With rumours still flying left and right as we close in to Apple’s expected Tablet announcement next Wednesday, perhaps the most sought-after missing piece is still its name. Could it be iGuide, or iSlate?

Maybe — but it looks like iPad is definitely a strong contender as well, according to the Mac News Network. Apple has filed for a trademark on that name in Canada, Europe, and Hong Kong, but in the U.S. that trademark is already tied up by Fujitsu. The Japanese corporation has an existing product using that name: a handheld device used by workers in retail.

Yet while Fujitsu first filed for the trademark in 2003, at some point they stopped responding to the US Patent and Trademark Office’s requests for additional information. The USPTO never awarded the official trademark and ended up declaring the name “abandoned” in April 2009.

Although Fujitsu began pursuing the iPad trademark again last June, Apple has reportedly filed at least three requests to extend the deadline for presenting opposition to Fujitsu’s claim. The company now has until February 28 to submit evidence, potentially positioning itself as the rightful owner of the iPad trademark. Launching an actual product under the iPad name before that date may strengthen Apple’s legal claim to the mark, leading to logical speculation that iPad is the chosen forerunner for the tablet’s name.

What’s your favorite name for the still-mythical Apple Tablet? Place your bets now, people!

[img credit: TGR]

Tags: apple, Apple Tablet, fujitsu, gadgets, iguide, ipad, iSlate, trademarks

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Researchers at MIT are hoping to help change that, using some high-tech tools that measure the emotional reactions of people as they’re testing a new product.

Part of the problem, the researchers say, is that people have a tough time accurately describing how they feel about something.

“We know that self-reported feeling is very inaccurate,” said Rosalind Picard, an MIT professor who directs research into computing and human emotion. “We’ve measured when people say they like something, but their face is leaking all kinds of disgust.”

Prof. Picard and PhD student Hyungil Ahn haven’t finalized their research yet but hope to have it published later this year. They said they aren’t looking to subject product testers to any sort of invasive, secret tests.

“There are companies that want to read people’s feelings without people knowing, and that’s not how we work,” Prof. Picard said. Instead, they are hoping to provide tools that help people report their feelings more accurately. The idea is based on devices the MIT lab developed for autistic people, who also have difficulty accurately identifying feelings. Those devices include instruments that record people’s facial images and tell the users how often they are showing interest, confusion, agreement and so forth.

Prof. Picard said the product-testing study was spurred by requests from companies that work with their lab, a roster that includes such names as PepsiCo and Bank of America. Representatives from these companies saw reports on the autism research and mentioned that the devices could be used in product testing. Prof. Picard said Pepsi was one company that influenced the lab’s decision to conduct the research: “They said, ‘We’ve got this problem. We’re trying to make healthier products. … We test them with people, and everybody says they love it … and then it flops.’”

In addition to evaluating facial expressions, the researchers also are using instruments that measure the electrical conductance of the skin, which can help indicate interest and memorability but which also changes depending on whether a subject is stressed — something that might be helpful for testing a product like, say, potato chips. “Most of us overeat when we’re stressed,” Dr. Picard said. “It’s interesting to look at with regard to why someone might be eating more. If your customers are eating more during your test, is it due to stress or due to actually liking what they’re eating?”

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“A polite alternative to the 10-foot pole. Such is the premise behind start-up company, Reality Bling’s, Ms. Taken – a new product based on an age-old concept for single women, offering them a way to protect themselves against unwanted suitors in social situations. Reality Bling engaged Hornall Anderson to develop the strategy, naming, identity and packaging for Ms. Taken’s “diamond ring” – inconspicuously packaged in the hidden compartment of a keychain fob, which serves as a delivery device for easy access when needed. We also designed an elegant, upscale ring box for additional storage that also functions as a POS display.

As an added touch of humor, we developed a series of tongue in cheek “Playaz” trading cards featuring 20 different illustrated characters representing the typical unsavory personalities that single women attempt to avoid. The result is a system of guideposts that packages and messages this product in a way that adds value, connects emotionally, and ultimately builds a community of single divas. It’s a great example of how, through strategic brainstorms, innovative thinking and inspired design, we helped bring this small start-up company’s big ideas into fruition.”

“We developed a concept basically via the hint of an idea meant to target women in their 20s and 30s with a sense of humor. The project included packaging an idea and creating a brand around it to which single women could really relate.”

– Larry Anderson, Creative Director of Hornall Anderson

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Splat is a gel that not only cleans, but disinfects hard to reach places. It’s very useful for camera lenses, keyboards and cds, or any other electronic devices you may have.

This cool product lasts up to 50 uses, and will be available in March for about $5 at Lowes, Amazon, and Walmart.

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January 13, 2010
Mid-level + Experienced DesignersCHOi Design, Inc., Chicago, IL
January 5, 2010Graphic/Product DesignerBaum Brothers, Imports, New York, NY
December 25, 2009Product/Packaging Designerful, LLC, Memphis, TN
December 25, 2009Product/Packaging Designerful, LLC, Memphis, TN
December 23, 2009Packaging Engineer/DesignAmerichip, Inc, Los Angeles, CA
December 22, 2009Director of DesignMidwest-BK, Cannon Falls, MN
December 21, 2009CPG Creative LeaderLandor Associates, cincinnati, OH
To view the latest packaging jobs, and to post a job to the board, visit The Dieline Jobs today.

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“Scanwood is Denmark’s largets manufacturer of wooden appliances for the kitchen, selling their products in Denmark as well as the rest of Europa and the Middle East.

Sanwood’s CEO wanted to change the packaging to communicate the fact that their products are made through an environmentally friendly process and are of course also made from all natural materials.

The story is now visible and understandable across all different markets and languages in a very appealing and friendly way. Giving the consumer an added experience when seeing the package and emphasizing nature by implying that the product almost grows straight out of the ground.

This is combined with a new identity matching the product and the payoff Designed in Denmark, made by Nature.”

Designed by Mads Jakob Poulsen of Denmark based Goodmorning Technology.

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Read the rest of MyDitto Cloud NAS Revealed [Cloud-Accessible NAS Lets You Access Your Data Anywhere, Via Thumb Drive]

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If you want to share more fantastic examples of flash websites so please comment about them below. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at  smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and do not forget to become our fan on facebook as well.

The Flagship Experience

Welcome to the American Airlines – featuring Business and First Class service between the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

ELSE Mobile

ELSE offers a totally new definition of what a mobile device can be. ELSE is a totally new concept driven purely by user experience rather than by technology.

Wonderwall

Wonderwall is an interior design firm established by Masamichi Katayama. Its portfolio includes commercial spaces such as retail spaces, restaurant and bars, as well as office showrooms and building complexes that are distinctly unique in design and yet attentive to function.

The Editing Table

Nicola Walbeck

The Wrong Door

The Wrong Door, BBC3’s new comedy series set on The Asteroid

Silenzio

A movie poster maker and marketing agency. The website is directed by Unity, Web artistic direction Jocker / CREAKTIF(Axel Corjon), development, motion design Lab9.

Falcon’s Treehouse

Headquartered in Orlando, Florida, Falcon’s Treehouse is an experienced design company specializing in master planning, attraction design, special venues, destination resorts, theme parks, media production, museums, science centers, and more.

SeymourPowell

SeymourPowell Product Design Consultancy are experts in Product Design, Product development, Consumer Product research and industrial design consultants. This Product Design Company is based in London UK.

Martin Anderle

Fruit Shoot

Browse the new Fruit Shoot website with how-to videos for beat boxing, soccer skills and much more!

Breathe Architecture

Quality and style are central to Breathe Architecture’s unique sustainable designs. We expertly combine environmental and aesthetic principles to create stunning buildings with a lighter footprint.

History of Flight

Know Your History. Soar through Michael Jordan’s amazing career at History of Flight.

The Sound of Orange RockCorps

You can create your own unique track with your mates and unleash it online. You can also connect to your facebook and you can see which of your friends have already taken part.

Saab Change Perspective

When you look beyond the obvious, you open up to alternative ways of seeing things. As you gain a different perspective on the world, you also bring a certain attitude to everything you do. To Saab, this means building cars unlike any other. Here you can share this view.

addidas outdoor

Real Casual

Cartelle

Cartelle is a creative unit based in Amsterdam, founded by Johnny Slack & Stevijn van Olst. With a small agile team of professionals, Cartelle delivers high quality interactive experiences. Constantly looking for fresh solutions, we offer new creative approaches in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

Cloudy Meat Balls

Columbia Pictures’ and Sony Pictures Animation’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs will be the most delicious event since macaroni met cheese. Inspired by the beloved children’s book, the film focuses on a town where food falls from the sky like rain.

