We recently completed a study of the use of the Internet by 2008 candidates for the United States Senate.  This report, which is a follow up to similar studies we conducted in 2006 and 2002, examines what features Senate candidates include on their campaign websites.  You can read the full report outlining our methodology here.

The following chart shows the percentage of candidates using each feature we looked at.

Below are some of the more intriguing findings from the report: (more…)

Announced yesterday on the Facebook blog, the redesign of Facebook has finally arrived. After several delays to the new aesthetic, the developers have finally released the new platform to the masses. More AJAX, tab-centric, and a more versatile API… Here's a quick listing of some personal pros and cons with the new design.

Pros

1. Tabs! I am a sucker for tabs. They are easy to organize and keep content from becoming cluttered. My biggest complaint when the Facebook team released the API was that too many people's profiles were becoming littered with third-party applications. These apps were visually detracting, and had nothing to do with what I found Facebook to be most useful for (keeping in touch with acquaintences). With the new redesign, one can stick all their scrabble-playing-super-wall-poking ugliness on its own tab and I'll never have to go near it.
2. More intuitive photo platform. I didn't post a screenshot of my photos tab, but it is a far more intuitive way to access other users' photographs. It borrows heavily from the minimalistic UI of picasa, and now I don't have to go searching through a user's profile for a link to find their albums.
3. Better use of horizontal space. Facebook finally spread its wings a bit. The redesign makes a much better use of horizontal space, and avoids feeling clausterphobic by combining this new feature with the tabs, mentioned above. The wider limit also allows third-party developers much more freedom when it comes to mapping the UI of their applications, so I expect to see better things than graffiti and super wall.
4. Improved 'friends' module. With the redesign, the friends module was improved. Now you have a choice as to how many thumbnail pictures to display, as well as designating which ones (there were some third-party applications to have "favorite friends" displayed on the previous facebook design, does anybody know what they were called?) if you would rather permanently display your best friends.
5. Smart use of AJAX. The AJAX on the new design is both aesthetically pleasing and purpose-driven. The way I like it to be.

Cons

1. Advertisements in my face. I remember when Facebook had no ads. Then it had text-based ads. Later, they adopted vertical banners. Now, they've put those vertical banners front and center. With the decreased clutter on the pages (which is a good thing!), it leaves the advertisements to stick out like a sore thumb. With the previous design, I found I could largely ignore advertisements if I just pretended they were another annoying application.
2. More clicks. My preference for tabs aside, the prosecution points out that there is something to be said about having all "crucial" profile information contained on one page. When I need to know if the young lady in my rhetoric and composition class has awful taste in music or not, I have an additional click to consider. Multiply this by lots of young ladies and you're talking about a serious time investment.

Overall, I'm pleased with the new Facebook design. I think it's a step in the right direction, which is a personal first. This new implementation puts the criticisms of previous redesigns into perspective. I'm sure the previous flaws helped shape the success of this release. Anything to add?

Catch some pictures of the redesign after the break.

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While E3 is declining in popularity and prestige thanks to the Internet's ability to ruin any surprises that game developers may have up their sleeves, it is still a great time to preview all the new software and hardware in the gaming market.  This year is no different, especially thanks to the announcement of Nintendo's two new attachments for the Wii console.

The list of Wii additions is getting quite long, with the Wii Zapper, Sport Set, Wii Wheel, and numerous third-party additions all being part of the growing family.  That family will soon welcome two new members: the WiiSpeak and the Wii MotionPlus.

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Admittedly, I am a Google fanboy. I use Gmail for the bulk of my correspondence, and keep track of deadlines in Google Calendar. I get all of my RSS feeds through Google Reader, and collaborate on documents with others using Google Documents. It's scary how much of my life is driven completely by Google products — but until somebody offers something better, I wouldn't have it any other way. Yesterday afternoon, there I was, going about my day-to-day business, when something interesting (read: disturbing) popped into my reader.

Google Labs announced this on their blog:

"[...] excited to announce today's release of Lively by Google - a 3D virtual experience that is the newest addition to Google Labs.

The Lively team wants to help people experience another dimension of the web. We hope you will use the product to express yourself with and without words, and to do this in the places you already visit on the web."

