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A while back, I wrote a review of the Amazon Kindle, basically concluding that it was neat, but not something I personally wanted to spend several hundred dollars on. However, I was willing to spend several hundred dollars on a first generation iPhone, and since the release of the fancy new iPhone 3G, my phone has been updated with the ability to do a lot more tricks. I was very excited to learn that I could theoretically use my iPhone as a reader, without having to jailbreak it,therefore voiding my contract and warranty, and running the risk of messing my phone up beyond repair without having the necessary skills to fix it. (For the uninitiated, “jailbreaking” the phone would entail hacking into it and installing applications it was never meant to have, creating something of a Frankenphone.)

I took a virtual trip to the Applications Store, and was pleased to find a free application called eReader. Sweet, I say to myself! This should be just the thing! The application works with hardware I already possess, and all I have to do is pay for the content! I’ll never make a panicked trip to Barnes and Noble, or have to express ship something from Amazon ever again! I’ll be the most literate person in the world, since I’ll have every book ever written in my little hand bag! O, the life problems this solves!

See if my literary hopes and dreams get squashed, below the fold…

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It’s easy to take web conventions for granted, like the fact that the logo links to the homepage, and is featured at the top left. Often, when we put our recommendations together, we put some basic information in about what should be where. Because our suggestions often reflect well-worn conventions, our clients accept them.

But once in a while, a client will ask the unthinkable: “How do you know that is the right thing to do?”

When this happens, you need to be ready to explain yourself, or you look like you are Just Making Stuff Up. Recently, one of our clients asked us about the search box – “Where should the search really be placed?”

In addition to our experience doing user testing (where we get to see people responding to various designs in real time), we look to studies like this one from SURL, and then look to build on our knowledge through documented experience where possible.

The SURL study shows the areas that the user looked to find internal search on a site, both for new and experienced users (the darker the area, the more likely a user looked in that area of the page).

Additionally, we can find case studies like this one (pdf), which walks through one site’s search change and the results. It shouldn’t be surprising that their efforts, moving the search box to one of the key locations identified in the SURL study, produced results.

So there you have it, for the search box anyway. Next up… well, what do you want to know about?

In 11+ years in association management, I’ve been on both sides of the Request For Proposal process more times than I can count.  My very first Big Task at my very first association Real Job way back in 1997 was to complete an association management software system selection.  Which, of course, included writing an RFP (after I met all the vendors, but that’s another post).  Flash forward to the past few weeks, when I’ve been inundated with RFPs that require responses (looks like everyone’s already focusing on the fall).  I’ve seen the good – the bad – the ugly.  I’ve seen it all.  You name it, I’ve written it, seen it, or responded to it.

I’d like to think I’ve learned a few things along the way.  The MOST IMPORTANT THING I’ve learned is don’t do an RFP unless outside forces (i.e., your boss or board) are conspiring to force you.  If you’re on board with that, you’re done.  Skip the rest of this post and go get yourself a margarita, with my compliments.

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Lately, when I’m in need of pictures of an online project, whether it’s a blog post, an email, or a landing page, I’ve been turning more and more to creative commons licenced work over stock photo galleries. Using resources like the ones named in this post, you can quickly find the images you need without the hassle or expense of licensing. Flickr makes this even easier, with a “creative commons” tag  search you can add to your search queries which includes whether it can be used for commercial purposes (which I generally don’t need) or altered (which is more likely).

Creative Commons is built on the idea of both serving the public and protecting content creators:

Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which “all rights reserved” (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species.

But Creative Commons only works if people contribute to it - I know that my photos on Flickr are always tagged as free to alter, but not to use commercially - I’m happy if someone wants to use one in a blog post, but if they’re going to make a profit off of it, I’d like to share in that. There’s a benefit for the content creator not only in contributing to society’s openness in general, but also in getting work out there, attributed to them.

This certainly isn’t to say that commercial libraries don’t have their uses - if I need a high-resolution photo, or a very specific one, particularly if it needs to include people, I generally end up at iStockPhoto. But photo libraries carry a liability that many creative commons licensed photos do not: the greater likelyhood that the photo you’re using is also being used by your competitors, whether that’s other non-profits in your space, the corporation you’re protesting or just a commercial product that people are familiar with. Good photos in a stock library can be recognized as such by more than just you and sharing photos this way can remove some of your authenticity. With the greater variety of creative commons photos out there, it’s less likely than with commercial houses.

