Thwapr, a mobile-to-mobile video-sharing program that launches its public beta today, is focused on creating an easy-to-use cross-platform solution for sharing photos and videos with other people, regardless of what type of phone they use.

The Problem With Current Options

The problem with current mobile-to-mobile video- or photo-sharing options is that they don’t work reliably with different platforms. Sure, I can send an MMS message to practically anyone, but that photo is often tied directly to my phone. If I switch devices or lose my phone, my photos are gone too.

The other big problem is that although services like TwitPic exist, they focus mostly on smartphones. My mom still has an old Motorola Razr. She can actually record and view video, but obviously she can’t get a TwitPic-compatible application, which makes it hard for us to share photos.

Even among smartphones, the different video standards can create a problem for users. Sure, YouTube is supported on more and more mobile devices, but it’s not universal.

Thwapr’s Solution

Thwapr is a free service that addresses these issues. Utilizing SMS messaging and e-mail, you can send video and photos to almost anyone with a cell phone. Thwapr supports more than 170 different devices on carriers in the U.S. and Canada (international countries are coming soon).

Here’s how it works: A friend can send you a picture or a video using Thwapr. You get notified by an SMS message that gives you a link. That link will take you to a site that has been tested across mobile browsers and then it will display the photo or encode the video (on the fly) in a format optimized for your mobile device.

You can then respond to that message, or “thwap” by either entering a comment or sending your own photo or video back to the person. You can upload using e-mail, and on devices that lack e-mail support, MMS. I did a number of real-time demos with Thwapr’s CTO yesterday and I was impressed with the speed with which I could both send and receive video or photos.

Simplicity and Cross-platform Is Key

The key to Thwapr is that it works with so many different platforms. You can use it on a BlackBerry, an iPhone, an Android device, and the new Nokia N900 and Palm devices (from the old Palm OS and webOS). You’re notified that your upload is complete via SMS or e-mail (you can choose how you want to be notified) and you can add users to your friends list to easily send stuff their way.

Future Plans

Thwapr is opening up its public beta today, but the company already has some big plans. Not only is Thwapr deep in development on an iPhone app, but it is also looking at ways that people can respond directly to thwaps by placing orders. Think about the possibilities of marrying something like a Thwapr video of what’s going on with Haiti with the ability to donate by responding to a Thwap.

Thwapr is also looking at geo-location so that advertisers can do sponsored thwaps to local users, which opens up all kind of cool possibilities. A movie theater could send thwaps to subscribed users with a new movie trailer and you could pre-order tickets in response.

Sharing video via mobile devices is only going to get bigger, but cross-compatibility is key. This is why Thwapr is so exciting.

Tags: mobile video, thwapr

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The document contains tips, discusses different approaches, and includes a few sample e-mails to show you what a message describing an accessibility problem can look like. Shawn Lawton Henry talks about the initiative a bit more in Take a few minutes to encourage web accessibility. You can make a difference. on the W3C Blog.

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Posted in Accessibility.

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Google is new to the mobile business and one can very well see that! Moving on past the 3G issues of the newly launched and highly acclaimed Nexus One, which are surely going to be fixed soon enough, we encounter another problem with Google’s policies regarding Nexus One sales.
(…)
Read the rest of Google Adds Nexus One ETF Over Carrier ETF [Google to Charge You an Extra $350 for Dumping Your Nexus One Contract Early]

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I love coming across a plugin or script I haven’t used before that really solves a problem for me. I figure if I get frustrated with something in Illustrator, there is probably someone else out there that has the same problem. A recent frustration of mine was selecting Effects in Illustrator. Luckily I stumbled across the Select Effects Plugin from Worker 72a.

The Problem

I use Adobe Illustrator Effects and other plugin effects with Illustrator extensively. I probably use a set of effects from the Phantasm CS plugin the most. I use the color editing capabilities of Phantasm CS on almost every illustration I create. When I have an Illustrator document with many paths and objects, I sometimes forget what object I have applied an effect to. This can become frustrating when sending a file to print or delivering the file to someone who doesn’t have the plugins and effects you used to create the piece. Then it is a laborious task to find each individual object with an effect to expand. That is where the Select Effects Plugin comes in handy.

Select Effects Plugin Details

• Creator: Worker 72a
• Price: Single User License(s) $25.00 / Site License $250.00
• Platform: Mac only (sorry Windows!)
• Illustrator Compatibility: CS, CS2, CS3, CS4

Basically the plugin adds several selection options to the Select Menu. Once installed you can see it adds the function to select objects that may cause problems when printing or flattening, including:

• Effects
• Blend Modes other than “Normal”
• Opacity settings less than 100%
• Raster images with alpha (transparency) channel
• Art with Opacity Mask
• All of the above at once

In the example below I created a set of icons for stock art and applied some Hue and Saturation adjustments with the Phantasm CS plugin to some of the objects. After I was done, I would have had to go through all the objects to find where the effect was applied, then expand them. With the Select Effects Plugin, I just simply go Select > Object > Select Transparency & Effects > Effects then expand the color adjustments. Awesome!

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If this has happened to you before here is what I think the main problem is and a solution to deal with it.

If you are an affiliate marketer it is highly likely that you take the following steps when building a successful campaign:

1. You build a landing page to suck in as many leads as possible
2. You follow-up with these leads via a targeted email autoresponder campaign
3. You drive traffic to this new campaign

In a nutshell, you build a highly successful sales funnel, meant to sell a product or several related products, and you drive traffic to that funnel in a number of ways.

After building this successful sales funnel what happens if you don’t seem to be getting any sales? You get plenty of leads coming in, which means your traffic is converting, but the sales seem non-existent. Why is this?

Well, the first thing I would do is check my email follow-up series. There must be something wrong with my email sales copy, or my links, or the way I am pre-selling the offer.

But what if you are getting a ton of clicks to your products but no sales? Is it the product itself that is the issue? This could be. You really cannot be 100% sure of the problem at this point, and you may never know. The product itself could be a dud.

Well, I have had many campaigns like this over the years and I usually would just let them go and move on. That was until I experienced a very successful campaign, which had a consistent sales conversion rate and everything working properly, just stop working. Not a little bit either. The sales went to ZERO, overnight.

I spent some time asking other affiliates about this and found out it was a pretty common problem. I also found out what that problem was and how to combat it too. It is unfortunate that many affiliates do not understand what is really going on with their commissions.

I’ll try to explain a little of what could be happening to your sales in this article.

The most frustrating thing of all is that it is highly possible your sales funnels could be making a ton of sales and that you are just not getting credited with those sales. In other words, you are doing all of the work and someone else is getting your commissions. That doesn’t sit well with me and should not sit well with you either.

The Problem: Affiliate Link Theft

Without getting too technical, here is what is happening.

Your affiliate ID is being changed to someone else’s at the point of sale, either manually by the user, or via spyware on your computer which was placed there at some point while you were online. You could also be a victim of “cookie stuffing” which many affiliates do to try and protect their own commissions from link thieves.

The problem is that this “cookie stuffing” sometimes steals sales from others as well. These “cookie stuffing” affiliates are just trying to protect their own commissions but they don’t realize they are becoming part of the problem.

Any of these things can stop you from receiving credit for the sale even though you’re the one who should have made it. You cannot stop ALL commission thievery online, but to stop any of it at all you must implement affiliate cloaking into your campaigns.

Link cloaking is when you create a redirect, or a hidden frame redirect on your website that hides your affiliate ID’s and makes it nearly impossible for spyware programs to tinker with your affiliate links at the point of sale.

