Period Three Blog

Dec022008

Not for Sale

Posted by Gene in Business

I’m really happy to see a site like Digg announce they are in it for the long haul. It seems like every week I read about some start-up or another getting acquired or going down. I know raising venture capital is possible and then it’s always possible to get rich by turning your company over to the highest bidder. But, if you are inventive enough to come up with an idea that’s as great as DIGG and you are so close to actually making profit with that company then why wouldn’t you go for it? What ever happened to starting up a business and trying to make that business profitable so you could live and work and grow old together?

In an interview with BusinessWeek, Digg Chief Executive Officer Jay Adelson says the popular news aggregation Web site is no longer for sale, and the focus of the company is to build an independent business that reaches profitability as quickly as possible. That means the four-year-old startup will dial back some of its expansion plans, instead prioritizing projects that generate revenue and profit. (from BusinessWeek Online)

I know it’s insane to think of bootstrapping your business venture and working hard to see it turn a profit in today’s world and all. Why wouldn’t you want to have a company make a profit without owing any outside investors anything in the end?

Also, You can’t just write off Digg’s decision to not sell as a result of the economy/recession, so don’t even go there…

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Nov112008

Microsoft = OpenID

Posted by Gene in Technical, Web Development, Social Web

This fairly big news, Microsoft is making their Live ID an OpenID provider service. That could be big for OpenID since Microsoft is so big. I personally like using OpenID, it was a bit buggy at first but it seems they’ve worked it all out now.

Beginning today, Windows Live ID is publicly committing to support the OpenID digital identity framework with the announcement of the public availability of a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the Windows Live ID OpenID Provider.

They go on to say:

All Windows Live product teams are committed to supporting open standards where such standards are relevant to our work and when they reach a sufficient level of maturity, and the Windows Live ID Team is no exception. We have been tracking the evolution of the OpenID specification, from its birth as just a dream and a vision through its development into a mature, de facto standard with terms that make it viable for us to implement it now.

Also, with Google having added OpenID to Blogger, they now look poised to roll it out for general Google apps, like Gmail, etc… Neat.

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Nov032008

Frustration-Free Packaging from Amazon

Posted by Gene in Business

If any of you have kids then you’ve spent at least 15 minutes per gift opening up the ridiculous packaging that comes with it. Its always driven me crazy. Amazon’s new “frustration free packaging” is simply genius.

The Frustration-Free Package (on the left) is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It’s designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging (on the right). Products with Frustration-Free Packaging can frequently be shipped in their own boxes, without an additional shipping box.

This is so genius in my opinion it borders on being inspiring.

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Oct282008

CAN-SPAM updates to the law, what you should know.

Posted by Gene in Uncategorized, Email Marketing

On May 12th, 2008 the FTC updated some of its rules concerning the CAN-SPAM law(s), that should concern any of you that practice email marketing. The extended measures attempt to address 4 areas, in their words:

(1) an e-mail recipient cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than his or her e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender;
(2) the definition of “sender” was modified to make it easier to determine which of multiple parties advertising in a single e-mail message is responsible for complying with the Act’s opt-out requirements;
(3) a “sender” of commercial e-mail can include an accurately-registered post office box or private mailbox established under United States Postal Service regulations to satisfy the Act’s requirement that a commercial e-mail display a “valid physical postal address”; and
(4) a definition of the term “person” was added to clarify that CAN-SPAM’s obligations are not limited to natural persons.

Here’s the skinny in my opinion:

Overall it’s about “permission” if someone doesn’t give you permission to send them email, don’t send it to them. This includes “forward, send-to-a-friend forms and people sharing lists with you.” Don’t do it, you can get in trouble. They also identify the “sender” as the person or company behind the email campaign - where it should be.

FYI: If you didn’t know, or never bothered to look up the name, CAN-SPAM stands for “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing”. I’m thinking the name is actually getting outdated… Read the updates here.

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Oct222008

Things to come: Swiftpress

Posted by Gene in Period Three News

We’ve been hard at work on something new. We’re working on a new release of Swiftpress. It’s a much simpler, scaled down version of our current application. We’ve had really good success with Swiftpress and want to bring it to the masses, with a similar system but with far less features. I know it sounds backwards, but just wait you’ll see how cool it is for sending your email messages quickly, simply and without large “interface overhead”.

