I was really pleased to see my Twitter background featured on Twitter Backgrounds Gallery this week. Thanks for the votes and comments.

I'm excited that more sites like this are popping up. Anything to help inspire folks to make their backgrounds more unique is definitely a good thing.

kcjbdkcjbdnckjdbckds

I've never been much for New Year resolutions. Traditionally, the beginning of January is not the best time for me to turn over new leaves. I usually fall off whatever wagon I've aimed for by the end of the month anyway. So this year I decided to try on some Chinese New Year resolutions for size.

It's a procrastinator's dream. You get a few extra weeks to reflect while most other folks slog though their lists, there is much less pressure, and quite frankly, the idea hasn't really caught on yet.

Here are some of my goals for the Year of the Ox:

• Blog more
  I seem to be doing much more micro-blogging (and a host of other social network activities) lately. I miss writing about things in a little more depth.
• Foster an attitude of appreciation
  Too often, I find myself overwhelmed when I should be more appreciative for the opportunities I have.
• Make things better
  I see so much potential in social media to connect people as never before. Of the many benefits of this collaboration can, and should, be to make the world a better place.
• Make health a priority
  My lifestyle is a little a lot more sedentary than I'd like. It's about time I took better care of myself.

Do you have any resolutions, Ox-related or otherwise, you'd like to share?

It's an intriguing concept, although not one I completely subscribe to. I do like the use of social networking phrases (like "friend request accepted") juxtaposed with images of people interacting.

Here's the commerical:

Another interesting component of the campaign (done by McCann Erickson) is the branded web site, www.makefacetime.com. It shuts down after three minutes of use, apparently to allow more time for chewing gum IRL. The site features the ability to schedule real face time with friends courtesy of a nice use of the Google Maps API and an anti-emoticon game, the Smiley Chamber of Doom.

I'm curious what others think of this approach. While clever to me, I'm not sure how it resonates with their younger target audience. What do you think?

Here's wishing you a safe and restful holiday season. I've included this year's two mixes below. Enjoy!

Christmas Presence 08
Warm & Cozy Holiday Tunes
Listen (via Opentape)

1. The Merriest - Various Artists
2. Christmas Time Is Here - Ivy
3. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Death Cab For Cutie
4. Sleigh Ride/Santa Claus' Party - Ferrante & Teicher / Les Baxter
5. You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch - Fareed Haque
6. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - Ella Fitzgerald
7. Winter Wonderland - Goldfrapp
8. Christmas Night In Harlem - Louis Armstrong
9. Do You Hear What I Hear? - Pink Martini
10. Jingle Bells - Dean Martin
11. Baby, It's Cold Outside - Al Hirt and Ann Margaret
12. Frosty The Snowman - Esquivel
13. Carol of the Bells - Outputmessage
14. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - Les Brown And His Band Of Renown
15. Christmas Don't Be Late - Rosie Thomas
16. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear - Catie Curtis and Rose Polenzan
17. It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year ( A Shift Remix) - Andy Williams

Holidazed & Confused 08
The Other Side of Christmas
Listen (via Opentape)

1. Super Jingle Bros. - Doctor Octoroc
2. Naughty Naughty Xmas - Danger Danger
3. Snow Ogre - PostPrior
4. Dead By X'Mas - Hanoi Rocks
5. I Hate Christmas Parties - Relient K
6. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Banks Soundtech Steel Orchestra
7. Christmas in Hell - Pennywise
8. Merry Christmas from the Family - Jill Sobule
9. Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin' - Mack Rice
10. Me And Mrs. Claus - Bob Rivers
11. Christmas Medley]]> Wed, 24 Dec 2008 21:43:07 -0800 http://virb.com/myklroventine/posts/text/999308 http://virb.com/myklroventine/posts/text/958937 Inspired by Mashable's round-up of Halloween-flavored logos, I've collected some interesting examples of website logos inspired by the US election last week. Here are some of my favorites:

Yahoo - Added a vote button and turned theirs into a poll.

Cafemom - had a nice button standing in for their O.