If you start incorporating affiliate cloaking into your business today you can make a huge difference in your bottom line. It is very possible that you are losing 30-50% of the sales that should be yours. I certainly was.

So now that you know you need affiliate cloaking, lets look at the right and wrong ways to do it.

Choosing A Link Cloaking Service

There are tons of programs and software packages online claiming to be able to help you cloak your links. Many of them are offered for free even. I would not suggest that you go with the first one you find for many reasons. You need to make sure that the link cloaker you use has been created specifically for affiliate marketing and not for some “black hat” seo tricks.

There are not as many affiliate cloaking systems as their are seo cloaking and regular link cloaking software programs so you need to be careful what you choose.

Do NOT Use Free Cloaking Services

I understand that everyone is looking for a bargain these days, but when it comes to your affiliate commissions be willing to do what is best for your business. The most notable free link redirection and cloaking services online are those provided by companies like tinyurl.com, bit.ly, budurl.com and others.

These services started out as a way to shorten long URL’s but have recenly been taking steps to supply affiliates with link cloaking too.

The problem with many of these services is that they don’t work with every kind of affiliate link or program, and many times will actually hinder your ability to get visitors to your site!

The horror stories are too numerous of people who used redirection services such as TinyURL and Bit.ly and lost commissions. Many spammers use these services to try and cloak their links too, which results in many of these links not being accepted as viable URL’s by spam filters and other email services.

It is in your best interest to not use these services at all.

The Best Link Cloaking Service

The best link cloaker is one that you can upload to your own servers so you don’t have to worry about anything breaking down or not working properly.

This means you could create a separate website to house ALL of your cloaked links, or upload the cloaking script to each individual website you are promoting and create site specific links.

Depending on which way you want to go (I actually use both methods) it can be difficult to accomplish any of it if you are not a web programmer, or don’t want to outsource the project to someone you are not sure you can trust.

With all of the different options available out there in regards to link cloaking it is very important to spend some time learning about the concept from an affiliate marketing standpoint. Once I got hooked up with the right cloaking systems my commissions doubled practically overnight for many of the products I was originally having trouble selling.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Affiliate Cloaking: How To Double Your Affiliate Commissions Overnight

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Your customer may believe they are purchasing something based on need, but in reality, they are buying a “feeling.” The feeling that ownership gives them. This is a 100% emotional act.

Being friendly and honest in your sales letter is only the beginning to keeping your customer’s interest. And, although you can address the “WIIFM” with a clear list of benefits for buying, the tone of your sales page must also deliver the same message.

Writing a successful sales page is not difficult if you treat it as though you are writing to one person…not to a crowd of strangers. The tone and feel of your sales copy must make your customers feel as though they are part of your business. This is not difficult if you treat them as though you were talking to a close friend.

Never write your copy as though you were talking “at” someone. That’s a sure fire way to loose your prospective customer early on. You must talk “to” your customer. You must be personal and make them feel special.

Pay attention to any sales copy that stimulates you into buying. That’s the easiest way to become adept at writing great sales copy. What is their approach? Start noticing the tone used on the websites that you frequent…including your competition. Pay attention to the ones that make you consider buying a product or any that keep your attention long enough to read the entire page.

What emotional appeal does their sales copy stimulate in you? That’s what you are looking for. Determine what was said by reading the sales page over a few times…what emotional trigger was used to tempt you to buy. Whether you buy or not is irrelevant…it is enough that you were tempted.

In order to deliver a passionate response from your customers, your marketing copy needs specific attention to every word and every sentence. Allowing your personality to show through is a large part of this process. Note your own reaction to sales pages that are cold and impersonal.

Infuse your personality into your sales page. It is not difficult to be friendly and passionate when writing riveting sales copy. Remember, selling and buying is an emotional act and must be treated as such.

Should your sales copy or emails concern solutions to problems, you can make your sales copy personal by admitting that you have experienced a similar problem many times. Reveal how you handled the situation, add details about the problem and how it affected your life or business.

Never be afraid to admit failure, frustration or any self doubt you may have experienced. Admitting these things will only make your more human and approachable by your audience.

When you open up on a personal level, your customer starts bonding with you and that creates loyalty and a sense of belonging. Don’t be afraid to explain how your product or service solved your problem or made your life easier. Rather than just listing benefits, present them as tools that will make your customers life easier, fulfill a need they have or solve a problem.

Whatever you do, never emulate those late night TV commercials. High pressure may work in that environment, but it is death to an online marketer.

Keep it real, write as though you are speaking to one individual…make it personal, address a need and you will experience success.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Each Customer Is Unique

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One of OpenID’s biggest proponents thinks part of the problem lies in the name.

Identity guru and noted open source advocate Chris Messina breaks it down in a post on his Factory City blog, where he lays out his ideas for making OpenID “both easier and sexier” for the general web audience.

Consider OpenID in the shadow of Facebook Connect, its far more successful competitor based on Facebook’s proprietary platform. Forget that Facebook is much more widely known than OpenID — the real problem is that Facebook Connect is attached to an actual thing you can log in to, a website you can visit, a company you’ve heard of.

OpenID, on the other hand, is more nebulous. Your identity… on the web… portable… everywhere… what?

Everyone knows what Facebook is, so add “Connect” to the familiar Facebook logo and most people can work out what’s probably going to happen — the site you’re using is going to connect to your Facebook account, and some information about you and your friends will be shared between the two.

OpenID lacks the brand recognition of Facebook, not just because of Facebook’s fame, but because Facebook is a website and OpenID is an abstraction.

Messina suggests adding “Connect” to OpenID so that it mirrors Facebook Connect, Twitter Connect and other sign-in systems might help. And Messina’s rebranding — the snazzy black button above — is certainly a step up from OpenID’s current logo and branding.

As for the “connect” aspect, Messina gives a layman’s definition of OpenID as “a technology that lets you use an account that you already have to sign up, sign in, and bring your profile, contacts, data, and activities with you to any compatible site on the web.”

In order to do that, however, Messina is proposing more than just a name change. He’s suggesting that OpenID be repackaged as a profile of the OAuth WRAP protocol. The idea is that OAuth WRAP could handle the actual connections between the websites sharing data and OpenID would then offer a standardized way to pass along profile data, relationships, access controls, and activities (what you’ve “liked,” “loved,” “favorited,” etc.).

So, how would that simplify OpenID for new users? For one, it would help solve the “NASCAR problem” — current implementations of OpenID often display a half-dozen or so sign-in options, and the effect is similar to the garish mish-mash of ads covering NASCAR vehicles. It’s visually and psychologically confounding.

Messina’s design would mean that, instead of an assortment of rainbow-colored logos from Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and other OpenID providers, there would simply be the singular black button above. He admits that after you click the shiny black button, the NASCAR problem might still be there on the next step — at least for now — though he does promise some additional screenshot mockups and suggests that “the browser could handle this at an earlier stage.”

See Also:

• OpenID: Over One Billion (Potentially) Served
• Facebook Announces Support for OpenID Logins
• OpenID Is Here. Too Bad Users Can’t Figure Out How It Works

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Twitter is once again “frozen in time” this morning as users’ timelines fail to display the most recent tweets of those they follow. Instead, users are seeing tweets from about 10 minutes ago, and very few of them at that.

We’ve been noticing the problem for at least 30 minutes (as of 11 a.m. ET), both on Twitter’s website and in third-party applications. Twitter search, however, seems to be showing at least some tweets as they happen (and you can see all the people complaining about their timelines).

No update yet from Twitter on what’s happening and when it might be resolved. We’ll keep you posted.

