For those of you like me who don’t want to pay $10/month for unlimited SMS messaging, now there’s TinyTwitter - a free application for Windows Mobile and Java-enabled phones.

TinyTwitter is also a tiny app, so it won’t take up much valuable space your device.  It loads quickly, which makes it convenient for rapid stream of consciousness tweeting.  You can configure it to update at a variety of intervals, including manually.  It will also notify you of any direct @replies.

I’m slowly getting into the whole Twitter thing, obviously being one of the last to the party.  If you haven’t gotten started yet, you’re not alone.  Maybe TinyTwitter will finally win you over?

You can follow my own Twitterings at http://twitter.com/communiteer. 

Via:  MobilityToday

CreateDigitalMusic is reporting on Gibson Guitar’s latest round of lawsuits, and I thought it’d be a great time to show how a bold move like this can (and should) completely backfire from a community perspective.

To summarize the situation, Gibson Guitar is suing the makers of popular video games “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” for an alleged violation of a patent on simulating participation in a concert.  Nevermind the frivolity of the whole deal - the fun doesn’t stop there.  They are also suing

2 things make this interesting from a community perspective.  First, Rock Band has licensed the use of the Gibson logo for both on-screen use and on the actual “guitar” controller that ships with the game.  So Gibson has launched an attack at a paying partner - not good for partnership community.  Additionally, they’re suing major retailers of the game including Amazon.com, KMart, WalMart, Target, etc.  They’re also suing parent companies of the video game makers. 

Second, I posit this volley of legal threats will have a big negative impact on gamers see the guitar giant.  These people play air guitar because it’s fun and because they some day envision themselves on stage with a six string in hand thrashing away.  Unfortunately, they’re going to see Gibson as a mega-company, the man, the establishment, the company that took away their Rock Band.  And we all know how musicians love the man :). 

This is a classic case of ill considered ripple effect.  I’ll be shocked if the community doesn’t lash back in an uproar over the shear insanity of this whole mess.

Good luck with that, Gibson.

Picking the technology to back your online community is critical.  With the wrong content (or community) management system (CMS), you could be limiting yourself in terms of features, support, expandability, and performance.  Alternatively, you don’t want to pick something ultra-complex when a simple blog is all you need (as I like to say, never buy a battleship kit when all you need to build is a rowboat).

So how do you make the right choice?  Here are a few tips I’ve discovered:

1.  Start with a plan - Know what features you’re really after and prioritize them.  For example, if you think a blog+forums site is all you’re really after, then anything other features such as polls, articles, user-uploaded content (galleries, file shares), might be overkill. 

2. Ask around - At the bottom of many sites, you’ll see something like “powered by MegaEngine 4.6″.  Don’t be afraid to ping the webmasters to ask their honest opinion of the system.  You may or may not get a response, but it’s worth a try.  Also, there are communities for most of the major systems too, so you’re apt to find forums, self-help troubleshooting information, and a wealth of other useful information by browsing their websites.

3. Compare CMS - the CMS Matrix is a great place to start to compare features of major platforms.  Just pick the ones you’re interested, click the Compare button, and learn more than you probably wanted to know about how they fare against each other.  CMS matrix shows details such as relative startup cost, technology requirements, security features, ease of use, etc. 

4. Keep an eye on the exit - If you roll out your community on one platform and in the end decide it’s just not going to work out, chances are good you can still migrate your data to a new platform.  Normally, this will require a good developer with strong database chops as well as experience with multiple coding languages, but it’s not impossible.  For some simple blogging engines, you can even find automated migration tools written by community members.  For example, users of Wordpress 2.2 and higher can import their blogs from a Blogger site.

What else do you consider when looking for a community platform?  Do you have any other useful tools like CMS Matrix to suggest?

(CMS Matrix link via DuctTapeMarketing.com)

If you’re looking for a quick way to play around with your site’s design, GRSites is a great place to start.  They offer simple and free online tools for generating buttons, menus, logos, etc.  I’m particularly impressed with the flexibility in design their tools offer.  Once you’ve created a button, you can easily tweak it to see how it would look without rounded corners, in another color, with another font, etc.  You can even upload your own fonts if their excellent selection just doesn’t work for you.  Click this button to try it out!

