August 9, 2003

  • Thought

    Boxes and Arrows: Usability Heuristics for Rich Internet Applications:

    “Heuristics, or “rules of thumb,” can be useful in both usability evaluations and as guidelines during design. Jakob Nielsen’s 1994 set of usability heuristics were developed with a focus on desktop applications. In 1997, Keith Instone shared his thoughts on how these heuristics apply to what was a relatively new area: websites. Today, in 2003, with Flash-enabled Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) becoming more popular, Nielsen’s heuristics still offer valuable guidelines for RIA designers and developers.

    In this article, we focus on Flash because it currently dominates the RIA landscape. However, many of the lessons for Flash apply to other technologies as well.”

    FYI, here is the link to Jakob’s Heuristics for User Interface Design.

August 8, 2003

  • Thought

    notlong is a great little micro-service created by Eric Hammond.

    This site is a fine example of minimalist design and emphasis of functionality over flash.

    Pay particular attention to the competition link on the site. How many sites can you name that provide links and an A/B comparison of all their major competitors.

    Well done.

  • Thought

    The problem with contextual advertising is that computers don’t really understand context, they just look like they do.

    The most common way this shows up is in ads that match keywords, but not the intent of the page.

    For example, amazon.com’s page for

    Alfie Cohen’s “Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes” offers these contextual ads (served by Google):

    Incentive Toolkit

    The Tools You Need For Your Next Incentive

    www.incentivetoolkit.com

    Incentive Plans

    Find Solutions for Your Business Free Reports, Info. & Registration

    www.KnowledgeStorm.com

    Award Programs

    Personalized awards & incentives sold with our Price Guarantee.

    www.custom-promotional-logo.com

    Oh dear. These folks won’t get a very good response selling ads for incentive programs on a page for a book that is explicitly AGAINST incentives.

August 7, 2003

  • Thought

    Eight Steps to Ward Off Spam Complaints

    These eight simple suggestions will not only reduce spam complaints against your company or organization but also increase the chances that others will read your messages.

    1. Never (ever!) purchase, trade or borrow an email list.

    2. Always send a welcome email to members when they have signed up, but be careful.

    3. Keep records of those who have signed up.

    4. Remind people that they have subscribed to your mailing.

    5. Always be sure to include an alternate means of contact to your subscribers.

    6. Try to send mailings to your subscribers on a regular basis.

    7. If you have not sent a mailing for a while, initially send a message to no more than 1,000 randomly selected subscribers.

    8. Adhere to your privacy policy.

August 4, 2003

  • Thought

    Is it possible to put your entire site on one page? The Lightning Field shows us the answer is “yes”.

    (Is this on your “to do” list in life? It’s been on mine since I was a teen — the site bubble the idea up from “but how?” to “maybe someday” on my list.)

  • Thought

    I’m seeing a trend towards “super clean” web sites. Sites are starting to understand that the goal is to get the user on their way as quickly as possible as opposed to overwhelming them with every possible option.

    Here are two current minimalist favourites:

    TypePad

    Tribe.net Beta

    TypePad in particular has this zen elegance and simple design that immediately makes you think “these guys are on the ball”.

  • Thought

    Digital Web Magazine — An interview with Jeffrey Veen:

    “‘Hurdles’ is a polite way to put it. The Web has been following an enormous pendulum swing for some time now. Back about five years ago, when I was still at HotWired, we could do no wrong. Every stupid idea was a new paradigm and the foundations of a new economy. Now, things are just as silly. Nobody will touch the Web, and everyone is running away screaming.”

  • Thought

    Boxes and Arrows: Web Traffic Analytics and User Experience:

    “By looking at the data on what users do on the site, however, you can enhance your effectiveness as a specialist in the user. You already have information and knowledge gained through observation and direct questioning of individual users. Now, you can add to that insights gained from the broad swath of information pulled during their actions on the site. These numbers represent the real-world behavior and interests of the user.”

