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Tomorrow is the big day: the invite-only Google Android event . While we’ve all pretty much assumed they’re going to tout Android and reveal the Google-sold Nexus One phone, there’s always the possibility that Google will surprise us all. Google’s Nexus phone was first “leaked” in December after they distributed them at a Google party (no gag order in effect). Naturally, the phone created a free social- and mainstream media frenzy in pretty much no time flat. But employees were the only ones with sneak previews—until recently. Saturday, Engadget posted a video tour of the Nexus UI and a preliminary review —and the Nexus is not the iPhone killer: [I]s this the be-all-end-all Android phone / iPhone eviscerator? In two words: not really. The thing that’s struck us most (so far) about the Nexus One thus far is the fact that it’s really not very different than the Droid in any substantial way. Yes, we’d say the design and feel of the phone is better (much better, in fact), and it’s definitely noticeably faster than Motorola’s offering, but it’s not so much faster that we felt like the doors were being blown off. It is very smooth, though we still noticed a little stuttery behavior (very slight, mind you) when moving between home pages. Still, opening applications and moving between them was super speedy, as was Google maps, and any area of the phone where you’ve got to get through long lists. Don’t get us wrong, the phone cooks — but it’s not some paradigmatic shift for Android. So while it’s slick and cool, the Nexus isn’t a huge technological change—and it’s not changing the game the way the iPhone did. It’s a viable smartphone option, and probably typical of the second generation of Android devices. And then there’s the possibility Google will surprise us all. At Search Engine Land, where Danny Sullivan will be liveblogging the event tomorrow, Greg Sterling points out that if Google really wants to surprise us, they could introduce an Android tablet computer —effectively upstaging Apple’s event scheduled for January 26, where they’re anticipated to unveil their own tablet. Boringly, Google will probably just formally premiere the Nexus. Maybe they’ll be ready to sell it immediately, even. What do you think? Will Google go for the obvious or the surprise factor?

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Revving up for the Nexus

What is it with airlines? If they’re not breaking guitars , their pilots are missing airports , or they’re berating people that are trying to help them. Well, we have one more reputation disaster to add to the list, courtesy of American Airlines. You may recall the open letter web designer Dusting Curtis wrote to the airline. In it, Curtis suggested that AA was losing millions because of its poorly designed web site. He even went as far as suggesting a new design for the site. Shortly after, one of AA’s designers took it upon himself to reply and explain the complexities of AA web site design decisions. His reply was open, honest…radically transparent. American Airlines has allegedly fired him for it! This may have happened back in May, but it’s only just come to light that the AA designer was apparently fired an hour after he wrote his reply. AA searched their exchange database for the text I posted, found the guy, and fired Mr. X on the spot. From what I have learned, they also threatened him with legal action if he spoke to me again. Apparently he broke his non-disclosure agreement by discussing the design process at AA. OK, so maybe he shouldn’t have broken his NDA with the airline. But, maybe AA shouldn’t have been so near-sighted and pedantic about its employee policies. Surely the airline is aware that it’s industry hardly has the best reputation for caring about its customers. Heck, even Jet Blue–the poster child of airline awesomeness–has screwed-up royally in the past. In some ways, you can’t blame American Airlines. It is completely ignorant of how customers want to interact with the airline. We don’t want to hand flight attendants slips of paper that say “well done”–something AA encourages me to do as a frequent flier–we want to engage with the airline. We want it to do better, and we have ideas. Ideas about clean blankets, baggage fees, and yes, web site design. How does AA marry its apparent openness on Twitter , with this crackdown on a real employee that wants to help? Yes, you should have guidelines in place, but those guidelines should be designed to encourage thoughtful customer interaction, not prevent it! If we hear that you’re firing employees because of their transparency, how are we supposed to take your official social networking efforts seriously? What, do we now assume that everything that is shared on Twitter or Facebook is nothing more than sterile, PR sanctioned, sound bites? The airline industry may well be the very last to “get” the concept of Radically Transparent . When they do finally have that “aha!” moment, we’ll know that we’ve finally entered the age of open, honest, dialogs. Andy Beal – AA Platinum Card Holder; Million Mile Flier. ( via )

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American Airlines Fires Employee for Being Transparent

I tried really hard to figure out how to “fluff-up” this announcement. After all, Microsoft went to the trouble to pre-brief me, but I just can’t say it any better than I can show it. So here goes. MSN is going from this: To this: Yes, one of the most popular destinations on the web–600 million monthly users no less–is getting a face-lift. Here are some of the key things to note: There’s a new MSN logo to go with the redesign. There are 50% fewer links on the page. The Bing search box is better integrated, because MSN already drives 45% of searches to Bing–something this design will take further advantage of. You can view and update Twitter and Facebook. There’s more focus on Local–there’s even a new MSN Local Edition. As you use the site, MSN will learn your content preferences and customize accordingly. The new page design will start rolling out today, but most of you won’t see it as the default until early next year. If you’re anxious to use the new design now, you can head to http://preview.msn.com . That’s all!

