TeeBeeDee is closing down

TeeBeeDee is an online community for the 40+ crowd. Was. It's just given two weeks notice.

I don't think online communities can support a niche crowd like that at a profit right now. I think that advertisers are pouring their money into FaceBook (despite data that indicates MySpace is the social network of choice for adults). Someday the market may splinter, but I think that with sites like FaceBook, we who are over 40 can also network with those substantially under 40. My friends on FB include my kids, many of their friends, and fellow volunteer firefighters. They range in age from 16 to, well, even older than me. And that's one of the benefits of the social network.

How to Make Twitter Useful

While Twitter use is still very low among most nonprofits' desired demographics (5% of those 45-54 years old tweet, and fewer of folks older than that), its popularity among the media is sure to make those numbers grow, especially among those who are highly wired.

Maybe no one is following you right now, but if you start posting tweets on topics where your nonprofit is the expert, then clever use of hashtags will propel your messages around the twitterverse. For example, I'm following #swineflu and so I'll see lots of tweets about swine flu that have that hashtag, even if I'm not following the users who posted those messages.

This is a great way to reach the mavens on the issues you cover.

For more on hastags, see the Twitter Fan Wiki

Rick...

When to test-drive a new web site design

Recently we've received several emails inviting us to come to a newly designed nonprofit web site, and to take a survey expressing how we feel about it. Among them was one for the newly redesigned RedCross.org site.

Doesn't it make more sense, however, to invite some of your regular visitors to your site BEFORE you invest all that money in design?

Jakob Neilsen, the guru of usability, recently said, "Even the tiniest amount of empirical facts (say, observing 2 users) vastly improves the probability of making correct UI [User Interface] design decisions."

Given that, why not (a) invite a few regular users of your site to tell you how they use it and what's wrong with it, and then (b) invite a few users to the newly designed site BEFORE it's launched, and let them tell you what's STILL wrong with it, before you invest thousands of dollars in developing it and promoting it.

If you need some further advise on usability, give us a call.

The twitter limit

How many tweets are too many?

One nonprofit I follow went from one every few weeks to 5 or 6 a day, including inane posts like "Is it Monday again?" There are a few very smart people for whom I've turned off posts to my phone because I can't stand the traffic. My rule of thumb? If you try to have more conversations with me in a day than my wife does, you're over the line.

And if I "unfollow" you once, or set your account so I don't get posts to my phone, you cease to exist for me on Twitter. I suspect that's true of most followers.