Just a quick note, we have had to reschedule today’s “How to Successfully Manage Software Development Projects” as Craig was unable to attend the call due to circumstances out of his control. I understand – @#it happens. Craig has been good enough to reschedule for Thursday December the 21st. We will send emails like normal to inform you about that.
Thanks to those of you who did attend and stuck with me as I treaded water. As I said on the call, I welcome you to email me a note to let me know you were there and so I can meet you and say hello by phone or email. I already have a bunch of emails and I will get back to each of you shortly.
Thanks for your understanding and I hope you can join us for the two remaining calls in the series: Next Thursday December the 7th with Jeffrey Eisenberg of Future Now as we discuss how you can “Persuade More People to Do Business on Your Website“. Jeffrey is a high calibre speaker with incredible knowledge to share. If you own a website, or help other people build theirs, you will not want to miss this call. We will catch up with Craig on Thursday December the 21st.
FeedReader released their newest version (3.07) earlier this month. In their latest release, they added a few new handy features.
Since version 3.0, you were able to download podcasts, but version 3.07 makes it even easier. They have a new browser for all your video and audio feeds. Now you can easily download and manage your audio and video casts including our teleseminars.
They also added these nifty buttons to increase and decrease the size of your text which can be helpful for accessibility purposes or if you have a very large monitor.
If you haven’t subscribed to your FreshBooks system’s RSS feed, then you might be missing out on a lot. If you ever want to be notified of your accounts activities in real time, then RSS is your answer. This will also allow you to keep an independent permanent record of your account activities as well. I wrote an introductory post on RSS some time ago, so take a look if you aren’t too familiar with RSS.
I have been a strong supporter of FeedReader for some time. Why?
1. I love their prices. At $0 per download, they are easy on my wallet.
2. They have a fantastic looking interface.
3. They are actively improving their product.
4. Unlike most RSS readers on the market, FeedReader works on both secure (encrypted) and password protected RSS feeds.
My only suggestions for improvements for FeedReader would be an easier way to transfer my feeds from work to home. This is a common disadvantage that all non web-based feed readers share. One crazy idea for FeedReader to implement would be a web-based member’s directory. By entering a stored username and password, I could potentially access a list of my feeds anywhere.
We have a new coffee machine…I’m just not sure it will stay. Why am I writing about coffee machines? Cusinart’s redesign is a great illustration of how new versions can make products worse, not better.
Okay…here is our old coffee machine (sorry about the photos…they are quick and dirty from my cell phone):
Looks like a simple machine, and I will tell you what – it’s great. Independently Joe and Levi both acquired the same one for their homes…I am pretty sure this model was a blockbuster for Cuisinart.
Now a shot of our new machine from the side:
We switched machines because the new one keeps coffee hot for longer. That said, here’s my beef: why is the water gauge on the side? Think about it. Every pot you brew requires reading the gauge to see how much water you have poured in. Therefore, every time you use the thing you need to see that gauge. The gauge is on the side so if you have to reach around the machine to see as you pour. As a result you can’t put this product next to any other appliances or in a corner on your counter top…in fact you might have to physically pull it towards you – across a counter – to get it close enought to read every time you pour water in.
Now if that gauge was on the front, I would be happy. I am guessing that there was a certain aesthetic the design team was trying to achieve. Unfortunately they did not think about the usability (at least not as well as they might have). Since you use this gauge 100% of the time you brew coffee, it ought to be on the front “face” of the appliance. Function before form…this applies to web apps too.
When you add or remove an interface element in a web page, you have to ask yourself, “What percent of the time do people use this element?” If it’s more than 20% of the times users are on that page, that interface element needs to be prominent. If you have been successful with a version of your app (and I am guessing version one of the coffee machine was a block buster for Cusinart), it is vital that you keep “prominance” top of mind as you redesign your app from one version to the next…as the team at Cuisinart proves with a less than perfect redesign here.
All of you FreshBooks users have likely noticed that your FreshBooks service has been successfully upgraded to Version 3.6 with credits. Thank you to those who have sent feedback.
With account credits, you can now allow your customers to pre-pay for services and track how much credit each customer has available at any time – eliminating the need to maintain manual records. Credits also enable you to automatically track account balances to quickly get an accurate snapshot at any moment. You can also reward your customers by adding money to their account.
To see all the details on credits and what was in the rest of the new release, click on the blue 3.6 link at the bottom of any page inside your account.
Why? Because we don’t have a two day Thanksgiving holiday where we can sit at home, eat turkey and watch football. Yes, I’m jealous. Weird Al Yankovic has a couple more reasons why we are idiots with his parody of Green Day’s American Idiot…Canadian Idiot. YouTube has a whole slew of very funny home-made videos ranging from animated features to a young guy like the one in the video below lip-synching to the whole song.
I was at DemoCampToronto on Monday. DemoCamp is a lightweight un-conference style event which is similar to BarCamp and O’Reilly’s annual FooCamp. Basically, DemoCamp is a free event where you can watch small companies show off and discuss cool new web applications as well meet new people and network. There is only one rule at DemoCamp. No power point presentations. You have to show a working demo of your product or service.
“exists to collect and annotate resources of interest to the human-computer interaction, social-computing, participatory design and information systems design communities.”