Tags: twitter

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Gmail has an array of useful and unique features that have really made e-mail a slightly more pleasurable experience (or more aptly, a less painful one). We love the fact that you can undo sent messages, stop yourself from e-mailing the wrong person, and customize your navigation bar.

While those are great features, a new feature Google released today solves a problem that I and many, many others have: the ability to merge all of your duplicate contacts.

If you e-mail enough people, you’ll find multiple listings for your friends and businesses partners, especially if they have multiple e-mail addresses. If this clutter problem bothers you as much as it bothers me, all you have to do now is click the “find duplicates” button in Google Contact Manager. As I can attest to, the process is extraordinarily painless, efficient, and fast.

Let the decluttering begin! I merged nearly 100 contacts; how about you?

Tags: gmail, Google

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Originally posted at News – Security

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You’ll get what you’ve paid for: probably a search engine death penalty.

If you took out an ad in a local paper for £75 you would get no 2 lines of text on a page that most people won’t read. You will not get into a national newspaper for that amount, full stop.

There are SEO companies out there who will say they can do SEO for a £100 per month, or £150 etc but I wouldn’t ever use them – you’d be better off getting a freelance seo guy just starting out in seo and hoping he was good, for that price.

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Is it possible to accept feature creep as a natural (or at least inevitable) process?

Many websites begin to fail when their goals change or their scope expands.

Feature creep sets in when a client asks for one tiny adjustment that takes only a minute… and then never stops making requests.

Accepting feature creep as a natural process requires an ability to distinguish between a genuine need and a run-away imagination or “Wouldn’t it be great if…”

Clients naturally want to squeeze as much work from a budget as they can. Sometimes, designers and developers must say, “No, that’s beyond what we agreed on.”

But not all requests for change are penny-pinching; and like the web, projects and businesses change over time: stores have seasonal sales; businesses develop new products; online services refine their processes; publications release fresh content. Change happens.

Avoid Solution-Creep

Clients may know their business, but they hire web experts for their web expertise. Feature creep sets in when clients forget that and treat designers as tools instead of problem-solvers.

Being able to explain to overly enthusiastic non-web folks which techniques and technologies are not appropriate for a given website is a tedious war of attrition.

But designers presenting themselves as problem-solvers, and not mere coding monkeys, is vital to their relationships with clients.

The key is to make the client bring problems, not solutions. Say the client learns about Twitter. It’s all the rage, they’re told. So they want it. Now.

In the long run, the effort of writing tweets will prove frustrating unless the tweets create measurable benefits. Instead, ask the client whether they need a Twitter account that posts to the company blog or simply need higher-quality blog posts?

Here are some examples:

“I want a vibrant design” is a solution, not a problem.
“What would make the website look vibrant?” is a design problem.

“I want a search tool” is a solution, not a problem.
“Customers aren’t finding our products” is a design problem.

“I want an RSS feed” is a solution, not a problem.
“What means of communication are visitors to our website most likely to expect and use?” is a design problem.

“I like this other website’s design” is competition-envy, not a solution.
“You’re not them,” isn’t an adequate response either.
Rather, “How do you want customers to perceive your business or organization?” would get the conversation back on track.

If your question, “What do you think of this logo?” is followed by uncomfortable silence, then turn it around with a one-two punch: “How do you want customers to view your brand? What visuals would your customers associate with those qualities?”

In each case, the feature creep can be handled by turning “I want” into a question for the designer, not the client, to solve.

Question Everything Up Front

Learning to ask seemingly unrealistic questions is important and, with some practice, surprisingly fun.

For example, when would a website need more than one home page? Or what if a coffee shop started selling videos?

Such questions only seem ridiculous if you’re thinking about immediate problems.

Consider multiple home pages. Returning visitors might not need the full introduction that newcomers would. In that case, a home page that shows recent highlights would work alongside a home page that has a general overview.

Google’s Website Optimizer helps track which of your home pages generates more meaningful traffic.

One strategy is to triple your highest expectations. Imagine three “Contact us” pages, thirty categories instead of ten, and three levels of navigation instead of one. Or how would you handle a page of content if it became three times as long?

Another strategy is to cut everything by one-third. What if you wanted to design web pages for mobile devices? How could a 960-pixel-wide design fit into a 320-pixel-wide screen? What if the website generated only ten sales per month instead of one per day? How would the “About our team” page change if the staff of 15 were cut to 10?

Before signing any contract, scan for these crucial words: “a,” “an,” “the” and “one.”

Before: “The website will have a list of services.”
After: “The website will have several lists of services organized by topic.”

Before: “The contact form will send an email to the owner.”
After: “The main contact form will send emails to the owner and, depending on the subject, facility coordinator, technical support or lead salesperson.”

Before: “The header will be orange.”
After: “The home page header will be orange. Inside page headers will be half as tall to emphasize the content.”

Before: “Membership profiles will include a phone number and email address.”
After: “Membership profiles will contain contact details, including phone numbers (office, home, other), fax numbers, email addresses and three open fields for mailing address, Twitter and Facebook accounts and the like.”

Before: “The blog will be organized by date.”
After: “The blog’s default screen will show posts by date. Posts will be organized with tags; the page will be designed not to look empty when it has only five posts; and visitors will be able to browse at least 500 posts.”

The best plans aren’t limited to a specific design but account for a range of parameters. Problems are only ridiculous when you’re handed one at the deadline.

Genuine Needs

No system can account for every scenario.

Most can adapt to small, incremental changes over the website’s lifespan, but when band-aid solutions outnumber the initial problems, it’s time to bring up the word that no client ever wants to hear: “rethink.”

When starting from scratch is more efficient than fixing the changes that solved earlier problems (but broke other things), the biggest hurdle is convincing everyone involved that drastic change now is better in the long run.

Then you need another word: “cost-effective.”

Patching code or tweaking layouts appeals to designers, developers and clients because it’s quick. They scratch an itch with minimal effort. And the more people cringe at fixing a website that breaks with the slightest touch, the less likely anyone will suggest a bigger headache.

But that’s a sure sign that change is necessary. Draconian feature creep happens when technical folks and designers genuinely dread making changes. You know the project: the one with the case history with its own filing cabinet, with the owner whose voice makes people shudder, and the rambling processes that require user manuals that no one has the time to write.

Such projects cost more than money. They’re morally draining resource hogs that sap attention from newer, nimbler projects and cause enough teeth-gnashing to carry dentists through the recession.

War against this type of feature creep begins by defining problems, including the problems that arose from the symptom-solving solutions.

Approach complete rethinks by looking long-term, both into the past and future. The website was great back then, but things have changed. Technology has improved. The client’s products or services have evolved. Customers are more (or perhaps less) sophisticated or have different needs.

Devise a plan to make this transition practical. The details depend on the nature of the website but amount to the same thing: convincing the client that the drastic cure is no worse than the current chewing-gum-and-bailing-wire course. This is psychological war as much as it is technical problem-solving.

It Will Happen

Most feature creep takes two forms: an itch that a client wants to scratch and a genuine need for change.

If you can phrase the demand as a question, then you position yourself as a decision-maker, rather than someone who follows the client’s every ill-informed whim.

Realize that change will happen. A website that never changes is a black pit.

Ben Gremillion is a freelance web designer who has learned that clients respond well if you can keep your temper when they lose theirs.

How do you deal with feature creep?  Please share some of your experiences with us…

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Everyone respects and has air kissed everyone else, no one harbors hard feelings, the whole burning bush in a mousetrap is passing into one more half-forgotten legend of the internet, except for this:

Dear folks who compare using Favrd to having a problem with drugs and alcohol, please stop.

