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How Sales Messaging Affects Conversion Rates!

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:32:00 -0800

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Lytro Camera Changes The Way You Take And Work With Photos!

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:07:00 -0800

BILL GROSS: 12 Lessons I've Learned In My 30 Years Of Being An Entrepreneur

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:07:00 -0800

Editor's note: Bill Gross, the founder of idealab, gave a great presentation at LeWeb last week reflecting on his 30 years as a serial entrepreneur.

Over his amazing career, which began when he was 12, Bill has founded more than 100 companies in dozens of industries. It seems safe to say that he is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in history.

We asked him Bill if we could publish his slide deck. He kindly agreed and provided us with his commentary.

What follows is a look back at one of the most incredible, under-appreciated runs in the industry in the last 30 years.

Learning from Failure*

Bill Gross

Bill Gross, founder of Idealab and more than 100 other companies and one of the world's most energetic, engaging and successful entrepreneurs, recently presented at LeWeb in Paris. He discussed the top dozen lessons he has learned over his exciting, ever-evolving, four-decade career of taking ideas and transforming them into businesses.

An Entrepreneurial Lifer – Starting at Age 12

Bill Gross

At age 12, I started my first business: candy arbitrage. In my neighborhood, the candy store sold Snickers bars for 10 cents – but the drug store sold three for a quarter, or 8-1/3 cents for one. I bought lots of Snickers bars for 8-1/3 cents, sold them for 9 cents at the school bus stop, and my small business took off like crazy. It gave me my first great taste of interacting with customers, my first lesson in pricing.

The Engine of My Dreams

Bill Gross

My high school had a machine shop. In 1973, there was a worldwide energy crisis. To buy gasoline, you had to line up on either odd- or even-numbered days, and you could buy only $5 at a time. I read in Popular Science and Scientific American magazines about how there was some hope to solve the energy problem through solar energy. I dropped out of English Lit and took Metal Shop.

Turning Idea into Reality

Bill Gross

The accompanying image: my first sketch of the little engine I wanted to make . . .

Stirling engine

Bill Gross

. . . and the actual Stirling engine I built in Metal Shop. My classmates were convinced I was building a bomb. The engine worked. I made plans to show how to build it, then went back to Popular Science magazine and took out ads to sell the plans and kits to make the engine.

I Start My First Company, in 10th Grade

Bill Gross

I called my company Solar Devices. At the library I read everything about mail order. I used different handwriting, calligraphy, typewriting, and different colored stamps to test conversion rates. At Kinko's, for 75 cents each, I made copies of my plans for a parabolic concentrator and Stirling engine. I sold the plans for $4. Eventually I sold 10,000, which helped pay my way through college. And I learned a great lesson.

The First Lesson: Market Power Rules

Bill Gross

There are many things you can do to make a business successful: build Company Power, Category Power, Execution Power. But Market Power is a market just taking off without your doing anything. In the mid-1970's, solar energy was taking off. I chanced upon it because I was excited by it. At age 15, I learned: Move into a market that already has that power going for it and it's like running a race with a draft at your back.

I Start A Bigger Company in College

Bill Gross

At Caltech, I got into acoustical engineering. I designed high-end loudspeakers and started selling them. I opened a stereo store on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. The experience of demonstrating to customers and trying to convince them to take out their wallets, part with their money and buy a pair of expensive loudspeakers – that was the greatest learning experience I ever had as an entrepreneur.

Lesson #2: Master the Demo

Bill Gross

Learn how to sell, to pitch, to demonstrate – learn how to close people. I learned this when I was only 19 years old, somewhat accidentally, but it was a skill that has been valuable in every business I've started since. Do not think of the "demo" as an afterthought. Learn how to master it. It's extremely important to whatever business you do. It's one of the single most valuable entrepreneurial skills.

A Business Evolves

Bill Gross

After Caltech I was running my stereo store, and in 1981 the IBM PC came out. I bought one for $5,000. It came with a 160k floppy drive, 256k RAM, Basic, and Pascal. Then VisiCalc came out, then Lotus 1-2-3. I bought Lotus 1-2-3 and started computerizing my business. My brother joined me in the stereo business and we learned to program in macros, then to program entirely.

Seizing Opportunity, Getting Acquired

Bill Gross

After we'd devised and started selling a product called CPA+, we talked with our customers – and could hear how inexperienced they were with Lotus 1-2-3. We saw an opportunity. We demo-ed HAL – a natural language interface we created for 1-2-3 – at Comdex and Lotus acquired our company for $10 million. We'd had ups and downs. But for all the tough times we'd faced, we'd always remained excited about our business. Which leads me to the next lesson.

Lesson #3 Pursue Your Passion

Bill Gross

Everyone knows about the story behind Apple – what about the one behind Disney? Walt Disney was practically broke when he came out with 'Snow White' and pulled the company out of bankruptcy; when he launched Disneyland, he again pulled the company out of bankruptcy. Every business will face huge challenges. To overcome them, you must have deep passion for your idea.

Waving Goodbye to a 5-Year-Old . . . and a Company is Born

Bill Gross

The first morning of the first day of kindergarten for my firstborn son, I waved goodbye to him – and as I drove away, I suddenly worried: "What if he doesn't fall in love with learning, like I did?" So was born the idea for my company, Knowledge Adventure: to create software products that would make kids fall in love with learning.

Lots of Adventures, Lots of Flailing

Bill Gross

We worked with Isaac Asimov to make Science Adventure, with Buzz Aldrin to make Space Adventure. We made products called Dinosaur Adventure and Undersea Adventure. We kept spreading out, making different products to try to succeed in the marketplace. More things, different things. As Christmas approached, we weren’t making our numbers so we instituted a program called Weekend Warriors. Maybe we'd make our numbers that way.

