Jumo: Getting Social About Causes

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

A new social network launched this morning. Jumo is focused on connecting people with other people and with organizations to make positive change happen in the world. It’s a little bit like a big collection of nonprofit organization Facebook pages, except more focused, more powerful, and more open. I’ve been keeping an eye on Jumo as it has been in development over the past year, ever since learning that it was the latest project of Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and director of online organizing for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. The marketplace of social networks is getting crowded, and it’s hard for a new service to take off. But if there’s one right now that has a change and could provide real value, it’s Jumo. I encourage you to check out Jumo, and while you’re there follow LIVE Green, one of YDOP’s favorite Lancaster-based nonprofits.

Other items I shared at Resource Friday today was that Facebook has added a way for page administrators to send a mass fan invitation to its e-mail list, and an obscure Google search command, “allintitle:”, which was a big help to me on a project this week.

“Wait, *how* many people are still using IE 6?!”

Mike Newswanger, Lead Programmer

Have you ever wondered how many people still use old versions of IE or how Chrome is doing as far as market share? W3Schools shows records of browsers, operating systems, and screen resolutions used to browse the internet in percentages, and it breaks it down monthly and contains records all the way back to 2002. This not only shows the current usage statistics, but also trends as to how traffic sources are changing.

Gallery: Church Websites

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

Today I showed the team a showcase of church websites that is compiled by Vandelay Design. Clean and simple with a touch of grungy texture detail is a common trend that I saw throughout the list here. The target audience of these websites is likely to be younger generation. But be careful not to overuse the grunge texture because it can look cliche. I like how most of the websites look simple and clean, making them user friendly. I also like the use of WordPress for some of these websites. It encourages more interaction and strengthens the social aspect of the church, which works well for their target audience.

Boosting the Crowd

Jeff Burkholder, Inbound Marketing Analyst

I brought to items to the group this week. First was information about a new Twitter statistic site called Crowdbooster. Like Klout, this site takes a look at your tweets and tells you how influential you are. This version of that idea, though, is much more graphical in nature, and lets you see at a glance how many people have retweeted your tweets, and how many people have seen those retweeted tweets. The service is still in beta, so not everything is completely solid. There’s a feature called, “Follow Builder”, which helps you find others who could be interested in your tweets by entering keywords, but it’s a bit glitchy yet, and they’re currently soliciting comments for a reporting system down the road. Otherwise, it looks like a potentially useful tool.

I also talked to the team about how Google has revised their algorithm largely due to the actions of one man. Read more here and be sure to check out the NY Times article referenced as well.

When Faith Gets Social

Steve Wolgemuth, Principal

My participation in this week’s Resource Friday was very different from previous weeks, as I cited a very different type of source than I typically use (like books, online articles and blogs). I referenced a recent experience that has truly rocked my world. Three weeks ago when my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, my awesome team at YDOP met behind my back and organized what would become an incredible blessing to my family. You guessed it – a blog: WeCareForLori.com. Because of my wife’s current and my past involvement in the dressage industry (an equestrian sport), a very popular website, Dressage Daily picked up the story, bringing exposure to the site from a lifetime of fellow equestrians from around the world. Meanwhile, churches wanting to support us pushed out the link and garnered more thoughts and prayers than we could have imagined. That’s where, to me, it got really interesting — when faith moved across social networking.

What is fascinating is that “church people” have language they’ve learned to use among themselves. Others who aren’t oriented this way or haven’t been raised in this type of culture may feel alienated or confused when they read this sort of thing. When faith goes social, I believe “religious folk” (who have ears to hear) have a new classroom to learn to communicate more carefully and sensitively.

