Philip Greenspun suggests small organizations use a blog for their website (ironically, not blogged):

The Small Business Web circa 1994

In 1994, a small organization that wanted a Web site would hire a “Web designer” skilled in the exotic art of “HTML programming” to produce a static Web site, i.e., a cluster of linked pages with a distinctive design and color scheme, giving information about the company or non-profit org. None of the pages would have a date on them because, by definition, nothing on the Web could be more than four years old.

The Small Business Web circa 2009

Managers of new small enterprises or established non-profit organizations sometimes ask me “Whom should I hire to build my Web site?”

I ask them what they want the site to do. The answer is to promote their business and distribute some basic information to customers. What they want is a static 1994-style graphic designer-produced Web site.

I explain that publishing on the Web is like producing a word processor document or writing an email. Would they hire a designer to write their documents and emails? No? Then why would they hire a designer to build their Web site?

he goes on…

Installation

Simply download the plugin, place the entire folder in your WordPress /plugins/ folder, and activate.

Usage

It currently uses Clickatell’s gateway services, though more could be supported in the future. Once you get login credentials to Clickatell’s http gateway you can start sending messages easily.

Simply instantiate the class with your credentials:

$mysms = new wpSMS( $API_ID, $USERNAME, $PASSWORD );

Then send your message:

$mysms->send( $YOUR_MESSAGE, $TO_PHONE_NUMBER );

How you create the message or get the destination phone number is up to you.

Screenshots

• You’ve found an interesting book in our library, but who wants to write down the location and call number when you can text it to yourself?
  
• Clicking the “text this to me” link takes you to a screen where you preview the message and enter your mobile number.
  
• The received message includes all the details you need to find the book on the shelf.
  

twittervision and twittermap show new tweets wherever they appear on the map, TwitterWhere let’s you follow tweets at a specific location, and Ask500People has nothing to do with Twitter but does show you global opinion. Live. While you watch (so they say, anyway).

In an interview on NPR, The Diana Chronicles author Tina Brown says “Diana had represented feeling, and the end of the stiff upper lip,” but the Princess comes off sounding a bit like a harbinger of the Cluetrain. Yes it’s all about the Royals, the glamor, and her dramatic death ten years ago, but take note of this exchange:

Renee Montagne: “The Royal Family is probably stronger than it was when she died.”

Tina Brown: “Yes, it’s true, but the Royal Family have also learned a lot from Diana.”

We saw that with [with the Queen's response to] the seven bombings in London. The Queen in the past would not have gone to visit the victims until her [schedule allowed], instead she flew straight to the scene, went into the hospital and visited immediately the victims. And she made a speech, an impromptu speech from the canteen of the hospital, which was absolutely unheard of for the Queen. These things had always been very scripted affairs and this one wasn’t. She spoke like a human being, from the heart.

Brown says a Palace official told her “This was something, really, we learned from Diana.”

And when Brown met with Diana in 1997, just months before her death:

she said to me, “I wish I could make them understand that they need to reach out more. They have to show that they are feeling people and they care,” but she said, “but I can’t get through to them. They need a different kind of advice.” And it’s very sad that within two months she herself was dead, and they saw she was right, really. And they’d never admit it in public, but they do admit it in private.“ (emphasis added)

Seven years after Cluetrain, Much of this will sound familiar now. Indeed, Brown’s story of Diana’s fight to make the Royal Family human is echoed in many of the Cluetrain theses:

• 25: Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.
• 34: To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.
• 35: But first, they must belong to a community.

Whatever the causality, the lesson here is clear: ”The Royal Family is probably stronger…“ ”Yes, it’s true, but the Royal Family have also learned a lot.“

Princess Diana, cluetrain, royal family, Princess Di, Diana, Tina Brown, The Diana Chronicles, Princess of Wales, blog voice, communication, blogs, blogging

College sports are big business, so recruiting student athletes is big business. The NCAA limits the times coaches and recruiters can call or visit athletes, but text messages are all fair game. For now.

The Chronicle of Higher Education explained in an October 2006 story:

Before Chandler Parsons committed to play basketball for the University of Florida, his cellphone buzzed more than 100 times a day with text messages from college coaches.

The attention flattered the 6-foot-9 high-school senior from Winter Park, Fla. His cellular plan included unlimited text messages, so the onslaught did not run up his bill. And in some cases, the quick exchanges helped him get to know prospective coaches.

But the novelty soon wore off. “All these different coaches would text me saying the same thing,” he says, like “Hey, great game,” or “Look forward to hearing from you soon.” To make room for new messages, he had to empty his inbox twice a day. “It got a little crazy,” he says.