JPEG Interactive

Jam is a creative director, an experienced web designer, a veteran Flash developer and the co-founder of Shanghai-based web creative agency 01media.

Imagining Mozambique

The traveling art show collective, ‘Imagining Mozambique’ is a fundraising drive for ASEM, a non-profit organization that helps the children of Mozambique.

LBi Atlanta

LBi Atlanta is a leading full service digital agency. They have developed a successful business by fusing strategy with creativity, and technology to create highly effective marketing and business solutions.

Shinkansen and Love

2Advanced

Coca Cola Zero

Coca Cola Zero – Real Coke Taste, Zero Calories. The official website of Coca Cola Zero. Watch Commercials. Play Games.

Parasol Island

Parasol Island is producing nationally and internationally awarded film, animation and interactive projects for exclusive client portfolio – ranging from companies in the lifestyle and entertainment, as well as, consumer industries.

Hobnox Audiotool

SoInteractive

DigitalKick

Mercedes AMG

Toyota iQ

Toyota iQ – Virtual Test Drive.

Nissan Cars UK

Ocean Recon

Royal Australian Navy Submariners – DefenceJobs

Want to know what goes on inside a Collins Class Submarine? Dive below the surface for a unique view of the inner workings of Australia’s silent fleet. Complete real-life missions to earn your submariner dolphins and experience life beneath the surface.

Oddo Design

This is an award-winning graphic design firm that helps companies build stronger brands, increase sales, improve customer retention, and educate customers and employees. Now located in the Texas Hill Country, just outside of Austin, Texas, the firm was originally established in 1989, in Houston, by Tommy Oddo.

Dvein 2009

Motion and Interactive Studio based in Barcelona, Spain. DVIEN creates Live Actions, Motion graphics, 3D Animations, Flash, and Films.

Sony Bravia

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Think about the products and services that you buy. Why did you purchase them? One of the reasons I go to the local Firestone auto servicing center to buy my tires and get my oil changed and my car maintained (despite the fact that it’s 30 miles from my house) is because Dale, the customer service manager, told me when I first visited this center, “We take care of you so you don’t have to worry about breaking down on the side of the road.” That sealed the deal for me — no other explanation was necessary.

I’m no different than you are. It’s taken me a long time to begin to write about the benefits of what I offer, because, like you, I always assumed that prospects will understand why they should buy the product or service just because I’ve told them about it. After all, isn’t listing the marvelous features of what I’m offering enough? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

When you try to sell the features of your product or service, you’re making the customer do all the work to figure out why they want the feature. As the seller of your products and services, it’s in your prospect’s best interest to draw the connection for them. In order to do that, however, you have to know the results yourself.

So, then, what’s the difference between benefits and features? A feature is a factual statement about the product or service being promoted. However, it’s not the features that entice customers to buy. That’s where benefits come in. A benefit answers the question “What’s in it for me?”

The best way to understand the true benefit that your product or service offers is to focus instead on the results that your customer will receive when using said product of service. It is the customer’s perception of each feature’s result that will attract a prospect to buy a particular product or service.

So, for example, if you were selling a car, one of the features might be “all wheel drive”. While your advertising might include that information, you’ll fare better in your sale when you focus on the benefits of that feature, such as greater safety when driving on poor surfaces, ability to drive places other vehicles can’t, and minimizing the likelihood of getting stuck in the winter. If the prospect says “so what?” when hearing of an aspect of the product, then that aspect is a feature. The answer to the “so what?” question is a potential benefit.

Let’s play this out:

Car ad says: This car has all wheel drive.

Customer reads and says: So what?

Salesperson responds: This means that you’re much less likely to get stuck in the snow in the winter.

Ideal customer response: I hate when that happens! That’s something I need!

If the response to the answer is another “so what?” or a shrug, then the answer did not nail a benefit for that customer (maybe they live in an area of the country where getting stuck in the winter isn’t an issue). Perhaps they would respond better to the “ability to drive places other vehicles can’t” or something else. The key here is knowing and understanding your customers and what they need.

To help you create your list of benefits for your product or service, create a Features and Benefits Sheet. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left hand side write a list of the features of your product or service. On the right side write the corresponding benefit that goes with that feature. answering the “so what?” question (what problem are you solving) in the process. Once you have completed this exercise, share the sheet with colleagues who will give you honest feedback about your benefits listing.

Remember, success in sales and marketing in your business is all about the benefits to your audience rather than the features you’re going to deliver. It’s all about selling the sizzle, not the steak.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Copywriting Tips: How to Market Benefits vs Features

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Whether your competition is a company or just a particular product, you can track all of your competitors at once with Competitious. You can build feature comparisons between you and your competitors, track the traffic of their web sites (and your own), as well as share these things with your co-workers. You can clip and share web articles about you and your competition, as well as subscribe to the news feeds of your collaborators to keep up-to-date.

While Competitious offers a lot of great templates for these types of things, you have to enter all the information manually; this isn’t a huge drawback, but could likely get tedious at times, especially during the initial set-up. However, the service is still in beta, so this and its other drawbacks (such as traffic reports only working for sites in the top 100,000 on Alexa) will likely be improved in future releases.

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Brette Borow is the President and Founder of Girls Guide To, the “ladies only” guide to life, and spends most of her days engaging with the community’s over 140,000 members.

There are over 56 million women using Facebook in the United States, and for marketers this means one very important thing –- if you have a brand, product or company that targets women, Facebook is the place to be.

Unfortunately, unless you’re a brand that every woman knows or loves, then just being on Facebook is not enough. Facebook has done a great job of giving marketers a powerful tool with its Pages product, but like most things in life, it comes down to execution. To help, here is a list of 10 tips for marketing to women on Facebook.

1. Quality Counts

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The first thing I tell marketers, whether it’s a Fortune 500 company or a friend launching an online jewelry site, is to remember that women are bombarded by marketing messages all day, every day. On the surface, Facebook is no different than the “real world” –- constantly being pitched to and spammed is annoying. The main difference between Facebook and the “real world” is that on Facebook, fans can “hide” your marketing message much more easily than they can avoid the billboard on the way to work. As a result, you are going to have to try your best to connect with them. On Facebook, quality rises to the top more often than not.

2. Create an Emotional Connection

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So quality rises to the top, but what does that mean? For starters lets take a look at what Dove has done on Facebook. Dove is one of the few brands that seems to grasp the fact that on Facebook, content really is queen and that brands must deliberately create an emotional connection with their fans. This is a great strategy to emulate because in order to reach women on Facebook, you are going to have to connect with them by providing content that women can relate to. Something that ignites a reaction like “Wow, that’s me!” will encourage women not only to respond to your messages, but actually remember them. Making an emotional connection is one of the best ways to motivate women to use your brand or service.

3. Provide Utility

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Utility should be synonymous with your brand. It will allow you to create a relationship with your fans. Create a series of posts that your fans can look forward to on a daily or weekly basis — something they will feel a real connection to and will teach them something they can use. If you run a fashion web site, for example, provide a piece of advice from a designer every Friday –- it will make it much harder for your fans to block your updates if they have something to look forward to.

4. Give Fans a Voice

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Women like to be heard. Stand out from the crowd and engage us. By creating a two-way conversation, you are personalizing your brand and making it one that can be trusted.

Your Facebook Page is also one of the best “focus groups” on the web. Not sure if you should add a product to your line? Trying to decide which functionality to add to your iPhone app? Just ask your fans. A great example of this type of interaction is H&M. They are constantly asking their fans what pieces they want to buy, what they would pay and what they want H&M to carry. This type of feedback is invaluable and brings the fan into the overall experience. Women can share their thoughts, and you can enjoy the free insight you’re receiving straight from your target consumer.

5. Listen!

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Not only do we like to be heard, we also like to know we’re actually being listened to. If a fan posts a question on your page, answer it. If she compliments your brand, thank her. And if she complains about it, address her concerns and reassure her that you’re working on fixing it. This is a great way to build trust and showcase the great customer service and support your company offers.

6. Complement Her Life, Don’t Complicate It

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If you’re doing a giveaway, running a great promotion or launching a new product, you need to keep the process simple. Cosmopolitan Magazine, for example, constantly offers giveaways and discounts, but always do it in a clear and simple way. The lesson here is not to overthink your promotions. Your fans will look forward to the next time your brand has something new and exciting to share, as long as taking advantage of the offer is relatively pain-free.

