http://web2.0stores.com/

Flash's Role in eCommerce

Flash is always getting a bad name but we're confident that it won't be discontinued any time soon (Sabrina chuckles in the corner). The truth is that most of the gripes folks have with Flash are based on either myths or bad design/coding. We're not trying to turn this post into a Flash vs. Ajax discussion, but it should be noted that Flash allows us to do many more intuitive animation techniques and handles content loading a bit more gracefully as well. With that said, we've been stumbling on a few new Flash eCommerce websites and we're hoping that more like these will be popping up in the near future.

Examples

• Nike ID
• Type Store

Advantages

• Intuitive user experience
• Animation
• Quick content loading
• Low file size capability

Disadvantages

• Bookmarking a specific item can be difficult
• Accessibility issues for screen readers
• Limited # of prebuilt eCommerce systems available.
• Small # of experienced web designers versed in Flash eCommerce
• Sometimes limited integration into other platforms (xbox, psp, iphone)

Overall
You don't see it often, but we're figuring that with the evolution of Flex and AIR, that Flash eCommerce sites will start popping up more. They might not be full eCommerce sites persay, but instead probably small eCommerce modules that can be contained in a portion of the webpage. _______________ Mixaloo, donations, etc...

Social Media + eCommerce = Brand Alliance

Another growing trend in website design is combining the worlds of combining the worlds of eCommerce and Social Media to make a user experience that is engaging, fun, and most importantly, promotes repeat visitors. We're all more likely to by something if our friends or family have used it, so why not capitalize on this when it comes to eCommerce?

Examples

• Threadless
• Make
• Etsy

Advantages

• Encourages brand champions
• Easy to push a new product
• As the community increases, so should sales

Disadvantages

• The community decides the fate of the branda and the website

Overall
You don't see it often, but we're figuring that with the evolution of Flex and AIR, that Flash eCommerce sites will start popping up more. They might not be full eCommerce sites persay, but instead probably small eCommerce modules that can be contained in a portion of the webpage. _______________ Mixaloo, donations, etc...

Mobile eCommerce, Not a Cheap Call

______ FIND ECOMMERCE STATS

Examples

• iTunes
• eBay
• Paypal

Advantages

• Intuitive user experience
• Animation
• Quick content loading
• Low file size capability

Disadvantages

• Bookmarking a specific item can be difficult
• Accessibility issues for screen readers
• Limited # of prebuilt eCommerce systems available.
• Small # of experienced web designers versed in Flash eCommerce
• Sometimes limited integration into other platforms (xbox, psp, iphone)

Overall
You don't see it often, but we're figu

About ten years ago, when I was first learning web development, I started to realize that I was figuring out problems I had at work during the day, through my dreams at night. This was great then, but as I've gotten older (30 years young now), it has become noticeably more difficult for me to remember these "visions" I was having so that I could put them to use during my waking hours. What I've realized over the past few years is that if I give myself a nice little nap and force myself to wakeup from it, then I usually have the solution to my problem ready for me as I wake up. I'm sharing this to show others how I have used it to my advantage and also share a possible way, that you might not even realize you have, to help you figure out your own solutions or ideas.

The Process

My process is very similar to one followed by Thomas Edison. I usually like to fall asleep on the couch if I'm at home or on the train when I am commuting to and from New York City. What I generally do is either take a metal pen or meditation balls, place them in my hand and let my hand hover away from my body so that when I start to fall asleep, my hand will naturally let go and the sound will wake me back up. It may sound crude but it is the best thing I have found to wake me back up before I go into deeper sleep and forget what I had accomplished. Its within these first few minutes of being asleep that I've found I can get the best ideas and solutions.

What You'll Need

Before you start to try this out, you'll need to get a few things together to make the most of it.

• A catalyst - This is the thing that you'll hold in your hand and that will make enough of a sound or a difference in your balance to wake you up. Good things to use are a metal pen, meditation balls, silverware (no knives!), or keys.
• A recorder - Something to take down the idea once you wake up. The last thing you want to do is be searching for something to write with. Good things to have are pen and paper, voice recorder, or laptop.
• A clear mind - If you're worrying about that meeting later in the day or the looming deadline you have tomorrow to show your design to the client then all you'll end up doing is stressing yourself out trying to get ideas this way. Forget about the other worries of the day and give yourself a "mental vacation" for just 30 minutes. Then when you're done you can go back to freaking out if you want.
• A quiet place - If there is already noise around you, the the catalyst is going to have a harder time at waking you up. Try to find a place that is quiet and calm. Ambient noise is OK, but blaring sirens or office phones ringing probably won't work out too well.

