I have a lot of problems with the way that social media is promoted by agencies and designers, especially to NGOs and nonprofits more generally. In too many cases, social is presented as a panacea for building conversation among constituents or fueling development among funders. The reality is that social media is still heavily weighted toward a very specific type of media consumer—wealthier, younger, able, and active—and many nonprofit stakeholders are not well represented.

However, there is a lot of good that come from a thoughtful application of social media these days, especially for nonprofits that have fewer or less expansive resources. One example is around general PR. Years ago, it would take thousands of dollars to send out and manage PR each year with little means to track or analyze the results. Today, a good freelance writer and a subscription to HootSuite can do the same thing with actionable results based upon responses and analytics.

War Child, a nonprofit based in Toronto that fosters education for about children, in conjunction with the Canadian International Development Agency, produced a smart video called Going Digital—an introduction to digital communications for non-profits. The video introduces the topic of social media and online communications via various realistic nonprofit consultants. You can view this below. I highly recommend it.

There’s a very interesting discussion going around the important Web right now about the differences between two similar services, Instapaper and Readability. These services allow committed readers of websites to bookmark, save and read in clear, distraction-free articles of all kinds—including this one). With a push of a button, these two applications strip out a plethora of advertising, navigation, logos, colors, and other visual detritus and create a simple and linear page for reading and reading well.

It’s a trend that started long ago with the launch of writing products like Ulysses, by the German company, The Soulmen. For writers that use Ulysses, a full-screen view is provided; distraction-free writing ensues. Other applications like Maine-based Jesse Grosjean’s WriteRoom, Barcelona’s Heraiz Soto & Co.’s Omm Writer and most recently, Japan-based Information Architect’s IA Writer, have followed suit with much success going to the latter. All of these tools make writing a pleasure—more like using a typewriter, which is how I learned to write essays, and less like toying with two turntables and a microphone.

Because there are 10,000 times more serious readers than than there are writers, it’s become time for reading products that eliminate distraction to start to shine. In a paragraph, journalist John Gruber comes down on the side of Marco Arment’s Instapaper. This application has been around for many years and has been lovingly crafted, supported, and developed by an army of one. I’ve used Instapaper almost since Day One and it makes saving long-form articles easy and reading them pleasurable. On the other side of the reading ring is technologist Anil Dash who implies in a post today that Readability is a more advanced application — and that arguing about which one is better verges on a kind of Russian roulette for the developer community. Anil Dash should know—he sits on Readability’s board.

Answering the questions of which is better is quite complicated. Instapaper is essentially free (its author mostly profits from the sale of the iOS app). Further, it’s scrappy, simple and plays nice with others through a substantial API. Readability, on the other hand, uses a (rather covert upon sign-up) subscription service in which a percentage of a monthly payment goes to the publisher or writer. To me, having newly signed up for a Readability account, learning only later of its pay model is disappointing; the company should have explained, from the outset, that its services are not entirely free. Gruber goes so far as to call them “scumbags,” not because of this sign-up process but because the company collects funds and profits directly from writers’ articles and publishers’ platforms—and keeps the money for unclaimed read articles.

And yet, Readability is a beautifully designed application and integrated set of tools. Unlike Instapaper, which sports a spare but not unlikable interface, Readability is gorgeous. Typographically, the text sparkles on the page—large type, clean iconography and a simple user interface in both the read and account views make it a hands-down winner. Having Roger Black and other design luminaries like Jeffrey Zeldman on its board (along with Dash) evidently helped evolve Readability’s user interface to a polish that Instapaper can’t quite meet. From a purely typographic perspective, Readability wins, for now. My fear is that that design polish is paid for by a less than forthright yet calculating business model.*

*Here, I’m obliquely reminded of a quote by philosopher and cultural critic Theodor Adorno: The culture industry not so much adapts to the reactions of its customers as it counterfeits them.

[Update: I think Gregory Cox’s take that both apps are parasitic and inevitable is probably right.]

[Update 2: Had a I dug deeper, I would have learned that the fonts (such as our house favorite, Mercury) on Readability’s application are served by the inimitable Hoefler & Frere-Jones. This only serves to fully solidify my argument in favor of the UI goodness of Readability.]

Blogging has come a long way and, yet, it has a long way to go. Yesterday, it was announced that Twitter had purchased Posterous, the relatively popular hosted blogging and publishing platform. I’ve used Posterous on and off for a few years now and it has impressive features and functions, despite its most recent endeavors, odd mobile apps and silly changes.*

This is a interesting strategic play by Twitter on a few levels. Most importantly, it ensures that Twitter has a mechanism to allow micro-bloggers to post longer and more sophisticated content, including longer pieces, photos, video, and more sophisticated embeds. While I personally appreciate the 140-character limit to keep things tight and short in a virtual landscape of verbal and visual excess, it makes good sense for Twitter to start thinking literally outside the (character) box.

What’s less clear is how Twitter can successfully manage and integrate the Posterous platform—and of relevance, it’s built-in community. Posterous, like other hosted blogging platforms such as its cousin Tumblr, grandfather Blogger, sister-in-law WordPress.com, and step-sister TypePad, is a full-featured means for individuals and organizations to post content regularly without requiring a developer to integrate these tools on a stand-alone site. It just works. If the transition isn’t executed kindly and with deep respect for long-term Posterous users, Twitter will lose those followers to competitors. I estimate that a savvy blogger can change technical allegiances in less than 3 hours—creating a new account, exporting and incorporating content, and personalizing the theme.

I strongly doubt that Twitter acquired Posterous to decimate it. There’s too much valuable intellectual property behind the latter; however, all bets are that its IP is quickly incorporated into the Twitter ecosystem over the next year. (*The ridiculously-named “Spaces” of Posterous Spaces will probably be the first transplanted piece of the puzzle. But why Posterous felt it needed to rename itself is inexplicable from a branding perspective.)

As an aside, I’ve been blogging for over 12 years now designing blogs for the same amount of time. While the technology has evolved, it hasn’t fundamentally transformed. A blog still contains a form, a publish button and a means for archiving content. What has changed, in my opinion, is the ability to write valuable content of more than 140 characters. In my search for blog posts about this acquisition, I found very little.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to look at the President of the United States’ website. I hadn’t seen it in a while and the difference is striking. While previously the site was focused on idealism and possibility, now it’s entirely focused on the campaign. The site does a beautiful job of depicting Mr. Obama’s biographic material in a friendly and generous way. The large open (e.g. “HOPE”-like) space of previous days is gone — today it’s back to basics — with a key focus on honesty and integrity and the numerous key issues his administration is focused upon. It’s nice work and politically astute. The campaign and its site are one and the same: both feature Mr. Obama’s tightly balanced position, his accomplishments and recent record, and his connection to his country.

It’s also great to see the site be the first that I know of to use the inimitable Gotham as a web font. Like many designers, I eagerly await being able to use Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ fonts online. I don’t blame them for giving the President’s website the first swing of the bat.

P.S. As my colleague, Michael Barrish, points out, the new Obama site is responsive, working beautifully across mobile and desktop browsers.