7. Don’t Be Redundant

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Unlike Twitter, where most people are following a plethora of people and information is passing by at lightning speed, Facebook has a tendency to draw attention to “spammy posts.” Facebook users do not want to see the same message posted multiple times in their feed. So if you’re promoting something through your Fan Page be sure to reword it and provide additional value before you post it a second time.

8. Keep the Shopping Experience Seamless

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You need to remember that women tend to be the CPOs (Chief Purchasing Officers) in their households, and that they tend to ask friends for advice about brands and products. Women are more than happy to share a good deal when they find one.

The Limited was one of the first brands to really grasp that Facebook represents a huge opportunity to reach their CPOs. They have started to embed actual retail offers into their newsfeed. But unlike other brands, they do not drive their traffic off of Facebook. Instead, their feed stories open up into widgets on Facebook that can handle the entire transaction right there. This clever use of technology is a prime example of ways that brands need to think outside of the box to reach their social shoppers.

9. Remember: She’s a Social Shopper

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Women also tend not to be shy about sharing their distaste about a brand or product or talking about their poor experience, so never take advantage of your fans. The last thing you want is your target demographic badmouthing your brand on a viral platform like Facebook.

Keep your offers and processes clear and honest and always respond to feedback and criticism.

10. Keep Your Fans in the Loop

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Fill your fans in on the positive but don’t be afraid to address the negative. As we all know, the web is transparent. Allow it to work in your favor. Just launched a new Android app? Let your fans be the first to know. Just got nominated for 6 Grammy Awards and want to share it with the world? Then do what Lady Gaga did and let your fans know the moment you find out. In a transparent world, you can share your news with your fans, and the sooner the better.

Last but not least, if your company is experiencing difficulties like supply shortage or a down web site, be the first to let your customers know. Be upfront and straightforward. Your honesty will speak volumes about your brand.

More Facebook resources from Mashable

- HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on Facebook
– Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference?
– Why Facebook’s Privacy Changes are Detrimental to Users
– HOW TO: Integrate Facebook With Your Blog
– HOW TO: Manage a Facebook Group

Tags: brand, branding, business, facebook, facebook fan page, List, Lists, MARKETING, small business, social media, social networks

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Clay McDaniel is the principal and co-founder of social media marketing agency, Spring Creek Group. Find him via @springcreekgrp on Twitter.

One of the best ways to drive engagement and build word of mouth traffic about your brand is to run a contest via social media channels. Not only does it engage consumers with your brand in a fun and exciting way, it results in a treasure-trove of customer information, preferences, and feedback you can then mine to improve your business. And, best of all, launching an online contest can be very inexpensive.

However, there is a subtle art to social contests. Your brand needs to appear neither too “cheesy” nor too “salesy,” and you must deliver a prize that people really want. This can be a standard product or gift card, or a “notoriety” prize, such as publishing a winner’s video. What’s more, the contest itself has to be fun and easy to participate in. Few prizes are worth doing something extremely boring, monotonous, or complicated.

Here are five specific strategies you can follow to launch and manage a social contest, and leverage it to deliver real business value.

1. Define Your Marketing Goal

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Every contest you launch should meet a specific marketing goal. Do you want to drive awareness of a new product or service? Collect a list of customers interested in a specific product segment? Encourage new participants to use your company’s social networking channels? There are many valid reasons to launch a contest, but it’s important to know ahead of time what you’re trying to accomplish. This goal will set the tone for your contest strategy.

2. Get Creative

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Here’s the fun part: Creating your contest. The sky’s the limit when it comes to the type of contests you can launch. Here are a few ideas:

– A video contest inviting users to create a new commercial for one of your products
– A user-generated content contest that awards the best ‘personal experience stories’
– A photo contest related to your product or service
– A product invention contest with a large cash prize

Of course, your contest can be short and offer a small prize, or longer and more involved. Check out the Startup Nation Home Based 100 business creation competition that received thousands of entries and high-profile sponsors for an idea of just how big a contest can become.

3. Leverage Social Channels

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The best part about online contests is how easy it is to take them viral, encourage participation, and link them into your social marketing activities. Promote your contest via Facebook, Twitter, your company blog, and all other social channels, as well as via traditional marketing channels such as print, e-mail, and in-store signage.

Just search the word contest on Twitter to see hundreds of contests going on right now. The best contests are intensely social by nature, because people like to play games and contests together, and most people love to share the chance to win a cool prize with friends and family. Ensure your contest is easily sharable by embedding “share this” links on the contest site, on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and everywhere else people will come across it.

Use a social media tracking tool like Meteor Solutions to see which people and sites are sharing your contest, then promote your contest more heavily to those communities. Make sure your contest spreads like wildfire by encouraging easy “copy/paste” sharing using the Bit.ly URL shortener for the links to your contest location online. Most importantly, allow the contest participants to vote to choose the winner, which keeps the audience interacting with one another and engaged long after each person has submitted their entry.

4. Finish the Contest

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Everyone loves a winner, so make sure you don’t let your contest drag on too long. A typical social contest runs about four weeks –- longer, of course, if it’s more complex (e.g. programming a software algorithm or inventing a new product). When the winner is chosen, do a PR push to publicize their win. Of course, use Facebook and Twitter to promote the winner like mad. Go back to your social media tracking software and find out which people and social sites are talking most about the winner, then post comments on those networks to drive even more interest in the winner.

5. Measure the Contest

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Of course launching a contest wasn’t just for fun, it was to achieve a specific marketing goal. So after the contest is done, you need to measure the impact it had on brand engagement, clickthrough to your site, conversion, and bottom-line sales. Again, you can use your social media tracking tool to measure all of these success metrics. Find out whether your contest drove as much traffic to your site as you had hoped, and whether this traffic resulted in conversion, however you may measure that (e.g. purchases, newsletter subscriptions, Twitter followers, etc.).

Many brands have done a great job with social contests. Spring Creek Group, for example, created a social media contest to drive interest and traffic during the launch of the Microsoft Bing search engine last summer. Bing launched The Bing Jingle Contest, and invited people to upload user-generated video “jingles” about Bing to their official YouTube channel. Bing then promoted the videos via its Facebook Page, Twitter updates, and other social channels. The video with the most views and highest ratings would be crowned the winner, with the creator receiving a $500 gift card.

Overall, the contest garnered 27 video entries, over 238,000 views, 550 comments on the videos, and 2,200 tweets. The word of mouth generated by the contest was phenomenal, and was covered by many top blogs. The contest took on a life of its own, generating both defenders and detractors over the winning video.

More Great Contest Examples

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Marin Software’s Biggest Search Geek Contest: This is a fun and very popular contest, now in its second year, that pits smart search marketers against one another for a free pass to SMX West — double points for creating a cool B2B social contest.

#TriviaTues: Fancast, Comcast’s competitor to Hulu, promotes #TriviaTues, a weekly trivia event where Twitter users who follow @FancastTrivia and answer twenty trivia questions can win free DVDs, movie tickets, and t-shirts.

Moonfruit’s Win a Macbook Pro Everyday for 7 Days: Moonfruit, provider of do-it-yourself web site building tools for small businesses, recently completed this hugely successful contest. You can see results and entries on their web site.

More business resources from Mashable:

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- The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration
– HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI
– HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs
– HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
– HOW TO: Use a Start Page to Stay Organized
– HOW TO: Choose a News Reader for Keeping Tabs on Your Industry
– 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, adventtr, WendellFranks

Tags: bing, business, contest, Contests, facebook, MARKETING, moonfruit, small business, social media, social networks, twitter, youtube

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Chances are you’ve come in contact with a piece of flat-pack furniture from Ikea. You may even have put a shelf or desk together with the help of an allen wrench and a single-sheet instruction manual. Ikea has successfully innovated in pricing, logistics, packaging, and store layout to become a global phenomenon.

But the lesson we, the UX community, can learn from Ikea isn’t directly related to their low prices, or making customers put products together themselves. Rather, the valuable lesson we can take from the self-assembly giant comes from an earlier point in a product’s lifecycle: the design stage.

When it comes to design, Ikea is a price-first company. Sure, they pride themselves of their Scandinavian design and ingenuity, but above all else they want their products to be as affordable as possible. As a result, the target price for a product defines and constrains the product design, rather than the other way around. Instead of specifying a product and then determining how much it will cost, Ikea decides how much a product should cost and then designs it to fit within the cost constraint. In an interview with CNET, Ikea product developer June Deboehmler said, “When we decide about a product, we always start with the price… Then, what is the consumer need?”

To some this may seem like a counter-intuitive approach. But in actuality, creativity loves constraints. It may seem that a cost constraint would be burdensome to designers but in fact it helps focus and guide their work. Even if cost isn’t the leading constraint (as it is with Ikea), it’s always a critical constraint that should be factored into design.