An Example

Probably the most pertinent example at the time of this post is a recent website design (seen below) I put together for a hospital here in the Hudson Valley. On a rainy Saturday in the middle of May, I sat in the front seat of my car while my son slept in the backseat and my wife went shopping for groceries. I placed a pen in my hand and let it rest over the cup holder while I laid back and started to doze off. Sure enough, I dropped the pen, woke up, and had an exact image of the layout for the website in my head. Immediately after waking I drew the design down on one of my note cards and then the final result ended up being very close to the original idea.

Things to Note

From what I can remember, I had to build up my tolerance to be able to get my visions within a limited amount of time. When I was first starting out I didn't use this method of waking myself up so I would get through the night and write down what I could remember from my visions, but it almost always wasn't the complete vision, only parts. This would mean I'd have to try to work out the parts I had and fill in the gaps which wasn't any fun. Try not to get discouraged if it doesn't work for you. Not everyone is capable of polyphasic sleep, but I would recommend to at least try this a few times to see if it can work for you.

Disclaimer

Please use some common sense if you decide to try this out. Obviously don't dose off at your desk, get caugh by your boss, and blame it on me when you get fired. Be rational about it! Take the time to do this in a safe and familiar place (you don't want someone ripping off your laptop or startling yourself enough to get up and hit someone). Also, I've told this to some friends and realized that it works for some but not for all. So if it doesn't work out for you, then move on and look at other ways you can help yourself generate ideas. This is really only meant to be another tool in your idea belt.

http://web2.0stores.com/

Flash's Role in eCommerce

Flash is always getting a bad name but we're confident that it won't be discontinued any time soon (Sabrina chuckles in the corner). The truth is that most of the gripes folks have with Flash are based on either myths or bad design/coding. We're not trying to turn this post into a Flash vs. Ajax discussion, but it should be noted that Flash allows us to do many more intuitive animation techniques and handles content loading a bit more gracefully as well. With that said, we've been stumbling on a few new Flash eCommerce websites and we're hoping that more like these will be popping up in the near future.

Examples

• Nike ID
• Type Store

Advantages

• Intuitive user experience
• Animation
• Quick content loading
• Low file size capability

Disadvantages

• Bookmarking a specific item can be difficult
• Accessibility issues for screen readers
• Limited # of prebuilt eCommerce systems available.
• Small # of experienced web designers versed in Flash eCommerce
• Sometimes limited integration into other platforms (xbox, psp, iphone)

Overall
You don't see it often, but we're figuring that with the evolution of Flex and AIR, that Flash eCommerce sites will start popping up more. They might not be full eCommerce sites persay, but instead probably small eCommerce modules that can be contained in a portion of the webpage. _______________ Mixaloo, donations, etc...

Social Media + eCommerce = Brand Alliance

Another growing trend in website design is combining the worlds of combining the worlds of eCommerce and Social Media to make a user experience that is engaging, fun, and most importantly, promotes repeat visitors. We're all more likely to by something if our friends or family have used it, so why not capitalize on this when it comes to eCommerce?

Examples

• Threadless
• Make
• Etsy

Advantages

• Encourages brand champions
• Easy to push a new product
• As the community increases, so should sales

Disadvantages

• The community decides the fate of the branda and the website

Overall
You don't see it often, but we're figuring that with the evolution of Flex and AIR, that Flash eCommerce sites will start popping up more. They might not be full eCommerce sites persay, but instead probably small eCommerce modules that can be contained in a portion of the webpage. _______________ Mixaloo, donations, etc...

