Emily's World

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Target sued over inaccessible site

A blind UC Berkeley student has filed a class-action lawsuit against Target Corp., saying the retailer is committing civil-rights violations because its Web site is inaccessible to those who cannot see.

Read the rest of the article at Blind Cal student sues Target Suit charges retailer's Web site cannot be used by the sightless

Find out more information about this case at Taking Aim at Target(.com)

What are your thoughts about this?

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Analysis of Nonprofit Blogs

In a recent post on Netsquared, I mentioned some tags that could be used in the nonprofit sector. I then decided to search blogs to see how often these terms have been used in blogs.

I used Blogpulse to see the trends of these terms over the last 6 months. I analyzed 28 terms and created 12 different graphs. I used 2-3 similiar terms for each graph. I saved a screenshot of each graph and uploaded the image to Flickr. For each term, I figured out the lowest percentage and highest percentage of all blog posts containing the term.

Listed below are the terms I used, how I grouped them, the link to the graph image, and link to Blogpulse 6 month trend url:

activism (0.011%- 0.076%) , advocacy (0.014%- 0.056%), advocate (0.042%- 0.117%)
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
activist (0.037%- 0.149%) and activists (0.025%- 0.103%)
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
charitable (0.021% - 0.12%), charities (0.021% - 0.304%), and charity (0.1% - 0.403%)
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
donate (0.079% -1.052%) , donation (0.059% -0.046%) , and donations (0.075% -0.611%)
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
donor (0.021% -0.166% ) and donors (0.014% -0.046% )
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
foundation (0.166% -0.334%) and foundations (0.023% -0.072%)
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
ngo (0.018% - 0.051%) and ngos (0.003% - 0.012%)
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
non-profit (0.02% - 0.09%) and non-profits (0% -0.01%)
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
nonprofit (0.012% -0.056%) and nonprofits (0.001% -0.009%)
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
npo (0.001% -0.011%) and npos (0% -0.001%)
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
philanthropic (0.002% -0.022%) and philanthropy (0.002% -0.016%)
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse
volunteer (0.069% -0.356%) , volunteering (0.02% -0.101%) , and volunteers (0.046% -0.253%)
graph and 6 month trend on Blogpulse

Graph Interpretations:

In group one, I noticed advocate was written about the most out of these three terms. Advocacy and activism were mentioned the most in blog entries during between December 9th-27th. I will keep these three terms in my list of terms to analyze.
In group two, both activist and activists were mentioned in blogs about the same. I also noticed that activist was mentioned the most between December 9th-27th. I will keep both these terms in my list of terms to analyze.
In group three, I noticed charity was written about the most out of these three terms. All three terms (charity, charities, and charitable) were mentioned the most between August 23rd and September 10th, which was around the time of the hurricanes. I will keep all three terms in my list of terms to analyze.
In group four, I noticed all three terms were mentioned in blogs about the same. Each term (donate, donation, donations) was written about the most between August 23rd and September 10th. Again, this was around the time of the hurricanes. During that time donate was mentioned the most. I will keep these three terms in my list of terms to analyze.
In group five, I noticed both donor and donors were mentioned in blogs about the same. They both were written about the most between November 21st and December 9th. During that time donor was was mentioned the most. I will keep both of these terms in my list of terms to analyze.
In group six, foundation was mentioned the most. For my list of terms to analyze, I will keep foundation in my list but will remove foundations.
In group seven, ngo was mentioned the most. For my list of terms to analyze, I will keep ngo in my list but will remove ngos.
In group eight, non-profit was mentioned the most. For my list of terms to analyze, I will keep non-profit in my list but will remove non-profits.
In group nine, nonprofit was mentioned the most. For my list of terms to analyze, I will keep nonprofit in my list but will remove nonprofits.
In group ten, npo was mentioned the most. For my list of terms to analyze, I will keep npo in my list but will remove npos.

In group eleven, both terms (philanthropy and philanthropic) were mentioned in blogs about the same. I will keep both of these terms in my list of terms to analyze.

In group twelve, volunteer was mentioned the most in blogs. Volunteers was mentioned the most after volunteer, and volunteering was mentioned the least out of these terms. Each term was written about the most during August 23 and September 10th, which was around the time of the hurricanes. This graph is very interesting. The lines do not intersect all. I I will keep both of these terms in my list of terms to analyze

Overall Results:

From this analysis I found out that these non-profit related terms were less than 1% of all blogs in the blogosphere. The only term that reached 1% was donate.

In conclusion, I have decided that there needs to be more non-profit related blogs and blog entries.

I have narrowed down my 28 terms to 24 terms to analyze in the future. I will write more analysis posts in the future.

What does this have to do with tags?

In my opinion, blogs are used the most of the emerging technologies. If these terms are mentioned in blogs, then most likely they will be used as tags. I now have a list of 24 tags to use to reach people interested in nonprofits that may not be part of nonprofit technology.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Blogs and RSS Feeds

It has come to my attention that some people do not understand blogs and RSS feeds.

Here are some links for more information on these topics:

Sunday, January 22, 2006

"Digital Divide" in nonprofit websites - Updated Version

About a year ago I posted an entry titled "Digital Divide" in nonprofit websites. Since then I have become very involved with nonprofit technology projects (like nptech and net2) and learned all about emerging technologies.

Since I am now interested in seeing which nonprofits use emerging technologies on their website, I have realized there is even more of a "digital divide" in nonprofit websites.

Here are 6 groups I have come up with to describe the gap:

This group has added a blog, rss feeds, and/or podcasts to their website. Their web content is updated regularly. Their website is also designed well.
This group has a well designed website. Their website content is updated regularly. They are familiar with emerging technologies and are looking into ways to add them to their website.
This group has had a website for years. They are up to date with web design. They have heard about emerging technologies but do not understand them. They keep their website content updated as much as they can.
This group has a website, but there is still room for improvement. They have an updated website which does not have much content. They are ready to redesign their site and add more content to it. They do not know anything about emerging technologies.
This group has a website but it lacks usability and has not been updated in years. The content on the website is outdated.
This group does not have a website. They do not know how a website can help their organization.