Basecamp’s New Politics Policy

Basecamp (and Jason) has been a bellwether for how companies operate for almost 20 years now. Here’s an interesting memo for the company that I can only imagine more organizations will be implementing in the coming months / years…

With that, we wanted to put these directional changes on the public record. Historically we’ve tried to share as much as we can — for us, and for you — so this transmission continues the tradition.

1. No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account. Today’s social and political waters are especially choppy. Sensitivities are at 11, and every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant. You shouldn’t have to wonder if staying out of it means you’re complicit, or wading into it means you’re a target. These are difficult enough waters to navigate in life, but significantly more so at work. It’s become too much. It’s a major distraction. It saps our energy, and redirects our dialog towards dark places. It’s not healthy, it hasn’t served us well. And we’re done with it on our company Basecamp account where the work happens. People can take the conversations with willing co-workers to Signal, Whatsapp, or even a personal Basecamp account, but it can’t happen where the work happens anymore.

Source: Changes at Basecamp

Listen to Your Spotify within Facebook

I’m always annoyed when I open Waze on iOS or Android and there’s a persistent widget asking if I’d like to listen to Spotify within the app while navigating. I’ve never said yes.

Now that experience is coming to … Facebook.

In a way, this makes perfect sense for Facebook (and Spotify). Facebook is looking for more engrossing engagement from younger demographics but current efforts have proven unsuccessful. Having Spotify “built in” to Facebook presumably would encourage more of that while young people doom scroll to Post Malone or Ariana Grande.

This also makes sense for Spotify as it continues to position itself as the ever-present soundtrack of our lives with its own engrossing soundtracks and clever attraction-marketing that engenders constant interaction with the service (whether in a standalone app, website, desktop app, widget, or through other services).

While many of us may turn our nose up to this sort of thing, it will be very successful for both Facebook and Spotify (especially podcasts)… however, I just don’t think it’ll get the young people to spend more time on Facebook these days.

Facebook announced last week an expanded partnership with streaming music service Spotify that would bring a new way to listen to music or podcasts directly within Facebook’s app, which it called Project Boombox. Today, the companies are rolling out this integration via a new “miniplayer” experience that will allow Facebook users to stream from Spotify through the Facebook app on iOS or Android. The feature will be available to both free Spotify users and Premium subscribers.”

Via TechCrunch

Apple’s Podcasters Program Agreement

Have to say it again… host it on your own. Don’t rely on Spotify or Apple or Google to grow your podcasting audience or business. That path only leads to destruction.

I read through the “Apple Podcasters Program Agreement” and related documentation so you don’t have to. Here’s a thread of 11 things that caught my eye that I hadn’t seen mentioned anywhere else.

Source: The Future of Apple Podcasts

Tag Your WordPress Posts, People!

I stress to clients that they have to tag and categorize their posts on WordPress. It’s one of the easiest ways to increase your organic traffic and discoverability in Google, but it also helps the web find you.

So tag your posts, people!

Also, good checklist here for setting up a WordPress website on a hosting platform…

If you’re not already on board, keep reading; a client of mine gets 100,000 unique visitors per month. More than 3% of those are referred to by tags listed in the SERPs.

Tag recommendations:

  • Limit your tagging to relevant topics you covered in the post.
  • Not every post needs to be tagged.
  • Keep tags short and sweet; no more than two words.
  • Delete overused and underused tags monthly.

SEO benefits:

  • Improved user experience.
  • Increased engagement.

Via Search Engine Journal: Don’t Launch a WordPress Site Before You Go Through This 17-Step Checklist

Embedding Events Calendar into Other WordPress Pages

The Events Calendar Pro WordPress plugin is one that we frequently use on client sites.

That’s especially true for churches, nonprofits, and groups that rely on clear and consistent event listings that look good on mobile and integrate with services like Google Calendar, iPhones, payment or donation options, and remove the need for unnecessary copy and pasting.

The Events Calendar just rolled out a big update that I’ve been testing out, and I’m pretty excited about being able to offer the ability to display events (based on location, time, category, tag etc) on more site pages outside of just the main Calendar page and not having to use janky work-arounds.

Big improvement!

One of our most-requested customer features is the ability to use Filter Bar on other WordPress pages beyond the main calendar, and now it’s finally here!

Via The Events Calendar Blog

WordPress vs Wix

Finally catching up on this (latest) dust-up between WordPress and Wix…

First, go get them, Matt. Good points here as always. As someone who buids websites for clients (especially our nonprofit, community group, and religious organization partners), it’s always frustrating when a group comes to us after trying to build their site on Wix and spending way too much money and time on that platform.

Second, it’s good to see these old-fashioned blogger battles again. Let’s make the blogosphere great again with drama and self-hosted call-outs.

Wix is a for-profit company with a valuation that peaked at around 20 billion dollars, and whose business model is getting customers to pay more and more every year and making it difficult to leave or get a refund. (Don’t take my word for it, look at their investor presentations.) They are so insecure that they are also the only website creator I’m aware of that doesn’t allow you to export your content, so they’re like a roach motel where you can check in but never check out. Once you buy into their proprietary stack you’re locked in, which even their support documentation admits:

Source: Matt Mullenweg – Unlucky in Cards

Editing the WordPress Footer Text

Handy walkthru here… if you do anything on WordPress, this is one of those questions that you’ll need an answer for sooner or later:

For those wondering, the footer is the bottom part of your website that appears after the content area. This can be a copyright statement, the year, contact details, branding, social media icons, privacy policy links, disclaimers, and so many other things you want it to be.

Source: How to Edit the Footer in WordPress

The World is Too Much With Us

Iambic pentameter courtesy of Petrarch still rings true…

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be

A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

William Wordsworth

In Honor of Beloved Netbooks

I absolutely adored my eee PC 701 and used it all the time. I’ll add a gallery here later.

There were two products that arrived in 2007 that fundamentally changed computing: one, of course, was the iPhone. The second, obviously more important product was the $399 Eee PC 701. It originally ran a custom Linux operating system that reviewers loved (Laptop Mag’s Mark Spoonauer said it was “ten times simpler to use than any Windows notebook”) and was generally heralded as a new kind of computer with tremendous mass appeal. Spoonauer: “Pound for pound, the best value-priced notebook on the planet.”

Source: Let’s remember netbooks – The Verge

Too Much Choice and Not Enough Solutions

Whether you’re telling the world about your church, selling products or sharing experiences, your website is probably not doing the job you think you hired it to do.

I’m a big fan of the “jobs to be done” philosophy of “customer experience” marketing (again, doesn’t matter if you think you have “customers” or not… you do… time is the biggest asset we all have).

Your church / business / group’s website, social media, and all of its messaging should be focused on helping your “customers” identified problems instead of just giving headshots of your directors.

Good post here laying out the issues of too many choices and not any real solutions:

People respond best to a small handful of tailored choices presented to them on a silver platter.That’s why each page should have one Call to Action, and it should be tailored to the content the user chose to read/watch/listen to.That’s why you should intentionally design content marketing funnels.That’s why you should have landing pages for specific products and specific audiences.

Source: Why Don’t People Buy: Too Much Choice – Stacking the Bricks