At the same time, faith has a new opportunity to express it’s power — at least that’s what happened in our case. As friends, family and complete strangers came along on our horrible cancer journey via this blog, we saw honest expressions of faith in God from so many people. And, God obviously moved in so many people that we were overwhelmed. Cards, gifts, volunteers, meals, encouragement and more than 300 visits a day to the website were driven by a Force, whose power was best represented in a video of my wife the night before surgery. It was obvious that something more than human determination was behind all of this. I believe that a blog like WeCareForLori was like a magnifying glass is to the sun. It concentrated the love that comes from above through the hearts of so many people that came together — and focused it directly on our family at the worst of times. It demonstrated the power of when faith gets social.

The past few weeks have been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster for the YDOP family. Lori Wolgemuth, Steve’s wife and our regular fount of sunshine around the office, was recently diagnosed with a severe case of breast cancer. (For those who wish to know more, you can follow Lori’s path to recovery at WeCareForLori.com.) Despite that, though, the team continues to move forward in both serving our clients, as well as serving each other heaps of knowledge!

Emma

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

Today, YDOP began a strategic agency partnership with Emma, a powerful e-mail list management, e-mail marketing, and survey service provider. Our clients will be able to send amazing-looking e-mail updates to their customers from an incredibly intuitive user interface. I gave the team a tour of the agency dashboard and of Emma’s capabilities.

Kinect

Mike Newswanger, Lead Programmer

Having only been out for a little over two weeks, Microsoft’s Kinect is quickly becoming a very popular Xbox 360 accessory. While it was designed to be used with the Xbox, multiple users have found unique uses for the device using open-source drivers paired with computers and the Kinect. One of the first examples of this was the creation of a 3D camera based off the cameras of the Kinect. More recently, a team of two posted their work: an application that follows a user’s arm, mapping the arm movements to the skeleton of a 3D object resembling Kevin, the Snipe, from Up. The bird follows the arm movement, and although it is relatively slow to respond, it is very functional, and it is only the first round of developments for the Kinect. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more than just gaming from this device in the future.

Twitter

Jeff Burkholder, Inbound Marketing Analyst

Popular scuttlebutt this week has it that Twitter is preparing to roll out a free analytics feature. This is quite exciting for dataheads like myself, who want a more quantifiable way to look at Twitter accounts. No word yet on when this will actually be released; earlier reports had said sometime during 2010, but we’re rapidly nearing the end of that particular window.

I also mentioned that Google’s Apps offering for domains has expanded its features to include basically all Google features. So organizations that use Google as their official email handler can now also have pretty much anything else Google-related on their domain as well.

RealEstate

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

An article from Today, we took a look at examples of nice websites in real estate business, as compiled by Vandelay Design. Here are some of my favorites.

Coconut Grove has a very simple and clean website with a big photograph as its main focus. The result is very high end and contemporary. Another one that I like is PreviewNaples. It has a big call-to-action for people to search home listing in Naples. The clear call-to-action makes the website easy to use. Cantera Real Estate also has a clear search function beside an appealing picture of a landscape. Featured listings on the homepage also work well in enticing people to click and see their listings. Hillwood Residential does a good job with design details on the website. A luxury feel is achieved by the combination of its simplicity, details, and great pictures. See Vandelay Design for more inspirations.

In our ever-expanding quest to redefine exactly what “Friday” means — well, that and the fact that part of our team isn’t going to be around tomorrow — we decided to hold our Resource Friday on Thursday this week. Outside, it was raining hard enough that we saw the horses begin to pair themselves up, two by two. But inside, we munched on turkey barbecue sandwiches from Hitz’s Farm Market and talked about all things internet-related.

Motivating to continue the process

Steve Wolgemuth, Principal

When a web visitor finds your site and learns about your product or service for the first time, how can you motivate them to take the next move? How can you get more booking, more completed check-outs, more sign ups? According to Chip and Dan Heath in their fascinating book, Switch, one important technique is to show progress. We listened (via iPhone and speaker) to a case study involving rewards cards. When participants were given cards that already had two wholes punched out of their ten required beverage purchases, they were far more likely to come back for the eight more cups of coffee than if they received a card with eight, all yet un-punched. People are motivated when they feel they’ve already made progress and that they are making progress.

