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Election Day is rapidly approaching. Many will have Tuesday off and the luxury of keeping score on TV from home. Others will keep tabs online. Whichever way we choose, we treat the event almost like an all-day football game (a very, very important football game), cheering or jeering as each precinct reports. If you’ll be using the net to track the results, news, or still need to make your mind up, here are some resources you’ll find useful:

CNN Election Center – Well designed, lot’s of information and clutter-free. My personal favorite.

USA Today – If it’s just the bottom line, raw news and state-by-state results you’re looking for, USA Today does the job quickly and efficiently.

Politweets – “When Twitter gets political.” 

YouTube Super Tuesday – Upload your political opinions, analysis, interviews, or campaign trail footage to YouTube, then use the interactive map to watch videos from voters, candidates, and news outlets.

Scholastic | Election 2008 – A great way to follow the election with your kids.

Google’s Map Mashups – A virtual hodgepodge of the candidates’ speeches, interviews, endorsements and appearances around the nation.

Pollster.com – The must-bookmark for all projection junkies.

Glassbooth.org – This quiz will help all you undecideds settle on a candidate.

Thumbing through the October 2008 issue of PRSA's publication Tactics was a lot like opening up my RSS folders and taking a look around. Featuring an internet/web 2.0 multiple page spread, the issue covered topics ranging from maximizing the benefits of Twitter to the convenience of using FriendFeed. Most of this seemed familiar — maybe a little too familiar, as I had seen all of this content in one form or another on various blogs over the last year or so. Even their articles (the Twitter article in particular, which made use of a numbered list) read more like blog posts than articles. Well, so what?

If the editors of Tactics thought it was worth covering this on such a grandiose scale (the web 2.0 features run eight pages), it simply means that the PR industry as a whole is still learning about these new technologies and how to use them to advance their clients' desires. I mean, these articles are quite basic, and nothing I wouldn't expect most of our readers to at least be aware of — like an entire persuasive piece on why your company needs to Twitter (sound familiar?)

Seeing this spread caused me to stop and re-examine perspectives for a moment. While people 'round these parts may take these basic elements of digital PR for granted, this area of the industry is still relatively very new. Sometimes it is good to go over the fundamentals, to relearn your basics. If you have access to PRSA's trade publications, I'd check out the issue — a good introductory summary of some elementary online PR tactics — maybe show it to your boss and convince them to start a company Twitter account.

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that allows users to communicate with one another through short, concise, messages of no more than 140 characters. Part of the attraction of Twitter is its immediacy, which makes it ideal for sharing articles and breaking news.  Given the news focus, it is no surprise a journalists have taken to the tool, as evidenced by this list of media people on Twitter.   Given our interest in Twitter and journalism, we here at The Bivings report have come up with a list of our top five favorite media twitterers, based on the number of people following, the number of times the user updates, and content.

5. Michael Arrington sticks to the facts on his Twitter account,  @techcrunch.   Subscribers to his account are updated with the latest headlines coming in from Techcrunch.

4. Justin Pontin, editor-in-chief of Technology Review gives readers and insight into not only the latest tech news but also his life from his account, @jason_pontin. Reading his tweets you get a sense of what is like balancing publishing a magazine with the trials of being a new parent.

3. Marc Ambinder, a writer for The Atlantic Monthly. provides the latest news and rumors off the campaign trail on his page @marcambinder. The one draw back to Ambinder’s insightful posts is the site’s ugly blue backdrop.

2. People probably know Brian Stelter as the head blogger for The New York Times TV Coder blog. S telter’s twitter account at @brianstelter gives readers the benefit of both his timely articles and the latest happenings in the media.

1. What makes a great Twitter user is a mix of fact, personality and a touch of what is happening in the rumor mill. This is exactly what John A. Byrne, editor-in-chief of Business Week, does with his account, @Johnabyrne. While it’s still only followed by a small amount of people this talented writer is becoming an equally talented twitterer.

The number of journalist using twitter to spread news instantly is growing. It seems now more then ever journalists are starting to learn just how much of a virtue brevity is.

