danliveshere.com » Web 2.0

My Video Interview on The Row Show

Dan — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:22:11 +0000

I was able to do an interview with the guys at Row27 on their VCasted show: The Row Show. This is their 5th episode and I’m really impressed with not only their content (Interactive Sports Marketing Tips) but the production is killer. Nice After Effects (I think) transitions and graphics. Just like websites, it isn’t all about the design, it’s about the content that goes in the design… but the design helps augment the content. This can be said about their show. We discuss Live Video Streaming, CoverItLive for live blogging during the playoffs, the relaunch of iamatrailblazersfan.com, passive engagement vs active engagement, how Toyota’s Hybrid Social Net (preview blog post) was an inspiration for a feature in the iama and more. After watching the interview, things I learned, I talk a lot. I think I need to work on having a dialogue. We used Skype and the audio got a little funky. Sometimes I looked like I was in a 70’s Kung Fu movie. I look tired. Man, that was right before Game 6 and we had been up consistently until 2am getting stuff done for the site. Big props to Jason and Jonathan for showing the intiative and starting this. Thanks for reaching out. Let me know anytime you would like a guy that talks a lot, looks tired and will try to throw his voice. I know a guy. Episode 005: Dan Harbison of the Portland Trail Blazers from Jonathan Dusing on Vimeo.

USA Today Article

Dan — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:46:37 +0000

danstwitter badge

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 way.

Our Twitter Badge

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.

Not Big Into Tag Clouds – But I Do Like Wordle

Dan — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:49:13 +0000

Wordle.net

I’ve never been into sloppy Tag Clouds. They always seem to be organized, but really not usable. They might look cool, but I never use them to actually navigate someones site. Really, that’s too bad as tagging is a great way to actually help your readers know what you’re talking about. Thanks to Pat Coyle for the heads up about this link. It is a site that creates a cloud or a visual representation based on indexing your site. It isn’t about tagging or having you organize anything. It is just a visual representation on what you talk about. That is what tag clouds are really. A display on what you talk about, not really a mode of navigation. I like this better as it is indexing and pulling out the topics you talk about on a regular basis, not just 10 tags or so that you use a lot. Go ahead, make your own Wordle. It’s a pretty cool Java app. If you’re on a Mac, use Safari instead of FireFox or Flock. Just a heads up. Leave me a comment with a link to your own Wordle, I would love to see them.

Innovative Approach/Design to Blogging

Dan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:27:09 +0000

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.

Social Design Blog bokardo.com

Dan — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:15:33 +0000

I try to keep the number of RSS Feeds that I subscribe to a minimum. I have read about people like Robert Scoble that read some insane number of RSS Feeds a day, I just don’t have time. I find that if don’t read the RSS feed in over a month, I dump it. I look it almost like subscribing to someone’s email list. If I haven’t read their email in awhile, I should really unsubscribe… unless it is IMPOSSIBLE to unsubscribe (I’m looking in your direction eHarmony… subscribed for purely research purposes, I swear). A blog I have recently subscribed to their RSS feed and have been extremely happy with is the blog bokardo.com. Written by Joshua Porter/a>, author of Designing For the Social Web, the blog details examples of good and bad design throughout sites that are in the Social Web space (ie Web 2.0 sites). Below is an example of his review of the homepage of Freshbook’s homepage.

I still need to pick up his book which was recommended to me by David at Substance. This is a space that I continue to look at for inspiration. A lot of the social networks and social sites that have been built out have been built with development in mind, but the experience or UI is secondary. How will people use the cutting edge functionality that your company has invested in if your design and UI was the last thing that you looked at, and didn’t invest really any money or time in… that is a bridge that a lot of people like to cross after they have gone live with their site. I think this is a mistake. In this day in age, there are so many sites out there, first to market IS extremely important, but having your users understand how to use it is equally important. If you turn people off once they get there, you’ll have a hard time with them being a regular user. Then your competitive advantage is wasted because you will have to rehaul your design and relaunch. This approach is how we are looking at iamatrailblazersfan.com v2.0. We’re bringing in a lot of new features, so our UI and design needed to be really solid to support these features and to make it easy for people. The team at Substance has been amazing and I’m really excited to bring their designs to life over the summer. We will learn a lot once we get live, but if we just went with some generic skins, the Trail Blazers brand wouldn’t sing in the site and fans would become frustrated. We will of course need to change, evolve and learn once we go live, that is inevitable. BUT, because we took the extra time with the UI, I believe (and the focus groups we’ve held believe) that this will a design that will support the community.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: socialnetworks, iamatrailblazersfan.com, substance

Mobile Social Networking?

