Lemme ‘xplain…

So lets say you are a brilliant web developing shop. You have a small, cost efficient team and you are truly awesome at building sexy websites and applications. What I see too often is these shops going after techie media jobs. They end up talking to IT professionals or seasoned digital creative people when bidding for a project.

They end up talking to people like me. I know how long things take, what level of skill is required, and what are the relative costs of doing such a job at other outfits. I am a bad customer. Although I maybe a pleasure to work with because I can problem solve and act as a partner more than a client, I also drive the hardest bargain and demand the most particular work.

The point I am trying to make is that the more experienced your client is in your product area, the lower your margin will be. The key is to find high margin businesses with low exposure to your area of expertise.

Most Lasik surgery clinics have basic websites that they likely overpaid some college sophomore to make. What about family-owned jewelry stores? Most gyms have shitty sites too. Where is the “online trainer app” from your local gym that you interact with through SMS? The more odd the fit of the idea, the greater the probability you can bill through development and expertise building to the client.

Agree? Disagree?  Let me know by email or comments.

Here is a Friday musing:

Buzzwords might be great for PowerPoint decks, but if you are part of a buzz-worded industry, it sure as hell gets annoying,

Take a look at this Google Tends page for “Social Media.” The past two years have seen the kind of growth curve in terms of search queries that would make dot com boom investors salivate like Pavlov’s dog.

Don’t forget though: media is inherently social. We consume it and share it with others. A boombox with 2 cassette bays is a social media device as it lets me share my music. Is it as elegant and fast as embedding a Soundcloud player (or carrying a ghetto blaster with you at all times)? No, but that doesn’t change the designation . The obsession, then, comes from increasing numbers of tools to share various media. However, this is an ever present trend (DVDs are easier than VHS tapes and those are easier than laser discs) and just because all of a sudden there is a word to define it, doesn’t mean everyone needs to hop on the “sell the buzzword bandwagon” and create noise in the digital creative industry. This noise locks people into a frame of though and doesn’t let some truly bright minds behind this “digital media sharing” space push us forward.

Happy Weekend Everyone.

What makes the web great is that it is measurable. Marketing on the web is very effective (when done right) because you can gauge how effective your targeting is.

I would like to talk about a metric that the typical model of “get a ton-o-users then monetize” often overlooks: revenue per user. As your number of users grows, the revenue per user drops drastically.

Why does this happen? 2 reasons:

1. Infrastructure is not free. Storage and most importantly bandwidth, although dropping in costs, are fat bills that you have to factor in. These are so large, in fact, that companies like Facebook have to invest in creating new compression and storage technologies (like Haystack, for example) to cope with the large volumes of data.
2. More importantly, a bigger body of users is much harder to target. Once you step outside of the realm of interconnected communities, you are screwed. You might target males between the ages of 23 and 34 who live in Chicago and love Electronic Music, but you are not guaranteeing that they interact with each other or interact communally with your brand.

Read on to see what sites get the aforementioned issues.

So who gets this? Forums. Yes those weird places where people talk and not gawk at pictures of drunk college girls. Prime examples are enthusiast auto forums. Teamspeed.com, for example, has an affluent base that talks “cars, toys, and etc”. They hold meet ups and have a general sense of community that, for the most part, polices itself. This is an advertiser’s wet dream. If I am a premium wheel boutique, I can directly engage a community that is my target market. If I contribute expertise to the forums and sponsor the community, I am all but guaranteed that I am on the top of the list when an owner of an luxury car wants to buy new wheels.

Who else gets this? Local ethnic community sites. Take a look at ChicagoVue.com. This is a site for the Russian speaking Chicago young adult population. I can tell you for a fact that there are no Russian speakers in Chicago who have NOT heard of it. The advantage is simple. The market size is easy to manage. The community members know each other. Local businesses would much rather shell out online advertising dollars if they are guaranteed that their specific market is reached. Local dealerships, stores, real-estate agents, and others are prominent advertisers. ChicagoVue takes the concept further by being a promo company that ignites nightlife around the community. A profitable social networking site where people upload pictures and share their lives with friends?! Get outta here!

This bring me to Ning. Ning gets this phenomenon and allows granular compartmentalization of interest groups. This is the future of the internet. Not Ning per se, but the ability to create meaningful online experiences around communities as opposed to self generated networks.

Who will step up to the plate?

