by ronnestam on August 27, 2008
I presented an idea in front of the board members of a leading Swedish company a while ago when one of them suddenly, quite downgrading, commented on the lack of history in terms of best practise comparison in my case.
“How can you even suggest an idea that isn’t supported with at least 5 years of data” - said the not so Internet friendly gentleman in the grey suit.
My answer was of course that Facebook and YouTube didn’t even exist 5 years ago. We have to think different, it’s a new world that doesn’t go by the same business rules that’s been around for ages.
The grey suit then replied - “Yes, but the service you’ve told us about is already out there”
“So was MySpace…”
Two days ago Dave Morin, the company’s Senior Platform Manager twittered that Facebook has signed up 100 000 000 users. ReadWriteWeb, that made me notice the article, suggests that Facebook has fallen behind in terms of innovation.
Hmm. That was my own thought about Facebook a couple of month ago, but lately I actually think the Facebook service has matured the last couple of month and it seems they are starting to get their act together again. There is definetely a change in user behaviour. In february and march this year, Facebook felt quite dead but now it’s revitalised thanks to small but significant changes. Most of these changes consist of usability rather than any specific applications.
So, if applications were the things that drove the growth of Facebook, i think usability and simplicity will be the things that makes Facebook persist.
With 100 000 000 users you ought find some good ways to earn money huh? Google did with adwords. Facebook has tried some different things altough I don’t think we’ve seen the money machine yet.
Congratulations Facebook on a fantastic job.
by ronnestam on July 13, 2008
Business Week posted a great article on the 10 commandments of webdesign.
The list is short but well thought thru.
- Thou shalt not abuse Flash.
- Thou shalt not hide content.
- Thou shalt not clutter.
- Thou shalt not overuse glassy reflections.
- Thou shalt not name your Web 2.0 company with an unnecessary surplus or dearth of vowels.
- Thou shalt worship at the altar of typography.
- Thou shalt create immersive experiences.
- Thou shalt be social.
- Thou shalt embrace proven technologies.
- Thou shalt make content king.
Got it trough CSS Mania. Go here to read the full article on Business Weeks website.
by ronnestam on May 8, 2008
Wow. Finally back online at home after 8 weeks of surfing the net on a mobile broadband connection. And even though that works ok it doesn’t compare to 24mbit.
I’ll celebrate my “homecoming” with sharing one of my favorite sources of inspiration - Slideshare.net. If you haven’t visited that site yet you’ve defentely missed out on something. Slideshare is like YouTube or Flickr only you share Slideshows instead. The site got all the social functionality and most slideshows can be downloaded as PDF’s. This site is a goldmine if you wanna dig deep into some Web 2.0, marketing lingo, advertising strategies or maybe just know more about frogs or something.
Last week I spent some time browsing for good knowledge on usability and user interface design when I ran into this fantastic slideshow created by Garret Dimon.
The cool thing is once I had downloaded and read this presentation I wondered who this Garret Dimon was and found his website. Bam! Another great resource. Booked that one into my Netvibes account and started to follow his blog. And then yesterday he wrote a piece on Get Satisfaction a new site that provides “people-powered customer service” and suddenly - Bam! A great idea.
This is how social networking works. You start the day in one place and end up in another. I hope you did!
(by the way, check out the presentation I did in Livigno.)
by ronnestam on February 21, 2008
More and more companies out there spend more time blogging and less money on traditional advertising. Blogging can potentially be the perfect marketing tool for a small business IF you know how to handle it.
MarketingVOX has a post for you people out there who want to know more. The post gives 10 tips.
1. ROI based on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Widespread employee blogging
3. Control is OK
4. Conversion goals
5. Social conversion
6. Marketing democracy
7. Localization
8. Spaghetti
9. Video
10. Data driven blogging
One thing I think the list totally forgot is where you host your blog and which blogging tool you should use. My personal tip would be: Host it at Bluehost.com and run Wordpress. Then the world of plugins and themes is open to you. If you really want to take it serious you should get a designer to create a personalized theme for your company.
by ronnestam on January 16, 2008
Tim Bednar at Turtle Interactive has written one of the most valuable posts/articles I’ve ever seen about signing people up.
Tim has reviewed the sign up design and functionality of Freshbooks, Backpack, Dropsend, Vyew, Blinksale, Remember the Milk, Scrapblog, Crazy Egg, 30boxes, Blogger, del.icio.us, Flock, Give Meaning, Kiko, My Pick List, Titlez, CRM from Zoho, Zopa, Second Site, LinkedIn, Box.net, and Cork’d.
(a great list of Web 2.0 services by the way)
His post gives you advice on how to work with the different elements that compose a sign up page: Logo, Elevator pitch, Description copy, List of key features, List of key benefits, Call to action, Testimonials, Tours, Examples of who is using the application, Screen shots, Life-style images & Link to more information (price, login, about, blog, terms, privacy).
If you’re into eCommerce, Marketing or advertising. This is a must read.
Thanks Richard Gatarski for posting it on your blog!
