The Duck Call

• Facebook is going public! So...what now? Dave Copeland talks through some of the implications for customers on ReadWriteWeb.
• Could social media help you motivate and connect your program participants and volunteers? Alex Fitzpatrick explains how the National Peace Corps Association uses online networks to build their community.
• Want to raise more money and drive action online?

It’s a maxim that nonprofit professionals have heard more and more in recent years: “Thou shalt not treat your supporters like ATMs.”

By this, communications experts typically mean that nonprofits should do more than just ask their supporters for money, and that when they DO ask for money, they should ask for it in a warmer, more personal way.

For a while now I've been looking to employ a nifty little trick in web design: the use of browser-filling imagery to impress. I'm talking about screen-filling visual goodness taking over your browser window. Why would anyone do such a thing?

The more we share photos and watch TV and movies online, the more we get used to having immersive visual experiences on the web. Users are coming to expect not just information but an experience from the websites they visit.

The great thing about English is that it offers lots of word choice to us writers. So if there are words we don’t like because they’re overused or seemingly meaningless or jargonically nonsensical, we can usually avoid them. It’s also a great language for making up words, such as jargonical.

And although there are words I avoid (or try to avoid, anyway), I’m a writer. I want a full arsenal of words available to me. In general, I don’t like blacklisting words.