Agree? Disagree? Love to post comments? Feel free!!

All the credit for finding this little gem goes to Marsha Leveque from wejetset.

The video itself was created by David Hubert from Illuzions Production. You’ve likely seen his work before

Turn on the HD feature, expand to full screen, turn up the volume and ENJOY!

I would like point out some interesting personal encounters of direct value of using 2 way communication channels for brand building. Remember, “social media” is just a buzzword. All media is inherently social (we want to share it!), and the tools that are labeled as “social media” tools are just the current methods of enabling 2 way communications between users and brands.

Lets get a few things out of the way first: this is not snake oil; it is an additional channel for brands to connect with consumers. It is unique because it allows personal connections. It is NOT, however, a replacement for your entire marketing strategy… sorry folks, that’s not how it works.

Here are some great examples that have resulted in spending money on services or a creation of brand evangelism:

1. I was looking for an agency to do web development for our firm in Dubai. I was new in town and was on the lookout of a local team I could work closely with to finish a project in a tight deadline. I facebooked, tweeted, and googled. I contacted many agencies but found Baher from Cloud Appers to be really helpful in the process. He was also really helpful when I asked the Dubai twitter community about the local living situation before I moved. Result? 5 figure USD contract + continuing service.
2. I needed to print roll-up stands for a conference. This was a rush jobs and I did not have the time to shop around all the local printers (Google wasn’t helpful in this region for easily locating a vendor).  I got a reference from twitter and based on that evangelism for the brand on behalf of other users, it resulted in a 4 figure USD order.
3. MIPTV, a content conference in Cannes in April, is an important part of our company’s lead generation. I needed to quickly book apartments for our team. Based on previous successes with using Twitter and Facebook, I updated my statuses on both services. The response was overwhelming. I was contacted by email, facebook, and twitter messages. The vendor that took the extra step to go on my personal site, look up my email, and get in touch got a 4 figure USD booking.
4. I am in charge of our global sales pipeline and the analytics that go with it. I create the reports that our President and CMO use to determine the performance of our sales team. When I was researching the best system to use, Pipeline Deals contacted me directly to set up a product demo and a phone call to address my needs.  Unfortunately we came to the conclusion that their system, at this stage of their development, was not the best fit. However, I am now very familiar with their offering and recommend the service wholeheartedly to those who need an easy to use web-based sales tracking system. I am sure that I will be a customer at some point in time. I love their team’s dedication to personalized service, the only kind that matters.
5. I was reading Lenovo’s Design Matters blog. The post was about a design study device that was of particular interest to me. Unfortunately the team used Flickr to host the pictures. Flickr is blocked in the UAE. I commented on the blog voicing my frustration. A representative went on my personal site from my comment link, found my Twitter ID, and replied to me on Twitter asking me if he could send me the pictures by email. I was pleasantly surprised! Next time I need a rugged windows based computer to take to conferences with me, which brand has caught my attention and made themselves worthy of my 2-3K USD? (hint: rhetorical question).

I will not mention the countless advice I got for venues, directions, and general pointers on a multitude of subjects.

So…. Is social media worth the investment? You tell me… engaging me directly has netted companies who utilized social media over 50K USD and a loyal fan and evangelist for their products and services.
If you would like some “pay it forward” advice on how you can engage your customers using this new communication channel, drop me a note. I would love to talk to you about it.

This post is long time coming and is written from the perspective of someone who is tasked by his superiors to make a website happen. This person is given a budget and a timeline and is sent into the fray. I’ve done a few of these now and wanted to share some (learned the hard way) tips. FYI this is just the build, marketing the thing is a whole ‘nother deal

The 2 project managers

Realize that there are really 2 project managers. The first one is the client side manager, the one who commissions the job. The second is the face of the executing team. As such, the client manager will always put pressure on the “executing manager” to allocate team resources in a way that will get the project finished better/faster/cheaper. The job of the executing manager though is to properly allocate all resources between multiple projects while providing the greatest average satisfaction. This means that if the client manager changes expectations or requirements mid project, the executing manager will need to reallocate resources. In some cases, no harm done, in others delivery times are affected.

The relationship between these two managers is a tough one. On one hand the client manager is the good cop that is the dictionary between the tech side and the money. On the other hand the client manager has to be a bad cop when something needs to be rushed. Being on the same page and over communication is KEY to making the relationship work.

