A little over a year ago, I entered the first ever Panthers Purrsuit social media challenge with @ape_smith (Twitter handle).   Twitter was still a mystery and I was  kicking the tires.   Purrsuit unlocked the true potential of Twitter for me.   My first glimpse was during a pre-Purrsuit TweetUp at local hotspot 15 North. Everyone seemed to be old friends with the only common link being Twitter. 

Guessing game

Could Twitter users really become real life friends?  Could Twitter really be a marketing tool?  I decided to stop guessing and find out firsthand by diving head first into the Purrsuit. I designed Purrsuit Tshirts for our team, Purrfect Storm, and engaged in serious smack talk with  @yarby, @constantineclt, @stravy and @nataliehymel. During Panthers Purrsuit I did things,  embarrassing things  like sing a rap song,  sing the Harris Teeter jingle with a random person, pose with mannequins....the list goes on.  It wasn't embarrassing at all, it actually was a lot of fun.   Purrsuit was the catalyst and my excuse was a Twitter research project to discover the true effectiveness of social media.  

And the winner is ...

Twitter by a landslide.  My experience has far exceeded any expectations.  Since Purrsuit,  I have made good friends and increased awareness for bitflip via Twitter.  I've also done many more "embarrassing" things.   Here is a pictorial journey through year one of Twitter.   All depicted activities inspired by Twitter.  Here are more pics from 2010 Purrsuit. 

Footnote:  This year I'll be returning to Purrsuit representing AdSpark Promos with @_adrianpegg as Team Five Alarm Purrsuit.  The smack talk has already started with our rivals, Team Biscuit Basher, consisting of Batman/Spiderman/PeterParker @yarby and Robin @billvoth.  Check out their "intimidating" video http://yar.by/purrsuit


Pre-Purrsuit smack talk photo of Team Purrfect Storm at SportClips

A Halloween TweetUp at Gin Mill not long after Purrsuit.  (This was a Wizard of Oz /Mayor of Emerald City costume converted into a foursquare mayor costume)


Uniform made of Google Places boxes  for a Laser Tag Tweet up.


Live tweet of a haircut not too long ago.  


Remember when the world was suppossed to end earlier this year? I tweeted photos like this around town.


Work outside day at bitflip and of course promoted on Twitter

Does anyone else out there have a similar Twitter story?  Please share your photos and story.  Purrsuit teams share your 2010 experience for 2011 newcomers.

"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things." — Henry David Thoreau

Here at Bitflip, we take privacy and security issues very seriously. So where do we go when we want to cut loose? Check out Query Katie, a social experiment  that allows you to set the status of your friends.

“The Facebook status is sacred. It's personal. That's why you should whore yours out. This site gives you the opportunity to allow anyone to set your Facebook status for you (anonymously). So, take a stand against privacy issues.”

Query Katie is more than a Facebook application, it's a growing community of people who think social media and online presence shouldn't be taken so seriously.

Customize your experience

When people set your status, they can share there experience with their friends. You can set a custom message here that will be included in that post to explain why you're using the site.

Check it out, and tell your friends. Just remember, we're still in beta. And we need a copy editor (willing to work for free), so send your resumes to katie@bitfliptech.com

Getting people through your door in a saturated market is tough, it's real tough.  Advertising helps and word or mouth is the most powerful.   But where do you have the most control?  Where should you put the most energy? Answer:  On the web.  Here are five tips to increase traffic and positive vibes that  translate to  happy patrons.

#1  People are social, people love contests

What to do with your Facebook fan ("Like")  base?  Announcing specials and events is a must.  It's a no brainer.  Take the next step.  Hold contests that encourage more interaction.  Increasing interaction ultimately leads to more exposure and more publicity.

#2 Website as a hub, think Atlanta airport

Atlanta is home to the world's busiest airport,   Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, which is also the  best place to promote the city.   Brochures, maps and promotional materials are easily accessible.   Visitor information stations handle questions.  The Atlanta Journal Constitution is always within eyesight. Gift shops peddle postcards, souvenirs and clothing.   Special events  are advertised via wall posters.  



Similarly, your website should function as a hub for your visitors.  It should link to all social networks and when appropriate include feeds.   It should display events, photos, promotions, menus, news and directions.  Visitors should be confident before walking through your door.  Make sure there are no unpleasant surprises, only happy ones. 

