Pemaquid Communications

This post is long overdue. But you know what they say – better late than never.

I thought it was high time I recognized some of the folks who have contributed to Pemaquid Web design projects over the last few years; these are the some of the folks who make up Portland, Maine’s Web design scene.

Jen Ecker – Web Designer, Pixel Surgeon. Jen (a.k.a. Dr. Jecker) has collaborated with me for more than three years now, and we’ve honed quite a system for developing markup. Jen’s specialty is cutting-edge CSS, and she’s got a certain flair when it comes to graphic design. She can also dabble in PHP. In other words, the Doctor is in, and she Rocks! (Word to the wise – she is not a robot!)

Sarah Hines - Creative Services Coordinator and all-around Problem Solver. The Web is not simply about a “Web site” anymore. It’s about solving technical problems elegantly. Sarah’s done that in spades. She can do a little Web design, a little SQL, and she’s even been a project manager at times – though I hate the term. She even took care of business cards a while back when we needed some.

Jeff Norris - Programmer. Actually, programmer is not really a fair assessment; Jeff is a big-picture thinker (dare I say “Problem Solver”?) in regards to technical trends. Jeff has fine-tuned the back-end database systems and has done some sysadmin work for a number of projects, and did the heavy lifting behind Oakhurst Dairy’s innovative job application module, which I architected this past September.

Jamie Peloquin - Web Designer. Jamie, a lone wolf who runs Peloquin Design, has been a frequent contributor to Pemaquid sites over the past few years. Typically, Jamie has collaborated with us to produce the Photoshop comps for a site design concept, though he’s a very capable XHTML/CSS designer who is passionate about Web Standards – which is one reason why I like working with him. Oh, yeah, he knows his way around PHP and a Subversion checkout as well.

Wendy Clark – Web Designer. Wendy is the lead designer at MaineToday.com. We were on the same wavelength when I worked there several years ago and we’ve kept in touch; Wendy has done some graphic design work and XHTML coding. I can’t wait to see her handiwork on the brand new MaineToday.com site which is slated for launch tomorrow – kudos Wendy!

Louise Ellis – Web Designer. Louise bumped into a post on this blog more than a year ago when I was looking for help managing the ever-increasing workload. She lives up the road a piece in Rockport, Maine, but that’s not stopped her from being a frequent contributor. Like most of the folks listed here, she’s passionate about Web Standards and “doing things right”.

Suzy Massey – Web Designer. I’ve known Suzy for some time through a local coffee klatch of Web designers; then last year, we discovered we were both attending SXSW. Suzy’s chipped in a time or two, though mostly she’s been a kindred spirit. She may become more involved soon enough though!

Thanks to all of you for all the amazing work we’ve done. I consider you my Superfriends of Maine Web design. I couldn’t have come as far as fast without you, and I look forward to collaborating with you in the future. Good times!

Last night I released a new Facebook app for my band, Bluezberry Jam.

It’s a nifty little jukebox of sorts. You can play original songs from our upcoming album and add your favorite to a box on your Facebook profile, where your friends can play your fav, click back to the app, listen to our tunes, add it to their profile, where their friends can see it…

Devious, isn’t it?

It’s very similar to an app we launched last year for another local band, Lost on Liftoff. These are great little street-level tools for building buzz around an album launch.

Pemaquid also hosts both BluezberryJam.com and LostOnLiftoff.com, and both bands use the Pemaquid Content Manager to self-publish site updates.

A little while ago I said I’d start posting some reviews of good content management systems. Many of you are familiar w/t/Usual Suspects – WordPress, Drupal and Joomla – so I thought I’d start w/a review of something you may not have heard of: Django.

Django was developed by The World Company as a CMS for the Lawrence Journal-World, the newspaper in Lawrence, Kansas. It was developed for the fast-paced, high-traffic news environment and was designed to make it easy to set up and easy to plug/unplug various modules (“apps” or “models” as they are known in Django-lingo).

Incidentally, it was named after jazz guitarist Django Rheinhardt. As a musician myself, I appreciate that.

Django is Open Source. It has been released under a BSD license.

Nifty. But all of you who are looking for a 5-minute install FTW will be sadly disappointed. Django installs are not for the faint of heart. Unlike the Usual Suspects, which are written in PHP, Django was written in Python. It also requires some server administration skills to configure. Fortunately, there are some hosting providers who specialize in Django.