Here’s a sneak peek:

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Oct062008

It’s all in the details #1

Posted by Jay in Details

(This is the first of hopefully many posts that pull out little details from sites, shedding light on how it’s the little things that add up to make sites deep, cool, and interesting.)

We’re political junkies around here, so political blogs are probably more frequented than any other ‘type’ of site. Except for design sites, of course… But really, it’s hard these days not to pay attention to what’s going on. The Caucus blog at NYtimes.com, while being a really great read, is also, like the rest of the NYT site, designed really well. It’s a beautiful site. And one little detail that really does it for me is the “related” section at the bottom of each post. It’s just a well-designed little nugget of information, on the left is more links to other blog posts, and my favorite part is on the right, the all-caps green title of other blogs. It’s just somehow the perfect choice, it’s the only green on the whole page and it just pops out. Here’s an example, just scroll down to right above the comments.

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Oct032008

Twitter use by both candidates

Posted by Gene in Marketing, Social Web, Twitter

This is a really great article on how both candidates are using Twitter. It starts off a bit anti-McCain, get past that though and read deeper, this guy has some really good insight on how effective use of Twitter should be considered. I personally watch a good bit of Twitter chat-traffic myself and when people use it to just post out their latest blog post, using it as just another medium to broadcast a single point of info, it tends to fall and be less “special” to other Twitter(ers).

…they [Obama’s posts] all have a similar format: “Barack is here. Click here to watch him live.”

B-O-R-I-N-G tweets to me but still I can see how these little updates add value to his supporters who may want to see Barack campaigning on the trail rather than someone like me who wants to know what he’s having for lunch.

To me, authenticity matters most, and this is another example of Barack running an unauthentic online campaign. This is the opening that John McCain’s campaign could use to catch up.

Full post here

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Sep292008

The real difference between liberals and conservatives

Posted by Gene in Random Stuff

It’s not quite 20 minutes long but you really need to watch Jonathan Haidt’s recent talk at TED. He’s a bit of a speed talker so listen carefully (not being preachy, just really, he talks fast.) Listen/watch here.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we’re left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.

Haidt asks, “Can’t we all disagree more constructively?” He suggests we might build a more civil and productive discourse by understanding the moral psychology of those we disagree with, and committing to a more civil political process. He’s also active in the study of positive psychology and human flourishing.

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Sep242008

Technorati: State of the Blogosphere 2008

Posted by Gene in Marketing, Blogging

Technorati has released their State of the Blogosphere 2008 report, which is all based on a blogger survey they conducted which we were part of here at Period Three and unmatchedstyle.com.

For the first time, we surveyed bloggers directly about the role of blogging in their lives, the tools, time, and resources used to produce their blogs, and how blogging has impacted them personally, professionally, and financially.

Generally they report that Blogs are here in a HUGE way, they are mainstream now and most large scale media organizations are entering or have entered the Blog space. Mostly the big brands, chances are that if you are a big brand you are launching or have launched a Blog presence on the web. They also go on to recognize that chances are really high that if you are a big brand then whether you’ve launched your own controlled Blog presence or not, you already have one, for good or bad. Bloggers are already going to be talking about you (much like off-line word of mouth, duh.)

The most interesting piece of info was the reported money Bloggers are making, apparently if you have 100,000 or more visitors a month your making more than $75K - sign me up!

The majority of bloggers we surveyed currently have advertising on their blogs. Among those with advertising, the mean annual investment in their blog is $1,800, but it’s paying off. The mean annual revenue is $6,000 with $75K+ in revenue for those with 100,000 or more unique visitors per month.

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Sep242008

Oktoberfest

Posted by Gene in Random Stuff

So it’s officially Oktoberfest time again. I for one will be partaking in some sausage and seasonal beer sipage this weekend, just something you gotta do.

Millions of Oktoberfest fans all over the world have been waiting for this day: last Saturday the major of munich tapped the first barrel of beer and said the famous words “O’zapft is” which traditionally mark the beginning of the worlds most famous festival.

So if you can’t be in Munich this year, you can at least get yourself a Spaten and enjoy some Bratvurst.

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