But in the world of software and UX design, you seldom see projects where cost is treated as a primary, initial constraint. Instead, cost is treated as something that’s derived from scope. Foundational problems with scope, budgets, and constraints are a setup for failed projects and poor UX. But how can we all learn from Ikea in a way that makes sense to industry? We have defined four lessons that will guarantee smoother projects before they even start.

1. Cost is a primary constraint

After they’ve outlined a product’s scope, most companies already have a strong sense of what they think the product should cost, or at the very least how much they can afford. But, in the majority of cases, rather than communicating both the scope and cost expectations to their vendor or internal development team, they withhold the cost information. This forces the development team to go through a complicated, error-prone process of trying to extrapolate a cost estimate from the scope. This is followed by a back-and-forth of discussion until the estimate comes into alignment with the original cost expectation. The cost expectation (or limit) was known all along but everyone has to participate in a ritual dance before it’s disclosed.

In most other settings, this practice would be considered dysfunctional, and an example of how poor trust and communication wastes time and money. But, oddly, it’s standard practice in software and Web development. If the cost expectation is fixed and present from the beginning—in other words, it is a primary constraint—why not simply let the development team know about it? Constraints give the team better understanding of what will be possible, reduces errors in their projections, and gets them working sooner.

Companies are generally wary of sharing their budget numbers upfront for fear of having the development team take advantage of their trust. Their concern is that the development team will charge the full amount in the budget even though the scope of the project should actually cost something less. But, in actual practice, this can’t happen because the scope is never smaller than the budget. For innovative, UX-focused product and website development efforts, the project’s requirements will always grow as large as the budget will allow—again, cost is the project’s primary constraint. The entire course of a project always entails an ongoing negotiation between the stakeholders and the development team about how much work can reasonably be accomplished, and how many requirements can reasonably be fulfilled, before the budget runs out. This is true whether or not the budget is initially disclosed, and whether the project is charged fixed-bid or hourly, because of the weaknesses of upfront planning and the ambiguity inherent to scoping documentation. If the development team is aware of the real cost constraint from the outset, their projections about what they can accomplish will be much more accurate—and, often, much more ambitious—than if they were left to make guarded guesses about what the cost constraint might be.

2. Goals are more important than specs

Initial scope and specifications documents are a form of guesswork product design often done by whoever owns the project, rather than by actual product designers. Such documentation is meant to serve as the definitive blueprint for the project, but have you ever (seriously, ever in your life) seen an early scoping document that turned out to be anywhere close to accurate when the project was done? This isn’t because the people drafting these documents are incompetent; it’s just that product design is something best left to, well, product designers.

And even for the most experienced product design professionals, the beginning planning stages of a project are the time when the least is known about what the project will actually entail. This is the worst time to have to lay out definitive specifications for the product. Complex, UX-focused software projects just don’t lend themselves to extensive upfront planning and specifications efforts—too much of the project’s actual needs won’t be discovered until design and development commence. So how, then, can project stakeholders ensure their vision and requirements for the product are met? By expressing their needs very clearly in terms of the business’ goals for the product. Goals are another form of constraint.

When business stakeholders attempt to build detailed specifications up front, they are attempting to extrapolate specific requirements from their general goals. If Ikea took this approach in their product design, businesspeople would spend a week in a conference room trying to describe in words in long, numbered lists, exactly what a chair or table should look like and what features it should have. This would obviously be silly; product requirements (for both furniture and software) are best expressed through design materials and prototypes, not through lengthy specs built by business stakeholders. The stakeholders’ role is to clearly express the constraining goals for the product and hand those off to product designers who can begin to design the specifics.

Business stakeholders need to ask themselves, what does it mean for a project to succeed? Is it successful if it fulfills on guesswork requirements built by the wrong people at the wrong time in the project, or is it successful if it meets the business’ goals and stays within its budget constraints? Business stakeholders have the clearest understanding of what the company needs the product to accomplish, but the team that will build the product will advise them best on how to meet the goals. Setting clear, high-level goal and sharing the project’s budgetary constraint gives a reliable development team the ability to plan accurately, reduce risk, and squeeze the most bang out of a buck.

3. Honesty and trust are mandatory

As we mentioned, many companies refuse to share their budget out of worry that they’ll be taken advantage of. If you tell a car salesman that you’re willing to spend $30K, he’ll try to sell you a $20K car for $30K. If, on the other hand, you keep your budget constraint to yourself, you may drive out with a $20K car and $10K in savings in your pocket. But when shopping for cars, you’re dealing with products that have already been built, and you’re just picking the one that suits you. But when you’re building software or a website, you’re building something entirely new with great uncertainty about, and flexibility in, the details of the implementation. The scope of the product is a direct function of its available budget.

It’s critical that you be able to work honestly and openly with your development team or vendor. You’ll collaboratively manage a project to ensure it fulfills its goals, stays within its cost constraint, and delivers the best value possible. If you don’t think you can trust your development team or vendor enough to share your budget with them, then you’re working with the wrong team. That lack of trust will undermine the success of the project by crippling your ability to collaborate effectively. You and the development team need to be partners in building a great product, not adversaries who are managing each other as risks. In an adversarial or arms-length relationship, the development team will always be trying to do the least amount of work for the most money. The business stakeholders, for their part, will be trying to take advantage of the ambiguities in the initial scoping documents to get the development team or vendor to do more work for the same price. Both parties will be focused on protecting their interests, rather than working as true partners toward the joint goal of a good outcome for the project.

This partnership with the design team is what Ikea achieves by staying goal- and cost-focused. While it’s uncertain what the product will look like, it’s never ambiguous what the definition of success is for that product. This business stakeholders and design team are working toward the same goals without needing to keep information from each other.

4. Abandon guesswork for concrete understandings

This guessing game of “what’s my budget” is very much a waste of time. Some business stakeholders think they couldn’t possibly guess what a project should cost, but in thinking this they’re approaching the problem backwards. When it comes to important, high-complexity, UX focused software and website development efforts, the question isn’t “what should this cost,” but instead “what can this cost?” One needs to have a number in mind—a limit that will constrain the scope and ambitiousness of the project. Giving development teams a pile of guesswork specifications documentation will just get you a pile of guesswork price estimates. What you end up with are unreliable specifications and unreliable cost estimates. By providing development teams with a specific understanding of your cost constraints, you make it much easier for those teams to make accurate projections about what will be possible. This also lets development teams show you other projects from their portfolios that had similar budgets. This, in turn, allows everyone to work from a solid understanding of the cost constraint with a concrete example of achievable scope. Development teams can help stakeholders by providing detailed information about the budgets and challenges encountered in their portfolio projects.

We believe that these four lessons are important to succeed in the high-complexity domain UX-focused software and Web development. Making cost a primary constraint and sharing budgets with development teams may require a shift in thinking by all parties involved. Business stakeholders need to trust the teams they work with, and therefore choose to work with teams that are trustworthy. Development teams need to earn that trust by clearly communicating what they will do with the information and by being honest and transparent about their projections and about project progress once it’s underway. And if there’s any doubt on either side, you can always say, “Hey, it works for Ikea”.

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The survey found 64 percent of GenY (age 18 to 34) shoppers used their mobile phones for in-store shopping-related activities during the holiday season. In addition, all surveyed age-segments cited interest in next-generation retail technologies to make better-informed decisions. When in-store employees used mobile technologies, such as two-way radios and handheld mobile computers, shoppers reported a better experience due to the use of the devices ((59 percent and 56 percent respectively).

"With nearly seven in 10 surveyed holiday shoppers either reporting flat or declining budgets, retailers vying for finite shopper dollars need to provide a seamless customer experience," said Frank Riso, senior director of retail solutions, Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions.

"By utilizing mobile technologies, consumers have become empowered, better informed and more critical shoppers. Retailers need to establish near-term strategies to provide product information, stock availability, discounts and coupons directly to shoppers to help them to remain competitive."

Because of the economy, shoppers were after more coupons and discounts in 2009 with 39 percent willing to abandon purchases if coupons and discounts were unavailable.

Related Articles:

> Ensuring Your Site is Indexed in Google’s Mobile Search

> 40 Million Reasons You Need A Mobile Web Presence

> Usage of Mobile Web and Apps Doubles in 2 Years

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Among the many cases, stereo speakers and other accessories, one company stood out: SKM Industries, which was touting a $20 product called TV Hat. The concept is simple — a baseball cap with an iPhone/iPod holder at the tip of the cap that drops down. In between your eyes and the screen is a rectangular magnifying glass that makes it look like you’re watching video on a bigger screen.

