menacingsparrw's posterous

Kiva just released its annual report and you need to see it.

Kiva is a not-for profit microbanking site, where you can lend $25 (or more) towards someone's small business in developing countries. It's not charity - the borrower's pay it back (and then you re-lend the money etc). 

Why do I think its the bee's knees?

• It's digital, and by that I don't mean a PDF that you can download from the main site.
• It's visual - interesting graphics that not only catch the eye, but that reinforce what Kiva is all about AND are of interest to real humans. 
• The metrics that they've chosen to show make me feel good about being a regular lender, and make me want to stay involved. 

This is the only annual report that I can think of where I've actually looked at all the sections. 

I love the layout of "stories from the field", but I wish the images gave me some context. Who is this woman? 

Hands down the best annual report site I've seen.

I'm also a big fan of the full site, where you can browse borrowers by country, industry, or even gender ('cuz everyone knows that women are harder working). The interface is great, and they are very effective with their follow-up emails and notifications of when your loans have been re-paid. 

This week it was suggested that the Mayans may not have been spot on with the Dec 12 2012 end of the world as we know it. Yeah! High Fives!

But the bad news is that apparently we're done for on May 27th.Boo! Apparently, we still get May Long, so that's cool. 

I found this out while borrowing a movie from the internet tonight - an ad that traditionally informs me of hot singles in my area, had more serious news for me tonight: the end times are near. Again.

A brief history of the apocolypse suggests that folks have been a little off a few times in the last 3 or 4 decades. But if these people weren't certain, they wouldn't have spent good money advertising on the internet, would they?

Why do people connect with brand on facebook?

No really - how lonely are you to reply to a Bagel asking you what you're doing this weekend?

[WARNING - OVERSHARING]

So I was in for my annual physical today, having all my systems and lady parts checked. The doctors always feel the need to make small talk and sometimes it makes everything FAR more awkward.

Like today, upon inserting the speculum:

Doctor Whathername: "So, I see that you're a cyclist"

Me: ...
....

[thinking oh my GOD you can tell that from looking at the lady parts?!?!]

Doctor Whathername: "err. in that I see you brought you bike helmet"

Guilty - I was back in Klout. When I logged in, I got this helpful pop-up.

Scraping all my facebook friends to send out a notice is a *little* on the pushy side, but get the auto-opt in: 

Don't ask again before sending requests.

Are you fucking kidding me? 

That's super yucky. 

While checking out how awesome I was on Linked In this morning, I noticed this little sponsored poll. Shaw is either looking for an honest, unfiltered view into what people think of them, or they are completely oblivious. 

It's probably a law of nature or something: give someone an opportunity to bitch about their ISP (or cell carrier, for that matter), and they will take it. 

Maybe it's a case of just seeing what the bigger pain point is in the market - quality customer service, or value for money.

If they just wanted to keep front of mind with users, I would have recommended a different poll, as "what pisses you off about your ISP and oh by the way here's our logo" automatically puts you in the "we hate these guys too" category. Humans (myself included) will *always* look for the "how many people are pissed off" stats before looking at the "how many peoople are happy" stats. It's because we're dicks. 

LinkedIn was clever to link the sponsored poll responses to the respondant's work demographics. When I screen capped the results, the polls had just started, but you can see the responses by age, title and gender.

I wonder if they went full creepy, and can tell if people who work for Shaw or their vendors gave poor ratings. 

The Shaw poll on Linked In is here.

I hate using a flash. Also I take a good number of photos that look AWESOME on my phone, but when seen on anything larger, look like ass.

Also, I only have my phone for a camera.

Also PS also also, I am usually drinking when I take pictures. 

Check out Blurry Pictures of My Friends (they take submissions)

Wow. This is insano and enough to make me want to attend. A little long, but hey. Brevity has never been a strong suit of the stereotypical hillbilly. 

If you're going to be in LA in May, I'd say this would be worth the visit: http://www.thebluegrasssituation.com/

Klout is for narcissists - any individual who cares about their influence and reach is a total aspiring social media twat.

So, as a SOSMT (self-obsessed social media twat), I enjoy checking my progress from time to time. 

Previously I felt it was only really intersting to REAL bloggers, the kind with tens of thousands to followers; so tricky marketer might like to share test products and experiences with them in hopes of a write up.

I'm a pretty seroius influencer - I have almost tens of followers. So since joining about 6 months ago, I'd only received 2 Klout Perks (including a free disposable razor which I never actually recieved). Not exactly exciting and not enough to keep me re-checking my Klout even on a monthly basis. 

Today I received an email from Klout, so I visited my account. 

I noticed that they've recently added Quests in the left rail - it's a great idea. 

Quests seem to be a way to engage the little guys (like me) into getting involved in a movement. The current quest for me is to spread the word about WWF messaging (with a link to a microsite, including links to donate).

Even more clever, Quests include prompts to link your other social entities, including bonus klout points for recommending others to join or learning what the fuck Klout actually is. 

I see what you've done there Klout. Very clever.

Was checking out one of my client's site stats and noticed a crazy drop in traffic one day. As I started to investigate, I noticed that it was on April Fool's Day.

Just goes to show that either every sane person avoided the internet that day or that folks were so consumed by chasing down the laffs that they ignored your crappy e-Comm site.