Cut Food

Photographer Beth Galton presents ‘Cut Food’, a series of photos showing food cut in half.
[Beth Galton]

Ad Agency Imagines the Future of Google Glass

Toronto-based Playground created this conceptual video showing the possibilities of Google Glass.
[Playground via Design Taxi]

‘Arrested Development’ Record Covers

Wisconsin based Designer Josh Cox’s personal project featuring characters of the show in retro album covers.
[Josh Cox via Thee Blog]

The First 20 Years of ‘Wired’ Magazine Covers

…in less than 30 seconds.
[via Boing Boing]

Disney’s Star Wars Propaganda Posters

Soviet propaganda-style posters by artist Mike Kungl.
[MKungl Studios]

The Friday Five is curated and written by John Suder, SUMO Heavy’s Head of User Experience and Minister of Propaganda. If you’ve got a story idea or see something feature-worthy for the Friday Five, contact John at john@sumoheavy.com

-

Celebrity Photoshop Bobbleheads

Here is Today

An interactive art/science HTML5 site illustrating the scale of time on Earth.

[Hereistoday by WhiteVinyl]

How to play chess properly

A Visual Compendium of Cameras

A meticulously illustrated catalog of 100 landmark cameras, culled from over a century of photographic history, depicting both professional and consumer models and tracing photography’s history from the first models to today’s digital wonders.

[Prints available at Pop Chart Lab]

An Online Memorial to Steve Jobs in old Mac OS Style

[Steve Jobs Memorial via DesignTaxi]

The Friday Five is curated and written by John Suder, SUMO Heavy’s Head of User Experience and Minister of Propaganda. If you’ve got a story idea or see something feature-worthy for the Friday Five, contact John at john@sumoheavy.com

-

Whether your business is online or offline, your business naturally generates data. What you do with that data can make you rich or put you in a cardboard box. If you’re offline, you have customers coming into your shop, restaurant, lemonade stand – whatever. If you’re online, you have similar information: website traffic, databases, customers, and a million other data points. Have you ever really thought about how much data you’re throwing away?

If you have an offline business, are you thinking about how many people are in your store every hour? How about their age? Gender? Area of the store they spend the most time? Probably not. Most people don’t, and it’s something anyone can do. On your website, are you looking at the path of every customer? Do you have a way to track every link clicked, when it was clicked, who clicked on it, and what they did? Do you solely rely on web services such as Google Analytics?

There’s a common phrase in various iterations floating around these days and it’s “The most important data is the data you don’t have”, and it makes a lot of sense. For every bit of information you don’t have, you’re tracking less than you should. Call it data warehousing, mining, business intelligence, “Big data” – call it whatever you want. What it boils down to is that every day it becomes less and less expensive to store and analyze information.

So what are you supposed to do? You should know that if you’re not collecting every bit of information you can, someone else definitely is. You need to be one of the smart ones, or you’ll be crushed. Here are some simple ideas that can reveal things about your business that you may not have ever realized, and they apply to both online and online businesses:

Customer Info

Get more than email addresses. Building a list is important, but it’s hard to really get to know someone just by their email address. Give something away to get a bit of information that people normally wouldn’t be willing to give up or that isn’t normally collected. Think about information that will allow you to make safe assumptions. Three easy ones are name, age, and phone number. The name will lead you to gender, which can be vital to targeting. Some people don’t want to give up their age. If you find that to be the case then offer something like a senior or student discount. This would give you three segmentations – students (18 – 24), seniors (65+) and other. A phone number can usually help figure out where people live. ZIP code works, but if you have their phone number then that’s two ways to figure out their location with one question. How about some unusual ones for brick and mortar? Ask people when they like to shop. It’s possible that opening at 9am is a waste of money, or staying open one more later might increase your revenue by 20%. How do people get to your place? Do they bike? Maybe a water cooler would attract some folks. Strike up conversation! Keep track of age groups, brands they wear, accessories they keep, bag or no bag. Maintain a good memory, and take mental notes. When the customer leaves, make notes about them. It won’t kill you to keep notes, even if it’s the old fashioned way, with a pen and pencil.

Patterns

Patterns occur everywhere. On your website, you might notice that people who visit the same pages in the same order are more likely to convert. Track every single visitor throughout their entire visit. Look for patterns, and note them. In your store, you might notice that there’s an empty spot all the time, people just seem to avoid that back left corner! Put some sale items back there, and near them have higher priced items and accessories. Big businesses have been doing it for years – offline merchandising is an art as much as it is a science. Aesthetics, layout, and content all play together and customer service seals the deal.

Trends

Don’t get stale. You need to pay attention. Anybody can open an online store, and everyone is. I’ve seen eBay stores be more successful than traditional ecommerce websites. You need to know what’s trendy and what’s not, because in today’s world it takes a fraction of a second to be yesterday’s thing.

ANALYZE.

