Pemaquid Communications

MaineToday.com jumped on the Facebook bandwagon yesterday en masse. Joe Michaud? Check. Wendy Clark? Check. Paul Caiazzo, Carl Natale, Wendy Almeida, Monica Wright? Check, check, check, check. The timing is interesting, having just joined myself 10 days ago.

Hooray! More friends for me from the old workplace…

I keep hearing about Facebook (maybe that’s partly due to the fact that I’ve just signed up and am now in tune).

Here’s a post from Paul Allen about Facebook- which he claims will become the largest social network in the world.

There’s no reason to doubt it. I’ve watched as Facebook’s Portland network has ballooned to over 15,000 members, w/several hundred added since I joined up about a week ago.

Facebook is already a more popular online destination than eBay and is gaining on - are you ready? - Google. And I’ll bet people stick around longer on FB than they would on the Big G.

And with the new Facebook Platform and the ability for developers to create Facebook apps people can add to their profiles, like…. (shameless self-promotion) the Portland Diner app created by Pemaquid, it’ll only get stickier.

To top it off, Facebook’s people demographic is better and it’s interface is much cleaner than MySpace. If I were Uncle Rupert, I’d be concerned.

AT&T reports that 146,000 iPhones were sold in the first two days the product was on the market. Normally those would be exceedingly good sales figures for any cell phone, but they didn’t live up to the hype surrounding the launch of Apple’s latest product, so the company led by Steve Jobs took a hit on Wall Street.

Apple is scheduled to report some numbers related to iPhone sales later today.

Do you have an iPhone and live in Portland, Maine? How’s it been treating you?

Standing in long lines
Throngs wait for pricey iPhones
Don’t these folks have jobs?

iPhones sure look cool
But sadly, the carrier
is AT&T

Wisdom or Folly?
In six months will you still be
Glad you paid so much?

got an iPhone Haiku? Post it in the comments

As everyone in North America knows, today’s the day Apple launches its new smart phone, the iPhone. Apparently no one is working today b/c they’re all standing in line to get one.

• iLine - People standing in line to get their iPhone
• iLike - New York Times says iPhone’s revolutionary interface design mainly lives up to the hype
• iDon’t - In case you were wondering, there are some people who don’t want an iPhone

What can the iPhone do? Play clip below.

Hello… Houston… we have a tech bubble. TechCrunch reports that one of the latest startups to gain funding is MizPee, a site for your mobile devices that lets you know where the nearest loo is located.

Consensus on the new site is “Huh?!?” (Read the comments). It seems most people just look for a Mickey D’s or an Irving station when they’ve got to go, instead of whipping out that cellphone and scrolling through search results.

Which brings us back to Web site usability, interestingly. Moral: think about whether people will use that Web interface before you sink millions into a Web site (oh, wait - it’s not their money they’re spending, it’s venture capital - forgot)

Looks like the whole Web 2.0 thing is bottoming out (remember companies that wanted you to buy pet food online and had sock puppet mascots?) The canary’s coughing. Deja vu, baby.

We’re excited to announce that a Pemaquid site, MaineLobsterFestival.com, has been nominated Best e-commerce Web Site by MESDA, the Maine Software and IT Industry Association. The Maine Lobster Festival’s Web site was redesigned by Pemaquid in 2006.

The online store is a custom-built version of the Pemaquid Commerce Manager, and allows Festival organizers to self-publish product imagery and data as well as access order information for fulfillment. The Commerce Manager is just one piece of a larger CMS, the Pemaquid Content Manager, that makes it easy for non-technical people to keep the Web site up to date.

The MLF Web site is one of three finalists for the award, which will be presented on Friday at Geeks in Black, MESDA’s annual gala; it’ll be held at the Portland Marriott at Sable Oaks. (Looks like I’ll be going…)

We’re really jazzed that a Web site that was such fun for us to design is up for this award!

Did you know: People are already selling iPhones on eBay, even though Apple’s highly-anticipated cellphone doesn’t officially hit the market until June 29th?

(Editor’s note: while the names of those involved in this tragic incident have been changed to protect the innocent - and shield the guilty from shame - the events depicted have not)

Recently a Web designer I know emailed me to ask for suggestions as to how to handle a request from a client, a magazine publisher in Southern Maine. The request was how best to put a PDF version of the entire magazine on their Web site. We’re talking 50+ pages, and even after compression that PDF weighs in at… wait for it… 14.8MB79MB!! (14.8 was, unbelievably, for just one section - updated 6/8/07)

C’mon, people.

Let’s put down the latte and think about this for a minute. Does anyone know anyone, high speed connection or no, who says to themselves “Hmmm…. I wonder if the latest version of Portland Digest is available via PDF download from their Web site? I better make sure I have enough printer paper for that one!”

You don’t? Me neither.

Why does this publisher want to bestow this glorious journalistic achievement on a supposedly adoring public? According to my pal the Web designer: Just because. Just because they can. Actually, they feel they want to ‘extend their reach’ beyond their local Portland-area readership.

Huh?!? I think I’ve got an idea for extending your reach online. It’s called HTML.

Most print publishers are completely flummoxed by the Web. They realize they need to have a “dot-com” (b/c everybody does, right?), but beyond that, most would rather not think about the Internet. It’s wreaking havoc with their offline product’s business model (and things are only going to get worse as advertising dollars move online), but most respond by sticking their fingers in the crumbling dyke instead of figuring out how to take advantage of the new business opportunities the Web provides.

Right now, most publishers consider the Web to be a place where they shovel content that they previously put out in print. To an extent, I think the reasons are cultural. Many editors and journalists are not technophiles, so getting a newsroom or editorial staff up to speed on the how their businesses can be enhanced through new and innovative online offerings takes time.

As for the Giant PDF, if they do insist on putting this Godzilla-sized monster online (shudder), I hope that at least - for the love of usability, people! - they put the filesize in the link text so I’ll know I’m not supposed to click on it.