Checking to see if people liked your joke on the internet is not a problem. Compulsively checking to see if people liked your joke on the internet is hardly a problem in the sense of, say, compulsive hand-washing or coupling or masturbating. If checking to see who liked your joke on the internet is a problem you actually struggled with in 2009, consider yourself wildly blessed and thank God whether you believe in him or not. If you truly believe that, by closing Favrd without notice, Dean Allen freed you from a self-destructive cycle of self-abuse, don’t be surprised when your therapist bitch-slaps you.

Losing one’s home was a problem in 2009. Losing one’s job was a problem in 2009. Checking a website to see who liked one’s joke does not even make the top 1,000,000 problems of 2009.

Lying awake shaking and crying because you have no more cocaine or heroin or alcohol is a problem. Not caring if that next hit kills you, and quietly hoping that it does—there is a problem, and shutting off a website won’t fix it.

Hoping people will understand your joke does not compare to any real suffering on this planet of suffering, no matter how out-of-control you may think you were, and no matter how grateful you are that someone fixed you by shutting off their website.

And, just so you know, recovery doesn’t mean the drug dealer disappears. It means walking past the guy who sold you dope and not needing it any more.

Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=3225

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Despite the fact that “sexting” (trading steamy text messages) has become quite the problem in schools today, James Lipton has managed to get a laugh out of us with his PSA warning kids to refrain from trading pictures of their junk.

It’s common knowledge that teens are all about getting textual, but there’s been a recent rash of coverage in the media dealing with how the under-21 set is misusing the technology. In short: while you used to steal away under the bleachers for a quick…you know…today’s kids are letting their fingers do the talking–on their iPhone keyboards.

Naturally, LG turned to Lipton — of Inside the Actors Studio fame — to remedy the problem via their Give it a Ponder campaign. The result is a hilarious, if not slightly creepy, video that is likely to have absolutely no effect on today’s youth, who have no idea who Lipton is.

Tags: inside the actors studio, james lipton, LG, PSA, sexting

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The ongoing war of words between Verizon and AT&T has come to an end — in the courtroom, anyway. According to CNET, AT&T has dropped the lawsuit it filed last month against Verizon that claimed ads comparing the respective coverage maps of each carrier were misleading.

As anyone that watches much TV can attest, the ads continue in full force, with Verizon airing a seemingly unending array of commercials slamming AT&T’s coverage, and AT&T responding with its own ads attacking Verizon’s weaknesses and spinning the coverage story in a more positive light.

Here’s one of Verizon’s recent ads that ran over this past weekend:

AT&T didn’t seemingly have much of a leg to stand on in this case, as Verizon’s current batch of ads clearly indicate that the map comparison is based on 3G coverage. But worse than that, the telecom giant has a big perception problem at the moment. A new Consumer Reports study published yesterday indicated that AT&T had the lowest customer satisfaction among major wireless carriers in the US.

How does AT&T fix the problem? In the long run, the only option seems to be simply to improve its service, which is much easier said than done.

Tags: advertising, att, verizon

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This may be a bold statement to open this post with, but This* Web Hosting is by far the best web hosting I’ve ever encountered. I’ve used them from the very start of PSDFAN, and honestly couldn’t be happier.

However, rather than throw useless terms like ‘professional’ and ‘reliable’ at you, I figured I’d give you some insight to just how they’ve ‘wowed’ me over the last couple of years. These points aren’t worded in some slick sales pitch, it’s literally me thinking off the top of my head about some of the great experiences I’ve had using This*. If you any further questions feel free to ask and I’ll let you know my experience.

(Oh and if that wasn’t enough I’ve ever included an awkwardly posed picture of me in a This* T-shirt they sent me )

1. They helped move all of my files and sites over from my previous web host at no additional cost.

2. They continually improve their hosting deals, often upgrading all clients with more space and better value packages simply to improve their hosting experience.

3. They are SMALL and PERSONAL. This is perhaps the biggest reason why I love This*. They are a much smaller company than huge hosting providers such as HostRocket and HostGator. For that reason you get the most personal service ever. If I ever have a problem it gets dealt with not in some corporate, distant way, but like talking to a friend or work colleague. I’ve literally built up a great support relationship with the guys at This*. They go out of their way to get to know my sites and businesses, even commenting on my blogs from time to time.

4. Despite being smaller they offer truly powerful hosting solutions. You’ll have to go to their site to check out all their specs, but all I can tell you is that their hosting is much faster than any other hosts I’ve been with in the past. They know what they’re doing.

5. If I ever have a technical problem they’ll respond incredibly quickly (almost always within a few hours), and will work with my to get it fixed (or just correct it instantly themselves). With other hosts I’ve received responses like ‘try this’. With This* it’ll be more like:

“I’ve fixed the problem, this is what happened in plain English, and I’ve put in these measures to stop it happening again, do you need anything else?”

By far the best support I’ve encountered with any company, not just hosting.

6. They’re not out to get my money. This* actually seem to go out of their way to reject my money. There have been times where I’ve thought I need to upgrade to a larger package and they’ve helped me work out ways to stay on my current package, and have far more room to spare than I did previously. Thanks to this my hosting costs have remained incredibly low, even as PSDFAN has grown considerably. They could have taken more money from me and I’d still have been a very happy customer, but as it is I’m a completely shocked (in a good way).

What They Say

David Myers, one of This* WebHost’s founders say this about their services:

“We’re very anti-overselling, meaning that we don’t crowd too many people on our servers. Because of this, in almost two years of providing public hosting we’ve yet to have a single period of unplanned maintenance or downtime. We try to be as up front as we can about what we offer (and don’t offer), and we feel that is the way hosting should be done.”

A lot of people don’t know about over selling (I certainly didn’t before I used This*). To put it simply, if you’ve ever used one of the better known very larger hosts, they try and get as much money as possible by crowding far too many people on to their servers. If one or two clients use more server resources than expected, then there is no safety net, and all of the other clients on the server suffer. With This*, they provide great service, rather than simply trying to make as much money as possible. This way, if clients use more resources than expected, no one suffers.

You can read more about over-selling and how This* web host feel about it in this great article:

Guide to Web Hosting: Part 1 – The OverSell

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Update: Facebook has informed us that they’re looking into the problem and will provide more details soon.

-

A quick check of Twitter confirms it: Facebook is down. The world’s largest social network is having some type of uptime issue that is affecting at least a large swath of users.

According to our tests (which involved clicking “refresh” many times), Facebook.com will sometimes load after multiple attempts, but there’s clearly a problem. So it’s not just you: Facebook is indeed down.

We’ve put in a request for more information with Facebook to see what’s wrong. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more.

Tags: facebook, trending

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Chris Allison is a social media strategist at NeboWeb, where he helps clients make the most of the social web. You can follow him on Twitter as the voice behind @Neboweb.

In the midst of all the noise surrounding social media marketing and emerging technologies, we sometimes get caught up in the grandeur of the transition and forget how this all actually works. When you start looking around, it’s easy to think that what makes a campaign successful is some strange, quirky factor. It’s true, there’s a lot of potential to use these tools for trying out new things and creating out-of-the-box experiences, but that’s not the point. The bottom line is that social media offers an opportunity to bring something useful to your customers. To learn how to do it, look no further than the world of food chains, mobile vendors, and top of the line restaurants.

Below are three lessons from the world of food that will help you better utilize social media to bring value to your customers.

1. Play to your strengths

When it comes to convenience, no one does it like fast food. People don’t eat fast food because it’s hot and delicious — though that helps — people eat fast food because it’s cheap, the food comes out quick, and there’s almost always a place to get it nearby. It’s convenient in all respects. With that in mind, anything a fast food company can do to become more convenient is worth considering. This is an important concept to remember when setting out on your social media campaign, and a lesson well learned from a few top fast food brands: play to your strengths.

