Todd gave me a beta invite to the new bookmarking site Mento this morning.  He really likes it, and thinks that it is del.icio.us on steroids.  I agree.

More or less the sites are very similar in their core functionality — to bookmark sites with the potential to categorize and share them.  However, Mento has added a few bells and whistles.

While del.icio.us is much more spartan in its design (which isn't necessarily bad –compare Google to Yahoo!), Mento has a lot more graphics and more friendly user interface.  I personally don't mind a spartan site, but Mento is refreshing.  For those who are new to the bookmarking game, they probably would find Mento easier to use.

Another cool bell and whistle that Mento has added is the ability to get a customized screen shot (whole or partial) of a web page that one is bookmarking.  I must admit that this is way cool.  A picture is worth a thousand words, and bookmarking sites aren't made for tomes about links.  Further, it is easy to do.  The tool pops up in one's browser, and the instructions are very clear what to do.

Mento is also gracious enough to understand that we weren't born for the sole purpose of using it.  That's why it allows users to export links from it to other bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia, and tumblr.  That's pretty generous.  Of course, can or will also export links to sites like Facebook, which makes perfect sense since bookmarking is a complementary activity to social networking.

If that's not good enough, Mento also enables you to filter the links that your connections can send you or that you'll see as you peruse their bookmarks.  For instance, if Todd tags something "battlestargalactica," I can choose not to see these links.  No offence meant, but I'm a Star Trek guy.  Likewise you can make sure that pages from a certain site are included in what you see.  That's pretty nifty.   

The site is still in beta — thus, a work-in-progress.  But it seems cool to me.  If you would like an invite to test the site, either leave a comment below or send us a direct message through The Bivings Group's Twitter page.

In our post announcing the launch of our Bivings Twitter account, I mentioned being inspired by the way other companies/organizations are using Twitter (what is Twitter?). The organization that I was thinking of specifically when I launched our account was Zappos.com. Lots of organizations are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon and using the tool to publish RSS feeds and have one way conversations. But very few at this point are using Twitter to actually engage with customers and stakeholders. Zappos.com is one of the few.

Zappos has set up their own Twitter micro site to highlight the company’s use of Twitter. The site features:

• A “Beginners Guide to Twitter” that does a good job of explaining what Twitter is exactly.
• A leaderboard, sorted by number of followers, that lists all Zappos.com employee Twitter accounts (252 of them). By doing this, Zappos is empowering all their employees to engage with customers through Twitter.
• A reverse chronological list of all employee tweets.
• A reverse chronological list of all Zappos.com mentions on Twitter.

Importantly, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh is the company’s most active and followed Twitter user. Just in the last few days, he has used his account to:

• Share some details about what he’s up to personally and professionally.
• Provide some behind the scenes info regarding what its like to work at Zappos.com.
• Launch a Twitter contest asking people to help them rewrite their confirmation emails.
• Incubate an idea for polling customers on Twitter.
• Explain why he is using Twitter.

Don’t believe they are into it? Check out Tony’s business cards.

Zappos.com is successfully using Twitter to put a human face on the company and engage with customers more deeply. I’m impressed. If we do half as well with our own Twitter account, I’ll be happy.

Twitter is an addictive micro-blogging platform that has experienced explosive growth since launching a few years back (my account is here). I’ve come across a few cool Twitter tools in the last few weeks so I figured I’d share.

(1) Twhirl

This is a slick little application that allows you to receive and send tweets from your desktop. This is a powerful tool, but the main things I like about it are:

• You can manage multiple Twitter account through one interface.
• The interface allows you to sort your tweets in a variety of ways. I found being able to just view tweets that were direct replies to me a very useful feature, as I was missing a lot of these due to the way I was using Twitter before.
• It has powerful tools for shortening URLs and adding pictures to your account via TwitPic.
• Most importantly it is an application that I can open/close whenever I want, so that Twitter doesn’t clutter up my IM windows or phone. It makes Twitter less of a distraction and allows me to get more out of it in less time.

Below is a screenshot of the interface.

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I have written a few times about the various options available for the hosting of videos online via third party services. If I have a choice in the matter, I use Blip.tv for all the reasons you’d expect: interface is easy to use, they allow the posting of video in higher quality than most providers, they’ve help when I’ve had questions, it works, etc. It is the best third-party option I have found, as a web developer.