Though it can be a challenge to set up initially, once configured Django is designed so that you can very rapidly plug in different chunks of some pretty sophisticated interactive goodness depending on your needs.

The idea is that you don’t want to be reinventing the wheel for content management with every site. This is known as the DRY Principle.

With a basic, rock solid Django framework in place, Web designers and developers can focus on the fun stuff – a custom look and feel, CSS and extensions to Django’s core functionality.

Django’s great for big sites that need things like member management(w/varying access privileges), events calendars, e-commerce and job applications. In other words, for sites that need more than the simple blog-based content management WordPress provides.

Here’s the lowdown:

Pro

Solid modular code – you don’t have to reinvent the wheel or rewrite most of the bedrock code you’ll need for most sites. You can concentrate on customization. There are models for e-commerce, Google Calendar – you name it.

Speedy setup - no, it’s won’t be speedy the first time you do it. But once you’ve got the knack, it’ll be a breeze.

Plays nice w/Google – Python, Django’s bedrock language, is one of the three “official” languages supported by Google. You can run Django and Python on the Google App Engine – meaning apps you develop will scale easily while they hum along on Google AE’s servers.

Open Source – No licensing fees to obtain, and the codebase is supported by a large – and growing – developer community

Con

Python – Just when you thought you had learned all the code you needed to rule the Web (*sigh*). Once you learn it, however, Python is a “pro” and not a “con”.

Server Administration Skills required – Can you say “shell access”? There, I knew you could. Get ready to cuddle up w/your favorite Terminal app.

Maine Sites Running Django

Flyfi.com – Portland-based, a social-ly, musical-ly site. Formerly Goombah and run by Emergent Music.

Maine College of Art – an application for applying online.

Southern Maine Community College – a personalized information request form.

Django Links

Django Project – documentation, tutorials… and your gateway to the developer community.

Django for non-programmers – Jeff Croft has a great post on the benefits of Django for front-end designers.

Django – Google Code – If you need help, here’s one good place to look.

Django Facebook Group (requires FB Profile) – here’s another good place to look for help, if you’re on Facebook (and everyone’s on FB now, right?)

Django pluggables – apps you can plug into your Django project.

Have you tried the Django tango? What are your thoughts?

The Maine Commission for Community Service works to get people involved in volunteer activities throughout the state. The Commission’s site, at MaineServiceCommission.gov, is the place where they report to the public and their stakeholders how effective they’ve been in achieving their goal.

Last week Pemaquid launched a new and improved site for the Commission. Our main objectives:

Create a more up-to-date, professional image. The creative available from MCCS was limited. It consisted of a logo created in house. We developed a hi-res version of the logo so they could use it in other materials, and then we created the layout and color palette around it.

Improved content management. The Commission stores literally hundreds of reports and publications on the site. They publish events, photo galleries, news releases, and they have a fairly unique way of posting information about goings-on, called Maine Volunteer Fare. That and other content is handled with a custom version of the Pemaquid Content Manager, our home-cooked CMS.

Accessibility. As a state agency, the MCCS must adhere to the Maine’s Accessibility Policy, which sets fairly high standards for meeting the needs of the visually/physically impaired. As always, our intent was to ensure accessibility without compromising the elegance of the site’s design concept. We think we’ve done that.

There are a bunch of other goodies reflecting the latest techniques: the jQuery Cycle plug-in is used to rotate the home page “marquee slides”; and for the first time we used css_browser_selector.js as a means to serve up different styles depending on the browsers (we used it mainly to adjust the navigational font in IE (further reading on CSS browser selector, many thanks to Jen Ecker for dropping this into the codebase).

Executive Director Maryalice Crofton and Public Relations Representative Rochelle Runge are a joy to work with and Pemaquid will continue to assist the MCCS with ongoing content development and by providing hosting for the site (Pemaquid also hosts another Commission site, VolunteerMaine.org). We’re proud to support their mission of fostering community service activities and a spirit of volunteerism in Maine.

A little over a week ago the Pemaquid team launched a new site for Oakhurst Dairy, a venerable Maine company expertly run by Stan Bennett and his family for three generations. The Oakhurst brand stands for high quality, and so we wanted to make sure that Maine’s largest dairy had a Web presence that measured up.