Basically, it’s a place to find useful resources and summaries of papers for design and usability academics.
It has a pretty small sampling of resources, but it’s bound to pick up speed in the future. This service will likely be good for everyone who wants to read summaries of papers on design and usability rather than reading an entire article only to find it was completely useless.
This month’s DemoCampToronto was for the most part, a pretty boring event. BarCampToronto was much more enlightening. I admit that BarCampToronto won me over with their free food, but that’s what happens when you have sponsors for your events. I hear BarCampUSA is in the planning stages and will be available next year.
In a business, everyone has a role…or at least they ought to.
I remember about 2.5 years ago when Joe, Levi and I were straining to get FreshBooks off the ground. We had few resources, but always had great camaraderie (Joe and Levi are best friends from high school and that helps) and I was searching for some deeper understanding of our respective roles. Then came a great little book by Michael Gerber – e-Myth.
In the book Gerber explains why so many small businesses fail to grow, and where they stumble when they try to grow. He explains that to grow you need to have three characteristics – that of a technician, a manager, and an entrepreneur. The trouble is, many small business owners are not capable of being all three – few people are. The challenge then is recognizing which of the three you are and bringing in the other two people to your team who can fill the other roles.
We totally lucked out. Joe loves to write great software; as I often say, for him it is like painting – it’s art. Joe is our technician. Levi is extraordinarily good with people, projects and details. He is our manager. Me? I have my eye on the future. I am constantly living 3-6 months down the track. That makes me our entrepreneur.
If you are struggling to get your business off the ground – or you are on track for growth and not struggling yet – I strongly recommend e-Myth. It’s an enjoyable read with many pearls of wisdom throughout.
Jennifer Laycock, editor of Search Engine Guide, shares her knowledge and answers your questions about more advanced traffic drives like viral marketing, link baiting and online reputation management.Here are some notes and timelines from the call:
(1.33) Definition and examples of “link baiting”.
(4.11) Link baiting falls into the viral marketing concept: something that inspires people to talk about you.
(4.38) The cost of viral marketing: in the idea, not the marketing.
(5.14) Why the idea has to be unique: creating brand evangelists.
(6.33) Decide what your viral marketing goal is: sell a product/service, or raise awareness?
(8.33) Once you have the idea and the market segment identified, how do you get the word out?
(9.37) Jennifer wanted to be able to explain the importance of online marketing to small business owners from their point of view. She set herself the challenge of launching a new online business without spending any money and making a profit within 30 days. She explains the process and the results.
(12.54) The importance of investing time to become involved with a community and how it can pay you back.
(18.20) Online reputation management defined. The effect of poor responses to online customers.
(19.13) How online reputation management is similar to public relations.
(19.45) Why people are taking from their advertising budget to give to their PR budget.
(21.46) About the mesh conference.
(23.47 – 25.35) Jennifer dropped off the call.
(25.35) I’ve not started a blog for any of my stores because I’m afraid I won’t keep it current. How often should I add content to keep it working for me?
(26.00) Key point for blogging: if you can’t do it properly, don’t do it at all.
(26.55) Creative ways to create blog content: delegate, pay someone, user-generated content.
(27.41) Other benefits of blogging.
(29.38) Do we need all our keywords on our homepage in natural text?
(30.00) How many keyword phrases you should optimize each page for.
(34.46) Is use of marquee tag considered spam?
(36.04) If it’s no good for users, it’s no good for search engines. The Pinocchio effect: search engines want to replicate human judgment.
(37.53) Link building: 3 different types of links that go to your site (reciprocal, one-way, paid) and the definition of each.
(38.53) Understanding the value of a site: page rank.
(39.40) Ways to approach a site to ask them for a link.
(40.10) The most important factor in getting someone to link to your site.
(42.31) Title tags: length, what they’re used for, how to write them, inclusion of brand.
(46.30) Keyword phrase dilution.
(47.50) How to find places to link to your site: for sites with existing links.
(50.10) How to find places to link to your site: for sites with no links.
(51.40) Should I use an SEO company that promised page one rankings?
(54.41) What information should I look for in my web stats that will help me make changes that result in more traffic? The value of segmentation; knowing “what’s changed” can be more valuable than “top referrers”.
One of my favourite takeaways from the Web 2.0 Summit was Marissa’s presentation about something she learned working at Google. She ran a survey and Google users told her they wanted 30 results in the Google search results page. She delivered thirty results in the results pages and then watched as users ran from Google faster than she could say, “What happened?”
At first she did not know why they left. In time she came to realize page load times – an extra half second to download the extra HTML required to display 30 results – was what drove people away. So, in a word, slowness drove them away. Looking at things from the other direction, the results indicated that speed keeps users coming back to Google.
To explain the significance of this, I created some graphics (which are NOT based on data):
See the difference in approach? Yahoo! tries to get you to stay as long as they can get you to stay on Yahoo! properties. Google wants you to visit and leave their site as quickly as possible, the idea being that the positive experience you have with Google will keep you coming back more frequently (i.e. you do more searches). And guess what? Every time you return Google gets another chance to monetize you…and Google monetizes about 30% of the searches people make. Impressed? I was. Thanks for sharing Marissa.
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