As both a content creator and a content consumer, consider using the creative commons licence. For more information on Creative Commons, check out the FAQ here.

When a couple of Beaconfire folks got back from South by Southwest Interactive Festival 2008, we were talking about the minimal representation of nonprofit organizations and pondered, why can’t nonprofits “celebrate the creativity and passion behind the coolest new media technologies” too? Well we put our creative heads together about what we could do about it and came up with, what we think, is a really cool way to showcase some of the ways nonprofits can push the envelope to engage a wider, more active audience online. Now, we just need you to help us make it happen by voting (and commenting) on the SXSW panel picker!

Three teams. Two days. One special ingredient.
THIS is Iron Chef America…Battle Non profit.

Our nimble Chairwoman, the incomparable Beth Kanter, will bring together the best of the best for this epic battle at the 2009 South by Southwest Interactive Festival (March 13-17th). Each team of 3 web experts, chosen from the leaders in the non profit marketing and social media sector (including Beaconfire and Free Range Studios), will meet in the heat of Austin to offer one small deserving non profit organization a delectable 3 course meal featuring: a tasty new homepage, a well-seasoned fundraising campaign, and a perfectly balanced social networking & marketing plan.

We need your help to get there: vote for us on SXSW’s 2009 conference panel picker! Layered with explosive technologies, unique concepts and best practices like you’ve never tasted before, this will be a battle for the ages!

Before South by Southwest, the three teams, each consisting of a designer, a marketing consultant and a social networking guru from different companies, will have 48 hours to collaborate and produce the final “Dishes”, and document the experience. In Austin, at the SXSW panel session, each team will serve their final “menu” to the client and the panel audience, who will vote in real time according to the following categories: unique design & visual concepts, out-of-the box strategic thinking, and the best use of social networking technologies to support the goals of the “special ingredient.”

Who will prevail and change the future for one lucky organization? It’s up to YOU. Vote for us now so that we can whip up this meal and then join us at SXSW and vote for the best team!

It’s no small task to wrangle a website and its resources in one language - let alone multiples.  If you’re taking the time and making the effort to post multilingual content, you’re creating potentially valuable assets for your users around the globe.  You want to make sure that the content is represented accurately and is accessible. 

Recently one of  our clients asked us to weigh in on the presentation of multi-lingual content on their site - an organization with members around the world that produces publications, trainings and other web-specific content in a number of languages. The client wondered how to present the information in an accessible and useful way to their users.

While not an exhaustive list, these points can serve as a backbone for your multilingual content presentation.  The first distinction to make is whether the site is fully mirrored in multiple languages or if it is presenting a limited number of pages.

If the full content exists in multiple languages, providing tabbed navigation to each language (with the full built-out resources under each) is an effective presentation. The International Center for Journalists’ IJNet site does a good job of this. When you click a language tab, the entire page content and all navigation swap out to the language you’ve selected. You don’t want to promise more content than you can deliver, though, so be careful of setting up a parallel nav structure and re-directing users back to English content for non-translated content.  The effect is jarring and, frankly, inconsiderate.   

If your multi-lingual content is limited, you want to make sure you don’t portray the fact that when you click on a language, you’re getting the same content in another language. Presenting a limited number of resources is best handled by directing users to “Resources in…” (or Pages in or Materials in – whatever works best for the audience). A user can then click through to a landing page that aggregates the non-English content by type.

Link placement on the page is critical. Links to multilingual content (even if it’s not a full parallel site) should be displayed prominently and placed above the fold. Providing content in multiple languages takes a significant investment of time and resources. And if you are making the investment, you most likely want to showcase the international consideration and reach of your organization. What you don’t want to do is force users looking for non-English content to hunt around the homepage to find the link, effectively negating the time and energy you’ve put behind developing these resources.