Most importantly, Oakhurst was looking for a better content management system that would give Marketing Director Jim Lesser and his staff more flexibility to quickly and easily update many different types of content throughout the site. We responded by building a custom version of the Pemaquid Content Manager, adding special modules for handling Products, “marquee spots” on the home page (“Nature’s Perfect Food”, etc.) and features on student Athletes of the Week.

Other modules were tailored to Oakhurst’s content needs, and the flexibility of the Content Manager allowed us to easily adjust the presentation of many different types of content, such as the company timeline.

In terms of design, we were able to have some fun with Oakhurst’s wonderful signature “landscape” graphic, a pastoral scene depicting the Maine countryside. We used some advanced CSS to nail the landscape to the bottom of the viewspace in front of a division containing the other content for the page. As a nifty little trick, when you scroll to the bottom of the page you’ll see the sun rise (unless you’re viewing in Internet Explorer 6; unfortunately, IE6 doesn’t support the display of transparent PNG graphics used in the landscape overlay. We used some conditional CSS to detect IE6 and serve up a different version of the scene for that browser).

The landscape graphic is quite a bit larger than we’d have liked (about 538k), but should perform fine for a wide majority of screen resolutions and connection speeds, according to site traffic statistics. And we’re continuing to tweak.

Other unique features include the interactive Products display (fortified with CSS, jQuery and AJAX), and an interactive Job application module that works like an e-commerce checkout and allows job seekers to save a profile they can use to quickly apply for future positions.

All in all, we hope the site is a good example of the wholesome natural goodness of Maine Web design.

We have to tip our caps to CIO Paul Connelly, who runs a well-oiled machine, and especially to Tim Hundt, our contact for project management. Tim kept everything very well organized from start to finish. Oakhurst’s IT staff kept us on our toes and challenged us to do our best work.

We are hard pressed to do all the work ourselves these days, but are willing to do so until we find just the right person. Are you up to the task?

We are looking for the next Front-End Superstar to join our team. We are in Startup Mode. The ideal candidate for this position thrives in an idea-driven culture, is “always on” and in tune with teammates, is as resourceful as 007 and has a will to win like Mean Joe Greene.

In this position, you’ll be creating the graphic design, xHTML and CSS for some of the biggest and best-known companies in Maine and beyond.

Requirements

• You have solid experience w/W3C compliant, cross-browser compatible xHTML and CSS-based layouts
• When it comes to graphic design, you are Fully Loaded (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) and use those tools creatively
• You possess a strong knowledge of design basics and principles
• You understand the WAI Accessibility Guidelines and Section 508 compliance
• You understand what Progressive Enhancement means w/o googling it before the interview
• You can spot a 1px difference at a glance (and it makes you twitch)
• You suck down new technologies like Gatorade

Extra Credit

• Flash
• PHP
• You know the difference between YUI, jQuery, Prototype, Ext, and Moo Tools, and you know X is better than Y and Z is terrible.
• You know your way around a server control panel (not just FTP)
• You have an inner calling to program for the iPhone.

About Us
Pemaquid Communications, LLC combines great visual design w/easy-to-use content management systems to create solid interactive Web sites that provide a great user experience. We a leading designer of sites that meet W3C Accessibility guidelines, adhere to Web Standards, are cross-browser compatible and produce valid xHTML and CSS. We are not graphic designers or programmers (though we do those things) – we are Interaction Designers.

Our goal is to create joyful, useful online experiences for our Clients and their customers.

Pemaquid Communications has scored three nominations for techMaine‘s annual Best of the Web Awards. Pemaquid tied for the most nominations of any Maine Web design studio. The nominees are…

annie|catherine.com
Best e-Commerce Site

The site features exquisite stationery for any occasion, along with fine art prints, calendars and something racy called Go-Go Wrap! The company manages over 200 product listings in more than a dozen categories, along with order tracking and fulfillment, through a custom version of Pemaquid’s Commerce Manager.

More about annie|catherine »

MidcoastMaine.com
(Southern Midcoast Maine Chamber)
Best Non-Profit Site

This site draws out the visually appealing nature of this part of the Maine Coast. For many Internet searchers, the site is a tourist gateway to the region and it was very important to the Chamber that the site, through its look and feel, compare favorably to similar sites for more well-known Downeast destinations.