That’s why it is so important to have great design for check out processes, online surveys and long forms. People need to understand that they’ve already made progress and are successfully finishing a task. It may not be enough to have a status bar – you may need one that is tainted with encouragement. Users need to feel that they have made progress very early in the game, that they are making great progress, and that they can enjoy finishing. It is a powerful motivator; not to be ignored.

Google Instant and SEO

Jeff Burkholder, Inbound Marketing Analyst

I shared with the group an article I ran across on HubSpot about SEO in regards to Google’s new Instant feature. The long and short of it? Nobody really knows the full impact Google Instant is going to have on search engine optimization tactics, but there are a few notes to keep in mind.

• More important than ever is making sure your results are within the top three results on Google. People aren’t going to scroll through all the results anymore; they’re just going to look at the first page and keep refining their search until they find what they’re looking for right at the top.
• Page titles and meta descriptions are vital in capturing the user’s attention.
• Keyword research is key (heh) in not only making sure that people find you, but that the right people find you.

The article goes into even more detail on this, and we at YDOP will be looking to see how we can use this information to better serve our clients.

Rest your eyes on these better contacts (pages)

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

Today, I shared this nice compilation of creative contact forms from Web Designer Depot with the team. There are some things to consider when designing your contact form:

• Make your contact form not intimidating. Lionways is using a realistic looking postcard as its contact form. It is fun and easy to use.
• Keep your target audience in mind. If your target audience is an older demographic, make your contact form as clear as possible. For example, guiding the users on what or where to fill the info, like Electric Pulp does, is great for older audiences. Or something fun like Vince Mazza’s contact form is very appropriate for a young and hip demographic.
• Stay true to your branding. Give your contact form a personality by carrying out some element from your branding, like Il Frutteto.

And remember, it’s all about the user’s experience.

Quick hits on social media

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

LinkedIn announced a new major featured, called Signal, that is currently in limited beta testing. Signal looks similar to the Facebook news feed or Twitter search results, with the addition of simple and powerful filtering tools, so users can get to the status updates they’re looking for. By the looks of it, it won’t intrude on the current LinkedIn experience. Instead, it will be a supplemental way of viewing and navigating information shared on the site.

Lawyer Cris Hoel spoke at Podcamp Pittsburgh earlier this month on key points bloggers should keep in mind. While many were more relevant for political or news bloggers than business bloggers, I shared some points that we should keep in mind as we set up blogs for businesses and consult with them.

(How) are you being served?

Mike Newswanger, Lead Programmer

Continuing with mobile development…

Most change for development on a mobile platform has to do with design, but creating a new design template needs a way to determine whether a user is accessing the page via a mobile or full-size browser. The $_SERVER[HTTP_USER_AGENT] variable in PHP allows you to check what browser the user is using, which can then be combined with other PHP code to redirect the user to a mobile-based site.

The weather may be gray and dreary outside, but the pizza was hot and the topics were bright inside the offices of YDOP! Actually, we have no idea how a topic can be “bright”, but it sure sounded like a good segue, didn’t it?

Would you like to see our menu?

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

Navigation menus are one of the most vital parts of a website. They need to be functional and easy to use, while not being an eyesore. So today, I shared the 2010 trends for website navigation menu from SmashingMagazine.com with the team. Some of trends are:
• Menus with 3-D elements – Who doesn’t like those menus that look like you can almost grab it? Be careful not to go overboard with it because it might ended up looking tacky.
• Speech bubble menus – I think it’s overused nowadays. Although, used properly, it can make the design look fresh.
• Menu items in rounded boxes – Rounded boxes are usually used as buttons on the website. And we love a button that changes its look when pressed, so it looks like an actual, physical button.
• Menus with icons – I really love simple icons that come with the navigation menu. Visual elements can really help the users to navigate the website quickly. But be careful to keep the menu text readable.
• Menus in unusual shapes – Navigation menus can be really interesting and eye-catching when they are in shape of sticky notes, stickers, labels, cards, pins, etc.

