Technology Evangelist

Leaving Classmates.com

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Sat, 02 May 2009 11:13:07 -0600

It's never easy to watch people leave a service you've created online. Surely, it's worth trying to figure out why people have decided to leave so you can try to serve remaining users better and potential win back those who've left. But that doesn't justifying requiring people leaving your service to explain why they're leaving: Find a better way to gather then information you need to make your service valuable.
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Book of the Month: New Rules of Marketing and PR - David's Reading of the Audio version is excellent
Gadget of the Month: Canon SD880IS Digital Camera
Web Site of the Month: Google Docs - Used to Write Technology Evangelist Posts

The Blind Respond to the Author's Guild Kindle Position

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:12:37 -0600

One of the Amazon Kindle's really cool features is the built-in text to voice service, which allows people to consume the books they've purchased in situations where they can't read. One group that is particularly interested in this feature is the blind, which benefit from greater access to books.

However, the Author's Guild has opposed this technology under the theory that this could cut into the sales of audio books. To me, this sounds ridiculous because the quality of a computer reading a book is in no way comparable to an audio book production.

Regardless, Amazon caved to the Author's Guild request by allowing publishers to make their Kindle formatted books inaccessible to the blind by disabling the built-in text to speech technology.

Now, the National Federation of the Blind is reacting to the Author's Guild's position.

The National Federation of the Blind (NFB - the largest organization of blind and low-vision people in the US) and its partners in the Reading Right Coalition (made up of over 25 organizations, representing 15 million Americans who cannot read print because of blindness, dyslexia, spinal cord injury and other print disabilities) will gather outside the offices of the Authors Guild in hopes to reverse the Guild's threat to disable text-to-speech from e-books for the Kindle 2, which had promised for the first time easy and mainstream access to over 255,000 books.

It's generally not a good thing for content creators to turn their fans into enemies. Hasn't the Author's Guild learned anything from the RIAA on this topic?

Hopefully the Author's Guild will come to their senses and realize that it's in the best interest of authors to allow the blind to legally purchase copies of books in Amazon Kindle format for the Kindle 2, and then consume those legally purchased books using the Kindle's text to speech technology.

Comment on this post

Book of the Month: New Rules of Marketing and PR - David's Reading of the Audio version is excellent
Gadget of the Month: Canon SD880IS Digital Camera
Web Site of the Month: Google Docs - Used to Write Technology Evangelist Posts

My Killer iPhone App: Instapaper

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:57:18 -0600

I finally caved an picked up an iPod Touch this past weekend after learning about what to me is a killer app: Instapaper.

Here's what it does:

You sign up for an account at Instapaper.com (free) then add a bookmarklet to your browser called "Read Later". Then when you find yourself staring down a long online article that you'd really like to read - but not right now - you click the button.

Clicking the button snags the article on the page, takes out a lot of the junk (ads and images depending on how you've set it up), and stores the copy in your Instapaper account.

Now the fun begins. You can access those articles a number of different ways:

1. Via the web.

2. Via a smartphone's browser (the articles are very mobile friendly compared to many of their original sources).

3. Or, via the iPhone app which syncs down a copy of your stored articles.

#3 is the one that convinced me that I needed an iPod Touch. My best catch-up time for longer articles is on planes, and the Instapaper App makes it easy to gather and consume the content during those hours.

There is a free and paid version ($9.99) of the app. I went with the paid because it offers more flexibility on fonts, night reading, and has a very cool tilt-to-scroll feature where you can gently tilt the iPhone back a bit to scroll the article - a great one-hand feature.

After my first Instapaper-enabled flight this week, I'm sold on this new workflow for processing longer online content.

Replacing a MacBook Pro Fan

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:59:04 -0600

One of my MacBook Pro fans went crazy loud a couple months ago and started making more noise than a jet airplane taking off. One could try to make a case for it by stating that the white noise helps avoid distractions but that's not a long term solution.

So, I went to an Apple store where a "genius" told me it would take 3 days and $85 to replace the fan. That seemed ridiculous, so I ordered the fan online ($48.95 at the time) and installed it myself in less than 30 minutes once it arrived. Here's how:

This is what worked for me.

1. Power down, unplug, and remove your battery.

2. Unscrew all of the screws around the edges. Also remove all screws within the battery area. Then lift up the keyboard from the front. There are a couple latches near the front, so it helps to push back a bit against the front before lifting.

