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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.

Last night I was on Yelp checking out reviews of Spike Mendelsohn’ new Capital Hill pizza joint We, The Pizza (not good).  I have a Yelp account but wasn’t logged in, so noticed a clever way they are using Facebook’s API.  If you are not logged in to Yelp, you’ll see a note at the bottom of the page telling you how many of your Facebook friends are on Yelp and encouraging you to sign up. 

This is really smart.  Yelp is essentially a social network, so people are more likely to join and be active if their friends are already using the service.  Well done Yelp.

 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. 

In the past few days, political media outlets have been abuzz with the news that Gowalla, a location based social networking service, has teamed up with politicians to create politically-themed stamps. Subsequently, Gowalla users are now able to see when politicians check-in at political rallies, fundraising dinners, and town hall meetings. With midterm elections just around the corner, this move aims to make candidates more accessible to their tech-savvy constituency.

 The new move to use GPS-centered online networking is innovative – with less than 10% of smartphone users using applications such as Gowalla and Foursquare. Politicans home to utilize Gowalla as a way to connect with voters while allowing the social network’s users to collect limited-edition campaign-themed  stamps for their virtual passports. Likewise, this continue integrating and connecting with other forms of social media, such as Twitter and Facebook. 

Many experts are saying that these forays into social media may portend a greater amount of user interaction during the 2012 presidential campaign season. But with only three months left until the next midterm elections, only time will tell how social media will continue to be used by political candidates.

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Digital Capital Week 2010 has begun, and the first tough question to be asked is: how can traditional media harness the community-building power of modern social media tools. This question was the focus of the Media 2.0 panel on Tuesday, and the panelists were rife with answers.

Robert Michael Murray, National Geographic Social Media Director, proposed thinking of social media  as a collaborative effort, focusing on the input of “fans” and customers. The key, he says, to getting the most out of your groups’ social media action is the content. Organizations like National Geographic play a role in the lifestyle of their customers, and it is through that lifestyle that they connect with them. “How can we provide value and benefit to our audience?” he asks. “Make sure we become embedded in their lifestyle. The ideas have to be unique, natural and authentic to the audience.”

Continuing with this theme was Andy Carvin, Senior Strategist for NPR’s Social Media desk, who emphasized that “radio should not be the only way to interact with public radio content.” Technological platforms have caught up with NPR’s mission to connect and inform the public, he said, listing examples such as listeners volunteering with social action campaigns led by NPR and sending in interview questions. He stressed that organizations shouldn’t build a Twitter “strategy” or a Facebook “strategy” but instead should focus on how they want to interact with their community and what the best way to do that would be.

From the print media perspective, Benet Wilson of Aviation Weekly and Co-Chair of the National Association for Black Journalist's Digital Journalism Task Force spoke about opportunities and limitations relating to social media. She told the crowd about how she had covered the Paris Air Show from the comfort of her living room in Baltimore, MD and how her personal blog had led Aviation Weekly to start a series of now-succesful aviation blogs. She also said to be careful to not let social media overtake classical journalism, stating ‘Social media is not the cure-all. You still have to do the journalism.”

Covering the middle ground nicely between social media and traditional media was Brian Dresher, Manager of Social Media and Digital Partnerships for USA Today. He spoke about the concept of ROIII and social media: “return on interaction, influence and investment”. The connection between traditional media and it’s social media components “should be like a DVD movie”, he said, “ main movie and then additional features. Central content and then extra.” He sees social media’s main strength in it’s ability to “break news on a macro level” and inform consumers of news quickly and completely.

As explained by moderator Carlos Roig, Digital Media strategist for Home Front Communications, we are “past the point of asking if traditional media need to adopt social media strategies.” New concerns are how media companies can engage their readers over these platforms and, how they can turn reader involvement into action and revenue. With the answers provided by the panels, social media and traditional media seem to be further integrating on their way to a fully interconnected future.

