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Prepare Your Website for Year-End Giving

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This article was originally published by Sage Nonprofit Solutions.

Prepare Your Website for Year-End Giving
By Stacy Dyer

If your nonprofit is like most, you receive over half of your annual contributed income during your year-end campaign. Donors often procrastinate until the last minute to make tax-exempt donations to charitable organizations.

To be successful, nonprofits must be at the top of donors’ minds when the time is right. In order to be eligible for the current tax year, donations must be made before December 31. While that may sound like a long way into the future, it’s a crucial fundraising opportunity for which your infrastructure must be prepared.

Simplify Online Giving

One of the best ways to capitalize on the additional traffic — and increased number of highly motivated donors — is to make it easy for supporters to give via your website. Whether they have searched for you online, responded to an email, or visited your website directly because of a postcard or direct mail solicitation, donors should be offered both highly effective opportunities to give online and an easy, seamless transaction process.

Online giving is driven by opportunity and convenience; yet, many organizations have online giving forms that are separate from the content meant to inspire the donor to give. If your donation solution requires supporters to leave your website to complete their transaction, you could suffer from higher abandonment rates and fewer completed transactions.

Instead, ensure your fundraising forms are embedded directly on pages with motivating stories, images, and videos about how donations will be used. Focus on keeping traffic on your site, and eliminate barriers to completing a donation transaction.

Create Targeted Donation Forms

Generalized donation forms – which are usually long and contain unnecessary or irrelevant questions – may also cause donors to abandon their transaction. Retain donor interest and motivation by keeping forms as simple as possible.

If different programs within your organization require different information to be collected, customize donation forms for each cause, and only require donors to supply the answers relevant to the cause that motivated them to donate in the first place.

For example, if you are offering promotional gifts in exchange for qualifying donations, don’t provide a list of every available item. Only list the items that are relevant to the program to which they are donating.

Start Identifying Opportunities Early

But, this kind of customized strategy doesn’t happen overnight. Challenge your team to identify all the giving opportunities on your website, and then create content that will resonate with new donors around each opportunity.

And, remember that it’s important to start preparations early. A thoughtful web strategy and well-implemented plan can significantly contribute to your year-end success, as well as stimulate new donor acquisition throughout the coming year.

Event Success: Operation & Execution

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This is the third and final installment of a series about successful event planning for nonprofits originally published in Canadian Fundraiser eNews in October 2010.

Please read parts one and two of this series: Event Success: Practical Planning Tips and Event Success: Practical Promotion Tips

 

Event Success: Operation & Execution

By Stacy Dyer

As we explored in the first two parts of this series, planning and promoting special events, auctions, and ‘a-thons have many similarities. Different types of fundraising events, however, each have their own unique execution challenges.

A golf tournament may operate differently from a gala opening night, but there are several tips any organizer can use to ensure smooth operations and a headache-free fundraiser.

Harness the Power of E-mail

E-mail has become one of the most ubiquitous forms of modern communication. Seventy-eight percent of U.S. adults now use the Internet, and nearly all of those (91%) send and receive e-mail. (* Pew Internet & American Life Project, Generational difference in online activities, Accessed online January 28, 2009)

While many of us routinely ignore marketing messaging from generic organizational senders, most of us will open and read e-mails from friends, colleagues, and family. It’s important to empower participants and supporters to easily communicate with potential donors in their personal networks about your fundraiser.

Control the message your supporters share regarding your organization and its event by providing teams with e-mail templates. Consistent imagery and wording that matches other communications promoting your event will help the message resonate. Ideally, e-mail templates should not only contain information about your event, but also link back to a registration, sponsorship, or donation form where the recipient can take immediate action.

When you provide easy-to-use e-mail templates for your supporters to send on your behalf, you extend your reach far beyond your organization’s traditional online fundraising.

Technology Tip: Extend your online reach even further by adding a “Send to a Friend” link to your e-mails. Also include links from completed donation and registration “thank-you” pages online to immediately share participation on popular social networks. Look for systems that provide these links in your templates automatically. Some services also let your supporters customize personal donation forms, so individuals fundraising in their own networks can easily track their progress and monitor their success.