More about MidcoastMaine.com »

The Big Easy – www.bigeasyportland.com
Best Arts & Entertainment Site

The Big Easy is Portland, Maine’s premier night spot. The club wanted a new Web site that rocks as loud as they do. The Content Manager allows easy-self-publishing of upcoming events as well as multiple Photo Galleries of local bands in action on its stage. The design really makes you want to be there!

More about The Big Easy »

Best of the Web award winners will be announced at techMaine’s Gala, taking place May 20th @ the Eastland Park Hotel Ballroom.

Last weekend marked a milestone for those of us involved in the online world here in Maine. Joe Michaud, who had led MaineToday.com for the last dozen years, stepped down at the end of April, and many MaineToday “alumni” were on hand at Ri Ra last Friday to wish Joe well (Ellen Kanner, an old co-worker who now is a Web designer at Dartmouth, even came down from Hanover).

Folks who spent time working under Joe’s leadership have gone on to form successful, influential Web businesses in the area: Franklin McMahon (former MaineToday.com Creative Services Manager) now has a well-known photography and podcasting company; Justin Davis now heads Portland Web Works, a Pemaquid competitor whose Clients include the Maine Office of Tourism; and (because I like to enumerate things like this in groups of three) I’ll throw myself in there as well.

Way back in the mid ’90′s, when we barely knew what a “browser” was, Joe and a small team at the Portland Press Herald created a skunkworks to try to figure out this “Internet thing”. What developed was a series of Web sites that coalesced to form MaineToday.com. Under Joe’s leadership, MaineToday won many awards, often against larger competitors, and became known as a standard-setting creative force in the mostly bland world of online newspaper publishing.

We were always testing boundaries. I remember covering the 2000 election from the studios of our television partner, WMTW. My job was to post up-to-the-minute blurbs to the MaineToday site about the local, regional and national returns coming in that night. It was pretty radical for a newspaper to have someone publishing on the spot with very little editorial oversight. We didn’t call it blogging back then, but that’s exactly what we were doing.

Now Joe is hanging out a shingle as a consultant to said newspaper industry – and they really need to hear from someone like him. Newspaper ad revenue continues to erode, and those dollars are not migrating to publishers’ digital facsimiles of the printed word. Newspapers’ core revenue centers have continued to lose out to online competitors like Craig’s List (want ads), Cars.com (automotive ads) and Zillow (real estate ads).

My take is that it won’t be long before the creative destruction precipitated by the Internet drives newspapers to the same fate as encyclopedia salesmen. However, if there’s anyone who can help smart publishers figure out how to best take advantage of their remaining assets – strong brands, relatively large audiences and strong advertiser relationships – it’s Joe Michaud.

About a year ago I had a mid-life crisis. I pulled out my bass guitar, which for years had been gathering dust under the bed in the spare room, and looked to join a blues band. Fortunately, I didn’t have to look far.

I play bass and sing backing vocals (badly) in Bluezberry Jam, a great group of folks here in Portland, Maine. My band mates are: Myra Robinson (vocals, percussion), Dave Collins (vocals, guitars), Rudy Gabrielson (keyboards, harmonica, percussion, electric dulcimer, vocals) and Rick Cormier (percussion).

They are all more musically gifted than I am, but I make it up by leading one of the most talented Web design studios in Maine.

In my spare time I recently rocked out an updated site for the band. It uses the Pemaquid Content Manager for self-publishing content. I had some fun w/creative copywriting and design, and it’s got a lot of Pemaquid’s typical interactive goodies, including accessible sliders and photo galleries.

We hope you find it musically delicious! Hope to see you at a gig soon…

The Big Easy, located at 55 Market Street in the heart of Old Port, is Portland’s premier music venue. Club owner Ken Bell was looking for a hip new look that would give folks a great way to easily look up upcoming shows. More importantly, he wanted a way to easily self-publish photos, calendar listings and links.

So, we rocked until our fingers bled onto our mouses and created a new look that we hope makes you want to head downtown. Ken says feedback has been very complimentary so far – thanks everybody!

The site uses the Pemaquid Content Manager for self-publishing of content. Ken & Co. will also be using Pemaquid’s email service for enewsletters.

