I took a seminar a long time ago examining how groups become movements and how movements affect social change. There are several criteria that make for the successful transition from fad to social phenom. One of them focuses on how people gather - to work, to play and to plan.

Thousands of people around the globe gathered on January 7th to celebrate the launch of Drupal 7. The NYC party was a blast. We talked shop, ate, drank, and made lots of plans. Some of the other criteria for successful movements are leadership and cohesion. I think those bases are covered pretty well too.

The revolution will not be televised. It's on the web.

Go Drupal 7. Keep partying.

Much thanks to my new friend Dean Meyers for the pic and Jacob Redding for all the great blueness.

Everyone say hi to Dries.

We put our first commercial site up in Drupal Gardens last month - a small site for a great local business. It was perfect. No muss. No fuss. While the theme builder took a little getting used to we were able to put up a site very quickly and efficiently. The client loves it and is beginning to populate it with more images and text. We were almost disappointed they didn't want us to custimize it more. Would we use Drupal Gardens to build something very sophisticated or ambitious? Of course not. But I don't think that's how it was ever intended to be used. But working with it made us think of Jack and his Magic Beans - Drupal Gardens let's you grow websites fast. And Drupal Gardens is a great way for anyone to begin learning how to populate and configure Drupal - particularly if they are not a techie. Grow baby, grow!

Facebook campaigns are costly and complicated. But with more than 165 million users in the U.S. alone it's a marketing channel no one can afford to ignore.

Last month we launched SOCagent.com with Urban Health Plan to help the NYC health provider build it's Facebook fan base and conduct permission-based outreach. The application is built on Drupal and makes extensive use of Webforms. The contest ends 1/4/11 and features a viral 'help a friend win' incentive.

Visit www.socagent.com/urbanhealth and enter to win your iPod Touch.

Digital content is great. But sometimes you just want to hold something real in your hand.

Last week we brought Magazine Impulse live in a beta test on SPIN.com for Next Steps Marketing. The new service enables publishers to open up new revenue streams from single copy sales of current and past magazine issues and editions.

Built in Drupal the app lets publishers upload images of their current issues and offer them for sale across multiple channels. More betas are coming online in the weeks ahead. info@magazineimpulse.com for more information.