Create an Event T-Shirt

T-shirts are a wonderful way to promote your fundraising event. As supporters wear the shirts, they raise awareness about your upcoming event. Provide t-shirts to participants, sponsors, and staff as early as possible. Feature your event’s sponsors on the shirts to provide them with additional publicity, and sell the shirts online to raise additional money.

Technology Tip: If you aren’t able to secure a sponsor to print the t-shirts locally, consider a using a service, such as www.cafepress.com, so you don’t have to purchase a large inventory of shirts upfront. You can upload images and customize text to create your own unique design.

Maximize Event Revenue with Concessions

Successful sports franchises understand how important a concession stand can be to happy event attendees. Onlookers and supporters will remain at your event longer if they aren’t hungry or thirsty. And don’t forget about participants – take care of them, too, so they can walk further and, hopefully, raise more funds. To keep expenses at a minimum, get refreshments donated. Ask local restaurants, caterers, or wholesale distributors to become corporate sponsors. Be sure to check local ordinances if you plan to have volunteers supply food.

Technology Tip: Create volunteer registration forms on your event website to collect contacts from interested individuals. Have information from the web connect seamlessly to your existing donor database where coordinators can track contact information, assign duties, and schedule shifts, as needed.

Hold an Auction

A live or silent auction is another fun way to generate extra donations at the event. Get local businesses to provide items you can auction. If you have an emcee at your event, they can oversee live bidding and help encourage participation by attendees.

Technology Tip: Check out this thread in the On Fundraising group of LinkedIn, sponsored by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (registration required.) The ongoing discussion includes tips and best practices from nonprofit professionals using eBay Giving Works to enhance their organizations’ auction potential using the Web.

Photograph the Event

You can use event photos in many fun and creative ways. Publish photos on your website; include them in next year’s event publicity posters and pamphlets; or create keepsake photo books to use as thank you gifts to sponsors, committee members, or team captains.

“A picture is worth a thousand words,” so photograph as many activities as possible. Use images to tell your organization’s stories; however, make sure to check with your legal counsel on what photo consents you need before publishing.

Technology Tip: Use Flickr to create a Photostream highlighting your organization’s activities. Explore Creative Commons licensing (www.creativecommons.org) to allow others to share the images of your mission-related work, fundraisers, and events. Maximize the viral nature of compelling imagery by selecting images that do not require captions to clearly demonstrate your organization’s presence.

Don’t Forget to Say ‘Thank You’

Everyone who helped make your event a success should receive a personalized thank you note. Send a thank you gift and letter to your sponsors, recognizing their contribution and the impact it will have on your mission. Many organizations opt to invite participants and team captains to a special post-event celebration, where you can hand out prizes and recognize their efforts.

Technology Tip: While it may be tempting to utilize the mail merge functionality of your donor database, this is one occasion where a streamlined technological process can hurt you. Depending on the size of your event, consider hand-writing as many thank you notes as possible. The personal attention you invest will pay dividends since those appreciated volunteers, sponsors, and participants will be easier to recruit next time.

Conclusion

Executing your fundraising event smoothly and successfully doesn’t have to be tedious. Remember these simple tips and tricks to help make the most out of your next ‘a-thon, tournament, or auction. By planning ahead; utilizing multiple promotional channels; and setting the right operational expectations for staff, participants, sponsors, and volunteers; you can create a phenomenal fundraiser to support your mission without interrupting programmatic priorities.

Event Success: Practical Promotion Tips

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This is the second installment of a series about successful event planning for nonprofits originally published in Canadian Fundraiser eNews in September 2010.

Please read parts one and three of this series: Event Success: Practical Planning Tips and Event Success: Operation & Execution

 

Event Success: Practical Promotion Tips

By Stacy Dyer

Fundraising events – like ‘a-thons, tournaments, and races – can help build community support for nonprofits and causes. While planning a successful ‘a-thon may seem like a daunting task, preparation goes a long way. Last month, we looked at practical tips to help you get started with event planning.

Now that you’re organized, let’s focus on strategies and tools for publicizing your fundraiser. Use these promotional tips to maximize engagement and tap into the power of social networking to ensure your next event is a fundraising success.

Get on Calendars Early

You’ll need the participation of your organization’s supporters and donors, if your ‘a-thon event is to be successful. As soon as the event date is confirmed, mention it in any communication you send to donors. If “thank you” confirmation letters or emails are automatically generated, update the templates with your event’s information.

