SocialNetExamples

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Intro to Demos
This Wiki page is setup to demonstrate some Social Network tools "embedded" into a web page as you might have on your church web site. Most of the examples here can be embedded into any web page or portal, but tools such as those built-in to this Wikispaces.com service make the inclusion much simpler. These Social Network tools are drawing in New UUs as well as providing a new way to get in touch with your congregation!

The examples shown are drawn from these sources:
 * "Technologies in Congregations" (TiC) workshop on 2012-03-17 documented here on the host UUCG page.
 * Notes taken during the TiC workshop are posted here in this Wikispace
 * Research following the TiC workshop

Links and updated information have been added and updated since the workshop. Please join us in highlighting useful Social Media technology integration into our UU Mission!

Come try out these tools and take our poll on what tools interest you! We invite other UUA Congregation technology leaders to join this Wikispace and get some hands-on experiences setting up these tools. There is no charge and we can set aside a page for you to test these or other Social Network Tools for yourself.

Polls
Here is a sample Google Poll **//Try this out! Go ahead and vote on the tool described below that you like best or want more information then click on Submit.//** **//We are working on a way to graphically display poll results...//** media type="custom" key="13636900" align="center"

toc Several ways to conduct interactive polls were reviewed at the TiC Workshop which are no extra cost for modest sized polls. The poll demonstrated at the TiC workshop used text messages on a typical mobile phone! Another way to poll up to hundreds of people: Google Docs poll and spreadsheet as demonstrated above. Google Docs polls can be embedded into a web page, like the one above, or it can be e-mailed, or posted as a link on your website for your community. Google Polls via the Google Spreadsheet are increasingly popular. Let us know which one of the demos here you like or want more information by using this Google Poll and clicking the "Submit" button at the bottom of the poll.

Twitter feeds
Twitter short messages or "Tweets" have been used to enhance sharing of information such as questions or feedback prior to or during meetings or special events. The set of short messages on twitter.com that use a common "hashtag" within the message may be separated out and displayed anywhere a web browser may be displayed using these tools, Once the "tweets" are submited then these tools may be used to display the selected "Tweets" in a visual, at-a-glance format suitable for projection or popping up on a laptop. This Twitter Fountain tool displayed below shows tweets created just prior to, during, and following the 2012-03-17 Technologies in Congregations (TiC) workshop which included the hashtag "#eccuutech" in the Tweet message: media type="custom" key="13418674" align="center"

Also the same Twitter messages, or Tweets, may be visualized at this link by Visible Tweets which is not setup to be "embedded" in a Wiki page. Either might be suitable for a workshop or minister "talkback" to SHOW the initial interest or feedback before the meeting or at breaks or before a follow-up session. Some congregations advertise that people coming to their web site "Follow" them on Twitter. [example to come...] NOTE: these "Tweets" expired after 3 weeks, so I've added a couple more. If you use Twitter and create a message with #eccuutech in it, it will display in either the Twitter Fountain or the Visible Tweets link. Go ahead and give it a try!

YouTube embedded
media type="youtube" key="yvylCGa176Y" height="315" width="480" align="right" YouTube videos are straightforward to embed in a web site and often used in UUA web sites. "Come As You Are" new-unity.org YouTube video This is a great example of a "Ken Burns" style of video carrying a UU message. Still photos are "animated" using one of several software packages available with music and words added then uploaded to YouTube. a also embedded here:

Here is a very well produced YouTube video of Roller Derby skater/minister Dawn Cooley from Lexington, KY media type="youtube" key="y93GIkm2f_Y" height="315" width="420" align="left"

Weblog (blog) embedded
Weblogs, or blogs, are often used as a way for one person to create a running commentary and make it available to all who are interested. The Roller Derby minister, Rev Dawn Cooley, uses her blog to reinforce messages from the pulpit whether the sermon is posted in written copy or not. Here is a summary "RSS feed"; this feed only shows a summary of the latest 3 blog entries and you can click any of the links to access the full blog entry:


 * rss url="http://revdawn.wordpress.com/" link="true" description="true" number="3" date="true" author="true" ||

Here is the link to the complete blog entry that Rev Dawn wrote for the announcement of her Roller Derby alter ego Liv Fearless. Note the blog entry links to the sermon and the sermon page links back to the blog which is a very popular way to use blogs.