Boston.com - also choose a Vote button.

FriendFeed - went with a sticker instead.

Google - outdid themselves with voting booths.

I also came across this version at googlevote.com, but there isn't anything else at that domain. Not sure what the story is there.

AOL - had a spiffy, but lengthy, animated version of their logo.

Ask.com - had a dramatic White House and sticker

Surprisingly, my favorite was Microsoft's Live Search (click the image to enlarge). I love the power of the photo background.

Starbucks is running a special promotion until January 2, 2009 to donate 5]]> Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:09:00 -0800 http://virb.com/myklroventine/posts/text/958936 http://virb.com/myklroventine/posts/text/916642

When I saw this tweet last night, after chuckling at the HTML joke, I started thinking about all the folks who'd be stocking up on paper copies of newspapers today. That lead to some surfing of major news sites and, ultimately, to the collection below of post-election screenshots from around the web. Thanks to Kristofer Layon for the inspiration.

What did you do to commemorate this historic event?

The most important thing you can do today is get out and vote. Google can help you find your polling place. Starbucks will even give you a free cup of coffee. Follow the action at Twitter Vote Report. All that's left is for you to go and make the world a better place.

A bunch of these posters by Stacy Schwartz were taped up in the neighborhood around my office this morning. Aside from being incredibly cool on its own, the concept was inspired by a 1960's draft resistance photo featuring Joan Baez.]]> Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:45:52 -0800 http://virb.com/myklroventine/posts/text/913329 http://virb.com/myklroventine/posts/text/913328
Social media and traditional media collide tonight as Current TV shakes things up again. They successfully integrated Twitter with live broadcasts during the recent presidential and vice-presidential debates. Now they've turned they're attention to US election night coverage. Their take on this time-honored pundit-fest will be comprised of content from Digg, Twitter, a live DJ set from Diplo and realtime reporting. Find Current TV in your area and tune in.

So much of this most recent election cycle has taken place across the social web. Twitter and SocialMedian have created stand-alone political sites, Current TV combined Twitter and the televised debates, CNN is reading Facebook and Myspace mail from viewers during reports. How, if at all, has this influenced your vote? Jump onto Seemic and join the conversation or leave a comment here.

"Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world"
- Maria Montessori

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my daughters' potential. The world they've entered seems to be constantly on the edge of crisis. The environmental, financial and political events of this past year alone have left me feeling uneasy about their future to say the least. I worry that their individual potential may be overshadowed by these larger forces.

I realize that they will have to learn to face these challenges, and many more, eventually. So I focus on teaching them some basic concepts to navigate with:

• Everything can teach us something
• Questions are important
• Everyone deserves compassion
• Believe in the power of an individual to affect change

I usually don't pay much attention to the other factors affecting their potential. How many of us do? They eat regular meals, sleep in warm beds, receive any medical care they require and have access to formal education. They enjoy music and food from all over the world. They feel protected and loved.

They're lucky. Of the 2.2 billion children in the world, 1 billion live in poverty. According to UNICEF, 26,500-30,000 children die each day due to poverty. They "die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world."

Blog Action Day is helping raise awareness of this crisis today. Thousands of bloggers are reaching out to a worldwide audience of millions to incite action. The internet has become the most powerful tool ever concieved to connect, share, learn, understand and unite. All this is meaningless if it just increases the divide between the connected and those most in need.

What can you do right now? Start by supporting organizations already working on the issue. A few suggestions:

• Kiva is a person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.
• Closer to home, Cheerful Givers is a Minnesota-based nonprofit providing toy-filled birthday gift bags to food shelves and shelters so that parents living in poverty can give their child a birthday gift.
• Change.org is a social network for people interested in a better world. They help translate interest in social change into effective action.
• The Blog Action Day site has lots more about what one person can do.

This is a problem we can solve. Together.

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Which one would she be? That's the question I posed earlier today.

