Experiment with web content for better engagement: new Google tool

Is your web content actually helping to achieve the goals of your community project? If you're not sure, you might want to experiment with different types of online content. A new feature of Google Analytics can help you experiment with content in a precise, measurable way aligned with specific engagement goals.

Mobile resources for community foundations

This list of links supports the information presented July 18, 2013 at an event for community foundations in the West. It was hosted by KDMC-USC in partnership with The Denver Foundation, The Piton Foundation and The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County. The presenter was Amy Gahran, mobile/digital media consultant and a regular contributor to the KDMC website.

GrantStation: State of Grantseeking report, rural community grants webinar

If grants are part of the funding stream for your community news, information or engagement project, it helps to see the big picture of who's getting grants, from where, and for what. Recently GrantStation released its free State of Grantseeking report for Spring 2013.

New from Adsense: Publisher scorecard

If Google Adsense ads are a revenue stream for your community site, a new Adsense tool will help you understand how well your site is performing -- and what you can do to improve it.

Respecting the data: Notes from Eyeo 2013

Data can spur enormous creativity, and this year's Eyeo Festival (June 5-8, Minneapolis) offered some especially intriguing ideas, examples and questions about possibilities for using data. This event attracts noted artists, designers and coders from around the world. MIT graduate student Erhardt Graeff attended the event and offered a detailed rundown of highlights and takeaways.

Coding for journalists: Free online courses for ONA members

Starting Fall 2013, members of the Online News Association will have free access to online courses in data journalism and building news apps offered by the For Journalism project.

Hashtags on Facebook: 5 tips for community media

Today Facebook took a page from Twitter and announced that it's adding support for hashtags -- a popular tool to support public conversations in social media.

Who ISN'T using a smartphone yet?

In the past year the U.S. crossed a mobile tipping point: now, most cell phones in use here are smartphones. According to a new Pew report 56% of all American adults are now smartphone users.

But, as author William Gibson observed: "The future is here; it's just not evenly distributed yet." Here's what Pew had to say about who is least likely to be using a smartphone in the U.S. -- something that could influence mobile strategy for efforts to engage underserved or marginalized communities.

Knight Community Info Challenge: connecting the dots to community engagement

There's less than two weeks to go until the June 1 application deadline for this year's Knight Community Information Challenge. How have the projects already funded through this program spurred community engagement?

OpenStates: Track your state legislature

What's happening in your state government, and how might it relate to what's happening in other states -- or in the federal government? Earlier this year the Sunlight Foundation released a set of tools to make state government issues easier to track.