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29
Apr

USA Today Article

Category: Web 2.0, microsite, oden vs durant, portland trail blazers, social networking, social networks, substance, twitter | 1 Comment

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="73" caption="danstwitter badge"]danstwitter badge[/caption]

This past weekend I did an interview via email with Arian Karimian for USA Today about Twitter. He created an article and posted it online, here’s a link. It was interesting to remember why we started using Twitter and seeing now where we’re at.

We started using Twitter in 2007 right after we got the #1 pick in the NBA Draft. Immediately I knew we would be getting a TON of more traffic to the site. I wanted to create an extremely robust experience for new fans that were curious about the team. The big question that people would be coming to ask, Will it be Oden or Durant. I went to the guys at Substance and asked, how fast can we create a microsite for this subject.

The guys at Substance rocked and created an amazing microsite that took about 14 days to create. One of the features was a Twitter Feed. I had heard about Twitter, but saw the application for us immediately when they framed it in the site. It totally makes sense as a way to pull back the curtain and let them know what is going on, especially during closed door events like draft workouts.

Back in 2007, there wasn’t @replies, only broadcasting. But as soon as those became functional bringing in conversation into the application made sense. We had a period where we didn’t use it as much as we do now, but I would say 50% of our Tweets now are @ replies.

Another feature that wasn’t around in 2k7 was Twitpics and the like. A picture tells 1,000 words, let alone 140 characters. If that was available during the draft, that would have gone a long…

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20
Jun

Really Johnny, all over the place…

Category: Web 2.0, brandon roy, flash, microsite, oden vs durant, substance, twitter | 1 Comment

This post is all over the place, so much I’m redoing this first sentence, bear with me as I have brain diarrhea in the next couple of paragraphs… I’ll work on being more succinct later.

Things are moving at a fast pace at the Portland Trail Blazers. Brandon won Rookie of the Year, we win the lottery, we launch a microsite, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant come into town this week. Hectic.

I’ve heard about Twitter for some time, but the guys at Substance who did the microsite suggested we use Twitter in the microsite as a way to push the info about the draft process and the inside look of what is going on. It’s been awesome. I can’t say enough cool things about Twitter. If you haven’t checked it out… do so today. We’re updating as frequently as possible and encouraging fans to sign-up for mobile alerts. When we update the feed, if you’ve subscribed via mobile, you’ll get a text message with our latest updated. My feed is here and the Portland Trail Blazers is here.

Also, we’re hiring at the Trail Blazers… I’m on the lookout for someone who I can off-load some of the production work that I get to, but don’t have enough time to really really push the design and interactive envelope. I’m looking for someone who understands where the web is tomorrow, not today. I really need someone with solid Flash skills and CSS background. I know, a tall order… BUT I’m hopeful. I am looking for an Interactive Specialist.

One person’s blog I found off of Twitter was iJustine at Tasty Blog Snacks. I have to say I’m impressed with the content…

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