Comments on: Introducing act.ly – Petitions Designed for Twitter

By: Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts » Blog Archive » A petition to save libraries

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:54:53 +0000

[...] Jim Gilliam, one of the founders of Act.ly, explains that it is surprisingly easy to move from outrage to petition: You sign a petition by tweeting it, and other people can sign the petition just by re-tweeting it. There’s no need to go to the act.ly site, except to start a petition. If you are re-tweeted, you get credit for the referral, and will show up in the “Smokin’ Recruiters” link on act.ly. [...]

By: masticable » act.ly, lanza peticiones activistas a través de Twitter

masticable » act.ly, lanza peticiones activistas a través de Twitter — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:04:36 +0000

[...] Jim Gilliam, uno de los creadores, nos explica el sistema [...]

By: Jim Gilliam

Jim Gilliam — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:00:05 +0000

Yes. If you're thinking about something specific you want, just drop me an email and I can get it to you sooner in non-official form.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:40:37 +0000

Will there be an API for this site? One could possibly lookup a twitter user and get back a list of the recent petitions they've signed. Or another call that returns the petitions started by a user.

By: act.ly and the California “Affiliate Tax” | Affiliate Marketing | Affiliate Networks

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:33:38 +0000

[...] act.ly that launched this week. It is a brilliant idea. You can read the inspiration for it here. It is a service to post petitions that get signed when people retweet on Twitter. It requires that [...]

By: Jim Gilliam

Jim Gilliam — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:09:51 +0000

You can't have more than one target. I'm starting to think about how that could work though, part of the problem is that you run out of tweet space pretty quickly. But there's probably room for a couple folks, and I can see people wanting to run a petition to both senators in a particular state, that sort of thing.

On the multiple people starting a petition. No, not right now. What you can do in the meantime is include information about the other person who started it at the bottom (or top) of the petition text area. You can include links to organization websites, whatever you want.

By: Katie

Katie — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:57:04 +0000

Hi Jim!

I'm working with act.ly now (thanks for your quick reply to my question yesterday!). I am now wondering if it's possible to have 2 people listed as having started a petition. And also is it possible to have more than one target?

thanks!

By: Jocelyn_UFW

Jocelyn_UFW — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:36:03 +0000

what a fantastic tool. Just posted a petition for the UFW to test it out. Very excited about the potential.

By: Jim Gilliam

Jim Gilliam — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:25:39 +0000

Yes, that's actually one of the really cool things about act.ly. You can include a checkbox for people to follow your twitter account. We're already seeing people who start petitions get a lot of followers as a result.

By: Michael Hoffman

Michael Hoffman — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:23:25 +0000

nicely done. Does the petition sponsor get any lasting connection to the petition signers? Nonprofits engage in petitions to both make real change, and to teach people about issues as an intro to a deeper engagement over time. How can sponsoring orgs deepen the connections?

By: Jim Gilliam

Jim Gilliam — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:15:32 +0000

Thanks Eric. I've thought about that, whether a tweet should be required to sign. I think it should be, because it gives the signature a lot more weight. You're not only willing to sign this petition, you're willing to tell everyone about it. Petitions have gotten less and less useful over the years as we've made it easier and easier to sign. One thing I like about doing it on Twitter is that we can make it *even easier* to sign, while making it a more meaningful signature, AND spreading the word. It's kind of beautiful.

By: Darren Lewin-Hill

Darren Lewin-Hill — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:11:25 +0000

Great idea. I just signed an act.ly petition by GetUp Australia asking the Australian PM, Kevin Rudd, to abandon plans for Internet censorship. With politicians jumping onto Twitter, this tool is very timely. I was a bit wary when it first came up in my timeline, but it came from a trusted source, so I went with it. Perhaps a promotional campaign among activist organisations? No doubt you're onto it. Well done!

By: Michael Lewkowitz

Michael Lewkowitz — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:27:29 +0000

Very cool – we were just building a shortener and header bar for something similar. Have ideas on how to expand if you are interested in chatting about it.

Cheers!