On The Scene

What happened in Piedmont?  It’s a viral marketing campaign set up by A&E to promote their remake of “The Andromeda Strain.”  There, I just saved you 5 minutes of browsing.

I’m getting sick of these stupid viral campaigns.  I appreciate the effort, but I find it somewhat patronizing, and more than a little irritating.

Come to think of it, so is regular advertising.  So, carry on, I guess.  I’ll just get back on the internet, where the advertising is more easily ignored.

Oh yes, and I am well aware that it’s spelled “Piedmont”.  I misspelled it in an attempt to save the percentage of people who will certainly make the mistake while googling.

So I signed up for Eyespot the other day, just to try it out. Eyespot is an online video editor, and it’s really spiffy (although I like Jumpcut a bit more). But, online video editing is not what this post is about; rather, this is about how a legitimate email newsletter from Eyespot, in an ironic twist, managed to disguise itself as spam so well that it took a bit of detective work indeed to discover that it wasn’t so.

Pretty much the entire message body is available at http://shootmixshare.blogspot.com/2008/04/build-your-own-site-w-eyespot.html, which is a decent warning sign in itself. There were a few noteworthy differences, however.

Bizarro Spam

In a world where hot black snow falls up, spam would look like the email I recieved from eyespot; completely legitimate info with what seems like deliberate touches to make it look like spam, to me and to gmail alike. First off, all the links were rewritten. Here’s an example:

http://x.jngo1.net/y.z?l=http%3A%2F%2Feyespot.com%2Fmixables%2FThieveryCorporation&e=1055&j=103500431

The domain of that link, x.jngo1.net, is a huge red flag. At this point, I was fairly convinced it was some sort of phishing attempt, and I was gearing up to write an angry email to eyespot for handing over my email address. However, since I am young and foolhardy and also using a Linux machine, I went ahead and clicked it anyway - and it brought me to the Eyespot site.

I looked all around for evidence of foul play, but nothing came up. So I did a whois in jngo1.net, and a company called Silicomm.com came up. Curious, I went to their site, and was presented with a link to Jangomail.com. Jangomail? That sequence of consonants and an ‘o’ sounds familiar. And sure enough, jangomail.com is a newsletter app that is apparently used by Eyespot to send highly ignored newsletters. Evidently the url rewriting is nothing more nefarious than some tracking code.

So what did we learn?

We learned that GMail registers weird urls as spam, or is possibly blocking this jangomail domain for non-Eyespot-related spams, or is blocking all mail with recieved-from jangomail.com headers (mine was magellen@jangomail.com). It’s hard to blame jangomail.com for this. They seem to be a legitimate company, and having worked for a company that does email newsletters I can tell you that it’s not easy to keep your domains off the blacklist, or to keep your users legitimate. x.jngo1.net is probably just something they though was obscure enough that google wouldn’t block it.

What could Eyespot learn from this? Maybe tracking your clicks isn’t worth your emails getting dumped in the bin. As for Jangomail, I have no real advice; better, more profit-motivated minds than mine have wrestled with this problem before. However, maybe they could take a trick or two from Freshview’s Campaign Monitor, they seem to be doing ok. In fact, I know one Matthew Patterson from Freshview has stumbled across this blog before in his technorati-fuelled meanderings, so maybe he has some insight on this. To comment on. Because I’m actually really curious now.

Here’s a powerful way you can harness the infinite whining potential of the internet and turn it into something useful. When you’re faced with a major purchase, questionable job offer, or any other interaction with some google-able entity, just go to your friendly neighbourhood search engine and enter the name of the company you want to check up on, followed by ” sucks.”

Booking a flight?  Test each of your options for carriers in turn, and pick the one with the least vitriolic pages that come up.  Be sure to read the comments on blog posts as well, there might be some sort of refutation.

Whether you’re buying a laptop, applying for a job, trying to find somewhere to vacation, or just want to hear something negative, “Company name sucks” is like having a friend that you keep at arms-length, because every time you talk to him he’s complaining at length about how bad Royale paper towels are compared to Bounty — except you never have to talk to him to gain his surly wisdom.

Sproutwire is a small-business aggregator which has just escaped from the clutches of a prolonged beta.  It puts up about 2-3 high-quality business-related articles daily, all of which are good reads for anyone with entrepreneurial aspirations of any size.