When I came to, I thought it had just been a horrifying nightmare. But there it was, still on my screen: Google released their own browser-residing version of Second Life. Reluctantly, I installed the plugin enabling me to take part in the "3D virtual experience". Toying around with it for a bit, I created the Bivings Lounge. After the break is my list of why Google Lively is unsuitable for just about anything beyond making a cool-looking-bear-pirate avatar.

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At one point in my life, I considered myself to be an avid reader. Over the years, I have noticed that my reading habits have changed — my literature agenda includes only required assignments and the occasional pleasure novel or "must read" (Malcolm Gladwell, Levitt and Dubner, unread classics). I attributed most of this to a decline in free time, increased commitments and responsibilities, and you know, being a college student. After reading Nicholas Carr's article for the Atlantic on how the internet is not only changing the way we gather information, but probably changing the actual way our minds work, I was forced to explore the possibility that Google is at least partially to blame for my decreased appetite for literature.

In summary of his article (the very streamlining trend of the internet he describes), he compares the pre-internet methods of information gathering to the way information is sought after today. What used to take hours, maybe even days of research in the stacks of libraries is now readily available in a few clicks and keystrokes in the comfort of your office, home, or pocket. Carr goes on in his examination of this phenomena through a variety of different lenses; the psychology of mental development, an ominous comparison to Stanley Kubrick's unearthly futurist masterpiece, and philosophical points to ponder from both past and present.

As Carr touches upon, this is not the first time an exponential shift in access to information has occurred. Johann Gutenburg and his infamous press changed the history books — and for the first time, enabled the mass production of such texts. During this period in history, a shift from oral learning to a more textual style of information seeking occurred. There just weren't developmental and cognitive psychologists there to document it.

I am certainly no futurist (nor do I want to be haunted by the nightmares of my own imagination), but I do know that I embrace evolution of the collective human ability; as a result I tend to embrace technology readily. It comes as no surprise to me that in an age of pop-up advertisements, instant messaging, twitter, and wikis, my mental processes have probably been altered to accommodate for a different style of data exposure. One can call these "advantages" or "disadvantages", but I see it more as just plain differences.

What these differences will amount to in years, even generations from now is not incontestable, nor is it an easy task to judge them with a viewpoint only history can reveal. While there may be a decreasing number of Tolstoy scholars in years to come, I simultaneously ponder how many lives biotechnology will have saved, or how advances in quantum computing will have shaped the course of mankind.

To answer Carr's fundamental question: No. Google is making us different. What do you think? Is the decreased attention span and the shift away from long works of prose really a threat to human intellect? When does the streamlining of data gathering efficiency threaten individuality?

P.S. - Less pretentious posts to come. I promise .

One of the most useful (though sadly, often forgotten) aspects of the Internet is the ability to contact with people all over the world, in real-time.  Just this month, I have exchanged email with a friend overseas, bought a Father's Day gift, and done research through an Australian library.  The Internet has greatly increased our ability to do personal things, but it has also increased our ability to give to others.

The best part about online charities is that you can feel secure knowing that you can receive up-to-date information about where your money is headed.  A friend of mine proudly displays email in his office, written to him by a child in Africa to whom he donated a laptop.  This sort of real-time exchange is what makes charity a viable option for busy web browsers.  While there are many (many!) worthy charities, I decided to highlight three very unique ones that are fledging, worthy of attention, and in need of support. (more…)

In 2006 and 2007, we performed studies that examined how U.S. newspapers are adapting their web programs in the face of an increasingly competitive online news market. These studies looked at the features of the top 100 newspaper websites in an effort to gauge what areas they are investing resources and what areas they are not, and compare how things are changing from year to year. We are about to begin our 2008 study and would like your input as to the features we should look for. Here is what we have come up with so far:

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Advertising in television commercials has been met with some fierce changes in recent years.  With the invention of the DVR system, it seems that more viewers are ‘fast-forwarding' the commercials in favor of watching their program in less time, with less interruptions.

Obviously, there are ways to use DVR systems to measure what commercials and specific parts of programs the audience is most watching (as was mentioned in my American Idol analysis), but this blog post offers an interesting notion that perhaps we are measuring the wrong metric.