Weekend Warriors

Bill Gross

Each weekend, every employee, armed with a box of donuts and a laptop, would bribe his or her way into a retailer, to stand in the software aisle and demo our products. Yes, we boosted our sales but, more importantly, we saw how many customers picked up our box, looked at it, and put it down, unconvinced. Our new idea: Suppose we made a product for a much narrower audience – like, say, the four million 5-year-olds in the U.S.?

Meeting Customers Exactly Where They Are

Bill Gross

Instead of making a product intended for 5- to 15-year-olds, what if we made a product for just 5-year-olds? The sales force hated the idea. They said there was no way to convince a retailer to give shelf space to a product aimed at such a niche market. For three months we argued. Finally, we agreed to do an experiment: Spend $200,000, make a prototype, see what happened.

Going Narrow

Bill Gross

Sales took off like crazy. People picked up the box, read that it was 'Jump Start Kindergarten,' said to themselves, 'I have a 5-year-old, I need this product.' We started outpacing every other product on the shelves. We made a whole series – 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, all the way up to 6^th Grade. Making products all over the map didn’t work. Which leads to my next lesson.

Lesson #4: Focus, Focus, Focus

Bill Gross

Focus is always better. We were so worried we were going to pick the wrong focus . . . it turns out that focus is so important, even if you pick the wrong focus you're doing better! Doing fewer things extraordinarily well connects with the customer. This is a crucial lesson I took to later companies I started.

Acquisition and Incubation

Bill Gross

After Knowledge Adventure was acquired in 1996 for $90 million, I started Idealab, a technology incubator, with Marcia Goodstein and Tom Hughes.

Creating a Truly Risk-Promoting Environment

Bill Gross

We built a place to share resources for company creation, to take risks, a place where nobody would get fired if an idea failed. That was critical: When you see people being punished or losing their job when they take a risk that fails, you're less likely to take risks. Our structure encouraged experimentation. If it didn’t work out, people could move on to new projects. This encouraged risk-taking – exactly what I was aiming for.

Idealab: Incubator for 100+ Companies

Bill Gross

Since 1996, Idealab has started more than 100 companies across a wide spectrum of industries, including the Internet, Robotics, Cleantech, Communications, Productivity, and more, with a wide range of success and failure.

Going Through It All

Bill Gross

Of our approximately 100 companies, we’ve had more than 300 rounds of financing, an average of three rounds per company. We directly invested more than $870 million into these companies, and helped them raise a total of $2.8 billion in additional funding. We’ve had 35 successful IPOs and acquisitions; we have 25 current operating companies; we've had 40 failures. An important lesson I learned in starting Idealab?

Lesson #5: Recognize Your Strengths

Bill Gross

Design a structure around your strengths, and balance that by hiring complementary skills. I am a genuinely unfocused individual. I like working on lots of different things – yet for a company to succeed, it needs focus. At Idealab we brought people in with skills I lack. We devised a structure for companies to succeed by staying laser-like focused on their mission, but allowed me to be involved in multiple companies.

2 Wild Successes, 2 Painful Failures, 2 . . . ?

Bill Gross

From our 100 companies, let me share stories about six of them: two painful failures, two wild successes, two works in progress – companies we’re building right now and we'll see how they play out.

eToys Rapid Growth

Bill Gross

eToys, started in 1997, did $1.5 million in revenue its first Christmas, $10 million the next year, $50 million the third. We went public. We had a larger market cap than Toys R Us. We built warehouses nationwide – to do 1-day shipping in every region – and though we did $160 million the next year, we'd built for $300 million. Dot-com crashed. There would be no secondary offering. We failed – which leads to my next lesson.

Lesson #6: Don't Overbuild

Bill Gross

Don't overbuild. The world can change very fast. We had no idea the dot-com crash could come on as fast as it did. It's better to grow slowly, and sacrifice some upside in the short-term, than to go out-of-business because of over-capacity. For us, it was a very painful lesson, and a very valuable one.

A Different Way to Fail: z.com

Bill Gross

In 1999 we started Z.com, forerunner to FunnyOrDie and other online entertainment sites. Back then there was only 10% broadband penetration but we were excited it would accelerate. We raised $10 million, built the site, launched, got good traction. We hired 110 people. But broadband penetration grew too lowly. We cut to 46 employees; the next year, to 20; the next year, to 12. We ran out of money.

Lesson #7: Survive Until the Market is Ready

Bill Gross

If you have a great offering – and people loved z.com – but the market just isn’t ready for it yet, then cut your burn immediately to survive until the market is there. If we'd only immediately cut our burn to 12 employees instead of going in slow, painful steps, we would have survived. Our response wasn't aggressive enough.

Would Anyone Actually Buy a Car Online?

Bill Gross

In 1999, we started CarsDirect. Back then people worried about putting credit cards online; here I wanted to sell a car online! We put a site up on a Wednesday night; by Thursday morning, we had four orders. We quickly shut the site down (we'd have to buy four cars at retail and deliver them to these four customers at a loss) but proved the thesis. Only then did we start building the real site and company.

Lesson #8: Test, Test, Test

Bill Gross

Find a way to test your core proposition with your customer, then manage your resources to adapt after that. Don’t spend the money in advance. You have to test the real customer proposition. You have to make the example be the actual test. CarsDirect, by the way, would go public in 2007; a year ago, it was acquired by a private equity firm. A very profitable company turned into Internet Brands.

