As someone who was born in the generation that lives, breathes, writes, eats, sleeps, and drinks the Internet, I have become jaded with how many useless and uninteresting websites that I have found over the years.  It seems like every time that I sign online, I am bombarded with a flood of websites that I could easily do without.  There are certain sites, however, that are so useful and innovative in their clean design and functionality that I would be at a loss on the Internet without them.  As an Independence Day present to the readers, I decided to share these with you. (more…)

As a loyal technology fan and social change enthusiast, attending my first Personal Democracy Forum (PDF08) in NYC excited me. The ability to mingle with others who share my interests and desires to use technology to make changes in the world and ease our lives is an unbelievable experience that I couldn’t pass up. As I walked into the Lincoln Center Rose Hall, with the grand glass windows and stunning views of Columbus Circle and Central Park I instantly thought WOW – what an amazing place, just based on the location this conference is going to be great! I then walked into the atrium where many of the sponsors/exhibitors had their booths, and went to join my colleagues at our ImpactWatch booth. As I surveyed the room, I took in the beauty of the floor to ceiling glass windows and looked at the various booths around me. From the previous grand technology conferences/trade shows/exhibition fairs I’ve attended in the past, I assumed that this conference would be like all the others, packed full with booths with insight on new products and ideas and tons of swag, but when I looked around, I realized I had the wrong assumptions. Now, while I will say that the booths in attendance did advertise excellent products, including ours =), I had previously thought this conference would have had more companies in attendance advertising the other great products that are available to the online political community. After this realization, I decided to sit in on my first session and recognized what PDF08 really is all about. (more…)

As we develop websites at The Bivings Group, our designers often sketch out concepts on pen and paper before creating more formal wire frames or draft design compositions.  Given the work we do, it was interesting to see these pen and paper mockups of some of my favorite websites, including Twitter, Flickr and Vimeo.  Check out the initial sketch for Twitter below:

Interesting tidbit: the idea for Twitter originally came about in July of 2000.

<via Ajit Verghese via Boing Boing>

Due to scalability problems, the micro-blogging platform Twitter has struggled mightily to stay up and running the last few months.  As a result of the problems, a lot of folks are threatening to abandon Twitter for the social aggregator service FriendFeed.

I personally won’t be abandoning Twitter for Friendfeed.  Here’s why:

(1) There is too much noise on FriendFeed.

I’m currently following around 160 people on Twitter.  Some of these people I know well in real life.  Some casually.  Some not at all.  I’m able to follow and learn from this large group of  people because all I see is what they type in their Twitter status bar periodically.  Sure, some people tell you what they had for breakfast.  But most people exert some level of editorial discipline on themselves, and only write when something at least semi-interesting happens.

They don’t tweet about every meal they have, just the really, really good ones.  They don’t share every item they come across on the web, just the interesting ones.  The result is a usually compelling stream of anecdotes that is updated throughout the day.

FriendFeed has no such editorial discipline.  In addition to receiving those few choice anecdotes each day about the people you follow, you also learn what they are listening too on Last.fm, what is in their Netflix queue and what they dugg on Digg, among other things.  I might be interested in knowing that stuff about my 10-20 closest friends, but certainly not about all 160 people I follow on Twitter.  It is just too much.

(2) I have no desire to recreate my Twitter network on FriendFeed.

I’ve been on Twitter for close to a year and a half now.  I’ve amassed a modest network of followers and, more importantly, have developed a good list of people I follow.  This happened organically over time and I have no desire to start over on FriendFeed.   I’m not Robert Scoble - I can’t just say I’m going over to FriendFeed and have everyone move with me.  I’m in the same boat as Patrick Ruffini, a fellow poli-tech blogger who wrote:

But the main reason I can’t brook switching to FriendFeed is the sunk cost of building up my Twitter network, and the fact that FriendFeed is still mostly for elite tech blogger groupies. I now have 898 followers on Twitter, and my posts still generate far more conversation on Twitter than they do on FriendFeed. That’s because most of my followers are interested in politics, and political users aren’t (yet) over on FriendFeed.

(3) For whatever reason I don’t like the FriendFeed user experience.

Tantek Celik wrote a great post a while back about how Twitter is successful due to its dead simple interface that minimizes keystrokes.  On the occasions when Twitter is working, it feels much less like a website than a utility that is part of you.  For me FriendFeed still feels very much like a website, and a slightly disorienting one at that.  It is just not the same.

The other day I came across this little number by Christopher Null of Yahoo!, discussing seven legitimate issues with Apple's latest version of the iPhone. And there's in-fact more than that.

A while back, I talked about whether waiting for the newest run of Apple's showpiece mobile device was worth it. But that focused mainly on some favorite alternatives, while Null delves into the details of the iPhone's shortcomings.

Highlighted are the cost (roughly 160 bucks more over the next two years), the wimpy 2 megapixel camera, a battery you can't replace, no MMS capability, no ability to stream live TV, and limited storage space. And as one heady commenter pointed out, there's an eighth pretty annoying problem; no memory removal or expansion. In a world of SD and micro-SD-ready options the iPhone is inexplicably lacking, again.