Send out save-the-date postcards several months in advance of your event. Submit your schedule to community calendars published by newspapers and television and radio stations. Include any deadlines for registration or entry, as well the event date. Also, submit your event to local Chambers of Commerce and Convention & Visitors Bureaus.

Technology Tip: If your fundraiser is tied to a specific event date, use the Events applications on Facebook and LinkedIn, or www.eventbrite.com, to schedule your event and invite your fans to attend it. Consider listing your event on upcoming.yahoo.com, www.eventful.com, or www.charityhappenings.org (for large cities).

Exploit Free Publicity Opportunities

Maximize free publicity opportunities for both your event and your nonprofit. Submit public service announcements (PSA) about your event to local television and radio stations.

Make connections in the local media. Ask reporters from the community or lifestyle sections of area newspapers and business journals to cover your event as a story. Make yourself available for media interviews, and be prepared to discuss how your event supports your organization’s mission.

Technology Tip: Want to make it easier for donors to find your organization on the Web? Try applying to Google Grants, which provides free Google AdWords (PPC or “pay per click”) advertising for nonprofit organizations. Learn more at http://www.google.com/grants/index.html

Reach Out to Supporters Online

Your supporters are probably already among the estimated 46% of American adults now using social networking websites, such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. (Amanda Lenhart, The Democratization of Social Media, presentation given on October 8, 2009) Enable your participants, supporters, and donors to become donation engines by giving them tools that easily share information about your event on their own personal networks. Encourage supporters to continue the conversation.

Technology Tip: Use www.hootsuite.com or www.tweetdeck.com to monitor conversations from several social media sites in a single dashboard.

Remember the Rule of Threes

Remember the time-tested marketing theory known as the “Rule of Threes.” A person must hear about your event three times before they will remember it and possibly take action. You’ll need to speak to the community about your event many times to ensure that people hear it enough to drive them to take action.

Technology Tip: Use social media channels, such as twitter.com to publish status updates and enable others to share the message on your behalf. Provide “share” buttons that send links to popular networks automatically on your event registration and donation forms.

Reach a Wide Audience Using Multi-Channel Communication

Different people prefer different communication methods – email, phone, text message, etc. Keep this in mind when you create your publicity plan. Utilize as many channels as you can, including traditional direct mail, email, social media, newspapers, and radio or television, to help get your message out.

Technology Tip: Keep your donor and participant databases in-house so that you can own the relationship and keep in touch with these supporters. Don’t be tempted to outsource your fundraising efforts. By maintaining control over your own data, you can incur fewer fees and help ensure that your donor list remains up-to-date.

Use Story-Telling to Make Personal Connections

Help supporters make a connection between their donation and the cause it will support through individual stories. Studies show that human empathy tends to diminish as we are asked to help a larger and larger group of people in need. Give your community personal, individual stories that demonstrate why your mission is important.

Technology Tip: When supporters are moved by your compelling story, don’t rely on donors to click on multiple links to get back to a generic form on your website.  Give your supporters personalized donation forms, so they can ask friends and family for donations directly on their social networking or personal websites. Create mini fundraising pages and forms that include images, video and other compelling content.

Motivate Donors by Clearly Communicating Results

Donors want to see evidence of the difference they’re making. Make a habit of regularly updating your supporters on program results, project status, and fundraising progress so they feel more connected to your mission. (And, don’t forget to do this using multiple channels – direct mail, social networking sites, etc.)

Technology Tip: Use online “thermometers” to show your financial goal and the amount of donations received. Seeing your organization get closer to your goal will keep participants and donors motivated and excited.

Conclusion

Promoting your next event doesn’t have to require a massive budget to be successful. Take advantage of existing networks, publicity opportunities in local media, participant fundraising, and powerful story telling to create buzz and encourage community engagement.

Now that we’ve covered planning and promotional activities, we’ll look at tips and best practices for executing on those plans in the final installment of this series. We’ll learn how to create an exceptional experience for participants and supporters, both during and after the event.