Now, the NCAA has proposed a ban on text messaging and is set to vote on the measure today.

Whatever the vote, it’s clear coaches had not only tapped into a loophole in NCAA rules, they’re following the trend in communications. A 2004 study in South Korea revealed a preference for texting over emailing, with two-thirds of students saying they rarely email, but SMS messages were up 40% year over year. A July 2005 Pew Internet Study found US teens preferring texting (via IM and SMS) over email — “email is increasingly seen as a tool for communicating with ‘adults.’”

sms, texting, ncaa, recruiting, ban, text messaging, text messages, college sports, communication, student athletes

Ryan tried to tell me about it a month ago, Jessamyn gets the idea but uses Facebook instead, DeWitt fell for it, Ross said it tipped the tuna, and now I’m finally checking Twitter out. I signed up yesterday and immediately went looking for ways to connect Twitter, Plazes, and iChat.

Tweet is an AppleScript that works with Quicksilver (a launcher) and Twitterrific (a desktop Twitter client) to make updating even easier. Matt Matteson updated it to set iChat status, and Ruben Broman added Plazes integration.

What’s it good for? Think of it like a snack-sized micro mini blog if you want. Or think of it like chatting with your 500 (or 5 million) closest friends. Or think of it as another way of extending personal presence in the electronic age, little bits of information that exist in the environment.

twitter, Twitterrific, chat, chat status, communication , community, plazes, twazer, tweet

I happened to stumble back onto the Pew Internet Report on teens and technology from July 2005 that report that told us “87% of [US children] between the ages of 12 and 17 are online.” But the part I’d missed before regarded how these teens were using communication technology:

Email, once the cutting edge “killer app,” is losing its privileged place among many teens as they express preferences for instant messaging (IM) and text messaging [SMS] as ways to connect with their friends.

To them, email is increasingly seen as a tool for communicating with “adults” such as teachers, institutions like schools, and as a way to convey lengthy and detailed information to large groups. Meanwhile, IM is used for everyday conversations with multiple friends that range from casual to more serious and private exchanges.

It is also used as a place of personal expression. Through buddy icons or other customization of the look and feel of IM communications, teens can express and differentiate themselves. Other instant messaging tools allow for the posting of personal profiles, or even “away” messages, durable signals posted when a user is away from the computer but wishes to remain connected to their IM network.

Interesting. Connect that with a 2004 Korean study of student’s communication practices that revealed more than two-thirds of the 2,000 respondents “rarely use or don’t use e-mail at all.” Why?

…it’s impossible to tell whether an addressee has received a message right away and replies are not immediately forthcoming. [...] “The new generation hate agonizing and waiting and tend to express their feelings immediately,” said Professor Lee. “The decline of email is a natural outcome reflecting such characteristics of the new generation.”

Interesting. American teens say email is for old people, Korean high-school and college students say it’s too slow, and UNH’s students tells us they chat away an average of 9.3 hours a week in AIM.

aim, aol instant messenger, communication, im, instant messaging, instant messenger, short message service, sms, technology, teens, the death of email, youth

I noted Aaron Schmidt’s points on IM in libraries previously, but what I didn’t say then was how certain I was that popular instant messaging clients like AOL Instant Messenger or Yahoo!’s or Google’s are far superior to the so-called virtual reference products. Why? They’re free, our patrons are comfortable with them, and they work (three things that can’t be said about VR products). Ah, heck, just take a look at what Michael Stephens was saying about them last week (as quoted by Teresa Koltzenburg at ALA TechSource):

“Back in 2002, my library jumped into the virtual reference game, and we wrote a gigantic check to an unnamed VR company. We spent the summer doing intensive training. I was training at that time at my library, and I designed a four-session, four-hour-apiece training course to get people comfortable with this huge, scary thing that was virtual reference.”

According to Michael, after the large initial investment made by his library in the VR product, plus probably another $5,000 on the training, and the staff time spent promoting it, his library’s virtual reference service, via the vendor-supplied software, “fell flat on its face.” He explains, “After you pulled your users into this Java-enabled, chat queue, they got the message, something like, ‘Hold on. The library will be right with you.’ Then the whole thing would crash. What kind of message were we sending with that one?”

IM, for SJCPL, was meant to be a temporary VR fix, but as of today, says Michael, “It’s permanent. We cancelled that contract on the unnamed VR product, said ‘good-bye,’ and today we use IM. I can’t tell you enough how great it is.”