Yeah. Do that. You need to be sharp, because competition is only going to get tougher. The next step in commerce is knowing your customers before they get to your store. Look at where they’re coming from, quickly look at where other people went on your site or in your store coming from that place, and offer them what those other people are looking at. Use your information to develop sort algorithms. Change page content for each visitor based on what you know about them. You can even do on-the-fly changes. Let’s say you have a newsletter signup on your homepage in a lightbox. As soon as they enter their email address, look up their info by email address over some APIs. Find out what you can, and personalize callouts. This is all relatively simple, and people just aren’t doing it.

If you’ve learned something – and I hope you have, awesome. If not, call us or drop us an email. We like data. We like data a lot. We’ll help you get the info you’re not collecting and put it to use.

-

Watch Virgin Galactic’s First Powered Flight

Richard Branson’s dream of commercial space flight came one step closer as the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo completed its first rocket-powered test flight over California’s Mojave Desert.

[via The Week]

Movies in Color

A blog featuring stills from films and their corresponding color palettes.

[Movies in Color]

Yolo Ipsum

Client wants a comp, oh? You already know though. You only lorem once, that’s the motto.
[Yolo Ipsum]

Noteboard: The Pocket Whiteboard

A durable, portable whiteboard that fold up and fits in your pocket.Folds up map-style from 35″ x 15″ to 5″ x 3″. It’s made up of index card-sized rectangles, with a blank side and a grided side.
[Noteboard via Back to Work]

Hot Pot BBQ

A planter that doubles as a BBQ. Great for small, urban patios and gardens.
[Hot Pot BBQ at Black and Blum via Bart Mroz]

The Friday Five is curated and written by John Suder, SUMO Heavy’s Head of User Experience and Minister of Propaganda. If you’ve got a story idea or see something feature-worthy for the Friday Five, contact John at john@sumoheavy.com

-

Empty Boston

As the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers continued, Boston remained on lockdown. Bostonian’s shared their photos of the eerily deserted streets.

[NBC News]

Star Wars: Episode IV in 60 Seconds

Short on time? Need a Star Wars fix? Here’s Ep. IV distilled into a 60 second animation by 1A4 Studio.

[via Gizmodo]

Honest Posters

A collection of honest posters.

[imgur]

Little Big Details

A collection of UI inspiration, showing the little details that make for great user experiences.

[Little Big Details]

Suitajamas: Pajamas That Look Like a Tailored Suit

Dress like a gent, even in bed.

[Suitjamas via Design Taxi]

The Friday Five is curated and written by John Suder, SUMO Heavy’s Head of User Experience and Minister of Propaganda. If you’ve got a story idea or see something feature-worthy for the Friday Five, contact John at john@sumoheavy.com

-

SUMO Heavy’s CEO Bart Mroz recently appeared on the Critical Mass for Business Radio Show, hosted by Richard Franzi. Bart discusses Sumo’s philosophy of creating and developing outstanding eCommerce projects for their clients.

The Critical Mass Radio Show is nationwide podcast featuring revealing interviews with CEOs and business executives.

Listen to the full show here (Bart’s segment begins at approximately 26:00).

-

Join us on Friday, April 26, 2013  for
Mobile, Marketing and Ecommerce Trends Hosted By URBN

Location:
Urban Outfitters Headquarters, 5000 S. Broad St., Building 543, Navy Yard

Time:
3:00pm – 6:00pm

Join Urban Outfitters and Philly Tech Week for an afternoon of learning and exchange about innovative business trends happening on the web across mobile, marketing and ecommerce born right here in Philadelphia. Come for lightning talks on innovation in these web-focused sectors and broader panels on the mobile, marketing and ecommerce tracks.

SUMO Heavy’s Bob Brodie will be speaking about creating new mobile commerce experiences, and also on the eCommerce panel at 4:30pm.

3:30pm – 4:30pm: Lightning demos  (Acid Bath)

Capturing Local Flavor with the Di Bruno Bros Virtual Cheesemonger — O3World worked with Di Bruno Bros. to create the Virtual Cheesemonger, a recommendation engine that recreates the in-store experience of working with an expert to make the online experience as true to life as possible. We’ll break down what the VCM is, how we did it, and how it could get even better. Robby Perdue, Account Strategist, 03World

Events are mobile — Most events are themselves mobile. Because of this, the technology that the event creator uses to sell and redeem tickets must be mobile too. A glimpse at how TicketLeap is taking advantage of these and opportunities. Tim Raybould, CEO, TicketLeap

Advanced customer engagement in retail and ecommerce — Jason Grandelli, Mobile Developer, URBN

Marketing Without Words — How brands are leveraging images to turn fans into fanatics. Apu Gupta, Co-founder, Curalate.