These issues, standalone, may not be deal-breakers for some. But combined, how can they not be? Especially for the kind of money Apple expects us to shell out.

I had a great time at the Personal Democracy Forum earlier this week since I met wonderful people and learned about interesting projects.

The whole point behind PDF is to discuss how technology can help individuals participate in the political/governing process and improve governments' ability to serve their citizens.  While attending the Design Principles for Online Democracy panel discussion, Tom Steinberg of mySociety in the UK discussed various projects that his organizations have done for the British government. 

In my opinion, the coolest project so far is fixmystreet.com.  On this site people living in Britain can report sections of road that need repairs or attention.  These problems can run the gamut from potholes to "fly tipping" (Brit-speak for "littering").  Local governments can then use this site to determine where they need to deploy their employees to make repairs or correct problems.  Further, this site allows the public to make sure that the problems reported are corrected.

I think that this is a marvelous idea.  This site enables citizens to work directly with their local governments to ensure that important tasks are accomplished, and that makes fixmystreet.com a great example of what PDF is trying to accomplish — use technology to improve government.

Elizabeth Edwards spoke to guests at the 2008 Personal Democracy Forum about how the internet is influencing the world of politics. But it was husband John that later stole the show with his surprise (even to him) appearance.

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Another one of the presentations that I’d like to highlight from the Personal Democracy Forum is the one by Mark Pesce, who is currently an honorary professor at the University of Sydney.  I was glad that Pesce decided to make the trip because his speech was by far my favorite of the two-day forum.  A great written version of the speech can be found on his blog here, so I will save you the summary and simply discuss the fun facts that I found most intriguing.

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<cross posted from our ImpactWatch blog>

Since its launch in 1999, our ImpactWatch media monitoring platform has been focused on serving the enterprise market.  The product has been aimed at organizations that receive a high volume of coverage from both traditional and online media, require a large number of employees to access the data ImpactWatch collects and need high-end  reporting and analysis of coverage.  Due to its robust feature set and flexibility, ImpactWatch remains a great solution for these types of enterprise clients.

But in showing ImpactWatch over the years, I’ve run into a lot of people who love ImpactWatch’s interface and base tool set, but who don’t need all of the advanced features we’ve built into ImpactWatch over the years. They were looking for an elegant and affordable way to manage and report out on their media coverage as opposed to an enterprise level media tracking platform.

In an effort to provide these folks with a product they can use, we are in the process of rolling out two new ImpactWatch product lines that will enable the IW to serve the needs of organizations of all sizes.  Specifically:

1. ImpactWatch Basic - Aimed at groups that get a limited amount of coverage (approximately 1-50 clips a day) and only need for a handful of people to access data.
2. ImpactWatch Professional - For organizations with a higher volume of coverage (50-100 clips a day) and who need a few dozen people to access the system.
3. ImpactWatch Enterprise - This is our current system, which is aimed at organizations with a high volume of daily coverage (100+ clips), a large number of users and that need access to some of ImpactWatch’s high end reporting features.

I know this is vague, but we are in the process of a big development push and aren’t ready to talk about all the details yet.  Check the ImpactWatch blog for updates on our progress and look for us to roll out the new product lines later in the summer.

We’re excited.

We are just back from a great trip to the Personal Democracy Forum in New York, NY. We’ll be putting together a few panel recaps over the next couple of days.  In the meantime, I wanted to do a quick post about one of the more talked about exchanges during the event - the discussion between John Edwards campaign blogger Tracy Russo and John McCain e-campaign director Mark Soohoo about McCain’s computer skills (or lack thereof).

Predictably, Russo thinks that the ability to use a computer is critical to understanding the world we live in now and Soohoo disagrees.

While the exchange is undeniably entertaining, it struck me as the type of political theater we already see plenty of on a seemingly endless number of political talk shows.  It would be a shame if this “gotcha” moment attracted more attention than other, more interesting discussions that took place at the conference.  Anyway, we’ll do our part to make sure that doesn’t happen by sharing our thoughts on some of the better discussions we sat in on.

Several members of The Bivings Group team are present at the 2008 Personal Democracy Forum, which aims to prove that technology is changing the way that we do politics.  Currently, I am sitting in a forum titled "Clickocracy" which hosts four journalistically inclined panelists: Jose Antonio Vargas, Ben Smith, Ana Marie Cox, and Sarah Lai Stirland.

One of the most interesting things about the forum is that it takes full advantage of Web 2.0 tools.  In the background of the panelists is a large screen which displays questions and comments submitted by the audience in real-time.  The moderator (Jeff Jarvis) attempts to ask as many of these questions as possible, while searching through the numerous "Obama FTW!!!" comments.  What is it about anonymity on the Internet that turns everyone into a five-year-old?

Topics covered on the panel included the newest tools (Twitter!), the now famous My.Barack.Obama site, and if the number of Facebook friends can determine the outcome of an election.