Read parts one and three of this series: Event Success: Practical Planning Tips and Event Success: Operation & Execution

Event Success: Practical Planning Tips

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This is the first installment of a series about successful event planning for nonprofits originally published in Canadian Fundraiser eNews in July 2010.

Please read parts two and three of this series: Event Success: Practical Promotion Tips and Event Success: Operation & Execution

 

Event Success: Practical Planning Tips

By Stacy Dyer

Fundraising through events, such as ‘a-thons, is an increasingly popular option for nonprofit organizations. Whether a walk-a-thon, golf tournament, race, or a mustache-a-thon (yes, they exist), a well-organized event can help you increase public awareness of your cause; build support and sentiment within the community; and raise more funds for your mission.

This three-part article series will contain practical tips you can use to turn your next event into a successful donation-a-thon! This first installment will cover tips to help you plan your event, from selecting an appropriate date to making sure your website is ready.

Start Early and Claim the Date

To get the community involved, you should get your event date on the calendar as soon as possible. It’s impossible to guarantee support, but think about what day is most likely to encourage the most participation.

First, choose a weekend day, especially if your primary audience is working professionals. Also, choose a time of year with pleasant weather, since your participants can dress warmly when the weather is cool, but it’s difficult to beat the heat during hot, humid times of year.

Technology Tip: While you may not be a weather forecaster, you can use available tools to pick the best date for your fundraiser. To see the historic average high and low temperatures for any day of the year, go to www.weather.com, enter your city, and click the “Month” tab.

In addition, you should check thoroughly for conflicts. (This is sometimes easier said than done!) Avoid scheduling your event during significant local, national, or international sporting events that may cause a conflict for your supporters. Also, check with other local nonprofit organizations to avoid overlapping events.

Create a Dedicated Publicity Committee

You’ll want to create a publicity plan at least one year ahead of your planned event date. Name a publicity chair and enlist the assistance of a committee of staff and/or volunteers that will help drive publicity-related tasks.

Starting six to 12 months out, the committee should meet at least once per month. Closer to the event, they should meet more frequently to keep everything on track.

Technology Tip: It can be difficult to schedule meetings, especially if you’re including outside volunteers. For a free online scheduling tool, try www.doodle.com or www.setameeting.com. In just a few minutes, you can send an e-mail link to committee members, proposing several different dates and times. Each person indicates his or her availability, and you can easily see when schedules align.

Recruit Corporate Sponsors

‘A-thon events are an ideal opportunity for nonprofits to partner with strategic corporate sponsors who can provide the capital funds needed for critical pre-event planning expenses. Companies may prefer to support your event via in-kind donations of much-needed items, like printing, publicity, or concessions, especially if they can secure a lower cost for supplies.

The most successful sponsorship partnerships are a win-win relationship – exposing both organizations to new audiences and customers. Not only does the sponsor reach new customers, but they can also encourage employees to form fundraising teams and participate in your event.

Corporations sponsor charity events to make a positive contribution to their community and foster goodwill. However you can help them generate publicity for their business will increase both their perceived value and the chance you will receive the sponsorship.

Prominently feature sponsors on event literature, websites, t-shirts, advertising, and signage. Recognize sponsors’ contributions during the event, too. Having different levels of sponsorship available (with corresponding levels of benefits) can help you get more small and medium sized businesses involved.

Solicit Matching Funds

If you can find a corporate sponsor or other benefactor who is willing to provide matching funds, you’ll find that more people will become involved with your event and that you can raise more money. When donations are being matched, participants and donors perceive their efforts as having twice the impact.

Create a Website or Blog

When promoting an ‘a-thon or event, it helps to provide a single place where everyone can access the latest information. Set up a website with a URL that is easy to remember, and link to a blog where you and celebrity guests can post information about the upcoming event. Then put that address on your flyers, direct mail, and other materials. You can even include the website address in listings on community calendars and on t-shirts that are distributed early.

Technology Tip: You can set up your organization’s new blog at no charge by visiting www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com.

Remove Barriers to Online Giving

According to “Wired Wealthy – Using the Internet to Connect with Your Middle and Major Donors,” a study conducted by Convio, Sea Change Strategies, and Edge Research, 66% of major donors check out an organization online before committing to donate.

The study also found that 80% of major donors have made online charitable donations, and 51% of donors prefer to give online because doing so is fast, efficient, and allows them to give while it’s on their minds.