August 2, 2003

  • Internet Best Practice — 001

    Google is currently the de facto standard in search and you’ll benefit by thinking about Google as you build your site.

    Google recently released the beta of Google Toolbar 2.0. One of the neat features included in the new toolbar is AutoFill of web forms.

    Here’s how Google describes this feature:

    “The AutoFill tab in Toolbar Options enables you to automatically complete forms on the web. Enter your information and it’s stored securely on your own computer. When you see yellow-colored form fields on web pages, you can choose to have Google complete the form for you with the information you’ve entered.

    AutoFill stores personal data where only you can access it — your own computer. And your credit card data is encrypted and protected by a password you set. None of this information is ever sent to Google. In the Toolbar, the AutoFill button is enabled when you visit a page with fields that AutoFill can fill. Otherwise, the button in the Toolbar appears gray”

    As users download and become comfortable with the Google Toolbar, they will demand that sites build forms that work with the AutoFill feature. Luckily, Google likes standards:

    “You can ensure that AutoFill will work on your pages by using field names defined in the ECML (Electronic Commerce Modeling Language) standard, found at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3106.txt.”

    Now for some sites, it may be onerous to change data field names on all forms. But if you have the option, you should use any existing standards. While the ECML field names may not have been important when you built your forms, now that Google has brought the standard to consumers, it will be.

    Originally posted to the Internet Best Practice Newsletter. To receive your free copy.

August 1, 2003

  • Thought

    News.com: End of the road for SMTP?:

    “Some of those tackling the problem are looking at amending protocols other than SMTP. Microsoft, for example, advocates a change to the domain name system (DNS) that would make it harder for spammers to disguise their identity.

    The DNS is a distributed database, maintained by a number of different companies that provide domain names for Web site and e-mail addresses. The problem with the system, spam-fighters say, is that like SMTP, it provides no system for authentication.

    ‘One of the things we want to do is attack this issue of spoofing,’ said Harry Katz, program manager of Microsoft’s Exchange server group. ‘That’s job one, in terms of putting a curb on spam, and we think we can do that (by) making a minor enhancement to the DNS.’

    The ‘minor enhancement’ Microsoft is preparing to release would let individuals, companies and other organizations publish the identification numbers of their mail servers in the DNS database.”

July 31, 2003

  • Thought

    Wired News: Antispam Bills: Worse Than Spam?:

    “While no one has sympathy for the devils that fill inboxes with promises of lower mortgages and larger members, not everyone is supporting the new movement to banish spammers from the Internet.

    Some online advocates worry that heavy-handed antispam measures, such as centralized blacklists and charging for delivery, will destroy e-mail.”

  • Thought

    Fascinating post on GlennLog called “Hating”.

    While the post is really about a war Dave Winer is having with a user, I wanted to note Glenn’s central theme regarding the imminent end of privacy (my words not his):

    “This kind of permanence has set in on the Web in a way that only a small percentage of people understand. Post to Usenet — ever? It’s there, forever. Post a Web page for a few months? Google has an archive, and if it’s up long enough, so does The Internet Archive, which, with a few keystrokes, brings up the history of every page they’ve archived at a given URL.”

  • Thought

    Inc.com “Caught in the Crossfire”:

    “Now, after finally figuring out how to make e-mail work for them, marketers have found that the rules have changed. Their legitimate messages are being blocked by a new breed of super-aggressive spam filters; their good names are turning up on anti-spam blacklists; and they’re being forced to devote time, energy, and in many cases, a good outlay of cash to keep their e-mail marketing efforts out of hot water. ‘The landscape has changed,’ says Al DiGuido, CEO of Bigfoot Interactive, a New York-based e-mail marketing services provider. ‘This is not the same business it was a year ago.’”

July 30, 2003

  • Thought

    News.com “Air France wins ‘typosquatting’ case”:

    “French carrier Air France won on Wednesday the right to take over a Web site that uses a garbled version of its name apparently to steer business toward other travel companies and some finance firms.