Its Web site description says: “A movie theater experience absolutely anywhere! Take it on a long commute, on the plane, or even on a camping trip.” Customers have their choice of cap or visor and color. It also comes with a neck protector.

A demo of the product worked reasonably well as long as you don’t care too much about resolution.

More CES coverage on Digits

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Knowing what product to buy is a pain. In real time Snapsort closes the knowledge gap and helps you find the right product fast. We’re not search, we’re not reviews, we’re instant advice. Don’t research – Snapsort.

Our alpha site lets you compare any two digital cameras and get a custom analysis on the major differences, similarities, pros, cons and a decision on which is better.

http://www.snapsort.com/

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The latest chocolate bar from famed NY candy store Dylan’s Candy Bar:

“The “it” Bar is a chocolate bar designed to appeal to the adult Dylan’s Candy Bar shopper. The challenge with creating the packaging for this product was in striking a balance between the sophistication of the intended buyer and the playful, colorful spirit of Dylan’s Candy Bar. Another challenge lay in the fact that it was a product that needed to stand out within a store that is overwhelming in terms of the sheer number of colors and patterns used. Subtlety was the answer. The “it” Bar was packaged in a white textured box with blind embossing, foil stamp and tip-on label. We believe the challenges were met on all ends!”

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HP seems to be on a roll this days as the company is announcing one product after the other. The hottest of them all should be the much anticipated Microsoft tablet, the Courier, which has been developed by Redmond together with HP.
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Read the rest of HP Announces Four New Eco-Friendly LCD Monitors [4 New HP Displays Get Launched: HP Compaq LA22f, HP Compaq LE19f, HP ZR22w & HP ZR24w]

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Contextual shopping experience for TV shows and movies. utvee enables publishers and advertisers to sell products seen on TV shows and films. We enable viewers to easily find and buy the products they see on their favorite shows.

• Enable publishers to monetize TV shows and movies.
• Use the power of the community to discover products seen on shows, movies and premium videos.
• Identify information such as: who are the actors; what are they wearing in a specific scene; product details; where can one buy the exact product or low cost alternatives.
• Create an impulsive shopping experience for viewers.
• Display the data next to any premium video.

http://utvee.com/

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Apple expects to sell 10 million tablet computers in the product’s first year, according to a former Google executive.

Lee Kai-fu, founding president of Google China until September 2009, says in a blog post he heard the numbers from a friend.

He added that the Apple tablet (rumors now call it the iSlate or iGuide) will be launched this month at a sub-$1000 price point. He says the device’s 10.1-ich screen makes it resemble a large iPhone.

Lee’s Innovation Works fund is an investor in iPhone-manufacturer Foxconn, although he denies that the information came from Foxconn or Apple.

Will you buy an Apple Tablet? Let us know in the comments.

[via Bloomberg]

Tags: apple, iSlate, iTablet, Tablet

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Gloria Joven, a product
designer at Hommu sent in this recently-completed packaging for a new Spanish brand of
decorative accessories:

"We try to offer a new concept in ‘eco-chic
personalisation’ of the home. It is all about suggesting ideas,
transmitting sensations and philosophies of a positive lifestyle during
these complicated times; something which it does through products
manufactured from 100% recyclable materials….

Hommu® decorative vinyl and packs are purposely packed in a recyclable
box with high quality design and finishing. We have taken the maximum
care in the presentation so that product is ideal to present as a gift,
an item for a special occasion or a special day, etc. At Hommu® we make a commitment to contribute to the work of making this
planet a sustainable, balanced and healthy home. For that reason, we
have decided to work only with those suppliers who manufacture
according to the criteria of environmental sustainability and social
responsibility. We only use top quality 100% recyclable material for
both our products and their packaging."

See a few more after the jump.

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We spoke with Karel Barnoski, an award-winning audio designer who has integrated sound into products and experiences ranging from stoves to cameras. Karel shares his keen insights about how the language of sound relates to interaction design and UX, and about the power of audio to connect users to brands and products.

Q: Karel, your company, 2octave, is very unique. Can you give our readers an overview of your work and how it relates to user experience and interaction design?

A: 2octave specializes in product sonification, audio branding, and audio strategy. We design audio as an integral part of the user experience. Our work is tied to how people interact with the world around them, whether it’s an environment, an interface, or a product like an appliance or camera.

Sound is a critical aspect of the user experience that’s been sorely overlooked. Strategic use of sound can improve a product’s usability and enhance the impact of a brand. Sound appeals to our emotions, and can be leveraged to connect users to a brand even when they aren’t looking at a product.

Q: Can you tell us about your background and how you got involved with this field?

A: The seed was planted when I took my first piano lesson at the age of 8. I’m 31 now, so that’s about 23 years of playing piano—classical, jazz, rock, blues, etc.

In college, I majored in visual design and minored in music theory. I combined my visual and musical ideas for many of my class assignments, which is when my two interests became one. After college, I started working at Kodak as a visual interaction designer, but there were many initiatives at Kodak that gave me the opportunity to design custom music, sound effects, branded pieces for kiosks, interactive Web applications, and product prototypes.

Q: From your perspective and experience, how much can sound impact a user’s perception of a product, software application, or service?

A: Without getting too deep into human perceptual psychology, sound is perceived much in the same way as other stimuli. By manipulating sound you can effect the user’s perception of an experience. Through sound, you can make a product be perceived as elegant, simple, complex, etc. Therefore, it’s essential to design the audio experience parallel with the other aspects of the product, otherwise there might be a disconnect between the auditory and visual experience for the user.

If a product sounds elegant, users are going to perceive that product as elegant. If it sounds cheap and crude, like the sound was thrown in at the last minute, that’s the way users are going to perceive the rest of the product.

Q: How and when do you get involved in the client relationship and how do you get customers to understand the business value of sound?

A: Establishing a relationship with a project’s stakeholders generally starts with marketing and human factors. There are proven methodologies for how a sound is designed that leads to better usability of a product, and the same is true for return on investment. Most marketing folks I am engaged with understand the value of a well-designed product. Therefore, it’s easy for them to see the importance of sound as piece of the product design puzzle.

Q: Can you give us some examples of your sound design successes both in terms of execution and from a business perspective?

A: The first example is an “Audio Brand Language” initiative I did for a major appliance manufacturer that was successful because it was validated through consumer testing. A set of branded audio assets was designed for a group of brands. Consumer testing results showed that the sounds were aligned with the attributes of each respective brand image.

Another example is Kodak’s V-Series camera, which is considered the forerunner and leader of the Kodak Easy Share camera product line. When the series was first released, it was dubbed the “James Bond” camera. I worked with Kodak‘s creative team to design a sound experience that echoed the camera’s sleek James Bond style. When you turn the camera on, the power-on sound reminds you of a James Bond movie soundtrack. All the functional sounds that communicate user actions are derived from that central theme, so the entire user experience is unified.

Q: Can you give us some examples of great sound experiences in different areas of our lives today?

A: The first experience that comes to mind is Guitar Hero because it’s a perfect combination of sound and user interaction. Overall, video games have the best sound experiences found in any product today.

As far as devices go, the simplest yet most effective sound I’ve heard is the iPod click. Without looking at the interface, the click tells me if I’m going up or down in a menu. It also increases and decreases in volume as you change the volume of the current song. It’s easy to take the click for granted until you turn it off and try to navigate.

Skype is a good example of effective sound in a software application. It has a playful feel without being overly cartoonish, cliched, or annoying. When I use Skype, the sound of an incoming call never seems to bother me. Remember this: when you use a product, any product, if you turn off the sound, it wasn’t well designed.

In regards to environmental sound experiences, I think of the tunnel between Terminals B at C at O’Hare Airport. There, at one of the busiest airports in the world where people are under all kinds of stress, I always feel better after I ride the walkway through that tunnel. It’s almost spa-like with ambient sounds cross fading in and out as the user travels down the tunnel.

Finally, there’s the classic audio signature of the Harley Davidson exhaust system. When you hear that rumbling sound, you know it’s a Harley.

Q: Are organizations looking at product sonification as a competitive advantage in terms of user experience?

A: Absolutely. It’s been a slow process, but in the global marketplace, organizations continually seek a competitive edge, and they are starting to see sound as a medium that has been undervalued. Marketers and designers are starting to see sound as an important point of differentiation.

Look at mobile devices, appliances and cars—any product that a potential buyer can interact with at the point of sale. I’ve seen a refrigerator in a showroom that was not working, so there was no audio or visual feedback, not even a hum. Next to it was a similar model at the same price point that was plugged in and working. Naturally, more shoppers were opening and closing that product’s door. When more people interact with products at the point of sale, the potential for selling goes up.