Perhaps I like this story because it gives me another chance to bang the drum on my not invented here story, but the point is that none of this need be expensive or complex. And while I’m tempted to suggest you ask the kids in the young adult section about it, the truth is that AIM is larger than that, it’s just another facet of our ballooning internet use.

AIM, aol instant messenger, change, changing modes of communication, communication, communication technology, im, instant messaging, modes of communication, aim, virtual reference, library, libraries, reference desk, reference, future libraries, library 2.0, lib20

There’s a bit of discussion of AIM’s role in personal communications over at Remaining Relevant. I mention it here because I’ve been thinking about this lately.

We’re seeing some great shifts in our modes of communication. Take a look at how “webinar” technologies have changed sales forces. The promise is lower costs and faster response time, but it also challenges our expectations and the skills of the salesperson. Now imagine the generation of kids who are growing up with AIM entering the workforce. Imagine how much more effectively and naturally they’ll be able to communicate remotely (and also imagine how they’ll probably not tolerate today’s mostly one-way “webinars”).

IM will significantly rearrange the communications landscape, even if it may not completely replace any previous mode. My worry is my doubt about my ability to communicate effectively and naturally in the communication mode that is so common to a generation just younger than mine.

aim, im, instant messaging, aol instant messenger, changing modes of communication, modes of communication, change, communication, communication technology

My Treo rocks. Part of my love for the new gadget is how I can now AIM on the run without SMS. Sure, I risk frostbitten fingers as I walk across campus and I’d probably be a lot better off if I just called the person, but…but…

Anyway, Everything Treo was near the top of my Google query with a roundup of three commercial IM apps for Palm. But none of the reviewed apps seemed all that great, and I sort of expected to find a free client. The Treonauts review wasn’t much help either, and I was about to give up when I found Atomig Cog’s Toccer, a completely free, still-in-beta AIM client. It’s plenty capable and seems to be in active development (five releases since mid-August).

A couple features I didn’t think about before I started looking include directly connecting to AOL (some clients use a proxy), background receiving (because fully-synchronus IMing is frustrating), and support for the five-way nav clicker.

palm, treo, IM, AIM, communication, mobile phones, cellphones, instant messaging, AIM client, mobile communications, chat

My wife Sandee cringes at the suggestion that she’s a geek. She writes poetry and teaches English, she cooks fabulous meals and dances all night long. Surely you’re mistaken she’ll say. But she does have a laptop, a digital camera, and an iPod. And she immediately saw the value of having a computer in the living room when MP3s replaced CDs many years ago. So you’ll point to all of this and ask for a clarification and she’ll explain that her use of technology does not make her a technophile any more than her use of a car makes her a NASCAR fan.

So it was a bit of a dilemma last week as she was packing for the NCTE and National Writing Project conferences at which she was presenting. Her hotel offered free WiFi, should she bring her iBook?

The answer was surprisingly easy: of course she did. Her computer doesn’t solve her technology needs, it answers her communication and social needs. She used it to email, to send photos, and take notes. Then, during a three-hour layover in Philidelphia she shared it with friends so they could check their email. And after the email was checked, they played word twister.

To many, this may seem only natural. But let me emphasize the obvious: computers and computer networks now offer real value to those who don’t value technology. This is driving the success of social software. This is the coming of the information age.

tags: anti-geek, antigeek, communication, communication technology, geek, information age, living room technology, social software, technology, technology value, word twister

Zach made me take another look at Zimbra, the web-based, web 2.0-smart, very social and AJAXed up collaboration, email, and calendar suite (plus some other goodies).

Go ahead, watch the Flash-based demo or kick the tires with their hosted demo. I think you’ll agree that it looks better than anything else we’ve seen yet. Part of the success of the project is that the developers appear to understand the problem. Here’s the list of how broken email is from the white paper:

• Email has changed dramatically since the advent of the World-wide Web
• The number of messages per day is up by an order of magnitude or more
• The amount of storage required for our mailboxes is up by two orders of magnitude or more
• Email has grown from the original one-to-one communication model to also include one-to-many (as mailing lists have displaced bulletin boards)
• Email applications are often responsible for managing calendars, group scheduling, contacts, tasks, public folders, and so on
• Email applications also often manage shared documents (think “content management-lite”) and even ad hoc document-oriented workflow among users
• Email applications are expected to trap ever more sophisticated and ever higher volumes of spam and viruses
• Email platforms are growing into unified messaging platforms by incorporating support for fax, voicemail, and instant messaging (including integrated anti-spam and anti-virus)
• Email applications are now also being asked to implement retention and discovery policies (such as for compliance with Sarbanes Oxley)

You can also call me a fan of these two lines:

[E]mail has changed sufficiently that we’re no longer quite sure what to call it: Enterprise messaging? Groupware? Collaboration?

