Global

Mozilla is currently deep in the heart of its celebration over officially setting a new Guinness World Record for the largest number of software downloads (8,002,530!) in 24 hours for its Firefox 3 browser. But the company isn't cheering alone - its enjoying this victory with the community it rightfully credits for helping it to succeed.

Mozilla's marketing strategy has historically been word-of-mouth engagement, a method that very creatively began with its 2004 Firefox 1.0 launch. As more social networking venues have opened up and expanded to businesses, Mozilla has adapted to putting up appropriate channels and resources.

"Since Firefox is all about the online experience it's a natural fit for folks who are open to social networking," said Paul Kim, vice president of marketing for Mozilla. "We announced Download Day with a very concerted plan to leverage multiple social networks and to seed content on those networks that would drive traffic to the download site."

eMarketer forecasts that mobile social networking will grow from 82 million users in 2007 to over 800 million worldwide by 2012.

"This population will comprise current online social networkers who are extending their digital lives to mobile as well as a growing number of mobile-only social networkers," said John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer senior analyst and co-author of the new report, Mobile Social Networks. "Early reports suggest strong user demand for mobile social networks."

For example, MySpace recorded over 7 million unique visitors to MySpace Mobile in the US in the six months since launch. "It wasn't until we rolled out m.myspace.com that we got a sense of how powerful demand was for MySpace on cell phones," Brandon Lucas, senior director of mobile business development for MySpace, told eMarketer.

If Slide and RockYou, two of the fastest-growing Web businesses, are any barometer for the future, the Internet is going to look pink. In other words, the future of social media is going to be all about the women. So if you're going to create the next hot Web 2.0 site and you want it to go viral, you'll target women.

It's no shock that men and women act differently online, just as they do in everyday life. The Web is an extremely social medium, and Web 2.0 is all about being social. Traditionally, men are the early adopters of new technologies. But when it comes to social media, women are at the forefront. At Rapleaf we conducted a study of 13.2 million people and how they're using social media. While the trends indicate both sexes are using social media in huge numbers, our findings show that women far outpace the men.

Social networking sites need to be concerned about the proliferation of spam and phishing attacks and the impact it could have on their ability to grow and retain members.

A new study by UCLA and Danish researchers has raised another cell phone health issue.

After surveying more than 13,000 children, the scientists have concluded that women who used a cell phone while pregnant are much more likely to have unruly children.

While previous health studies have linked radiation from cell phones with potential tumor formation, this is the first research to tie cell phone use to behavioral issues.

The researchers said children of mothers who used cell phones while pregnant, even infrequently, ran a higher risk of developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotional control, and relationships by the time they started school. The risk increased if the children themselves used cell phones before age seven.

Since the researchers could not pinpoint a reason that cell phone use could affect behavior, critics may suggest that the link may not actually exist. Instead, the link might be explained by cultural factors.

Early in the epidemic, HIV infection and AIDS were diagnosed for relatively few women and female adolescents (although we know now that many women were infected with HIV through injection drug use but that their infections were not diagnosed).  Today, women account for more than one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. Women of colour are especially affected by HIV infection and AIDS.

Based on the Habitat Agenda, UNCHS (Habitat) is addressing increasing urbanisation and the problem of urban poverty strategically through two campaigns, on Secure Tenure and Good Urban Governance. Meeting the needs of women will be a key measure of their  success. Enhancing the role of women in urban governance is a pre-condition for the inclusive city promoted by the Global Campaign for Good Urban Governance.

A policy on women and urban governance should address two aspects. One is women's increased representation in local decision-making. The second is greater attention to issues of concern to women. Both are examined in this policy paper, which also reviews current efforts to address them. The norms of the Campaign for Good Urban Governance are then used as a lens to focus on the policy issues with which the paper concludes.

 

This handbook focuses on efforts to bring women into governance, illustrating ways that organizations and activists around the world can foster greater gender equity in civic engagement, advocacy, voting and governance efforts to improve the quality of life for everyone. Six chapters highlight key approaches to supporting women's leadership to make governments worldwide more responsive to the needs of women.

Women are not among the major users of existing governance indicators, primarily because the indicators are gender blind and not relevant to women's needs.  Exceptions are the indicator on women's participation in parliaments maintained by the International Parliament Union, and the IDEA International database on electoral quotas for women.  Both have been widely and actively used by women parliamentarians and women's political groups to support lobbying and advocacy to increase women's participation in national parliaments, often through the use of electoral quotas.

This BRIDGE Cutting Edge Pack on CD provides key materials on gender-sensitive budgets as a tool for advancing gender equality. Sharing accessible explanations of key concepts, geographically and context diverse case studies, practical tools, guidelines, training materials, popular education materials, web resources and networking contacts, supports progress towards achieving the ultimate goal of the formulation of a gender-sensitive budget. If you are too busy implementing, designing and managing to have time to read a book, then this Pack can offer you concise, accessible information. We hope these resources will further encourage collaboration and networking. As this collection shows, there is no one way of "doing" gender budget work. The context for the work is everything. Whilst we have included examples of tools, guidelines, and training materials, we want to stress that there is no magic formula and any materials need to be adapted for the context.