A well-designed website will appeal to potential donors, reinforcing their desire to be involved with your organization and its mission. State your goals clearly and be upfront about the stewardship of your receipts. Directly ask for the funds you need, and state why you need them. And, make it easy for donors to give directly from your site.

Technology Tip: Your home page and event page should contain three essential items: a concrete definition of your mission, personal descriptions of the impact your organization makes, and a prominently featured “Donate Now” button. For even better conversions, embed a donation form that is secure, simple to use, and requires no additional clicks to other pages.

Conclusion

Proper planning is critical to ensuring your ‘a-thon event is a success. Start early and use these tips to create an event that engages your supporters and the community.

In part two of this series, we’ll look at tips and tools for promoting your event, plus best practices for getting the most out of social media networks and online fundraising efforts.

 

Read parts two and three of this series: Event Success: Practical Promotion Tips and Event Success: Operation & Execution

How to Achieve (and Maintain) Inbox Zero

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5 Key learnings from my quest for E-mail Nirvana

1) 4 D Rule
Do. Defer. Delegate. Delete.

2) Minimize your folders
Only need three: 1-In Progress. 2-Waiting. 3-Done.
Don’t waste time endlessly filing and organizing your email. Only permit yourself 3 primary folders. You can always go back and organize items you want to archive in the “done” folder as time permits later. (In truth, I rarely do this anymore. I usually find that the Search function is the quickest way to locate the item I need.)

3) Use rules liberally
Automatically categorize your emails with colors. One color for your boss, for example. Or another color for any email with the word “twitter” in it. (This is ACTUALLY one of my rules.) Set up rules to filter emails as they come in. File regularly expected emails, such as those from listservs or newsgroups, to be read at your leisure – this keeps the “cream” of personal emails rising to the top of your inbox.

4) Get what you give.
Send the kind of emails you would like to receive. As in life, there are always those people who like to get the last word in. If you are one of these of people – take heed – I’m not playing your game! I have too many emails in my inbox to enjoy superfluous “thank yous” and “your welcomes” and “got its!” Before hitting send, read the prospective email again. Does it add to the conversation? Is it needed? If not, reconsider.

5) Keep it brief.
Since it is the era of instant communication and instant gratification, no one, it seems, has time to read long letters anymore. Status updates, news feeds, and the pace of life in general has killed the modern reader’s ability to comprehend anything past the first 140 characters. (Are you still reading this?) If you do write a long-winded email, expect to repeat yourself because no one will have read it in the first place. If your message is too long to read on my cell phone, I probably won’t have the time or the patience to read it.

Writing Tip: Keep Your Nots Together

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Bonus!

You might be concerned about your reader missing the word not because it wraps to the next line of text. You can keep the word not on the same line by using a “nonbreaking space” character before not. To type a “nonbreaking space” character in Microsoft Word, hold down Shift + Ctrl as you press the space bar. This character will make sure that the preceding word and the word not stay together.

Which browser do you use?

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I recently read a study on internet browser adoption. No surprise MS’s Internet Explorer still rules the roost with Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari coming in next. What did surprise me was the level of adoption for Google’s new Chrome browser.

I wonder how much overlap is in these statistics.

Myself, I use all 3 browsers, each for different purposes. For many years, my preferred daily browser has been Firefox. It won me over with innovative features (remember when tabbed browsing was new?) and faster speeds. Unfortunately, some websites do not work with it. When accessing my corporate Exchange email from home or the road, Microsoft requires I use a version of IE.

For a while, I was able to “cheat” with the IE tab extension for Firefox. But ever since the upgrade to v3, IE tab has been buggy and causes random crashes. These crashes are inevitably more painful to me than opening an instance of IE for the one site that requires it. So I have 2 browsers.

But wait, there’s more! Recent upgrades to MLB.com, where my family and I enjoy watching the Red Sox nearly every single night, caused problems in Firefox. Technical support was unable to resolve our issues and recommended trying a different browser. Enter Chrome working like a charm, and faster than Firefox to boot. Unfortunately, it is still young, and not as stable as Firefox. With my habitual tabbed browsing, and multiple open windows, I managed to crash Chrome on a nightly basis. (For the record, it does not crash under “normal” use – ie just a couple of game day tabs open and the baseball game streaming.) Now I have 3 browsers.