An Idea I Loved – Even If the Critics Didn't

Bill Gross

We initially created GoTo.com so our 20 portfolio companies would have a more efficient, transparent way of buying traffic. But in 1998, it was enormously controversial to show what a merchant had bid for that click. WSJ panned us. Yahoo said they would never, ever show the price of bids. Five years later, with GoTo.com renamed Overture, Yahoo acquired us for $1.6 billion. The valuable lesson?

Lesson #9: Stick With It

Bill Gross

When you have a great idea, stick with it despite what the critics say. Critics were against this idea – very against it – but we knew we really had something and we persisted. This is one of the most important of all entrepreneurial lessons.

A Work-in-Progress: eSolar

Bill Gross

eSolar is neither success nor failure yet: It's a utility-scale solar company trying to reduce the price of solar energy. Unless solar can compete with the price of fossil fuels without subsidies, it's a novelty; eSolar's method to drive down price is to make a modular system that can be deployed very quickly. We've built a power plant in southern California. We believe the ability to scale this is amazing.

A Huge Idea Requires Help

Bill Gross

It would take a 100km by 100km piece of land in Northern Africa to power all of Europe. I have great hopes for eSolar's future – but there are also great challenges. The company has huge capital expenses. We raised over $3 million. We brought in GE as a partner, so we could build plants in Turkey, India, China and the southwestern United States. This experience brought home another vital lesson.

Lesson #10: Find Essential Partners

Bill Gross

You have to find essential partners. If you have a world-changing idea with huge capital requirements, you’ve got to work hard to find the partners you need. We learned this lesson painfully with eSolar and I strongly recommend that when you see your company needs partners – the right partners – stop and go get them before you continue.

UberMedia: More Than Just Reach . . . Relevance

Bill Gross

UberMedia is another very exciting company we started. I wanted to tap into the incredible democratizing power of social media – but to make it more relevant; to expand its reach but make it more targeted reach, so that I could successfully get my thoughts to the people I wanted to reach. We began building and acquiring a number of Twitter clients: Twidroyd, UberSocial, and Echofon.

Chime.In: We Come Together When We Share Interests

Bill Gross

Just last month we launched our own platform, Chime.in, where people connect around their interests, which enables even great connection, greater relevance. Across all of these social media products at UberMedia, we now have 6 million users sending out more than 25 million posts per day, and growing; 25 million times a day, from their mobile device or laptop or desktop, people say something in one of our products. We're really excited to learn from those people, and to have them spread the word for us – which brings me to the next lesson, the one that UberMedia and Chime.in are teaching me.

Lesson #11: Harness Your Users' Passion

Bill Gross

In the new world of media, you have to create automated ways to get your customers to get you new customers. That’s unbelievably powerful. And there are incredible capabilities available in this new world to help you to take advantage of that.

Lesson #12: All Truth Passes Through Three Stages

Bill Gross

The twelfth, perhaps biggest, entrepreneurial lesson: All truth passes through three stages. First, an idea is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Think about it: A breakthrough idea is a crazy idea . . . right until it crosses over to be a big breakthrough idea. You must be willing to face some ridicule and opposition before you can make your idea become self-evident.

There's No Substitute for Failure

Bill Gross

The great thing about failure and experimentation: You learn so much, and you can usually apply your new wisdom to future ventures, and give them a greater chance for success. That's what I've tried to do, so far, with my four decades of entrepreneurial experiences: Learn from them and build on them. Thank you.

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Soccer Ref Hit By Flying Object! Even Ref's Act Like They Get Hurt During Soccer Games! Watch The Top Right Of The Video.

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:13:00 -0800

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Drupal Event in LA - Learn Why Media & Entertainment Chooses Drupal

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:19:00 -0800

Join Acquia and your peers at this exclusive networking event at the Andaz Hotel in Hollywood! After you’ve left this invigorating and informative evening, you will know why and how innovative media and entertainment companies have revolutionized their web strategies with the leading open source CMS, Drupal.

Panelists will offer expert advice and real-world experience to showcase how Drupal empowers agencies and organizations to innovate and scale to meet growing customer expectations. Expert panelists include:

Scott Gerlach - Sr. Director, Information Technology at The Walt Disney Company
Mark Davis - Chief Operating Officer at TheWrap.com
J Vaughn - Chief Information Officer at Advanstar Communications
George Gomez - Director, Online Development at Cesar Millan Inc.

Moderated by: Kieran Lal - Technical Director, Business Development at Acquia

Additionally, conversations will cover how to consolidate multiple environments on to one platform that supports both large and small sites, and to capitalize on emerging Web Content Management, Web Engagement Management and Social Publishing opportunities in a single, unified platform.

Used by leading companies and organization such as Paramount, Bravo TV, and the Grammys, and by RCA Music Group, Sony Music, and for leading artists’ websites like Carrie Underwood, Jimmy Page, Blake Shelton, and more, Drupal powers the most popular websites in Hollywood.

This event is by invitation only, and space is limited. So RSVP now and submit your own topics for discussion!

Best "CAPTCHA" I Have Seen To Thwart Spambots!

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:04:00 -0800

How many times have you tried to register for something on the web and had to fill out mixed up numbers and letters that you cannot even tell what it is. That is called "CAPTCHA". It is used to stop SPAM BOTS (computers that register millions of times on a site) from spamming a site.

Checkout this cool and easy to use "CAPCHA" technology!

Get Rid of People That Are In Your Photos!

