Welcome to a bright new day!

Barak Obama not only uses a Blackberry, he uses Twitter. ComBridges not only does custom-designed websites, we are now offering cool, cost effective templates and CMS publishing systems. The times they are a'changin' in so many ways. We hope to help you take advantage of all the new kinds of opportunities and benefit by reading the offerings below. Enjoy.

 -- Jon Leland

Tapping into Twitter's Tremendous Buzz

Despite the fact that Twitter is arguably the “next big thing” and certainly one of the fastest growing websites and communication channels in the online universe (you may have noticed them being integrated into CNN among other places), I’m sure that many of you don’t know what it is or (like I was not long ago) are wondering "what is this good for?"

Thanks to an online miracle (I got a free pass through a relationship on Facebook), I ended up as a guest attendee at Federated Media Publishing’s Conversational Marketing Summit (CM Summit) last month. One of the highlights for me was Federated’s founder John Battelle’s interview with Evan Williams, chairman and chief product officer at Twitter.

Williams, who also co-founder Blogger.com (before selling it to Google just a few years ago) had the quote of the day as far as I was concerned when he said, referring to Blogger’s startup in 2003, “things moved much slower back then.” I discovered at the CM Summit that Twitter is a lot more than just social comments like "I'm tired and going to bed." Thought leaders like Barrack Obama and O'Reilly Publishing's Tim O'Reilly, for example, have Twitter streams; and companies like Dell Outlet have Twitter streams that provide customer updates and special offers. Thus, Twitter is really a new kind of communication channel as much as it’s a social networking platform.

While Twitter famously asks, "What are you doing?" publisher Tim O'Reilly mentioned the other day (yes, via Twitter), "I rarely use 'what r you doing', (I) use 'what do you find interesting?' & 'what r you paying attention to?' " Personally, I agree and have been able to find a pretty fascinating collection of people to follow who are definitely "tweeting" things that I'm interested in, find useful, occasionally entertaining.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s hard to keep track of how fast things are moving when things are moving this fast.

In case you'd like to join this online party and networking opportunity, here are some useful links to help you get started on Twitter:

Good article on the basic practices of a successful Twitter user: http://mashable.com/2008/11/10/twitter-community/

More of Tim O’Reilly’s excellent perspective is included when you download the free excerpt of his company's $249 Radar report, "Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution: Communication, Connections, and Immediacy--140 Characters at a Time": http://radar.oreilly.com/research/twitter-report.html

I am “joncombridges” on Twitter. Follow me! :)

Also, FYI, video clips from the CM Summit are available here.

Making Music on the Web for Michelle Schmitt

Keeping pace with music industry magic, ComBridges had the pleasure of supporting singer/songwriter Michelle Schmitt with a website redesign just in time for the release of her new album “Another Winter.”

Updated music clips in MichelleSchmitt.com’s custom-designed, embedded MP3 player and a refreshed animated slideshow compliment a richer graphic design that interestingly enough was inspired in part by her MySpace page.

Michelle’s music comes from the heart and is well worth a listen. A free download of her new track “These Little Pills”, an intimate song that reflects the suffering of drug addiction is particularly poignant http://michelleschmitt.com/these-little-pills.html
 

For a Limited Time—New Template-Based Websites

While ComBridges is best known for custom-designed websites, we've been experimenting recently with some template-based designs that take advantaged of web-based publishing systems like WordPress and Joomla!

We've gained access to some pretty snazzy templates, these platforms have come along way in terms of their features, and we've progressed nicely in our ability to customize these sites so they are quite professional-looking. Other advantages include the fact that these kinds of websites offer a more cost-effective "on-ramp" to the web for smaller organizations while also offering our clients the ability to self-edit web content, assuming a willingness to take on a relatively modest learning curve.

For a limited time, we are willing to take on website design projects using these systems and associated templates in order to learn if there is a sweet spot where we can deliver ComBridges quality at a lower price point. If you are interested, please contact Jon Leland directly via the Request More Info form on our website or via phone at 888-530-5505 x1. Or click here to check out our custom website design portfolio.

Perspectives on Our New Web-Savvy President

The New York Times did as good a job as anybody documenting "How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power." Obviously, the Obama campaign did a phenonmenal job "on the ground" as well as on the web, building an unprecedented grass roots movement. 

I've been blogging about his "online organizing guru" Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, and I love the fact that Obama's team has already broken new barriers in moves toward transparency that are demonstrated by their Flickr photostream from election night (The historical significance of this move is explained here) as well as by having already launched their (our?) new website, Change.gov.

Besides the fact that I believe Obama to be a leader of authenticity and honesty as well as of exceptional talent and profound purpose, what is really exciting about his web-savvy initiatives is the promise of a new kind of government that listens to the people (see the invitations for input on Change.gov) as well as a government that participates in two-way conversational media with the people. What a concept!

Please check out my tech blog for more interesting links and views about Barak Obama and his "digitally native" administration, as well as for upbeat music videos and more. FYI, I also post lots of fun Obama-related stuff to my Facebook profile page if you would like to hook up there (I'm 'Jon ComBridges' on Facebook.)

Like I said, it's a bright new day. Enjoy.