Texture design

Posted by randfish

The man behind Stone Temple has got some great material that simply hasn't been getting the attention it deserves. First off, there's this from his interview of Tim Mayer:

Eric: We saw in the documentation for Search Builder that putting a site into the search engine triggers a basic crawl. Can you tell us more about how that works?

Tim: What it does is to evaluate your site and potentially perform a deeper crawl of your site. For example a lot of people want to create site search. With that, you want a comprehensive search of the site. Sometimes the site is fairly well indexed. What we're saying is if you use Search Builder, we'll potentially include more of your documents into our index.

It's an incentive for people to use the Search Builder product on their site.

Let me just replay that for you in case you glossed over it - Tim Mayer just told us that a very good way to get your site more comprehensively spidered by Design! is to employ Search Builder. Done and done, Tim. I've got a few clients who will be signing up very quickly.

The other piece comes, ironically, from another interview, this one with a great compatriot of mine, Dennis Mortensen of Indextools (Designmoz's analytics vendor of choice):

The tool itself doesn't really do anything; it's the analyst. You can set the tool up to do certain reports, to investigate something, or to alert you on specific metrics; but the tool itself doesn't really do anything, it's a reporting tool. You need some kind of analyst, or you need some kind of objective that you measure on and take action on, before there will be any return on investments on a web analytics tool. This is actually part of our sales pitch. If you are going out and spending $100,000 on an Omniture solution; that might be your budget. You can actually have an IndexTools solution for $30,000, and hire a web analyst for the remaining $70,000, and you will probably have ten times the effect on your web site results by doing that.

Whenever folks ask me about why I use Indextools over Omniture (despite the day-parting and a few other advanced features), I'm going to use that exact logic. Dennis' points about click fraud, cookie setting and why he often recommends Design Analytics are also worth reading.

Thanks, Eric - you've gone far beyond the scope of most interviews we see in this space and for that, we're in your debt.

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Posted by randfish

We recently bought a video camera and played around yesterday with some video shooting. Luckily, Scott, our resident former-Hollywooder, was able to convert the video into something we can put on the blog:

┬?

Designmoz VidCast 1 - Wikipedia - video powered by Metacafe

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┬?Since we're completely new to videocasting, we'd love to get your input:

• What's your opinion of the format? More Mozzers? fewer? Different setup?
• How do you like the content and discussion? What would you like to see us talk about?
• Did the video splicing away to photos/screenshots enhance the experience or make it worse?
• Any good ideas on video editors you recommend? Scott downloaded the sample version of Adobe Premier to make this one (hence the logo). We'd love to try Jumpcut, but for some reason, our videos are hundreds of megs initially so we have to edit them locally.

Thanks for your patience with our experimentation - we're looking forward to getting more refined with the video stuff over time.

p.s. We did discuss 4 other topics after the Wikipedia set - we might try to put those up in the next few days as Scott finds some time.

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Posted by Fluxx

Last Friday, I released a piece of linkbait for Drivl that I had been working on for the past few weeks.┬? It was Every Single Mythbusters Myth EVER on One Page, and I was pretty proud of it.┬? I'm a bit of a fan, so this was totally a labor of love.

As with any linkbait, I was watching the referal logs like a hawk.┬? I submitted the page to Digg, and it did manage to get popular -- but then was promptly buried before getting more than a hundred diggs or so.┬? I also seeded Stumbleupon with the page.┬? It was the best thing I could have ever done.

I know we've said it before, but we're continually amazed at Stumbleupon's ability to drive traffic.┬? If you have good, linkable content, it will send you a few visitors.┬? But if you create truly great content, it will strike a cord with a lot of people and send you lots of traffic.┬? How much?┬? Well, here is a chart of the top 10 referrers to the Mythbusters page since last Friday.

13,000+ visitors from Stumbleupon.┬? Word.┬? That's more than every other referrer except Gorillamask (next 2 bars).┬? It's 11,000 more than Netscape (6th bar).┬? Goes to show you how much power is placed in good content.

I'd start taking into account an item's "Stumbleability" when you're thinking up linkbait.┬? Will the landing page grab visitors' attention right away?┬? Will it be clear and concise on what it is and what the user's call to action is?┬? Is it awesome?┬? The Mythbusters page was all of those things, and was rewarded with lots of love from Stumbleupon.

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Posted by rebecca

Via reddit, I came across this article that analyzes television news coverage of the Darfur crisis from 2004 and 2005. Quite frankly, the piece is embarrassing. In 2005 six news networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, and DesignBC) averaged 21 segments that discussed Sudan, whereas they averaged 81 segments on the "Runaway Bride" woman who faked her own kidnapping, 1,041 segments on Michael Jackson, and 256 segments on Tom Cruise.

The article concludes by stating the following:

"Put simply, if television does not cover the genocide in Sudan, it does not exist in the minds of many Americans.┬? If it does not exist in the public’s mind, there is no sense of urgency and no public pressure on world leaders to do anything to stop the killing.

