Twitter.com is not just fluff. There’s a fair share of “Making a sandwich” and “drinking my seventh Starbucks,” there’s also a lot of useful ways to use Twitter.

A few ways i’ve seen Twitter be a useful little web app.

1. Comcastcares - Comcast has a person on twitter who scans twitter for complaints about Comcast. I’ve done my fair share in the last 3 months. Comcastcares actually responds, and apparently is a customer service big wig who can make things happen and get problems resolved. This is a great customer service tool, even if you’re usually pissed with the service by the time you make a post on twitter (tweets as us nerds call them)
2. I put up a post on twitter about how I love getting food from our CSA share (community supported agriculture - we own a share with some friends and get a bag of veggies straight from the farm each week). One of my twitter friends was interested but had never been able to get connected to a farm before. I was able to quickly pass on info to her and hopefully she’ll be supporting a local farmer soon too.
3. A while back I posted on twitter that I was working on some new web strategy ideas. A twitter friend, and well respected authority on the issue, responded that she would review my strategy docs and give feedback. It was very helpful in framing this new project. 
4. Had a friend who needed a recipe for chicken breasts. Hit reply, great dinner.
5. Book suggestions
6. Music suggestions
7. Software suggestions
8. Idea sharing
9. Link sharing
10. Useful work-related connections

I saw this software over at The Apple Blog.

Grab up is a Screen Shot software that allows you to take a screenshot, upload it to the grab up server and get a url within a matter of 3 seconds. I love this. 

Here’s my first screenshot as I was working on a refresh of the logo for our Youth Ministry:

This is incredible. I will start using this for customer proofs right away…I can’t believe how simple it is.

I don’t know about you, but viewing blogs in a newsreader is ok, but I at least try to be a designer so I need a little more.

I use the built-in newsreader in Safari. I primarily use it to so if there is anything interesting to read…if so, I actually click in. Reading all content through the lens of the same basic RSS page isn’t enough. Design lends itself to the character, personality and style of the individual. So when I read your blog through the backdrop of an RSS page or the backdrop of your flower page or your clutter free page or your web 2.0 page…it makes a difference in how the content affects me.

Don’t be satisfied by bloglines, google reader, rss bandit or the rest. Taste your content with a little extra flavor. It makes a difference.

All that to say, in May, before I leave for France at the end of the month, I will be moving to a new domain, new design, and hopefully leave you with a new way to frame the content you see here.

I’ll let you know when the big launch will be…big to me at least. or fun I should say…

Today, I got rid of Joost and downloaded Adobe Media Player, realeased today…
(AMP).
It’s cleaner looking and cleaner in the sense that there isn’t all the smut that Joost has.

I think Adobe is going to do well with this product. It’s on par with adobe’s other apps. Nice GUI, simple, and modern. As long as they continue to grab good content, they’ll do a good job in the market.

Church Relevance has a nice list of church websites…makes me excited for the refresh we’ll soon be knee deep in at the Sanctuary…

Below you will find Church Relevance’s favorite church websites. Chosen for design, usability, and innovative ideas, we hope that these websites will also inspire you.

Top 80 Church Websites

This is a truly brilliant interface design. It’s so effective and representative for the content it displays.

Design and the Elastic Mind is an interactive exhibit through MOMA (Museum of Modern Art).

The exhibition highlights designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and history—changes that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior—and translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use. This Web site presents over three hundred of these works, including fifty projects that are not featured in the gallery exhibition.  

Things that are happening at Sanctuary this year:

1.  We launched Love Minneapolis. A place for people to “just show up and serve.” There’s been two events and already we’re extending far beyond our doors. 
2. We have a series of Amazing Hip Hop Sunday’s featuring the 3 of the hottest acts in Hip Hop. Starting this weekend with The Ambassador also of Cross Movement. This guy is amazing. The real deal. Not “Christian Hip Hop,” but Hip Hop that’s Christian. We can’t advertise it, because we already know that there won’t be any open seats unless the temps drop below 0 again. Soon to come Phil Jackson and his crew from Tha House. Urban D and others from Crossover Church (#21).
3. We’re adding another service. We’ve been maxed at 1000 for a long time. It’s time to open the doors a little earlier. I’m betting we’ll double in size this year.
4. Efrem will be speaking somewhere that might shine a bit of a spotlight on what we’re doing.
5. We’re tightening the belt. We’re moving to a new office. We’ll start a capitol campaign for our first semi-permanent facility. 

One of the many differences between Barack and Hillary are their websites. 

Who in the world designed Barack’s site? It’s beautiful.

It’s clear, from the get go, Barack has had a very clear strategy on the web reaching out to a younger more web 2.0 audience. And it’s worked. I can’t recite verbatim the numbers I’ve read over the last few weeks, but it’s clear, he’s been right on with creating a grassroots campaign through the under 40 crowd and has raised insane amounts of money, with insane numbers of contributors on the web.

It becomes clear when you look at the two sites next to each other. While Clinton’s site isn’t horrible, I find things more distracting on the site. There’s so many levels trying to attract attention, that I inevitably don’t land anywhere.

These sites actually match up with their personalities.

Clinton’s is a bit louder, Obama’s a bit more serene.

Clinton’s tries to have the gooey web 2.0 feel, but misses the mark with a color palette that is bit too traditional.

Obama’s nails the color palette and has an ethereal feel which really does fall on the message of hope that he tries to convey.

I’m not announcing anything new, but our web strategy at the church will be evolving over the course of 2008. I hope we land on our target audience a bit more solidly, and offer more reasons to keep coming back…

I came across this.This whole site really gave me a happy fresh feeling. Interesting site navigation using flash video and people who are both extremely happy to see me and extremely happy to share their aftercare methods with me.thx Amber mac 

We went live with the brand spanking new Love Minneapolis site this week. I really like how this one turned out. It just felt right as I was designing it.I’m excited to see the impact that Love Minneapolis will continue to have on our community. 

I just want the most relevant infomation as fast as possible and I’ll dig for things I’m “interested in.”

That’s why my favorite part of our website is the “blurbs” section. It’s quick, easy access to info without having to dig for it.

What’s new and happening this week?
It’s right there when I hit the main page. Info goes in and out of there reletively quickly, though our web stats seem to show that a relatively high number of visitors click a blurb on every visit.

Are people able to access relevant info quickly on your site?