I’m a social guy.

I’m on Twitter.

And Facebook.

And Tumblr.

And Ning.

Stop by and say hello. I’m usually around.

And if you’re interested in exploring how your company might sponsor a web project for a non-profit, or how to get me/us involved on a project with your company, check out Miskeeto.

Dear Tumblr:

My wife recently imagined the possibility of being able to take a picture on her phone and post it to a feed. Essentially, this would be Twitter for photographs—Twitter with MMS support. Great idea, but I don’t have the will or desire to build it myself. So here’s a related idea I’m hoping you’ll steal.

The work flow:

1. Access your Tumblr account and add your Twitter login information to your preferences
2. Post something to Tumblr
3. Tumblr automatically updates Twitter

If you post a photo, a link is posted to Twitter. If you write a text post, its title and a link is posted to Twitter. If you post a quote, the quote is posted to Twitter (if too long, it becomes a link). And so on. This way, you can take a photograph with your phone, email it to Tumblr, and have a link automatically show up on Twitter.

Technically, this could be a simple matter of re-purposing the information that is saved to the database when a Tumblr post is created. If it’s a photo post, for example, you grab the permalink for it, convert it to a TinyURL, and send it via API to Twitter.

Steal this idea. It could make Tumblr a lot more popular.

Thanks for listening. Let me know if you decide to give it a shot. If so, a nod to my site would be much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Me.

“What is the primary reason I should use your site or application? What will I get out of it?”

These are simple questions. And if you don’t have an answer for them, you might consider finding another project.

If you can’t explain it to me, how am I going to explain it to myself? How am I going to explain it to my friends and coworkers? How am I going to tell the world about you if I can’t latch onto something that makes sense, is compelling, and can be communicated in a few sentences or less at a cocktail party?

Take a look around. Does every page of your site communicate something about its purpose? Does it tell part of a larger story? Does it tell any part of the story?

Explainability is essential.

Explain your site to the next person you see. Can you do it?

At long last, the new book is off to the printer, which means it should be available for shipping within the next 3 or so weeks. Amazon says it will be in stock April 20th, but it could be sooner.

In the meantime, you can preorder a copy today.

I meet a lot of people at conferences. So does my friend Chip.

This year, prior to SxSW Interactive, Chip anticipated he’d be handing out lots of business cards during the event, and took an inventive approach to solving the oft-unanswerable question, “Where did I meet that guy again?”

See, Chip is an interaction designer who works for MapQuest and spends a lot of time thinking about, well, maps.

Somewhere between his efforts to organize his SxSW schedule, invent a way keep track of all the new people he’d meet there, and improve the interaction design of maps, he got some proverbial chocolate in his peanut butter.

He created a collection of two-sided business cards. On one side appeared his name, email, address, company logo—the usual suspects. On the other side appeared a section of a MapQuest map.

Of downtown Austin.

And selected in the map, on each variant of the business card collection, was a location he planned to visit during the week-long festival.

He brought a small arsenal of these cards with him to Austin, and whenever he left the hotel room, he grabbed the cards that showed the location of the places he planned to go while he was out.

I ran into Chip at Shakespeare’s Pub on 6th St. We caught up for a few minutes and talked about putting together a panel for next year’s event. To ensure I had his email address, he handed me his Shakespeare’s Pub business card.

In addition to giving me the information I needed, the business card created a wonderful sense of context. Every time I look at that business card from now on, I’ll remember the conversation we had. I’ll remember the place. The mood. The entire scene.

Chip’s cards were effective because they served as a reminder of where he and the recipient met. They were also effective because when the recipient contacted Chip, he could ask where the recipient got the card so he could remember himself.

But far more than this, the cards were effective because they told a story. They burned the memory of the conversation with Chip into the recipient’s brain in a delightful and surprising way.

Chip’s cards were a gift. And not because they provided his email address.

Fairy doors like this one can have a big impact on a user’s impression of a web site or application as well. We just need to paint a few.