    The ruling, the latest in a growing number of ‘typosquatting’ cases, was handed down by the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which runs an arbitration service for Internet name disputes.”

    I’ve long recommended that companies register typos and common variations of their site, corporate, and brand names and point them to their official site. You should do this to a) help users who want to visit your site but don’t type well and b) to avoid typosquatting. Note that a lot of people won’t realize they made a typo and will assume that YOU have a problem.

  • Thought

    Wired News: Publishing for the Little Folks:

    “‘(The RedPaper) is a combination of eBay and The New York Times,’ said founder and editor Mike Gaynor. ‘You don’t have to have something valuable in your garage. You just have to have something valuable in your head.’

    Backed by software giant Adobe Systems, the RedPaper is an experimental market for information, allowing anyone to publish and sell their writing, be it recipes for muffins or hard-to-get court documents.”

July 29, 2003

  • Thought

    ClickZ: Do Not Call (But Feel Free to Click):

    “Ten million users registered in four days. A few days later, it was 20 million. This past Wednesday, less than a month after registration opened for the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) National Do Not Call Registry, Americans had volunteered 28 million phone numbers, representing over a third of all U.S. households.

    What’s equally stunning is 89 percent of these numbers were registered online, making the FTC’s National Do Not Call initiative most probably the most successful site launch. Ever. For two weeks after it went live on June 25, the registry was the most searched-for site on the major search engines, spiking the Nielsen//NetRatings charts.”

    That’s correct. In one month 1/3 of US households voted “no” to telemarketing. How hated does an industry have to be before it gets the message that people just don’t want to be sold this way?

July 25, 2003

  • Thought

    Wired News: Web Cliques Too Cool for School:

    “A clique has several mandatory structural elements, which include About, Rules, Members and Codes sections. In general, a clique will clearly define its topic. Its rules section lays out the governing principles of the page, and its membership section lists links to many on-topic sites. In the codes section, small graphical or text-based buttons that link back to the original clique are presented for all member sites to post on their pages.”

July 23, 2003

  • Thought

    The rhetoric around spam and “finding a solution” to the spam problem is reaching fever pitch. One of the best discussions of the issue I’ve seen is being conducted by the Technology Review.

    They started their coverage with an excellent overview of the issue called “Spam Wars”

    This was followed by a Dialog between Vipul Ved Prakash (Cloudmark founder), David Crocker and Barry Shein.

    I was going to quote from Vipul and David, but they make so many solid points and argue the case for restraint in dealing with spam so eloquently that I will just urge you to follow the links.

July 22, 2003

  • Thought

    Good Experience — Top Sites’ User Experience Teams and Their Challenge:

    “In the long run, companies must ‘bake it into their DNA.’ Customer experience work, if taken to the logical conclusion, eventually reforms the company’s entire organization around the customer’s needs — not around business units and sales channels.

    If this seems daunting, remember the good news: even the best websites in the world are dealing with this issue. Now is a good time to engage this issue within your company.”

July 21, 2003

  • Thought

    Looks like the DMA is up to it’s old (embarrassing) tricks again:

    DMNews.com: “Ahhh, so that’s what spam is”:

    “Spam is essentially e-mail that misrepresents an offer or misrepresents the originator, or in some way attempts to confuse or defraud people,” DMA president/CEO H. Robert Wientzen said in an appearance on a July 13 spam segment on “CBS Sunday Morning.” “The reality is that, in spite of all the trouble that e-mail is causing, Americans and people all over the world … do respond to e-mail offers, and they often respond to offers for things they didn’t even know existed, from people they didn’t know existed.”

July 18, 2003

July 17, 2003

  • Thought

    Wired News: Making Friendsters in High Places:

    “Friendster, the popular social-networking service that cleverly assimilates real-life social groups into a large virtual network, just keeps getting bigger.