But I think my favorite thing about Blip.tv is their Flash video player. It is awesome for a couple of reasons:

(1) You can remove all Blip.tv branding from the video player and replace with your own site name or URL, meaning you don’t have to turn your website into an advertisement for your video provider if you don’t want to.

(2) You can turn off any options in the player you want to. So if I can turn on/off options like embed code, autoplay, view in full screen, ads for other videos on Blip.tv, etc.

(3) You can customize the colors of the Blip.tv player so that it matches your site’s colors perfectly. This allows for designers to really seamlessly integrate video into the sites they build.

(4) The player is just really good looking.

Basically, the Flash player is super flexible and gives you the ability to do whatever you need to with it to make it fit into your site.

Below are some examples of the Blip.tv player being seamlessly integrated into various sites. Please click on the images to view the player on the actual sites.

WallStrip

This is basicallly what the player looks like by default.

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Over the weekend, two of the users I follow on Twitter, David All and Techcrunch (Michael Arrington), had separate problems with Comcast and vented about them via their Twitter accounts. Comcast apparently monitors Twitter and proactively reached out to both of them.

Here is the relevant tweet from Techrunch:

And here is the tweet from David:

An article in the Consumerist confirms that other users have received responses after complaining via Twitter. In a follow up article about his problems, Michael Arrington offers advice to folks with a Comcast service problem: “Skip the hold time on their customer service line and go on the attack at Twitter instead. You may find your problem fixed in a hurry.”

Three thoughts on this:

(1) I think it is great that Comcast is listening to people on Twitter and reacting proactively to fix problems. Based on a quick search, there appear to be plenty of problems to that need addressing. More companies should monitor and participate in Twitter in a meaningful way (we are working on doing Twitter tracking through our ImpactWatch service).

(2) As a consumer, I’m bothered by the precedent of the squeaky wheels on Twitter getting preferential treatment over people who go through normal channels.

(3) Not speaking specifically about Comcast, I think the focus some companies place on social media is more about PR/crisis management than a true commitment to customer service and dialogue. Performing triage on complaints that come in through Twitter may keep the customer revolt at bay for a short time, but when that levee eventually breaks, it isn’t going to be pretty.

The Bivings Report is built in Wordpress, which comes with a robust commenting system out of the box. Due to this, I’ve very rarely looked at third party commenting systems like Haloscan. I haven’t really had a comment problem so there was no need to experiment with these third party tools.

But I recently set up a personal blog on Tumblr, which does not have commenting built in due to its reliance on reblogging instead (which is cool). I wanted people to be able to comment on my blog so I spent the ten minutes it takes to integrate Tumblr with the third-party tool Disqus. (Check out Fred Wilson (A VC) or Dave Winer’s blog for good examples of the tool in action).

Here is a quick breakdown of what I see as the pros and cons of Disqus after playing with it for a few months: (more…)

If you've got a computer, you know what YouTube is.  In fact, most people, including myself, have uploaded videos to YouTube at one point or another until our accounts have inevitably been suspended.  It's the circle of life on the Internet, and I am very pleased with it.  Without YouTube after all, I would be unable to watch my guilty pleasure, America's Next Top Model.

What's the bad news about YouTube?  Well, the videos that are uploaded are typically of lesser quality.  In fact, the most common complaint that you will see on the video comment sections is about the quality.  In reply, most users will explain that "something" happened to their video during the upload process.  There is a hack to be able to view high quality version of videos, but soon, that hack will hopefully be rendered useless.

YouTube has finally announced all users have the option of watching some videos in higher quality. A blog post on their site claims they're slowly integrating this new feature, and videos uploaded in the proper format will be the first to be available in high quality. The rest of the library will soon follow, with any luck.

Simply go into your user account and select the option: "always show me higher quality when available." High speed Internet is going to work best, because otherwise the videos may suffer from lag time.  Nobody likes lag time.

I have been waiting for this feature for a long time.  Finally, my prayers have been answered, and I will soon be able to watch YouTubeHD.  There are enough capital letters in that word to make anyone excited.

I’m originally from Texas and keep in touch with a lot of people that still call the state home. In the days leading up to the Texas Presidential primary, it seemed like everyone I knew reported receiving phone calls from Obama and Clinton supporters scrounging up votes for their candidate of choice. We’re talking three to four calls each. Everyone reported that the volume of calls was much higher than previous campaigns.