Here is a great example of a hub restaurant website (well designed too): http://www.giraffe.net

#3 Usable web design

All of this info on your website is powerful, but it can be overwhelming. Web design and usability is of upmost importance.   Choose a firm that knows good usability practices.  Attention span on the web is less than TV.   Keep your content concise. Display important information above the fold and make sure your main navigation is intuitive.

An affordable way to test your site for usability is UserTesting.com

#4 The Future is mobile, get your website ready

The future of mobile computing is here or at least it's approaching the landing strip.    Research shows by the end of 2011 over 50% of Americans will own a smartphone.   This means  content is more likely to be accessed on smaller screens.  Some devices  do not show Flash content.   Spend the extra effort  and demand a mobile version of your website.  It's worth it.  When your next big spender accesses your website on an iPhone and sees optimized content, the chances of an in-person visit improve.

#5 Email is still the heavyweight champion

Email is not going anywhere anytime soon.   In most  circles it is the preferred method of communication although Facebook, Twitter and texting have made a dent.  Email marketing is one of the most efficient ways to get your message out to customers.  It's instant and very very effective (when done right).   It's not about how big your list is,  it's about how many people actually open the email.   A good benchmark to hit is a 25% open rate.  This requires extra care.  Make sure the people really want to receive the communication.   Before visitors sign up tell them what and when you will be sending.   Entice visitors to sign up with email only discounts and specials. 

Here are great email marketing resources from MailChimp

Any other tips you would like to add?  Feel free to leave a comment.

A fail journey w/ five  project managment products

The bitflip team has tried many project management products over the years.   I'm a project lead on simultaneous projects and I have searched in vain for the silver bullet.   Some online products reviewed here may have improved since we tried them.  In this post I'll review the products we didn't pick at the the time and why.  There are three products that we use on a daily basis and they will be detailed in a future post.   I hope this helps other small design shops.  

#1 Too many features too many headaches



Myintervals.com or Intervals is not necessarily a bad project management tool.  However it is overkill for our needs.  It felt bloated when we tried it.   I think the product aims to be a complete solution for medium to large organizations but bitflip is a small firm with a 3-5 person team expanding and contracting.  So I need to be able delegate quickly and efficiently.   The learning curve with Intervals  led to near zero buy-in from staff.   Usability proved to be problematic with too many features available and not intuitive.   We needed something that would be adopted quickly for a transient staff.   Intervals was not it.

#2 Installation Persperation

ActiveCollab offers  customization which helped to reduce the "bloatedness" effect. It is meant to be installed on your own server.   The customization and tweaking is great.  The problem is installing it.   We spent a significant amount of time customizing and tweaking and then we ran into installation issues.   Once installed and customized the product worked ok however we experienced user permission issues.  We needed more plug-ins requiring more installation and upgrading.   Overall it was a frustrating and time sucking adventure.

#3 Customization Craziness

Google sites meets two of the three criteria.  

1.  Web-based and no installation
2. Easily tweaked and customized
3.  Usability for  efficient project management

Complete customization means a lot of work.   Google sites offer templates created by others or create your own.   After searching through hundreds of template I found a few project management templates.  The templates didn't have everything I needed but I thought I could customize with add-ons.   The usability of the add-ons and the overall clunkiness of the sites again caused usability issues.  It's not easy to add people to projects.  Google docs opened up another permission-based can of worms that wasn't worth the time to overcome.

#4 Think outside the Box

We didn't give Box.net a fair shake because it is similar Dropbox which w use Dropbox on a regular basis.  I couldn't see paying  for two similar tools.  Dropbox will be covered in depth in my next post.    Box.net is worth a look though.  It has some great features that Dropbox is lacking including commenting, discussion logs and task management.  Our Dropbox comfort level decided the issue.

#5 An Also Ran

We didn't give sufficient time to Basecamp because the price point didn't work for us.   Starting at $50/month Basecamp needs to be awesome at everything.  As a pure project managment tool for larger teams,  Basecamp may be a good solution but Dropbox offers more file storage space at 50GB for $99 per year.  The beginning plan for Basecamp is 15GB. I wouldn't recommend Basecamp for bookkeeping or invoicing however It does interface seamlessly with Freshbooks which is another product we use regularly.  Basecamp was a little bloated for our needs.