With the iPhone now claiming 18% of the mobile market, it makes sense to customize a tool for this growing market. Fast food leaders Chipotle and Pizza Hut have both implemented applications for ordering through the iPhone, and we can expect more of the industry to follow suit. Why? Because, while making an iPhone application may not be groundbreaking, these particular applications play to the strength of the fast food industry — convenience. With all of the options laid out before them, there’s perhaps no better way to create another level of convenience than taking the ordering process mobile. It’s simple, but effective.

What are your strengths? Whether it’s quality, convenience, your image, or low prices, social media provides ways to simply and effectively play to your strengths.

2. Solve Old Problems

Playing to your strengths is a straightforward and reliable approach, but sometimes there’s a great opportunity hidden behind your weakness. One of the ways companies have been so successful with social media is by using this new avenue to solve old problems. Perhaps no one has created such an uproar on this front than a group of now-famous food trucks.

You see, if you’re a food truck, there’s one problem that historically has haunted your customers: they don’t know where you are! Children relish the mystery that surrounds the ice cream man’s appearances, but I think we adults are more in favor of reliable grub. But, we’re also in favor of tasty grub, and it can often be found inside a moving food truck. What to do?

Thanks to Twitter, food trucks like the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck (BGICT) and Kogi’s BBQ are solving this age-old problem with a simple solution. They tweet their location. Wow! Simple? Yes. Problem solved? Yes. Massive following? Yes!

If there’s one thing you can take away from these quirky food trucks it’s not do something crazy and you’ll get attention. It’s solve an old problem and you’ll win customers. It’s not that personality hasn’t played a part in their success, but the fundamental innovation that has driven their momentum is the old problem now solved.

3. Answer The Big Question

If you’re thinking about diving into social media for the first time, you might be thinking on a more fundamental level than solving big problems or playing to your strengths. Social media is, well, social. It’s about talking. There are a lot of things you could be saying, but an excellent tactic is to answer the big question. If you say nothing else, answer the big question.

What’s the big question? It depends on your business, but one of my favorite examples comes from one of my old stomping grounds, Madden’s Casual Gourmet, a hidden gem and my favorite hometown establishment. Madden’s personal and friendly e-mails regularly answer their customers’ biggest question: what’s on the menu? Because the chef has something new every weekend, this is an incredibly useful reminder. Plus, it’s a great entry point for their marketing message. E-mail isn’t the latest way to use social media, but, if used properly, it’s still an effective tool to get people talking. Madden’s proves that it’s not which tool you use that matters, but which questions you answer.

Conclusion

All of these companies have had success with their efforts because they were able to create something useful for their customers. When you begin crafting your social campaign, keep these strategies in mind. If you’re able to enhance your strengths, solve a problem, or answer a big question, you’re probably headed down the right track.

More business resources from Mashable:

- Why Social Media Is Vital to Corporate Social Responsibility
- HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI
- 5 Important Web Video Lessons for Small Business Owners
- Top 5 Must-Read Social Media Books
- HOW TO: Use Twitter Hashtags for Business

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, kjohansen

Tags: business, iphone, Lists, restaurants, social media, twitter

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Movie studios are none to happy by the growing decline in DVD sales. So, what’s their solution to the problem? Target the cheap movie rental companies like Netflix and Redbox and force their hand into delaying new movie rentals after release, which would give consumers no other choice than to purchase the DVDs.

According to PaidContent, Redbox, the kiosk distributor, is fighting back with lawsuits, but Netflix is ready to deal.

CEO Reed Hastings is apparently trying to barter with the studios and, in a recent earnings call, has been quoted as saying, “if we can agree on low enough pricing for delayed rental, it could potentially increase profits for everyone.”

Another source is reporting that Netflix would delay rentals by a period of one month in exchange for paying 50% less for movies from studios. While we think this is a terrible idea for both Netflix and consumers, the Video Business article makes an excellent point about why the movie distributor can afford the one month hit, while Redbox cannot.

Netflix’s core business is catalog transactions, which make up about 70% of its revenue. That should help ease an introduction of a 30-day delay on new releases, since most Netflix customers are relatively more interested in older content. Redbox, with nearly 100% of its business in new releases, sees the delay as more oppressive to its operations.

While we understand that studios are anxious to up their DVD sales, we believe this to be the worst way to go about solving the problem. Punishing consumers for an industry problem is a bad idea, and potentially creates a situation where more people are open to watching and downloading pirated movie content. Here’s hoping that Netflix rethinks this strategy.

[via The Consumerist]

Tags: movie rental, netflix

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Now this a big statement I know, but I wanted to get out my opinion on what I believe to be the biggest website mistake ever and why you need to address this problem immediately.

So what is it you ask?

Well, it’s pretty simple really –
It’s thinking that someone actually cares about you and your website.

Most people when they have a site designed think that everyone is just going to love everything about it. But guess what, it is so not true and the only person that really cares is you. Because you designed it for your needs and not your audience, but the worst thing is, that the visitor who was just on your site, has gone to your competitor, sorry about that!

So what is it, that visitors do care about?
When someone is surfing the web with purpose, their ultimate goal is to solve a problem, either they require some information, want to make a purchase,  be amused or be part a group or community. They will fit somewhere into one of those sections and if you can’t help them find the solution they will just move on to the next website that can.

Does your site solve that problem?
More often than not, it will not be suitable. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of very good websites, but the majority just don’t help me solve that problem.

So if you can take anything away from this post, take this: Does your website solve a problem? If it doesn’t, then do something about it and you never know, your web success might be just around the corner.

Have your say! I want to know what you think is the biggest website design mistake or what you think about this post!

Related posts:

1. What Does a Great Website Consist of?
2. 10 Valid Reasons in Redesigning a Website
3. The Important Things Any Website Needs To Succeed

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For creatives and non-creatives alike, sometimes the issue that arises is not necessarily a block of ideas, in fact, there may be times when you have an over abundance of inspiration, but you just cannot seem to get started. For whatever the reason, we come across the times when we are unable to find the drive to push us forward and into action.

Remember this is an open discussion with the creative community, so feel free to chime in below in the comments to keep the flow of dialog moving. After leaving the discussion open for the month, we will be compiling some of the responses into a post on the topic at hand, so be sure to keep checking in on the talk as things develop.

What Gets Your Creative Butt In Gear?

Alright everybody, the torch has been passed…Discuss!

Sponsored by

Advertise on Fuel Your Creativity.
Fuel Your Creativity 2009 cc (creative commons license)

Creative Discussion – What Gets Your Creative Butt In Gear?

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Picture this: you’ve been waiting for a popular product that’s been available in most other parts of the world for two years. When it finally arrives, it lacks an important feature. Would you buy it, or would you buy the same thing, cheaper, with this feature included, on the black market?

This is the problem China’s Unicom is now facing, as the iPhones sold in that country lack WiFi.

This was known for some time now, but, starting today, iPhones are coming to Chinese stores, and the folks at Unicom probably feal uneasy.

Yes, you can live without WiFi. But it’s an important feature, and paying 4,999 yuan ($730) to 6,999 yuan ($1,025) for the iPhone might be too much for the Chinese who can buy the regular 3GS with WiFi on the black market for about $835. Adding insult to injury is the fact that the iPhone is manufactured in China. Finally, add to that the cost of connecting to the net – with the WiFi you can at least sometimes do it for free – and you might get a lot of very unsatisfied customers.

