Posted by Jesse Poe on December 14 at 12:01 PM
My 7th grade World History teacher used to give us tests every Friday. As he passed out the test, he would boom out the same mantra every week. No talking, no notes, no going to the bathroom, no looking at your neighbors test, read the whole test before you begin and then begin.
I never read the whole test first, I am sure 90% of our class didn't either, because on the year end final there was only two people who didn't have to take the final. The year end final was passed out with the same mantra as always but this time the last question on the test said, "if you have followed the directions and read the whole test before beginning, then do not answer any of these questions. Simply sit there until 10 mins before the class is finished. Bring your clean untouched test to my desk for a 100%.
Of course 40 mins into the test you started to hear groans as kids read the last question, and we all learned our lessons, or did we?
Friday, I posted about my unfortunate experience with GOOD.is, who until recently has been one of my favorite websites.
I was very unhappy with them, but now I am pleased to announce that GOOD is no longer Bad in my book but back to good.
In the process there is something to be learned about users experience on websites, something I should have learned in the 7th grade, but didn't.
What do your users actually read?
I think that we'd all like to think that every blog post, every tweet, every profile update is read, that links are clicked and that jokes are laughed at. However, people come to your site for a specific reason typically, that reason is different form site to site. If you run a tech site like Engadget your visitors are coming there for a different reason than if you run a site for esoteric science-fiction, fantasy, horror, fringe culture, and hobby gaming like Atomic Overmind Press. Even if there might be a tremendous amount of overlap in who is coming to these two sites, they are still coming for different reasons with different expectations.
One of those expectations, you can be sure, is not to read about the things going on on your site, a refresh, a problem, etc. It might be important to you, but not to your public, you can imagine that IF they read it, they are going to read it with their Micromachine's voice.
Other than my bank, my 401k, my email, and maybe my Facebook/twitter, I am not going to read about what you might be doing on your site, and you can imagine this to be true across the board. Unfortunately this was the case with GOOD.is.
In a Herculean effort of outreach, Andrew Price, Senior Web Editor of GOOD.is contacted me through Twitter and then personally by email after my post on Friday, explaining the situation at GOOD.is. Aparently, there isn't a word limit, but for a while characters like dashes and ampersands would just cut off everything that followed them. They are trying to fix it and he directed me to the post:
As much as I am a fan, I didn't read this post. Why? Because we go to sites to get what we want, not to find out something on a site that may not effect us (even though it did in this case) and that might very well be addressed by the time I finish reading it.
So how can we get this info to our audience in a way that is effective, how can we communicate with them?
Go to them, tell them the information that they need where it will be effectual.
Had that info been placed above the comment box: Hey we are having issues with our comment box, it's eating ampersands! I would have not only understood, but probably like them even more for the humanity of it.
GOOD.is did nothing wrong in posting a page explaining this, but it is a chance for us all to understand better the way that we move on the internet and how we interact. They did the right thing in addressing the issue and they went above and beyond reaching out to me and Andrew Price was extremely genteel and kind, but it is an excellent example of how we are still always striving to find a better more effective way to keep this every growing machine (the internet) well oiled.
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 11 at 12:37 PM
So you have built a site, written a blog and even got people to read it. Now what about the comments?
People use the comment sections to dialogue with other commenters and of course you the writter/brand. If you are lucky enough to get some one to engage with you why would you cut them short?
Imagine you finally get a business call and you limit it to 99 words. Come on.
Here is a lesson from GOOD.is who I usually adore, on how not to run your site.
They had a great post, I chimed in with a researched response adding to the post and encouraging conversation. My comment was 535 words of support and added value. GOOD truncates at 99 words, my other 436 words lost.
So I wrote a letter to them explaining how truncated comments don't exactly encourage conversation.
A week later still no response. Strike 2.
Here are the two take aways:
1. GOOD.is lost a passionate follower and turned a Zealot to a detractor over an HTLM code that could say 10,000 instead of 99, and by not caring enough to respond to their email. Why even have a "contact us" if you don't respond? Not a good situation.
2. Cut me off in the comments and I will just post a sidewiki which will immediately get picked up by Google. Lucky for good, the passion behind my 535 words, including the 436 they cut off was positive. Imagine had I been upset about what they wrote..... their word count limit would have made me even angrier.
What would be the draw back, well, that you might get a spambot that hacks in and leaves 30000 links on a comment, who cares, take it out, much better to be troubled once in a while by something everyone must face, than to limit interaction when interaction is what you are after and turn a brand zealot to a detractor.
