Archive for November, 2008

Friday Links: Wednesday is the new Friday

Since this is a short week here in the U.S. (yay Thanksgiving!), I’ll be posting the usual Friday link round-up on Wednesday.

• AdWeek posted about an interesting Epsilon study that found that half of the 180 Chief Marketing Officers polled had no interest in using social networking (Facebook or Myspace, but, oddly enough Twitter is not mentioned) as a marketing venue. The study also showed that the CMOs expected cuts in their ad budgets next year, and yet didn’t expect that to effect their e-mail marketing campaigns.
• Speaking of budget cuts, Ad Age (sorry, registration required [boo!] but you can use BugMeNot) has what looks to be a dire report about ad spending in the next six months. However, it only seems dire if you’re in the old media (think newspapers, magazines, broadcast TV) space. It looks as though those with the ad money to spend are going to be spending it in the online, cable TV, and mobile markets.
• Fitting for our tough economic times and just in time for Thanksgiving, Lifehacker asked their readers what free software are you most grateful. The comments are a treasure trove. Lots of props for well-known freebies like Firefox, Open Office, and Adium. But there were a lot of apps I’d never even heard of. What free software are you most grateful for?
• Take a stroll down memory lane with the Top 25 days in computing history.
• For those of you who spend a lot of time traveling, here are 15 Tech Secrets for the Serious Road Warrior.
• Have you got mad shortcut-key skills? If so, you might dig Keyboardr (random aside: can I just say that I will be happy when we go back to spelling things correctly?), a Google search mashup that lets you use shortcut keys to navigate through search results.
• Kind of tangentially related to the last point, That? Which? Or What?, the NY Times explains how to figure out which one to use. [via]

That’s all for me this week, what were you reading on the Internet?

Twitter: How do you choose who gets to market to you?

Earlier this week Julio Ojeda-Zapata had an article on using Twitter for business in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. In the article Ojeda-Zapata asks if Twitter is a channel that businesses should explore. In the article Ojeda-Zapata also presents three Minnesota businesses using Twitter, including Fallon’s @_S_A_R_A_H_ campaign for the Sci-Fi Network (check out that slide show presentation by Aki Spicer, Fallon’s Strategic Planner, it’s some good stuff).

It seems pretty obvious why a business would want to use Twitter. It’s direct, immediate contact with customers or potential customers. Even more than that, it’s a contact that the customer chooses, giving the business a chance to stay top of mind for as long as a person follows them, depending on how frequently they Twitter.

Anyway, the more interesting question here is why would people want to follow a business on Twitter?

For some reason being marketed to by tweet seems more invasive than e-mail, and yet when I looked through the list of twitterers I follow, I found a few businesses. However, I never feel as though I am being marketed to. In fact, a lot of the time these businesses (I like to follow publishers) are providing links to content I find interesting.

For me, I think (I just started thinking about this right now), I choose to follow businesses in industries I am passionate about (book publishing). Or I follow them for purely selfish reasons (see Amazon MP3, because I do need to know when Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water” is on sale for $3.99).

So here’s my questions to you, oh faithful readers:
Do you follow any businesses on Twitter? How do you choose which businesses to follow and which ones not to follow? What are you looking from a businnes’ Twitter feed?

Nerds in need of non-profits to help

Photo by Jeremey Pavleck

They have yet to invent an instrument that can accurately measure the sheer amount of nerd power represented in this picture. Look at it!

So here’s the deal. We got nerds chomping at the bit to volunteer their time and talent to a noble cause. Really, go look at all the teams signed up for the Overnight Web Challenge. However, we seem to be lacking in the noble cause department. I know there are more than two non-profits in Minnesota who need new websites.

Sure, sure non-profits have until January 9th to sign up, but why wait? Get your name out there while the gettin’s good. Once you get signed up you can can spend the coming weeks gathering testimonials and resting up for the big event.

Look at these happy people. See how they talk about their cause? Did you listen to them wax poetic about how much the website will help them? That could be you! How often do you get a chance to go on and on about your worthy cause? Not often. Now’s your chance.

Yeah, I know, this feels a little bit like preaching to the choir here. But you know what, there is a way you can help. Right below these words here you’ll see a funky Share button. If you click that button you can easily post this to all kind of fun social networking type places including (but not limited to) Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Delicious.

Friday Links: On CSS, Information Architects, and MacGyver

Read, Write, Web has a great post about a study that has found casual Internet use is good for kids. If you’re so inclined you can read the report, Living and Learning with New Media.

I really liked the 37signals piece on Defensive Design and anticipating where your customers/clients might slip-up and designing so that when they do slip-up it doesn’t have serious repercussions.

Ad Freak is enamored with Colle + McVoy’s new take on the Minnesota Lottery drawings.

The 90-9-1 Principle is about how users tends to participate in online social communities. The overarching theory is that 90% of the people lurk, 9% will add to something already created, and 1% actually do the creation. Interesting reading. [via]

Three Minds asks what’s next for Information Architects?

Web Controversy of the Week: Moms vs. Motrin. I don’t know about you, but I love this kind of stuff. It fascinates me on so many levels. First of all, I am surprised that people are paying such close attention to Motrin’s Web site. Second, I think this is a lesson in how fast a community can organize, especially when you piss off the moms. Third, it gives anyone who works in or with the media a real-life example of how to deal with a very public backlash against you.

It’s Friday, have a little fun, watch 100 movies spoiled in under five minutes. Warning, there are spoilers. This reminds me of that one Threadless t-shirt (sadly, it’s sold out).