I recently got an Apple iPhone and have been going a little crazy downloading stuff from the iPhone applications store ever since making the purchase.   Given what we do here, one of the first applications I tried out was the one produced by the Barack Obama campaign.  It is nothing short of fantastic. 

The application contains all the stuff you’d expect: ability to get the latest news with a few clicks, check out Obama’s positions on a variety of issues, sign up for email and mobile updates, etc.  All that is fine and good, but the real power is in the “Call Friends” area, which encourages users to call friends in swing states to urge them to vote for Obama.  The tools allows you to report back on the results of your call (”Is the person considering Obama?”, “Have they already voted?”, etc.) and tracks who you have and haven’t called.  The application is really well done and really shows off the great potential of iPhone applications in the political space.

Does that mean I would recommend my political and public affairs clients go out and build iPhone applications?  For most of them the answer is probably no. 

The fact is not that many people have iPhones yet.  Estimates are that around 220 million Americans use the Internet, and roughly that number of people have cell phones.  Estimates are that Apple has sold a total of 13 million iPhones.  So by building applications specifically for the iPhone, you are severely limiting the audience of people that can potentially use your tool.  Given this fact, I’d seriously consider the following questions before your organizations builds a fancy iPhone applications like Obama:

(1) Are you 100% happy with your website?  Given their fundraising numbers ($150 million in September alone), the Obama essentially has unlimited funds. Given that, they are rightly surrounding the situation, building tools for Facebook, mobile phones, whatever.   In the world most of us live in, resource limitations are a fact of life, so it doesn’t make sense to build value-added tools on a device with limited adoption, like the iPhone, unless you are already doing everything you can on your website, which just about everyone can see. 

(2) Is there a compelling reason to build your application for the iPhone?  The iPhone has a pretty great web browser built in, so building an application just to publish blog entries or press releases doesn’t make any sense.  People can read that stuff through the web if they want.  What makes the Obama application special is that it makes something that would be difficult through a web interface (getting people to call their friends and family and report back the results) and makes it simple by using the iPhone’s native capabilities.  It cuts out three or four steps in the process for the end user.  Build something unique or just skip it.

(3) Do you actually think people will use your application?  With his massive listserv and ability to generate free press, Obama doesn’t have to worry much about creating buzz or marketing his applications.  If he builds it, they will come.  That isn’t the case for most of us.  Applications are a cut throat game – popular ones tend to be really popular and the rest of them pretty much exist in obscurity.  If you don’t have a big name, a compelling hook to sell and/or a marketing commitment, you might want to take a pass. 

If you can answer all these questions with a resounding yes, then go for it.  If not, your probably better off investing your resources elsewhere, at least for the time being.

There has been some discussion of cloud computing recently as Microsoft revealed Azure, their attempt to chip away at Google's unyielding grasp on the hosted services sector. Centralized computing changes the way people compute their data, simplifying the process and reducing the need for desktop software. Is this the new model for generating revenue in an increasingly connected global marketplace?

The concept of hosted solutions has been around for quite a while. The web itself can be seen as a massive bank of hosted "solutions" from static pages to the latest database driven AJAX utility. Our own ImpactWatch is a hosted platform, as are many subscription-based offerings from access to databases to hosted MMO gaming.

I see several advantages to hosted and semi-cloud based services:

• Data in the cloud means optimized devices. With the device itself computing less and more being crunched on the central servers, devices don't have to be as powerful and will consume less power.
• $$$. With torrents, file sharing, and peer-to-peer networks in wide use, hosted solutions ensure company revenues are secure and act to protect against piracy and security threats. Hosted also means less cost than real-world deliverable goods such as installation media and unnecessary packaging, as well as a tendency to reduce administrative costs in the long run.
• Real-time updates. When your bleeding-edge code finally matures into a release worthy snippet, it feels good to show the world as soon as possible. This also applies to the whole security issue.
• Anywhere, anytime. Cloud computing means being able to access your information and GTD wherever you are, as long as there's a compatible (and connected) device in the immediate vicinity. Road warriors take note.
• An increase in compatibility. Not too long ago, the software market found itself choosing between two sides of a compatibility war, and to this day these agreements dictate much of what is available for various platforms. No longer are these clashes going to occur, as cloud computing runs as native on any OS compared to any other.

