I was elected as a Program Director for the Greater Lansing User Group .net this evening.
Attendance is around 35 people per meeting which puts us in the top 10% of .net user groups nationwide.
Bitcoin Bull. I focus on educating people about bitcoin from an investing, business, and personal perspectives. Why? Digital currencies are going to change the world and everyone should be on board.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Friday, April 6, 2007
April 2, 2007 Emerging Trends on the Internet
Sasha Verhage, Design lead for Google
Technology - focus on usability and the end result not technology ie. Ajax - some product managers want to 'ajaxify' products. Only do it where it makes sense.
· Google Maps
o Craig's list mashup
· Yahoo Mail – looks like Outlook.
· Ajax programming reduces page views and companies need to find alternate revenue streams (less ad views)
Live Testing
· Google Ads
o in one test changing the font can impact revenue. One test showed bolding search terms in ad results increased revenue 8%
o colors are also important. Green link colors for ads tested very high
o bucket testing (segmenting users into control groups and test groups)
o changing colors can increase revenue (7%-15% in one example based on 200,000 people
· blue color schemes generally win across all demographics
· Brand, Brand Halo - blind 'taste tests' remove branding from websites for blind
User Generated Content
· Use when appropriate (ie travel rating sites, Google Sketchup/Google Earch)
Attention Economy is real
· People trying to do more at once with technology (cell phones, ipods, facebook, myspace)
· multitasking is overrated (it takes ~15 minutes to return to a task you were deeply concentrating on prior to interruption)
· one study estimated interruptions and recovery time at 28% of employee time
· attention has economic value (free cell phones with voice ads, Slate.com customers can pay to have ads removed)
Search Engine Optimization
· SEO increases your likely hood of showing up based on the algorithm and what the user expressed
· trip Advisor gaming Google (the phrase 'Las Vegas' was memtioned 62 times per page on this small site)
Sasha Verhage, Design lead for Google
Technology - focus on usability and the end result not technology ie. Ajax - some product managers want to 'ajaxify' products. Only do it where it makes sense.
· Google Maps
o Craig's list mashup
· Yahoo Mail – looks like Outlook.
· Ajax programming reduces page views and companies need to find alternate revenue streams (less ad views)
Live Testing
· Google Ads
o in one test changing the font can impact revenue. One test showed bolding search terms in ad results increased revenue 8%
o colors are also important. Green link colors for ads tested very high
o bucket testing (segmenting users into control groups and test groups)
o changing colors can increase revenue (7%-15% in one example based on 200,000 people
· blue color schemes generally win across all demographics
· Brand, Brand Halo - blind 'taste tests' remove branding from websites for blind
User Generated Content
· Use when appropriate (ie travel rating sites, Google Sketchup/Google Earch)
Attention Economy is real
· People trying to do more at once with technology (cell phones, ipods, facebook, myspace)
· multitasking is overrated (it takes ~15 minutes to return to a task you were deeply concentrating on prior to interruption)
· one study estimated interruptions and recovery time at 28% of employee time
· attention has economic value (free cell phones with voice ads, Slate.com customers can pay to have ads removed)
Search Engine Optimization
· SEO increases your likely hood of showing up based on the algorithm and what the user expressed
· trip Advisor gaming Google (the phrase 'Las Vegas' was memtioned 62 times per page on this small site)