The goal of the client manager is to build in certain “headache savers” from the get go. Here are ones that I now have in my arsenal… learned the hard way, of course.

Click “Read More” for the list!

1. Build in room on both sides. If you are tasked with delivering a project in 6 weeks, negotiate for 7 with your Employer and for 5 with your executing manager.
2. Copy first. Copy first. Copy first. Oh…. And copy first. FYI this never happens. But if you are in a rare position to have copy before you start building and designing, you are in much luck. Copy requires a ton of formatting and optimization. It is a time consuming element that is not simply copy/paste, especially if you are working with multiple authors who do not conform to a similar writing voice, formatting style, etc. You will get a mess on your hands that will take days to sort, much less edit, and you must account for that. If you get copy first, do a happy dance.
3. Demand the site to be as dynamic as possible. Let’s face it, #2 will never happen. Your design should accommodate for more or less copy than your first guess. Easily scalable text areas, spaces that look good as “full” or “white” are some methods to account for the all too common issue. I hate scrolling, but if there must be scrolling, it has to be sexy. Smooth and slick scrollbars will hide the fact that there is too much copy
4. Demand the end user be self sufficient for as much of the content as possible. I’ve been very lucky with the teams I’ve worked with. They understood that building on top of a good CMS is a “headache saver.” There will always be requests to change words, upload a new picture, etc. The ability to pop into a browser and make the changes in a matter of minutes will not only save money in the long run, it will make you, the company webmaster, look like a web-guru-rock-star.
5. Assume the very last final finalized sitemap you signed off on will be changed right before the deadline. Someone will say “you know, it would be better if…” and BAM, weeks of development needs to be crammed in a few days. There are no ways to combat this. There are 2 ways to help you brace for the impact though.
   1. Make sure the executing manager understands that this might happen and builds in flex on the development end. Sometimes that means some pizza and Red Bull driven all nighters (yes, from experience), other times outside help can be brought in to supplement the original team.
   2. I know there is a temptation to make every page a snowflake. However, creating a few good templates that can be adapted for multiple purposes is a good way to prepare for sudden changes. This tends to be very difficult in Flash, but other frameworks allow for this method to shine. Any changes will still take time, mind you, but at least you do not need to go back to the drawing board.
6. Last, but certainly not least, is the team. You might be best friends with the executing manager, but if your best friend outsources parts of the project on Elance, the entire project becomes dependant on a third party with no accountability (not even going to mention that the said best friend is not much of a friend in that scenario). Make sure to that the portfolio matches the task. I’ve know of 3 ways of going about portfolio evaluations:
   1. The developer team has done something very similar to what you want. You simply ask them to repeat the process with minor changes. (least time intensive)
   2. The developer team has done something that is technically more challenging than your project using a similar approach that you want to utilize for your less complicated project (the guys behind the Sony PSP site, for example, can easily make a flash intro video with your logo rotating funky). This, in some cases, becomes the “hunting for fruit flies with a bazooka” method. But look at it this way… you can take a Kia to a restaurant or you can take a Lamborghini. (choice of champions aka my choice)
   3. You have a generous budget and do not need to look for the best performance per dollar value by going with a “brand name” agency. (most expensive, least headache inducing)

Well that just about covers it! Post more in the comments if you got them! Extra thanks to Luke and Baher for tolerating all my mistakes!

Just about everything about this video is amazing. From the quality of video itself to the fact that this brand gets the value of producing videos that make me want the product. As with my BMW Films post, I applaud Asics for coming out with a creative way to make consumers sit down and learn more about the brand and its values.

Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.

It turns out my prediction was totally right! I mentioned in a previous post about MWC Barcelona (Mobile World Congress) that we are going to see some motion in the direction of a light rich mobile internet, and Adobe and friends did not disappoint with the Open Screen Project

In retrospect, it was not that hard of a call to make. Between the iPhone, Palm Pre, Android, and refreshed Symbian phones the Western World is finally seeing some great multimedia prowess in their phones.

The premise behind this movement is to assure that users have a seamless experience between their various devices. Makes sense: I don’t want to go to a rich flash site and then see a dinky WAP site when I go to the same address on my mobile browser.

What I have to mention though is that we are a few leaps away from this dream. Standardization is major issue. Its hard enough for a developer to have a site look identical on every single desktop browser available, much less their mobile counterparts.