Dan — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:54:54 +0000

Great post on TechCrunch today talking about the future of social networking (I Saw The Future Of Social Networking The Other Day) Mike Arrington talks about a company that he has seen that could be diving into waters that Facebook and MySpace have yet to fully embrace, Mobile Social Networking. Yes, there are mobile version of both of these sites, but neither harness the power of your mobile phone. The mobile phone is an amazing device that continues to get crazy cooler as the months go by. Not once have I ever regretted waiting in line and dropping cash on my iphone. There are few things these days that I at least don’t double guess myself from purchasing later (ahem, Netflix… at times). Back to my point… mobile phones are no longer your phone, they are your microcomputer. You can do a run a ton of apps on your smartphone that eliminate having to use your laptop. So this is quickly becoming a replacement in someways, and in others an augmentation to people’s digital experience (web, video, photos email). If you have this microcomputer everywhere, why not have your web experience be in relation to where you are at. You see more and more mobile phones tying in GPS (Boost does this, iPhones Google Maps has a triangulation feature). Having contextual information of the people that you are having online relationships while you are interacting physically. Arrington’s thoughts:

Imagine walking into a meeting, classroom, party, bar, subway station, airplane, etc. and seeing profile information about other people in the area, depending on privacy settings. Picture, name, dating status, resume information, etc. The information that is available would be relevant to the setting – quick LinkedIn-type information for a business meeting v. Facebook dating status for a bar.

So picture being in arena at a Trail Blazers game and you fire up your iPhone. You are able to do a multitude of things on your phone, watch instant replays from different angles than what was on the big screen, get coupons for the merch store, and firing up your social network to see who in the arena is there that night. A map comes up and shows all your friends’ thumbnails and where they’re sitting in relation to you… so you can say “hey”! You could also see in general others at the game that you might not have met yet, or the guy who sits next to you that you’ve become friends with is on iamatrailblazersfan.com, but you never knew. The game operations people can see use this to create a better experience based on the psychographics of the people in the arena that night. A snapshot of tonight’s crowd might say that 85% of the people sitting there that night are fans of Jay-Z, so they’ll play more Jay-Z that night. All of this could be possible. It sounds like Arrington saw a start-up that is harnessing the iPhone SDK to make this happen. I’m really excited to see what happens. I really think this could be an awesome addition to existing social networks for Facebook, LinkedIN, MySpace, Flickr and also niche sites like our iamatrailblazersfan.com or MyColts.net. Having something like this only available for one phone is a problem. It would need to be cross carrier/cross model. Alas, that is a problem with our system in the states, standardization is lousy on mobile phones. That’s for another post.

Searchfest (Passion) – SXSW (Over-reaction)

Dan — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 05:43:49 +0000

Two things stood out for me today… 1) Passion – I was on a panel today with Paul Colligan at Searchfest 2008, and he has passion for what he does. He has several podcasts and is a person neck deep in social media/web 2.0. If you ever get a chance to pick his brain about all things in the Web 2.0 space, do it. I will blog tomorrow about the presentation. 2) Over-reaction. Wow, there was a TON of buzz on Techmeme and blogs throughout the internet about the SWSX interview of Mark Zuckerberg (founder/CEO of Facebook) and internet reporter Sarah Lacy. People were just SLAMMING her on the blogs and in the audience at this session of SXSW. I’ve linked to the video from allfacebook.com. I guess after all the hype, I was disappointed as she didn’t do that bad of a job. She kept it casual and tried to have a conversation with Mark. She obviously has a past and tried to showcase some of those stories. Yes, she does a lot of self-promotion of her book, and no, she doesn’t get extremely technical… but by no means deserved the rousing she got. Someone in the audience heckled her for asking bad questions and then turned around and asked the most generic question in the world “What is the biggest obstacle to Facebook”. That’s like asking a band your interviewing, who their musical influences are. If you know who your subject is, you won’t find out anything new, therefor it is a question just to ask one. She could’ve improved this interview if she would’ve had some specific direction on where she wanted to take it, rather than a fire-side chat with Mark. That I think would have shaped up better. ** UPDATE ** WordPress makes it way too hard to post video on your blog. Seriously, I wanted to embed the flash video from Viddler and it is taking too much time to hunt around for a plugin. I don’t freaking care that WP is “protecting” us. Thanks, I’ll start looking for another platform. In Blogger I could work on html in my posts. This is retarded, and no, it isn’t user error. I’ve been searching for 1/2 an hour and this looks like a common issue. Poop on WP today. ** UPDATE #2 ** Scoble has blogged about the Sarah Lacy/Mark Zuckerberg interview. Pretty solid post (as usual from Scoble). Great point by him… know your audience. She didn’t, and therefor went in directions that they didn’t like. Of course, unlike what these people are used to, they couldn’t just go to another site, they were “stuck” there in person. Also, after consideration, there is a way to handle heckelers and that was not the way. Either don’t acknowledge them, or have a solid comeback. She did neither. Having been in radio where most interviews are live, I’ve seen my fair share of really bad interviews, and this my friends, wasn’t THAT bad of an interview.