I got a great response via Twitter and Facebook. Lots of votes for simple san serifs and a few dingbats. My favorites were the decorative fonts, chosen for their name (Chiller - wr3n) or appearance (the very circus-like Rosewood - johnny_bones). Some shared a little history in their picks (Arial, because it was just a hashed-together verison of the better Helvetica. It wasn't ready but was released anyway - sparkyfirepants). Others revealed more than a little of their personal opinion (Arial Black because there's almost never an appropriate time to use it - davehuston).

Bonus points go to altercloud for accuracy (Accidental Presidency) and ErinNoelG for originality (Moosekiller Bold).

See all the responses and add your own on Flickr.

To distract from the dearth of depressing financial news today, The Consumerist kindly suggested readers cheer up by checking out my 2007 State Fair set on Flickr. Check out this placement!

Al Gore may not have invented the internet, but he's doing a hell of a job to make it better. Gore's cable network, Current TV has mashed together two of my favorite vices: politics and Twitter.

Hack the Debate is an innovative use of the two mediums. During each debate (last week's vice presidential debate shown above), they show tweets in pretty close to real-time on the lower portion of the screen. As a new one appears, the previous tweet moves up, slowly breaks apart and fades away. The animation is quite beautiful and actually less distracting than I had anticipated.

Twitterers from both sides of the aisle took part last week, and I must say it's quite addicting to watch and participate in. Anyone on Twitter can join in by simply adding the hastag #current to tweets during the debate. It's become my preferred way of watching. Find Current TV in your area.

Other broadcasters take note: this is how you do it right. No frills, elegant execution, using the data in a contextual way to add value and encourage participation, minimal filtering. Well done Current TV!

This week, America's financial system faces an historic crisis. If we do not address this crisis, we will be forced to borrow from other countries and relatives we haven't seen since the last family reunion. This will be incredibly awkward as well as have devastating consequences for our economy. Politicians will no longer be able to buy multiple homes and "contributions" from special interest groups may be lost. Businesses will not have enough money to outsource their employees. If we do not act, every single corner of our country will be impacted. Even Alaska. We simply cannot allow this to happen.

It has become clear that no one in their right mind supports the Administration's proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time.

Therefore, I will suspend my blog until I am able to solve this economic crisis.

I will travel to Washington D.C. and hang out at the Starbucks on 16th & K street. I will keep you posted as to my progress in tackling this important issue. God bless America.

Hasbro finally took out Scrabulous today. The incredibly popular Facebook application had been dancing on the toy company's intellectual property for almost a year now, so not many were shocked. It was a play straight from the book. The problem is that the book has been out of print for years.

Don Reisinger at Mashable makes the excellent point that one of the real issues here is that two brothers from India accomplished something that mega-company Hasbro failed to do -- generate interest and excitement in Scrabble. Lots of interest in fact. I never really enjoyed the game until I discovered Scrabulous. With a daily average of half a million users, Scrabulous was one of Facebook's most popular applications. Hasbro, you don't sue people who do that for you. You hire them!

It bears repeating, 500,000 people a day were playing Scrabulous. Hasbro's response to this surge of interest in their dusty old brand was to say, "Sure, we'll engage with you. But on our terms." Did Hasbro really think that crowd would respond favorably when they pulled the plug? Did they think we'd greet them as liberators?

Let's not forget the catalyst in this clever scheme. Hasbro waited to file suit until the day their shiny new Facebook application launched. Scrabble Beta took almost 8 months to develop. That's almost as long as it's taken to rebuild the collapsed I-35 bridge in Minneapolis.

Here's where they dropped the other ball. Scrabble Beta is clunky, needlessly animated and sports a crowded, busy design. Compare this to Scrabulous's clean, fast, simple interface. I would go so far as to call Scrabulous elegant in comparison.

There's no excuse for this. Hasbro had the resources, time and motivation to make Scrabble Beta the ultimate Facebook application. Hell, they could have just copied Scrabulous. Wouldn't that have been ironic?

Brands need to pay more attention than this. This is an example of the fundamental difference between the old way and today. The rules have changed. Companies like Hasbro missed the memo.

The next time half a million people raise their hand and want to engage with your brand, what will your response be?