Your Rockstar Design Team are:

Walt Craven – Graphic Design, guitars (Walt is also the lead vocalist for local band Lost on Liftoff)

The Elusive Dr. Jecker (that’s Dr. Jennifer Ecker, Pixel Surgeon) – Web design, lead guitars, keyboard, harmonica, ukelele

Rob Landry – (yours truly) Interaction Design, Programming, bass, drums, vocals (yes, bass & drums at the same time)

Rock on!

Wow, that didn’t take long! A few days after we posted a message about how only certain folks could post their thoughts – or job postings – on MaineBusiness.com, the MaineToday.com property has retooled and opened things up so that anyone can set up their blogging shop.

Do we already wield that much clout in this town?!?

Nah, the changes were planned. We talked to Carl Natale, MaineBusiness’ Chief Information Innovator (he says he’s not an “editor” or “content developer”) last week. Anyway, it’s nice to see that we can post our own job openings on the site if we like.

Yep, we set up a MaineBusiness blog. Right now I’m looking for a catchy name. Comment if you have any ideas.

The other day I surfed over to the blog on Internet marketing written by Rich Brooks, President of Flyte New Media, and bumped into this job posting.

Interesting read – if you’re a job-seeker, that is. The rest of the business community would find it hard to glean anything useful.

It didn’t take long to find another job posting. During the same week.

Huh? I thought this was supposed to be about Internet marketing.

Funny, I’ve never read Bill Nemitz’ column in the Press Herald and found that he was on the lookout for copywriters. A column like that would never make the light of day.

Things are different at MaineBusiness.com, a title run by MaineToday.com and Blethen Maine Newspapers, according to Carl Natale, the editorial staffer who manages the site’s bloggers. I’ve spoken to Carl and he said he found nothing inappropriate with the post.

I beg to disagree. Shameless self-promotion that doesn’t add value to a site’s core readership should be out of bounds.

I was Carl’s predecessor at MaineBusiness.com, and when I ran the show, I was careful to instruct our columnists (this was back before anyone was a “blogger”) not to use their space to directly promote their business.

MaineBusiness.com’s stock in trade is its credibility. Without it, it’s just another Blogger.com (and I’d hate to see that happen).

Speaking of Blogger.com, Carl says that by the end of the month MaineBusiness.com will be rolling out a new set of blogging tools that will allow anyone to hang a shingle and roll their own blog on the site. If anyone can set up a blog about anything, that’s one way to diffuse the issue. We’ll look forward to that.

Cardiovascular Consultants of Maine provides state of the art heart care to patients throughout the region. Based in Scarborough and with facilities in Augusta, Waterville, Sanford and Farmington, their goal is to be known as the preeminent full-service cardiology group serving Northern New England.

They approached Pemaquid recently with a story that’s not uncommon: a staff member had set up their site several years ago, but things had evolved to the point where it was difficult to manage the information quickly and in an organized fashion.

Problem solved. Pemaquid created a design that, among other things, features an online resource library on heart health, heart disease prevention and the meaning of cardiovascular terms (think “Cardiomyopathy”, “Coumadin” or “ACE inhibitors”) that are important to people undergoing cardiac care.

Pemaquid provides ongoing content updates for CCM, as well as Web hosting services, and as with all our Clients, we focus on speed as well as design execution. April Donovan, Cardiovascular Consultants’ CEO, says we’re hitting our marks:

I find Rob Landry and his staff to be responsive, professional and reliable. They listen to our needs and offer innovative solutions through great design and quick delivery.

It’s been a pleasure working with April, Elise Plummer, Samantha Smith and all at Cardiovascular Consultants of Maine, and we look forward to working with them for a long time to come!

I surfed over to a certain Maine Web site the other day and found that it had been redesigned. Here is the site navigational structure:

Can anyone tell me with 100% certainty what those items represent?

Therein lies the problem. You can’t tell what you’re going to get when you click (you can’t even tell that you can click). The only hint that this is the site navigation is that it is positioned in the spot where, if you’ve surfed for any length of time, you know that navigation is usually found.

Here’s the site, btw, if you’d now like to see that nav positioned within the overall layout.

(I don’t mean to pick on Downeast. They’re a great company and their Web site is far better than the previous version. I’m just using their site to show how you can improve the user experience on sites you design.)