GOOD work guys you lost a fan.
picture of the sidewiki:
Letter to GOOD.is which they never responded to:
Dear GOOD-
I preach your gospel, book mark you and always link to you in my own blogs, I think your doing a great job & have turned on many friends to your site.
Today I have to say that I am more than displeased with your site.
You posted a great article and I wrote a passionate response of 535 words.
You cut me off at 50 or so.... not a "good" practice, be glad that you have people who follow your site who care enough to write that much.
Adjust your word count to allow for as long as people want, that would be not only good but right.
It's hard to find people who are passionate to help and support, it's easy to loose people over stupid things like this, I just spent an hour of my time helping your site and now what?
Bad practice, GOOD.
I hope you fix this, before people just take the conversation elsewhere.
Did you hear that? That was print media, choking another near-final gasp. Today I came across the Huffington Post's media review of Playboy's new iPhone app. Perhaps Hugh should stop filming his polyamorous exploits for E! and start reading up on his mobile best practices, because this baby is as attractive as a circus bearded lady in a tartain muumuu.
I'll let HuffPo tell you what's wrong:
"The new $1.99 app will give you the cover of the magazine, the table of contents for the issue, its Playmate's intro text and details, along with portions of text from the magazine's monthly features, like the "Playboy Interview" and "Playboy Advisor." Oh, and there's no nudity either, keeping with the Apple store's no "adult content" policy..."
Oh man, it HURTS Playboy. And not in the good way. Why bother creating an iPhone app? What decimated budget did you further decimate to create this sorry thing? As the news announces firings, issue cancellations, and more at Playboy, why waste perfectly good money on this?
Anyone who downloads it will think there will be naked photos on there. Which there aren't. Some people may expect articles... but they'll get a teaser and then a message to go buy the real thing? AND they have to pay $1.99 EVERY TIME THEY GET AN ISSUE?
No. No. No.
There are two ways to make this better, and you better do one of them fast:
1. Unlock full articles. At LEAST give your user SOMETHING to do. If they wanted clothed femme fatales, they would subscribe to Maxim. But if you give them full articles, then there is value to the app.
2. Scrap all the half-way commitments, and start creating iPhone exclusive content. NOW the users have a reason to buy! They are getting something they can't get at the newsstand! Maybe it's a few video playmate reviews. Or maybe it's new content created by your writers. Creating new content is astoundingly affordable. And it creates value, which your app sorely lacks.
Unless one of these two approaches is quickly adopted, expect another round of bloodshed at the raunchy rag. I hope to God they aren't celebrating this thing. I hope this is phase 1 of a glorious app that takes Playboy into the next generation (maybe even allowing it to leave print and start turning a profit).
But a part of me fears that this is it. Playboy thinks it's made the jump to mobile, but all we're getting is a lot of useless foreplay. Topics: Mobile_Marketing1 CommentRead Full Post
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 10 at 10:46 AM
So you have heard the buzz about Google now including real time search results.
Some are probably asking:
What does that mean?
And then others are asking:
What does real time search results mean to my small business?
Well quickly real time search results means that key words such as "name of your Biz" are going to be showing up on the front page of Google in a real time search window. These will be brought in from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku and Identi.ca for now, who knows what will be invented tomorrow.
So what does that mean for your business? That the time you are spending engaging with your clients/public is now going to be in the spot light. You have been saying good, encouraging, helpful, informative things on your twitter, right? Of course you have! So now when someone types in a keyword such as "bike repair", Mike's Bikerepair twitter account will be streaming in to the front page of Google. I will see all the helpful and courteous dialogue going on at Mike's and want to take my bike to Mike.
John's Bikerepair uses his 2.0 life to discuss how good his cereal is, so we'll know to call him for advice about cereal and Mike to fix our bike.
Remember three things about real time search results:
1. You will be seen, if you are participating in the 2.0 world.
2. Your competitors will be as well.
3. Your happy or unhappy public will also be seen there.
If you do not have a strategy in place to benefit from this, and also to damage control (when that time comes) then I suggest you get cracking! Or hire someone to do it for you.
Google has changed the rules of the game again and you can use them to your favor.
Posted by Rowland Hobbs on December 8 at 1:13 PM
All my life, I have never struggled for perfection. For one, I believe it's unattainable. For two, I believe it's a moving target. Nothing is ever perfect. If you ever think something is perfect, you're either lazy or misinformed.
On the web this is even moreso the case. The glory of the web is that we can change things on the fly. Files can be put up, and taken down. Images can be uploaded, downloaded, and deleted. We can create multiple versions of the same page just to test which setup works the best.