A large majority of the conversation centered on the new definition of a "journalist".  After all, now that anyone can post anything on the Web, is there a true definition of a "journalist"?  Arguments have raged back and forth that journalism is a dying art that anyone can now pursue, from an 85-year-old widow to an 8-year-old kid, to the fact that 'true journalism' is now more important than ever.

In my opinion, the rise of blogging and other online forms or conversation has only helped me to weed out the bad writers from the good ones.  Instead of having to accept the only available journalism as the best of the bunch, I can now pick for myself.  In this way, the authors who have gone to journalism school, possess a sheer talent, or simply work harder than their counterparts stand out.  The rise of the semi-pro journalist, as one panelist coined, has only made me appreciate the fully-pro ones more.

As Hosam (another TBG employee) said at the end of the forum, "You can tell that those panelists really love what they do."

One of the biggest tiffs that I’ve had with Google is that their customer support is well…lacking.  If you have any problems with Google Apps other than the most rudimentary “How do I?” question, you are going to run into some problems.  And good luck and Godspeed if you want to talk to a live person on the phone.  I’ve gotten so confounded in automated responses that I have lost all track of time, space, and self.

One of the biggest problems facing Google is their own popularity.  To meet the needs of its ever-growing client base, they would need thousands of technical support personnel.  That’s why I find the news about Website Optimizer service plans so fascinating.

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Traffic on The Bivings Report has been going crazy the last two days due a link to our blog within the extremely viral Inside CRM piece “The Twitter Hall of Shame: 50 Tweets That Will Echo in History.” The Inside CRM post could serve as a guidebook on how to create a viral article:

1. It is a list post.  People love list posts.
2. The article contains links to 50 other articles and blog posts on the web.  Most of the bloggers they link to will read the post, and then probably pass it around and/or add a link to the Inside CRM article (as I am doing now).  Inside CRM also smartly sent us a quick email to let us know about the article, in case we missed it or didn’t notice all the traffic they were sending our way.
3. The article is about Twitter.  First of all, people are just generally obsessed with Twitter.  Second of all, people obsessed with Twitter love to share stories about Twitter on Twitter.  I would guess Inside CRM is getting a lot of traffic from people passing this story around through Twitter.
4. The article is pretty damn entertaining.

Anyway, check it out.

Update: Regarding #3, my colleague Chuck, who works on our ImpactWatch team, points out that there have been 122 mentions of the phrase “Twitter Hall of Shame” on Twitter in the last 22 hours, according to Summize.  Lots of other people probably linked to the piece without using the exact article title.  So it looks like the piece is definitely making the rounds.

In light of the ongoing UEFA Euro 2008 football (yes, I mean soccer) tournament – which I must say has been pretty average apart from the Turkey/Czech Republic thriller last weekend – yet another social networking site was launched. The niche? You guessed it, soccer. Or football, or futbol, or footy, whichever you’d like (we aim to please).  So what better time to launch than now? Perhaps the World Cup would be ideal, but I doubt that’s worth pushing the launch back two years. (more…)

Yesterday, the New York Times launched a beta version of Times People, a lightweight social networking feature that allows readers to connect around NYT content.  Currently, Times People can only be used as a plugin in Firefox (this will change soon) and functions as a social bookmarking tool similar to del.icio.us or Mento.  CNET’s The Social has a good overview of Times People, complete with a video interview with the folks at the Times that created the tool.  Mathew Ingram, Mashable Silicon Valley Insider and DigiDave all have good reviews up as well.

When I try out tools like this, my first instinct is to figure out if it is something I will be using on a regular basis.  With Times People, the answer is clearly no.  Although I visit nytimes.com a few times a week, I am not really actively engaged with the site.  I’ve never left a comment.  I’ve never explored the restaurant and theater reviews.  I don’t live in New York.  I basically drop in on the Times site to get the paper’s take on the “story of the day” or when someone links to the site.  In summary, I’m not the target audience for Times People.  The tool is clearly aimed at people who have a stronger relationship with the Times brand than I do.

I think Times People has the ability to grow into a very useful for people who do have that relationship.

Some have criticized the tool for being too limited in focus.  I think its modesty is actually its greatest strength.  Times People is trying to complement the way readers are already using the site, not change the behavior.  That’s smart.

Let me explain.

Sites for newspapers like USA Today have full bore social networks built right in.  Users can set up full profiles, upload pictures, maintain a blog, friend other users, etc.  They function like a mini version of MySpace or Facebook. It just feels like too much. There are many, many better platforms for maintaining blogs, sharing photos, etc.  Why would anyone want to do all of this stuff on the USA Today website?  I’m left thinking about the old cliche that the decision about what to leave out is just as important as what you leave in.

Times People recognizes that the New York Times brand is its content.  Instead of trying to shift activities like blogging and photo sharing to its website, the Times is adding social features that complement activities readers are already performing - leaving comments, reading stories and writing reviews.  The focused nature of the tool also allows it to evolve organically as the Times reviews how people are actually using it.  This is how the best websites always approach thing.

I have no idea whether Times People will be a success or not. But for experimental features like these, I think starting small and taking an iterative approach is always a good thing.