Here are a few ways that readers can use online social networking tools to spread the word about your book.
I’ll be asking readers of Coffeehouse Theology to do at least one of these:
There are plenty of other tools out there that authors themselves can use, but as far as what readers can do, these are all simple ways they can talk back via reviewing and help spread the word of your book.
Data Ownership - Data ownership should remain and always remain the property of the individual. Issues of data ownership need to be addressed strongly going forward, no company has the right to own my data. I may grant them permission to loan it temporarily for purposes that are for my benefit, or theirs if I am feeling altruistic, but the right to use my data for a third party should be revocable at any time.
Data Portability/Migration - Likewise an extension of the above, I should be able to transfer and make my data accessible to third parties with ease. I shouldn’t have to be duplicating forms all the time.
The centerpiece of it all is My.BarackObama.com, where supporters can join local groups, create events, sign up for updates and set up personal fund-raising pages. “If we did not have online organizing tools, it would be much harder to be where we are now,” Mr. Hughes said.
Mr. Obama, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, credits the Internet’s social networking tools with a “big part” of his primary season success.
The heart of the campaign’s online strategy is a teeming corner of Mr. Obama’s headquarters two blocks from the Chicago River, a crowded space that looks more like an Internet start-up company than a campaign war room. During a visit in late May, a bottle of whiskey sat, almost empty, atop a refrigerator (there had been plenty of victories to celebrate lately, a staff member explained).
Sitting amid a cluster of cubicles, Mr. Hughes, whose title is “online organizing guru,” handles the My.BarackObama.com site, which is known within the campaign as MyBo. Other staff members maintain Mr. Obama’s presence on Facebook (where he has one million supporters), purchase online advertising, respond to text messages from curious voters, produce videos and e-mail millions of supporters
Tim Bray, for example, clearly views Twitter as a volume tool, saying:
There’s one thing that’s become terribly clear to me: Twitter is inherently a river-of-news; when I come back to my computer after a while offline, I have no urge to look back at the missed tweets. If it’s important, it’ll come back.
Sampson said his reputation is "very important" to him, but only knows one way to regain it.
"Just be who I've been my entire life," Sampson said. "Sometimes you take hits that you have to overcome, but that's something that I just work at as I go forward.