Feeling a little MacGyvery? Try to make your own speakers using a few paper cups and some ear buds.

Speaking of, the Vitamin piece “Tables: The next evolution in CSS Layout” compares Web designers to modern-day MacGyvers.

Okay, I saw this all over the Internet this week, but it took me until like the sixth mention to actually watch the video. It’s a viral marketing video for Guitar Hero featuring a a kid playing “Prisoner of Society” by The Living End on his bike. You have to watch to understand it. It’s pretty cool (even if it is a big ol’ advertisement).

So what were you reading on the Internet this week?

Profiles in Nerdery: Jodi Chromey, Blogger

1. Astrological Sign: Gemini
2. Time at the Nerdery: 9 days
3. When people ask you what you do, how do you respond: I’m a blogger. No. Really. I am. A professional blogger. [note: I'm having a really hard time not putting ironic air-quotes around professional]
4. Favorite kinds of projects to work on: So far, all of them. Come on, I’m only on day nine. So far my projects have included getting to know my fellow nerds and starting a blog.
5. What one thing about The Nerdery surprises people the most when you tell them about it: That it actually exists. I’m a writer and prone to what I like to call acts of imagination. My friends, however, have much more colorful names for it, the most family-friendly of which would be, um, lying. So when I tell people that there’s this magical place in Bloomington that has free pop, friendly dogs that roam the halls, Guitar Hero, and that they actually pay people to go there and make cool stuff for the web, they don’t believe it at all.
6. Seven dream Jeopardy Categories: The music of Paul Westerberg; Contemporary American Literature; The First Amendment; Rock & Roll Memoirs; Pixar movies; Bravo Reality TV Shows; and Stupid Questions People Ask the Unusually Tall
7. Favorite Fictional or Historical Nerd: It’s a tie between Potsie Weber from Happy Days or Chi-Mo from King Dork by Frank Portman
8. According to the Wikipedia entry on Nerd, some nerds show a pronounced interest in subjects which others tend to find dull or complex . . . especially topics related to science, disambiguation, mathematics and technology. Do you know what disambiguation is? Care to venture a guess? [no cheating] I had no idea what it meant. I had never even heard of the word, but then I looked it up when I was creating these questions.

The Second Coming – Overnight Website Challenge

The Nerdery is abuzz over the second coming of Sierra Bravo’s Overnight Website Challenge. Feeling it?

Last week at Minnedemo, we released the hounds. Word is out in the web development community. The nonprofit world is about to overhear us using the F-word again (free, free, free). Nonprofits and development teams will vie for the rare opportunity to become fast friends pulling an all-nighter.

Know a good Minnesota nonprofit with a bad website? Make their day. Make them aware of the long day that begins the morning of February 28, and ends March 1 with a new-and-improved website.

I’ve been chatting up some of last year’s nonprofits on camera lately and it’s been a real trip down selective memory lane. Watch their videos for lingering evidence of a long weekend well spent.

Collectively, we tend to gloss over the deadbeat feeling of choosing coffee over sleep in that eleventh hour (actually, two eleventh hours).

All told, I consider the Overnight Website Challenge to be our finest hour – all 24 of them. I propose a logistically-challenged group hug for all involved last year, and all considering it this time around. Withdrawn. For now.

Anyway, yeah, I’m feeling it. And as Tom Waits once (sort of) sang to me, “If there’s one thing you can’t lose, it’s that feel.”

Life is short. Have a long day. Tell me about yours, and start feeling it again at www.overnightwebsitechallenge.com. 

One Day in the Nerdery at 144x Speed

This is a timelapse movie of one corner of the Nerdery over the course of a work day. Some highlights to look for:

1. (1:54) Everyone goes to lunch
2. (2:43) Andrew takes a lap on the tiny bike
3. (2:47) Manish programs with a dog in his lap (some other dogs 2:06,4:35)
4. (2:49) Manish lets the dog hang out on his desk
5. (3:12) Manish thoroughly cleans and disinfects his desk (coincidence?)
6. (3:22) David Lee Roth makes a cameo
7. (3:27) Everyone looks at the camera at the same time
8. (4:49) Sunset in the Nerdery

Music: Mushaboom (Remix by VV), Feist

First!

The first post is always the hardest. It sounds like a cliche, but that’s only because it’s the truth. You wouldn’t think it’d be so tough. Really, how many people read the first post of a blog anyway? Generally when you find a new blog you just start at the point of discovery, only delving into the archives when the author points you in that direction.

But, every year on the Blogiversary that first post is paraded around and pointed at while we say, “This is where we started. Look how far we’ve come.”

This poor first post, so much weight to bear. And, as if that weren’t enough of a burden, there’s also the job of having to introduce the blog to the world, declare its intentions, set its goals, and establish its voice. Yikes!

You have to start somewhere. So here we go.

Welcome to Inside the Nerdery, Sierra Bravo’s blog. I’m Jodi and I’ll be your guide. Over the next week or so, we’ll get to know each other. I’ll tell you a little about me, show you around the Nerdery, and you’ll leave warm, encouraging comments and suggestions about what you’d like to see on this blog.

After that, the sky’s the limit! Some of things you can expect to find here: profiles in nerdery, stories about what we’re working on and who we’re working with; links to fun things, interesting things, or silly things; and as-yet-to-be-determined things.

Not too bad for a first post, huh? It only gets easier from here.