    The service, which opened to the public in March and is still in beta, will hit 1 million users this week, and is expanding at a rate of 20 percent a week, according to the company.”

  • Thought

    Loudeye is providing the backend for buy.com’s new music download service reports internet.com: “All The iMusic You Can Buy.com”:

    “For Seattle-based Loudeye, the move by e-tailers into the music subscription business provides a ready-made market for its new Loudeye Media Framework, which is styled as a single source for developing and integrating digital music purchases, music subscriptions, audio and video players, music and video channels, and music samples including metadata and cover art.

    Like the online personals space, where companies like Spring Street Networks have found a gold mine in powering matchmaking services for third-party sites, Loudeye wants to be the engine that hums behind every paid music download on the Internet.

    In addition to Buy.com, components of the Loudeye Media Framework are being used by Amazon.com, AOL, Apple iTunes, Barnes and Noble, MSN and Windows Media, MusicNet, PressPlay, and Yahoo.”

July 16, 2003

  • Thought

    By the way, once you know all the rules of communicating online, there is nothing wrong with breaking the rules if you have a reason to do so. Of course, the risk of failure when you deliberately go against people’s expectations is far greater, so proceed with caution.

    I call these sites that successfully walk this line “the rule breakers” (original, yes?).

    Here’s today’s Rule Breaker:

    web zen

    Art, humor, and personal sites tend to fair better than corporate sites when it comes to rule breaking. For web zen, minimalism is taken to an extreme and many of the things we expect on a corporate site have been stripped away for Zen-like simplicity.

July 15, 2003

  • Thought

    More interesting analysis of the ramifications of Yahoo’s purchase of Overture:

    CNET News.com: “Yahoo finds itself in search spotlight”

    “Yahoo for now will face off most directly with Google, but analysts said the wild card will likely be Microsoft. MSN is Overture’s biggest partner, delivering as much as one-third of Overture’s revenue this year, or an estimated $350 million. As a result, many industry watchers say that it is only a matter of time before MSN takes stock of its alternatives, including replacing Overture with Google on its Web sites and hastening efforts to build its own Web search technology.”

    It will be interesting to watch a three-way fight over the next year or two. But don’t be fooled, new contenders can still rise up from nowhere. Three years ago we wouldn’t have been imagined that Yahoo would be fighting an upstart called Google in a few years.

  • Thought

    CNET’s “E-commerce: What works” gives a nice overview of a few core online retailing capabilities:

    “Truly useful e-commerce tools address one of three areas: displaying, buying or sending the product. As a result, iPix’s 360-degree images, Amazon.com’s “one-click” option and Federal Express’ online order tracking are examples of popular technologies shoppers use online.”

July 14, 2003

  • Thought

    My pals at Moontaxi were featured in this Globe article on the music industry:

    “When Apple broadens its serv­ice to the Windows environment — expected some time later this year — the potential audience will expand dramatically. Canada will be added to the Apple system when the CRIA completes its ne­gotiations in the fall.

    At that time, Canadian competi­tors will also enter the field. One that is ready to go is PureTracks, a pay-for-play service developed by Toronto firm Moontaxi Media Inc.

    “All the signals are looking very positive,” said Moontaxi founder Alistair Mitchell. “We’re still plan­ning our launch for the fall.”

    The PureTracks content will in­clude material from all the major Canadian record companies and the bigger independent labels, Mr. Mitchell said. The “indies” are cru­cial, because “a big reason why people go on-line to look for music is to find stuff that is new, emerging, niche repertoire,” he said.

    While the company had origi­nally considered charging a monthly subscription for down­loads, market research clearly showed consumers much pre­ferred a per-download pricing structure.

    Apple’s success with its 99-cent-a-tune system underlined that “à la carte” was the way to go, Mr. Mitchell said. It also showed there was clearly a business case for a high-quality pay system in competition with free downloads. Apple’s experience “told us it was worth our while to be making this happen,” he said.”