Taking the pulse

Jeff Burkholder, Engineer/Analyst

I showed the assembled a site called RowFeeder, which tracks mentions of a word or phrase on Twitter and/or Facebook. The primary purpose of this is to keep tabs on what the social media sphere is saying about you and/or your product. And while there are a number of sites that perform this function, RowFeeder goes an extra mile by directly integrating its reports with Google Docs (they’re also exportable to Microsoft Excel), so that you don’t have to retype the data from some proprietary Flash-enhanced screen.

Motivation and innovation

Steve Wolgemuth, Principal

Following Monday’s discussion about being innovative at YDOP, this Friday’s discussion was about motivation as it relates to innovation. I began by reporting on a great interview I heard with Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive, What Motivates Us: Not What You Think. Pink uses research to argue that monetary incentive programs only show benefit to employees in “mechanical improvement.” In Sales, monetary incentives encouraged workers to “game” the system. Most interesting to me was that monetary incentives actually worsened “insightful/conceptual” value from workers. (Hmmm. Does it stand to reason that if I lower salaries, my team will come up with better ideas? Risky hypothesis.)
Three key motivators are autonomy, mastery and purpose. Self direction leads to engagement, but the most powerful motivators are clearly an employee’s sense of progress and self-improvement. We went on to discuss how to develop an atmosphere that is safe for innovators, how to stimulate our innovative brains, and why creativity and innovative ideas are central to the value and survival of our cool company.

Quick hits on social media

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

I wanted to make sure the rest of the team was aware of several developments within the major social networks from the past few weeks:
• Twitter now has its own “tweet this” button and now suggests users to follow
• Facebook updated the layout of photo albums
• MySpace revised its interface to look cleaner and bluer
• Flowtown released a new map of the geography of social networks.
I also introduced members of our team to the concept of unconferences and barcamps, which are events in which participants are far more empowered than in a traditional professional conference. One example is Podcamp Pittsburgh, where I’ve been honored with an invitation to present a session next month.
Finally, I shared the theatrical trailer of the forthcoming movie “The Social Network,” and its not-to-be-missed parody.

This week saw the triumphant return of Steve from his tour of the Great American West. From the grandeur of the Grand Canyon to the old Hollywood history of Palm Springs to the spectacle of Sight and Sound Theater in Branson, MO — and all the massively boring deserts in-between — he saw it all. And apparently video recorded it, too. Still, it was great to have him back so we could all sit around the lunch table share the information we ran across in the past week.

Mini Messages and Primal Leadership

Steve Wolgemuth, Principal

Since I had been out of the office for three weeks, I gave myself permission to cover two topics this week.  I opened with “mini” inspirational story about the Mini-Cooper’s viral success in marketing to their own clients using automated road signs that spontaneously produce messages to Mini owners.  The whole idea is fun, got attention and makes Mini owners feel like a special class of people.  To our team, this served as an inspiration to channel even more creative energy toward helping our clients market to their existing customers.

My second topic was about the emotional and social climate at YDOP, my role in it and what steps we will take to continue to develop a work-place/environment that we love and our customers describe as up-lifting.  Using insights from a book I’m digesting called “Primal Leadership,” I described how emotions are extremely contagious, and that is especially true from the individuals in leadership.  I am seeking to identify my own leadership styles and competencies/weaknesses using feedback from the YDOP team using questionnaires I distributed today.  Could be interesting!

The Growth of Facebook

Mike Newswanger, Lead Programmer

Facebook has significantly gained in popularity over the past few years, and more businesses are attempting to reach out to both current and potential clients / customers through this social media avenue. There are many ways for businesses to approach this new medium but interaction remains key to success. By allowing users to provide feedback and having open communication with users, businesses can greatly benefit through the use of Facebook.