3. As you lift up the keyboard, you'll have an attachment (brownish orange) between the keyboard and motherboard. This can be disconnected by carefully lifting the connection from the motherboard.

Here is what things look like under the hood:

In my case, the right fan was shot. Of the two, it seems like it's a bit easier to deal with due to less chords overlapping it.

4. Remove the fan's mounting screws and tape, then pop it out:

As you can see, there was quite a bit of link built up between the fan and case:

5. Unplug the fan's power. This is a delicate job. Probably the most stressful part of the work. It pulls straight out with a little effort.

6. Plug in the new fan and reassemble.

Considerations:

1. Be careful with the keyboard. The screws removed from the outside were attached to drop down threads on the keyboard. Make sure they remain inside the case when reassembling. It's like putting a pizza box back together.

2. You can power up the computer while the keyboard is up if you keep the keyboard's power attached. This is a good way to verify that you've installed the fan correctly and that it works.

3. You'll need a some special screwdrivers. I picked up this set at Radio Shack that did the job:

In the end, I paid less than Apple charged for the repair and was without a computer for 30 minutes rather than 3 days. I'd call that a win.

Restaurant Web Design Done Right

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:04:25 -0600

A Minnesota based web development firm has come up with the best solution to restaurant web design that I've seen to date.

Backing up for a second, what's are the biggest problems with restaurant websites?

- Flash introductions
- No menu
- Can't find the hours
- Can't find location information
- Poor usability because it's entirely in Flash
- Sound!
- Can't find the site in Google
- Not enough pictures
- Site is never updated (probably because it wasn't built using an easy to use CMS)

While there are many ways to build a good restaurant website, they hardly ever seem to end up in the hands of restaurateurs. Instead, they're sold Flash intensive sites that don't answer the very basic questions people have about their businesses. While the sites may look good, they don't put people in seats.

What Five Technology has done is create a platform called Taste Trend that makes it easy for restaurants to create - and more importantly, maintain - a site they can be proud of and prospective diners find useful.

This should be on the short list of web platforms for restaurants considering a website refresh.

By the way, this is not a paid review. I know one of Five Technology's founders but have written this out of frustration with the vast majority of restaurant websites I visit. If they used Five Technology's solution, they could make my life slightly better.

When is the Right time to Start Marketing a Website?

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:03:49 -0600

As soon as a website launches, the new owners start to ask, "Is anyone looking at it?" and "What can I do to get more traffic?" Psychologically, it's time to make the change from building to marketing.

Or is it?

More likely, it's time to switch from building a site to building out a site. You probably have a good design but little content on your site on the day of launch, so it may not be the best time to introduce a ton of visitors.

Also, your site most likely hasn't been tested against real-world users, so there may be things that were overlooked in the design phase that you'd prefer to address before a ton of people visit.

In some cases, sites could start rolling out marketing efforts in stages as certain personas are handled well, or certain types of pages reach acceptible quality standards. For example, an online retailer could start testing pay per click ads for products as the pages reach a certain quality standard (assuming the checkout functionality is also ready for prime time).

For PR and other link building efforts, make sure you have an easy to understand, professional, offering that seems link-worthy. Clearly, day-1 after launch may not be the time when that standard is hit.

Rocky Mountain News' Last Advertisers

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:47:08 -0600

Rocky Mountain News' final publisher, John Temple, broke down the challenges the newspaper was dealing with before finally closing its doors yesterday.

1. Even with subscription costs below national averages, they couldn't retain subscribers.

2. Advertisers kept leaving. Especially in classifieds.

3. Advertisers who stuck around were paying less than at comparable papers around the country.

That doesn't sound very sustainable.

It doesn't say much about the quality of the reporting done by the paper, which is something I think if often overlooked. Just because people spend their valuable time digging up stories that should be told doesn't mean there is a market for them. Especially one based on the delivery of those stories alongside ink-based ads delivered by carbon belching trucks.

Below is a list of the advertisers who had full-page ads in the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News. Note that almost half of these advertisers didn't include website URLs in their ads. This may help explain why they were still around on the paper's final day.

Why Online Retail Has High Customer Service Scores

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:06:38 -0600

Taylor Pratt at Marketing Pilgrim wrote about a study from e-consultancy that showed online retailers out-ranking offline retail for customer satisfaction. This may come as a surprise for many, but here's why I think it makes sense.