Yes, they have a feed, and they even do daily email newsletters if you’re not the feed type.   It’s really pretty, check it out.

In other news, freshly into beta we find Aviary’s web app suite, which is frankly amazing.  More on that later.

I heard rumors that Google was planning on, or already does, execute javascript, so I thought I’d test if it would index keywords found in content that is generated from javascript.  The page is: Snarphuphen Cloobdle Hglagshei .

My hypothesis is no, but let me know if you’re interested in the results.

Happy Creek Sawmill specializes in custom millwork, including flooring and moulding.  They also provide top-notch wood-drying with their kiln, and can even manufacture products for homeowners from trees cut down while building their house.

They are located in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island — specifically in Duncan, BC. 

Users get a lot of flak, both deserved and otherwise.  Sometimes, it’s really easy to blame the user for making mistakes on application features or websites that you’ve developed.  However, they are your users, and you need to accommodate them.  Luckily, there’s a really easy way to do this.  First, though, some preamble.

Users are Predictable

80% of users will make the same subset of mistakes for all the same reasons, almost every time.  The remaining 10% are either relative experts like us, or completely computer-illiterate technophobes — neither of which is likely to be your target audience.

These are the users that usability tests are designed to help you with.  It doesn’t even have to be a formal usability test in a controlled setting, either - just having someone other than yourself, the person who designed the thing you’re testing and knows it inside-out, is an enormous step, and an essential part of the process for creating any interface, be it a website or an operating system - or, for that matter, a telephone or an F-16 cockpit.  Furthermore, since 80% of users are more or less alike, it’s easy to find someone appropriate to volunteer.

Usability is Essential

If the user can’t find the product, the sale is lost.  If the user can’t find the appropriate information about the product, the sale is lost.  If the user can’t figure out how to add the product to the cart, check out, pay, arrange for shipping, and then confirm their order, the sale is lost.  The same applies to an application — if the user can’t use it, they won’t.  Usability is arguably the most important aspect of a successful website/application.

The Solution

So we’ve established the usability incredibly important, but also remarkably simple to gauge.  What does this mean?

Fifteen minutes spent watching your mom use your interface can be worth thousands of dollars in the long run.

Your mom is the ideal user for you to test on.  Why?  Because 1) she’s probably a good demographic, an average user on the lower end of the bellcurve in terms of computing ability, and 2) because if your mother gets stuck checking out, you’re not going to dismiss that as an idiotic user mistake and forget about it.

Don’t listen to what she says, she’s biased.  Instead, just watch her use the interface.  Take note of which screens she spends a minute or two clicking around, trying to find an escape.  Write down when and where she gets stuck. Watch what she does, and you’ll be rewarded.

Budget for Testing

Try this: for every project, budget an hour or two for testing, and use it to take your mother, or someone else you know who fits the typical-user bill, out to dinner in exchange for their valuable input.  Make sure it’s someone who you can’t possibly just gloss over as a simpleton, this is important.  As put by advertising maven David Ogilvy: “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.”

Plus, I bet she’d really like to see you.

I spent a few hours last night browsing whois records, searching for a domain name for my latest project.  Let me tell you, it is a tough tough thing to name a startup based on a domain.  I think the guys at 37 Signals got it right, getting the domain after the fact.

Anyhow, my stubborn refusal to learn anything from anyone but myself has resulted in my naming the product tasksy.  Easy to remember, I hope, but hard to say (try it!).

What is the product, you ask?  Well, if you were smart, you’d go to tasksy.com and see, because I ain’t gonna tell you anything else until I’m good and ready.

Indochino.com, not-so-secretly a favorite site of mine, has just launched a new lineup of suits.  Unfortunately, this means I’ve missed my chance to get the Oxford Office.  Fortunately, it gives me something to talk about, and another excuse to drive the few daily “indochino review” searches to this site. If they ever add a referral program I’ll be in the money.

(Would you believe it, it’s been an hour and this post is already tops for “indochino review.”  I bet if I said the words “indochino suit review,” I could rank for that too.  Hey Kyle, need an SEO guy?)

My first point, and I apologize to the model for making it, is that I liked it better when their model was faceless.  Not because I don’t like the new guy’s face, but because when it was the faceless model it was me in the suit in my mind, and that got me a lot closer to buying it.  Plus, how does the first guy feel now that this guy has his face up everywhere?  Poor model #1, you’ll always be my favorite.