2009, then, will not be the year of ubiquitous seamless experiences on mobile platforms. What I hope we will see is an increasing amount of resources behind enabling rich content consumption on mobile platforms.

It is this humble gent’s opinion that entities that will want to be forward with mobile engagement will do is create customized experiences depending on the platform. In essence, create different sites for every platform. We are already seeing this with the iPhone. There is a fantastic plug-in that allows Wordpress admins to generate wholly different sites when iPhones visit their domains. It is called WPtouch and it is a harbinger of mobile content.

Those online destinations with a bit more oomph (development resources) actually build custom iPhone apps that allow the user to have an optimized experience on their iPhone. The Boy Genius Report is a perfect example of this. This is the way it should be… the iPhone does not have a 15-inch screen and optimized layouts allow for the most user friendly way of consuming data.

If I was to build a site I wanted to attract mobile users to, I would essentially create multiple sites. One would be for the desktop audience and others for the different kinds of mobile browsing platforms available.

That’s right. If someone is using mobile Opera, the Nokia S60 browser, the BlackBerry browser or (in the near future) the Palm Pre browser, they would each get a different site that is optimized for screen size and performance of the device they are using to access the site. Why shouldn’t they?

The point is that creating a pleasant mobile experience will draw users to your destination since they will enjoy consuming content on your site more than a non mobile enabled competitor site.

Are there any out-of-box CMS systems that are optimized for mobile users? I haven’t seen any. Shoot me an email or leave a comment if you know of some!

As some of you may know (or not) I am a HUGE fan of Tumblr.

For those that have been living in Platos Cave on the lowest plane of existence,  Tumblr is a super-duper easy to use online publishing system that’s used to share cool things from the internetz with whoever cares to view it

The AWESOME FINDS section of this site is powered by Tumblr and the RSS feed on the right hand side feeds the latest posts from that page.

On to the reason for this post: Today, Tumblr announced the most requested feature of all time and I am delighted! I can now queue up posts upfront. That means a steadier flow of content on the site, less spamming of RSS feeders and most importantly, for me, easier to manage visibility to in the US both on Twitter (which these posts go to) and on Facebook (which pulls the latest RSS as well).I’ll be loading up the queue shortly so expect a constant stream of AWESOME from my tumblr.

All in all, a pretty rockin‘ day.

I had the pleasure of reading  Deloitte’s annual “The State of the Media Democracy” study. Here are some publicly available stats that I believe are indicative of where its all headed:

Millennials (ages 14 – 25) spend more time with media per week, but less time watching television, and mobile devices are primary entertainment channels for them.

Ok. I’m one of these. Yes I consume more media daily. No, I do not watch any TV. Even when I had full access to HD cable glory, I would prefer to run TV shows and movies from my media center… aka big hard drive with content hooked up to a USB enabled DVD player. TV is great, but unless you are ponying up for a cable co dvr, you are out of luck in terms of on demand content.

In 2009, more than ever, people want to access their content when they want to for an affordable price.

58% of all respondents want to easily connect their TVs to the Internet to download or view content or view content on their PC. That number bumps up to 70% for Millennials.

Building on the point above…

This is where Netflix GETS IT. XBOX + Netflix is the best thing since sliced bread. No more waiting for disc in the mail (so archaic!) and no new hardware! This is great! These types of deals are showing us that we are headed to the convergence of TV, internet, and home computing. Windows Media Center and Apple TV are a decent start, but still not mainstream enough. Xbox is mainstream. I am still waiting for the day when I can  whip out a phone and using a shortcode order a netflix movie via sms, and have it all loaded up in HD automatically to my STB (Set-top Box) which remains in a powersaver mode until it gets the comand. If this same box is also my gaming station and my cable box, all the better. I want to see the end of having a dvd, dvr/cable box, game box, and <insert other device here> clutter up my TV space, eat power, and create a web of wiring confusion in my living room.

60% want the ability to move their content to any device they own without any problems.

The last part is key. That TV show that I downloaded at home… If I want to watch it on my 3g phone while waiting at an airport lounge or riding a train, I should be able to do it. Its my content. I paid for it. Serve it to me when its convenient for me. I (and many others) will pay for that… just don’t make me go to MIT to figure it out ok? Thanks.

Lessons?

1. Lines between devices that are used for media consumption are bluring
2. Convergence is good if functional
3. On demand (location and device agnostic) media providers will be kings