Mobile eCommerce, Not a Cheap Call

______ FIND ECOMMERCE STATS

Examples

• iTunes
• eBay
• Paypal

Advantages

• Intuitive user experience
• Animation
• Quick content loading
• Low file size capability

Disadvantages

• Bookmarking a specific item can be difficult
• Accessibility issues for screen readers
• Limited # of prebuilt eCommerce systems available.
• Small # of experienced web designers versed in Flash eCommerce
• Sometimes limited integration into other platforms (xbox, psp, iphone)

Overall
You don't see it often, but we're figu

Recognizable

If you are Nike, then we could assume that your brand would be easily recognizable with only the infamous iconic representation of the swoosh as your profile picture, but what about the rest of us. Most of our brands don't have the luxury of an easily recognizable icon, so how do we make ours stand out. We believe the secret is consistency. If you are using the same icon as your logo on your website, the same icon on discussion forums, and the same icon for your profile pictures on social media, then you are reinforcing this icon in the minds of the viewer. It might not happen over night, but with time and consistency of seeing you in all of these websites, the brand will start to become an easily recognizable figure in the online world.

A good example of this is Jeffrey Zeldman's infamous blue hat. Jeffrey is has become the godfather of web design and web standards for our industry, but its his early adoption to use this iconographic symbol of this royal blue beanie across all of the places that he frequented that made him easily recognizable whence you came across his picture in a see of profiles. He doesn't use it as much anymore, but ask any seasoned web designer about what Jeffrey looks like and your bound to get a host of descriptions like "having facial hair", looking very "new yorkish", and of course, "wearing a blue beanie". The industry has even adopted his trademark blue beanie as its icon for Web Standards Day.

Inviting

For most of us using social media to market to potential buyers, we're eager to engage them and have them click on our profile and "friend" us. In this case, making the profile picture inviting is a no-brainer. So how do we make that happen? The most straight forward way is to put a face with the name. If you are a brand and you have a mascot, then this can be done by using a headshot of your cartoon friend. For companies without a mascot, we might use a spokes person like Michael Jordan for Wheaties or Bono for the One campaign. With this mugshots present in a sea of profile pictures, the user will be intrigued to find out more and will have a greater tendency to click on the picture and check out the profile.

Personable

At the end of the day, social media is about making personal connections. So if your profile picture is not personable and true to who you are, then the message your sending isn't the right one you want out there. On the other side of the coin, you definitely do not want to make the picture too laid back. We don't mean that personable = laid back. So in other words, don't put a picture of you sunning in Cancun unless it absolutely makes sense to your brand and the message you are trying to convey (maybe a CEO of a tanning salon could get away with this one). If you are having a hard time of thinking about what your personality is, then come back and take a look at our Ingredients to an Online Persona post coming up later this week. It should clear everything up for ya!

Real

Putting up a profile picture that looks like it has been done at a Glamour Shots or professional studio doesn't necessarily come across the way you would like. Often when users see a profile picture like this, they'll feel it is too contrived, fake, and even possibly out-dated. vMake it real to you/your brand. If you are the smart-ass, fun loving, and always supportive type (like yours truly), then a profile picture that signifies this may include common hand gestures you do or a witty pose that thumbs its nose at contrived photos. If you're a new brand on the scene and want to let people know about you, then think of the one word (we know that can be hard) that describes your brand and make the profile picture reflect that. I am reminded of the movie Crazy People with Dudley Moore, where he went crazy but ended up revolutionizing the advertising world by telling the truth in ad campaigns. "Robitusin, the sneezy, stuffy, how the hell did I end up on my kitchen floor medicine."

Humorous

People love to laugh, so why keep your profile picture dry and lame? Use humor to bring out the best attributes of the message you want to convey to the user. To expand on the example we mentioned in the previous item about Robitusin. Now imagine a profile picture of a smiling face laying on the kitchen floor with the empty robitusin cup next to his head. Funny huh? Would it make you click on the profile to see more about what Robitusin had to say? Probably. Would it make you remember the brand when you're walking through the pharmacy. Definitely!