5x Faster — How Airbnb sped up its mobile web app using Node.js and Backbone.js. Spike Brehm, Frontend Engineer, AirBNB

New technologies in the payments industry — Learn how this local company is changing the way companies are integrating payments with online shopping carts and business management software, mobile payments, and credit card security. Kevin Gainer, Chief Sales Officer, CardConnect

Making Ecommerce & Email Marketing Easier for Online Sellers — Email marketing platform Aweber has unveiled dozens of apps to help small businesses boost their marketing. Its recent Etsy integration took a standard approach a few steps further. Hunter Boyle, Sr. Business Development Manager, AWeber

Coremetrics: Web Analytics in an App World — Todd Heasley (Senior Mobile Developer) and Greg Andricsak (Manager, Web & Mobile Analytics), Urban Outfitters

Video Commerce & RevZilla — RevZilla uses video in a multitude of ways to increase conversion, create loyalty and build its brand. In this demo RevZilla’s marriage of video, technology and eCommerce will be discussed. Anthony Bucci, Co-founder, Revzilla

The 80′s Called, They Want Their Keypad Back — In this talk we’ll take a quick look at LifeShield’s next user experience and mobile strategy for home security and automation. Doug Bellenger, LifeShield and Don Coleman, Director of Consulting, Chariot Solutions

Know your customer, Take Action! — In this demo you will see how Monetate collects and organizes Big Data into actionable segments then launch website optimization campaigns in seconds. Blair Lyon, VP Marketing, Monetate

Straightening out Spaghetti With Angular — Patrick Kettner, Web Developer, Urban Outfitters

A/B Testing in 3 minutes — Get a feel for how A/B testing can improve metrics and help you create custom interactions with customers. Frank Panko, Founder, View From My Seat

Creating new mobile commerce experiences — Showing off a customizer that works mobile devices and integrates into eCommerce. Robert Brodie, Head of Technology Experience, Sumo Heavy Industries

4:30-5:30pm: Concurrent panels

Marketing: A/B Testing and Analytics (Acid Bath)

• Blair Lyon, Monetate, VP of Marketing
• Tristan Handy, RJMetrics, Director of Marketing
• Scott Wasserman, Artisan, Founder & CTO
• Jim Davis, URBN, Director of Web and Customer Analytics
• Moderater: Frank Panko, A View From My Seat, Cofounder & CTO

 
eCommerce: Recreating the Retail Experience (Private breakout room)

• Anthony Bucci, Co-founder, Revzilla
• Darren Hill, Co-founder, WebLinc
• Robert Brodie, Head of Technology Experience, Sumo Heavy Industries
• Moderator: Jed Paulsen, Director of Marketing and Ecommerce, Free People

Mobile: Native Apps, Responsive Web Development and the New Mobile Ecosystem (Cafeteria)

• Don Coleman, Director of Consulting, Chariot Solutions
• Mike Gadsby, Partner & Creative Director, 03World
• Corey Leigh Latislaw, Android Architect
• Christopher Hunter, URBN, Mobile Development Manager
• Moderator: Brian James Kirk, co-founder Technical.ly

-

Actresses Without Teeth

Horrifying and hilarious.

[Actresses Without Teeth Tumblr]

Magic Feet – A universal Charging Station for all your Apple input devices

Stop throwing away AA batteries. Magic Feet can charge as many as three devices at the same time, and adds 4 USB 2.0 ports to your Mac.

[Magic Feet, $149]

The First Honest Cable Company Commercial

Resignation Cake

Man resigns his job via a cake with his resignation letter in icing. (He quit his to job to…make cakes)

[via Neatorama / Guardian UK]

Vintage Disneyland

ImagineeringDisney.com’s Photo Hunt collects and posts users photos of vintage Disneyland memories.

[ImagineeringDisney]

The Friday Five is curated and written by John Suder, SUMO Heavy’s Head of User Experience and Minister of Propaganda. If you’ve got a story idea or see something feature-worthy for the Friday Five, contact John at john@sumoheavy.com

-

What Ali Wore

A stylish chap named Ali walks past photographer Zoe Spawton‘s work every day. She shares his daily outfits on her Tumblr.
[What Ali Wore via Kottke]

Bubba Watson’s Golf Cart is a Hovercraft

He’s fancy like that.

Geo for Bootstrap

Seeking a ‘vintage’ look for you next web project? Look to Geo for that perfect GeoCities look.
[Geo for Bootstrap]

Barbie Without Makeup

Mexican designer Eddi Aguirre shows us Barbie, au naturel, without makeup.
[via Design Taxi]

Magnetic Putty Time Lapse

Magnetic putty time lapse as it absorbs a rare-earth magnet. Taken over 1.5 hours at 3fps, played back at 24fps. The magnetic putty will eventually arrange itself so that the outer surface is as evenly distributed around the magnet as possible.

The Friday Five is curated and written by John Suder, SUMO Heavy’s Head of User Experience and Minister of Propaganda. If you’ve got a story idea or see something feature-worthy for the Friday Five, contact John at john@sumoheavy.com

-