This past weekend I did an interview 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 way.

We plan on continuing Tweeting, during the playoffs we’re using it to keep the conversation going with fans and also promotion different pieces of engaging content on our site (like live game blogging, play-by-play modules, and post game live video stream). We’ve promoted the hashtag #uprise and you can see the Tweets from the people using it to showcase if they’re talking about Trail Blazers Playoffs 2009.

I see us continue to use Twitter and integrating it more into the design of trailblazers.com and especially the new version of our social network iamatrailblazersfan.com. Being able to push content out of iama, or bring Tweets in is a project for the summer to get ready for the 09-10 season. Seeing such a mainstream influx of Twitter users (1,382% year over year in February) we’ll need to incorporate the ease of use of that platform into iama. Even for my own sake, I don’t want to have to update two or three different sites. I want to update one, Twitter, and have that update iama and Facebook. Or vice versa, update Iama and have that update Twitter and Facebook.

I wonder about Twitter being such a mainstream phenomenon. I think that a lot of people are going to check it out, see their favorite celebrity Tweeting and leave about a couple of months. I’ve heard a lot of people that “don’t get it”. Not all people are content contributors. Even celebrities aren’t content contributors unless it is good content. Now you’ll be more engaged in the mundane content that they create (ate some cake for example) than a random person, but after awhile, that won’t become interesting. That’s why Shaq has been so successful. He’s an interesting person. He writes interesting content. Not all people can carry that… that’s why when people really really want our players to Tweet. If they can’t do it consistently or make it interesting, I don’t see why they would want to on either side.

Here’s an old post from June 2007 about using Twitter.

I’m always on the lookout for new and innovative designs for sites. I think that is one of the many things that always intrigues me about the web. When people combine art with functionality. I’ve seen plenty of sites that make you just go, ummm what? “What does this do?” “Why am I here?” or “How do I get this to do something… oh look something shiny!” I do really enjoy when I find a site that really shines in functionality and design. (This is why I dig the guys at Substance so much. They do a great job saddling the two concepts, design vs function).

I found about a cool site through a ’round about way. @richjoslin posted a link to a design blog in a FriendFeed room “Web Design, The Good The Bad, The Ugly”. The design blog is called Cult Foo. They have a compliation of a bunch of different sites to check out. If you have 1/2 hour to kill, check it out (the tag cloud, literally, on the top with the fixed position and use of .png transparency is a nice touch). One of the site on there is what inspired me to write this post – Digiguru.

Digiguru is the blog/portfolio site for Craig Jaimeson in South Africa, a flash and front end designer. The site that he created is a full flash one with a clean calendar interface. It has several nice touches including Full Screen, permalinks using SWFAdress and smooth transitions. The site functions well, and allows him to create large graphics to convey his message instead of typing a bunch of paragraphs. I like this approach because if he doesn’t want to write a large dissertation, he doesn’t have to. That is where I feel blogging is difficult, writing something that matters. This is a simple way to convey a message, and if you need to add some text so you understand what the message is, so be it.

I would love to see is some sort of further organizing on the site. Either a tag cloud or even a stream of titles of posts so you know what some context the content is about. There aren’t any room for comments. This might be a tough thing to handle, but I think a timeline, or some way to inject two way communication would be spot on.

I would love to see if this could be an open source project. Now that would be cool. Be able to distribute this as a blogging engine/presentation engine… hell, I would even pay some cash for it. Not a ton, under $50, but if he’s looking to recoup his investment.

Let me know of other sites that have inspired you, as I’m always on the lookout.

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 and the use of video on the site. She does a great job of bringing you into the snapshot of her life by “lifecasting” (I like the video with the cam on her head talking to herself at a coffee shop admitting that she looks insane)… it doesn’t seem fake, but is far from boring. It’s not like watching some dude in his mom’s basement playing air guitar or talking about Open Source on how it will save the world. She walks around her normal day and edits it into video clips and broadcasts it. Very much like reality TV, but unscripted… or at least it appears so. I didn’t notice any stunt doubling.

BTW the video site she uses is Viddler. Totally dope site. I’ll do a post later about them.

So the hunt is on for another part of my team. I guess the guys at Substance and I will be competing, who can get the cooler person first. I think they have me beat due to the collection of electric guitars at their office. I think I have the organ from the Memorial Coliseum somewhere.I told you this was all over the place… and now, you can stop the circus music playing.