1. Blog From Your Mobile Phone - Many clients we work with already have internet accounts on their mobile phones and didn't even know it. With this capability they can log in to their Wordpress, Blogger, or Typepad blog and write a new post from virtually anywhere. So this is a great time saver because finding an internet connection to post a press release is a thing of the past. But don't blame us for the pain it might put on your thumb and index finger when trying to write a 500 hundred word diatribe!
2. Hire a Blogger - Several companies in the past few years have gotten some heat for not being translucent with who is behind the writing of their blogs. Perhaps their marketing campaigns would have gone much smoother if they had hired a professional blogger to write for them for the campaign and spelled up front what the exact relationship was between the blogger and the company. Specifically, we're not condoning something like Ghost Writing, but we do think that having a blogger or net celebrity endorse you blog will make it easier to fight that content rot! Overall, getting someone to write on your behalf is fine, as long as the tone, the content, and the overall point of view remain intact to your brand's true nature.
3. Post to the Future - We're still amazed by this one, and we're not trying to make anyone feel bad, but most folks don't realize that every blogging application on the market can save posts to be published at a later date. Taking this into consideration, one of the best things you could do is to take one day a week to work on the posts for your blog and post date them to be published throughout the week. This way, all of your marketing needs are done in one day and you can enjoy the extra time during the week to sip on a tasty Mojito or whatever it is that they do in your parts.
4. Incite Public Participation - With the explosion of Wikis in the past few years, its only natural that maybe there could be some influence from them for online marketing as well. After all, these days when doing a search on Google you're usually bound to find something cited from the most famous wiki of them all, Wikipedia. A good example of a brand using a wiki to identify with customers is the Adobe Labs Wiki. Another good example is the brand spankin' new Television Without Pity Wiki from Bravo TV.
5. Make Impromptu Podcasts / Vidcasts - We're not even sure that Vidcast is a word, but we think you know what we're getting at. The short and tall of it is that if you make a regular podcast that is heartfelt and sincere, then your listeners will most likely appreciate it more than one that has been fine tuned and cleverly crafted in the confines of a production studio. Think about it this way, which would the average person want to see on TV, a reality show or a sitcom? They'd probably say a sitcom. Now, if we dropped in on their viewing habits, we're willing to bet that they will actually watch the reality show. We're human and we are voyueristic at heart, so why not use it to your advantage when it comes to marketing?
6. Use Visual Content - Humans are also extremely visual. Our brains react to the texture, color, shading, tone, and text used in an image. Couple this with the mobile phone capabilities we mentioned above and Voila! Now you've got yourself a marketing tool that can use imagery and be updated extremely quickly all by pressing the send button. Notcot, MSNBC Photoblog, and Boston.com do a great job at this.
7. Create an Advisory Team - In the sports world we'd classify an Advisory Team as the Athletes that endorse the clients product, but in the world of online marketing we can think of it as a team of industry professionals that want to share what they love. A very good ecample of this is Vitamin, a portal focusing on web design, run by the great folks over at Carsonified. Their advisors aren't only well known figures in the web world, but they also offer up articles, suggest contributing authors that Carsonified should tap, and generally set the tone of the website.
8. Make it Informal - We've already hinted at it above, but sometimes it lookslike the only thing getting in the way of many a companies online marketing initiative is their own need to craft and refine their message. Maybe if we took a more informal approach and got it out there in the first place, then we'd know what to refine to keep the message moving in the direction we want it to go. Without getting too far off topic, what we mean is that if you spent less time in the board room and more time on the web, then maybe fighting content rot wouldn't be so difficult. After all, the web is about content, and if you aren't creating then you're lurking.
9. Subscribe to Other RSS Feeds - What better way to give your websites viewers the content they want than showing them posts and news from other websites that they also probably enjoy. We haven't seen anyone with the cajones to try this on yet (let us know if you've found an example) but we're willing to bet that if you displayed relevant info from other sites in your industry as little callouts on your site, that you visitors would appreciate it. For instance, a financial advisor might want to include the top 5 most recent news items from the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and the New York Times business section in the footer of every page on their website. This would be very relevant to the financial advisors clientelle and also might even serve as a way to get folks coming back to theri website repeatedly. An even better idea would be to mimic something like Alltop but with your own company's branding. Update: Guy Kawasaki suggests checking out Onespot.com which can support your own branding.
10. Use Your Other Social Media Profiles - With a little bit of muscle from your companies web developer/designer, you can usually integrate the profiles you use for the company on other social networks into your own website. If you are using something like Drupal or Wordpress this is a relatively small task. For instance, on our blog we automagically bring in our del.icio.us feed to show links we're interested in sharing with our visitors (look to the column on the right) and on our homepage we also bring in our twitter feed to let folks know about small bits of news regarding our company.