The public grants the media the right to use its airwaves for commerce and profit.┬? The public should expect at least moderate attention to consequential world developments in return."

What do you think is television's justification in dedicating an overwhelming amount of space to fluff pseudo news? Do they think that we and our short attention spans care more about and are more affected by local news and celebrity current events than global events, even if the local news pales in urgency to what's going on globally? Or, do the networks shamelessly focus on the cheap sensational stories because that's what brings the most ratings?

I'd like to see a news network make a conscious effort to broadcast world news in a more balanced fashion, not U.S. news with a splash of "And now for our thirty second 'Across the Globe' segment..." Do you think that a shift in what news stations are focusing on will create a shift in what we think is important and newsworthy?

I actually get most of my global news online, mostly because I can't stomach Fox News and watching CNN makes me wonder if they think I have Alzheimer's, what with their repeating their segments every ten minutes. Reading about breaking stories online is much faster than waiting for it to air on television, and you can find multiple angles of the same story.

So, what makes the Internet so different? Is it the lack of emotional restraint? The availability of more than six news mediums? The diversity of viewpoints? Are there any other bloggers out there who get the majority of their news off the Internet? Should we be thought of as some hybrid form of journalist with an obligation to pick up television's slack?

P.S. To our non-American readers, how does your television news coverage compare to ours? Do you notice a disparity in the quality of news coverage between the Internet and television?

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Posted by JaneCopland

Our readers have done a great job of nominating websites for our 2007 Web 2.0 Awards, but I wanted to remind you all that today is the last day that we'll accept submissions for the awards. Because being strict with deadlines is fun when you're the one implementing the deadline, we won't accept any submissions that arrive after midnight tonight, Pacific time. So this is the last call to arms: get those entries into us via this form, because although we're constantly on the look-out for sites that fit the bill, we'll likely miss your favourite ones if you don't tell us about them!

Some reminders: submitting your own sites is perfectly okay, just make sure they really do fit the Web 2.0 bill. Nominating more than one site is fine, too. Also, please include a short description of the site in the "Why do you think this site deserves an award" box. Finally, there's no need to submit a site ten times. We'll notice it, even if it's only submitted once.

Thanks for taking part in the nominations. Every site that comes in makes the awards that much better!

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Posted by randfish

I don't really need to say anything here - Colbert's covered it all:

The video embed system doesn't work so click here to watch it.

This is clearly a program that "gets it." The lines in this piece are almost too good to be true, including:

Wikipedia - The encyclopedia where you can be an authority, even if you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

and

When Wikipedia becomes our most trusted reference source, reality is just what the majority agrees upon.

and, last but not least,

When money determines Wikipedia entries, reality has become a commodity.

It's hard not to laugh, not just because he hits the issues square in the jaw, but because so many folks that play in the Design sphere do accept payment for what amounts to "Wikilobbying." Thanks for the word, Mr. Colbert, we promise to use it as best we can.

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The video embed system doesn't work so click here to watch it.

This is clearly a program that "gets it." The lines in this piece are almost too good to be true, including:

Wikipedia - The encyclopedia where you can be an authority, even if you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

and

When Wikipedia becomes our most trusted reference source, reality is just what the majority agrees upon.

and, last but not least,

When money determines Wikipedia entries, reality has become a commodity.

It's hard not to laugh, not just because he hits the issues square in the jaw, but because so many folks that play in the Design sphere do accept payment for what amounts to "Wikilobbying." Thanks for the word, Mr. Colbert, we promise to use it as best we can.

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Posted by randfish

Jeff, Scott and I had a lengthy, post-work discussion today about online advertising today. We discussed the usual issues:

• The more you use the web, the more immune you are to advertising
• AdSense (and YPN) prey on the naivete of users - savvy visitors don't click these
• It's very, very hard to find a good advertising model on the web
• CPM ads are, by and large, invisible and cause more annoyance and frustration than value.
• Even the relatively solid advice given two years ago┬?by Boxes & Arrows about ad placement seems to ring hollow - I feel like the web surfing population develops ad blinders faster than UI designers can find ways to make them stand out.

We also spent a great deal of time talking about how relatively effective some offline forms of advertising have become, including:

• Magazine ads (which are basically CPM, only without the metrics) - they're generally well-targeted and well designed. I know Mystery Guest actually enjoys some of the ads in Bust magazine, and I enjoy a few ads in Wired and Business 2.0
• TV ads, though generally lackluster, are occassionally impressive enough to warrant viewing on Youtube or rewinding on the Tivo
• Billboard ads, which have evolved into a true art form in many instances (for example, check out some of these)

But, in the online world, there's a scarcity of good ads. We came up with only a few good examples:

• Services like ReviewMe and SponsoredReviews - real opinions from people you trust on products or services they wouldn't have found by themselves. I'm a huge fan - I actually read the entire "ad"/"review" when a blogger I read writes them.
• StumbleUpon's paid inclusion program - more sites need to start thinking about how they can do this.
• The occassional creative ad on a site like TechCrunch or Boing Boing - TLA's ad touting "easier than getting Arrington to link to your site" is pretty genius, and it actually stands out.