Given the amount of time IT-intensive employees spend on email, it is ironic that innovation has reached consumer mail (e.g., gigabyte mailboxes for Google and Yahoo! users) ahead of enterprise mail!

tags: ajax, calendaring, collaboration, communication, communication model, demo, email, enterprise, groupware, groupware collaboration, mail, mailboxes, spam management, unified messaging, web 2.0, zimbra

I won’t link to The New York Times anymore, but when Ross Mayfield quotes them, I don’t have to.

The story is that life is full of interruptions. The typical office environment today apparently allows workers “only 11 minutes on any given project before being interrupted and whisked off to do something else.” Worse, “each 11-minute project was itself fragmented into even shorter three-minute tasks, like answering e-mail messages, reading a Web page or working on a spreadsheet.”

Interesting stuff. Mayfield points it out as a reason to build more awareness of this in our communication/social software. He also popped this link to Jon Udell’s post on attention economics.

tags: communication, economics, interruptions, mail messages, office environment, office environment, ross mayfield, social networking, social software, spreadsheet, typical office employee

I’m quite taken with my new Bluetooth headset, despite the little hiccup I encountered. So, naturally, I’m thinking about how it would work with the VoIP softphone that’s promised for the Pepper Pad soon. I’ve become a super-fan of Gizmo Project on my PowerBook, but that loaner Pepper Pad was a capable enough and more than portable enough machine that it has me wondering if I’d rather have a desktop Mac and a Pepper Pad when upgrade times comes. It has me wondering, anyway.

Pepper Pad + VoIP would be cool.

tags: bluetooth headset, communication, communications, desktop mac, gizmo project, mobile, mobile communications, mobility, pepper, pepper pad, powerbook, softpphone, telephone, telephony, voip, voip service, voip softphone

James Torio has been working on his masters in marketing and took a strong look at blogs for his thesis.

I looked at how Blogs have impacted business and communication, how some Blogs create revenue, how some companies are using Blogs, how Blogs greatly boost the spread of information, how Blogs add richness to the media landscape, how Blogs work in the Long Tail, how some companies are tracking the Blogosphere and what the future of Blogging may be.

Via Blogging Pro

tags: blog study, blogging, blogging thesis, blogosphere, blogs, communication, james torio, media, media landscape, research, thesis

Jenny Levine is talking about an example of The Perfect Library Blog over at The Shifted Librarian.

The posts are written in the first person and in a conversational tone, with the author’s first name to help stress the people in the library. The staff isn’t afraid to note problems with the new catalog, the web site, or anything else. Full transparency — nice. You can feel the level of trust building online. They respond to every comment that needs it, whether it’s a criticism, question, or suggestion. And some of the comments are fantastic. Users are even helping debug the new catalog.

Jenny quotes some examples, go look.

tags: blog, blogging, communication, corporate blogging, institutional blogging, jenny levine, librarian, library, library blog, organizational blogging, suggestion, the shifted librarian, transparency, trust building

We’ve all seen the ads they digitally insert on the field during football games and we’ve heard talk about inserting new product placements as old TV shows play in syndication.

Ernie Miller has been thinking about this recently. Last week he noted that folks are creating ipod-able, independent audio tours of museums.
“…Hack the gallery experience, [...] remix MoMA!” commands ArtMobs, one of the groups producing these unauthorized audio tours. In this context, the notion of hearing “things you’ll never hear through MoMA’s headphones” is an exciting example of the power of the technology/communication-enabled individual over the corporation.

On the other hand, Ernie sees parralells between this and the digital overlays described at the top. In a followup post inspired by a response from the lawfirm of Carson Bailey, he notes:

as our world becomes increasingly layered with digital data. We will be changed by this; how, I’m not sure.

Now, back to Carson Bailey LLC, the principles of which do some blogging. In this post responding to the “hack the gallery” rhetoric, they ask “whether asking students to plug in [to these unauthorized audio tours] challenges the museum’s authority as an institution or reinforces it.” But you’ll have to read the full post to know what they’re really getting at, because I’m going to take that quote in a different direction.

What I’m interested in is if the museums will try to prevent that sort of unauthorized remixing the same way recording artists have. Will MoMa start ejecting visitors sporting white earbuds? If they do complain, on what basis do they stand? Can they also prevent me from accompanying my friends and offering my tour and descriptions of the work?

Technorati Tags: audio tours, communication, ernie miller, gallery experience, independent audio, ipod, mobs, moma, product placements, technology