Luckily for the Chinese users (and Unicom), this might be just a temporary problem. WiFi was temporarily banned in China, where an alternative, called WAPI, is pushed by the government. WAPI stands for WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure, and it is the controversial Chinese National Standard for Wireless LAN. It caused a US-China Trade Dispute, and it was rejected by ISO (it has recently been resubmitted for approval).

However, the WiFi ban was lifted soon after the production began, and the next batch of iPhones that come to the market might actually have the functionality enabled. A Unicom spokesman, Yi Difei, is an optimist. “We are talking with Apple and expect the problem to be solved by the end of this year,” he said.

That’s all fine and dandy, but knowing that a non-crippled version is coming to the market soon, who will buy the iPhones that are in stores now?

Tags: china, iphone, wifi

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So many people look at Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as a game of influencing the keywords that are important to their business, but they don’t realize that SEO can also be used to diminish the negatives in the search results.

Are You Losing Business As Result Of A Bad Review In Google?

Remember that guy who bought your product 3 years ago, and he did not follow the instructions for use, and then complained about how your product let him down? He could be hurting your business right now.

How do you measure the sales that your business is losing, because some guy complained on some website about how your product or service is “crap”.

A Real World Example

Ah… I remember when I was selling TV’s for a living.

There was this fellow who came into the store and bought a 52-inch projection screen TV. We had a bonded delivery crew on hand to help people get their purchases home, but although this guy had just spent $2400 on a television set, he decided that he did not want to pay $40 for delivery of his new TV set. I bet you can see where this story is going…

So, we loaded his new TV in the back of his pickup, and he proceeded to tie down his TV in the back of his pickup truck.

He thanked us for his TV and started the drive home.

45 minutes later, our most recent happy customer pulled into the parking lot, toting a big-screen TV box.

As we went to meet him at the door, we could hear the glass falling as the box moved across the floor.

He was pissed! And to our surprise, we were at fault!

You might be asking yourself why we were at fault. That is a good question, one I even posed at the time.

We were at fault, because we did not offer free delivery!

A gust of wind had caught his box, snapping the twine that he had used to tie it down, blowing his $2400 Phillips Big-Screen TV onto the highway.

He said it was our fault, because we should have given him free delivery. Never mind that we had already given him a $300 discount on the purchase of his TV.

We had offered him bonded delivery, but he refused, and now it was our fault that his TV was broken.

The store where we worked was one of those chains that keep all of the power to make things right at the home office. We could not simply exchange his TV, without permission from our superiors. If we had authorized the exchange with the guy, without the District Manager’s permission, the company would have taken the cost of the Television out of the salesperson’s and the manager’s paycheck.

I was the assistant manager, and I was NOT going to pay for this guy’s broken television. The company did not pay me enough to fix this problem for them, out of my own pocket.

We called the DM. Of course, even though we worked until 10 at night, the DM went home at 6pm. So, we kept dialing his cell phone number, until he answered the phone.

He was pissed, but that was okay. We were already dealing with “pissed”, so we did not mind two people pissed at the same time.

Thank God I was not the manager in charge that night. Thank God for small favors…

Our District Manager said the guy was tough out of luck. I am glad I don’t work for those clowns anymore.

I agree that it should not have been our responsibility, but surely we could find a solution for this guy. After all, he just spent $2400 with us.

Nope. The District Manager said No, then he said No, and he said No again.

So, the DM hung up telling us not to call him again that evening. And we were left with the poor guy who had just signed a two-year finance contract on a TV that was busted to hell.

Yes, I bet the guy pays for delivery next time. But the story does not end here…

It Wasn’t Your Fault, But It Is Your Problem…

The story now moves online. It moves into the newspaper. It moves onto our sales floor for more than a week. It goes ballistic…

The customer went home that night, and turned to the power of the Internet with his complaint. A few days later, he followed his Internet complaints with a paid advert in the local newspaper. Our store was getting skewered.

The guy was in the store every day, throwing a tantrum. And he was spending his money and his time to skewer us for letting him make a foolish decision.

It just worked out well for him. On about his tenth trip to the store, throwing his daily tantrum in front of people who were looking to buy a TV, he just happened to arrive on a day that the DM was in the building. Ah… A new face behind the counter. The customer picked out the new face in the building as being someone over us. And wham, he let the District Manager have it, with both barrels…

Persistence paid off in this case.

He overwhelmed the District Manager with his complaints.

The District Manager broke down and did only what the District Manager could do for our customer. He used his privileged status to type in the appropriate commands into the computer and make things right for this guy.

In the end, we got him a new television for the price of delivery to his house.

The store ate the cost of the new television. (I ended up paying a portion of the TV anyway, because the bookkeeping department deducted the price of the television from the sales sheets for the month, so some of my monthly bonus was lost when that man’s television was cut from the store’s profits.)

The victory that we received was that the guy was not in the store every day scaring away our customers.

But that victory came only after we took a serious hit in our Reputation Management. Every person that guy talked to for the ten days after his purchase, up until he got his replacement, knew that he had a bad experience with us. What is more, everyone who read his paid advert in the newspaper knew that he had a problem with our store. Even more, who knows how long his complaint survived online…

You know what they say, “What is posted online, stays online.”

I left my job at that store in 2005. That store closed in 2008.

I am not going to say that the store closed on account of that guy’s complaints. But I am willing to say that the store was hurt by the guy’s complaints. He did manage to drive a lot of prospective customers out of our store, during his daily rants. (I just checked and could not find his complaints online anymore.)

I am willing to bet that the store closed due to the recession. It closed about the same time that Circuit City bit the dust.

I think this story clearly illustrates that a problem does not have to be your fault, in order for your business to pay a high price, as a result of the problem.

Does Applebee’s Really Suck?

To help illustrate the extent of this problem, I just typed into Google the name of my favorite restaurant, Applebee’s, the name of my town, and the word “sucks”.

I saw dozens of Google search results that were in effect saying that my favorite restaurant “sucks”. Many of them went to describe this restaurant as having the “worst food ever.”

Wow!

Now to be sure, restaurants everywhere suffer from this treatment. And the big name brand restaurants can survive, because their large customer base has a different opinion.

But what if you are a local restaurant or an obscure Internet company?

As an permanent online fixture, I tend to be jaded about the complaints I read about others. But I have to admit, while one or two complaints will not sway me, several complaints in the search results will even cause “me” to hesitate.

Can you afford for jaded internet marketers like myself to hesitate?

You can bet that if we “jaded internet marketers” are hesitating to purchase what you sell, those “who are not internet marketers by profession” are running away from you!

Fixing The Problem…

You are already aware that by utilizing SEO techniques that you can help your website rank better for some keywords in Google and the other search engines.

But did you know that you can also create a wealth of positive reviews for your business on a variety of web pages, and to get those positive reviews to rank higher in the search engines than the negative reviews?

This is how we help our customers.

We use our SEO expertise to get the positive reviews of our client’s website to outrank the negative reviews of our client’s website.

If we get enough positive reviews to occupy the top of the search results for the target keywords, then those negative reviews of our client’s website will be buried on page two, three, four, five or six of Google’s search results.

If people will NEVER SEE the negative reviews of your website, product or service, then as far as most people are aware, there ARE NOT ANY negative reviews. If there are no negatives about your business, then everything must be positive.

You are in control of your business’ reputation online, if only you are willing take the reins and force the negatives down in Google’s search results.

We know that not everything in the search results is true or honest. After all, the guy with the broken TV was blaming us for his bad judgment. We know that you may not deserve what is in Google’s search results that is affecting your online reputation in a negative way.