Facebook is being slightly restructured: the status box currently at the top of the News Feed page will be replaced by a navigation bar with links to update status, add photos, add links, and ask a question. The latter is a new feature that will allow users to ask questions globally and receive input from other users as well as businesses. These questions can be comprised of text alone, video, audio, or images. This could lead to some very creative marketing campaigns from businesses looking to increase social interaction.

A recent leak has provided access to torrents containing over 100 million Facebook users’ profile information. While not a direct security threat–the information was the composite of only public information–many large businesses are downloading this information. Time will tell if and how they will leverage this data.

The ROI of Webcomics

Jeff Burkholder, Engineer/Analyst

The webcomic xkcd describes itself as a “webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.” Not only is this all true, but it’s also very widely read among internet users, as the writer, Randall Munroe, tends to have a pretty good handle on internet-related topics. The comic for July 30 is a prime example of this. It illustrates the disconnect between how some people create and design websites with those the website is meant to service. While some people still may look at it somewhat askance as “just a comic”, it’s real, useful, and actionable information that web developers and internet marketers should really pay attention to.

Social CRM and Google Apps

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

To add on to Mike’s Facebook update, I shared screenshots of what the beta version of the Facebook publisher looks like with Questions built in. There are still a number of bugs for Facebook to work out, and even in a limited beta environment I don’t expect that process to be a quick one–Facebook currently only employs one engineer for every 1.25 million users.

I then provided updates on the social CRM scene, demonstrating one use case where the social CRM BatchBook integrates with Gmail for Google Apps, with additional functionality from Rapportive. Because business professionals already have busy lives with not enough time for social interaction (whether online or off), social CRM tools can make it much easier to stay up to date with your customers’ lives by capturing all your interactions with a single customer in a single place, whether the interaction is over the phone, on Twitter, or through e-mail.

Wanna Be Creative? Go Away (from your desk)!

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

Today, I shared some interesting articles with the team. One of them is an article from www.zurb.com, about how beneficial it is to design while standing up. The article says that standing up will increase the blood flow, therefore stimulate the brain even more. Also, by standing up, you invite people to give you feedback and interact with you. So according to the article, “standing up is social.”

On the other hand, an article from the99percent.com is talking about how leaving your desk can help you to be creative. It’s talking about how vacation, for example, can help you solve the design problem from different angle because of the different culture or situation you’re in. It also states that solitude can increase productivity and focus.

I also share some articles about branding exercise. An article from www.millermosaicllc.com tells about how a company can create their “brand statement” from an example exercise. It tells you to think about what one or two sentences you will say about your company to your audience if you have only a couple seconds. This can help a company a lot to focus on what their core statement is.

We’re slowly getting the band back together, as Jeff rejoined the team, fresh (or not so fresh, as the case may be) from his camping trip. This week, we really delved into the things that make us unique as individuals, and more powerful together than the mere sum of our parts.

Logo Design

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

LogoLounge.com is one of the websites out there where you can see a compilation of logo trends from year to year. In recent years, I’ve noticed more logos are going towards 3D effects and web 2.0 style. While they are appealing to the eyes, they might not be easily applicable to different media. One of the rules for creating a logo is that it should be easily used in web and print, or in full-color and one-color, and there is a good reason why it is a rule. The 2010 logo trend that I see on LogoLounge.com has been influenced a lot by colors and transparency. Then try converting these logos into one color (ie. screen printing, embroidery, logo on merchandise, etc). Most of the logos suddenly lose their identity and personality. Some people say that in this era, technology is more advanced and there is less need to make the logo one-color. While it is true that what used to be done in one-color now can be done in full-color, it is definitely going to cost the company more money.

On the other hand, we are in the process of updating the YDOP logo, and I have been working on the logo development. Our new face is coming soon, so stay tuned!

