Web gAlexy.com

Third party websites. Not always a party.

 

It seems that just like during the Klondike gold rush of the late 1800's many people and brands are turning to the frontier adventure of 3d party websites in hopes of reaching new eyeballs. This is not a new phenomena by any means but... what is new is the rapidly growing sentiment that simply by posting content on a video sharing site, social networking, or Whatever2.0 site is enough to deliver a meaningful web experience to end users. Well nothing is further from the truth. 

Stay the course

What many people do not realize is that once you engage in third party websites you really do need to make it successful and stay the course. Resources must be put forward that are in sync with the effort.

Also the end destination website (usually your corporate site) must deliver similar experiences to what you have teased the end users with. If it does not...well...you will get backlash from your visitors and they may give you the finger.

Not your Community

The end game of community creation and community ownership has never been so critical as it it today. I am a big fan of major community sites such as Facebook or Myspace but what I realized some time ago is that in these sites you don't play by your rules you play by their rules. You can thus strike the words "community management" from any strategy because you don't own the community and you never will...after all it's their business model they are protecting.

Smugmug is snug

I have been looking at various photo sharing sites and must say that Smugmug does on heck of a job. Although it is not a free service Smugmug's design does deliver to end users luscious galleries that can be exported into flash players which can be embedded into blogs and other platforms. There are various levels of membership and an excellent customer service. Smugmug is a small family business which was  started in 2002 on a "Shoe string" budget. In 2007 revenue hit the 12 million dollar mark and they are making a profit according to the LA TIMES.

In a nutshell
- SmugMug allows the upload of an unlimited number of photos for all account types.
- Includes a published API which allows programmers to create new functionality. XML-based RSS and Atom feeds.
- An email upload interface to allow camera phones to upload images. Keyword tagging for searching and categorization of photos.
- Enables Google Maps integration for photos with GPS.
- Viewers can 'thumbs up' and 'thumbs down' photos to select the most popular photos using PhotoRank.
- Upload from Picasa, iPhoto and other software packages.

Here is a sample with pictures I took at the Great Wall.

GOOGLE Paints it Black in Israël

How cool is that? To save energy Google decides to use a black screen on it's welcome page in honour of upcoming earth day on 29 march 2008. check it out www.google.co.il. There has been some controversy on how much energy this really saves...but whatever the critic may say it does indeed raise the awareness level a notch.

R.E.M. - Michael Stipe: Out of the closet on youtube

Michael Stipe did his coming out on Youtube on March 20, 2008. He makes a statement that says his band mates  Mike Mills and Peter Buck are straight and hetero. He goes on to say that he supports them and stands beside them in their difficult yet liberating decision... It is a real hoot and a great way for him to communicate what he has to say. A good laugh. Here is the video.

By the way R.E.M. has a new album coming out soon and judging from the first single it is going to be a blast from the past. P.S. the timing of his coming out should help raise the visibility of his new album...

Viddler rocks. www.viddler.com

The Web Today

I really think this video says it all. Many brands are kicking and screaming about this but like it or not is has been around now for quite sometime!

The last few frames hold the key messages:

- Rethink copyright
- Rethink authorship
- Rethink identity
- Rethink ethics
-Rethink aesthetics
-Rethink governance
-Rethink rhetoric
- Rethink privacy
- Rethink commerce

Zoomorama.com adds video

I have been watching this startup at a distance for the past couple of months and have just picked up from Zoomorama's blog some news that they have managed to integrate video to their photo montage... I can't wait to see this in their the release of their alpha phase. Overall this is the beginning of something very interesting. Check it out on their blog...or visit zoomorama.com

Simplicity: Google Versus Yahoo

If you look at the 1996-2005 time line you will see that Google has changed little in 11 years. Yahoo, which is mainly based on directory navigation has added various colours and numerous stacks. Multimedia rich content such as videos, and photos have equally been added. Now if you look at Google... not a hell of a lot has changed. Looking at Nielsen Net Ratings it is very interesting to see Google as the most visited portal in the US on the week ending October 22, 2007.

There is much to be said about keeping things real simple.

Credit: http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/SIMPLICITY

Fon not Fun!

Last Sunday I tried to use the  www.fon.com  service to connect to the internet. I needed to urgently access my gmail account and my IPod touch was picking up a network I had blogged about in the past. Everything went fine. Their registration process was fully accessible via the IPod Touch. I selected the activation mode via a mobile telephone (SMS) which gave me 1 hour of web time for about 2 swiss francs...That would be about 1 dollar and 25 cents USD. Anyways it is now 2 days later and I have still not received my activation code for my FON connection. What is going on?

How to talk web design to clients

I ran across an interesting post on how to get a web design approved. The story is taken from a frustrated forum user called Cadore who is dealing with a client who keeps changing his mind.

Here are some of the points written by BOAG that seem so true and so often forgotten...

• Ask them (the client) for examples of favourite sites, particularly in their sector. Ask them why they like them.
• Ask them (the client) for any other marketing material that they have, particularly items they like.
• Discuss their brand (even if it’s just their logo) and the importance of continuity. Make sure that you are aware of any limitations.
• Discuss colours.
• Discuss imagery. Ask for imagery that you can use.
• Discuss layout.
• Finally, when you’re discussing these items, make sure that you provide examples, choices, potential solutions etc.

Successful designers communicate their ideas before they ‘put pen to paper’ and provide solid reasoning for their choices afterwards.