There are a lot of reasons for the increase in voter contacts I would think. The race was extremely competitive and Texas usually isn’t a primary player. Both campaigns are well funded. Overall interest is extremely high this year. But I think one key reason for the increase in contacts is the use of online call tools by both the Obama and Clinton campaigns. These tools allow the campaigns to crowd source voter contacts.

Essentially, both the Obama and Clinton websites allow registered users to make calls for the campaign to a state whose primary is approaching.   The first step in the process of making calls is to select the state you want to call.  After you select a state, you are assigned a voter (or list of voters) to call and given a script that includes some talking points and questions to ask such as “which candidate do you support?” and “what issues are most important to you?”.  After you finish talking to the voter, you report back to the campaign how the call went by filling out a simple form. This information is then stored in the campaign’s overall voter database (otherwise known as Customer Relationship Management database). The campaigns then use the information they collect via these tools to tailor get out the vote efforts, hone messages, customize donation appeals, etc.  These tools also provide the campaign with information about where they stand in each state.

These tools have been around since 2004, when both the Bush and Kerry campaigns had call systems built into their websites. The Fred Thompson (disclosure) and Mitt Romney campaigns had similar tools on their sites this cycle. However, I figured I’d take a closer look at the Obama and Clinton tools since they are still up and being used (look out Pennsylvania). Overall, I think both tools are excellent, although I found the Hillary tool a little easier to use.

Following are screen grabs of the call tools on both sites with my random notes. The phone numbers of the voters I was assigned have been blocked out to protect the innocent.

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Last May I wrote a post about how offices on Capitol Hill deal with the barage of emails they constantly receive. Regulatory bodies and similar organizations also must handle similar flows of e-mails. Despite this, it is very important for our country's democratic nature that individuals' voices are heard. Further, some regulatory bodies are legally required to process public feedback during a comment and review period before a change is made. So what can a Congressional office (or a similar organization) do when it receives tens of thousands of e-mails from constituents the day before a key vote? (more…)

In 2002 and 2006, we conducted studies that analyzed the features of the campaign websites of folks running for federal office. Our 2002 findings are available here and our 2006 study can be found here.

We are in the planning phases of a 2008 study and are trying to figure out what criteria to check for when reviewing the campaign websites. Below is a list of the criteria we looked at in 2006:

• En Español: Does the website provide a Spanish version?
• News: Does the website provide news and press releases?
• Bio: Does the website provide a biography of the candidate?
• Contacts: Does the website provide adequate contact information?
• Donations: Does the website provide the ability to make donations online?
• Fundraising Campaigns: Does the website provide the ability for voters to organize their own fundraising campaigns?
• Volunteer Forms: Does the website provide a volunteer sign-up form?
• Team Tools: Does the website provide the ability for volunteers to organize and track activity?
• House Parties: Does the website help volunteers set up house parties?
• Downloads: Does the website provide downloadable fliers, web stickers, or other campaign materials?
• Blogs: Does the website offer a blog?
• Podcasts: Does the website offer podcasts?
• Multimedia: Does the website offer audio or video files?
• RSS: Does the website offer an RSS feed?

I think in 2008 we’ll need to look at whether the campaign’s have presences on social networking sites and if they have social networking components on their own sites. We might also need to look at the use of widgets and wikis. We are still very much in the brainstorming phase.

What criteria do you think we should add?

While at the Politics Online Conference yesterday, I attended a rather interesting panel about using cell phones in political and advocacy campaigns.  Some of the panelists represented the One campaign — think Bono — and Rock the Vote.  Since both of these campaigns cater to a younger crowd, they need to use cell phones in connecting with their audiences.

During the panel the representative from Rock the Vote shared an interesting campaign that they just did using text messages.  His organization used their member database to print out voter registration forms and mail them to those people.  All the recipients needed to do was fill in their SSN, sign it, and send it in.  However, Rock the Vote knows that the typical person in their target crowd virtually ignores snail mail.  So they decided to send out a text message to everyone who they sent forms to alerting to them to the fact that the registration form is in their mailbox.  I found that interesting that they would send out something and use another channel as the call to action.  The panelist said that they didn’t have data back yet since they just did this campaign, but I would like to know how effective the text messages were.

