David Neff mentioned that the Austin, TX Social Media Club was doing a TweetUp Blood Drive. The idea came from Mike Chapman who was celebrating a birthday. Rather than give him your first born son, he asked that you donate blood. That's a novel way to celebrate a birthday and support a cause.
Here's the idea:
We get this question a lot at Every Dot Connects — “What the heck is Twitter, and how can something that sounds so goofy possibly do anything useful?”
Today, many people in Austin, Texas saw firsthand what Twitter can do with a few dedicated people and a great idea.
It was the inaugural Austin Blood Drive Tweetup, perfectly timed for July 3rd, just before an Independence Day weekend when accidents tend to happen, the need for blood is high and supplies run low.
If you're on Twitter, you know what the Fail Whale is -- that graphic that comes up when Twitter goes down or is stressed out or flaky. And people poke fun at it. But do they quite?
But fail whale mating calls aside, people can't seem to quit twitter because they find it valuable.
So, have you seen a fan club for the Technorati monster or Bloglines plumber? No.
You can buy a fail whale t-shirt or follow these other links:
- @failwhale on Twitter
- Community Fail Whale Art
- Fail Whale Bookmarks (Magnolia)
- Fail Whale Group on Facebook
- Fail Whale Group on Flickr
- Fail Whale TShirts, Mugs & Stuff
- Fail Whale’s Fan Club Newsgroup
I was one of the many good folk who made their way to give blood last week (actually, I was ultimately declined from giving due to my decision to study in the UK 15 years ago...something about mad cow). It was yet another reason why Twitter continues to bring people together despite all the grumblings. And a great example of how folks are using social media to do some really good things. Thanks for giving this event some extra visibility.
Posted by: Chris Bailey | July 07, 2008 at 01:33 PM
Hi, Beth. Thanks for writing about the Austin event -- I'm hoping other cities will do the same thing. David Neff did a terrific job promoting the event through Austin 501 Tech Club, Mike promoted it on Social Media Club Austin, and Michelle Greer blogged about it and coordinated everything with the Blood and Tissue Center. Other tech / social media types got merchants to donate prizes and food. Bottom line? Double the number of donations on a typical day, with a large percentage of them first-timers.
We're all pulling for the whale to make a full recovery. :-)
Posted by: Connie Reece | July 07, 2008 at 01:52 PM
Hello, I do find Twitter really useful, and in a different way than with other online media. Most effortless way to communicate meaningfully; no IM-style chat conversations, no having to write an entire blog post. Yet a lot of info and ideas are circulated. It's also somewhat more casual and less personal than Facebook or other social networking apps. That makes me more at ease connecting with lots of people I don't know ("following"), but who I have some sort of topical or professional interest in. There is also less angst around "unfollowing"; it's not that big a deal.
And, of course, I have a soft spot in heart for the fail whale! I actually build a microsite calling all tweeps to action -- save the fail whales! http://savethefailwhales.org!
Posted by: Janelle | July 18, 2008 at 01:18 AM