To keep track of the #DCWeek action on Twitter, check out our Twitter aggregator: dcweek.bivings.com

For the past two years of the Personal Democracy Forums, The Bivings Group's Twitterslurp tool has been used to track and analyze discussion about the conference that is taking place on Twitter.  One of the reasons the Twitterslurp has been so popular is the leaderboard feature, which lists the Twitter users that have tweeted the most.  At this year conference, in addition to listing the users who tweet the most, we also recorded how many times a users Twitter handle was mentioned by other users.   Below is the Twitterslurp leaderboard for 2010, reordered to list the 20 Twitter users who were mentioned the most by other users. Note that this data is as of 3:30 pm on Friday, June 4.  We'll update on Monday after the conference is over.

#1. Jordan Raynor , 348 mentions President, Direct Media Strategies

#2. Clay Shirky , 288 mentions Author of "Here Comes Everybody" and teacher at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program

#3. Craig Newmark , 207 mentions The founder of Craigslist and a first-day speaker on "Tech For Change"

#4. Eli Pariser , 195 mentions Board President and former Executive Director of MoveOn.org

#5. Ethan Zuckerman , 191 mentions Senior researcher, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University

#6. Deanna Zandt , 189 mentions Media technologist and author of "Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking"

#7. Allison Fine , 169 mentions Author of  "Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age" and with Beth Kanter, "The Networked Nonprofit"

#8. Scott Heiferman , 169 mentions An MIT Technology Review ""Innovator of the Year" and Co-Founder & CEO of "Meetup", the world's largest network of local community groups

#9. Tim O'Reilly , 168 mentions The founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc.

#10. Micah Sifry , 157 mentions Co-founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident.com

#11. Beth Kanter , 162 mentions The author of "Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media" and co-author of "The Networked Nonprofit" with Allison Fine

#12. Alex Howard , 151 mentions Government 2.0 correspondent for O'Reilly Media

#13. Andrew Rasiej , 147 mentions Futurist, social entrepreneur, and Founder of the Personal Democracy Forum

#14. Markos Moulitsas , 146 mentions Founder and publisher of Daily Kos political community

#15. Susan Crawford , 135 mentions Served as Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy, faculty member of the University of Michigan Law School

#16. Howard Rheingold , 125 mentions Author of "Tools for Thought", "The Virtual Community" and "Smart Mobs"

#17. The Bivings Group , 113 mentions Full-service internet communications firm and sponsor of PDF 2010

#18. Dominic Campbell , 104 mentions Founder of FutureGov, a consultancy and social innovation incubator shaping the future of government

#19. Ellen Miller , 103 mentions Co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Foundation

#20. Civico Live , 100 mentions A practical online democracy engagement platform, allowing fully live streaming of PdF

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. 

When I traveled around Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital last month on an independent reporting project, all the sources I encountered under the age of 40 asked me the same question: “Are you on Facebook?”

The social networking site is massively popular in the Islamic republic, and this week’s ban – and subsequent banning of YouTube and nearly 1,000 other social sites – stifles the communication of a population with very few social freedoms.

The ban, set in place Wednesday, resulted from an admittedly ill-advised Facebook group calling for celebrations and submissions of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.” Depicting the prophet is  forbidden in Islam.

While Pakistan is led by a notoriously tight government, they have one of the most open media systems in the world. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf ushered in an age of journalism allowing dozens of new TV news channels and publications to flourish. While not all of the reporting is responsible, Pakistanis have enjoyed open access to media sources, including websites, for some time.

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, which implemented the bans, reacted to the protests of thousands across the country offended by the Facebook group, so the ban is not coming only from the government, but from its citizens.

“I am in favour of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. But there needs to be a fine line drawn. Otherwise freedom of expression can turn into freedom to offend,” Pakistani blogger Kashif Aziz said in a BBC News interview.

Another blogger, however, took the side of many of Pakistan’s young voices, saying although only 8 percent of Pakistanis have internet access, but that it provides a critical means of communication and expression.

"The internet has become a way of life itself. If they continue to block things, this is going to hinder Pakistan’s progress,” said Dr. Awab Alvi to the BBC.

The ban on Facebook could be in place until May 31, and the date for lifting the wall to other sites are being addressed individually.