Messing around the office earlier this week, we started writing down various analogies we thought would help to explain to our clients what exactly web standards can provide them and how it works. Some are succinct and straight forward, others are corny and obtuse, but all are direct representations into the world of our industry that is web standards.

• Separating the style from the content is like being able to put any car engine into the the chassis of your choice.
• Content and style go together like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, without each other your website will either be two sweet or hard to swallow.
• Separating content and style is like separating your laundry. If you washed everything together you'd end up with funky colors and people would laugh at you (not in a good way).
• Understanding web standards means understanding the secret to health: keep your style clean and your body slim.
• Web standards is cheaper than having to take phone calls from your CEO at 3am asking why the website won't work on his blueberry colored iMac.
• Web standards can help change the face of web design, one table plagued website at a time.
• Following web standards is like following Moses through the desert, while you're doing it you wonder where the hell you are, but once you get through it you realize it was all worth it.
• Content and style are separated at birth yet always understand what the other is thinking, just like those orphaned twins you always see on Maury.
• Web standards is the cheapest date you could take to the web design prom and it'll give you a good return on your investment before the sun comes up.
• Content is like a nice lager, it should have a nice frothy head with a smooth body. While style is like a good dessert wine, it should be a little fruity to the novice, maybe even nutty, but never bitter.

That's all we've got - feel free to let us know some of yours and we'll add them to the list!

