This is a pretty great tool. Continue reading

Facebook relays messages from publishers saying that these users “are more engaged and stay longer when their real identity and real friends are driving the experience through social plugins.” As an example, NHL.com reported that pages per user was up by 92%, time on-site was up by 85%, video-viewing increased by 86% more videos and overall visits went up by 36%. via mashable.com Continue reading

Bridging the gap between our online and offline social network View more presentations from Paul Adams. via www.thinkoutsidein.com A long but good presentation from Paul Adams about the different types of networks people have and how today they're not well replicated online. Continue reading

Jason's presentation was focused on the "10 Things Every CEO Needs to Know About Product Design and User Experience". The full presentation is available at the bottom of the post but here are the key highlights: Design can change businesses: little things can have a great impact. A simple example: the difference between "I am on Twitter" and "You should follow me on Twitter here" increased the registration rate by 173%! Design is more than pretty picture: it is all about the user experience and the brand you are trying to build Talk benefits not features: It is much better... Continue reading

This Woot video of their acquisition really cracks me up. The best part is at the end in the credits. Continue reading

Bart De Waele with some excellent home truths for social media: tagged: Bart De Waele, blogs, corporate blogs, Facebook, presentations, social media, Twitter, User-generated content via wearesocial.net Continue reading

"Flitting from site to site, it takes a lot to entice today’s shoppers. Once they’ve arrived in an online store, they might sniff around and put a thing or two in the shopping cart – but even when they have typed in their credit card number, there is still no guarantee that the sale will be closed." Black added: "The modern shopper often looks for reassurance from a positive review, a special offer to make it more affordable, inexpensive delivery options and a quick, easy and secure way to pay." via www.brandrepublic.com Continue reading

Unlisted videos can be a great way for giant brands like Nike to test out their viral endeavors before they officially launch them to the public. ‘Write The Future’ was able to spread via Twitter, Facebook and a multitude of blog posts before it even showed up in a YouTube search for Nike, FIFA, World Cup or other popular search terms. It will be interesting to see if they take the same approach to their viral campaigns in the future. It doesn’t hurt that Nike is a huge international brand—of course word started to spread when people heard that there... Continue reading

We would have a family dinner at home most nights of the week. Regardless of what I was doing I had to be home by 7pm. (My kids still remember mom secretly feeding them when they were hungry at 5pm, but eating again with dad at 7pm.) But we would use dinner time to talk about what they did at school, have family meetings etc. Put the kids to bed. Since I was already home for dinner it was fun to help give them their baths, read them stories and put them to bed. I never understood how important the... Continue reading

It’s as if the site is reading my mind—the pinnacle of a good user experience. I’ve stayed at all three of these hotels and the room, food, customer service and amenities were all impeccable. I was already planning to go back to the Opposite House in May, but thanks to Jetsetter I got a great rate. As for The Somona Mission Inn and the Royal Palms, I had stayed at both in the last few years as part of speaking gigs where my rate was included in my fee. I never thought go back, even though I enjoyed the experience... Continue reading

Definitely not my thing. But at least the view is beautiful. Continue reading

On the first point, I don’t want someone to cut me some slack or “give me a chance” just because I’m a woman. I don’t want a hand-out, I don’t want to be patronized. I want to be recognized and respected because of what I’m capable of doing and achieving. If someone wants me on their team strictly because I’m a woman, then there’s probably something amiss in that intention. So don’t patronize me, please. via catalyses.wordpress.com I couldn't agree more with this. Continue reading

Summer is almost there... For yesterday's dinner I went with a very basic, yet delicious combination inspired from our summers in Provence. Bruschetta Slice some good bread (ciabatta is best, do not use sandwich bread) and toast each slice. Let it cool for a few minutes. Dice 3-4 tomatoes, red oignons, and fresh basil. Combine in a bowl, add salt and pepper, a little bit of olive oild and red wine vinegar. Add a bit of the tomatoe mixture onto each slice of toasted bread and voila! Sliced cantaloupe Cut the cantaloupe in 8, remove the seeds and the skin.... Continue reading

He noted that at FriendFeed they found that the key to getting users to stick around and keep them using the site was that they had to connect with five friends. Unfortunately, when you’re a startup with not very many users, that’s extremely hard to do (yes, even just five). So FriendFeed implemented all types of logins and email contact lookups to try and help users find friends. The key to FriendFeed’s growth was Facebook Connect, as users were four times more likely to become engaged users if they signed up through that service, he said. In fact, if FriendFeed... Continue reading

What's better than being greated by a big Zappos box at the door step when coming home from swimming under the rain? Continue reading

What's a good product requirements template for a web 2.0 startup? I get asked this question a lot, so here's my attempt at an answer. I've done product management for over 10 years for small and big companies, and what I consider to be a good way to outline product requirements has evolved a lot over the years. Back in my early Yahoo! days, product requirements (PRDs) were long and detailed docs that we handed off to engineering in a traditional Waterfall manner. Then came Scrum and we traded the PRDs for long spreadsheets (Backlogs). That was faster but lacked... Continue reading

Advance planning doesn't always yield the best weather/activities match. Continue reading

The TapTapTap website uses JavaScript to load information about each of their products without loading a new page. via www.noupe.com Interesting concept and some pretty cool design examples. Continue reading

Forecast for today was partly cloudy with 0% chance of precipitation. Instead we get this...now let's hope they're wrong for tomorrow: wouldn't mind skiing on fresh powder and sunny skies. Continue reading

I came across a great quote from Ev's keynote at SXSW. It's meant to be his big lesson to other entrepreneurs, but really it works for anyone. Create something you want to exist in the world. Another is focus. Many people are trying to do a lot of things when they should be doing one thing. You may be wrong with whatever you’re trying out, but you’ll try other things. A lot of the great companies are now coming from outside Silicon Valley. You don’t have to be there. Continue reading