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The New MSN.com: Less Links, More Social

Okay, so it’s been a few months in the making, but the shiny, new TwiTip is finally here! Thanks to the folks at Cre8d Design we’re more organized, colorful and easier to navigate. Check out the Add A Tip page, too! Now you can submit your guest posts right through the site, which is (in my opinion) way cool. Even better, regular guest authors will have their own bios for even more exposure. We’d love to hear what you think, so don’t hesitate to peek around and come back here with feedback. We’re still cleaning up a few things, so please be patient and let us know if you have any problems! © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . TwiTip Has a Shiny New Look!

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TwiTip Has a Shiny New Look!

By Firas Steitiyeh – Follow him @steitiyeh It’s known that a brand for a product is like reputation for a human being. There are so many articles, books and people that talk about branding and how it is done properly. A lot of bloggers out there, who are most probably new, just do not care about their Twitter page and how it looks. Considering that you have got a proper brand and theme for your blog (or product) now you need to have a Twitter branded page that matches your current brand. Tip#1: Background Stop using Twitter’s default backgrounds and get yourself a customized background. There are many tutorials on the Internet on how to get yourself a decent Twitter background and if you suck in design (as in my case) I just have my logo repeated all over a solid background. If you’re looking for a top-notch twitter background, there are various providers listed on different posts of Twitip that may be what you’re looking for. Bottom line, never use Twitter’s default background. Tip #2: Avatar I always mention in my articles and discussions about branding, that your avatar should be unified on all of your public profiles including, Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, Flickr, Gravatar, MyBlogLog, FriendFeed, etc… simply, use the same avatar you’re using on the Internet for Twitter, and if you currently use more than one, just try to unify your avatar everywhere. People will reach a level where they will start recognizing you from your avatar, if you use picture1 on Twitter and picture2 on Facebook and for comments you use picture3 they will either think that 3 people share the same name, which happens, or they will have a really hard time knowing it’s you. They also may end-up not reading the comment or your update just because they don’t know it’s you. Tip #3: Design colors Customizing your design colors is a very easy task and an important one as well. You have options where you can customize colors in your Twitter profile; background, text, links, sidebar and sidebar border. Always try to use the colors used within your logo or theme, and make sure to use matching colors. I always use the same background color on both the background photo and design. For cases where a visitor with an unexpected screen resolution lands onto your twitter profile, the background image and the background color will look like one layer! Tip #4: Brand your tweets All of the previous 3 tips are design related tips, but this one which is extremely important is a contextual tip. You might be wondering how could one brand her/his tweets? And no, it’s not about Hashtags. Branding your tweets includes the core topic of your tweets, what your tweets are mainly about, are they personal tweets? Technology tweets? Financial tweets? I think that you should be tweeting about one topic the most; otherwise people will lose trust in you. Remember; Jack of all, master of none. I’m not saying if your main focus is technology not to tweet about movies. No, I just mean to have the major share of your tweets going towards one topic instead of confusing people. This is one part of branding tweets, the other part is the ethics of Twitter which most of you know. The ethics of twittering are many but the most common are: thanking other tweeps for retweeting your tweet, follow back people who are following you (in most cases), keep your tweets family rated (unless you’re in the adult industry), thank other tweeps if they recommended you for a #FollowFriday and do not spam your followers. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . Get a Matching Twitter Brand Related posts: Personal Brand – How to Build Yours In Twitter Why You Should Start Over On Twitter With A BRAND NEW Account Make a Good Impression with a Custom Twitter Background

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Get a Matching Twitter Brand

Earlier this month, StumbleUpon started showcasing their new homepage design, when they touted their “Google + Twitter” social search . Now they’ve gone through the rest of the site to make it more consistent (less customizable), easy to understand and streamlined. Read Write Web reports: The new interface is streamlined and more social with an updated relationship system. A focus on consistency (e.g., limiting user control of visual elements) and removal of clutter (e.g., presenting tags in a drop-down menu rather than a cloud) characterize the design changes made. Also, a few tweaks to group sharing were made to help reduce share-spam. The most significant UX changes have occur[r]ed in the way friendships and subscriptions work on the site. Now, your friends are you “Mutual Subscribers,” which makes the relationship a little clearer. They’re the people users can share pages with directly from the toolbar. However, the redesign is largely changes like those—clarifying various site functions, streamlining the design, making things easier for users. The homepage, same as the beta featured earlier this month, highlights recent activity from Mutual Subscribers—but doesn’t place a big emphasis on the social search aspect they were talking about earlier this month. So is StumbleUpon shying away from that? Or are they worried that their core user base was confused? I know I was a little worried when I first hear the social search news—even though I’m now an infrequent Stumbler, I didn’t want to lose that original “discovery engine,” even if it would be for a working social search model. However, the actual stumbling part of the service would remain—and maybe this is just to remind and reassure their users of that. But it still seems like they haven’t really played up the social search aspect enough. While I remain highly skeptical of social search, it’s one of those brass rings for mainstream search engines—like Google, which announced Social Search in Labs , using sites that your Google contacts have viewed, as well as sites you’ve seen before in your Web History, Google Reader and associated Google services. However, with StumbleUpon’s more targeted “Mutual Subscribers” option, you have the ability to control what friends you’re getting information from, instead of results from everyone you’ve ever emailed. What do you think? Does StumbleUpon have a better chance of getting social search right? Is it shying away from that—and should it, now that Google’s officially thrown its hat into the ring?

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StumbleUpon Updates Design Again (Abandoning Social Search?)