If you don’t let us help you get the negatives out of the sight of your prospective customers, then do it yourself or hire another company to do it for you. Because as long as those negative reviews exist in Google’s search results, there is a good chance that someone is going to let those negative comments prevent them from buying from you!

About The Author:

Bill Platt has provided SEO services since 2004. In 2009, he transformed his SEO service, into one that helps people defeat negative search results in Google. By improving the rank of positive website reviews in the search results, negative search listings begin to disappear from the public eye. If you would like to learn more about how Bill’s Reputation Management SEO service can help your business, visit: http://911reputation.com/ Bill has also owned http://thePhantomWriters.com/ since 2001.

Read more articles written by: Bill Platt

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How Is Your Reputation Holding Up In Google’s Search Results?

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Consider the load of pain I found myself in when working on a conversion of a 3D third person shooter from the PC to the original PlayStation.

Now, the PS1 has no support for floating point numbers, so we were doing the conversion by basically recompiling the PC code and overloading all floats with fixed point. That actually worked fairly well, but were it fell apart was in collision detection.

The level geometry that was supplied to us worked reasonably well in the PC version of the game, but when converted to fixed point, all kinds of seams, T-Junctions and other problems were nudged into existence by the microscopic differences in values between fixed and floats. This problem would manifest itself by the main character (called “Damp”) simply falling through those tiny holes, into the abyss below the level.

We patched the holes we found, tweaking the geometry until Damp no longer fell through. But then the game went into test at the publisher, and suddenly a flood of “falling off the world” bugs were delivered to us. Every day a fresh batch of locations were found with these little holes that Damp could slip through. We would fix that bit of geometry, then the next day they would send us ten more. This went on for several days. The publisher’s test department employed one guy whose only job was to jump around the world for ten hours a day, looking for places he could fall through.

The problem here was that the geometry was bad. It was not tight and seamless geometry. It worked on the PC, but not on the PS1, where the fixed point math vastly magnified the problems. The ideal solution was to fix the geometry to make it seamless.

However, this was a vast task, impossible to do in the time available with our limited resources, so we were relying on the test department to find the problem areas for us.

There’s never time to do it right, but there’s always time to do it over. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. I have at times found myself slipping into this pattern, continually patching the same code over and over. It’s the kind of code that, when submitted for code review, you’re tempted to self-deprecatingly introduce as have you met my dog, patches?

While “patchiness” isn’t always a bad thing — the venerable Apache HTTP Server is testament to that — it’s probably an exception.

the original FAQ on the Apache Server project’s website, from 1996 to 2001, claimed that “The result after combining [the NCSA httpd patches] was a patchy server.”

Reading the Gamasutra article shamed me into to attacking a section of extra-patchy Stack Overflow code. Code which I constantly had to tweak in various ongoing ways to get it to work right. But first, I had to get over my fear. Fear. That’s what led to all the patching in the first place. It was obvious this was working code which had become crufty over time, but it was working. And it’s one of the core bits of functionality in the site. In those circumstances, it’s easy to mentally justify “just this small change, just this once” rather than the fundamental rewrite you really need.

When you finally realize you’ve spent the last six months telling yourself the same “just this small change, just this once” lie, then you’ve met your dog patches, too.

Now what are you going to do about that rascally scamp?

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Of course there isn’t a problem for you – you aren’t colour blind… (For the record, neither am I.)

The problem is twofold:

• Explaining and showing examples of the difficulties that people with various colour vision deficiencies can run into
• Helping designers avoid those problems

One website that attempts to do this is We are Colorblind. On the site you can find design patterns, good and bad examples, quick tips, and links to various tools. I think the examples section is very good since the accompanying text explains why each example is good or bad.

If you think something is missing from the site, go ahead and Suggest a pattern or example.

Posted in Accessibility, Graphic Design.

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If you’ve ever run into this annoying little Illustrator problem, it can be very frustrating, but it has a simple fix. Every so often you may find that no matter what color you select, Illustrator converts your selection to grayscale…

Why? Well if you open your Color palette (Window>Color), you’ll most likley find that it’s set to grayscale. (like below)

All you have to do is set your color palette to something else, like RGB or CMYK. Now you’re good to go. Personally, I have no idea why this problem has made it all the way to CS4. If I wanted to fill a shape with a gray, I’d choose a gray.

a

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It’s not just you: Twitter is suffering downtime this morning, although the outage doesn’t affect all users. Minutes ago, Twitter updated its Status Blog to acknowledge the problem:

Responding to network connectivity problems: We are currently investigating a problem whereby some Twitter clients in widely scattered network locations are unable to connect to twitter.com.

Twitter apps are also affected by the downtime, but again this is not universal. We’ll update when we have more information.

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Here are the top 10 popular programming puzzle sites that will help test your thinking and improve your programming, problem solving, and logical thinking skills.

1. Programming Praxis

Programming Praxis is a blog that includes a range of interesting problems with solutions usually available in several different programming languages.

2. CodeKata

CodeKata is a blog of programming puzzles written by Dave Thomas, who’s most famous for the groundbreaking book, Pragmatic Programmer. The puzzles involve many issues that are directly relevant to real world programming so this is a good place to brush up on your coding skills.

3. TopCoder

TopCoder is an active programming community of developers who love to solve puzzles. There are many active challenges and some of them with cash prizes.

4. Project Euler

Quoted from their front page: "Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve " The puzzles featured on the site range from relatively trivial to seriously complex!

5. Facebook Engineering Puzzles

Facebook has a collection of very challenging programming puzzles that–should you manage to solve them–could result in you getting a job at Facebook! Solutions are accepted in a variety of languages including Erlang, PHP, Perl, Python and Ruby.

6. Python Challenge

Python Challenge features riddles that ask you to write small Python programs to solve. The difficulty level gets progressively harder and more cryptic. This is an excellent site for programmers/developers that like problem solving!

7. Al Zimmermann’s Programming Contests

Al Zimmermann’s self-described "arena where demented computer programmers compete for glory and for some cool prizes" is a great way to participate in the programming community. Contests run every six months.

8. Ruby Quiz

Ruby Quiz is a collection of Ruby programming challenges that is updated weekly. Although made for Ruby, these challenges can be solved in other languages.

9. C Puzzles

C Puzzles features programming puzzles specific to the C Programming language (and all of its quirks). Since many languages are C-style or derived directly from it, even if your native programming tongue isn’t C, there’s a strong likelihood that you’ll still appreciate and understand these puzzles.

10. 99 Prolog Problems

99 Prolog Problems is suited to the Prolog programming language but people have provided solutions in Python, Ruby, Haskell, Scala and others. Working your way through these problems is a wonderful way to pick up a new language.

* Bonus: Mind Cipher

Mind Cipher wasn’t included in the top 10 because this site doesn’t require you to do any programming. It does, however, include the "world’s greatest brain teasers, logical puzzles and mental challenges", so if you’re just out for a quick mental workout this is the place to go!

Do you know of any other good programming puzzle sites, or perhaps specific challenges? Leave a comment, and/or send me a tweet!

Related Content

• Four Ways Ruby on Rails Can Help You
• The 15 Most Popular Text Editors for Developers
• 20 Websites That Made Me A Better Web Developer
• Related categories: Resources and Web Development

About the Author

Ben Dowling is a passionate software developer who specializes in web and mobile application development. He currently works for Mendeley in London, UK, and regularly blogs about development at Coderholic. You can also find him on Twitter.

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Google has announced a major update to its Maps service which adds detailed data from several U.S. government databases and improves the system for users to report errors and make corrections.