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:22:00 -0800

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Watch @WhatsTrending today at 10am/pst! @ShiraLazar and @DamonBerger Rock! Congrats On Your Second Season!

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:55:00 -0800

From Damon Berger:

Fresh of 4 IAWTV Award wins (Best Live Show, Best Live Host, Best Social Media Experience, and Best Director), we're back for Season 2 of What's Trending--the talk show for the digital age!

We may have moved to Wednesdays, but, we still have the same incredible talent on the show. This week we have Missi Pyle from the Oscar Nominated film, The Artist, Attack of the Show's Kevin Pereira, Margaret Cho, and Universal Music Artist, John West performing. And we have more of your favorite artists and guests lined up in the coming weeks!

Season 1 wouldn't have been a success without you. Your constant support means everything to us as an indie! So, anything you can do to help Tweet us (@whatstrending), like us on Facebook (Facebook.com/whatstrending), subscribe on YouTube (youtube.com/whatstrending), share with your friends, shout it from the mountaintops, it's so greatly appreciated.

Be sure to WATCH at 10:00 am PT TODAY for the new season on YouTube (youtube.com/whatstrending), Livestream (youtube.com/livestream), and UStream (ustream.com/whatstrending). If you can't, no big deal, we're online all the time at whatstrending.com.

And check out the great article that Liz Shannon Miller wrote on us in New Tee Vee: http://gigaom.com/video/whats-trending-launching-new-season-new-verticals-and-more-event-coverage/

Oh yeah, and if you're flying Virgin, be sure to watch us on Red! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=346474722059157&set=a.208253495881281.52782.192815027425128&type=1&theater

Thank you guys so much for everything, looking forward to a huge year together this year!

Job Opportunity - Social Media Specialist - Sony Pictures Imageworks

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:30:00 -0800

Contact Me To Learn More: CLICK HERE

SOCIAL MEDIA SPECIALIST, IMAGEWORKS INTERACTIVE

JOB DESCRIPTION

SPECIALIST, SOCIAL MEDIA

The Social Media Specialist supports the day-to-day tasks and responsibilities of the Social Media Department. These tasks include brainstorming, proposal writing, campaign copywriting and campaign reporting. She/He is also responsible for managing assigned social communities through copywriting and engagement.

Client companies span a broad range of industries, organizations, budgets and levels of digital expertise. This role requires creative versatility with strategic understanding, excellent writing ability, exceptional organizational and time management skills and the adaptability to understand each unique client. The position is based inCulver City,California.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Contribute to the conception, development, maintenance, optimization and reporting of social media campaigns in a collaborative, cross-discipline team environment
Brainstorm social media campaign concepts and features
Write creative pitches and campaign support documentation
Copywriting for a diverse number of marketing campaigns
Day-to-day management of assigned tasks including social community management through copywriting and engagement
Monitor the status of active social campaigns, including alerting senior stakeholders regarding any perceived shifts in community conversation
Review campaign reports and provide analysis on results
Stay abreast of industry trends, best practices and other information beneficial to clients and colleagues and report both verbally and in writing
Identify opportunities to expand the scope of client social media campaigns and engagement
Organize and manage the social media archive
Keep track of hours worked on each project for accounting purposes

REQUIRED SKILLS

Familiarity and/or knowledge of technical specifications, requirements and framework of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare etc.
Curious and creative mind
Highly adaptive writing abilities
Excellent oral and written communication skills
Experience interacting with diverse personalities in a fast-paced creative environment
Solution-oriented, highly motivated and proactive self-starter
Macro-to-micro versatility: strategic mindset coupled with a keen attention to detail
Ability to handle multiple project assignments within tight deadlines and see a project through from start to finish with minimal guidance
Outstanding organizational skills
Strong understanding of social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
Proficiency in Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Knowledge of Microsoft Visio, Adobe Photoshop preferred
Strong knowledge of digital marketing methods preferred
Knowledge of web production preferred

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE

2 years of continuous professional experience in social media is strongly desired
College degree preferred
Experience in working closely with developers / programmers in launching social media campaigns through websites, applications and emerging platforms

JOB LOCATION

Culver City, CA US

POSITION TYPE

Consulting

Valentine's Marriage Proposal via Infographic = Cool!

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:01:00 -0800

via businessinsider.com

Need a Hard Drive? Great Deal For an AWESOME Product! Get a DROBO! 50% Off!

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 07:57:00 -0800

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During the checkout enter the coupon code: "VALENTINE50"

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Brilliant Advertising! Willie Nelson Covers Coldplay's "The Scientist" for an Animated Chipotle Commercial!

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:38:00 -0800

Chipotle created an animated commercial with Willie Nelson signing a cover of "The Scientist" from Coldplay.

The song is #24 on iTunes! BUY THE SONG

10 Essential Features of Every Good Business Website

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:11:00 -0800

So your business has a website — or you’re in need of one for your brand new venture. Web design can be an overwhelming process, so we’ve spoken to a few web designers who told us what you need to have on your site … and what you can probably do without (like crazy Flash animation).

The first thing you must do is secure a good, catchy URL. Make sure it makes sense for your business, doesn’t have quirky spelling and is available on social platforms, too. Panabee can help you get creative if your business name is taken, and Name Vine is a great resource for seeing what’s available.

Once you’ve set up your domain, it’s time to build out the site and make some big decisions. Here are 10 must-haves for your website that will ensure your customers have a positive experience on the site, improve your company’s digital footprint and increase engagement with your brand.