Long-Tail Blogger Outreach and Facebook Landing Tabs

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

Chris Abraham wrote an article recently for the Agencyside blog outlining his agency’s method for conducting long-tail blogger outreach. I shared with the rest of the team how we can incorporate his tactics into the blogger outreach work we already do, and how we can use our existing tools in the additional ways he suggests. I also pointed out the few tips in a new article on Facebook landing tabs that supplement the information and ideas Astrid has shared in past weeks.

Content Is King

Jeff Burkholder, Engineer/Analyst

For my Resource Friday a few weeks ago, I had talked about one of the new features of the latest build of Safari: Reader. Basically, this feature extracts the content and specifically related images from a webpage, and allows the reader to see it in a clear, uncluttered format, superimposed over the old one. This removes ads, styling, and anything else that can prevent the reader from seeing the article itself. Well, just this week, a company called Flipboard released an app for the iPad that does the same thing as Safari Reader for Twitter and Facebook. This app pulls in feeds from your accounts on those sites, as well as news, photos and information from all sorts of other sites, and puts it into a magazine-themed aggregator with an intuitive interface, but without all the different stylings and ads. I pointed out to the group that as these style-neutral aggregators become more and more commonly used, it’s going to be important to remember that the content on a website is just as key as the way it looks. Potentially, even moreso, as we move forward.

In semi-related news, I pointed out that most email programs, both online and off-, now feature snippets of the text of the email in the email list. Because of this, it’s becoming more and more important to make sure that your email starts out with something that will interest the reader, and not just “Having troubles seeing this message in your email?”

Super Mario Whiteboarding?

Mike Newswanger, Lead Programmer

In addition to its extreme gaming success, the Wii’s accessories are capable of much more than Nintendo’s limits. Brian Peek, a software developer, created a library in C# to interface with the Wiimote. This library takes advantage of the ability to pair across Bluetooth with a computer, and expands the functionality of the Wii Remote significantly. Some of the features available for polling are:

• All input press and release events (aka user presses Up on the directional pad then releases)
• 3 Axis (including positive and negative results on each) values on the accelerometer to see which way the Wiimote is moving
• IR sensor data (capable of tracking up to 4 IR points simultaneously at a resolution of 1024×768)
• Access to controller add-ons such as Nunchuck data

By having access to this, many applications can be implemented through the Wiimote. One common application is a whiteboard, which can be set up using a Wiimote and up to 4 IR emitters (typically added to markers to give a natural feel) and a projector. The Wiimote faces the projector and provides an interface to the computer–very similar to how a mouse would work) by pointing at the Smart Board. It is moderately easy to implement and provides great functionality.

The whole team (except for Mike) had Facebook on the brain today, as we all (except for Mike) talked about various aspects of the social networking behemoth. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at all the interesting things (except for Mike) that we had to say!

Hello, Folks. I’m Drupal.

Mike Newswanger, Lead Programmer

If you’re looking for a pre-built, customizable solution to create a website, there are many options available, but there are a few that are extremely well known for their ease of deployment and flexibility. Drupal was the option I presented today.

Drupal, by itself, allows users to create dynamic pages, controlled by a back-end CMS system, in addition to basic forum functionality and user management out of the box. From there, you can add modules to customize your site as needed, such as Google Analytics for ease of tracking without having to mess around with the code on the site, more advanced user control and functionality, calendar and event schedules, and many more.

Because of the ease of deployment, overall functionality, and unintimidating back-end, Drupal is a very popular option for this scenario.

Facebook: The Narrowing Gulf Between Real and Digital Life

Jonathan Arndt, Programmer

Today, I talked with the group about a topic near and dear to all our hearts: Facebook privacy. Specifically, how measurably disconnected real life is from some people’s digital persona. The article I shared dealt with litigation involving interpersonal relationships, and how easy it is becoming for attorneys to find evidence online. The upshot is that what people gab about online is often in direct conflict with that they are claiming is true in real life.