With this week’s update, Google Maps has added more detailed map information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Census Bureau to more accurately show map results in non-road areas, including parks, college campuses, hiking trails and bike routes.

Google Maps has also made it easier for its users to report problems, taking a step in the direction of crowdsourced projects like OpenStreetMap. Of course OpenStreetMap, which offers wiki-style, user-editable maps, is well ahead of Google when it comes to letting users to contribute roads, locations, routes, place-names and photos to maps. The new Google Maps feature stops short of allowing you to do the actual editing of street-level data. Rather, it simply gives you a channel through which you can report a problem, which is then edited by someone at Google.

To alert Google of an error or problem on a map, just right-click on the area in question and the drop-down menu will have a new option to “report a problem.” It’s not nearly as slick as OpenStreetMaps, which allows you to simply correct the problem right then and there, but Google does promise to resolve any reported issue within a month.

Far more useful than correcting Google’s mistakes is the additional data that’s been added to the maps, pulling in information on public parks, trails and paths. Even better, the Google Lat/Long blog says the new trails and paths data and the new cycling directions will eventually be added to Google Maps’ route planning features. Google Maps has also added building maps for many college campuses and now offers parcel maps in many U.S. cities.

It’s encouraging to see Google and the U.S. Government collaborating to make Google Maps more complete. But while the new features are incredibly useful in some context — finding all the bike paths in a nearby park, for example — the sheer amount of data being gathered into Google Maps verges on overwhelming.

In fact, that’s one of the primary reasons many developers are turning to solutions like OpenStreetMaps.

While Google’s new features are a welcome addition, the maps offered by Google lack much of the flexibility found in OpenStreetMaps. Unlike Google, which provides all its geographic data in a single layer, which is then displayed on the map, OpenStreetMaps allows you to pick and choose which layers are displayed in your maps. For example, if your map application needs to show trails, you can highlight that layer. If you’re just interested in streets, then you can omit the trail data.

The result is a cleaner, more customizable map that provides only the data that interests your users. The trade-off is a more complex interface, though projects like TileDrawer are helping to make OpenStreetMaps more accessible to developers.

See Also:

• ‘Tile Drawer’ Makes Hosting Your Own OpenStreetMap Server Dead Simple
• Where’d You Go Last Summer? Flickr Allows OpenStreetMap, FourSquare Geotags
• Google Maps’ New ‘Place Pages’ Break Usefulness of Local Search
• Google Maps V3 Offers Easier, Faster API

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Unfortunately, many solo professionals don’t put the same kind of time and thought into their marketing message. They put up a website, perhaps, that goes into great detail about how it is they can solve their clients’ problems. Then, they can’t understand why no one is buying.

It’s because they haven’t developed a core marketing message. What, exactly, is your core marketing message? It’s the message you want to get across to your potential customers. It’s the thing that will convince potential customers that you have the answer to their problem. The success of your business will, ultimately, depend greatly on how clear and effective your core marketing message is.

Introducing Yourself

One of the reasons you’re marketing your business is so that people will choose to hire you. That sound’s rather basic, but it can be overlooked. Your marketing message needs to say who you are. Making sure your name, or your business name, is included in your marketing efforts will help insure that, even if the potential client doesn’t hire you right away, they’ll remember you for when they are
ready to buy.

In the process of introducing yourself, don’t get carried away. Talking about yourself can distract your potential customers and, in many cases, push them away. They’re not interested as much in who you are as they are in what you can do for them.

In some niches, it can be useful to provide some biographical information. For example, you might say, “I am Dr. Rogers, and I am a physician at State Hospital” or “I am Jan Smith, a certified clinical psychologist.” If your niche has recognized certifications or associations, you can certainly include this information in your marketing. As a general rule, however, brevity is best.

Identifying Problems

The next thing you need to focus on in your core marketing message is a problem that needs to be solved. People buy things, and they pay consultants and coaches, to solve problems. This is true for just about any consulting business. If you’re a writing coach, your clients have a problem with their writing ability (or with selling their writing, perhaps.). If you’re a weight loss coach, your clients probably have a weight problem. If you’re a back pain coach, your clients have back pain.

It seems basic, but identifying the specific problems that your coaching solves is integral to your core marketing message. You want to reach people that have a need, and then say, “Hey! You there! I can fix that!” That is how you get clients’ attention. That’s how your potential clients know you’re talking to them, and how they know you have something that they just might want to listen to. Think about some of the most effective commercials and marketing campaigns you’ve seen.

Acne medications don’t start out their advertisements by talking about ingredients. Instead, they say, “Are you tired of not looking your best?”

They identify a problem right away: with acne, you don’t look your best. Your core marketing message should address a problem or problems of your target market. Make a list of the top problems in your target market – perhaps three to five problems – and decide which ones you can solve. Focus your marketing efforts on these.

Offering Outcomes

The natural thing to do, once you’ve identified a problem, is talk about solutions and processes. However, when it comes to your core marketing message, solutions and processes need to take a back seat.

You see, people out there who have a problem aren’t looking for methods. They aren’t looking for a process. They aren’t even looking for solutions.

What they want are outcomes.

The person with back pain doesn’t want medicine. They don’t want exercise, physical therapy or coaching. They want to be free from back pain. The person with acne doesn’t want hydrocortisone creams or UV treatments. They want to get rid of their acne. It’s not enough to identify problems; potential customers know they have problems. Identifying problems is just how you get their attention. You need to tell those potential customers exactly why they need you. You have to be able to identify specific outcomes. You need to know what your potential clients want to get out of the situation, decide if you can provide it, and then offer it to them.

As the next step in the process of developing your core marketing message, you need to consider each of those problems you identified previously. For each problem, ask yourself, “What is the ideal outcome your potential customers are hoping for?” Once you’ve identified those outcomes, they become an amazing tool in your marketing efforts.

A Note About Process

Just because the process of solving problems shouldn’t be included in your marketing message doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider it. Before you attach a given outcome to a problem, you’d better be sure you have a process in place that will solve the problem and provide the desired outcome. If you can’t create the outcome, you have to strike it from your marketing message.

Putting it All Together

So, now that you have identified the various components of your core marketing message, it’s time to actually formulate and articulate that message. Your core marketing message says something along these lines:

“I am _____. I work with _____ who have this problem_____. I help them to _____.”

So, you might say, “I am John Sebastian. I work with older men and women who have lower back pain. I help them to manage their pain effectively and lead normal, productive lives.”

Establishing a coherent core marketing message that identifies who you are, identifies the problem you can solve and gives the potential customer a look at what life looks like after their problem is solved is key to success in your consulting business.

If you need help getting your website to deliver results -generate leads or make more sales – Anton Pearce can help. Visit AntonPearce.com for more free tips for improving the performance of your online strategy.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

%%Identifying a Marketing Message that Works%%

Identifying a Marketing Message that Works

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There is a problem on the web. Displaying actual programming code takes away a lot of space of the webpage (especially the longer ones). You can split up the code in several parts, but that’s really hard to read for programmers. You can leave it "as it is" and users would have to scroll a lot if they’re not interested in the code itself. And scrollbars in code-examples – that’s just horrible (and yes – that’s what I have on this website).

I created a solution for this problem and call it the jQuery Code Expander. It does exactly what you think it does – Expand any code you want to place online using jQuery.

But, before you can expand anything, it has to be cropped. That’s where the CSS kicks in. It’s like a combination of using scrollbars and fully showing the code!

  

This script only changes those elements that needs to be expanded and doesn’t touch those who don’t. An additional overlay image is added, just to show the user that it can expand the code example. Check out the demo and read below what the secret of this technique is.

Read more…

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