1. A Logical Roadmap

Sure, a website should be aesthetically pleasing, but it’s more important for it to be useful. Before you even pick a server or type an HTML tag, you should map out how you’d like the website to work. This is important both for user experience and for SEO, since Google considers the content and structure of a site when it ranks for search. So, map out and mock up a design for the site — what designers call “wireframing” — and run it by a few friends to make sure it makes sense and is intuitive. “If they can understand the logic, so will the people visiting your website … and Google bots when ranking it!” says Pete Mills of web design consultancy Calls9.

2. Crucial Business Information

“The biggest failure that people have is that they try to build the website they want, not necessarily the website they need,” says designer Josh Frankel. Take a restaurant, for example — Frankel says “everyone wants music and this giant ‘about’ page,” but they neglect the basic things like the menu, contact information and directions.

Keep text to a minimum when it comes to your mission statement, because you should be writing things so people can skim — we all have short attention spans. One helpful tip for conveying your mission is to compare your business to something else, like how MeUndies.com is marketed as “Warby Parker for undies” to align itself with the eyewear manufacturer’s keen curation and by-mail convenience. Don’t underestimate brevity — one or two sentences can be really powerful, says Frankel.

Depending on your business, you should have a few things on your website that fall into the realm of “information.” We know restaurants need a menu and a list of locations (ideally with directions or a map), but every industry has its necessary items. If you’re an etailer, you need product images (and they need to be good pictures). If you work in the service industry and have a business that relies heavily on customer service and referrals, put some testimonials on your site. For example, a wedding planner could have one of her recent brides write about her experience with the business. A web designer should include screenshots or link out to previous work. A hair salon could have client testimonials about a stylist’s skills and promptness. Tailor your site so that it offers the information users are likely to be looking for.

3. Contact Information

We can’t stress enough that most crucial business detail is contact information– which is why it has its own section. Mills exclaims, “How many times do you visit a website and think ‘how hard is to contact this company?’ Have a number, email, address and a contact form easily accessible and visible,” he says. It makes a difference because there’s nothing more frustrating than being unable to get in touch with a needed business or service.

When you put an email address or a phone number on the site, don’t upload this information as part of an image — the number or address should be able to be clicked on or copied right from the site in order to place the call or send an email conveniently and quickly. Most smartphones these days have the ability to do “click to call” on the web, so make the process as easy as possible for users.

Don’t want your phone ringing off the hook? Just use an email address, but be sure you answer emails in a timely manner. And please, get an email address for your domain. Using Gmail — or worse, an AOL email address — isn’t professional, and that’s what you’re striving to be. If you like Gmail’s interface, you can use Google Apps to set up custom email addresses through Gmail — it’s free for up to 10 email addresses.

4. Clear Navigation

A map is useless without a legend and a website is useless without clear navigation. Make sure you use easy-to-understand and logical names for the various pages of your site — contact, about, FAQ, etc. Being clever or cryptic will just be a turnoff for users.

When developing your navigation strategy, you should consider a call to action. What is it that you want people to do on your site? Place an order? Email for a quote? Become a member? Come to your brick-and-mortar store? Call to speak with a customer service rep? Make your goals clear and obvious.

“Put yourself in the shoes of who’s coming to your site,” says Frankel. “What are they trying to get done? Think about the goal of your potential customer.” Pepper the site with action items to help customer easily do what you want them to do. Birchbox has done a good job of this, encouraging users to “learn more” and directing them to claim a gifted Birchbox, since it’s a popular gift item and giftees are likely to be first-time visitors.

5. Security

If you’re selling anything online, you need to put some effort into securing your site with an SSL certificate. The SSL will encrypt communications between you and your clients (i.e. a credit card number, Social Security number), which will allay their fears of providing such information, since there’s so much identity theft on the web. VeriSign, TrustE, Entrust and GeoTrust are good options to explore.

6. Social Media Integration

Twitter. Facebook. Tumblr. YouTube. Pinterest. Google+. LinkedIn. Instagram. Foursquare. There are a lot of social platforms out there, and you should promote your presence on them on your website, because social media is critical part of marketing your business. Though not a traditional business, digital savvy Team Coco does a great job promoting its many social channels on the website.

Integrating these platforms into your website will help boost your SEO, improve your business’ footprint on the social web and build your following across numerous social platforms. Is it worth it to maintain a presence on so many social platforms? Yes — as long as you actually maintain your content, you’ll keep your brand top-of-mind and keep users engaged. “Social media is not going to leave us anytime soon and its worth the investment in time — it does make a difference,” says Mills.

7. A Mobile-Ready Version

Smartphones and tablets are driving an increasing amount of web traffic, and the numbers are only going to grow as mobile devices become cheaper and more mainstream. Andy Chu, director of Bing for Mobile, says 70% of task completion happens within one hour on mobile sites, meaning that people are often browsing on the web with intent — they’re looking to do something, buy something or go somewhere. If someone searches for a restaurant on his smartphone, he’s likely to eat at that restaurant within the hour, says Chu. So your website better be readable on handheld devices.

“Until two years ago, designing for the web meant designing for a computer, now it means designing for anything with an internet connection,” says Frankel, referring to laptops, tablets and smartphones, all of which have different screen sizes. So, how can you do it? Responsive design.

Responsive website design enables you to use fluid widths, so that your website layout will adapt to the screen on which it’s being browsed. You can enter HTML code so that your sidebar takes up, say 20% of the screen width, and the remaining 80% is reserved for the body of your website. Layouts are adjustable and images are scalable to make for a better web experience on myriad devices. Here are examples of sites with responsive design, so you can see for yourself.

Do you simply want to focus on developing a mobile website? You can use Mobify and other tools to create a mobile version of your website.