The visual and functional treatment of links is vital as well. The easy one first, you don’t want to use as the visual representation of languages. While they may provide a dash of color, flags represent countries, not languages. What flag would you use to represent Portuguese language content – Portugal or Brazil? Don’t even get me started on the options for Spanish language content.

Another bad idea… including a drop-down menu with language choices. This treatment does save space within your page layout but it creates a challenge for languages that are character-based such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

While listing out each of the language options in their “native” spelling may take more space, it allows non-English reading users to identify their preferred language easily. Also, displaying each content language also serves to showcase your organization’s commitment to international audiences.  InfoComm currently does this on their site.    In addition, to ensure they appear correctly you should use images for the nav items, as opposed to text based labels, to ensure that the labels display as intended. Most computers can handle all language characters but some cannot.

Where should limited multi-lingual resources live on the back-end? I’d suggest they live in the file structure with the parallel English pages. That way, the file structure makes sense in terms of linking and, if (when!) the content grows to a level where a parallel or sub-site can exist, it will be easy to find & identify the resources.

If you are presenting multilingual content, Kudos!  If you’re considering it, bahati njema, Bonne chance,  Buena suerte, Danke, Good luck, Lykke til, Sretno and Желаю вам удачу!

Beaconfire will be presenting at the 2008 ASAE & the Center Annual Meeting, which will take place at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, CA, August 16-19, 2008.

Beaconfire senior consultant Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE, will be presenting in ASAE’s new Social Media Lab with Amy Hissrich, Director, Knowledge Initiatives at ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership on Tuesday, August 19 from 8:30 am – 9:45 am. Participants will experience the benefit of real time collaboration through a hands-on demonstration of the latest in association wikis. We will discuss lessons learned and tips for success, and attendees will have the opportunity to try their hands at real-time editing of Associapedia entries.

Follow the links below to read recaps of some of the specific sessions at the Bridge Conference that took place here in Washington, DC July 23-25.

• Integrating Social Media (Andy Steggles and Suzanne Carawan)
• Breaking Out of Your Creative Comfort Zone (Jon Duschinsky)
• General thoughts on the conference

Many of the presentations are also now available for download at the Bridge site under Presentations.

Editor’s note:  Periodically, we do a survey of Beaconfire staff to get impressions on a variety of non-profit technology issues. All opinions expressed here are solely those of their authors. With the new iPhone out on the street, we thought we’d ask our tech-savvy staff: Do you plan to switch to the new iPhone? If not, what feature are you waiting for?

Mark, Functional Consultant: iphone is not currently compatible with metro (other than getting next train info above ground, outside of the system), so heck no. Start giving me a choice of carrier, including Verizon, and then maybe…

But then again, the cost is exorbitant – especially for someone like me who only occasionally reaps the benefits of the mobile internet. I’m hardly ever more than a few feet away from a desktop or laptop for most of every day, so it’s not like I really NEED it.

Sure, at the cheapest iphone is only $200 for the 8 GB version, but add in the ongoing service fees and you’re out quiet a lot. ATT’s basic plan is $70/month for unlimited internet and 450 minutes of talk time – and NO text messages included. So that comes out to $1,040 total cost of ownership in the first year at the cheapest. No thanks

Lynn, Principal Consultant: I’ll only even think about an iPhone if they extend carriers beyond AT&T.

Eve, Creative Director: A a current iPhone addict, it was tempting to upgrade but I resisted for a few reasons. First, I didn’t wanna fix what ain’t broke — Im so in love with this device, I didn’t want to do anything that would come between us, including the 2.0 firmware update that I could implement right now if I wanted to. Secondly, I’m holding out for a 32gig model so I don’t have to pick and choose what music/media I can have on it (as I need to do now with my 8 gigger). Lastly, the “new” features that are only available on the 3G (like speed, outlook synch and others) are not as high on my priority list like picture SMS would be.

Maybe when I’ve had my baby for a year around xmas time, I’ll take the plunge.

Kristin, Project Manager: No, I’m not going to upgrade because I like my super tiny, low-tech phone that only makes calls and sends text messages. However, if I was considering replacing my phone, I wouldn’t go with the iPhone because it’s on the AT&T network.

