This week’s remainders
November 29th, 2007
The email standards project “works with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email”. I hope things go as well with this as with the web standards project in moving and improving the ability of all to deliver compelling, easy-to-build email. While you are at it be sure to check out David Greiner’s great advice in Ensuring your HTML emails look great and get delivered.
I love The New York Times and how they tackle stories online. For example, view the video then read the article. Good journalism. A powerful story of a man vindicated and trying to find his place in the world. Pictures, sound, story all have their place.
Gotta love this demo video for Google Maps with My Location (Beta). The use of paper cutouts (likely from the user-concept planning) and the simple, yet straight-forward summary of the functionality. I’d love to see a financial institution doing something like this to introduce their unique value proposition or reason for online banking.
Zopa is partnering with some Credit Unions in the U.S. The relationship smartly protects lenders with Credit Union deposit insurance and no fees for lenders and borrowers, while allowing credit unions to expand their lending base. This will be interesting to watch over time, though in Canada lending isn’t a problem for credit unions, deposits are. Can you say “disintermediation” or “commoditization”.
Wufoo has released their new form gallery. Grab a pre-made form, download the HTML or add to Wufoo quick and easy.
Which foods go with other foods? Think no longer. Go to Foodpairing.
Safari (Leopard) and Wordpress don’t like each other. One view and another. I’m back to two many browsers. Apple made me move to Firefox (er, actually, WASP, Firebug, SearchStatus, SEO for Firefox and the Web Developer extensions made me move to Firefox).
Enquiro open house Dec 1
November 26th, 2007
If you are considering a move to Kelowna, B.C. or looking for a new gig and an excuse to move, be sure to check out Enquiro’s upcoming open house on December 1.
For those who don’t know, Enquiro is a privately held search engine marketing firms, with a well established practice in SEO, SEM and Internet Marketing and clients like Siemens, Microsoft and Contiki Holidays. They’re also one of Canada’s fastest growing companies (Profit Magazine). I’m a regular reader of Manoj Jasra’s blog, Web Analytics World and this should be a busy afternoon. Bring your resumes.
Real ease-of-use with hCard
November 26th, 2007
When we launched the new NSCU.com site back in June, we deployed hCard support on our Contact Us page. Deploying the microformat was easy for Dan and Stuart and even though it is not used a lot, it’s a nice progressive touch that makes it easier for customers to grab our contact details and add it to their address book. If you don’t use hCard you likely didn’t even notice we added it 
Recently I came across a great use of hCard to reduce the need to create another profile. At Satisfaction, the sign-up page uses hCard to let you signup using an existing profile (e.g. Twitter, Upcoming, Technorati, Flickr, Last.FM, or one of your choosing), thus reducing the need to jump through a complicated signup.
I wonder if someday we’ll see a similar, yet secure way to access your accounts. Leveraging hCard, OpenID or other standards? Wouldn’t that be great if you could check your balance, send a twit to a friend for some money you owe or pay a bill and archive the receipt on Flickr.
This week’s remainders
November 21st, 2007
Campaign Monitor’s testing suite allows you to test your design in all the different email clients for just $10 per test. Also includes views with images on/off, vertical or horizontal preview pane as well as SPAM and firewall tests. Nice for those working on their own.The Juice Analytics chart chooser is a handy tool. Based on Andrew Abela’s Choosing a Good Chart (PDF)Local Vancouver firms Raincity Studios acquires Bryght - two great Vancouver companies get even better as one. Look forward to seeing what comes out next.I must have missed Google’s foray into 411 service: 1-800-Goog-411 looks great and has an excellent video intro and a contest to name the voice behind the service.OX2 and IndexTools have teamed up. Well done to all involved.All in our SEO efforts seem to be paying off. Our index rank is 9 out of 10 with the competition far behind.
WAA breakfast series
November 19th, 2007
The IIMA is hosting kicking off the WAA Regional Event breakfast series in Vancouver, BC on December 4, 2007 with Jim Sterne (guru) and John Hossack from VKI Studios. John is showing a case study for Google Website Optimizer and Jim will be talking about “maturity of the web analytics industry, the level of expertise among practitioners; challenges and opportunities; and the role we (web managers, marketers and analysts) play as companies adopt the continuous improvement method of marketing optimization”. $20 for WAA, BC AIM and IIMA members; $40 non-members. Register now.
