Twitter's Newest Feature!

by J. Butler, Content Development Specialist

Logging into the Applecore Twitter account this morning, I noticed a new addition that had popped up unexpectedly: the Lists feature.

Lists simply let you group the people you follow on Twitter into shorter, easier to follow lists. Like "Sports" "News" and "Entertainment," maybe. Or "England" "Canada" and "St. John's." Perhaps "Friends" "Family" or "Co-workers." What's more, any lists that you make or are featured on are also viewable via your profile...there's a new link next to your followers that tells you exactly how many lists you're on.

However you use it, it's sure to make the wide world of Twitter more personal and useful across the board.

Interactions Issue 4 is Out!

We just launched our fourth issue of the Applecore newsletter, Interactions. It's filled with lots of tips and tricks for navigating the tricky terrain of businesses online and off, including learning opportunities and workshops. The central theme of this issue is passion and energy, and how the two work together to guarantee the output of your very best self. The topics this month:

Creating a Community: profile of local businesses doing it right online

Complimentary Workshop: Expanding Your Digital Footprint

St. John's Events (October)

This is your chance: why not sign up now and get in before the next issue? Make sure you're in for the latest in interactive tips, brand secrets and design innovation!

Watch this space for the announcement of our Interactions archives.

Happy Birthday, Gmail!

by J. Butler, Content Development Specialist

Wishing Gmail a happy birthday may seem like whispering into the wind tunnel: with all the accomplishments Google had racked up in the past few years, why stop to pay attention to any one anniversary? But looking back and how and why Gmail came about tells us a lot about how far we’ve come in such a short span of time. 

When Gmail was first introduced, a typical webmail account could only store about five megabytes of mail. I can vouch for this firsthand: my old Hotmail account was perpetually full, and I had to resort to saving treasured emails in a file on my hard drive. It was hardly time effective, and made managing mail a chore. Then came Gmail, offering a full gigabyte of space; for some hardcore users, this was barely an upgrade, but for the typical email user, even one gig opened up a whole new world of storage—it’s five happy years later for me, and I’ve barely cracked 4%. And I delete nothing. 

Gmail was designed with one group in mind: the people who racked up a lot of email, and thus, needed a lot of space. Much of common email interface were frustrating to the designers, so they started essentially with nothing, building their new intuitive interface from scratch. Their site architecture was a hybrid of HTML and JavaScript (this later became known as AJAX), which was smoother and faster. This becomes important when you keep in mind that broadband connections and 56k modems were still the norm.

In the years following, Google has developed any number of additions for the basic Gmail structure that ranged from the practical (an ‘Undo Send’ app, ‘To Do’ task lists) to the personal (design themes, custom date formats) to the funny (Google Goggles, anyone?). But by any rate, Goggle’s worked hard to improve an by all accounts stellar service, paving the way for even bigger improvements to personal email in the near future. 

Here’s one stat that can’t escape highlighting: today, thanks in large part to Google, it’s almost commonplace to a 20 megabyte attachment—making that one email four times the size of an entire webmail account in 2004. 

Photo from Official Google Blog entry. 

Social Awareness Goes Viral

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

Ask anyone who didn't even know what a "Facebook" was two years ago: the social nature of the internet has exploded, turning the web into a collaborative, transparent place to share ideas, spread your message and reach a globe-spanning audience with the click of a button.

So it’s no wonder that spreading awareness – be it political, environmental or charitable – has been biten by the social networking bug. Here’s a handful of sites that do it best, courting innovation while they spread their message.

Political/Current events

Daily Kos – a collaborative political news blog that often recruits its readers to submit their own ‘diary’ entries—albeit under the safety of their screen names. Administrators and ‘power’ users have the ability to edit, delete, or otherwise prohibit diaries and replies (comments) posted by those who don’t have such privileges. [Daily Kos]

Digg—A site where users vote stories into the top spot (called ‘digging’) or ignore them in favor of others (called ‘burying’). Users have an exceptional degree of control over what stories see the front page. [Digg]

Citizen’s Briefing Book—A project of the official White House webpage. American citizens were invited to submit their concerns and suggestions in anticipation of Obama’s administration, with the compiled comments presented to President Obama. The Briefing Book only recently closed submission, and has given an amazing number of ordinary citizens the chance to participate in their government. [Citizen's Briefing Book]

Environmental

Cool People Care—Whether you have five minutes or five hours to spare, this website is full of countless little lifestyle changes for the better of the whole world. From alternatives to wrapping paper to taking four minute showers, this website is full of little gestures that add up to a big whole. [Cool People Care]

Make Me Sustainable—A website that offers you the chance to trace your carbon footprint with just a few clicks of a button—because awareness is the first step to change. Join a network of other users dedicated to improving their own impact on the world, and have an army of like-minded people behind your efforts. [Make Me Sustainable]

Recycle Now—the name says it all: tips and suggestions for integrating a recycling regime into your daily routine. Bright, simply designed and no-nonsense, this website offers so much easy to use advice that you’ll find using it no problem. [Recycle Now]

Charity

Your Luminosity—an online platform for setting up your own charity. It guides you through the process of creating your profile, setting up a donations page, and even provides a guide to filing tax receipts. [Your Luminosity]

Kiva - In this collective fundraising project, a single project of modest size (say, an Ecuadorian bread maker requesting $525) can be funded collectively through donors from around the world. The maximum bid is $25 on any one project, and when the money is repaid, the donor can either keep the money—or use it to fund another project. [KIVA]

TOMS Shoes- “For every pair you purchase, TOMS Shoes will match it with shoes for a child in need. One for one.” So says the motto on their homepage, and browsing their selection finds a variety of simple, well-made shoes that give so much more than you get. [TOMS Shoes]

Heard of any other sites using the internet to connect like-minded people in this way? Share!