somnus's blog

Mash Everything Togather and You Get...A High-Function Custom Extranet

I have been working furiously over the last couple of weeks to get a new extranet online for IPREX, the international group of public relations and communications firms my company belongs to.

The mission was to see if we could get an extranet built in under a month, at very low cost, with some highly specific functions. Using pre-existing online web tools was theonly way we could have accomplished these goals.

Some of the tools we ended up using:

Ning: Provided the back-end framework.  I initially went with SquareSpace, which is much more customizable than Ning and is what we are now using for our public-facing site, but it did not have enough built in community functionality to make things work the way we wanted as fast as we wanted. The recent addition of Ning Apps made adding our Huddle sites far easier. However, Ning's lack of integrated document management is making implementing a document library FAR more difficult than it should be (Ning provides 20GB of space and an image and video library, but nothing for documents outside of adding 3rd party apps, or attaching documents to individual notes.). I may revisit SquareSpace for version 2.0 of the site though - It’s a great environment for rapid development.

Huddle: This was our pre-existing site used for permissions-controlled document storage and discussions. It can be integrated into Ning via the Ning Apps extensions. Huddle is a very powerful tool and the permissions settings are critical for some of our needs - however I am fearful that it will be too complex for some IPREX professional to want to use on a regular basis.  I am looking for a simpler solution for everyday use and whant to stick with Huddle only for the things that require it (various committee, project, and executive document libraries, etc.).  If Ning just had an integrated document library, I would be a happy (and far less sleep-deprived) guy!

Google Docs: Used for a minimal-permissions set of documents that benefit from greater ease of use for end-users.  It's my current, less-than-perfect, interim documents "semi-solution". The ease of sharing documents in folders is heavily countered by the fact that shared folders can still only have documents and other folders created in them by users with full permissions on the Google Docs workspace (and that’s a separate login from Ning, making it FAR less than ideal.)

Google Spreadsheets: Google spreadsheets, and their integrated forms tool, was a life-saver.  We had a requirement to have users input data in for Awards (and other data types). That data then needed to automatically populate a database and the most recent five entries needed to be displayed on the home dashboard. I created a Google spreadsheet form to handle data input and linked to the form from a Ning tab (I could have also embedded it on a Ning page). It made a really elegant database solution...for free!  I figured I'd then populate the last five entries on the Ning page via an RSS widget. That lead me to the most frustrating 8-10 hours of work I have had in a long time. Google provides a really easy way to publish spreadsheet data to an RSS feed. Unfortunately, the feed it produces is a completely malformed bunch of crap that is unusable by any RSS widget or feed reader on the planet (at least with my data).  Nothing could make it work right…no matter what I tried…until I finally used…Yahoo Pipes.

Yahoo! Pipes: Thank god for Pipes!!! By switching Google Spreadsheets to publish the data as a CSV feed (Nice job on the multiple formats Google. At least you provided away to work around the crap RSS feed), I could then get properly formatted CSV data into Pipes and use the magic of Pipes scripting to output a useable RSS feed. Pipes is a godsend and Yahoo! Should be thanked for it daily. Thanks Yahoo!!

WidgetBox: I needed some custom tabbed RSS widgets, and WidgetBox, as per usual, made quick work of the task, an inexpensive pro-account gets rid of all the ads and produces rock solid widgets. I must also compliment Ning here again. They make Widget embedding really easy.  Thanks Ning! (WidgetBox also works really well in Facebook, MySpace, etc. too. Thanks WidgetBox!)

TwitterTracker: A great embeddable app, that began life as a Wordpress plug-in (I breifly concidered trying to do the whole site in Wordpress...I seriously think it could be done...but a challenge like that is not made for a time-line like ours) that we are using for tracking twitter mentions on-site. It highly customizable and works well in a group setting like ours

NewsShare: A great way to share interesting websites with our members. It even allows ongoing commenting. It's built by SlinkSet on top of Posterous...so ya know it's cool!

Google Calendar: We are using the Ning events system to allow individual users to set up events, but we also needed a global IPREX calendar of events. Google calendar provided an very good solution, with an embedded widget providing up-to-date info on global events to our members. A belated thanks Google!

Foursquare formally launches 'Foursquare For Business' today

Foursquare is a location-based social game and activities finder that lets users describe and discover activities that are nearby where they hangout.  Played mainly on mobile phones like the iPhone and Android-based phones, Foursquare started by rewarding virtual 'points' and 'badges' for participating in activities.  Frequent visitors to a location could also vie to become the 'Mayor' or 'Deputy Mayor' of some locations and sometimes the venue would reward the Mayor (if the venue was a bar, the mayor might get free drinks).