1. Be nice, no one likes an asshole. If that is your shtick as a brand then that makes sense, but just being angry across the Twitterverse is like the same guy that gives you the finger when you drive the speed limit. And participating in asshole mobbing isn't any better.
2. Find people to Follow. When starting out to use Twitter it can be very difficult to find people and brands that you'd want to follow. If you're looking for folks in your neighborhood to follow then Twitter Local is a great deal of help. You could also let a service like Who Should I Follow to give you some suggestions of good folks based on your existing Twitter friends. If you're still having trouble then you could do a large search on Twitter itself or on the Twit Directory.
3. Use a third party app. Logging into Twitter using your web browser everytime you want to update your status can be a nuisance. Using a 3rd party app will let you update your Twitter feed from the comfort of your desktop. Our preferred apps are Twitterific and Snitter but you can find a much larger list at the Twitter and at the Twitter Fan Wiki.
4. Tweet from anywhere. Making it easy to Tweet when you want is in my opinion the major catalyst that will make Twitter widely adopted amongst the masses. Take advantage of that extra money you've been paying your cell phone provider each month and Tweet from your phone while you're heading into work or waiting for the train by sending an SMS to 40404 (in the US) or use the great website Hahlo or even Mobile Twitter. If you are a programmer/codehead and don't feel like opening the browser to Tweet throughout the day, then you can take advantage of a handy add-on to Tweet from Textmate. You can also Tweet right from Firefox - for all those Firefox nuts.
5. Fill out your profile. A complete profile will do wonders for your Online Visibility on Twitter. Make sure to provide a URL for your website, a good brief bio that articulates what you're all about, and spruce up the page with a background image that makes sense. Need inspiration? Here are some great examples.
6. Follow your followers, as they have followed you. Building relationships seems to be at the core of what Twitter is all about. Essentially you're giving out information so others can identify with you/your brand. So if that is the case, then it is only common sense that following your followers is the right and polite thing to do. If you aren't afraid to get your hands dirty with some code then you could use this script to automate the process or if coding scares the bejesus out of you, then you could always just ask the folks at Twitter to turn it on for ya! There is a web application that will help you automate the process! I'd also suggest checking out the Blacklist to be weary of those that really aren't in it for the relationships. Lastly, don't worry about following too many people because you could always take a break from them if you need to!
7. Fav what you like. Twitter has a favorites button for you to click so you can keep an archive of Tweets you liked. Use it to your advantage and fav posts that you really like then share those in an RSS feed on your site. Its also great to take a gander once and a while at what Tweets other folks are faving.
8. Don't post about your food, unless you're eating something that is very rare or if it pertains to your online persona, otherwise just don't do it, its tacky. If you've been Tweeting your food because you're trying to keep a food diary then check out Tweet What You Eat - the beauty of it is you can direct message the service without clogging up your regular Twitter feed.
9. Create a Marketing or PR campaign with Twitter. There are several services popping up lately that help you promote feeds from other websites as well as add the capability to tag your posts. Hash Tags have become a popular method of tagging Twitter posts. It has become so useful that reporters are now tuning into this capability to find people to interview for articles and to get the scoop on developing stories. Poynter did a great story on this and CNET did an excellent story on why journos need to get with the program and start using Twitter. I've used it specifically to get examples and quotes for a few of my articles on Dynamic Graphics Magazine. Designers and photographers should take a look at Auto Postr, it posts a Tweet for every image you upload to Flickr - extremely helpful when wanting to let people know about updates to your creative portfolio. One more handy feature that we've recently found is Tweet Ahead which lets you become a Buckaroo Bonzai and Tweet from the future - could be quite useful for dated press releases and product releases.
10. Put a feed on your website. Twitter doesn't live in a vacuum so why not use it to your advantage and show your website visitors that they can get up-to-the-minute info on you/your products. Wordpress has several plug-ins to help you get Tweets on your blog, but the best one I've found is Alex King's Twitter Tools. You can also use Twitter to update your Facebook status. While you're at it, you might as well also just Tweet right to your lifestream on Tumblr by using Tweet Shots. Lastly, if your website runs off of the Drupal CMS then you should definitey checkout the Twitter project which lets you post from Drupal to Twitter, as well as put your Twitter feed on your website.
11. Automagically link to your blog posts. An invaluable plug-in for Wordpress is the aforementioned Twitter Tools by Alex King. Besides getting a Twitter feed on your blog it can also post a link to your most recent blog post on Twitter whenever you publish. Its a terrific little feature and one that I've seen help drive traffic to this very website.
12. Keep the discussion going. Part of the sensation behind Twitter is the ongoing discussions that can take place. Some great rules to enact for yourself are answering Direct Messages that are sent to you in a timely manner and making sure to respond to Replies that are given to you. Generally, giving a reply to someone should always be in the form of @theusersname.
13. Get a hold of your stats. Its not an exact science yet, but there are a few services looking at giving us Twits an easy way to understand our stats and how they compare to other users. Given the nature and power of analytics for websites, I only see these services becoming even more valuable to us as we, as marketers, try to figure out what makes one Twit more successful over another.
14. Check out what folks are saying about you/your brand. Twitter is like any other social network in the sense that, if people are happy or pissed off with you, they'll generally share it with all of their friends. The main tool I use to see what is being said about my clients is Tweet Volume, its straight forward, fast and gives me great insight right away on what issues are arising. Some great alternatives are Tweet Beep, Summize, and Twist. Also, instead of having to check these sites all the time, you could just sign up for Twitter Alerts or Tweet Beep and get an email everytime your keywords show up on Twitter.
15. Reserve your name now. Even if you don't think you'll start becoming a regular Twit right away, its definitely a good idea to reserve your name. Right now Twitter feels like the early days of AOL Instant Messenger where everyone was trying to get the best name they could only to find out that they would have to be daniel30294. We're already seeing some squatting happening and I would never suggest you reserve a name that isn't affiliated to you in some way, but I'd definitely suggest sitting on a name for your company or maybe your side business before it gets snatched up.
16. Do some snooping. It may seem unethical, but we all have a voyeuristic nature to us - its only human! To apease this, one suggestion is to setup a rather generic and anonymous account that has no similarities to you at all. The pure use of it is to follow Twits that you don't want to know your identity. I have not engaged in this practice, but I could see how it could be valuable from a business stand point. To embellish on this, there are already some services popping up that alude to this trend in anonymity and snooping such as Overheard It and Secret Tweet. Use with caution and obviously don't ever do this to engage in any illegal activity - its not cool to be a big poo-poo head!
17. Passively watch Tweets throughout the day - Rather than get overwhelmed with the amount of Tweets that come through during a given day, it might be best to have them coming through in the background while you work. Chirp is an excellent screen saver that will show Tweets from your friends or from the main timeline. Twittervision lets you see where Tweets are coming from anywhere in the world. There is also a screensaver for Twittervision available. Lastly, for shits and giggles sometimes it fun to see what the Twitterverse's mood is today.
18. Share what you find on the Web - I'm always wanting to share links I've found throughout my day with my followers so I've found that a tool like Shareaholic works best for me. One thing I've been playing with recently is Twitter Lights that lets you highlight content on a webpage and share it with your followers - rather ingenious! If you wanted Twitter to act more like Pownce and be able to share files then you should give Tweet-r a try. Lastly, I find that at the end of my day its always fun to checkout Twitter Linkr so I can see all of the links that have been passed around that I might be interested in.
19. Use Twitter as a Utility Belt - The biggest issue I usually have on a daily basis is giving myself reminders for ideas and tasks that I've thought of as I am going about my day. The service I have found the most valuable is I Want Sandy but I've also hear good things about Retweet's Timer although I've never used it. For taking quick notes I often enlist the help of Twitter Notes. Some other things I use to help keep me organized and on the ball are: Commuter Feed which gives me updates on how traffic is going on my way to work; Twittercal which helps me keep track of my day; Track This to keep track of the packages I send to clients; and Fuel Frog to help me keep track of my mileage.
20. Keep spreading the love - Our last main point is that Twitter is all about community and sharing, so why not spread the love when someone helps you out or makes you feel great! Specifically, Foamee and Plus Plus Bot are the two I've found to be the most fun. So if you liked this post then I'm expecting to get a Foamee from you! Cheers!