Do your own project management fail story?  
Leave a comment and help small firms learn what works and why.

A social networking version of "The Amazing Race" is coming to Charlotte.  Panthers Purrsuit pits teams of two in a race across Charlotte.  Clues are tweeted and posted on Facebook by event sponsors.  All proceeds go to local non-profits.

Team "Purrfect Storm" (@ape_smith @bitflipper1),  plans to blow away the competition.  The trash talking started early with this video.   Bitflip's response is depicted in the graphic below.  View the full size image.

Competitors like @stravy @nataliehymel @constantineCLT @yarby may want to evacuate the Charlotte area and head for higher ground.  There's a storm brewing.

Get your Irish fix this weekend at the Charlotte Irish Festival

http://bit.ly/dyFaPI (bitflip approved)

If you haven't been by 1235 lately our neighbors have been muy busy. Looks like more office space avail soon

http://yfrog.com/jm2o4j

Our 1235 W. Morehead neighbors are making inroads in the long vacated building next door at 1231.   As of time of this entry,  new windows have been installed and the interior has been completed gutted.   The original hardwoods look in decent shape all things considered.  Expect some new office space to come online sometime late this year or early next year.  It's an exciting time to be on West Morehead as new watering holes, eateries and diners pop up every quarter.   Bitflip's decidedly awesome new after-hours hangout is Burger Co. which is just a few blocks down the road.

Chatroulette.com is funded by the Founders fund,  a VC firm started in part by Sean Parker.   Parker is a Silicon Valley veteran/rock star who co-founded Napster and Plaxo.  His character, played by Justin Timberlake, will also play a big role in the upcoming movie,  "The Social Network".   Parker was an early investor in Facebook and a serial internet entrepreneur.

Here is an article on Chatroulette on techcrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/16/chatroulette-stats-male-perverts/

One of the craziest vc-funded website ideas ever. Visit if you dare. Warning: the content is shocking.

http://www.chatroulette.com

Here at BitFlip we have been in the process of migrating from a managed host in Chicago to our own unmanaged server in Atlanta. This has given us the flexibility to set up the system exactly how we want from the ground up. We knew we could achieve better performance than our managed host's LAMP stack with our own LEMP stack, but the difference in performance is staggering. See below for the benchmark results!

Old Server Config:

• Apache 2.2 mpm-prefork
• MySQL 5.0
• PHP 5.2.11 via SuExec + CGI

New Server Config:

• Nginx 
• MySQL 5.0
• PHP 5.3.3 via FastCGI (PHP5-FPM)
• APC OpCode Caching

The tests were performed with ab (Apache Bench) from the old server. The latency between servers is 33ms.

Capacity:

• Old Server: 24.37 requests/sec
• New Server: 2024.21 requests/sec
• 8,206% more capacity

Speed:

• Old Server: 410.328ms
• New Server: 115.206ms
• 256% faster

So not only can the new server handle over 82x more traffic, it can do so while being nearly 3x faster!

We need help naming our new blog.   Here's some background:

 Double, double, toil and trouble.  We tried the Wordpress route and while it worked well for our needs at the time, updates and plug-ins just got to be too much.

 Tumbled down.   Tumblr is a great tool.  However  the time spent digging through the api would have been better spent creating our own solution.

 The custom solution works well on two fronts,  1. It fits the bitflip mantra of ideas at work and we get what we want 2. Integrates into Flip<script> cms.

We were able to infuse Facebook (or Takingovertheworld-book) into the yet to be named bitflip blog.  I'm actually logged in and editing the blog right now using Facebook api.   And you can comment on this article using your Facebook account.  We were able to use the new CK editor for extra slickness factor editing.  We added tags for easy search.  Also auto-save so no browser timeouts/crashes (cough, Firefox, cough) to worry about.  

So with that in mind, we need some collective brainstorming to help "Name Our Blog".  We will be giving a FREE bitflip mini mouse and Rockhouse Events tshirt and hat to the winner.

Below are some suggestions we are already mulling over.  If one of these is chosen then we will choose a number using http://www.random.org and counting down that exact number in the comments.  Contest starts on the 29th and ends Aug. 13th.   Winner will be chosen by honorable bitflippers past and present.  

fliblog 

bitblog

golb