What internet browser to you use? How many folks use multiple browsers? Do you use different browsers for different purposes?

 

Palm Pre vs iPhone, Round 2: Road Trip

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As promised, I wanted to review my experience with the Pre’s Google Map and Sprint Navigation applications. For comparison, a more traditional GPS unit (the Garmin Nuvi 750) also made the trip.

The hands-down winner in this head-to-head was clearly the Garmin Nuvi, but then it’s not really a fair comparison. As I have stated before, I have always found that dedicated devices do a much more complete job than any multitasker. However, since the trip started without the Nuvi, having at least some navigation functions on my Pre was great! Read on to find out how it went…

Google Maps

Using Google Maps on the Pre requires a Sprint data connection. Generally, along interstates and in cities, this is not a problem. Particularly in cities, I find the Google Map app useful for navigating while NOT driving. For example, when you are searching for a restaurant and want to see how to get there from where you are.

Directions can be programmed either from your current location using the GPS signal, or you can input an address. If you tap an address in your Contacts, it will automatically pull up directions in Google Maps – handy.

Unfortunately, there is no scale on the Google maps display, so it can be difficult to determine the time to your destination while en route.

In terms of the routes themselves, I found Google to be overall very good at choosing a main route, avoiding unpaved roads, and displaying traffic info (in urban areas only.) It would not alter the route if I made a wrong turn or help me get back on track.

Sprint Navigation

Once en route to my destination, I found the Sprint Navigation app more useful. It gives a time to the destination that updates based on your current position. It also states turn-by-turn directions with the actual street names (rather than just “turn in 500 ft”) – a favorite feature of mine on the Garmin devices.

You can adjust the display of the Sprint Nav for either 3D or bird’s eye views and it includes scale.

The down side of Sprint Nav is that, despite being GPS-based, it requires a connection to the Sprint data network to program a trip. I found that once the trip was started, it continued to update my location and ETA even after I lost the Sprint data network. But if the trip was cancelled, I needed new connection to the Sprint data network to be established before I could relaunch the Nav app. This was highly annoying.

It appeared that the maps for the Nav app are not stored on the device itself, but rather downloaded on a per-trip basis. I can appreciate the desire to save memory, as there is no expansion slot. However once a trip has been started, it would be nice if it was stored in local memory until the GPS reaches its destination (or the trip is cancelled, or a new trip started) even if the app is closed. This would allow me to close the app when not needed to save battery life and return to the trip directions when I neared my destination.

I also found Sprint Nav sent me down a dirt road in the middle of a very urban area when there was perfectly good paved road right there. Not only highly annoying, but also potentially damaging to my car! Yikes!

Garmin Nuvi

Unfortunately, for much of my road trip, I was not able to connect to the Sprint data network and so was not able to launch either Sprint Navigation or Google Maps apps on the Pre. Luckily, my Garmin nuvi was able to load (albeit very, very slowly.)

I believe the slow loading nuvi maps may be caused my Garmin embedding a satellite search parameter in with the maps updates. Since I haven’t purchased a 2009 map update yet, I believe it will continue to take longer and longer to find the satellites until I purchase that update. At least I hope it’s just a software update because taking 4 min+ (and getting longer) to find signal is not going to be acceptable. Then again, the Pre wasn’t finding any signal at all, so maybe I was just on holiday out in the sticks… ha ha!

Once on signal, though, the Garmin performed admirably – avoiding obstacles and selecting a fairly good quality route, somewhere between Google Maps (best routes, IMO) and Sprint Nav (worst routes) Still sometimes, the Garmin would choose a smaller road (ie, get off the interstate, just to cut a corner, and then get back on – what up with that?) so I wouldn’t follow blindly.

I liked locating nearby services (gas, coffee, food, etc.) and adding them as “via” points on our trip. While I could use the CitySearch or other 3rd party app for this on the Pre, it wouldn’t add them to the nav directions automatically. If this functionality could be integrated in WebOS, that would be a great enhancement.