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A few weeks ago, I saw a Twitter post from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh about a Twitter-related problem his company is having. As we’ve written about before, Zappos loves Twitter and hundreds of its employees actively use the micro-blogging tool. Zappos has even built a micro-site that aggregates all Twitter messages that mention the company. The problem is that, in their enthusiasm for the tool, some Zappos employees began following any Twitter user that mentioned Zappos in one of their tweets (Note: following is the Twitter equivalent of a friend request on Facebook). According to Hsieh, this freaked some people out, as they felt that Twitter was sort of stalking them online as some sort of corporate policy. I’m not sure what Zappos ended up doing (let me know in the comments if you know).

For me, this situation really demonstrates how tricky using these social tools can be.

On a personal level, I’m happy to have anyone follow either my personal or our Bivings Twitter accounts. But my use of Twitter is 90% professional and probably 10% personal. I’m very aware that everything I write is viewable by the whole world and have no expectation of privacy. I want strangers to read what I write.

Others use Twitter in a much more private way, only following people they know in real life and using it primarily to talk to their friends. These types of users are going to get a little creeped out when strangers, and particularly strangers working at a company they buy shoes from, start following them out of the blue.

So how should companies go about adding followers on Twitter? How do you build a user base without making everyone think you are a stalker?

When we set up our Bivings Twitter account, I initially started following around 50 people through the account in an effort to get the ball rolling. In adding followers, I tried to follow people I’d met in real life, people I knew read our blog and/or people I was fans of. Just as importantly, I tried not to add anyone whose account looked to be used primarily for private conversations. I guessed this by seeing how many people they were following and, most importantly, what they were writing about. If they were using Twitter to share links and to add their two cents in on general discussions, I added them. If they were talking primarily about their kids and what they had for breakfast, I didn’t. I never followed people who have set their accounts to private. Since this initial burst, we’ve focused on adding people to follow organically as we come across them and aren’t forcing things. Slow and steady wins the race.

So I do I think it is possible (and desirable) for companies to build relationships on Twitter by following people, so long as they are sensitive as to how the person is using Twitter. Just like when reaching out to bloggers, I think you should familiarize yourself with a person before you try to engage them on Twitter.

But I also think this is new ground and feel the rules are sort of being written on the fly.

How do you feel about companies and individuals that follow you out of the blue? Does it creep you out?

Inspired by a recent article at Wired Online, which detailed the lamest gadget ideas from the mid-1990s, I decided to make a list of five of the biggest flops in gadgetry during my lifetime.  In addition, the list shows some enlightening reasons as to why each of the products did not ever hit the consumer jackpot. (more…)

Tagging is a relatively easy way to organize data.  For instance, people who use bookmarking sites will write a few works related to the link that they are saving to help them remember what that link is about.  However, this is not the only use of tagging.

I learned about how Noah Brier, a marketing man, is experimenting with tagging in relation to branding and public relations.  NPR's Bryant Park Project featured his brand tagging site - Brand Tags - today.

When you visit Brand Tags it presents you with a brand's logo.  Below the logo is a text box for you to enter the first word(s) that come to your mind.  You can then go check individual brand pages to see tag clouds for all the words that people have entered in for that brand.

For instance, on the NBC tag cloud, you'll see (as of this writing) that the the tags "30 rock," "friends," and "office" are really big, and that means that many people typed those words in for tags.  In this case, these tags make sense since they reference popular shows on the network.

The potential of this site is that it can help reveal what people really think about a brand.  We're talking more than just positive and negative metrics.

However, there are some important things to consider when checking out this site.  First, I doubt that everyone types in the very first thing that enters their mind.  Further, they could enter in a highly biased word.  Second, this site is brand new, and I barely heard about it.  I wonder who else hasn't heard of this.  Probably most of the population. 

So, check out the site since it is interesting, but don't make too many conclusions since it is so new and the audience so far is probably not representative of the general population. However, having said that, I think that this use of tagging has potential.

BusinessWeek magazine must understand how to use web analytical data, at least a little.  In its June 2, 2008 cover story titled "Beyond Blogs," Stephen Baker and Heather Green reveal that the magazine's web site got a lot of traffic from Google to its May 2, 2005 cover story titled "Blogs Will Change Your Business" since the article was the number one result for the keyword "blogs business."

Clearly, at least in this case, the magazine pays attention to different traffic sources to their site, and it acted upon this data. 