Cloud services are changing (and will continue to change) the way the internet works. As web and desktop technologies go through this awkward phase of flirtation, I eagerly await the next generation of truly integrated cloud applications. Any other obvious advantages I've left out? Or how about any glaring disadvantages to this model?

As frequent readers of our blog know, The Bivings Group specializes in building websites using the content management platform Drupal.  Given this focus, we’re really excited that the premier Drupal unconference, DrupalCon, will be taking place right in our back yard this year (Washington, DC) in early March.  We’ll be sending a nice contingent to the conference, and are looking forward to meeting and learning from other Drupal developers. 

In addition to attending, we have also submitted a session idea.  Our proposed session is titled “How To Build a Multi-Lingual Website in Drupal” and will focus on what we learned building the International Journalists Network, an ambitious website that runs concurrently in five languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, Farsi and Arabic).  The core development team that built the site will be running the session. 

Anyway, vote for our panel if the topic strikes your fancy.  And be sure to say hello if you will be attending.

YouTube + Some Creativity + Some Courage (can) = Success

YouTube is known as the land of videos of dogs running on treadmills.  While there is certainly some substantive content on the site, there is also a lot of — shall we put this nicely — fluff.  Sometimes YouTube hits are substantive while others are mere fluff.

One of the more recent hits on the site falls into the substantive category; it is a Delta Airlines in-flight safety demonstration video.  Yes, you know those boring demonstrations at the beginning of your flight that you ignore 'cause they're boring and you hope to never have to rely upon the information they present.  Well, people are watching a safety video intently without even flying.

This is an example of how a normally staid item can turn into a viral hit.  However, your father's safety demonstration is not destined for Internet fame.  Delta had to take a less traditional approach when producing this video.  

Delta wants more passengers to pay attention to its safety videos, and that's why it added some cheeky and sassy elements to its recently debuted presentation.  For instance, while explaining that smoking is prohibited on the Delta planes, the main narrator, Kathleen Lee, waved her finger in the camera.  When I was flying home from vacation last week, I sat there and asked, "Did she just wave her finger at me?"  What a flirt!  That caught my attention (plus the fact that Lee — aka "Deltalina" for her resemblance of Angelina Jolie — is absolutely gorgeous).

What I find more interesting is not the fact that Delta lightened up this serious and important aspect of its passenger service but that the airline placed the presentation on YouTube before it even premiered on an actual flight.  This was a cheap and easy way for Delta to help accomplish its goal of promoting passenger safety.

Was posting the video on YouTube a success?  While I can't speak for the airline, I think it has achieved success.  As of this posting, this video has had more than one million views since it was posted in late February of this year (we're talking an airline safety demonstration!).  Further, CNN reported that more than 300,000 views occurred before the video's in-flight debut.  Plus this new video has garnered Delta a lot of free press and more YouTube views (see the Safety category of Delta's blog).

Thus, Delta gets a gold star for its idea of posting this video on YouTube because it was smart enough to recognize that the video had potential and had the courage to try posting it in the first place.  Delta even gets some bonus points for putting behind the scene pictures from the video's shoot on its flickr stream. 

Chuck and I recently attended the 6^th Summit on Measurement, sponsored by the Institute for Public Relations (IPR).  This year the location was Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the festivities began with a meet-and-greet in Strawberry Banke.  Tours of local restored houses and mansions were provided while conversation began among PR, measurement, and education professionals.

Don Wright, Director for the IPR Forums, greeted us the next day as we settled in for a marathon of speeches and information.  The first speaker was the Senior Manager for Corporate Communications of McDonald's:  Leslie Tiongco.  She spoke about the challenges that her team faced as they attempted to apply qualitative research to strategic execution.  McDonald's has many locations worldwide, and their new approach was to make them better, not bigger.

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