8. FAQ

People have a lot of questions. As you hear concerns from customers and receive feedback via email, gather up the most frequently asked questions into a list and offer clear, concise answers. Questions often revolve around materials and ingredients used (for allergy reasons), shipping information, company history, sizing (for apparel brands) and cancellation or return policies.

9. Good Hosting

Don’t mess around with hosting. “You need your site on a mainstream provider, and it costs a handful of dollars every month to have 24/7 technical assistance,” says Mills.

Not having good hosting can cost you in many ways. A slow site is frustrating, one that fails to load is obnoxious and both could turn off customers. But beyond annoying your users and increasing your bounce rate, poor hosting can also affect your rank in search engines, since many search engine algorithms detect webpage loading speed, says Malakai Whitston of design blog WebDesignFan.

10. Here’s a Curveball — Some Features You Don’t Need

Don’t underestimate the power of simplicity. Feel free to forgo these things on your website:

Music
Flash
Anything that autoplays, whether it’s music or a video. “It’s not something you want to do to somebody,” says Frankel.
Extraneous information and media — it’ll only slow down the page’s loading time.

What are your website must-haves? Let us know in the comments.

via mashable.com

Tips On How To Master Email

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:45:00 -0800

via 9.mshcdn.com

“When I get to the bottom,
I go back to the top of the slide …”

Responsive Web Design - Must Read Case Study About "The Boston Globe"

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:41:00 -0800

So I’ve got a confession to make: When we started working on the new Boston Globe website, we had never designed a responsive site before.

This shouldn’t come as some huge shock. I mean, raise your hand if you’d built a full responsive site back in November 2010. (You can put your hand down now, Mr. Marcotte, that was rhetorical.) Since so few had done it — and certainly not on this scale — we kind’ve made things up as we went along. In fact, the entire Boston Globe team worked in a laboratory environment.¹

Here at Upstatement, we experimented with how to solve design and layout problems within a responsive framework. We learned a helluva lot as we went, like how to choose the right design software, strategies for thinking through breakpoints, and some best practices for designing in the browser.

Ready? Good. Cos here we go …

Choose Your Weapon

Before laying down a single pixel, there was an important decision to make: What design program to use?

Eventually design would be done directly in the browser — there’s no better tool for interactive design, especially when you’re working with fluid layouts (more on all that later). But first we needed to establish the aesthetic and plan high-level pages. It helps to answer the big questions before getting to the browser — and it was imperative for a site as sprawling as The Boston Globe, with lots of specific page templates and multiple iterations for each breakpoint.

So we lined up the usual suspects from Adobe. Who would be our partner in crime — Photoshop? Illustrator? InDesign?

Hands down, the answer was InDesign. At its core, BostonGlobe.com is a publication website, and InDesign is the best tool for laying out publications and content. Yes, there are huge differences between designing print publications and designing for the web, but consider this: Most web pages are simply a combination of photos and text. And where Photoshop excels at manipulating images (but sucks at type) and Illustrator is exceptional at typography (but sucks with images), InDesign is built for both.

Even better, InDesign’s internal logic parallels that of web design and development. Every new document begins with a grid. It uses type and object stylesheets that should be familiar to anyone who has used CSS, allowing you to change the characteristics of every headline (or object) from one master style.

InDesign stylesheets

For type, you adjust all the attributes you’d expect (size, color, font, kerning, tracking), and others you might not like space before / space after (which is basically just margin), and CSS3 techniques like shadow and gradient. This way of working maps directly to development work, from the style names down to the design characteristics.

InDesign’s master pages palette

Like the web, InDesign also has a notion of templates. We used master pages to hard-code common elements and create a baseline for every section, article, or project page. Heck, you can even nest InDesign files inside of InDesign files. Change the header once and it automatically updates in every template — just like using an include.

Try creating a complex system like that in Photoshop.²

And Now It’s Time for a Breakdown

With InDesign locked and loaded, we were ready for the fun part — the design itself.

Knowing that we’d nail down details in the browser, early designs aimed to answer big questions. What are the key breakpoints? What do major templates look like at each breakpoint? What do the header and footer look like? What content appears on the homepage, various section fronts, and article page? What’s the overall look and feel?

Lucky for us, there was an all-star team in place to help us answer some of these questions. We had Scott Jehl, Todd Parker, and the super-smart crew at Filament Groupas well as two hired guns/all-around badasses in Ethan Marcotte and Mat Marquis. From the Globe, Miranda Mulligan expertly guided the whole process.

We sat down together at the beginning to lay out some of those high-level design decisions. Most important were the breakpoints, the screen widths where we would optimize our designs. A fluid grid would fill the spaces in between and adapt the design to widths that we hadn’t explicitly considered (like the funky size of the Kindle Fire, which debuted a full year after we chose our breakpoints).

To figure out the breakpoints, we surveyed the available devices — smart phones, dumb phones, tablets, laptops, PCs, etc — and set some limits for ourselves. For a minute we thought, “What if we designed for TVs!” But the use case was too narrow. In the end, we settled on six breakpoints, heavily influenced by standard smartphone dimensions and the dominance of the iPad:³

1200px (which we also set as the max width)
960px
768px
600px
480px
320px

With breakpoints established, we used InDesign’s master pages to create templates with appropriate grids for every breakpoint, then designed key pages for every width.

Designing Downward

— The Beatles

Y’all might’ve noticed something in the last section. I talked about the design breakpoints from largest to smallest. Gasp! That’s not a strictly Mobile First approach. Uncool, man.

Well, while I love the sentiment and certainly practice it when coding a responsive site, it just wasn’t the way we designed.