Needless to say, much has changed in the blogosphere and now greater social media landscape that has made the 2005 story outdated.  For instance, the article heavily featured Steve Rubel and his Micro Persuasion blog.  Back then his blog was an authoritative resource for using emerging social media technology to influence the general public.  In fact, it helped him get a job at the PR giant Edelman & Associates directing digital media work from an office overlooking Central Park in New York City.  Not bad.  However, he doesn't blog as much as he did back in 2005, and although he still holds a lot of clout in this realm, he attributes his lower frequency of blogging now to the fact that megablogs that actually hire full-time staffers like TechCrunch reign now.  Further, in 2005 blogging was the big deal, but now a story like this must include so much more of social media.

As the magazine realized that this article was no longer relevant to those searching for "blogs business," it decided to place an editor's note on the original article page and send visitors to a new page with revised content (for instance, the titled is now "Social Media Will Change Your Business") and provided annotated notes with updates from experts — see the image for this post to see how these updates appear on the site.  It also used it blog to get feedback from what readers felt and wanted in the revised article.

I think that using web analytics data to inspire an update to the article is brilliant for a couple of reasons.  First, updating the article will keep people who visit the site from the search engines, since they really cannot take a look at the publication date of the article and move on to other search results in hopes of finding something more current.  Second, this helps BusinessWeek assert itself as a great resource of updated information.  Of course, I doubt that the magazine updates every article, but at least we know that it pays some attention to traffic data.

Does anyone else know of other news organizations acting in similar ways?

As we previously posted in a study on American newspapers and their use of the internet, the formatting of newspapers and the internet don't really go hand in hand. It has been a struggle for the folks at McClatchy and the New York Times Company to develop profitable methods as the internet sprawl continues its onward march.

Let me introduce the NY Times Reader, a desktop-based web application designed for reading the times on your laptop or tablet PC. It made its initial windows release in 2007, but just today the NYT digital production team announced the macintosh release (beta). (more…)

The Starbucks logo switch that had Christian groups up in arms was only the first in a line of logo switches to make the Starbucks coffee brand appeal as a luxury item.  Next in line: Ethiopia.

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Tricked you with the headline up there, didn’t I? Yes I did. There’s nothing wrong with John McCain’s third redesign. It’s just bluer than before with more right angles and stars. It is a nice upgrade from the last version which was not so bad either. McCain’s team seems to have Obama-ed this version up just a bit with the blues, the positive tone, the structure …in fact, look at this (click on image to see full picture).

It’s not a direct rip off by any stretch, but the McCain design team has taken a look at the competition and let’s leave it at that. I would (and have) done the same. Or worse. Here are some first impressions on the latest effort:

The silver star logo remains the branding for McCain and that Republican sans serif font style is right there with it. They’ve now added the url below it to be helpful. Or forceful. Something.

Like most modern political sites, the main focus is on a centrally located media section. McCain’s site is no different and does a nice job of incorporating this into the design of the home page. The video that clearly needs to be pushed is a Four Year Vision piece that once clicked reveals a vision of 2013 where everything is squared away or something. The baritone voice-over made me sleepy but I was then revived by clicking on the colorful Cuban Independence link and asked to sign a petition, which I respectfully refused as I’m very busy today.

To the left of the big dance number is a rubic’s cube of banner ads that magically switch every 5 seconds, creating; 1) a cascading vertical selection of issues to click on and, 2) my left eye to twitch.

The right hand side is the usual Join the Team plea, but nicely and very cleanly laid out. The Action Items (I call them action items because I’m in the biz) below are pleasantly low key and not even numbered. When did that staple of political site design die out? Was I on vacation? It doesn’t matter, let’s move down to the sections no one reads, but everyone needs to put in their own site. News and Upcoming Events are given a lot of real estate and not gunked-up with any icons or thumbnails.

The page finishes nicely with some thumbnails of recent photos that expand smoothly within the browser window.

Overall a pretty decent overhaul. I appreciate that you can cruise through this site very quickly. Except for the crazy moving blocks on the left, the layout allows me to scan the page in seconds and decide where I want to go. This can’t be said of the last 2 McCain designs. On a side note I really enjoy the Parade of Stars background image they’ve chosen. I feel like Lou Rawls might be back there somewhere.