Q: Beyond some of the business drivers, what are the significant technological factors behind this revolution, and how do they affect your work?

A: In recent years, audio technology has improved similar to computer processing. As a result, the price per unit continues to decrease. In mass production, even minimal savings per unit equates to millions of dollars saved.

I categorize audio playback technology into three main groups: pure tones, MIDI, digital audio. The cheapest and simplest solution is pure tones, like a monophonic chime created by a piezo. The second group is MIDI. MIDI technology is flexible and efficient. MIDI files take up very little memory on a device.

Digital audio is the third audio playback technology group. Unlike pure tones and MIDI, digital audio files, such as MP3, allow for endless sonic possibilities. Think of the Intel sound, which has 300 layers of sound, and how dynamic that sounds compared to a pure tone.

Sound technology is on a bell curve and is ramping up so fast it seems like every two or three years there’s a new compression scheme that’s half the size and twice the quality, and it’s cheaper.

Q: Do your techniques for conceiving and developing sound concepts parallel the visual design and creative development processes that would be familiar to our readers?

A: 75% of my process is a one-to-one correlation to that of a visual designer. Just like working in the visual design process, I study the requirements and digest the creative brief and overall direction. Then I sit down and make audio sketches, just like a designer might make on paper.

Sound sketching for me means working quickly to let ideas flow in a stream of consciousness. I come up with a hundred different quick melodic ideas and then start to refine them into sets of themes to recognize patterns—almost like an image board to refine colors and shapes, but with music, it’s about timbre, tempo, and other attributes that make sound unique. Next, I choose sketches that align with the overall creative direction of the project, make iterations, and take “comp” to the design team. Once we agree on a final theme, I build the audio assets that go into the product or interface.

Q: How does your process differ from the visual design process?

A: As far as the creative process goes, the differences are slim. But, when you get into the production end of it, there are huge differences in the technical aspect of the process. Obviously, the software and the techniques I use to produce the final assets are quite different. But the idea that you optimize your final assets for integration is the same. It’s just that the tools are different to get to the final deliverable.

Q: Much of what you do is on the bleeding edge. What industries or verticals use product sonification most effectively?

A: There’s an evolving need in appliances as they become more and more interactive. In general, the experience in one’s home, especially in the kitchen, is an area that is growing fast. Another area I haven’t worked in, but I think is going to be huge, is the medical field. There is room for improvement in patient care both from a usability and experience standpoint. This includes the sounds devices make, the way technicians retrieve information, and the like. I’ve got some good ideas of how this experience can be improved through sound.

Mobile devices, especially cell phones, are on the bleeding edge because they’re based on communication through sound. Phones are small devices that demand high quality sound output. Therefore, more effort has been put into these products than, say, appliances. Automotive is also a growing market. As the interfaces in vehicles improve in audio playback and the types of interactions people are having increase in complexity, there is going to be a greater need for a cohesive experience with those interfaces that align with the brand image of the vehicle. Lastly, environments where there is a lot of secondary noise like airports, subways, and other mass transit systems are ripe for sound design. It’s going to be a real challenge to improve those environmental situations from an audio perspective.

Q: What does the five-year horizon look like to you?

A: The big picture is really exciting. It’s actually hard to imagine how far this field could go because, like computing, 10 years ago it was a totally different landscape. But, from a business perspective, as technology becomes cheaper and generates higher audio quality, I think more businesses will embrace audio as an integral part of their product design roadmap.

You’re going to see more and more people get into the field of sonification and you’re going to see the awareness and the quality improve. It’s a revolution because a lot of this technology is so accessible. You don’t necessarily need a music studio. You just need a laptop, software, and a good understanding of design to produce good results.

Karel, thank you very much for a fascinating conversation.

It’s been really interesting for me, too.

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Sounds great, but do you know what the term actually involves? How does it work, and is it effective?

That’s three solid questions that need answering, so let’s get started…

A virus, in medical terms, is something that is able to self-replicate and duplicate it’s genetic code to grow and spread. Once it does this, it becomes incredibly difficult to stop. Hence the term in the marketing world ‘viral marketing’. Offline businesses have used the concepts behind viral marketing, even before the internet was around.

Here’s the basis of how it works … you give something of value to other people for free. Whatever it is you give away has links to your website, or needs people to use your product. Through the giveaway people enjoy the product and are encouraged to pass it on to more people that they may know.

The chain of people passing it on self perpetuates, all the time with your website being a core element of the giveaway. It means your marketing message or website can be seen by a number of people that you cannot predict, and cannot control.

An effective viral marketing campaign will bring a huge amount of visitors back to your product or website, which is virtually impossible to stop!

So this all sounds good, but can it really be effective?

The simple answer is that yes it can (and does) work, and work very well – for some companies, viral traffic is the main source of traffic to their business websites.

You may choose to give away a product, a report maybe on the subject matter of your market. You may choose to give away a service, maybe providing a neat twist to a software application. You may choose to use a video, and this can really be exciting.

On the biggest and most well known video sharing site, YouTube, they give you magical help to make your video go viral. Their videos are easily shared to other users either online or through email.

You could make a short video about your subject, or even screen shots, and once you’ve uploaded it to You Tube, people have the chance to make comments on it. If you can start an argument, you’ll have people falling over themselves to watch your video!

The video is free and easy to put on other websites, which all encourages people to share the videos in anyway that they can.

After watching the video, the user is also presented with a simple button that they can click to instantly share the video with as many of their friends as they want.

This is almost too good to be true, but it is all there, and crushingly simple, quick and free to do, it just takes some of your time. Let’s not make any false claims, the first few times you do it, you’ll make mistakes and take a bit longer to produce your video, but once you get the technique sorted, you can use video to go viral, and get a huge amount more website traffic.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Will My Traffic Business Increase Through Viral Marketing?

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Rumors concerning an Apple tablet have been swirling for quite a while, and the product may finally materialize in January.  Some tinkering on the part of developers would be necessary as a result.

Still, it sounds like screen size is about all developers have to worry about.  An anonymous source informed Dan Frommer that Apple’s “told select developers that as long as they build their apps to support full screen resolution – rather than a fixed 320×480 – their apps should run just fine.”

So take the appropriate measures and be glad you’re not getting caught by surprise.

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Whatever your topic, niche or passion sometimes learning from other market places can give you inspirational ideas. In fact if you will just walk around with your head up and your eyes wide open then you will see that opportunities are presenting themselves to you all the time.

These ideas will help stimulate some ideas for you:

# 1 Visit a local exhibition

Go to an organised show of any kind and take your camera. Shoot photos of exhibits that are attracting a crowd, and of the signs, booths and all types of exhibitors. Collect any handouts, marketing documents, price lists, future exhibition schedules, and anything else that pertains to working or exhibiting at trade shows.

Take a notebook and make general notes on your observations. Using the photos and material collected, begin a reference file of how to participate and create effective exhibits at trade shows.

#2 Go to your local car boot sale

Take your camera and wander round to find the niches that the various dealers have carved out for themselves. Look at what people are buying and take pictures of interesting exhibits. Speak to the sellers and get an insight into how passionate they are for their market.

Make a note of items that catch your eye: note how much they are being sold for, condition and any other key pieces of information. Then go back and search the items on eBay and see if they are being sold there and what for.

#3 Take a walk around your local large Maplins or PC World

Find the largest high tech retail store in your area, and spend a few hours there. Look closely at computer accessories, video cameras, and computer networking technology.

All of these technologies have a learning curve and they are things that you can develop “How To ” products around.

#4 Attend a Free Workshop

Find a one day training workshop on any subject that interests you. Attend and pay attention to how the workshop is organized.

Take photos of the stage, the registration desk, any signs, serving tables, product displays and collect copies of all the hand-outs and marketing materials used to promote and manage the event.

Keep a dossier of all that you collect, you may need this material at a later date as reference when you eventually produce your own training workshops.

#5 Go to your local Borders or WH Smith

Any place with an extensive magazine collection is ideal, and spend some time looking at the number of magazines that cover specific niches. Look for trends of increasing or decreasing magazine covering specific topics.

Find and buy magazines on subjects you know nothing about, but seem interesting to you. Read the magazines you buy, especially the letters to the editor and the ads. Look for opportunities to solve problems. Look for interesting technologies and topics that might be your future niche.

#6 Take lots of photographs

Go to your nearest big tourist destination and again take your camera. Pick up all the free brochures, flyers, maps, free newspapers, and other marketing material you can find for businesses and activities in the area.

File these for later use as reference material for product ideas and take photos of interesting businesses, signs, promotions, exhibits.