Flash, the Saviour of the Universe

(Insert corny Flash Gordon theme song here). Thats right, Flash can be displayed in Facebook Pages! To some of you this is old news, but since we've recently started looking at Facebook Pages, its a major revelation. Our business is built on our portfolio - as we grow we need others to see what we have to offer. Most folks don't want to keep clicking through photo galleries to see our work, or have to go to another site to see our the beautiful pictures. Sure, we also show our portfolio in the built in Facebook photo gallery and on Flickr, but why sabotage the users browsing experience when we're trying to entice them. Just doesn't sound kosher to us.

So that is where Flash came in for us. We wanted to make it super simple to be able to see our work, make it easy for us to update (integrated into our regular site update process), and most importantly, make it sexy but not intrusive to the users experience. We think we did just that.

The Future of Flash and Facebook

The fact that Facebook is allowing Flash to operate within the Facebook Platform is a wonderful thing. Even though we know there will be the occasional pranksters that might use it to turn Facebook into a Myspace clone, we're banking that the designers and brands that do it right will force these strays to follow in there footsteps.

What we're hoping to do here at DSGN + DVLP is to increase the user experience for one of our favorite clients by bringing his brand closer to those he entertains. We're not saying we're going to hijack the users experience or do any flashterbation, but we're working on a nice idea for Ben Bailey that will help bring his humor and charisma to his own Page on Facebook. We'll be sure to share everything with all y'all once its up.

Good Examples?

Browsing around the various Facebook Pages, we didn't find one single brand that was using this Flash capability in their Page. Who knows, maybe we didn't look deep enough or maybe we weren't looking in the right spots. Let us now if you find something.

Now although we might assume that maybe these brands are anti-Flash on Facebook, we're figuring the truth is they probably just don't know that it is possible. Only time will really tell.

In the meantime, we'll be pushing forward with Flash in Facebook and giving our brand's a new way to interact and entice their users

The Background

I thought up the course after having a conversation with an old friend that was trying to make the transition from being a traditional art director in an advertising agency to also handling the interactive side of his agency. During the conversation he voiced some of his concerns which took me quite by surprise. Specifically, he was having great difficulty understanding exactly how the internet works, what the technology is capable of, which programming languages should be used and in what circumstances, and how do you know if a freelancer is pulling your leg. I gave it some thought, and quickly realized that I already had much of that information in my head from the years of producing and generally being in the trenches as a web designer myself. So I decided to offer it as a course and see if the computer art department would be interested in running it as a continuing education class - they loved it! So this summer it will be running for the first time.

Class Info

The class will be meeting on Saturdays from 10am - 2pm from June 14th to August XX. I know what you're saying, "waste my saturdays for the summer on a class? no way!" Well I promise I will make it worthwhile. If you've ever talked to someone whose taken one of my courses before, then you'll likely have heard that I run my classes more like a Vegas comedy act than a technical class. The main reason is because I learned early on in teaching that students in continuing education are usually afraid of the technology. So I've found that humor puts everyone at ease and really gets everyone in the mood to have a good time and look forward to class each week.

