Notice Anything Different? My Site Has A New Color Scheme!
October 16, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been working with a talented young person to revise and revamp the look and feel of my blog. The new design went live sometime last week but in case you only get my posts via Email or RSS - visit the site and take a look.
I’ve brightened things up, reorganized a few pages, and have a new header that’s more descriptive of what I do. This site is definitely a work in progress, but this is a step in the right direction.
I couldn’t have done this design refresh without the care and help of WebSketchz.com, Meji did some design work, tweaked the CSS code, and went through a bunch of revisions and nitpicking with me. She did great work and I’m glad to have worked with them.
Please have a look around and let me know what you think. By the way, very soon I’ll be Creative Commons’ing all of my content so let me know what YOU would like to see on this site.
links for 2008-06-09
June 9, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
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Yum!
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Some good things to keep in mind if nothing else.
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Interesting Idea.
links for 2008-06-06
June 6, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
New Research on Premium Branding
April 21, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
This weekend I got the chance to sit down and read some of the huge stack of magazines that I previously hadn’t had time to read. I certainly didn’t make it through all of them, but a couple caught my eye. One of the most recent ones is the April 28th edition of Business Week.
One of the first things I noticed was that they are really trying to be trendy in their page design. They’ve got highlighting, charts and fly-aways, and some interesting section headings (like BTW). Since this is the first time I’ve noticed these things, I guess that tells you how often I read Business Week. It’s no fault of their own, magazines just aren’t as high a priority as working through the 1000+ headlines in my RSS reader in the evening (I often cheat and hit “mark all as read” if in general the headlines aren’t grabbing my attention in any particular folder of feeds).
But back to the post at hand, in this week’s BTW there is a short blurb about premium branding. As in, another researcher just did the old “wine tasting” test again. Where essentially they blindfold people and tell them they’re trying a $5 bottle of wine, and then a $45 bottle of wine… People inevitably choose the $45 bottle as tasting better even though the wine came from the same inexpensive bottle.
It’s a nasty trick for those of us easily influenced by marketing. But it illustrates something larger, since people still respond to premium branding. Shouldn’t you be interested in branding yourself as a top-shelf whatever you are?
I think that in the age of personal, and professional branding that more attention should be paid to finding out what makes a brand premium or not on the web. Is it different than in the brick and mortar world? What makes an online brand premium? I would argue that it’s easier to “fake” a premium brand on the Internet. If by image alone, the raw talent of the magnificent graphic designers and writers out there should be able to pull off a premium distinction.
That’s not to say that consumers on the Internet are more more susceptible to being abused, in fact customer service and having the solid foundation to support a premium brand is harder to fake. People using the Internet for research, entertainment, or learning gain the skills necessary to figure out “fake” premium brands. There is no long-term shortcut. As in the brick and mortar world, your image can get your foot in the door but it’s your content and substance that makes the sale.
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-04-10
April 10, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- Looking over some NAB materials and hounding on my development team to get Contributr back online in time for the conference season #
- Trying to figure out what the heck my Contributr developers have been doing for the last several weeks, not being micromanaged, nor working. #
- Wow that last Tweet was a Twoosh! (The sentence was 140 characters by complete accident) #
- @rosshill Nice find! reTweeting: Restaurant that uses Tumbler as their web site: http://blackbirdbuvette.com/ #
- @rosshill I like all of the Twitter interface changes I’ve found so far today, let’s hope it doesn’t get ‘cluttered’ #
- Why didn’t anyone tell me Flickr released video today? I must be out of the loop this week. #
- It’s not as exciting as you might think but here’s a tag-cloud generated from my Tweets http://tinyurl.com/6o63pw #
- @coreygreenberg You’re using AMP? I don’t run into people who have tried, much less use Adobe Media Player. #
- @CreativeSage Are you campaigning against RickRolling?
# - @efortiz Yeah, it’s a decent enough app, I talked to some of the original devs from AMP last year and it’s "heart" isn’t in the right place. #
- @CreativeSage oic, I haven’t watched the episode yet, it’s on the list though. #
- Retweeting: ijustine: Wanting to hit all the btchr’s complaining about flickr video: http://tinyurl.com/6xbelc #
- @acafourek what hardware do you have again? I don’t think my old PowerBook could handle all that #
- @acafourek that’s a nice setup, I’m looking at MBP’s pretty seriously right now, I get this thing maxed out all the time #
- @britter @chrisbrogan I’m going to have to have my parents Tivo it or something for next time I visit them. I keep hearing good things a … #
- @gerik do you love your Flip video? I got one a couple weeks ago, but NAB next week will be my first big test of it #
- I got my new business cards in today-they match my online branding, Convergence Journalism and New Media Specialist, including my twitter@ #
- Good morning Twitterville, it’s raining really hard this morning #
- @thewebcoach, have direct mail campaigns for social networking sites been effective for you? #
- @conniereece I’m still making up my mind on Everyone being w/ other tabs but I think it’s more Usable now, I see myself clicking on it more. #
- Contributr.net is back online, sans our beautiful new design, the design is done, the coding for it is not #
- Anyone out there who follows me or not from Vermont? @ or DM me please! #
- @awest FlipVideo has a lot of amazing potential to be used lots of ways, it one of my favorite gadgets right now. #
- @digitalmlewis The people behind Kickapps are very good people, I’ve met with them, and it’s a great product #
- I’m meeting with the startup incubator interested in Contributr here in a couple hours, wish me luck! #
- @misslacey123 ugh? #
- @singlegalDC Thanks! Been a while since we’ve talked, everything going well? #
- @leeodden Congrats on 1,000 after 1,400. That’s a much higher conversion rate than I have with my 316/3370 ratio. UR a good value!
