Use of screen real estate - lost in translation

Doing a bit of research today to compare the two primary presidential candidates on some key issues.  I was shocked when visiting the John McCain homepage to find that apparently John might also be an Obama supporter!

So much so in fact, that they have given him the best placement on the homepage, as well as an aesthetically pleasing graphic with a clear association between the powerful word ‘Love’ and Barack’s smiling face.  Clicking the graphic takes you to two videos which give you the ability to vote for the best song for a video about how the media is in love with Barack Obama.

After a wave of misses and gaffes in the last couple of weeks, you would think the McCain camp might be able to get it right with their own online efforts.  Instead they give their most valuable screen real estate to a competitor, in what I suppose is an effort to convince voters and other media players that the McCain camp is getting a raw deal.

Unfortunately, this effort falls flat with me – and I imagine many others as well.  The homepage placement, headline graphic, and even the videos are neutral to – pro-Obama, and I think it’s safe to say that no media exec is going to flinch at the montage therein.

In my experience, sarcasm doesn’t translate well in email or the web.  Better to keep on point.

Dear John,

More than anything else, Americans want to see you and Barack Obama fight a good fight in this presidential campaign.  No whining, minimal mud slinging, just ’straight talk’ about the issues and how you and your team can help take us into the next decade.

Please have your online marketing team go back to the drawing board.

Sincerely,

Concerned Netizen

courtesy cogdogblog

Just a week after the first post to this blog, the limitations of the hosted version of Wordpress have driven me to self-host the open source version on my own server.  As I discussed earlier, self-hosting was most definitely not my preference, but the restrictions Wordpress.com – even with a paid subscription – are a bit too inflexible.

Specifically, I found these:

• Limited types of files can be uploaded – no flash, no video, nothing exotic etc.
• Can’t embed flash or javascript tags in posts
• Limited number of themes
• Limited number of widgets (about 10)
• No support for 3rd party plugins
• Can’t edit themes or CSS ($$)
• Can’t host on your own domain ($$)

A couple of the items listed here ($$) are available with a paid upgrade, but I figured if I’m going to pay, might as well pick up the rest of the features as well.

So this post marks the first on a self-hosted installation of Wordpress.  I took the liberty of changing to the ‘elite’ theme available at http://wpzone.net/, I added the WP-Cumulus plugin Tag Cloud, and of course installed mysql along the way.

In my initial assessment, I opted for Movable Type which supports my preferred database, Postgres.  While I still stand by this requirement for business related sites and sites that need the blog to be integrated with other user facing systems, for this personal blog, I bit the bullet and stood up a basic mysql installation.  We’ll see how it goes.

credit: davidw on flickr

This post is being written using the hosted version of Wordpress.  Writing these first words are easy, compared to the process of figuring out what blog to type them into.

In making this decision, I surveyed some of the most popular blog systems out there, considered my short term and long term needs, evaluated pricing against these needs, and after attempts to assimilate all of this information, jumped in with both feet.

So, here you have a first Wordpress.com posting, hosted by Automattic using a free account.  This account won’t stay free for long, I need to add some custom CSS, and change the domain from darrenrush.wordpress.com to darrenrush.com – 2 upgrades that will cost some dough $$.

For a quick snapshot of what I considered, here is the list:

• Wordpress – hosted or installed
• Typepad – hosted or installed (installed version called Movable Type)
• Typo – installed
• Blogger – hosted

At many turns I was stuck between 2 less than ideal options.  The first question I asked was whether I needed hosted or installed solution.  While I have space and the experience to install the software, hosting is easier – as long as you have the power to do what you want (or need) to do with the tool.

Hosted or Installed: Hosted

Next, I looked at pricing.  You can setup a free blog or Wordpress for free.  However, customizations and hosting on your own domain run about $25 USD per year.  Typepad has a basic service level that for $4.95/month – almost $60/year – but this service level still does not allow you to map your own domain.

Wordpress.com or Typepad: Wordpress.com

However, now looking at real dollars (if nominal) to host a blog, I reconsidered the installed options.  Could I install one of these platforms and run it on existing servers, and avoid have a new monthly bill?  One my technical requirements for a blog is that it runs on existing database servers that are available in my environment.  In my case this is an open source DB called Postgres.  Typo and Movable Type can both be run on Postgres, however Wordpress cannot.  In addition, a review of Typo left me with the sense, that while fully featured, the widget and developer ecosystem around MT and Wordpress are much more mature.  A quick survey of widgets for Typepad (Moveable Type) and Wordpress showed that Wordpress has about 100 widgets available – about twice as many as Typepad.

Installed: Typepad

With three important criteria established, I had to make a decision.  Of course there was no clear winner, so in the end, I made a judgment call.  I decided that I can host on Wordpress for now and pay the fees.  In parallel, I will begin lobbying the Wordpress community to port this great software to Postgres – hopefully providing me with more deployment options in the future.

Do you think Wordpress should be able to run on Postgres?  If so, please Digg this post – that will be your vote in support of this feature request.  We’ll make sure the WP team knows what the community thinks.

Coming Soon: A similar look at Forums