Tim, Functional Consultant: I’m not planning on upgrading.  I am as dissatisfied with my current phone as I’ve been with any other phone I’ve had.  At least this one came nearly free with my Verizon plan.   I don’t hate it nearly as much as I would if I’d paid hundreds of dollars for it.  Oddly, since I am a bit of a gear-freak, I’m not looking for a phone to do more; I don’t even need the camera in the phone I have now, never use the internet, and don’t play games.  I suppose, when it comes to phones, I’m a bit of a Luddite.

Eric, Senior Consultant: When the put a respectable hard drive on the iPhone and make it available for carriers other than AT&T, I’ll upgrade.

Shiloh, Production Specialist: I will not be upgrading to the new iPhone, as I have poured all my extra gadget cash into the Wii.

Kate, Administrative Assistant: I’m quite happy with my old iPhone, especially since it means I get to stay on the more inclusive old AT&T plan. I was also able to get a bunch of new updates and new applications that were released with the new phone. (For example, the free application “Shakespeare.” I now have the complete works of William Shakespeare hanging out in my phone, taking up negligible space.) I’m rarely an early adopter, but I think that it’s paid off for me in this case.

John Brian, Marketing Consultant: I probably won’t buy an iPhone until they add functionality like copy/paste and the ability to run things in the background. The app store is nice in theory, but the way Apple has to approve all apps and patches, combined with preventing apps from integrating with features like the phone and iTunes keep it from really letting users get the most out of their phone. Plus I’m not wild about having to switch to AT&T.

Rahul, Tech Lead: I’ll wait to buy it when it’s either $50 bucks or Free. The Motorola razr was similarly priced when it first came out and now is given away for free for the basic version.

Why pay full price when Apple will have to subsidize it under impending competition from other market players that are approaching to or have already exceeded the hardware capabilities of the iPhone.

The Android OS by Google will make a level playing field in the new cell phone wars.

Taylor, Software Engineer: Reasons why I am resisting the temptation to get an iPhone

4) Not only is it a lot of money to purchase the iPhone itself but then I would start paying for monthly internet on my phone and I’d probably want to buy apps and download more music, etc. I don’t want to open all those doors.

3) I find it healthy to be disconnected from the internet for portions of the day (ie. My 7 minute commute) 

2) I have been very impressed with the reception I get with Verizon and I have NO interest in switching to AT&T

1) I can get the red sox scores by text messaging google and that is really all that matters!!!

Ali, Marketing Consultant: I share my fellow coworker’s opinion on two points: cost and provider.  I’ll switch to the iPhone when the former shrinks and the latter widens.  Either that or when my Verizon Q dies.

Elizabeth, Senior Consultant: Although I really want one, I also really like t-mobile, so until Congress steps in and requires carriers to unlock phones so you can use any phone with any carrier, I’m probably sticking with my Razr.

.Arlene, Office Manager: No I don’t plan to upgrade.

I was just putting together a Google AdWords buy for a client, using the AdWords Offline Editor (which is a fantastic tool that I recommend for anyone in the SEM biz), and as I ran a check to make sure my ads were valid, I got this message:

Google’s policy goes on to ban the use of more than one exclamation point anywhere, repeated question marks, and, best of all, SMS shorthand like “U” for “you.” These sorts of things are my pet peeve, and I’m glad to see that Google’s running a “stupid filter.”

Compare that to the practices of many banner ad servers: the more annoying the better. Case in point (animation removed for everyone’s sanity):

Does this signal a generational shift in the culture of advertisers? Google Ads are designed to work be as relevant to your content as possible, and Google works with their advertisers to increase clickthroughs, creating a sort of reverse revenue share with their content scores.

Banner ads, on the other hand, are often irrelevant to the story, and don’t really ad value to the reader - they’re the cost of doing business for a free internet. Yet for all the different ad blocking software out there, I haven’t seen this kind of zeal for blocking adwords (though if you really want to, here’s a client-side way).

As both an advertiser and an internet user, I’m hoping we’ll see the web move in a more SEM-style direction here. Providing value to your users rather than annoying them into looking seems to be a solid strategy for everyone, and I hope the market will come to reflect that.