Non-technical

Even though we will be discussing much of the technology behind web design, we won't be forcing ourselves to become experts in it. Its much more about being able to identify things than create them. For instance, we'll be learning how to tell if a website validates, but we won't be going into the actual code to make it do so. Although, if the students all feel they would be very interested in getting a bit more technical, then I would be happy to adapt the rest of the semester accordingly.

The Curriculum

The course runs for a total of 8 weeks, with a different focus each week. Some of the key things we will be learning are:

• Defining the roles in a web studio (project manager, web designer, web developer, production artist, etc..)
• The tools used (Textmate, Dreamweaver, BB Edit, CSS Edit, XRay, etc...)
• Grid design (Blueprint and 960)
• Web Standards, Accessibility and why they're important (Valid Markup).
• Separating content from the design (XHTML and CSS)
• Understanding scripting languages and when to use them (Javascript, Actionscript)
• Understanding interactive and when to use it (Flash, AJAX Effects)
• Understanding programming languages and when to use them (PHP, ASP, Coldfusion)

Sign Up

So if you're in the New York City area this summer and want to take the class, you can sign up over at the SVA website. You should also checkout some of the other classes I'll be teaching this summer, 5 in all (yeah, I'm nuts).

Sign Up for the Course

For this reason, we've started giving our clients a quick guide, via email, when we send over the first round of designs. If you're a designer, feel free to use this as well or give us some suggestions on what else you'd put in it. If you're a client, feel free to let us know how it has helped you or share your suggestions on how we can improve.

DO

• give feedback as if through the eyes of the person whom you're targeting
• let us know how the tone feels (colors, wording, style)
• tell us how the flow feels (layout, navigation, eye movement - does your eye move gracefully or fixate on a specific spot)
• let us know if we've missed anything essential to the design.
• most importantly, have fun and show it off (this is custom made for you, so go ahead and feel good about it!)

DON'T

• get too focused on colors or fonts (these can be changed rather quickly)
• let us know how "Harold the janitor" disliked the type on the website if "Harold the janitor" is not the target audience
• take this design to committee (you know what they say, everyone has an opinion)
• tell us we've got it all wrong (there has to be some gold in there!

Elsewhere:
Speak Up > Getting Proper Feedback From Clients
New Fangled > Helping Clients Solve Website Design Problems
New Fangled > Website Profile (pdf)

Project : PDN Photo Annual 2008 Website (view)

Client : PDN Magazine (view)

The Goal
Create an easy to navigate and "sexy to look at" online photo gallery to hold all of the PDN Photo Annual 2008 winning submissions, contest info, and judges biographies.

The Problem
PDN Magazine had a small window of 2 weeks to complete the website, databases, and enter all of the content into the back-end before the new Photo Annual would hit newstands across the United States.

The Solutions
A Flash based photo gallery to allow for added interactivity and animation, a complete web based administrative interface to control content across the website, and a quick image loading framework to make navigating between images almost flawlessly on a DSL or greater connection.

Technologies Used
Right away it was decided that a PHP backend, along with a MySQL based database would be the best way to handle all of the entries from the Annual. Their previous years entries were also using these systems so the migration to a new one would have been pointless.

After determining the backend language to be used, we decided that a Flash based website would provide the best user experience for the target audience, photographers and agents.

Why Flash and not AJAX?
The short answer is that we knew flash would give us a little bit more interactive room to work with and we wouldn't have as many technical limitations or possible client-side problems that could occur. At the end of the day, all a user needed to do to use the website was have at least Flash Player 8 Plugin or better. We also decided on Flash because the dynamic generation of animation and sizing could be achieved rather quickly through code. For this aspect we used the wonderful Fuse Kit by Moses Gunesch.

What the Client Says
"DSGN + DVLP seemed like the natural choice to design this years Photo Annual online winners gallery. Daniel Schutzsmith has been key as a judge in helping us choose the most dynamic, best photography websites submitted into PDN's contests. We felt that his experience combined with his exposure to the contests made for a perfect match for this project."
- John Gimenez, Event and Contest Manager, PDN

"The intersection of where social networks, web apps, and online identities merge to form a digital representation of a person or entity in the mind of the viewer."

The calculated, visual branding of a person or entity across multiple websites, that forms a unified representation of that brand in the mind of the viewer.