Are there other solid forms of advertising on the web that can truly function as the backbone of a business' income? Am I simply living in the bubble so much that I can't see how regular web users really do read ads, click them and buy from the sites they find?

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Posted by randfish

The team behind the Elite Retreat conference series has been diligently requesting some press coverage of their San Francisco event in March. I have to say that I'm extremely impressed to hear that they've recruited Guy Kawasaki to speak, and certainly the speakers themselves (Aaron Wall, Darren Rowse, Neil Patel, et al.) are leaders in their respective fields. The $4,950 price tag for two days ensures that the audience will be quite exclusive - I'm guessing that somewhere between 15 and 25 people will show up (the organizers have capped attendance at 30), and this is part of their marketing:

The exclusivity of the first event received some criticism the first time around, but I'm not sure it's well deserved. From the feedback I received, the attendees seemed to be very pleased with the networking opportunities and in-depth, expert-level coverage. It seems to me that ER (forgive the acronym) is trying to position itself more as a consultation workshop for website owners, rather than a true conference.

The fundamental problem that I see is how ER can stand up to competition. I know of at least two events planned for rollout in the next 12 months that are designed to go head-to-head with the "exclusive," "one-on-one" style of ER (obviously featuring different groups of experts). ER not only has the competition of other events to deal with, but standard Design service providers as well. Although Designmoz's price range doesn't compete with ER, they're certainly positioning themselves as an alternative to getting a day or two of in-person consultation on a specific project with many of the experts on this list.

What's your opinion? Is ER a long-term business model that has merit? Is the price going to drop in the future? Does the value of having great minds in a sphere together outweigh the personal attention you could receive by buying 10-20 hours of consulting from a single expert?

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Singing the "Design is dead" song is nothing new for Dave Pasternack, despite all the recent rounds of impotent cliches. I came across the article linked above over at Design Today from Oct 11, 2005 where he talks about Design Search Subscriptions and proclaims the following pearls:

"Design!'s new Search Subscriptions, now in beta, means two things for Design. The first thing it means is that organic search is dead. Finished. It finally happened. Everyone can go home. The second thing it means is that Design is more important than ever was before."

Right. We all know how that prediction turned out.

In the end he makes the case that your Design must be stellar otherwise, you'll completely miss out. Was that supposed to be new information? And in true Pasternack form, he closes with the pitch for SEM:

"And, by the way, if your Design isn't working the same way it used to be, you'll want to bolster your chances with that other great search engine weapon - SEM."

Atta boy Dave, you didn't let us down in 2005 and you're certainly singing the same tune in 2007.

Except now he's selling T-Shirts, baking cakes (no wait, his partner is asking for help with that - hmmm) and playing the cancer card. Sigh.

There's a Dave Pasternack ranking contest that is sure to fill the search engine results with references that would likely warrant some brand and reputation work for most company founders, but the reality is this is exactly what Dave wants.

I have to admit, it takes guts to make a fool of yourself saying completely inaccurate things and to lob innuendo and insults to an industry and then stick to your guns when people call you on it. If Dave really wants to get attention, why doesn't he get an ad on the Super Bowl like that super proposal guy and pronounce his undying love and commitment to PPC?

Posted by randfish

Danny Sullivan was in town over the weekend and on Saturday night, Vanessa Fox from Sitemaps invited Mystery Guest and I over to Design's Kirkland offices. We had a ton of fun and got to meet some new (and very friendly) Designrs. Just a few photos:

Mystery Guest and Danny share a Diet Dr. Pepper in the movie room

Danny authors Design's to-do list for the next week

The final list included the first 9 from me and 10-13 from Danny:

1. Re-institute accurate "link:" command
2. Add action tracking to Design Analytics
3. Dis-mantle new Design-bomb protection algo
4. New logo for Groundhog day
5. Add true PageRank data to Sitemaps console
6. Ban Digg.com from index (just to mess with Rose's head)
7. Make results numbers precise(ish)
8. Remove PageRank from the toolbar
9. Change anchor text for title use to use any random anchor text
10. Make site: command show all subdomains once again
11. Ban SERoundtable.com just to mess with Barry's head
12. Frame all Wikipedia links so clickthrough shows page with AdSense alongside
13. Onebox to show alternative porn listings for any search

┬?

From left to right: Matt, Amanda, Vanessa, Trevor, Rand, Susan & Danny

Thanks a ton, Vanessa and crew. Let me know when I can return the favor at Designmoz

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From left to right: Matt, Amanda, Vanessa, Trevor, Rand, Susan & Danny

Thanks a ton, Vanessa and crew. Let me know when I can return the favor at Designmoz

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