Friday, October 29, 2010

Web Master/Web Blogging Interns for Lady Gaga Web Site


The Web Academy has partnered with Web Asset Partners Inc (WAP) which is a NYC based media publishing platform. Please visit Web Asset Partners Inc (WAP) at http://www.webassetpartners.com for more information. WAP specializes in creating brands and building powerful online entities.

WAP's client portfolio includes The Jonas Brothers and others. In addition, WAP manages the following celebrity themed web destinations:

Lady Gaga
Justin Bieber
Britney Spears
Miley Cyrus
Selena Gomez
Taylor Swift

WAP is looking for Web Master/Web Blogging Interns. These internships are unpaid. However, each intern will get real world experience working with these top brands. If you have successfully mastered the management of maintaining a Wordpress CMS then you may qualify.

Requirements:
PC or Mac with modern web browser
Access to a high speed internet connection
Working knowledge of Wordpress CMS
Writing ability is a must
Working knowledge of DOT NET Nuke CMS (very similar to Wordpress)

Responsibilities:
Manage content
Maintain news information
Post articles using Wordpress and DOT NET NUKE
Upload and manage photos
Upload and manage videos
Add Plugins and Widgets as necessary
Other celebrity web site tasks as related to the pro

Commitment:
Weekly Commitment: 8 hours per week
We are asking for a 6 month commitment.
Location: Telecommute (Work from Home).

If you are interested in working with these top brands as a Web Master/Web Blogging Intern then send an email to info@thewebacademy.org ASAP. This email should include your resume, a writing sample and links to any blogs or web sites that you have created or managed.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

FREE Social Media Workshop in Harlem


FREE Social Media Workshop in Harlem -- Sponsored by Capital One Bank and Seedco Financial


My New Yorkers,

I am doing another FREE Social Media Workshop on Thursday Oct 28th. This workshop is sponsored by Capital One Bank and Seedco Financial. Feel free to send this information to anyone who is interested.



Twitter, Facebook, and Other Social Media
Date: Thursday, October 28, 2010
Time: 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Location: Capital One Bank - Harlem
1999 First Avenue
New York, NY 10029

RSVP: E-mail rsvp@harlemaa.org

Description: This workshop will discuss with established businesses and arts organizations topics such as: Facebook markup language, Facebook fan page engagement, Twitter for your business and Google web analytics. With a "step by step" explanation of how to create an account and upload videos and pictures by connecting different social media tools, the audience will successfully be immersed and able to start using these tools.

Featuring: Eric Hamilton - Executive Director of the NY Web Academy and author of "Social Media Branding in the Age of Obama."

Monday, October 25, 2010

Facebook's "Privacy" Test


There has been a lot of talk about Facebook's privacy or lack thereof. Recently, it was revealed that Facebook was accidentally outing gay users to outside firms through targeted ads. See article online article at Mail Online

I wanted to see if this was true so I decided to run a test. In this test, I wanted to see if I could capture the names and emails of gay men on Facebook. I run an organization called The Web Academy which offers free web design classes. I already have ads running on Facebook, so I simply decided to change who the ads targeted and directed those specific clicks to a custom landing page on my organization's web site. This would help me flag the respondents as gay.


Facebook Ad Setup:
Demographics
Age: 18 and up...
*Sex: M
*Interested in: M
Targeting
Location: NYC
Estimated Reach: 26,800
(notice that the ad is targeting men who are interested in men)



User Account Setup:
I setup a test user account and selected the setting "man interested in men" and simply browsed Facebook until I saw my targeted ad. It took about 1 day before the ad was seen.

User Activity:
Once displayed, I clicked on the ad and I arrived at my special landing page for gay respondents. To the casual user, everything would seem normal. I completed the form for free web design classes.


Web Site Owner:
From the web site owner's perspective, the respondent who clicked on the "gay" ad will be flagged as gay in the owner's web site database.
Below is the email confirmation that the web site owner receives after a gay respondent completes the online application.


Good and Evil:
There is some good that can be achieved with Facebook's granular level of demographics targeting. For instance, I may have an ad that promotes a positive event for the gay and lesbian community. As far as the evil, there are too many to mention.

I am a former Yahoo! employee and in 2008, I supported Yahoo's Right Media Ad network. One of my potential clients was a Black hair care company. They wanted to use Yahoo! to target African Americans. In 2008 and currently, ad networks do not track ethnicity for targeting for many reasons. Even though this company would be using the targeting for good, there would be others who would use this information for evil.

So, what do you think about Facebook's ad targeting capabilities and demographics targeting in general?

Saturday, October 23, 2010

New York Urban League and The Web Academy



The Web Academy is committed to providing free online courses. In addition, the Web Academy provides local web training. On Saturday October 23, 2010, the Web Academy visited Harlem Renaissance High School's technology lab to teach a web design class. This facility is open to the community 7 days a week. Check out the video of our session: