Mozilla, the group of developers who brought us the best web browser in the world (Firefox), has launched a new website called the Mozilla Creative Collective. Actually, it’s more than just a website, it’s a movement. To better explain what it is, I have borrowed this statement from the MCC’s about us page: “We believe in the power of well-made and widely distributed art, and want to make it possible for artists to cover the web with designs inspired by Mozilla and the principles we stand for.” For even more detailed information, check out the post below that was originally posted on the official Mozilla blog.

The Mozilla Creative Collective is Here! Join us.

by Tara Shahian

I’m excited to announce the initial beta release of the Mozilla Creative Collective, the official new home and hub of activity for our visual design community. The goal of the Creative Collective is to use art as a means for spreading Firefox and sharing the Mozilla story in new ways.

Building communities is a big part of what Mozilla is all about, and key to our success as an organization. We have dedicated communities that contribute to nearly every aspect of Mozilla – from software development, to extensions, to localization, to marketing, and more – but an area that’s traditionally lacked an organized community is visual design. And because art is such a powerful form of communication, we’re harnessing that with the Creative Collective.

Mozilla actually has a long history with community design. Successful past projects such as the Firefox 3 t-shirt, Mozilla Mexico logo design contest and Personas are just a sampling of our community’s creative energy – and demonstrate the growing level of interest among people who are eager to contribute.

On the Creative Collective site, artists can create personal profiles, share their work in a public gallery, connect and collaborate with others from around the world, and much more. There’s also a variety of social features, such as a system of achievement badges, to make the experience more fun for everyone.

An important feature that’s not yet available (but will be added soon) is the Design Challenge, which will prompt members to submit design solutions based around a particular theme. Although the feature hasn’t been formally introduced to the site, we’re already reaching out to artists to help support Mozilla Service Week with creative designs that inspire action. If you’re looking for an initial way to get involved, be sure to check that out.

As noted earlier, the site is still in beta so we’re eager to hear your feedback. If you have suggestions on how to improve the site, please don’t hesitate to share them with us. We’ll be making tweaks and adding new features over time, and are counting on the community to help guide the project’s future direction. So, make sure to check back often, or follow our tweets, for updates. Looking forward to seeing you on the Creative Collective!

* Huge thanks to the amazing team that made this all possible: John Slater, Jeff Zeller, Mike Morgan, Ryan Snyder, Craig Cook, Ryan Doherty, Greg Storey, Ethan Marcotte, Stephen Caver, Helenita Johnson, Stephanie Schonauer, Studio Number One, Stephen Donner, Krupa Raj, Raymond Etornam, Shyam Mani, Catherine Brady and Paul Kim. And everyone else who contributed their feedback during the design process. *

GOMEDIAZINE (and brand new editor George Coghill) did me a big favor on July 17th and introduced me to a nifty little program called Brush Pilot, and now I would like to introduce it you. GOMEDIA hosted a contest and allowed readers download a demo and review the program.

What is Brush Pilot you ask? From the Brush Pilot website, “Brush Pilot™ is a fast and easy application for previewing Adobe® Photoshop® and Adobe Photoshop Elements Brushes (.abr), built exclusively for Mac OS X. Brush Pilot is designed to save you time by allowing you to instantly preview your brushes without having to load them into Photoshop.” The program does exactly as it says and it’s pretty darn awesome. Here is my full review from the GOMEDIA website.

First of all, I would like to say great job to Jay Hilgert the creator of the program. It makes sense that a graphic designer came up with this idea (and impressive that a graphic designer wrote an application)! There are several things to like about Brush Pilot. The first is the ease of install. As with most OS X programs it’s easy, but all Brush Pilot requires is a double click on the zip file and it’s ready to go. You can leave the program on your desktop or wherever it’s most convenient. The next great feature is how it will automagically find all of your brushes on your Mac, and it does it in very short order. I try to keep all of my resources organized, but try as I might that does not always happen. Enter the next great feature of the program, “reveal in finder”. After installing the demo, the program found 15 brush sets (I really loved) that I thought I had lost from a previous hard drive crash. If I had to choose one feature as my favorite, it would probably be the most obvious… The ability to visually browse through all of your bushes in one place. Not only is it a great time saver, but being able to actually see what a brush set looks like (and zoom in on them) without having to load it into PS first will cut down on my frustration level when looking for that “perfect brush”.

There is a lot of information out there about twitter and how and why to use it to promote your business. This article by Kalena Jordan (@kalena) who writes a daily Search Engine Advice Column, and is co-founder of Search Engine College, provides a nice summation of of these questions (based on a poll she conducted). She also gives a good example of a successful use of twitter by a business and a twitter fail. The original article is posted at WEBSITE MAGAZINE.

Conversational Marketing With Twitter

By Kalena Jordan

Twitter has officially entered the mainstream. From Ashton Kutcher’s CNN challenge to first glimpses of passengers being evacuated from the ditched airplane on the Hudson River, the world knows the word “Twitter.”

But is Twitter just an emergency beacon and “a toy for bored celebrities and high-school girls,” as The New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd claims?

Thankfully, no. The latest wave of Twitter users are business executives. They range from home business owners and marketing executives, to brand evangelists and CEOs. Take a look at ExecTweets.com and you’ll see some well-known names with active Twitter accounts: Richard Branson of Virgin, Lisa Stone, co-founder of BlogHer, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, and Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, to name a few.

Twitter provides a way for businesses to promote products and services, resolve problems and customer complaints, and connect with current and potential consumers. And it all takes place in the form of a conversation — not a traditional marketing pitch.

Twitter as a Business Tool
As the saying goes, “content is king.” But as the Web transitions from 2.0 to 3.0, immersive conversation is quickly challenging the throne. Twitter allows businesses to engage directly with consumers and potential customers in real time in front of an impressionable public. The opportunity this provides is unparalleled.

Twitter attracted serious interest from businesses and their executives because they know conversation is a powerful and persuasive business tool. And right now, Twitter is where the conversation is taking place.

“Twitter allows for a personal, real-life brand presence, while fostering better communication, engagement and attention to our customers,” says Josh Austin, social media manager for Overstock when asked why he thinks Twitter is a good fit for businesses.

To find out how Twitter is being used as a business tool, I set up a Twitter poll:

Based on these results, the majority of companies that took this poll are using Twitter primarily to interact with their customers (34 percent) and drive traffic (23 percent). It’s a clear indication that both businesses and consumers are finding value in Twitter. Another poll was issued to find out how consumers interact with businesses on Twitter.

It’s encouraging to see that 65 percent of poll respondents conversed with a company using Twitter. Considering that nearly half of those people had an issue to resolve (25 percent), the potential for customer loss and retention is enough for every business to open a Twitter account, and to monitor it closely. Then there’s the number of respondents giving companies direct feedback (positive or negative) via tweets — a virtual PR goldmine.

Meg Geddes, a search marketing expert and heavy Twitter user related her recent positive experience with a business. “At the end of December, there was a special one-dayonly promotion through Intuit and Staples for buying Quickbooks Pro, where you’d get a full rebate,” Geddes says. “I ordered it and filled in my rebate paperwork but it was illegible and had to be re-faxed. The date on the revised paperwork sent by Intuit didn’t match my order date (and I didn’t notice) so my rebate was denied. I was complaining about it on Twitter and, within half an hour, someone from Intuit sent me a tweet asking if she could help. I explained the situation and she had the rebate approved. I was very happy, as I had been expecting to have to sit on the phone for hours with Intuit and/or Staples.”

Conducting keyword research on Twitter for your business name can reveal opportunities that stem from problems or complaints, like the one above. But businesses can also find opportunities by scanning Twitter for industry wide terms, or competitor’s businesses.

The Pizza Meal Win
It’s not just big brands that can benefit from using Twitter. Small businesses have just as much to gain. Take Silicon Valley pizza chain, Tony & Alba. By using keyword tracking and the Twitter Search tool, they monitored conversations on Twitter involving the keyword “pizza.”

Seeing a tweet from a local man to his friend suggesting a rival pizza place for dinner that night, Tony & Alba tweeted the man directly suggesting their pizza restaurant instead. It was further away for the man and his family, but a quick offer from Tony & Alba to reserve a table and free soft drinks clinched the deal. A positive meal experience and a single tweet won respect and future business from three happy families.

The Free Burrito Fail
Before using Twitter to promote your products, make sure you’re prepared for the potential rush of business, and set qualifiers in the offer. In February 2009, Utah-based Mexican restaurant chain Costa Vida sent a one-day-only offer for a free burrito to its 80 Twitter followers. As part of the promotion, Costa Vida required customers to have an electronic coupon on their mobile phone.

The burrito was designed to test the effectiveness of leveraging social media websites like Twitter and Facebook in brand building and driving restaurant traffic. However, Costa Vida customers tweeted about the promotion and forwarded the offer to friends via mobile phone. Their followers told their own followers and so on, until more than 2,500 people inundated one of Costa Vida’s stores looking for their free burrito.

Costa Vida sent multiple Twitter updates with instructions on how new Costa Vida fans could redeem their coupon on a future date for the (now sold-out) burritos.

Companies with shareholders monitoring their every move can’t afford to have their brand sullied at the virtual water cooler. So, these companies employ staff to send out short bursts of 140 characters every hour or so, thereby controlling their presence on Twitter. They are already at the water cooler and they’re handing out the cups. It’s important to remember that Twitter opens the door for positive experiences, but can also empower users to quickly damage a company’s reputation. Therefore, it’s important to monitor the conversations for any problems, and to respond quickly and respectfully. Take advantage of tools like TweetBeep to set keyword alerts pertaining to your company, and TweetDeck to manage your Twitter account(s).

Could your business be a Twitter success story? Here’s one last piece of advice, from blogging consultant Michael Martine: “If you’re on Twitter to market your business, the best thing you can do is shut up about your business and help people.”

About the Author: Kalena Jordan (@kalena) writes a daily Search Engine Advice Column, and is co-founder of Search Engine College — an online training in-stitution offering online instructor-led and self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and other Search Engine Marketing subjects.

What is WordCamp?
From the WordCamp Birmingham about page:
“Take some passionate WordPress users and folks interested in blogging from throughout Alabama and the Southeastern United States. Add an incredible weekend of activities already happening here in The Magic City and of course, barbecue!

Throw in a keynote by Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg and you get WordCamp Birmingham 2009!

Join WordPress users from all over as we come together as enthusiasts, bloggers, developers, podcasters and designers to learn more about where our favorite open source software currently is and where it’s possibly going.”

As a WordPress newbie, I plan on attending WordCamp Birmingham and cannot wait to see what all they have in store. I know it will be a great learning experience, and the list of speakers is already quite impressive. I also noticed (and wondered if this was by design) that this event falls on a weekend where the SEC college football match ups are not very compelling. Saturdays during the college football season are most often dedicated to spending quality time with Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Lee Corso. I guess they will just have to do without me for one Saturday.

After taking a vacation not only from work, but from the computer as well I arrived back at work in a much better frame of mind. When I went to open my email that I had not checked in several days, there was some great news in my gmail inbox. I found a piece of software called Art Text made by the folks at BeLight Software. They were having a contest asking people to show how you would use Art Text to create logos, graphics and anything else you can come up with using their software. Well, I entered the contest with a wallpaper I designed, and I was chosen as the third place winner. I am most excited to say the least because the third place prize is an iPod shuffle! woo hoo! I just wanted to say thanks to BeLight Software for having the contest and to let you know that they have several other Mac-based productivity apps that are worth checking out.