Jeff Hester

Poking around the intersection of KM and Social Media

Archives for October 2008

GOTV: Text messages vs. Robo-calls

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A couple years ago I helped build this site for researchers at Yale studying the effectiveness of various “get out the vote” efforts. Scott Beauchamp (a colleague from my Winfire days) dropped me a note yesterday saying the site was linked in a couple of places from a great article on Slate discussing the contrasting responses from McCain’s well-known robo-calls and Obama’s extensive use of text messages. 

On the surface, robo-calls and text messages may seem like equal nuisances, but anectdotal evidence suggests that Obama’s text messages have been much more effective. 

With a little thought and it’s easy to understand why. A text message is permission based and less intrusive. I had to provide my mobile number willingly to sign-up for Obama’s text alerts. And I can read them when it’s convenient. In contrast, I have never received a recorded message that didn’t piss me off just a little. Who wants to be interupted by a recorded message? Not me. 

Hats off to Obama for his great use of this technology. And be sure to vote on November 4th.

Visual changes in WordPress 2.7 revealed

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A few days ago, the WordPress blog unveiled the visual design of the upcoming WordPress 2.7 expected to be released in a few weeks. While this won’t offer dramatic changes to readers of this or any other WordPress-powered blog, it offers some really nice improvements for those of us who publish a blog. 

Here’s a preview of the new dashboard:

The new dashboard is really a great improvement, with at-a-glance views of the stats effecting your blog. I also like the “quick post” feature and the ability to reply directly to comments. An already amazing product is getting even better. 

Pinging your network

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I got hooked on the concept of Twitter when it took off at SXSW 2007. I don’t often have time to write an essay, but I can generally manage 140 characters. Over time, I’ve tried and tested a number of Twitter-like micro-blogging networks. Jaiku, Plurk, FriendFeed. And social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook allow a similar status update. 

Ping.fm on the iPhoneI like to test a lot of different things, and some contacts use one network or another. I don’t have the time or energy to bother with the care and feeding of all of these networks. 

Enter Ping.fm. The name pretty much describes the service, allowing you toping your various networks all from one place. Once you gone through and configured your networks, you can enter your update from the web, from a mobile phone or iPhone, or using your favorite instant messenger.

Ping.fm automatically converts URLs to shortcuts. You can post links to Delicious. And you can keep all your various networks up to date. 

There is even a custom URL option that will let you use Ping.fm to post a new blog entry on your self-hosted WordPress blog (with this plug-in). 

It’s still a young web company, and Ping.fm is still in beta. Fortunately for you, it’s a pretty stable product and as of September, the beta is now open. Check it out.

Project Friday

Project Friday

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My schedule this week gives me this Friday to do whatever the hell I want. And today, what I want entails tackling some personal projects that have been hovering overhead for some time. And I’m using Things for the iPhone to help manage it all. 

Things is a nice little commercial iPhone app that dovetails with David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology for time and task management. I was using Todoist for a while, which is a nice, free web-based to-do list. I experimented with Jott, which is notable for its voice-driven interface. But so far, I like Things simple, no-nonsense interface. 

So what’s on my plate today? 

First, I’m doing a little rearranging right here. I’m updating the blog theme to make better use of screen real estate in general, and the right column in particular. I’m also going to be updating WordPress and some 

plugins in preparation for next month’s release of WordPress 2.7. And I’ll be adding the top content, making it easy for new readers to find the “greatest hits” (yes, there are a few). 

Next, I’ll be working on my two big forum sites, GetGamer and BigBlueBall. I use vBulletin on both, and they are both ready for upgrades to the latest versions. I’ll be adding a storefront to the GetGamer site in preparation for the holidays, and fleshing out the design mockups for BigBlueBall (which hasn’t been refreshed since 2005!). 

If you feel like checking in or throwing a little morale support my way, leave me a comment. I’ll also be online throughout the day, so feel free to drop me an IM.

Oh, and for you design geeks out there, check out Cultured Code’s “making of” Things for a pictorial that shows how they designed Things for the iPhone UI.