In the offline world, entering a retail store has become a crap-shoot. After enough poor experiences with under-trained staff, one begins to realize that there is little reason to visit a physical store outside of being able to possibly handle the product one is considering purchasing. Sure, there are plenty of very caring, knowledgeable people working in offline retail, but the bad experiences tend to be remembered more than the positive ones.

Compare that to the online world where the equation changes. Online, retailers have one "employee" interacting with a prospective buyer: the product's webpage. Since there is only one relationship to manage, it can be turned into a thing of beauty. Photos, price information, reviews, buying history, comparable products, etc. The retailer can put their best people to work on creating as close to perfect of an experience with that product as possible for each and every prospective buyer who visits that page. It's consistently awesome.

That is, if retailers understand this concept. Sadly, it appears that many are still putting their best talent to work managing a single offline store when their talents could be used on a much larger scale to reach a national or international audience. Instead, many retailers appear to be continuing to view their online store as a division of the IT department rather than what likely could be the retailer's single largest store - dwarfing the sales of what a physical store can generate.

I See The Future of Online Advertising at Dapper.net

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:13:45 -0600

Dapper.net has rolled out what I believe will be the start of a huge new trend in online advertising: Dynamically created ads based on RSS feeds (aka A Dapper Campaign).

I believe this to be true because I've been experimenting in this space over the past few months on my personal blog. Over there, I've created an ad format where people can update their ads in real-time via Twitter or by writing a new blog post. Anything RSS based works.

Dapper takes this one step further by making the display ad richer. For example, one can build an ad with real-time pricing for hotel room nights with pictures. Or tickets to shows. Whatever kind of inventory you may have that's in a structured format can be served up as an ad.

This is a giant leap forward from today's static banner ads because the ads are less about logos and more about offers. The ads become content. The mileage will vary depending on the richness of that content, but there is at least an offer to interact with rather than just a logo, smiling lady, or slogan.

Once in place, an advertiser can simply go about their daily routine. As they adjust prices on their site, or inventory changes, their ads will immediately reflect those changes.

Awesome stuff. Congratulations to Dapper for breaking new ground in this space.

How Dave Williams Lies with JavaScript

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:17:28 -0600

Dave Williams runs a get rich quick using Google scheme at a site called Dave Gets Green where he sells some sort of secret something or other. It's hard to tell for sure.

Regardless, here's a little trick Dave Williams uses to lie to visitors to his website. Notice that Dave Williams says he lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota in his bio:

Now look at the source code used to build his bio:

Oh my. I get the impression that Dave Williams is actually from whatever town someone visiting his site happens to live in. That doesn't seem all that honest to me.

Dave, at least get the punctuation right, man.

CitySearch Reviews a Non-Existent Restaurant

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 10:45:13 -0600

CitySearch appears to be unique in their ability to review restaurants that don't actually exist.

Maintaining a national restaurant directory must be no easy task considering how many restaurants open and close every year in the United States. The churn leads to challenges.

In other cases, the data is just bad. Not out of date, but never right in the first place.

So, how do you deal with this?

1. Proactively look for problems in your data set.

2. Make it easy to for visitors to flag bad data.

3. Let visitors edit problems they encounter themselves.

Here's what not to do: Review restaurants that don't exist. For example, CitySearch has an incorrect listing for a coffee shop near my home. It didn't go out business. It never existed in the first place.

Why does CitySearch publish hours for this place?

More importantly, why is CitySearch giving this place 3.5 out of 5 stars?

A search for the non-existent address of 4306 E Lake St, Minneapolis, MN shows that CitySearch is not alone in their belief that this coffee shop exists. For example, Menuism has the non-existent Kick Start in their directory as well, but they haven't taken a stance on the quality of a non-existent restaurant.

A look through the other restaurant review and directory sites shows me that CitySearch is unique in their ability to review a non-existent restaurant.

Is this particular situation unique, or does a 3.5 rating from CitySearch actually mean that a place may or may not exist?

Do You Have to Follow People to Use Twitter Correctly?

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:43:54 -0600

Social Media Consultant, Matthew Chamberlin @mchamberlin sent out a tweet yesterday that piqued my interest. In it, he scolds Senator Claire McCaskill about her use of Twitter on behalf of the Twitterverse:

As @mchamberlain pointed out, Sen. McCaskill (@clairecmc) had 2,256 followers on Twitter at the time of his Tweet. Thirty-four hours later, Sen McCaskill now has 3,464 follower and is still only following one person.