Most of us here knew this already, but this article provides some numbers that helped us measure the extent in some circumstances.

Facebook: More Information Than You Require

Jeff Burkholder, Engineer/Analyst

Launching off of Jonathan’s chat, I came across some interesting (at least, to me) Facebook and social networking statistics this week.

First off, the Pew Internet and American Life Project has been putting together some fantastic numbers that look at the internet and daily life in the USA. Part of this study also looks at where the internet is going in the future, and this week’s information specifically looked at the Millennial generation (ages 18-29, aka Generation Y). According to a majority of respondents in this poll, within the next 10 years, Millennials will continue in their current trend of being ‘ambient broadcasters’ on the internet, disclosing “a great deal of personal information in order to stay connected and take advantage of social, economic, and political opportunities”. In other words, the connected will … get connectedier. Or something like that.

I also talked a little about a study done on young (18-34) women and Facebook. There are some really interesting tidbits in here, including the facts that, of respondents:

• 57% say they talk to people online more than face-to-face
• 34% check Facebook immediately upon waking up; even before going to the bathroom
• 79% are fine with kissing in photos
• 58% use Facebook to keep tabs on “frenemies”
• 89% say you should never put anything on Facebook that you don’t want your parents to see
• 42% think it’s okay to post photos of themselves intoxicated

While those last two stats may seem to contradict each other, I think it more likely that 47% of respondents had no idea what they were talking about.

That last stat was made up.

Facebook: The Many Ways of Saying Welcome

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

This week, I have been working on designing Facebook welcome pages. It is usually the landing page that you see when you view a company profile on Facebook (if you are not a “Fan” yet). Smashing Magazine has compiled a list of big brand Facebook pages. So today, I shared my thought to the team about what is working or not working on these pages.

I’ll start with what I like first. One thing that these big brand pages have in common is that they engage the user to interact with the product. For example, Red Bull let the users watch their Web TV live. 1-800-Flowers lets the users take a poll on their page, send virtual gifts, see their Tweets, and more. Porsche’s page won our hearts instantly because we can customize a Porsche on the page, then share it. By engaging your Facebook user, your brand is more likely to be memorable.

However, there also some pages that I am not a big fan of. Coca-Cola, for example, requires you to allow them to pull information from your profile before you can see the page. Well, that makes me leave the page immediately. Digital Turf and Daddy Design have multi-layer navigation menus. I found that those menus are a bit overboard and distracting.

In conclusion, don’t over-design and don’t require people to do an extra step to view your page. However, do make your page interactive.

Social Media Updates and Branding

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

Digg is making a bid to re-spark its relevance in the social sharing space with a complete interface rebuild. I’ve been checking it out as an alpha tester, and I gave the rest of a team a brief tour of the new features.

Facebook is ditching its direct sales of virtual goods as of August 1. The official reason for closing the Facebook Gift Store is so the team can “focus instead on improving other products,” but no one’s buying that as the real reason. Some speculate that Facebook believes it can make more money by directly selling only Facebook Credits, which can then be used as currency to purchase virtual goods from third-party vendors. That would remove Facebook from the day-to-day work of managing a virtual goods store and instead let the corporation sit back and make money from exchanging real-world currency into currency for the digital realm.

The Pew Internet and American Life project released data this week that shows minorities in the U.S. are heavier cell phone users–87% of minorities own a cell phone compared to 80% of whites, and 64% of African Americans use their cell phones to access the Internet compared to 59% of the general population.

Twitter was huge during the World Cup. Whereas there is generally 750 tweets per second, at the end of one game the rate hit an all-time high of 3,283.

In addition to sharing these news items, I also took the opportunity to run some ideas past the team regarding YDOP’s own brand identity.

After this week’s flurry of activity serving our clients, we all relished the chance to sit down together to enjoy some stromboli, and some time to teach each other more about our respective fields of expertise.