Facebook
Facebook is the elephant in the Social Media genre. Unlike most of the other Social Media web sites or tools referenced, Facebook applications and capabilities are not easily incorporated into your community's preferred web site or portal. Until recently you had to use the Facebook platform the Facebook way! Some discussion in the Workshop ensued and several of us are reluctant to embrace Facebook as a primary platform because statistics gleaned from scanning ALL of the information imported or stored in Facebook is sold to target ads and then integrated with other online databases and sold to the highest bidders. The ever changing way to attempt to protect your information or access to your Facebook group is confusing.

Despite concerns, many congregations are using Facebook, but none represented at the March 2012 Workshop indicated this as their PRIMARY web presence. Some small emerging congregations have started with only a Facebook presence and moved on to other web platforms as they grew.

Though not mentioned in the workshop there are recent developments integrating Facebook with other Social Media and web sites/portals:
 * 15 ways to integrate Facebook and your Social Media [very interesting post with some demos!]

One of the simplest and most powerful ways to link back to a Facebook Group is embedding the "Like" button into your web site. Unfortunately, as with many help tips about Facebook, the Like button isn't available from a Facebook Group as described at the "15 ways to integrate Facebook..." link above. [Anyone have a sample to post here?]

Displaying data in tables
For many non-profits, including most of our congregations, managing and displaying moderately large tables of data can require assistance from a programmer and may require setup of a database. Though many MySQL database capabilities are a part of web hosting packages available today, an online spreadsheet may be a much simpler solution to allow viewing of modestly large tables of data (up to say 1000 rows by perhaps a dozen or so columns. Here are some examples: > media type="custom" key="13403138" > From any Google Docs Spreadsheet, go to the File menu, click on "Publish to the Web", then select the sheet(s) to publish and pick the "Web Page" link as we have done in the link just before this sentence, OR select "HTML to embed in a page" for the Widget sample above. [request to add a link to screen shots or a YouTube video] These examples will work for embedding or viewing the whole of any Google Docs spreadsheet..
 * Link to an embedded spreadsheet which is the Sermon Archive at C3HUU. This spreadsheet was 170 rows by 6 columns as shown here on the C3HUU web page, so a small portion is shown below on this wiki page. The scroll bars on the left of the embedded spreadsheet allow you to scroll up or down to see the entire contents of the table:
 * To see the entire spreadsheet, in read-only mode, access the whole list of online sermons using this link to the Google Spreadsheet. In this veiw you can use the "Search" function in your browser to find a particular sermon, sermon leader/preacher, date, etc.

Live Streaming "UU Music"
media type="custom" key="13635528" align="right" While not usually considered part of "Social Networking" streaming audio or podcasts are a part of many a UU web presence. For over a decade, the UUplink ad-free internet radio "station" on Live365 has been growing in popularity. Here is an embedded player with the UUplink station setup. Just click on the arrow in the middle of the player to stream "UU music" non-stop to your computer, tablet, or smartphone. Apps for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry can be found at live365.com

This widget was embedded by registering to live365.com, clicking on the "Players" link at the top of the page, and then the "Player Widgets" link in the middle of the Players web page. A Live365 builder tool pops up with UUplink station already shown if you have played the station recently. If you want more details on this, vote for "Streaming UU Music" in the Google poll above and "Submit" the poll.

Another example of an embedded audio player is shown here: http://c3h.wikispaces.com/sermons in the column labeled "Podcasts" in the table of recent Sermons at C3HUU. Podcast and streaming both refer to the "instant on" nature of the audio player programs which allow a web site visitor to click on the link and music or other audio begins playing immediately with no special setup required by the web site visitor. Posting of MP3 files without a streaming music player often leads to confusion by the users who are so accustomed to YouTube or iTunes player operation of "click" and audio appears. Very few visitors today are willing to wait for a file download to listen to audio files.

Embedded Navigation or Mind Map
Many tools create customized output that includes an Adobe Flash "controller" file, some "wrapper HTML" and multimedia files such as MP4 video or customized interactive code. Here is the Flash output from an open source tool: Freeplane, showing notes and links taken while at a conference. We will post some UU related maps in the near future:

media type="custom" key="22993236"

...End of examples, for now... //Please join and help add or enhance our sample apps!//