The year was 2008 (ages ago in Web years), and at SXSW Interactive conference, everyone was atwitter over Twitter. We really didn’t get it yet, but we somehow knew it would be big. (After all, SXSW was also the first time we ever heard of a blog, saw a Flip video camera, etc.) We just didn’t know how big it would be.

Our team implemented a three-day mandatory Twitter obsession. In those days, we didn’t know anyone else on Twitter, so we pretty much only followed each other. I remember there was a memorable exchange between two team members in the same hotel room tweeting back and forth about passing the remote control and other equally interesting topics for public consumption. Fast forward to 2009.

Even though I knew it was coming, I can’t believe how widespread it is. And I’ve found it has completely changed my iPhone usage over the last few months. I used to spend much of my time reading news on iGoogle (or playing Solitaire - curses to that time waster!), now I Twitter. I admit I don’t add often to the conversation, but I certainly enjoy reading it, usually when I’m up at 3 am.

Who do I follow?

• I get my news on Twitter. Every day, I see what’s in the Statesman (@statesman) before even removing the wrapper. I also follow CNN (@cnnbrk) and NPR for news (@nprnews).
• I follow several technical resources – my favorites are @mashable and @smashingmag.
• I follow funny people – the funniest is a CNN producer named Jack Gray (@jackgraycnn), but also @hotdogsladies, @dooce and others.
• I follow Ryan Seacrest (@ryanseacrest) and several American Idol participants(@mradamlambert, @redallisonblack, @krisallenmusic). Guilty pleasure defined. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I found out about several recent news stories from Seacrest.
• I follow people that have info about Austin - @austinchronicle, @lifeinaustin and @austin360.
• I follow several recipe bloggers, including @amateurgourmet and @smittenkitten.
• I even followed an astronaut who was recently sharing updates from space - fascinating (@astro_mike).

How do I follow them?

I almost exclusively participate on my iPhone, using either Twitterfon or Twitterific.

Why do I love Twitter?

Because it’s customized info exactly for me. Who else is interested in geek stuff, recipes, Idol and Austin? Twitter is akin to iGoogle, except in more digestible chunks. And for me, it’s done for my web surfing what Tivo did for my TV watching. I do much less channel surfing, but only record the exact things I want to watch. And I spend much less time web surfing, because enough of what I’m interested in comes to me via Twitter.

Why don’t I Twitter more?

It’s a question of target audience. My personal followers (@teambuilder99 – an obscure reference to a show on HBO – funny when I knew only 5 people on Twitter) wouldn’t be interested in all the geek stuff I watch. But my clients and other industry friends might not want to know every detail about my adorable son Hudson. You get the idea.

So today, I’m starting a new Twitter account, only for news related to the Internet. If you’re interested, please follow @clickbits.

I look forward to seeing you on Twitter!

1.3 billion people can access the Internet from their mobile phones, making the mobile web a new marketing channel predicted to generate $150 billion by 2011. Building a mobile-specific version of a website is important because of the different needs. Mobile users want a quick-loading site that provides important information like directions or contact info.

With recent advancements in mobile technology, you can still provide a rich user experience, balanced with an attractive fast-loading site. Because a mobile website is usually a stripped down version of the full site, most code can be repurposed for the new project.

If you are ready to create a mobile-specific website, here are a few tips:

• Keep it simple – provide simple pathways to information, as it is more difficult to maneuver a mobile device. Divide content over multiple pages to keep each page as friendly as possible.
• Make contact information and directions easy to find and available on each page of the site.
• Scrolling on a mobile device can be tedious. Repeat navigation at bottom of each page so users don’t have to scroll back to the top.
• Use brief, descriptive text and few graphics to aid in load time. Make sure the graphics that you use are small, optimized thumbnails.

Looking for the perfect shoe? We teamed up with KEEN and REI to develop a fun, interactive way to help REI customers find the right shoe for their adventures. The shoe finder tool asks users a series of simple questions regarding their next big adventure, such as where they are going, and how their shoes will be expected to perform. After answering the questions, the customer gets a results page with the perfect shoe and bag options, with links to the REI online shop for easy purchasing. You can see the shoe finder tool here: http://www.telluswheresweeps.com/findproducts.aspx.

While you’re at it, you can enter to win an REI Adventures trip for 4 to spectacular Havasu Falls in the Grand Canyon: http://www.telluswheresweeps.com.

By the time I had sat through my third panel discussion at this year’s SXSW Interactive festival moderated or participated in by someone listed as “John Smith, Director of UX,” I was like “OK, does UX stand for what I think it does?” Yup. UX = User Experience.

As the web evolves and becomes a media-rich environment with so many ways to interact, we’re not looking at UI (User Interface) experts or IA (Information Architecture) folks anymore to tell us how our sites should work to benefit our users. The overall user experience has become king. Interface, architecture, design, programming: toss them all in a bowl, mix well, and you’ll end up with the User Experience.

Jared Spool’s talk on the “Journey to the Center of Design” provided me three core UX attributes that ensure good product development:

• Good Vision
• Good Feedback
• Good Culture

1. Can everyone on the project team describe the experience of using your design five years from now? That’s vision, and it provides a way to measure understanding.
2. In the last six weeks, have you ACTUALLY watched people use your product, or a competitor’s product? That’s feedback, and guarantees you don’t lose the forest for the trees.
3. In the last six weeks, have you rewarded a team member for creating a major design failure? When you reward certain failures, you give employees a chance to LEARN without fear.  This is good culture and ensures you always thinking critically, not just cranking out the same old stuff.

When building an online product, it’s important to take the time to gauge yourself on the core attributes of UX design, to gain better understand of the experience you're creating. To learn more about these components, you can check out Spool’s presentation here.

We recently launched an updated version of the TruckChrome website, a site originally developed by Wright Strategies in 2001. The new site has a fresh look, with a focus on making shopping even easier by incorporating left-hand navigation on all pages. Not only does the new navigation help customers find what they need quickly and easily, it also makes the site more search engine friendly, an important characteristic for the industry.

Visual enhancements to the site include a revised version of the TruckChrome logo, an interactive Flash piece on the homepage and a gallery where customers can upload photos of their own trucks and share them with friends. The admin site allows TruckChrome to manage all orders placed on the site, along with new functionality to instantaneously update website copy, including what appears on the homepage.