19August2008
Communicating; Creating great products
Just a quick one today.
I was at Web2Expo earlier this year, and Website Magazine (pictured below) was exhibiting. I find this tremendously confusing. I imagine the target market of people who like to read about the web on paper is roughly the same as the market of people whose assistants print their e-mail for them.
But what I find most curious is that web analytics provide so much better data on the effectiveness of advertising, it’s almost irresponsible to use print media to reach people. And since magazines usually make their money from print advertising and sponsorship, that’s got to be a losing game.
12August2008
Communicating; Standing out
User interfaces are busy things. They’re cluttered with information, and designers have to reduce it down to its minimum to make things work properly. If I’m using chat, or Twitter, I have icons for everyone I interact with. And they’re the closest we get to a personal logo.
Consider Twitter:
I have only a few pixels to identify people. Many of these are surprisingly memorable: GigaOm, Laughingsquid, and others stand out nicely. The personal icon shows up elsewhere, too. Here’s the icon strip from my chat (names removed to protect the innocent.)
And there are “visitor log” tools like Mybloglog.
Unfortunately, I’m breaking my own rule: I have different photos for Mybloglog. It’s time for some brand cleanup. Here’s what I’m going to do:
- Decide if I want a photo or a logo.
- Folks like Om Malik, or Redmonk, or Laughingsquid are so closely associated with their brands that their logoes stand out well.
- The other option is a photo. Given that I wind up having headshots in conference programmes (a constant reminder nobody’s paying me for my looks) and several loose associations (Rednod, Bitcurrent, Interop, Unconference, Bitnorth, whatever) rather than one allegiance, it probably makes sense to use a photo.
- Use a close shot that’s visible, rather than a full portrait. Mitch Joel does this very well; it’s just forehead and glasses, but you know it’s Mitch in a second.
- Pick a color scheme. Something that’s consistent with colors of Bitcurrent, Rednod, or whatever I’m most associated with. Hopefully this is also something that’s not taken (a red/green/blue/yellow square might look a little too much like Windows, for example.)
- Reduce the number of colors in the image. This makes it easier to follow a color scheme, and has the added beneft of making resizing clearer.
- Invest some time in sizing the image to target resolutions. Several of the sites out there auto-crop or resize the image you submit, so sending it in the right size results in much better image quality.
- Claim the name. Figure out all of the sites that have an avatar/portrait, and make sure I’ve got the image.
Sean called this a Personal Favicon, and I think he’s right. The little 16×16 icon that appears in the address bar is a brand, reduced to its barest of bones.
I’m betting that a branded personal icon, particularly in microblogging circles, will become something trademarked and defensible that graphic designers add to their list of design deliverables for a startup. There will be a land grab, too: I’m not going to choose black and green, or blue and white, because those are pretty well known.
12August2008
Startups
Syntenic, long a quiet force behind many websites, has turned up the noise considerably with the launch of their new website and offerings. I’ve known the guys at Syntenic for some time, and they’re a smart bunch (two of the executives contribute to the Bitcurrent technology blog.) But they’ve been too busy running production sites and building cloud computing solutions to toot their own horn.
No more. Their new site just launched, and with it a description of several cloud and managed hosting offerings. It’s great to see this kind of technical acumen in a Montreal company; the city is gradually evolving the kind of ecosystem that can support a thriving startup community.
Disclaimer: Rednod and Bitcurrent run on Syntenic’s servers. They’re smart enough that I’d risk seeming partisan by writing about them.
4August2008
Startups
Bitnorth’s fast approaching. We’re probably going to hit 30 attendees, which is just about the size we wanted, and there’s a wide variety of topics being planned.
The interesting part now will be to work with each of the Short Bit presenters and figure out how to cram something interesting into ten lean minutes. Many of the sessions are around the theme of “The Other 99 Percent,” and we have some panels around that too. So if you’re one of them (you know who you are) expect me to start stalking you this week.
Time to go order swag, now I know the attendee count. I suppose a T-Shirt is table stakes, but I’d love to find something more appealing/sustainable/durable.
If you haven’t signed up and paid for Bitnorth yet, this is your last week to do so.
3August2008
Competition; Creating great products; Startups
Sometimes, the benefits of a new product are so awesomely, amazingly, tremendously good that people are willing to change their behaviors.
It’s not going to happen for you. Most of the time, people won’t work to try and understand a new approach. And no amount of education is going to change that.
This is a fundamental challenge for entrepreneurs. We’re deep in the product, conjuring up reasons why it will win in order to attract investment and keep our employees motivated. But just because the rank and file is drinking the Kool-Aid doesn’t mean the rest of the world will.
There’s a great example of this, and it’s not just a small company example. It happened to the word processing industry.
Read the rest of this entry »
29July2008
Startups
If you’re in town this week, check out Startupdrinks at the Café des Éclusiers. Heri and the crew at Montrealtechwatch always throw a good bash, and they’re also promoting a Hacker Spaces initiative in the city. It’s great to see some tech entrepreneur buzz going on.