#7 Make A Video

Start with a topic that interests you and make a mini documentary about it. Have an objective for the documentary, then structure it so it has a beginning, middle and end. Shoot some video footage, import it, edit it, add titles and background music, and burn the results to a menu driven DVD.

Learn what tools you need to get the job completed, and get it done. Learning to produce interesting videos is a strong path to profitable product development.

Summary:

Carrying out these tasks will give you a good grasp on where you can source inspiration for new products. Plus, you’ll have conducted some market research, discovered that there are people all over the planet who are interested in buying and learning a whole bunch of stuff .

But more importantly, you’ll have built a great resource of images, documents and material to help you get started.

Further, you’ll have also practiced your skills in product development by making a short movie.

Now all you need to do is chose a topic that is interesting to you, and has market potential, that can hold your interest for at least 12 months!

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7 Tips To Help Your Product Development Skills

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eBook readers are a hit product which explains why everyone in the book business is interested in developing their own model. While the nook is a very hot such device, it’s Amazon’s Kindle that rules the market, for now at least.
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Read the rest of Amazon Sells Record Number of Kindle eReaders [Amazon Sells More Kindle eBooks than Actual Books This Christmas]

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When you need to decide on which product would suit you the best, you have to look a little closer to see if there are any differentiating factors to sway your decision. Campaign Monitor has done so in that they targeted their product squarely at designers.

About Campaign Monitor

This application is aimed at designers — whether they are using email marketing themselves or handling that aspect of business for their own customers. And this is a tool that is powerful in features, while at the same time, very nice to look at.

Another great example of form AND function.

And the crew at Freshview — the company behind Campaign Monitor — are so confident in their product that they’ve built it so that their customers can completely rebrand it and sell it as their own product. Email marketing apps such as AshWebMail, Breeze, and selectmailer are all in fact Campaign Monitor wrapped in a custom interface.

A web 2.0 company who takes care of their people.

I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Dave Greiner (co-founder) over the past year and I can say that this is a company with great people. And a great dash of personality.

So far, all of our prizes have been memberships. That changes today (and tomorrow). Rather than give some credit towards a Campaign Monitor, Dave has contributed some of the amazing CM t-shirts. These are not even available for sale, but are given to customers for being awesome.

And we’ve got four of these great shirts to give away today.

How to Enter

If you’d like to sport one of these customer tees, leave a comment. Mention a web 2.0 company that you love and why you love them — bonus points for comments that explain how the company has become more than just an organization to you and show their personality. Winners will be announced at the end of the day!

And a big congratulations to our winners from Day 22 — enjoy ccText!

And Over at Mac.AppStorm: DEVONthink

Don’t forget to check out what’s going on over at Mac.AppStorm! Today they’re giving away a few copies of DEVONthink.

DEVONthink stores your documents, scanned papers, email messages, notes, bookmarks, etc. in one place. It has powerful search facilities, and a whole host of different ways to import your data into the application. It’s quick and easy to find a workflow that fits your process.

Read more and enter the competition

Come Back for Day 24 – The Grand Finale

We’re almost there. Thanks to everyone for contributing over the month — it’s been a blast. And make sure you tune in tomorrow morning as we announce our grand prize. It includes software, hardware and some extra goodies — over $1000 in value all told.

See you tomorrow!

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This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: Giddi

Quick Pitch: Product rating engine built on data collected from eCommerce and media sources designed to help consumers make better purchasing decisions.

Genius Idea: There are lots of product comparison sites out there, but most focus largely or exclusively on electronics. Giddi is a product rating engine for lots of different categories — including housewares and apparel accessories — that sorts and ranks items by price, overall rating, popularity and age.

Giddi grabs product information from tons of different ecommerce sites and sorts them on different factors like, price, brand, and user reviews. You can also check prices against a number of different shopping sites — although the price comparison tool is not exhaustive and you might still want to do a separate search using Bing or another price comparison tool for some items.

We like that Giddi isn’t strictly focused on electronics. That’s what almost every product comparison site revolves around which means the results are largely the same. Instead, by having different categories including home appliances and health and beauty, Giddi has the potential to stand out.

We like that Giddi is easy to navigate and that sorting for more specific options is easy and manageable, but we do wish that there were a way to prevent older or discontinued items from being indexed. For instance, when browsing through Apple products, we saw a lot of discontinued iPod nano units (and even an iPod mini — talk about your blast from the past) listed on the first page of results. It would be much more helpful if discontinued items were prevented from at least appearing on the front page (or if a discontinued notation could be added to the product listing).

Indexing over 600,000 products and 1.6 million reviews, Giddi has a fairly solid product database that pairs the semantic web with comparative shopping.

How do you get product recommendations online?

Spark of Genius Series Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”

Tags: giddi, online shopping, product comparison

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Originally posted at The Social

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Giddi is a product rating engine that works by aggregating product details, pricing, reviews, sales and other important criteria from a number of web sources including Amazon, Shopping.com, Epinions, and CNET Reviews. This information is run through a proprietary calculation to generate the Giddi Rating. Giddi currently builds this rating for 609496 products from 1604873 reviews across 259 categories.

Giddi is determined to help you make better purchasing decisions by bringing greater transparency to the marketplace. We’re just getting started, so please bear with the imperfections.

http://www.giddi.com/

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If it is showing up for you, it is located between Groups and Knol on Google’s "More Google Products" page:

According to Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land, Google Guru is a product that was launched in Russia back in 2007. While here in the U.S., the link pointing to Google Guru goes nowhere, the Russian link Schwartz provides goes to something that looks like this:

It’s basically a question and answers site. "What is interesting is that Google closed down their Google Answers site back in November 2006, yes over three years ago," says Schwartz. "Is Google Guru their way of getting back into the social Q&A space? Yahoo is dominate right now with Yahoo Answers, maybe Google feels they can make a run at that as well?"

Apparently not everyone is seeing the link to Google Guru at this point, and Google hasn’t at this time made any announcements about it that we are aware of. I expect that will change soon enough. Are you seeing the link?

Related Articles:

> Google Reportedly Considering Yelp Acquisition

> Google’s Blogger Adds Amazon Affiliate Monetization Option

> Google Puts Universal Search in Suggestions, Launches Quick Scroll

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These are cases of successful, memorable branding. Michael Jordan is retired from professional sports, the frogs haven’t been on television in years, and wassup has almost faded from day to day use in the American pop culture vocabulary. However, every one of these elements remains identifiable, and mentioning them to most people will get the typical, ‘oh yeah!’ response to memories of clever marketing, cementing the image of the brand in the viewers’ minds.

Branding is the creation of these memories. However, recollections of a product being indisputably linked with a particular name, image, or slogan can be a double-edged sword.

MCI Communications was one of the most successful challengers to the AT&T ‘Bell Monopoly’ consortium between the late 1960s and early 1980s. MCI managed to push through the breakup of the Bell coalition and allow new players to enter into the field of telecommunications. MCI pioneered many telecommunications innovations, such as Single Mode Fiber Optic Cable, when other companies were content to rely on existing standards. They were one of the first companies to offer the now standard idea of ‘in-network’ calling, where MCI customers received discounts when calling other MCI customers. MCI was one of the big, significant players in the telecom world, so why isn’t their name still synonymous with innovation?

Because it is now synonymous with the words Worldcom, Enron, and scandal.

In 1998, MCI merged with another company to become MCI Worldcom, launching a widespread televised and online advertising campaign featuring notable actors such as Sam Neil of Jurassic Park fame. The MCI brand became inextricably linked with the Worldcom brand. Then, on June 26 2002, the Securities Exchange Commission launched a full inquiry into reported auditing and financial irregularities, resulting in allegations of fraud. By July 21st, less than one month later, it was revealed that Worldcom stock was inflated by $11 billion dollars, and the company entered into chapter 11 bankruptcy. MCI was ultimately bought out by Verizon, and the legacy of a once innovative telecom company was left in the same repository as Arthur Anderson, Enron, and the other big financial fraud stories of the early 21st century.

While this is an extreme example, it is a caution worth considering for anyone interested in making a brand name for his or her product in today’s market. The world is more connected, more informed, and more critical than ever, and while a legacy of good choices can create a strong brand, a reputation for poor or improper decisions can and will conspire to bury a once successful company forever.

Many times, no one can predict what will make a brand into a particular success or failure overnight. However, every company can take three common sense steps to protect their brand and the products it represents.

1. Promote a Quality Product

Quality talks – if a product works, then it has a certain degree of merit that puts it ahead of competition. If a company puts the time and effort to get a quality product onto the market and markets the brand in such a way that the actual qualities are stressed, people will remember.