Microsoft has announced support for community-developed games running on its line of Zune digital media players.  I think this is a great example of opening up a platform to allow who knows what kind of innovation to come from the community of developers out there.  Games can be written in Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio (which also allows targeting the XBox 360).  No word yet on any kind of online gaming support via WiFi, but you never know what the crowd will create!

Via:  Engadget

I’ve been hiding under a rock for the past 2 years, at least that’s how I felt after reading this incredible compendium of communiteering guidance.

In keeping with its own theme, “We Are Smarter Than Me” is the result of a collective effort of over 1000 community enthusiasts (professional and otherwise).  The group convenes at www.WeAreSmarter.org where members discuss community-related topics in podcasts, blogs, and forums, and work together on the next book.

As soon as I picked it up, I was hooked and ended up reading it straight through cover to cover in a single sitting.  Pouring through these pages, I found mature versions of so many of the tiny little ideas I’ve had about community building over the years.  Reading through this book showed me we’re on the right track with Communiteer.com.  Case in point, the book has a chapter titled, “If We Build It, We Will Come”.  Long-time readers of this blog will recall our own theme,  “If They Build It They Will Come Back”.  It’s like we’re singing the same song in different languages :).

The book offers a mix of non-nonsense advice from “we” blended with case studies showing successful and not-so-successful online communities of all sorts.  It doesn’t come across as all-knowing or arrogant at all, rather just the opposite.  As I turned each page, I felt like I was being welcomed into a collective consciousness of common sense.

All gushing aside, this is a fantastic book and is a must-read for anyone interested in learning more about community building, social networking, viral marketing, crowdsourcing, or is just looking for something new to be excited about.

Get started here at WeAreSmarter.org.

SmallBizTrends asked top marketers to share one of their best kept marketing secrets.  The result is a huge list of ideas for how to market just about anything!  Lucky for us, the post and comments have a definite online/blogger slant, so many of the tips are directly applicable to marketing to and through your community.  Even better, this post has links to some of the best marketing blogs and sites on the web!  Either way, you should definitely read this in its entirety!

Link:  Top Experts Dish With Their Best Kept Marketing Secrets

Here’s a great tool for the busy blogger!  When you come across a website or blog post you want to make sure you digest later, you can either add it to your favorites and then ignore it (like I tend to do), or you can add a quick button to your browser toolbar to save the page for reading later. 

Note, adding a link to the toolbar in IE7 proved challenging for me.  I ended up creating a new link to a random page, then right-clicking on it and editing its properties to paste in the javascript code for Instapaper’s “read later” button.  I then added a second link to my Instapaper.com account so I can always quickly go see what I have to read.

Try it!  Instapaper.com  (via WordPress Planet)

Meebo announced today they will make their APIs for chat rooms available for websites to embed at a much more fundamental level than ever before.  In addition, they’re creating a new service to display ads in chat rooms and split proceeds from clicks with site owners.

“The power of Meebo Rooms is that they let anyone create live conversations on their site by aggregating people with similar interests from other sites.”

That’s big for you and me.  Not only can you serve ads to your own community, but also to members of other similar communities too. 

I haven’t incorporated Meebo into any of my communities yet.  Have you?  Do you feel like it helps with communiteering?

Link:  Meebo Turns Chat Rooms Into a Web Service (TechCrunch.com)

HigherTrustMarketing asks, “How much selling should you do from your blog?”.  As with everything, I think the answer varies quite a bit on the type of community you have.  They offer some good tips, such as making sure the type of thing or service you’re pushing is actually of interest to your readers.  Otherwise, you run the significant risk of upsetting your members and driving them away from your site.  The best approach in many cases is to make your users feel like they are gaining something by reading your blog full of product links.  For example, through in depth product reviews, links to coupons/discounts, new product announcements, etc. are all great ways to serve your community without making them feel like you’re shoving product down their throats.

On all my communities, I take a “passive” approach and try not to force-feed products on my users.  I’ll provide thoughts, comments, and the occasional link to specific products here and there, but I’ve found that engaging in a conversation with my members as opposed to simply broadcasting deals to them generates many more return visitors, and buyers!

Link:  Selling On Your Blog - Should You Do It?  (HigherTrustMarketing.com)