Today, WebMonkey (which sounds a lot less serious than it actually is) posted a blog much to this point, except regarding applications.
And it's true! We need to break free of the unending and deadly cycle of reviews and approvals. It is better to get something up and then work on it continually. Once it's in the real world, you can quickly see what works, and what fails.
If all we do is stare at PDF files of designs that have not been put to the real test of hard code programming, we set ourselves up for disaster when the browsers and connection speeds of the world show us what our actual project will look like.
Of course, this is a bitter pill to swallow. How do you tell a client "let's get it out there, and then fix it?" What's funny is you really can't, it's the worst cacophony to their ears. However, also funny, is that this is how it always is. You launch a site and then begin to notice things.
On the web we so strive for organization. For an easy template to pop our projects into. We want things quick, easy, and clean of the blood of the innocent. This doesn't produce good websites, but it does create award winning ulcers and nights of restless slumber.
So we all need to take a deep breath. Grab our clients by the hand, and tell them it's all right. It's okay. We can fix that. It'll take just a few hours.
Why will this work? Because a website is never done any way. Even books print numerous editions. We can do the same on the web, in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost.
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 8 at 12:01 PM
Google blew the doors off yesterday with a bevy of new services. From analytics to the more commercial centered Google Goggles, they came out swinging. The funny thing is that there wasn’t really anyone in the ring to go down.
In Sunday’s New York Times article about the App store, Katy Huberty, a Morgan Stanley analyst said, “Applications make the smartphone trend a revolutionary trend — one we haven’t seen in consumer technology for many years.”
Ms. Huberty then likens the advent of the App Store and the iPhone to AOL’s pioneering role in driving broad-based consumer adoption of the Internet in the 1990s.
In no way am I being cynical, but I am curious what Apple has planned to keep it from going the way of AOL.
AOL claimed a demographic that it will maintain, until their grandchildren or younger friends, convince them that AOL is not the internet, but a website. So they can hang in there for awhile, Apple has massed enough cash they should be fine as well, but their demographic are tech loving youngins, artists, designers, etc. Nothing is there to keep that demographic if it's better, cheaper, easier and more open armed elsewhere.
While Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were snuggling up over their Joe and AOL mail. AOL was conquered on the very groundwork they laid.
Reminds me of the age-old situational joke, where I struggle to open the bottle that’s honeyed shut, I do all the work, and then my kid brother picks it up and takes the lid off to much applause.
I just hope while Apple is standing around and “clapping-in” new kitchy apps everyday, somebody is in the back hard at work on something as good as all Google has to offer the world of late.
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 7 at 12:45 PM
Saturday Apple bought Lala, Wall Street Journal said that no terms could be learned and that "neither Lala's spokesman, John Kuch, nor its co-founder, Bill Nguyen, could be reached for comment".
Nor will they ever be.
Having worked for Apple, I can tell you that they are probably now watching internal torture videos depicting what will happen to them if they ever talk to anyone about the deal or what they will be doing for Apple under their new contracts.
However the terms are not as important as the lesson.
What did Apple learn from Lala and what can you?
We all know the importance of a website. It is not only our digital storefront, for many it is their only storefront. Some have realized it is their flagship store and others still treat it as junior branch office.
But what Apple learned from Lala was that no matter how impressive your Flagship store (website/app...iTunes) is, and no matter how great your sales might be, the kiosk is still a powerful tool.
A kiosk is where the people are, where your store is not.
Some people will still drive to the big store when they can get the same thing on their block, but the beauty of a kiosk or corner store is that it is right there where you are, where the need is.
Lala was there on every page about music I went to recently, if there was a new band or a new record I was reading about, I could listen to it right there on the same page and even buy it. You can't do that with iTunes (not yet!).
Sure they had their own site, and I would sometimes go there, but everywhere I went they had their “kiosk” right there for my convenience, and I ended up buying credit with them because it was just so easy and convenient for me.
So what did Apple learn, and what can we?
People like convenience. They like context.
Yes your website is essential, but you can’t expect people to come there all the time, especially if what they want (and what you sell) is right there in the context of what they are interested in not on your site (in this case music on music blogs). Sure they might come browse your site when they are bored and looking for something specific, but when they are out on the run, your product next to the register is definitely going to catch that impulsive buy.
A pop-up store is where your site is not.
Get out there, go to your public, stop expecting them to come to you. Go to them and they’ll come find you later when they need you, but in the meantime you’ll be catching sales all over the net. Topics: 1 CommentRead Full Post
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 4 at 11:41 AM
People have been using Google as a dictionary for years. Simply typing the word or an approximation of the word, letting google correct it, copying it, pasting it and then moving on.
