I Am Adam Smith

Nuconomy: Web Analytics Measuring Interactions

New startup which will do web analytics thats more relevent to today's 2.0 sites. Nuconomy is still in beta. I've signed up for the beta, and will see how well this all works.

From their blog:

Let’s take an example:
User A, goes into YouTube. He goes through a few channels and user pages. He browse about 30 pages which brings him deep into the site, but he doesn’t watch even a single video.
User B goes into YouTube. He watch the top 5 videos in the home page. He rate 3 of them and make comments on the other two. He than continue to upload two videos of its own. During all this time, he doesn’t browse more than 5 pages in the site.
Now - Which of the users do you think is more engaged with the YouTube brand?

This kind of measurement is exactly what’s in the heart of our product NuConomy Studio. We let you measure all kind of user interactions, and even combine them to get a definite "engagement" rank to each of your users or content pieces.

Fun, Inspriational Speach by Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch is an amazing guy. Virtual reality prof at CMU who recently was diagnosed with terminal cancer. This is his last public speech. This talk changed my whole day. He's more fired up about life then most healthy people I know.

UI Design by Next Web

Tips from NextWeb on how to make your Web 2.0 site look great, without the now typical shadow effects, 3d and bling.

Main points: use lots of whitespace, carefull selection of typography, and grey scaling.

So what is it that all these site have in common?

1. Grids and white space
Order your site with mathematical precision, create a grid where each column has a certain width, and stick to that format. Another thing is making things stand out not by making them really big, but by adding a lot of white space around it, some things on Hulu just needs to be clicked because there is noting else that catches the eye. Mark Boulton wrote a good tutorial about it, Khoi Vinh wrote a blog post accompanied with a pdf for it.

2. Typography.
There is a lot more into typography than only choosing which font you are going to use. Without even changing the font you can already differ two text blocks from each other in different line-height, different grey scales, and different sizes. Once again Mark Boulton wrote a wonderful series. Another good point to start with is Oliver Reichensteins article about typography.

3. Colors, and shades of grey
I already mentioned the use of different shades of grey to differ texts in importance, and especially sticking to one or two colors and grey can be easy tools to create an attractive yet clean site. Flickr especially manages the grey tones pallet very well. Veerle wrote a good article and ColorLovers and Adobe’s Kuler are worth visiting too

Application Developmnet Trends Profile on PHASE 2

Kurt from Application Development Trends wrote a great profile on PHASE 2's SaaS program today.

Hits on Microsoft's Software + Services strategy, and how PHASE 2 is stepping in to fill the SaaS gap left for smaller businesses who need SharePoint, CRM, Exchange, and Project. The piece has an interview with our CEO Kevin Doherty. It also highlights our main two strengths,

-having the largest suite of hosted Microsoft products available online

-including customization and access to our developers with every purchase

Thanks Kurt!

Gigya and ClearSpring offer branded widgets

The two big widget distributors, Gigya and Clear Spring now offer branded widgets. This opens up great opportunities for both delivering functionality and branding

Top 10 Reasons Why the Cloud Killed the Desktop

From the Phase 2 site Top 10 Reasons why the cloud killed the desktop: Please Digg the story if you like it...

In the past few years, people moved from using software installed on their desktop, to software they subscribe to online. Here's why:

10: Forget about buying software, subscribe to it

Buying software is expensive, and you probably don't need all the bells and whistles that come with it. When you subscribe, you pay monthly and typically can choose the level of service you want.

9: Less hassles; less worries

Desktop software comes with all the headaches of configuration, setup, and maintenance. With hosted software, just login to your account and get to work.

... more

SubDural Marketing: Or How 9 Inch Nails Ran a Kick Ass Alternate Reality Game

Wired has an amazing story on Alternate Reality Games. Basically a huge game played by hundreds of thousands of people to promote NINs new album. Involved hard drives left in bathrooms with coded messages, slightly offset typography on Tshirts revealing secret websites, that all culminated in a secret rooftop concert.

The clues are obscenely obscure, but people are so into it that they go to crazy lengths to play. And from a marketing perspective, theres the hook.

We're all getting very good at tuning out marketing BS. But making a fun, engaging game can get tons of people to not tune you out; but rather spend time and money to find you. The key is to engage people; dont treat them as if they're stupid; give them a challenge and something new to chew over. A bonus is letting them colloborate.

I highly recommend the wired article, not only is it a lot of fun, it will give you some things to mull over in promoting your idea/concept/product/image.

Local Girl: Blog in Cartoons

Cute, British girl blogs her life in cartoons. I love it.

Software Packaging

If your not offering your app as Software as a Service you might need a sharp looking packaging. Its debatable if people care anymore or not, but if you do... here's my research on packaging options. Please let me know if you've used any of these companies, or know of a better service. When I get price quotes, I'll update this post.

PackagingPrice has a basic option with no design on box. About a buck a box, minimum of 50 boxes.

Disk.com has a nice selection of packaging. Seems a bit expensive, and there sales team has been unresponsive to my questions. Didnt seem to excited to work with us.

FolderSolutions seems to have packaging that can be customized, but the website is hard to navigate.

   CactusContainers looks very professional. Am going to get a quote from them.

Vulcan Packaging also has retail packaing.

BoxCoop but their minimum order looks to be 1,250 boxes.

Magellan Packaging looks very nice, with some top end looking packages. Minimum order is $2500 though  

InstaBox they have printing and design services.

KoolPrint.com

Pricing Info.
Quantity	50	100	250	500
Base Price	$ 739	$ 855	$ 1450	$ 2010

Pricing for the overslip

Stock	50	100	250	500	1000
Full color CMYK Process
Card - 100 LB Cover Stock	$ 543	$ 658	$ 1039	$ 1617	$ 2194
Card - 80 LB Cover Stock	$ 531	$ 647	$ 1028	$ 1594	$ 2183
Card - Corrugated Stock	$ 808	$ 959	$ 1467	$ 2218	$ 4174

Tracking Flight Stats

Company called FlightStats.com offers web services that show the status of your flight. Google launched an implementation of this today. This would be very nice to have in the TripInvite flight itinerary.