# - Headed home from my meeting with the startup people, I’ve got some "next steps" to get started on, first thing, my patents and ownership … #
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-04-09
April 9, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- Hello Twitterville, busy at work this morning finishing up plans for my NAB attendance next week #
- @dsilverman Keynote is a solid presentation app, it hasn’t let me down yet. #
- @chrisbaskind You are lucky! I never win European or Australian lotteries I’ve never entered, will you share with the Twitterverse? #
- @juancarzola True, don’t let the bumps in the road knock you off course for success. #
- @shawnz @blondebydesign ditto, and no kidding, it is odd to think that’s how we know each other. #
- @chrisbrogan What’s happening in Chicago today? #
- @maratriangle What a great way to raise awareness of your situation. Congrats on coming to Twitter! #
- @Ronna Looks like there are several UI changes this morning. #
- @maratriangle I’ll certainly take a look and see if I can help in other ways. #
- Good afternoon Twitter, the job search continues again today, I’ve got to take a serious look at my strongest leads #
- @mightykenny No I couldn’t make it to the coffee tasing, job interview. #
- @TheLowdown That excellent! #
A Contributr Update
April 8, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
The Contributr team has been taking a little break recently, and that’s not a good thing. We’re trying frantically to make up time but other commitments got in the way.
Colby Palmer has been working on a complete redesign of the web application and the AIR desktop application and is doing a great job. He’s a great designer and a great guy and we’re glad to have him on our side! The difficult part now is pulling together all of the little bits and pieces before NAB next week.
I’ll be there presenting Contributr to the industry and friends and I’m really hoping we have the new design implemented enough to use it for our demos. It is a HUGE improvement over our first user interface and I’m very proud of it.
Thursday I’ll meet with the Missouri Innovation Center again to look at some of the business possibilities behind Contributr and its market viability as an early-stage startup. I hope that I’m able to take Contributr with me into my next job and continue working and enhancing it for the news media, and the public.
It would be a disservice not to give Contributr a shot and continue development.
So wish us luck as we try to get version 1.1 of Contributr out the door and ready for more widespread testing.
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-04-02
April 2, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- This is the first time in a while that UPS has failed me, my Amazon package should have been here yesterday (Prime 2-day shipping) #
- VERY tired today, but need to make some progress on upcoming projects. #
- Writing up some recommendations for my web host, I’m not real happy with their support right now #
- @nbostic MediaTemple, I love them, phone support is great, but ticket support is extremely slow #
- What is the deal with all the "Podcasting" sessions scheduled at NAB? Is the News Biz that behind? #
- How do YOU support/design/develop for IE? do you follow all the ‘exceptions’ in your code? or say good riddance? #
- @rosscbrown not quite actually, it will after the June V.2 software update. It WILL work with Exchange over IMAP though #
- @rosscbrown As far as I know all of those will be operational when that new software comes out #
- Just off the phone with PBS Engage/Interactive, lots of exciting things happening. Hopefully I can help #
- I’ve been on the phone with MediaTemple for 27 minutes now, the "db server you site is on is ‘having issues’" #
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-04-02
April 2, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- This is the first time in a while that UPS has failed me, my Amazon package should have been here yesterday (Prime 2-day shipping) #
- VERY tired today, but need to make some progress on upcoming projects. #
- Writing up some recommendations for my web host, I’m not real happy with their support right now #
- @nbostic MediaTemple, I love them, phone support is great, but ticket support is extremely slow #
- What is the deal with all the "Podcasting" sessions scheduled at NAB? Is the News Biz that behind? #
- How do YOU support/design/develop for IE? do you follow all the ‘exceptions’ in your code? or say good riddance? #
- @rosscbrown not quite actually, it will after the June V.2 software update. It WILL work with Exchange over IMAP though #
- @rosscbrown As far as I know all of those will be operational when that new software comes out #
- Just off the phone with PBS Engage/Interactive, lots of exciting things happening. Hopefully I can help #
- I’ve been on the phone with MediaTemple for 27 minutes now, the "db server you site is on is ‘having issues’" #
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-03-26
March 26, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
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