Happy communities, er, customers. This Jason Keath post describing how to "help customers fly" is also useful in building community. Concepts like reward programs, creating official champions, spotlighting customer content and building [sub]communities around existing social networks are 4 of the 44 steps in the post that are worth thinking about for your online community.
UI user knowledge. Related to the aforementioned 44 points of community building is this UI branding shortcoming described by Chris Brogan, where Apple’s site had no idea Chris was a long standing Mac fan. What I got from it was the value of adding more contextual user awareness into a Community UI and its processes.
Why does Steve get a pass? Speaking of Apple, Jason Calacanis with a Five-Point case against Apple. Whatever you may think of Calacanis, the man can make a point. My favorite quote, “Steve Jobs gets a pass because we are all enabling him to be a jerk. We buy the products and we say nothing when our rights are stripped away. We’ve been seduced by Steve Jobs: he lifts another shiny object over his head with a new eco-friendly feature and we all melt like screaming schoolgirls at Shea Stadium in ‘65.”
Your Innovations Aren’t Immortal. Great Harvard Business post title with an opening paragraph we can live by. “Take a deep breath, and repeat after me: ‘My [business model, product, business unit, brand, offering] has a finite life. I'm going to make that life as happy and productive as possible, but I also have to think about what's next.’"
IE6 Must Die. I didn’t know there was an official “IE6 Must Die” movement. My clients are actually more receptive to not throwing dollars at IE6 compatibility than they might have been a year ago, so yeah, count me in!
Non-Geek Link Blogs. I must have added over 10 blogs to my OPML this week, which is highly unusual. I’m bordering on feed overload after a long period of balance. Two things account for the new feed additions: 1) Twitter and 2) Subscribing to Alltop subject RSS feeds, which weren't supported the last time I visited. I've been enjoying the discovery of non-geek link blogs. Here’s a Marketing link post and here a link post on future trends. These are pretty good and will have to suffice until Jason Haley expands into those areas.
Hiring a designer (or developer): a client’s perspective. A post obviously written from the experience of a successful designer describing what clients look for when hiring designers, which is also relevant to developers. Like taking whatever information the client can provide and visualize what they want, giving the client the sense of control, ensuring your competitive advantage to counter lower estimates, adhering to honesty and quality at all times, and sticking around when the job is done.
The many stupid sides of people on the Internet. This is a real email from an obvious dolt complaining to the owner of a website about the images he was using without permission no longer being available.
Oh won’t you stay a little longer, TiVo. We celebrated our one-year anniversary with TiVo a few weeks ago. It is such a superior experience to the Comcast DVR we had before, so we would hate for TiVo to go away. Fun article from Kent Newsome on TiVo’s survival along with a screenshot of a TiVo “Add a New RSS Feed” screen. Yeah, baby.
Commerce everywhere. My fellow Burlington blogger Rich Nadworny describes 1-800-Flowers new Facebook e-commerce services. I’m not as excited by the move as Rich is, but it’s a valuable reminder that we’re moving to Commerce-enabled everything on the web. (Did someone say Sueetie Marketplace?)
Three Wolves T-shirt back in the news! It’s official. Urban Outfitters completely doesn’t get it. Apparently they deleted their site review thread for the most attractive and life-changing T-shirt of all time.
Mmm…Psycho Donuts. Take a minute to view today’s selection of Psycho Donuts. Real store, real donuts. Be sure to zoom in on the Psycho.
On being a good coffee shop laptop citizen. Interesting WSJ article on coffee shops banning laptops or imposing restrictions on laptop use. With recession-hit individuals sneaking in their own teabags and ham-on-rye, I can certainly see the point of the coffee shop owners. This Coffee and Code post provides a review of the WSJ article with suggestions on how to help everyone just get along.
Not out with a bang, but with a Twitter. Funny cartoon for those still recovering from Twitter being down several hours a few days ago.
Inspirational Hang Tags. I would really love to work with this guy. He designs clothing tags which he displays on Flickr.
Saturday Night Special: Dressing Down. Not all Awkward Family Photos inspire over 140 responses, but this one certainly does.