The Garmin would also go to sleep at night and remember our trip in the morning so it did not need re-programming. Note, this is the second time I’ve mentioned this feature. On a road trip, batteries of every size and type are always in need of charging, so any feature that helps me conserve power is going to get the thumbs up in my book.

Other Road Trip musings

At one point in the car, I was playing with the Facebook app. While it let me update my status, it did not read the comments on my status, or allow me to comment on those comments. Luckily, I was able to log into facebook.com on the browser and comment from there. Ironically, my comment, which was on the subject of the Pre itself, encouraged my friend to go out and purchase a Pre the very next day!

I wanted to play more with mobile uploads, particularly photos, as the camera on the Pre takes some nice quality images. But with little cell service on the island, I was at the mercy of open wi-fi connections in cafes and at family’s homes. When I was in a location with a signal, I inevitably didn’t have enough time to do everything I wanted before it was time to go.

With spotty cell service, text messaging is the way to go. Even if I couldn’t maintain a signal long enough to check my voicemail, a short text (SMS) message was usually able to be delivered. The keyboard of my Pre makes texting a dream too! I’m a new convert of messaging! I even tried to send my father a MMS (movie/photo) message, but his iPhone’s AT&T network doesn’t support MMS messaging yet. Funny, his new S iPhone is supposed to support it… wha ha ha ha! Although, really, I shouldn’t laugh too much, I still can’t take any movies yet at all, even though I can watch them…. Where’s my movie app? Palm WebOS developers, I’m looking at you!

The last thing I will mention is the WebOS 1.1 update, which was released while I was on this road trip. I was able to download it over the network very quickly (it was a 90mb download) and apply it without a hitch. Although, I do not have a need for all the EAS enhancements, I will be looking forward to playing with my new NFL app. Thanks, developers!

That’s it for this installment. Watch for more reviews on that new NFL app and more as my Pre experience continues!

Pre vs. iPhone

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My first few days with my new Palm Pre and why I’m glad I didn’t get an iPhone

Anticipation

I have been investigating whether to switch from Sprint for the iPhone. I have been anticipating the launch of the Palm Pre since Christmas. Being on the Sprint network, I was going to get an Instinct for my husband and a Centro for myself. But after a Sprint service (non-hardware) related fiasco, I returned the phones. My exasperated exclamation to the sales rep was, “Well, I’m just going to go get an iPhone!” Then, I was leaked a key piece of information – the Pre was coming!

Well 6 long months later, my wait was finally over. I managed to grab one of the last Pre in Austin with the help of Shawn in the Arbor Walks store. (I only mention him because he really went above and beyond to help with more Sprint-related fiasco-ness still leftover from the holiday.)

Why Pre

If the combo of Pre’s touch screen and full keyboard isn’t the deal breaker, the Synergy technology (more later,) webOS (which will lets you have multiple apps open,) and touchstone charging are all intriguing. (Note: once I got the phone, the flimsy cover to the charger and general awkwardness and frequency of charging has made me think touchstone is more necessity than just attractive.) With flash on the camera, and rumors of video and support for SD memory on the horizon, Pre has a lot of features to combat the iPhone.

I know a few geeks, so I have been asking everyone I know with an iPhone what they love about it and what they hate. Some of the “hate” answers:

  • too many steps to make a phone call (it *is* a phone, right?)
  • the keyboard when typing email (note: may be fixed with 3.0 update in July)
  • when I synced to my Exchange it overwrote all my personal contacts (Yikes!)
  • expensive AT&T plans
  • makes unshielded speakers buzz (True of all AT&T 3G phones – inc blackberries)

Number one “love” answer? You know it. Apps. But I get ahead of myself…

Love at First Sight

First thing I noticed is the screen. It is bright and beautiful. There is a nice ripple effect when you touch the screen. My screen has a small black pixel stuck in the middle, but otherwise is impeccable. The reaction is inherently very iPhone like, adhering to the pinch/pull conventions you would expect. And I think the reaction time may even be a little faster.

The keyboard is delicious. I love the action and texting is very comfortable. I have not been able to find a back arrow key (as in, go back without deleting that character.) It has to be something simple I am missing. But other than that… I love that I can use this keyboard as my quick dial. So I can still call my favorite contacts with a slide and click of a single key.

The phone is small and comfortable in the hand and the perfect size, in both closed and open, and while talking. It’s size and feel are smaller and sleeker than the iPhone.