Twitter Shortening and Dark-Roasted Google

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

I shared with the YDOP team that Twitter is testing a system that will shrink all URLs in all tweets. Even URLs already shortened with a service like bit.ly (or kudz.us, if you read last week’s post), Twitter will shrink the link to one that uses their new short domain, t.co. Some links, however, will only appear as shortened versions of the URL—Twitter uses the example of amazon.com/Delivering-. While Twitter is thinking of this as a way to protect users from malicious links, on the whole I think this will be bad for our clients who are heavy users of Twitter for sharing links to content on the Web.

This week Google announced that the latest iteration of its search system, Caffeine, is now fully implemented for all users around the world. Caffeine puts a high emphasis on content that is recent and up-to-date. Google also began a pilot test of including twitter updates in AdWords advertisements.

Sysomos announced the results of a study that showed, among other things, that the majority of bloggers are age 21 to 35, about evenly split between men and women. Four percent of all bloggers worldwide are based in Pennsylvania.

Facebook Insights and Safari Reader

Jeff Burkholder, Engineer/Analyst

I decided to take a break this week from the book I’d been reading for my Resource Friday materials, and instead talked a little bit about Facebook’s revamped Insights platform. This was introduced at Facebook’s f8 conference back in April, but finally went live this week. Largely, Facebook is trying to position themselves similarly to Google’s Analytics, and allow website owners to get (anonymized) demographic data about their visitors.

I also talked about the “Reader” feature in the new 5.0 release of Apple’s Safari web-browser. With this feature, depending on what sites they browse, visitors may see a “Reader” icon in the address bar. Upon clicking that, an overlay window appears that shows the plaintext of the article, along with any specifically-related pictures, but removing all the other clutter from the page. It’s a really slick idea and implementation. I referred to it as a sort-of “TIVO” version of websites, in that it doesn’t delete ads and the like, but makes it easier to ignore them.

Facebook APIs

Mike Newswanger, Programmer

This week I taught about some of the capabilities of the Facebook API for marketing strategies and application development. The API can be used for communication with potential clients, expanding your client base through recommendations and suggestions by current clients, and connecting the data on your site with your clients.

The API can be implemented in different ways, and its functionality can be quickly deployed. For example, the like buttons that you see on many sites can be added to your page to allow Facebook users to help spread knowledge about products offered.

A Few of My Favorite Sites

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

I love looking at some great website designs out there for inspiration. So this Friday, I picked and shared some of the websites that I like and talked about what it is that makes them beautiful.

I can’t tell you enough about how I love simple, clean and contemporary design. Clean design is really easy on the eye. It is easy to navigate. Today I shared some of the websites that are using a grid system to convey simple, clean, contemporary design. Some of the examples are Davroc, Jam Restaurant and SD Workz. Simple and clean grid design makes the website clear, organized, and again, easy to navigate. They really prove that the grid is not only important in print design, but also essential in web design. With some added punches of color and subtle texture, those websites proves that a simple grid-based design doesn’t have to be boring.

People who want friendlier design can also get a clean design by adding subtle texture. Freedom Tree Farms website proves how powerful a subtle texture can be. But keep in mind, things are good in moderation, including the use of texture.

Faith Meets Science

Jonathan Arndt, Programmer

As YDOP is working on the Knights of the 21st Century website, it seem suitable to share information on some mobile applications that are currently being used for men’s ministry and discipleship.

There are three specific services from Back to the Bible that are available for your mobile phone, and computer.
– 411God is a telephone call. A 1 minute long message, everyday at a pre-scheduled time.
– SMC, See Me Change, is a text message. Just a simple Bible verse. Everyday. And you’re even encouraged to text back to share how you applied this verse in your life.
– Nudge is an E-mail message. Everyday. Short devotionals written by men and women who are in similar life-stages as yourself.

More information about these discipleship tools can be found at

http://www.411god.net/lbc/