Sen. McCaskill is picking up followers at a rate of hundreds per day, yet is using Twitter wrong?

I get the impression that Mr. Chamberlin's expectation of Twitter users is that they must reciprocate follows. In the Senator's case, that would mean she should have taken the time to follow back the now-3,466 followers she's gained since joining Twitter.

Sen. McCaskill's tweets to date seem to fit her personality well. She's sending updates that are both job related and personal including mentioning that she'll be on Meet the Press in the morning and that she cheated on her diet at dinner.

People seem to really enjoy her tweets based on the extraordinary number of @replies and retweets her messages are receiving:

If I was to offer some free consulting advice to Sen. McCaskill about her Twitter behavior to date, it would be this: Don't change a thing. What you're doing is obviously working for you. Your constituents appreciate the additional access you're granting them one tweet at a time. While some Twitter follower may feel that you should follow them back, a United States Senator like yourself would be setting unrealistic expectations for constituents who may incorrectly assume you're taking time to read every message twittered by thousands and thousands of followers.

How Non-Mobile is Too Non-Mobile These Days?

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:59:25 -0600

There are many reasons why a site can't be entirely mobile friendly, but it sure would be nice if sites were at least partially mobile. For example, here's what the Baby Bjorn website looks like from my Treo:

In order to get the best possible experience out of our website you need to have Macromedia Flash installed and JavaScript enabled.

Perhaps that should read: While you may be out on the town discussing our products at this time, we're not particularly interested in letting you share information about our products using anything but a full fledged computer. Go find a pen and a napkin so your friend can write down our website's address.

My Least Favorite Twitter Tweets

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 10:38:48 -0600

If I had to choose one theme of Twitter messages as my least favorite, it would be messages that provide no context to me as a reader. They're generally messages that are relevant to the sender and only one of the sender's followers yet were sent publicly rather than as a direct tweet (or any of the many other forms of communication available for 2-way communication).

Here are three examples:

@reply Thank you.
@reply Agreed.
@reply Indeed.

The messages are positive. However, they're also irrelevant to almost all of the sender's followers.

Consider adding a little context to @reply messages so all followers can be part of the conversation.

Shopping for a Canon SD880IS Camera: Amazon.com vs BestBuy.com

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:18:52 -0600

I recently found myself in the market for a new point & shoot digital camera after putting my last one through the wash. It turns out that cameras don't need to be laundered.

I'm a huge fan of Canon's Powershot point & shoots. Especially the ones with wide angle lenses because they're great for indoor shots, food photography, and self-portraits. The image stabilization makes it possible to get away without using a flash a much longer exposures. Awesome. So, I researched the latest model from Canon and quickly figured out that it's the SD880IS.

Once I knew what I wanted to buy, it was time to find a place to buy it. Being a Minnesotan, I decided to check out BestBuy.com. They carry the camera. Here's how they present it:

Hmm. That's disappointing. Let me count the ways:

1. No picture of the back of the camera.
2. Only two reviews.
3. I can't see the price without adding it to the shopping cart.
4. No information about shipping costs.
5. No information about related products I may want to consider (perhaps there is a previous model that's so much cheaper I'd go with that?)
6. Usually leaves our warehouse in 1 business day? So, I may or may not see the camera one of these days?

Compare this to Amazon's Canon SD880IS presentation:

1. First thumbnail is of the back of the camera.
2. 98 Reviews
3. Amazon's price, and three other supplier's prices are displayed.
4. Free shipping is offered.
5. Related products are displayed along with the percentage of times people purchased them instead.
6. They explain when I can expect this to arrive if I purchase it now.

Online merchandising matters.

If both store's prices were exactly the same, Amazon would win because they do a better job giving buyers the information they need to make an informed buying decision.

Oh, I did add the camera on BestBuy.com to the shopping cart in order to find the price. They charge 15.8% more for this product than Amazon, plus $6.75 for shipping so 18.5% more than Amazon.com. I also had to put up with a pop-over reminding me to $44.99 extended service plan for a $245 camera.

It seems like Best Buy has the buying power to be competitive on products like this. However, the bigger competitive challenge appear to be beyond just price.