Unfortunately, the earbuds that ship in the kit are sadly inadequate. Mine were not functional and introduced noise immediately and I was forced to exchange them. Considering the quality of Apple buds, I don’t see why this cannot be improved in future kits.

Syncing, Synergy, and Searching

Adding my contacts to the phone was a little too easy. Before I knew it, I had my Pre syncing all of Google contacts, calendar, and mail. I was also able to add my Exchange mail more simply than in any other interface I’ve ever seen. It literally took me mere minutes to import my entire life – personal and professional – into this tiny miracle device.

Next I added Facebook to my contacts. One of the cool features of Synergy means that these contacts are all matched up and you can even use their Facebook (or Google acct) pic as their pic in your phonebook. It also imports Facebook calendar, so I can get birthdays too, and I never had to input anything other than my account and password.

Now with all these folks in my phone, it is much too cumbersome to scroll through the list. This is where search comes in! I kept looking for a search bar, but by simply typing (or starting to type) anything, it filters the list and I can scroll that, or keep typing to filter further. So, by typing “h,” I get every contact whose first or last name starts with “h.” If you start a Universal Search from the home screen, it lists everything on the phone – apps, contacts, content, etc. So you can start to type a contact’s name from the main screen and click to call. That’s cool. But it is still a bit cumbersome to scroll through the entire list of contacts. I wish there was folder and/or category organization system.

Calendar

It syncs my Google and Exchange calendars. I’ve been trying to do that forever and there is no way to do it other than manually exporting Outlook events and manually importing them into Google, which results in time zone errors. This is the first true interlocking Google/Exchange calendar system I have ever seen that still lets me maintain each as a separate entity andautoupdate. It rocks!

The calendar view is also beautiful. It scrunches up free time so you can view more of your calendar at a time. It simply and utterly rocks in every way!

Mail

Of course, it also grabbed Gmail and Exchange mail. Note, I only inputted my account info once and it has synced all of the areas. It also uses fullIMAP, etc for push/pull syncing.

At first I was a little frustrated by its management of my Gmail, which I prefer to Archive, not delete. This tip to archive instead of delete Gmail quickly showed me how to set the “delete” button in the inbox to actually go to my All Mail folder for all Gmail, effectively making the delete button the archive button.

Media Sync and iTunes

iTunes recognizes it as a device. This is a highly welcome feature! Dragging and dropping works in USB mode, but Media Sync will sync with all sort of media, not just music.

  • The music player on the Pre, however, is missing many features I would like to see: ability to create/update playlists on the fly
  • see the progress through the track
  • user ratings

This player oddly reminds me of the first iPod player in its simplicity and I can only hope that it will improve it in a future update or app.

Apps and Additional features

Shopping apps has been completely free so far. I’m sure that won’t last long.

The SDK for the Pre has not been officially release, so there’s not much to choose from yet. While I can’t check my MRI scan, but the most useful apps are working beautifully on the Pre including: Pandora, Fandango, Wiki, and more than 1 Twitter app. I’m a big Google user, and was pleased to find both Gmail and Google Reader apps.
My top 2 wishes from the app elves:

  • an official MLB baseball app
  • Tetris game

Not every app I downloaded worked perfectly. The free book reader crashed my Pre hard, twice. I have not tried downloading it again since I applied the 1.0.2 firmware update, so I will have to try again and report back.

I also found another key feature, the Clock, is not included until you apply the 1.0.2 update. It doesn’t have many themes yet, but it lets you set an alarm; one-time, recurring, by weekday or weekend. I’m still looking for a countdown and/or timer.

The fact that additional features are coming from both the app store and software updates is great news. In rumor, video recording could be added by a third party developer, but I wouldn’t count on 3rd parties for everything. Especially since outside developers have not had a lot of experience developing on this brand new platform, we’ll have to rely on the Palm team for much of the forthcoming functionality enhancements.

More to come…

There is even more to this phone than one article can hold. Sprint’s Telenav technology with turn by turn directions will make standalone GPS units obsolete. While the Google Maps interface gives you options. My next installation will focus on a through review of these two features and how they face up to each other in performance, accuracy, and interface.

Thanks for reading!