Texture design

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?