Another interesting tidbit from that session was about a health care advocacy group in California that asked people to send it text messages about how they feel about health care as the California State Legislature was debating some new legislation.  This organization then rented out a jumbo-tron and placed it across the street from the legislative chambers.  Thus, when legislators walked outside, they saw text messages about health care from normal citizens on the large screen.

What are some interesting campaigns that you’ve seen involving cell phones?

Linux-based GUIs

I bought an ASUS EEE sub-notebook a couple of months ago. In fact I’m writing this on the EEE, connected to a 19 inch monitor and a regular keyboard. The interface is suprisingly simple and functional and I did not need to know anything about Linux to get started. It’s a custom-made interface for the EEE built using parts of a full-fledged Linux interface and applications. Here are some screenshots to give you an idea:

I don’t miss Windows at all. Really. Granted, I just use the machine for web browsing, email and document and spreadsheet editing, but I would have never guessed I would be saying it was a good enough substitute to Windows for me.

Adobe Air

In other news, Adobe has just launched a cross-OS application development platform called Air. I honestly haven’t done a lot of research into it, but essentially it allows developers to easily, quickly, and cheaply create internet-rich desktop applications that will run on any OS, including Macs and Linux.

Alternatives to Windows

If Adobe Air really takes off, the applications created with it will work on any OS, allowing users to easily migrate to a new OS (say, from Windows to Linux) without sacrificing their use of applications they’ve come to know and love.I think it can now truly be said that with the emergence of these kinds of accessible technologies that true alternatives to using Windows are just a stone’s throw away.

Last week on Thursday, February 21, a 6.0 earthquake rocked northern Nevada and was felt in Idaho and Utah as well.  In response, the Salt Lake Tribune wrote a traditional article about the event.  However, its coverage didn't stop there.

The paper decided to ask readers who felt the quake to describe what they noticed and where they were at the time.  These responses were mapped on a MapBuilder map to give a graphic representation of where people felt the earth shake. 

In Monday's E-Media Tidbits column, Amy Gahran of The Poynter Institute highlighted this nifty map.  Kim McDaniel of the Tribune explained to her that this map wasn't originally designed to examine the quake; it was originally used in November to show where holiday lights were located in the Salt Lake area.  After the quake hit, she and her team had a great idea and implemented it.

It is very important to note that newspapers of all sizes can launch great interactive tools.  This ability is not reserved for large papers like the New York Times that can create sexy flash presentations like the one about box office data that Todd mentioned yesterday. 

Granted, it is easier said than done, but creativity and fast thinking — sometimes coupled with services like MapBuilder — can go a long way for any newspaper trying to report better and connect with its audience in meaningful ways.

I was excited to see Tina Fey host Saturday Night Live over the weekend since the episode basically marked the return of new scripted TV after the writers’ strike ended (further, it is helping me stave off the cravings for new 30 Rock). After laughing during most of the skits, I visited the SNL site on nbc.com to watch the “I drink your milkshake” skit again, and that’s when I noticed the official SNL wiki.

Of course, there are already other SNL wikis — like the one on Wikia — but I was a little surprised to see one on NBC’s site. Don’t get me wrong, I see the value of such a feature for a popular TV show website, but it seems to me that SNL doesn’t attract a crowd that is inclined to use wikis like the audience of a science fiction show like Star Trek. Granted, a wiki doesn’t need too many people to thrive, but why does NBC think that SNL needs a wiki before another show like ER or one of the Law & Order series? (more…)

Version 6 of the open source Content Management System, Drupal, was released last week. We are really excited about this release, as we specialize in Drupal and have been playing with the beta releases of this version for many months now. Version 6 represents a significant step forward for Drupal. You can see a breakdown of all the new features here.

Since The Bivings Group builds a lot of websites that feature multiple languages, we are particularly excited by advances in Drupal’s language support. In previous versions of Drupal, to run websites in multiple languages you pretty much had to hack into the Drupal code and make it work using duct tape. It wasn’t pretty. Drupal 6 is the first release to natively handle multiple languages. The new release allows for:

• On the fly creation of multiple versions of the site in different language, including custom URLs.
• The ability for site visitors to set language preferences themselves, so they can control what language the site is in when visiting.
• Support for both left to right and right to left languages out of the box.
• Most importantly, the ability to manage pieces of content in multiple languages.

This last point is particularly important. Below is a quick breakdown of how this works with screenshots taking from a video demo by birdmanx35.

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