Foursquare today fomallized thier business program as 'Foursquare For Business' where they actively assist business in setting up loyalty programs based on Foursquare.

Jennifer Van Grove at Mashable wrote an article on it today called "Foursquare Beats Twitter to Local Advertising Goldmine"

Foursquare is something we have been discussing at Tunheim Partners since earlier in the year, and I am certain we will soon start seeing it used as a key tool in local vanue promotion soon.

YouTube allows non-profits to overlay donation buttons

I was catching myself up on Beth Kantor's blog this morning and found out in a guest post by Michael Hoffman that YouTube was now allowing members of their Nonprofit Program to embed overlays at any point in their videos that allow viewers to go off-site to make a donation.

This a a huge boon for non-profits who are funded, at least in part, through donations. It works just as well for petition drives for social change campaigns. It's also a great way to get viewers more information and get them signed up for further contact, even if they don't end up donating.

YouTube should be commended for providing great functionality especially since they know people might not come right back to YouTube after clicking off-site.

Facebook launching Persian translation tonight

Facebook's continued interest in being a part of the political dynamics in Iran has lead to them pushing up the launch of their Persian language translation of the entire Facebook site to tonight.  They also would, undoubtedly, like to catch some of the media attention that has been going to twitter as a top enabler of political communication and organizing in otherwise censored Iran.

The site will be machine translated, but user corrections can be submitted.

Was the timing of the new Facebook search beta influenced by events in Iran?

Undoubtedly, Facebook needed feed search and public profile/page search just for functionality sake.  And, undoubtedly, it was feeling pressure from Twitter addicts/researchers/marketers/reporters to have information remain relevant beyond the couple hour (or less) window of a person's feed (especially with feeds only covering a small portion of the info available to a Facebook user).  But, I have to wonder if the events currently unfolding in Iran also had anything at all to do with the timing of the beta roll out too..? Even if just a little.

Consider...

1) Facebook was widely used as part of Mir Hossein Mousavi's political campaigning in Iran. The same has become increasingly true with Twitter.

2) Facebook has been sporadically blocked by Iranian officials throughout the past 18 months and during the protests has been almost completely blocked by the government.

3) Profile, page and public feed searches on Facebook would provide continuity of information over time for those Iranians who cannot access it for hours or days.  Without search, much of the citizen journalism from Iran becomes, essentially, "lost" just due to it ending up obfuscated by newer posts.  The same thing happens with information going into Iran and information coming from Iran's campaigns and organizers.

4) A government ban on posts that might cause "unrest" can be complied with on it's face (posts can be removed, etc.), but they might (depending on functionality) still be available via search.  This would provide a lot of political/legal cover to the Iranian poster.

5) The Facebook engineer who announced the search beta, Kari Lee, concluded her blog announcement post with the following statement:

I'm interested in the latest updates on the aftermath of the Iranian election. By entering the term "Iran" in the "Search" field in the upper-right corner of any page on Facebook, I will see up-to-the-minute results from my friends and the Facebook Pages of which I'm a fan, not to mention people who have chosen to make their profile and content available to everyone. I'm able to discover what blogs and news sources my friends are following, what my friends are saying about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and how people in general are reacting to the election results.

While the beta won't be able to address the issues of the currently unfolding situation in Iran due to it's small scale, the widespread roll-out of search very well might help Facebook remain relevant for the next "situation".  And it would not surprise me if that was on the mind of at least a few folks over at Facebook.

 

Facebook starts beta of full feed searching this morning. Finally!

Facebook is starting beta testing of new search functionality that covers pretty much everything posted by your friends and pages you are a fan of (basically anything that could appear in your feed).

It also covers everything published by anyone who has a public profile or page. This is huge.  This is not only functionality that will be very helpful for the individual casual Facebook user, it will be of immense help to folks who are using Facebook as a research and promotions tool for their cause or business (or meeting their story deadline). They will finally get something more akin to Twitter search but covering the diverse content of FB (Photos, notes, posts, and comments galore!)

Admittedly, search will still be limited by privacy settings, but that is neccasary and does not much dilute this huge step forward.

ONe side effect I can see is pushing folks to establish both a public (marketing) profile and a private (personal) profile so they can have publicly searchable content for the whole community to see.  I'm on the fence about this but leaning against (and which Facebook strongly discourages...mostly by deleting accounts). I'd say, stick with a page for that sort of thing...

(As per usual, they announced it with a random blog post by an engineer at 9:30pm the day before.)

This can't be fully rolled out quickly enough, in my opinion!

