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Category Archives: Strategy
Twitter in Action, Fanboy Tweets, Entrepreneur Re-Tweets
I just had a powerful experience with Twitter that has cemented it in my mind as a powerful marketing tool.
In preparation for a meeting on a site UI this morning, I revisited An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design on 37signal’s site. It’s a fantastic overview of Christopher Alexander’s approach to design based on [...]
Also posted in Culture Tagged 37Signals, Christopher Alexander, Jason Fried, Ryan Singer Leave a comment
Rebranding != Changing Your Name or Slogan
There must be something in the water. The great state of Wisconsin has a new tourism slogan “Live Like You Mean It” and the SciFi Channel is changing it’s name to SyFy.
I can imagine these meetings: “We need new energy! We need a new brochure…no…a new SLOGAN!…a new NAME!!” Imagine broad sweeping arm gestures accompanying [...]
When HTML Email Goes Horribly Wrong
I get a lot of questions about how to make email newsletters visually appealing. While I understand the desire for adding some sizzle to your communications, This entry from design standards champion, Jeffrey Zeldman, outlines the pitfalls that await the HTML emailer.
The article, When is e-mail like a bad website?, deconstructs an HTML email sent [...]
What’s precise vs. what’s helpful
Take a look at the following collection of New York City subway maps.
The maps on the left are very precise. They are geographically pure. This would be great if they were intended for geographers or anyone else who needs a precise map.
However, these are graphics to inform people who ride the subway. They could care [...]
Tracking Referals from a Campaign with Google
I get this question a lot: “how do I track how many people click through from my newsletter/ad/flux capacitor?” The best way to do it is to use Google’s URL Builder
What it does is tack on extra information to the URL for analytics tools (like Google Analytics and LiveStats) to chew on.
Here’s an example:
Are you(r images) superfluous?
Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design is a fascinating article. The first two case studies in the article offer strong scientific evidence that a picture is not always worth a thousand words. The third case study has some disturbing insight into the male psyche.
People read faster and retain more if copy is [...]
Electronic Newsletters Best Practices
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, but this topic has drawn me out from underneath my teetering inbox: electronic newsletters. Everybody’s doing them, or wants to. Why? We’re getting lean and mean. High-gloss print pieces are expensive and require longer lead times. Often we don’t have time to think past the next cup [...]
Google’s PageRank Explained or Why you should’ve paid attention in Math 319
Okay, I’m still reading How Google Finds Your Needle in the Web’s Haystack, but this much is clear:
PageRank is complicated.
My motivation for posting this is entirely selfish. Next time someone asks “can you tell Google to put my page at the top?” I can reply “that all depends on your eigenvalues, here’s a link.”
I don’t [...]
Search Engine Basics – Part One, What Search Engines Are Important?
I get a lot of questions about search engine optimization (SEO), and with good reason. A recent competitive analysis found that over 50% of prospective students conducted an internet search during the course of their evaluation of different MBA programs. Not only that, but this method of research was the largest percentage of any other [...]
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Things are gonna change around here