Another critique, and I critique only because it’s more interesting than saying, “gee, this is wonderful,”is the perplexing “business” and “fashion” suit categories.  “Berlin means Business’s” presence until today in the fashion suit section serves to illustrate my point, and their shuffling it into the business suit category only backs me up that much more.  Maybe it would make more sense to go with “Casual, Business, Formal.”  All of their suits are, after all, quite fashionable.

Also, it would make sense to have both mannequin and on-a-guy shots for all the suits, so that you could put the mannequin shots in the summarized view and have some parallelism in navigation.

On to the clothing itself:  Generally good stuff.  The silver thing is a bit of an expensive eyesore, and the “Piccadilly Purple Pinstripe” shots make the model look like he’s falling asleep. Also, I’m not sure what differentiates the $400 St. Petersburg Pinstripe from any of the other, similarly-priced pinstripe models. The navy version is 50% cashmere, but $110 cheaper. Then again, pricing always does seem arbitrary.  And, there are no more three-buttoners, which is fine by me because I got mine already and now I need a two-button.

Overall, I think they’ve done it again. Another round of nice suits at reasonable prices. If I had the dough and the need I would be all over that, but until they need a new website or they start some sort of affiliate program I guess I’m stuck just writing about them.

I would like to introduce you to a man.  This man is a feature — nay, a legend — in his hometown, which happens to be my hometown. His influence upon this city can be felt the moment you step off the ferry and gaze upon his majestic visage.

His name is Gordy Dodd, and if you live in Victoria you have almost certainly noticed his new bus ad campaign, featuring 007 Dodd, Superman Dodd, and a few others. Dodd, and his company Dodd’s furniture, have produced a number of highly entertaining videos, although unfortunately only a select few are available online. These videos have burrowed their way into the hearts and minds of Victorians everywhere, and whether they like him or hate him, you can be damn sure that almost any Victorian you ask can remember him. But what makes Gordy Dodd so memorable?

Uniqueness

Gordy Dodd is not a beautiful man. In fact, he has a very distinct homeliness about him (I’m sure he knows it, but I’ll sure feel bad if he has to hear it from me). Plus, even with all the years he’s been on TV, he still has an incredibly strong accent. Even better, his ads go over and above regular low-rent-local-business-loudmouth territory and into a strange world of bad costumes, worse acting, and the sense that Gordy is going to crack up any second until you realize that, no, that’s just his face.

Gordy has been the Hulk, Harry Potter (”Even a muggle knows our savings are magic”… but add a strong indian accent), Elvis, and many more. He’s made full-scale bollywoodesque ads featuring what probably constitutes a solid majority of his female relatives, dancing in saris. Rest assured that the link above contains a fraction of a fraction of Dodds’ full repetoire.

His delivery is priceless - there is no worse actor in the world than Gordy Dodd, and he the fact that he tries so hard makes you love him all the same. But what he lacks in acting, he seems to make up for in marketing genius and sheer gumption.

And you can bet that he’s never paid more he makes from selling a couch to make them.

Repetition

Gordy Dodd is everyhere. His mug has been gracing local TV screens for years and years. He appears on buses, in newspapers, on magazines. All this further separates Dodd from the crappy carpet salesmen with similar budgets - not only will they not dress up in spandex on TV, they’ll only try once or twice and then give up because almost everyone ignores them. Nowadays, when Gordy releases a new ad, you can be sure that it will come up as water-cooler talk.

Be Memorable

So what can we learn from Dodd’s Furniture? Here, I’ll illustrate it with another example.

QUICK! Picture in your head, in detail, an Olympic games logo.

I’ll wait, although I bet you see where this is going already.

Was it London 2012 (click to see the logo)? I bet for a lot of you, it was. Even though statistically you probably hate it, you can be sure that the 2012 logo is going to be hard to forget. And don’t you say that’s just because of the controversy - if it wasn’t for the logo’s decided “uniqueness”, it never would have gotten that sort of press in the first place (no such thing as bad publicity).

Being memorable is not the same as being good. And unless you’re trying to showcase your design/directorial/creative talents, being memorable is just as good and probably better.  If you can hit that water-cooler-talk sweet spot among your clientèle, success is sure to be yours.