I'm hoping they open up public search outside FB (and not just to Microsoft as per one of thier last search partnership deals).  This would make the business and research side of this functionality even more desireable.

(My friend and colleague David Erickson at the e-Strategy blog, has been pining for this for years...so if anyone can get him in the beta...right after they get me in...there will be a bag Twizzelers in it for you...the big bag too...with the ziplock!)

Ramona Quimby: The Children's Theater Company is just so darn good!

I had the great pleasure of seeing the stage production of Beverly Cleary's 'Ramona Quimby' at the Children's Theater Company (CTC) in Minneapolis Minnesota.  I've probably seen 10-12 plays there and every time I am blown away by the quality of the acting...especially how good the kids are.  All the kids (and adults!) in this production were great, but I thought 5th grader Scarlett Thompson was exceptional as Ramona. She projected excitement well and she projected her voice even better. Maeve Coleen Moynihan as Ramona's big sister Beezus and Katie Law-Gotich as Susan also do particularly great job too.  I really enjoyed the acting, the play, and the fantastic set design.  My Kindergarten daughter, 3rd grade son and his friend also really liked it a lot (and my daughter is notorious for disliking theaters of any kind, staged or movie).  We have been to many of the productions with friends and family from out of town, some of whom are professional actors and they are all amazed at the quality of the CTC facilities, production values and actors. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful venue in the Twin Cities with such great professionals and wonderful talent!

 

If you have kids, get some tickets and go (by the end of the week though...it only runs until June 7th!)

All my calls belong to Google Voice

I'm switching all my various phone numbers to my Google Voice number.  I am not at all good at checking my voice-mail in a timely manner.  And that is not good business and is not fair to friends and relatives either.  But until now there has been no good, easy, and inexpensive way to not need to listen to voice mail if folks want to leave you verbal message (and some folks still do, I guess.  And my mom will probably never text me...no matter how many times I show her how).  But Google Voice offers voice mail transcription for free.  When someone calls me and leaves a voice mail, that voice-mail is then transcribed by Google and emailed to me within a minute or two  (the audio is also emailed, so I can listen to those bits where Google couldn't quit get it right).  And now I can finally check my voice-mail during movies!!!  (That was a joke.  I was soooo kidding there! Just a joke Barrett!). Unfortunately, Google Voice is only available now to former users of the Grand Central call routing service.  But it should be widely available soon (maybe once they figure out how to make any money with it...which someday Google may need to do...)

If that's your real name...

Interesting.  Jennysmith806 (if that's your real name!)  just posted a comment on my post "e-Strategy online marketing site goes live!". 'Her' comment was entirely plagiarized from from an Australian government site called e-strategyguide (a guide to promoting websites).

Jennysmith806 wrote:

Keywords need to relate to your website. Avoid being too general or your listing will get lost in among thousands of other sites. For example, don’t use ‘football’ but rather something like ‘kids football club’; don’t use ‘child care’, use ‘ Richmond childcare’.

It seemed to be clearly a spam comment that got inserted based on the phrase "e-Strategy" in my post.  There is no Jennysmith806 blog on Vox and Jennysmith806 does not show up in a Google search.

Yet there was also no link in the comment and no promotional message.  I have no idea what's going on with this.  It seems to be targeted comment spam with no rational behind it. 'Guess I'm going to have to do some further investigation...

Fake Whois used in DDoS

I ran into an interesting, and troubling, situation today where some folks I know received an email informing them that their domain was being used in a DDoS attack on a website in Australia.

The really weird things was that the website listed in the complaint email was one they had never heard of.

At first glance, it appeared to be some kind of phishing email.  But, upon digging further it turned out that the domain the complaint named was indeed listed under the address and phone number of my associates for technical, organization, and billing contacts.  Only the email address was different (clearly a one-off yahoo mail address).

Someone had lifted the contact information of my associates from, either one of their legitimate domain registrations, or from their corporate site and used it to register a domain at Yahoo! Domains. The domain was then used in a DDoS attack and the blame (at least initially) fell on my associates.

There is no reason that whoever was behind this could not have inserted my associates corporate email too, leaving no trail at all (especially if they uses a stolen credit card number for the transaction, as I suspect they did).

With enough domains falsely registered under a single company's contact info, not only could a DDoS service be launched, but the spoofed company could end up spending a tremendous amount of time clearing their name and getting rid of the spoofed domain registrations. A double DDoS. One virtual. One real.

I have to admit, I'm actually surprised I haven't heard about this being a widespread problem...it certainly seems like it could easily and quickly become one.

I must give a plug for Yahoo here ...once contacted they quickly shut down and canceled the domain and promised to investigate further.