The fact that they added definition to their site is even more convenient.
Is it the best? Who cares?
Basic definitions are typically the most useful. Why? because when writing/speaking even though you might like to use the perfect word, the perfect word is always the word that is going to communicate the best and that is usually the most common definition of the word.
Communication is all about communicating.
With the exception of poetry and other such writing, people typically want to quickly clarify the definition and spelling, not do a word study.
For word studies I wouldn't go to dictionary.com (etc.) anyway, but a number of sources, in which case the spotlight on my Mac is the perfect solution. Dictionary, thesaurus, wikipedia all side by side.
Good work on Google's part, they understand what people want: ease.
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 3 at 11:24 AM
Ok, so to be honest my google reader is not full of just PR, tech and media feeds, it is a bit of everything, and one of my favorites is GOOD.is.
I had to weigh in about the importance of residual waste as well and to make my point I turned to my job and how here we use all parts of the chicken at DMDxd.
When you are planning an event, what is your residual waste, and how can you then turn that into stock for a great soup?
Here’s a check list:
1. Audio
2. Video
3. Social Media
4. Photos
5. Copy
Audio, interview people there, the speakers, the crowd, little meetings, whatever. Turn it into a Podcast.
Video, sure your filming the talk or the ribbon cutting or ball dropping etc., but what about in the dressing room, in the cab, behind the scenes. Run it through iMovie and put it on Youtube (no more than 2 mins please).
Social Media, do you have an established #ashtag set up for people to follow, or even a twitter account specific to the event? Can people Facebook connect when they arrive, how are you looping these things around your event and back into your business. A guest book can be so many things these days, if it’s fun, easy and there, people will do it.
Photos, yep those are still important, even if you on the same page and have already hired a photographer or two, what about on the fly? Your cell phone? I played a festival where once you got off stage each performer was given a video camera they could keep with them for the next couple hours, now that was cool, and footage everyone wanted to see, places most people couldn’t get and priceless candidacy. What about just leaving disposable cameras at tables, and sticking a Flickr URL on the camera letting people know, the photos they snap will be uploaded. And you can get the ball rolling behind the scenes with a live feed to flickr from your cell or whatever, while the event is going on.
Copy, microblogging the event, compiling that afterwards into a more blown out blog post, straightened up and polished into a whitepaper or article that you purpose to a magazine, or someone else’s blog.
The idea is that if you have an event, use the whole chicken. And remember, that event can be something as simple as a tweet-up or you name it, brangelina doesn’t have to attend to make it an event, just you and your great ideas.
(an example of DMD doing this can be found here, and more if you like, drop us a line.)
As the Creative Director of a web, mobile marketing, and social media agency - I would love to talk about us and our brilliance all the time. And hopefully, as we land more and more projects and launch more and more things, I will be able to do that.
But at other times, I just have to give the bigger dogs their due. These days, so many clients are pining for more! more! more! We want MORE functionality! MORE options! MORE lolcats! But Ogilvy took a page from the upcoming holiday season, and its biblical battle cry for simplicity - and channeled that simple wish into an iPhone Christmas app.
It's pretty fantastic... but it also could do with just a BIT more.
You take a photo, you press a button, and snow is superimposed over the photo you took. Why is this awesome? Because it's an immediate strategic headslap for me (why didn't I think of that??). Because it is not at all expensive. And it is simple, simple, simple. Add to that the fact that it's free and that the web is already talking about it and I can tell you that this will be a successful idea from the company. They sell mobile, marketing, and web. And that's exactly what their app does.
But far be it from me to just lay back and say "good job, other company that isn't mine." Of course I need to step in and offer some "wouldn't it be better ifs".
So please, indulge me:
I'd love to have an option to add falling snow to any VIDEO. With iPhone's ability to edit and upload direct to YouTube, that could be fun, as well.
What if I want to turn this into a mobile holiday card? Can I type a quick message that is superimposed over the image, and sign my name using the touch pad? Another personal touch that increases viral potential.
What about a drawer of stick-on imagery? I'd love to drag an Ogilvy snowman onto my photo, and shrink or grow him appropriately to add to my faux-snowy scene.
Now... you may say... but then it's no longer simple! I disagree. A few SIMPLE additions I mentioned here, streamlined with a slick UI, could certainly keep this snowy and simplistic... while adding more value.
Because, while simplicity is key, too much of it isn't a good thing, either. You need to give something a bit more flair to give it that extra push from one user to that user's friends and family. Topics: Mobile_Marketing, tools, web_design0 CommentsRead Full Post
