citizens who are actively lobbying for policy change and garnering support for the 1Sky solutions in meetings with their members of Congress.

1Sky's power is in its broad base and decentralized structure. It's a truly open-source collaborative campaign, uniting supporters from among traditional "green" activists, communities of faith, business groups and civil rights organizations. All of us have something at stake in the fight against global warming ??? and individuals are sharing their diverse stories through 1Sky's Faces of Climate Change campaign. Check it out and share your story!

It's been an exciting project for us here at EchoDitto as the site has some neat features that totally embrace our philosophy of building vibrant communities and allowing authentic voices to be heard:

• The Faces of Climate Change campaign collects stories, photos, and videos from users and plots them on a map so you can see how climate change impacts people around the country.
• The new blog, The Skywriter, features posts by campaign staff and guest posts from the field; complete with comments so readers can contribute to the discussion.
• More to come!

We're thrilled to be relaunching 1Sky.org and handing it off to the dedicated folks at 1Sky to run with. More importantly, though, we can't wait to see how it grows as all of us who care passionately about ending climate change share our thoughts and stories with one another.

In honor of Earth Day today, we at EchoDitto are joining with individuals around the world who are committing to do something to combat climate change. Most of us already walk, bike, or take public transportation to work; we're adamant recyclers; and we use environmentally-friendly cleaning products from Seventh Generation. But today we're especially proud to contribute to the fight against global warming with the relaunch of 1Sky.org.

1Sky was created in 2007 with one primary objective: to harness the power of the millions of Americans who are concerned about climate change in order to pass federal legislation by 2010 that can reverse global warming. Since its founding, 1Sky has built a platform of specific solutions, partnered with organizations and allies around the country, and activated a network of over 50,000 citizens who are actively lobbying for policy change and garnering support for the 1Sky solutions in meetings with their members of Congress.

1Sky's power is in its broad base and decentralized structure. It's a truly open-source collaborative campaign, uniting supporters from among traditional "green" activists, communities of faith, business groups and civil rights organizations. All of us have something at stake in the fight against global warming – and individuals are sharing their diverse stories through 1Sky's Faces of Climate Change campaign. Check it out and share your story!

It's been an exciting project for us here at EchoDitto as the site has some neat features that totally embrace our philosophy of building vibrant communities and allowing authentic voices to be heard:

• The Faces of Climate Change campaign collects stories, photos, and videos from users and plots them on a map so you can see how climate change impacts people around the country.
• The new blog, The Skywriter, features posts by campaign staff and guest posts from the field; complete with comments so readers can contribute to the discussion.
• More to come!

We're thrilled to be relaunching 1Sky.org and handing it off to the dedicated folks at 1Sky to run with. More importantly, though, we can't wait to see how it grows as all of us who care passionately about ending climate change share our thoughts and stories with one another.

• Hide the Doritos! Here Comes HR
  I guess FPL isn't allowed to eat Runts, either... "At mortgage giant Freddie Mac (FRE), workers who order six healthy meals in the cafeteria get the seventh free. Florida Power & Light, Dow Corning, and Sprint Nextel (S) all charge more for unhealthy food
• Teenagers Find Large Rodent
  Nicco found it. Wow.
• TwittEarth :: Live Twitts all over the world
  interesting, but not very useful

• Study: 'Influencers' Possess Less Clout
  "According to a new study from Canadian research firm Pollara, self-described social media users put far more trust in friends and family online than in popular bloggers, or strangers with 10,000 MySpace "friends."
• A Meet-Up, Brought to You by Huggies (NYT)
  Meetup's first sponsorship experiment: "The Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the maker of Kleenex tissues, is joining forces with Meetup for an initiative sponsored by the company’s baby brands, like Huggies and Pull-Ups."
• Nomads at last | Economist special report on Mobility
  the promises and current state of mobile tech -- a good read
• 10 EverPink Only For Moms Social Networking Websites
• Getting the Download from Joe Trippi on 08 campaigns and tech
  Micah Sifry in conversation with Trippi
• Ten Sites for Finding Wonderful Things
  for finding all of the coolest craziest stuff on the net

• Blog brings human face to big-city murder

The new New York office is a dream. An Ikea-furnished dream. Gisele mentioned that we went to Ikea, but I have to elaborate.

We drove to Ikea on Friday morning at 11 am. Traffic was light, Gisele was an excellent driver, I navigated as only a girl from New Jersey can, and Harish made back-to-back calls from the back seat. I did a little pre-gaming with the team regarding decisions that needed to be made, an overview of the trip, and areas of the store we would avoid.

Despite my schedule and lists, Gisele and Harish got overwhelmed at the top of the first escalator. ???We should have hired a consultant to help us furnish the office at Ikea...??? Harish said mournfully. ???Wait??? I replied. ???I am a consultant helping you to furnish your office at Ikea. In fact, I???m your consultant. You pay me to consult.??? Thus was born EchoOffice.

EchoOffice will be available for all of your office furnishing services, including online and offline strategy, on-the-ground engagements, and strategic communication. Whether you need a cute couch, or have to furnish an entire office, we will serve as your guide and coach. Until we get staffed up and off the ground, let me be your virtual consultant for making your next Ikea shopping trip the best it can be:

1. Do preliminary research. Although I find the Ikea site to be incredibly hard to navigate and not intuitive, spend a little time researching the items you are interested in. You might want to also check some similarly-priced competitors: cb2, west elm, and maybe pottery barn. Make a spreadsheet that includes photos, prices, and colors. Pages has an excellent template for just this sort of thing.

Note: if you are really set on an item, save yourself some heartache--search to see if it???s available in your local store.

1. Plan your space. Draw out a sketch of the room (bonus points if it???s to scale) and approximately where you want everything to go. Before you leave the house measure anything that looks handy and mark it on your map: windows, walls, doors, closets. I promise this will come in handy when you are staring at 6 different lengths and widths of curtains.
2. Make a plan of attack and a list. Ikea is overwhelming, and people who don???t have a clear plan or goals tend to start snapping at each other around the paper-napkin area (overheard in Ikea: ???fine, I don???t really care. Pick whatever you want. You never listen to my opinions anyway.???) Don???t let this happen to you. Decide what you want to focus on, which decisions you need to make during this trip, and which items you really need. Sure, you???re going to leave with some random wrapping paper, and a sheepskin rug that you couldn???t resist, but at least make sure you get what you came for.
3. Bring provisions. About half to two-thirds of the way through Ikea, just as you are starting to hit your stride, you will become famished and parched. Sneak a little snack into your bag and you will be much happier.
4. Ask for help. Don???t throw your back out trying to lift that giant BIlly bookshelf alone, ask an employee. Don???t wander back through 17 living rooms looking for the desks, ask someone for a shortcut. The Ikea workers are generally helpful and kind, so don???t hesitate.
5. Enjoy yourself. If you get tired, kick back in the living room, or try to sneak a nap on one of the beds. Harish took a conference call from the puffy, floral couch. I pretended the 612-square-foot apartment was my apartment. I think I saw Gisele squeezing a plush cat toy. Ikea is fun.
   
6. Bring sturdy bags. Unless you???re shopping for plastic storage boxes, it helps to bring a few sturdy tote bags to schlep back the odds and ends you???ll inevitably acquire.

Now, go out and buy low-priced, stylish home furnishings. And... if you get a chance, would you pick me up some lingonberry drink? It???s my favorite.