Navigation is best as text. Text that is unambiguous. “About” is more effective than “Who We Are“.

Lo and behold, when you mouseover the nav on this site in question, you see a… word.

There are two big reasons why you should use text in you site navigation.

Usability. There’s an excellent book on Web design by Steve Krug called Don’t Make Me Think. In it, Krug points out usability studies show that people usually don’t read Web sites – until they’ve found that article they were searching for – they scan them. Navigational text that is simple and clear supports this scanning activity. With graphics, you have to stop and think (“hmmm… what could a camera mean?…”) This is why icons, unless they are universally understood, are also poor choices for navigational labels on Web sites.

Accessibility. In the example above, if you were visually impaired and came upon this site, there would be no way for you to understand that the images represented the site navigation. It would be much better to place navigational items towards the top of your HTML as a list of text links and to then use CSS to style the list to match your overall design concept.

Web site designs like the one in question point to a larger issue in Web design, which I call The Tyranny of Graphic Design. That’s a topic for another day, but briefly, Web design is not graphic design. It’s interaction design (of which graphic design is certainly a part). In creating Web sites, designers should take care that the graphical design concepts they produce make it easier for people to find what they’re looking for on a site, not harder.

Don’t make me think…

Joe Michaud, president of MaineToday.com, is announcing that he is leaving April 30 to start his own consulting business. Joe says he’ll be focusing on helping newspaper companies change their strategies and is convinced newspaper companies can survive.

If anyone can do it, it’s Joe Michaud, but I am very skeptical.

Back in the day, newspapers were the first true “information companies”. People picked up the Sunday paper for all sorts of reasons: news, sports, classifieds, community calendar, auto ads, coupons – and so on. The newspaper worked b/c it combined all that information in a neat package that was easy to deliver and had something for everyone.

Now, there’s a new place to go to get all the information you need – your computer, connected to the Internet.

Want to know who won Best Actor in 1943? Google it.

Want to know about an obscure topic like domain tasting? Ask Wikipedia.

Speaking of Wikipedia, does anyone still buy encyclopedias anymore? Encyclopedias, like newspapers, provided a wealth of information. Alas, for Britannica salesmen, that information is now easily available online.

There’s an article in this morning’s Wall Street Journal on How We Get News (in the future). In it, there’s this line:

…in the next decade we won’t use newspapers or television news programs to decide what stories we see each day…

One big key for newspapers going forward is going to be relevance. I know one person who recently dropped his subscription to the Portland Press Herald b/c on his Sunday paper, above the fold, were two headlines – one on Paris Hilton’s release from prison, the other on the upcoming final episode of the Sopranos (this is not a joke).

Newspapers will have to do a much better job understanding what is relevant to their best customers. To make matters worse for them, the Internet is making it easier for small teams to disseminate high quality information that meets or exceeds what can be provided by the local newspaper team. Probably the worst news of all for publishers is that as people spend more time online, advertisers are finding a more cost-effective way to market their brands than through ads in the local paper.

I worked for Joe Michaud at MaineToday.com a few years ago. It was a great experience all the way around. Joe was an innovator, and there were lots of creative people on staff (and then there was me ;-). The main reason I didn’t stick around is b/c I was pessimistic about the long-term prospects for newspapers. I figured they might be gone before Joe retired and I’d have a shot at a promotion.

If anyone can help newspapers succeed in the 21st century, it’s Joe Michaud, and I wish him well. But because of the way people get information these days, I think it’s doubtful the newspaper as we know it will survive. In the near future, I predict publications using content from professional journalists will look quite different than they do today, will cater to narrower niche markets, and will in all likelihood not enjoy the regional monopoly of the local newspaper companies of today.

Are you like me? Always late on the draw sending cards around the Holidays? We’re here to help.

Pemaquid has designed a Facebook app called Jenny’s Cards (you must have a Facebook profile to view). You can use it to send a little last minute Christmas cheer to all your friends (all of your friends are on Facebook, right?)

In addition to Holiday cards, you can send your Facebook pals Birthday cards, Thank Yous or just-plain-simple note cards. The card graphics are done by annie|catherine designer stationery, a Pemaquid Client whose site we redesigned earlier this year.

