Using Present.ly, Easily Create Your Non-Profit Organization's Free, Secure, Private Microblogging Tool
There are times when e-mail, as a tool to facilitate organizational productivity, is too slow, inefficient and awkward. Present.ly, a free, Web-hosted microblogging platform, allows your employees to easily stay connected in real-time. Present.ly is a secure, closed (private) environment that facilitates productivity through the sharing of ideas, files (images, documents, video, and audio clips) and real-time updates (similar to Twitter in that colleagues' updates can be easily followed). Present.ly allows any account to add custom external RSS feeds directly into one of your streams and mark the stream as public or private. This could be a Twitter stream, a Twitter search, or any other type of RSS feed. Present.ly's free account also allows a key administrative feature in terms of who can access your organization's microblog. One of the following four access methods can be chosen: Closed (the Administrator can invite anyone regardless of domain), Domain (only individuals with the same organizational domain can sign-up), Access Code (invitees are e-mailed a special access code to enter) and Open (anyone can sign-up). Within your microblog, groups (with controlled access) can be created according to your needs, whether along your organizational structure or according to a specific project, for example. As well as through the Web interface, Present.ly allows employees to stay connected via their desktop client (an Adobe Air-based application), mobile devices (e.g., iPhone) and e-mail. One's updates can even be posted via a browser bookmarklet. To assist with organizational branding, Present.ly allows your microblog to use your own domain (I could not discern the specifics on their Web site in terms of domain execution although I did note a response stating they were not allowing CNAMEs - at least at the time of the said reply). Present.ly has an attractive, easy-to-use interface. However, based on execution errors received, their service seems to have some yet to resolve bugs. So if you have that conference to organize, event to plan, a collaboration-based online volunteering project to complete and you want to increase your organizations's productivity, then create your free (Custom) microblogging tool now at: http://presentlyapp.com/accounts/custom For further information about how a non profit organization can develop a productive virtual volunteering program through the use of appropriate technology, please visit this Online Volunteering Resource.