Our designs began at 960px, arguably the most complicated breakpoint, with several columns of content. Maybe this just came naturally after years of designing for that width. But I think it’s more than that. It’s easier to design with more screen real-estate — you see more at one time, you have a more nuanced hierarchy. And it wasn’t just for this project; we’ve designed subsequent responsive sites the same way.

So starting at 960, we designed downward. Every decision informed the one before it and the one after; we flipped back and forth between breakpoints a lot. As the Mobile First mantra suggests, designing for mobile was most instructive because it forced us to decide what was most important. And since we refused to hide content between breakpoints, the mobile view could send us flying back up to the top level to remove complexity.

The process felt a bit like sculpting. We started with a big block and worked our way down, paring as we went, giving the site its shape. Later, when we started coding, there was a shift. Design had answered the big questions, freeing the development to take a layered approach, with a stylesheet that defined the base and then added more complexity (up and up and up) based on device-width and capability.

We loved working this way. As I design anything, I’m asking myself what’s absolutely necessary and how I can simplify. The responsive design process regimented this way of thinking. Stepping through each breakpoint helped us stay simple.

Putting it into Practice

The header is a great case study in designing responsively. Even though it was the first design element that we completed, the team kept iterating on it. We continually refined the design while Scott and Ethan rewrote the code to make it perfect for every situation.

But let’s start with the basics. The header needed to support The Boston Globe flag, search, weather, classifieds, account info, basic site utilities, not to mention the navbar, itself a world of complexity. The nav has eight standard sections that derive directly from the newspaper (News, Sports, Arts, etc.), plus Today’s Paper and My Saved List.

960px

Again, we started at 960px. The header does some heavy lifting — lots and lots of requirements up in there. We settled on a balanced arrangement that followed our simple design aesthetic. In the nav, everything fits perfectly across a nice horizontal line. And what fits at 960 also fits at 1200px (not pictured). So far, so good.

With so much content in each section and the multitude of subsections (each one has at least six), we designed a super-dropdown in the navigation that allows quick access to top stories and subcategories within each section.

768px

At 768, things start to condense a bit. Space is getting tight. We ask ourselves, what are the shortest possible section names? Is it necessary to take up precious real estate with a section called “home”? (Answer: No.) What happens in between the major breakpoints? Can we use longer section names with ellipses? (Answer came in code: And, ummm, no way. Not unless you’re comfortable asking folks to click on “Today’s Pap …”)

In these designs, My Saved was excluded from the navigation, largely because of space constraints. At larger widths, we expected it to appear fixed at the bottom of each page. But — oops — fixed positioning has sketchy support on some tablets, so we decided to roll it into the nav.

600px

OK. 600px. No way everything fits. We’ve got to do some organizing and make some judgment calls. First thing to go is the super-dropdown. It’s a progressive enhancement and besides, isn’t a key feature.

Now space is tight not only in the nav, but around the Globe logo. We ask ourselves: What are the most important navigation items? What’s absolutely essential? Certainly search. That’s not going anywhere. It’s tough to prioritize the individual sections, so they’re organized into a section called, creatively enough, “Sections.” Today’s Paper and My Saved are the odd ones out. They’re sections, sure, but they’re fundamentally different than the others. Plus, we really want to promote My Saved, which is a personal list of saved stories that you can read later (even offline).

480px

The first major design change occurs at the mobile breakpoint for landscape view, where weather pops up to the top and the flag lines up with the navigation. This keeps the header compact. Otherwise, users wouldn’t have seen much of anything on the first screen.

We also ran out of room to support Today’s Paper, which folds into the “Sections” dropdown. To save space on search, it turns into a button that shows the input box when clicked.

320px

In mobile portrait view, we regain some vertical screen space, so the header stacks again.

Here’s another example where we simplified things in code. The initial design called for different dropdown styles for the sections at nearby breakpoints. But with coding comes clarity. Eventually we realized that it was easier to employ the same design for each breakpoint.

Looking at the header, I ignored one key element: Weather. Clicking weather at any breakpoint opens a drawer with the five-day forecast. While it doesn’t deserve a play-by-play account, the progression is worth a look. You can see how the layout transforms from horizontal to vertical, and condenses as it goes. This design barely changed in the transition to code.

On the Benefits of Designing in Browser (Or, Why Static Designs Kind’ve Suck)

Before we get too far, let’s get something straight: We hate trying to show all the complex facets of an interactive design using design software like InDesign or Illustrator. It’s inefficient, inaccurate and incomplete.

Only a masochist could enjoy producing page after page of comps just to show a simple link state or a dropdown animation. I can’t tell you how many times I thought I had things like that figured out only to throw it away once coding commenced. All that time is better spent just coding the behavior.

And in the end, your design isn’t an accurate representation of the final product — it’s not usable. You can’t place it in front of users and get much feedback of any value (unless you like to let users dictate your color scheme).

It’s also easy to leave things out of a static design. What happens when the user clicks here? What happens to the design between these breakpoints? In code, you’ve got to answer these questions. With static pages, it’s easier to ignore.

Getting to the Browser

Obviously, we wanted to move into code quickly. As soon as the big design questions were nailed down, that’s just what we did. This point actually came quite early in the process — after a couple weeks of static design, we started iterating in code.