We rolled out this app after Thanksgiving for two reasons: to test how “infectious” this type of viral marketing can be, as well as to help a Client promote their products (there are links to the annie|catherine Web site in the app).

So far folks from Far East Asia to Down East Maine have used the app (Facebook has 50 Million + members worldwide) and annie|catherine is seeing traffic flow from the app to their site.

Done right, Facebook apps are an excellent way for businesses to extend their brand.

Common Good Ventures is a team of experienced business people applying their professional expertise, their networks and their passion for change to help strong nonprofits realize their potential to accomplish even more for Maine. It’s the kind of work that’s sometimes called venture philanthropy.

CGV came to Pemaquid looking to increase the level of interactivity on the site and find unique ways to enhance the non profit advisory services it provides so well offline.

The result is the Virtual Springboard, an online component to the 90-minute forums where each month a non-profit comes prepared to present a specific challenge to a group of business people and hear their “quick-hit” ideas.

Virtual Springboard allows Common Good Ventures to ‘extend the conversation’ surrounding each month’s forum, allowing panelists (folks who help advise) who aren’t able to participate in the physical space to do so online, as well as to more easily share the ideas generated at each session.

CGV staff are able to update the Virtual Springboards and many other parts of the site on demand, using the Pemaquid Content Manager, Pemaquid’s content management system.

Other features include a Photo Gallery that shows CGV staff and Springboard panelists at work (also handled through the Content Manager). It’s a great way for them to easily showcase what a Springboard – or “Volunteering your Mind” – looks like.

Common Good Ventures’ President, Kristin Majeska, says of the project:

Pemaquid has been wonderful to work with, providing us with many creative ideas.

Well, right back at cha, Kristin. It was wonderful to work with you, Diane Oberbeck, Neal Williamson and all at Common Good Ventures. You and your panelists certainly have many creative ideas of your own! We’re glad to be a part of your success.

A tip of the cap to the Dream Team: Jamie Peloquin (Design Concept), Jennifer Ecker (Web design) and Sarah Hines (Creative Services Coordinator – a.k.a. ‘Air Traffic Control’). You guys rock so loud my ears ring!

Pemaquid’s adventures on Facebook are the subject of a story in today’s Portland Press Herald (Just my luck, I got a haircut the day after they took the photo, and no, you won’t see it here).

Thanks to my Facebook buddies Wendy Clark (Portland Diner logo) and Jennifer Ecker (Web design) for their help in creating Pemaquid’s Facebook apps. Thanks also to Facebook friend Justin Ellis (PPH reporter who wrote the story), who gave us a very “honorable mention”.

Our apps mentioned in the story:

• Portland Diner
• Lost on Liftoff

More are on the way. Stay tuned…

Sorry to bring up the subject of “snow” (but hey! we had flurries in Portland yesterday so I don’t feel too bad).

Pemaquid has launched a redesigned Web site for the Maine Snow and Ice Sculpting Foundation. They are best known for the frosty carvings we’ve seen in year’s past at the Maine Winterfest events in Falmouth.

In addition to a new look, MS&I wanted to be able to quickly and easily update content throughout the site. For that, we installed the Pemaquid Content Manager, our user-friendly content management system.

With it, Foundation personnel can update copy and create photo galleries as needed.

Keep an eye on this site for news about the Maine State Snow Sculpting Championship, taking place February 14-17, and stay tuned for the World’s Tallest Sandcastle.

Ladies and Gentlemen… we have Liftoff. Lost on Liftoff. (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.)

Pemaquid Communications premiered a brand new Facebook app for Lost On Liftoff, one of Portland, Maine’s hottest local bands, @ the techMaine conference a few days ago.

Go here to add the Lost On Liftoff app if you have a Facebook profile.

The idea is pretty simple. Once you add the app, it puts a “badge” on your Facebook profile, along w/a player created in FBML (that’s “Facebook Markup Language”) that allows you to play your favorite Lost On Lifoff song from their latest album, Mixtape Blackouts. You can change the favorite song if you like and invite other friends and fans to add the app to their profiles.

For the band, it’s viral marketing at its best. Pemaquid launched (no pun intended) the app just a few days ago and – through the power of Facebook’s social graph – it already has several dozen people using it.

Lead singer Walt Craven did the amazing album artwork and is working with us to redesign the group’s Web site.

Rock on!