Libby Lines

A local fitness provider and instructor trainer, Gyrotonic Boulder, now has an optimized site. This is the new wave in fitness - who says, no pain no gain? Work out smarter, not harder.

The Camera just launched the website for BalancePoint Health, - Reverse heart disease and metabolic syndrome with BalancePoint’s lifestyle protocol: a revolutionary, scientifically-engineered diet which treats the source of these conditions — inflammation in the body.

Protech Security Inc, is a home and commercial security company which is owned by Dan, who has 26-years of experience as a police officer. If I was going to have someone help secure my home, I definitely would want to work with someone like Dan who has seen all the tricks of the bad guys.

Here’s his new site

Nature’s Partner, a group of growers that provide ripe produce year round, launches their new site. This was a project I managed through the handoff to their development team who completed the project.

Site was defined and designed by Texturemedia.

Congrats! Site looks great!

Mock Realty has launched a new website. Looks great!

http://www.mockrealty.com/

In his article, Scott Meldrum posits that websites are like asking someone out on a date. The user that visits your site is looking for certain piece of information to formulate a decision about your brand. While one-liners and funny jokes may get some guys the date, I believe many women are turned off with the lack of substance to the interaction. The datee, wants to know, do I have anything in common with this prospect? Will s/he take care of me? Will I be safe?

These same questions are true of the website visitor…especially if they’re making a decision to pick your brand over another. They want to know if your brand is legitimate and substantial. Is this a wise decision? Most visitors only view sites for a few seconds so getting the important content out in front of them is essential.

Tip: when reviewing your site, think about what direction you want the user to take when first encountering your site. Map out those conversion paths and design around them. Finally, time yourself and see if you can get important information within a minute.

NYT article

Surprisingly 21% of business travelers read blogs. More and more people are creating blogs and the travel industry is no different. Both airlines and hotel blogs are very popular and and utilized when planning travel for both business and pleasure. Blogs are a viable option to support timely content that search engines love and your consumers will appreciate.

NYT article

NotchUp, a new social site, has been created to make more qualified leads for interviewers. By adding your profile on the site you can set your asking price for interviewers to talk to you. You can also invite all of your friends and receive 10% of their payment just because you referred them.

The idea is that to get good leads, companies now pay recruiters a lot of money. Since it’s a lot easier to find qualified candidates via the virtual world, the cost per interview is much less than a recruiter.  That’s right Google…you need to PAY to talk to me =)

NYT article

If you’re like me, you prefer emailing to calling people. But there’s a lot of folks out there who like to pick up the phone and actually have a conversation rather than deal with the back and forth of email. I found this quiz online and found interesting…

Phone: You can often get the answers to quick questions almost immediately.
Email: You need to compose an email, send it, and wait for a response.
Winner: Phone

Phone: You may need to play phone tag or schedule a specific time in order to talk to someone.
Email: You can write and send a message whenever it’s convenient.
Winner: Email

Phone: You depend on your ability to speak tactfully and avoid saying the wrong thing.
Email: You can review your message as many times as necessary and even have someone else proof it.
Winner: Email (especially if you’re not very tactful)

Phone: You run the risk of getting dragged into lengthy conversations.
Email: You have unilateral control to focus on only those topics you care about.
Winner: Email

Phone: You can usually recognize and correct misunderstandings and confusing statements immediately.
Email: You may send several emails back and forth to clarify a vague point.
Winner: Phone

Phone: You can only exchange information that you can speak.
Email: You can send attachments (and URLs that can be clicked instead of spelled-out).
Winner: Email

Phone: You need to make multiple calls or setup a conference call to share information with multiple people.
Email: You can easily send an email to any number of recipients.
Winner: Email

Phone: You must ignore interruptions or make another call later.
Email: You can stop and start writing your message as needed.
Winner: Email

Phone: You must record your conversations or do without evidence of what was discussed.
Email: You have a written record.
Winner: Email

Phone: You have everyone involved in the same conversation “thread” when talking to several people.
Email: You have people responding at different times, and they may not have read what everyone else has written.
Winner: Phone

Phone: 3

Email: 7

EMAIL is the winner.

User-Generated Content (UGC) is definitely the latest trend in website content. Production costs and barriers to entry have dropped significantly so that anyone with a $500 camera and a video editing program can be the newest Quentin Tarantino. Combine that with programs like YouTube, Ziddio and other video publishing sites and getting your 15-minutes of fame is easy, .e.g., Diet Coke + Mentos.

In fact, some of the most popular commercials during the Super Bowl last year were UGC. Chevrolet, Doritos, Yahoo and more have turned to consumers to provide the commercials for the over $2 million time slot¹². This new trend is obviously much less expensive than the Ad-agency created alternative, but will that continue to be the case? Will these novice video makers begin to charge big bucks for these monoliths to deliver a seemingly more authentic message?

While there’s a lot of millennials creating bizarre, interesting, beautiful, silly videos, does this mean the content is “good” or “relevant”? No. UGC-bearing sites are being called a virtual flea market where there is some interesting content but it often takes a lot of sifting and searching to find it. Is there an emerging business model around UGC? Absolutely. Will it commoditize this content and therefore make it inherently commercialized and therefore not authentic? Unknown.

Perhaps this newest trend will bring us back to our roots and democratize advertising. Or perhaps, it’s just a trend, like Napster that started out grassroots and became a multi-million dollar commodity.