Twitter in the haus

"The Twouble with Twitters" - Great video from the SuperNews crew -
http://current.com/items/89891774/supernews_twouble_with_twitters.htm
Thanks for the link Rob.

It reminds me of the Nielsen research back in 2006 that stated 95% of people lurk, 9% contribute occasionally and 1% contribute regularly to online communities. With the growth in Twitter, Facebook's emphasis on the News Feed "What's on your mind?" and countless other 3rd party apps, and mobile iterations. All of these seem to cater for an increasing human need for self-assurance. Tweeting to reassure ourselves that we're alive - shouting into dark rooms.

So are we going to start seeing those tables turn? Is it that Nielsen's research within social applications such as Twitter will be turned on it's head? 99% content contribution and but a small % lurking and actually consuming content.

Not sure. But I do think one of the key challenges for Twitter and the like will be filtering. Filtering this huge volume of incoming noise to capture real value. Useful, relevant content for users.

Command line 2.0 - Enso vs Mozilla Ubiquity

Two finds this week, Mozilla Ubiquity and Enso, both driving the concept of on-demand, universal search and action. It's a supercharged command-line interface, providing cross-platform actions, mashups and simplifying traditional point-and-click tasks.

The demos look impressive, Mozilla on the web mashups - combining maps, calendars, twittering via article quotes - Enso highlighting the application-based efficiencies.

There both powerful tools that optimise the user experience, continuing to blur the lines across applications, browers and operating systems. Mozilla is already offering up the code as open source, Enso promises that this is also on the way, will be an interesting area to watch evolve.

"So now command line interfaces are back again, hiding under the guise of search. Now you see them, now you don't. Now you see them again. And they will get better and better with time, mark my words, that is my prediction for the future of interfaces" - Don Norman, 2007

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Online media - beyond the post

Great little video courtesy from Realwire via Bad Pitch Blog, which illustrates very clearly and simply the role online can play in content distribution; reaching and engaging with your audience.  

Reference to this video suggest an online vs print comparison, but I don't think the cross-media duel is necessary.  Fundamentally it serves to show the dimensions of online media beyond the post.  How strong, engaging, relevant content can be shared, pushed and pulled across the digital space, across browsers, across devices, with readily accesible tools that people are using - today. 

The Online Media from RealWire on Vimeo.

Building a website - My experience with Big Electric

Twelve months ago I had simple idea – where can I go to find in-store prices of large appliances in those department stores I like to visit – to finally deploying the website to achieve just that - Big Electric – www.bigelectric.com.au. When every decision is yours to make you learn a lot along the way, so I thought I’d pull together five key things I’ve learnt about developing my own website -

1. Things always take longer than you expect. Plan for it. It’s been a twelve month project from inception to live. In this time I’ve worked with teams from Canada to India, lost a developer mid-project, moved house and changed jobs. Remember to be realistic with timelines, build in plenty of buffer, and stay focused on your original objectives to avoid scope creep.

2. Devil is in the detail. Whether it’s preparing functional specification documents, or briefing overseas teams, ensure you don’t leave anything open to interpretation. Too often I’ve assumed a certain understanding or expectation on how something would function or appear only to find it has been developed differently - not wrong necessarily, but not as expected. To get this fixed costs you time and money. That’s not to say you will always have the answer for everything upfront, which leads me to my next point..

3. Work with specialists. Ensure you work with specialists in their fields, whether it be HTML/CSS, tech or design. Don’t expect that your designer is an expert in CSS, or that your tech team will fill the gaps of those extra pages your designer didn’t cover. Get the right people to do the what they’re good at, in particular with HTML/CSS, which is key to good SEO. It also means these people are more likely to come back with better solutions and offer useful advise along the way.

4. Automation is your trusted sidekick. Running a site day-to-day can include a lot of maintenance and overhead particularly when it’s content heavy. So ensure you build in a good content management system, automated email subscription services, automated ‘recommendation’ engines. Anything you can do to take the strain off those maintenance activities and allow you to focus on more value-adding work will be well worth the upfront work required.

5. Iterate, iterate, iterate. Website development doesn’t end when you hit deploy. Focus on getting the website live within the original scope then iterating. It’s only when the sites live do you start collecting quantitative feedback from your users, where you can start seeing the optimisation opportunities and improvements. Already via Google Analytics I can see the Store Locator is a popular destination, I can also see people reaching product pages direct via Google search results. The next round of updates is already over a page..

I’d love to hear any feedback you have on the site or your own experiences, shoot me an email or leave feedback on this blog.

New paddock, more pixels

It’s been a bit quiet on here lately, but a lot happening, so time for a quick update on Pixel Paddock. I’ve moved on from NDM, to new pastures at DTDigital, part of Badjar Ogilvy. Quick shout out to Kirsten, Jono and the Melbourne NDM crew for making my time there a good one.

I’ve taken up the role of Senior Producer at DTDigital / Ogilvy Interactive. I first worked with David and the team back in the SEEK days, they have their priorities right, understanding the value of user-centred design and are a great bunch of talented people to boot. A good opportunity to pick up some new learnings from a different angle.

Also keeping me busy, is the impending launch of my own project, Big Electric. Been a long time in the works, and only a few weeks away from entering Beta where the fun begins. You learn a lot when you’re accountable for every decision on a site build. Will start sharing some of my thoughts and lessons learnt on the road from idea to execution as soon as the site goes live. Counting down the days.

Cuil - My index is bigger than yours

Cuil may be able to “index a far larger portion of the web – faster and more cheaply – than Google” but that ain’t going to matter if there isn’t the relevance, or worse, as in my experience today, the backend to support the traffic.


But what are the real big issues Cuil? The bloggers that drive the early-adopter hype can’t find themselves in the search results. And that hurts them, they got to “cater to vanity”.

I think the standard Google search results page is worth challenging and that “Ten blue links is a simple concept which fails to reflect the huge diversity and variety of information available to you on the Web”, but while index numbers may outweigh Google, what Cuil decides is worthy of page one is the key, and for me that isn’t quite there.. yet.

And enough with the micro-sized search box. Enough with minimal, put a big fat search box on the homepage I can read nice and clearly.

American Express Members Project

In it’s second year, I like the concept of American Express Members Project, allowing it’s cardholders a say in how they distribute 2.5 million in Amex funding. It doesn’t lock users into pre-determined charities, and covers a wide range of user-defined projects from health to community development. It 2.0 consumer control, influence & involvement and good ol’ fashioned corporate philanthropy.

It reminds me of My Starbucks Idea, one of the best executions I’ve seen in consumer community engagement and idea generation. Open, honest, two way conversations with the consumer and the brand (ok, today it’s Brad from the strategy team), having a real influence on the Starbucks experience.

The key in all this is in the execution, the result, the ideas in action. It takes a long-term strategy and dedicated resources, but get it right and you can gain users credibility, loyalty and ownership and an opportunity for real feedback from real people.