Conferences, conferences, conferences

Dan — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:24:44 +0000

Ohhhh, the web. It brings us all together. We talk to each other on email, IM, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace… and probably something crazy that I haven’t heard of. Buuuuuut… people who like the web, and who talk about the web like to go to conferences. Probably to meet others because they bore their everyday friends talking about “social graphs” and “api’s”, or so I’ve been told. So, I’m in San Diego at PacNET, our ticketing provider’s (Paciolan) annual conference. I’ll be presenting about Web 2.oh and how we’ve been using it at the Trail Blazers. PLUS, I’ll be talking about SEM (we’ve done a little of that) and multi-media with your websites (we do that too!). I think I’m going to be tired of talking, and if you know me, you know that doesn’t happen often. Another sweet ass conference is in New York right now… Sports Marketing Web 2.0 conference. My colleague, Pat Coyle has put this together to bring the people who bring sports marketing onling… all in NYC. This is a series of conferences that we’ll all be trying to put on over the next couple of weeks. I can’t wait to be able to attend one (I’m in San Diego for PacNET, read the paragraph above)… so I’ll have to wait until March. It’s a bunch of guys and girls from sport teams (most of them pro teams) and talk about the good and bad things that are going on in our world. We’re shooting for one to be in San Francisco in March. Who wants to go? If you are interested in this space, let me know, I can invite you to the Sports Marketing Web 2.0 social network. Yes, the guys who like to develop social networks have a social network. It’s like putting a mirror up to a mirror that reflects that mirror into a mirrrr….. ahhh my brain broke. I’ll be speaking at an Internet Strategy Forum on February 20th… we’ll be talking about what clients want out of agencies. And I’ve seen both sides so I’ll have to change order myself when scope creep sets in… wait, isn’t that supposed to happen in private? I’ll also be presenting at SEMPDX, SearchFest 2008 on March 10th. I did it last year and loved it. This year it’ll be at the Portland Zoo! Sweet ASS! Should be fun. I’ll have an update as we get closer. Oh yeah, Jack has a new video up. He’s dope.

Really Johnny, all over the place…

Dan — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 06:01:35 +0000

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.

SEMpdx Search Fest ‘07

Dan — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 01:41:00 +0000

On Wednesday I will be speaking on a panel with other Web 2.0 enthusiasts at SEMpdx Search Fest 07. The panel will consist of:
Web 2.0 / RSS
Utilizing RSS Feeds as a Powerful SEO Tool
Doug Hay, Expansion+;
Janet Johnson; SnapNames;
John Anthony Hartman, Feedia;
Dan Harbison, Portland Trail Blazers;

I’m always excited to interact with other people who understand why Web 2.0 is exciting and share ideas on what we’re all doing. I also get really excited to brainstorm on where we go from here.

One constant battle I see from Web 2.0 is the amount of crap that gets out in the internet. Now with Web 2.0, everyone has a voice and everyone has the ability to converse. My thought of Web 2.0 is to improve the knowledge that is out there. A collective brain is smarter than a singular one. You can have more rounded knowledge on a larger breadth of topics if you have multiple people who are experts in their own field. Where it breaks down is not having a “crap filter” on comments, or tags. Many times I have gone to someones MySpace page, looked at the first 5 comments and then bailed… instead getting carpal tunnel by wading through 200 comments and scrolling down to the bottom of their page. That is what I consider poor use of Web 2.0. Having all those comments didn’t better my knowledge of who that person is, or help me decide if I want to be friends with them. A lot of the time it’s for some DJ’s party in St. Louis or someone’s really bad hip-hop that they made in their mom’s basement (DJ SharpTongue I’m looking in your direction…) Editing on Web 2.0 by authors and users is essential. Wikipedia does a great job of doing that. Allowing everyone to contribute, but if it’s crap… out it goes.

I will post my presentation about Web 2.0 and what we’re doing at the Trail Blazers after the panel on Wednesday. I recommend you check it out if you are interested in SEM. Here is a quick “3 questions” I did with their blog.