Here’s generally how things worked:

Upstatement discusses requirements with Miranda and starts designing
Each week, the entire team meets at Filament’s offices to review the latest comps and ask questions
We do a round of revisions based on feedback
Filament Group takes the comps and starts to code
At weekly meeting, group reviews coded comps and asks questions
Rinse
Repeat

This is what Ethan refers to as Design-velopment. (Yeah, we still don’t have a better name.) The heart of it is really in the conversation, the discourse between design and code. Everyone around the table was an excellent designer, and we all made contributions in different ways.

During the static comping phase, Upstatement was at the wheel, driving the design. When we delivered designs, of course we hadn’t thought of everything. But everyone else was there to ask lots of questions about what was best for the user, what worked on different devices, and how the designs translated at different widths.

When the conversation continued into code, Filament took the wheel and everyone else was still there to ask questions.

In between our weekly meetings, we volleyed back in forth using different mediums. Sometimes we’d send simple code notes and sometimes they’d send quick Photoshop mockups to communicate design thoughts. Code is fast, but these tools are still often faster for quickly communicating a concept.

The process was a total joy, and we’ve adopted it for the projects we’ve worked on since. The key is understanding that the design conversation is a long one, it may start with static comps but it continues through development. The more you can fuse the two (in your process and in your personnel) the more successful you’ll be.

Footnotes:

Experimentation was a hallmark of this project, so feel free to imagine the entire team wearing white lab coats and goggles, Dr. Bunsen & Beaker style. Here’s how it went down: Ethan, Scott, and Mat concocted media query polyfills and solved for responsive images while over at the Globe itself, Miranda, Jeff Moriarty, and their group tested a novel process inside of a big bureaucracy.
It’s not as if Photoshop was cut out of the process. We still used it when the program made sense — like, say, tweaking the details of our icon set.
I’m zooming through the discussion of breakpoints, so if you want to more, check out Ethan’s brilliant little yellow book.
And hey, sorry about the footnotes. Too much David Foster Wallace.

Via: Upstatement

5 Essential Spreadsheets for Social Media Analytics

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:38:00 -0800

Social media analytics and tracking can be very time-consuming and expensive. You’ll find quite a few smart social media monitoring tools, but what if you can’t afford them?

That’s why many social media marketers and power users are in constant search of free, efficient alternatives. Here, we’ll share a few ready-made spreadsheets you can copy (navigate File + Make a copy) and use for social media analytics. They are free, highly customizable and extremely easy to use.

Most of the scripts that run the spreadsheets are “public,” meaning you can access them from the Tools + Script Gallery menu (this also means they were reviewed and approved by Google Spreadsheets team).

1. Fetch Twitter Search Results

GetTweets is a simple and fast Google Spreadsheet script that lets you quickly export Twitter search results into a spreadsheet. You can play with the spreadsheets in two ways.

Increase the number of results returned — up to 1,500. I managed to fetch about 1,300.
Twitter search operators can help you filter out links (search “-filter:links“) and find tweeted questions (search “?“). Check out this article on advanced social media search as well as this list for more search terms.

Spreadsheet details:

Public script? Yes.
Copy the spreadsheet here.
Spreadsheet credit: AutomateAnalytics.com.

2. Count Facebook Likes and Shares

FacebookLikes script evaluates Facebook user interaction for any given range of URLs. It will display:

Facebook like count.
Facebook share count.
Facebook comment count.
Overall Facebook interaction.

Additionally, the spreadsheet’s embedded chart lets you compare Facebook interaction for the number of pages provided.

Spreadsheet details:

Public script? Yes.
Copy the spreadsheet here.
Spreadsheet credit: Facebook Likes Counter.

3. Compare Facebook Pages

Like the previous spreadsheet, FacebookFans is a Google macro based on Facebook API. For any Facebook page ID, it fetches the number of fans. It also visualizes the data with a pretty pie chart. Track your as well as your competitors’ Pages using the script, and the numbers will update each time you open the spreadsheet — easy!

Spreadsheet details:

Public script? Yes.
Copy the spreadsheet here.
Spreadsheet credit: Facebook Fans Counter.

4. Monitor Social Media Reputation

This spreadsheet not only generates Google search results for the term you provide, but also fetches Twitter and Facebook counts for each page returned. Anyone can easily run a search for his or her brand name and see how actively it’s being discussed in social media.

Try using a few search Google operators, for example:

["brand name" -intitle:"brand name"] to find in-text brand mentions you are most likely to have missed.
[inurl:"guest * post" search term] to find recent guest blogging opportunities on the topic of your interest. Note: if you are getting a “too many connections” error, try another search to refresh the scripts. Or re-save the scripts from Tools + Script Manager.

Spreadsheet details:

Public scripts? Yes.
Copy the spreadsheet here.
Spreadsheet credit here.

5. Extract and Archive Your Followers

This spreadsheet is the hardest to set up, but also has the most complex functionality. It lets you extract your friends and followers to easily search and filter your Twitter contacts.

The script requires your own Twitter API key (which is pretty easy to get), and provides easy-to-follow set up instructions. Try running the scripts a couple of times to get them working. Go to Tools + Script Manager and run Test script.

If you have done everything correctly, a Twitter Auth will pop up. Then, you’ll be able to authenticate your own application. After, go to Twitter + Get Followers and you should see the tool importing your following list. However, if you have large following, you likely won’t be able to import it all (for me, that meant about 5,000 recent followers).

Spreadsheet details:

Public scripts? No.
Copy the spreadsheet here.
Spreadsheet credit: Export Twitter Followers and Friends.

Are you aware of any other useful, social media-related Google spreadsheets? Please share them in the comments!

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Jirsack

via mashable.com

10 Years of Apple!

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:32:00 -0800

via singularityhub.com

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of All Time!

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:38:00 -0800

via meoble.com