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Last week, Facebook announced a set of changes that its development platform is set to undergo within the coming months. In a blog post, the company talked about the enhancements coming to the Facbeook API. A significant change will be the replacement of FBML with iFrames, with the former having been the gold standard for designing visually appealing Fan Pages of the last several years. In fact, by the end of 2010, Facebook will no longer allow for new applications to be created using the antiquated FBML.

How will these new changes affect social media CRM on Facebook?

Short answer: it won’t.

Long answer: The changes will make it easier for developers to bring more dynamic functions to Facebook pages, games, and other applications. On August 23rd, all tabbed pages in profiles and fan Pages were readjusted to be only 520 pixels in width. This standardized (albeit more narrow) width allows for implementation of across-the-board support for IFrames  – which enable designers and developers to easily break up a page into multiple segments with some static and some dynamic sections. Iframes also tend to use lower bandwidth, when compared to single-frame variable content that has to continuously reload.

The Bivings Group is a full service Internet communications firm,  whose own developers are incredibly excited about this change. Chris Roane, a TBG developer who's familiar with FBLM noted that:

It always seemed ridiculous to me that Facebook would implement a specific language for developers to use with their system for web development (FBML). Why not tap into the same coding system that everything else uses across the internet? Instead of having to figure out how to work with a new coding system, developers and programmers can use the systems that they have always been using. This will not only make pages easier to develop, but applications should appear more seamless as it will be easier to make more complicated applications run directly in a facebook tab/page.

 A new DC News Site launched last Sunday– and the local social media scene has been abuzz with the innovation, social media outreach, and hyper local focus seen on the site. The pages of this online portal will function to aggregate news from all over the DC metro area and create a one-stop-shop for DC residents. TBD is owned by the same company that owns POLITICO, but its model of news delivery is decidedly different. The site seamlessly mergers the ‘old media’ video news from WJLA (Channel 7) and News Channel 8 with news reporting and blog posts.

Reaching Out to The Blogging Community

127 local blogs from across the Washington DC metropolitan area have joined together to contribute and publish content though the TBD portal. The neighborhood blog section features stories from TBD staff writers as well as those found on DC-area blogs.  In order to continuously improve their content, the site is also asking for reader feedback (and not just in the comments section). Yet the best part of the new site that if you input your zip code into a handy search bar, TBD will tailor content specifically for you.

In addition to engaging with users on numerous social media platforms, TBD also released several mobile phone applications –allowing readers to get their news on the go. The Bivings Report can assess with high confidence that this new website is an arbiter of great things to come as social media merges with traditional media formals on the web. It features a large amount of white space and is intuitively designed with the end users' experience in mind. 

We are proud to announce that the Bivings Group has launched the completely redesigned financial education website, MyMoneyManagement.net. In terms of the technology behind the website, My Money Management is a Drupal based website that was designed, built and customized entirely in-house. We are also very excited to be consulting with MyMoneyManagement on their social media outreach.

Please take a moment to check out the site, and follow our progress building a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter.

The full press release from our friends at the Financial Services Roundtable is bellow and available on their very stylish new website. 

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I love the coupon site Groupon and happily subscribe to receive their DC deals via email.  However, at some point I accidently subscribed to receive updates on Chicago deals through one of my secondary email accounts.  This morning I got an email offering 50% off tickets to a Bon Jovi and Kid Rock concert in Chicago, and decided today was a good day to unsubscribe.  I clicked the unsubscribe option from the email and was immediately taken off the list and presented with this page. 

Naturally, I immediately clicked on the Punish Derrick link, launching a Flash movie in which Derrick gets a cup full of coffee thrown in his face.  At the end of the video, they ask me to resubscribe (see below).

This is really clever.  First, they make the unsubscribe process easy and entertaining.  Second and more importantly, they smartly try to reengage with me in an effort to get me to stay.  I was tempted to stay on the list to reward their cleverness, even though I have no use for Chicago deals.  Well done Groupon.  That’s how it is done.

At the Personal Democracy Forum Conference this week, The Bivings Group presented a panel on political website design and took a look at what can make a campaign site win or hugely fail.  Panelists included The Bivings Group’s Tom McCormick, Senior VP of Creative and Production Services, Allyson Kapin, founding partner of Rad Campaign, and Michael Turk, founding partner of CRAFT Media/Digital.  Alexis Matsui, TBG Senior Client Services Associate, moderated the discussion, “Political Website Design: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”

Each of the panelists presented their choices of the best and worst campaign sites.  At the end of the panel,  the audience voted for their favorites in each of the categories.

Here are the winners (or losers, if you choose to look at it that way):

1) The Good:  Examples of sites that our panelists thought are highly navigable, usable, and implement top-notch design.

Audience Vote: Tie between Kevin Yoder’s and Sean Duffy’s site.

2) The Bad:  Sites that fail in both aesthetic design and usability.

Audience Vote:  The winner was Meyer Marks’ Maryland Senate site.

3) The Ugly: Sites you have to see to believe.  No introduction needed.

Audience Vote: The winner by a landslide was George Hutchins’ site for a congressional run.  Runner-up was the Jerry for New Mexico site.

The Bivings Group is a proud sponsor of this year’s Personal Democracy Forum conference, being held next Thursday and Friday in New York. This year, we’ll be hosting a panel discussion focusing on critical issues surrounding design in political web development.

As a firm, TBG has worked with dozens of political candidates and issue advocacy groups through the years, and our talented designers have seen it all. “Political Web Design: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” will take a dive into what works, what doesn’t and what we wish we’d never see online again.

Panelists Tom McCormick, senior vice president, creative and production services here at TBG, Michael Turk, CRAFT Media/Digital founder and partner, and Allyson Kapin, a partner at Rad Campaign, will lend their expert analysis to recent trends in political web design.

We’re going with a more interactive panel this year, engaging the audience by requesting their votes on some of this year’s best, worst and ugliest.

If you’re attending PdF, come participate on Thursday, June 3 from 3:30-4:30 and make sure to stop by the TBG booth while you’re there.

Last year, we hosted a panel discussion focused on social action networks, where we used the Pickens Plan as a case study in how to engage users on multiple levels and build a strong supporter base. 

Last week I wrote a post detailing ways in which the Barack Obama website design has been appropriated by other other political candidates. The post focused on specific elements of the design and how it had influenced others.   For the sake of posterity, I also put together a Flickr set of the most blatant rip offs that I’ll update over time.  The set is embedded below. 

View full screen and click on the Show Info option to view my notes on each design.

The 2008 Barack Obama web program was the most successful online campaign in history.  And its not really close.  Given its impact, it is no surprise that www.barackobama.com has quickly become the most borrowed from design in the history of politics.  If you pay attention, you’ll see echoes of it everywhere.

Most designers take inspiration from great designs like the Obama site, using it as a jumping off point for their own work.  Others simply steal aspects of the design whole, either out of laziness and lack of inspiration, or in a concerted effort to associate their candidate with the Obama brand.  Following are examples of elements of the Obama design that, to varying degrees, have been appropriated by other candidates.  Note the examples mentioned range from some pretty blatant copy jobs to more subtle use of similar colors, fonts and drawing styles.   Thanks to my colleague Kodi Seaton for the accompanying graphics.

(1) Complete Rip Off

Current Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu website is the most blatant Obama rip off I’ve seen.  His site steals the Obama design lock, stock and barrel.

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