As an example, Tylenol is an effective painkiller for post-surgical use. It is not a homeopathic remedy relying on word of mouth and supposed benefits, but has demonstrable, measurable effects on human pain and healing.

2. Be Informed About the Brand’s Use

Knowing not just what one is putting out, but what is being done with it in the market, is crucial to proper branding. To continue with the example of Tylenol, many advertisements stress that doctors frequently prescribe it, more than any other over the counter analgesic. Knowing what doctors were using their product allowed Tylenol to make a powerful claim and keep the information in people’s minds.

3. Be Prepared to Take Responsibility for the Brand

As seen in the MCI case, scandal led to the irrevocable decline of a once-powerful brand. Conversely, Tylenol managed to take what could have been a public relations nightmare and came out stronger than ever as a result. When Tylenol executives found out that tampering had led to poison getting into the product supply, poisons that killed Tylenol consumers, they pulled every current Tylenol product from the shelves of stores. They investigated each of their production facilities, solved the problem, and then launched an informative campaign letting people know when and why it was safe to come back to their product. This disaster could have led to the death of the company, but the executives’ willingness to take responsibility and act, rather than covering up and denying fault, saved-a brand that is still powerful to this day.

Again, these are examples of extreme events. Only a tiny fraction of companies ever take their investments down the path of fraud, and almost no one will have to deal with their product becoming a poisonous vector. However, they illustrate the case that a brand is a powerful association for people to make, and that like any part of a business, it requires information and action in the proper degrees.

What Does This Mean to Me and My Website

Normal advertising just informs the consumer about a product and a company’s brand identity. With digital advertising, the consumer can be more involved in the brand image. In this interactive domain, a company can listen to consumers who make comments on their website or blog and act on negative feedback before it becomes uncontrollable. They can try out different advertising strategies to learn which products they should continue to develop and which new features a product should have.

Effective digital branding allows you to identify a singular position and establish your own distinctive voice in the marketplace and incorporates all three of the above-mentioned branding points. You’ll be promoting a quality product. You’ll use social media strategies to keep informed about your brand’s image and you’ll take responsibility for your brand, to guide and shape it to its best advantage.

Branding takes time and thought. Digital branding takes time, thought and an interchange with your consumers. Engaging your customers in your brand in a relevant way is the key to successful online branding.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Branding – For Better or Worse

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Dallas Lawrence is Chair of the Social and Digital Media Practice at Levick Strategic Communications, the nation’s top crisis communications firm. He blogs on emerging digital media trends and best practices for social media engagement on Bulletproof Blog. Connect with him on Twitter @dallaslawrence.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is finally catching up to the constantly evolving world of social media. For the better part of a decade, the agency lagged a full Internet generation behind advertisers who saw online communications evolving faster than laws governing their fair use. Today however, the FTC is codifying and enforcing what were once only unwritten rules. As a result, companies caught crossing the bounds of appropriate online behavior now face harsher penalties than ever before.

Transparency is Paramount

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As of December 1, 2009, the FTC began watching the online space for signs that advertisers masquerading as independent third parties might be taking advantage of the millions of consumers whose buying decisions are increasingly shaped by social media. The FTC is now monitoring blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and myriad other platforms for violations of new rules aimed at infusing greater corporate transparency into the online marketplace.

It isn’t only a few rogue advertisers that must revisit their online marketing strategies in light of the FTC’s recent actions. The list of companies that have run afoul of total transparency in the social media space is long and distinguished, and includes some of the most recognizable names in the pantheon of corporate titans.

In 2006, for example, Stanley Smith and Marcia Schroeder couldn’t get enough of McDonald’s Monopoly game – so much so that they even found time to blog about it in between peeling and organizing game pieces from their Big Macs, sodas, and fries. “Some nights, we skip cooking dinner at home just to take a trip to McDonald’s so we can play Monopoly,” wrote Ms. Schroeder. “Thank goodness they have lots of variety on the menu to choose from.”

While perhaps somewhat obsessive to some, the posts on Schroeder’s Mcdmillionwinner.com and Smith’s 4railroads.com seemed innocent enough. But when it was discovered that Smith and Schroeder were actually officially blogging for McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast food chain ended up with Egg McMuffin on its face.

Why? Because the relationship wasn’t disclosed. The digital realm teemed with commentary critical of the guerrilla marketing tactic. It wouldn’t be long before McDonald’s learned a valuable lesson about what can happen when a company is caught trying to pull the wool over millions of Internet eyes.

The New Rules of the Road

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Of course, that was four years ago, when companies risked only brand and reputation damage in violating social media’s well-known, but non-binding rules. Today, the stiff fines and additional bad press that could accompany an FTC enforcement action have increased the stakes dramatically and made the new rules of the road required reading for any company seeking to engage online audiences.

Among the practices long frowned upon in the social media sphere that are now on the FTC’s radar are: “Flogging,” or creating supposedly-objective blogs that serve only to promote a product or service; “astroturfing,” where advertisers posing as ordinary consumers share raving, but often misleading, reviews; and paying social media users to knowingly post inaccurate information about a product or service.

Most important, social media users – from celebrity spokespeople to everyday consumers – who are paid to post accurate information about a product or service will now be required to disclose their deals and could be held personally liable if they don’t. If they think Twitter’s 140 character limit will get them off the hook, they ought to think again. As the Associate Director of the FTC’s advertising division, Richard Cleland, has said, “If you can’t make the disclosure, you can’t make the ad.”

Companies in the Crosshairs

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What might be the most telling aspect of the new regulatory environment is a measure requiring companies to proactively discover and, when necessary, correct misinformation about their brand or product posted to social media sites. Taken along with numerous comments from FTC officials that the targets of their investigations aren’t going to be bloggers who break the rules, but the companies who pay them to do it, it’s becoming clear that Corporate America will be squarely in the FTC’s enforcement crosshairs moving forward.

For those now frantically re-evaluating current online outreach efforts, the FTC has offered fairly basic and straight forward guidance to follow moving forward. According to the Commission’s guidelines:

“The fundamental question is whether, viewed objectively, the relationship between the advertiser and the speaker is such that the speaker’s statement can be considered ’sponsored’ by the advertiser and therefore an ‘advertising message.’”

The FTC guidelines pose a clear question that will be used to determine whether an online communication fits the definition of a sponsored “endorsement:” Is the speaker acting solely independently, in which case there is no endorsement, or is the speaker acting on behalf of the advertiser or its agent to further an overall marketing campaign, in which case there is an endorsement.

The Keys to Compliance

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While the FTC’s new rules do ratchet up the stakes in terms of compliance – and the legal and branding liabilities that go along with noncompliance – there isn’t much that companies should be doing now that they shouldn’t have been doing before these rules went into effect. The questionable tactics now banned by the FTC were never advisable in a media environment where transparency and accountability trump all else – regardless of whether they were legal or not.

But for the companies now scrambling to comply with federal guidelines that carry a stiff $11,000 penalty per infraction, implementation of the following approach is essential:

1. It is imperative to recognize that the enforcement environment has changed entirely. What you may have been able to get away with in the World Wide Web’s Wild West era will no longer work.

2. Educate your online endorsers as to the new rules of the road and provide them with the tools they’ll need to maintain compliance with the FTC. Ensure that they know what is appropriate to share on social media platforms and what isn’t, and provide them with boilerplate disclosure language that fulfills the FTC’s requirements.

3. Monitor what your paid endorsers are saying. Often, paid online endorsers operate as free agents of a sort in that they are not only provided a product to review, but the freedom to review it as they wish. Because you can’t control exactly what they will say, monitoring their posts is absolutely essential. Free tools such as Google Alerts, Google’s real-time search capability – which now includes up-to-the-minute sweeps of Facebook and Twitter entries – and socialmention.com are among the most popular and effective tools for monitoring what’s being said about a product or brand as it’s being said. Paid tools such as Radian6 and Techirgy provide comprehensive, customizable reports that can be tailored to capture messages most likely to raise eyebrows at the FTC – such as endorsements and testimonials.

4. Engage when necessary. Companies must be prepared to correct any misinformation posted to social media by a paid endorser as quickly as possible. If the FTC comes calling, it won’t be enough to simply fall back on your endorser education efforts. The agency is going to want to see that you’ve taken steps to correct the record. While it may seem counterintuitive, consumers will also appreciate your honesty – transforming what could be a trust-damaging episode into one that actually enhances credibility with key consumer audiences.

Monitor, engage, and be transparent; these have always been the keys to success in the digital space. Now that the FTC is keeping a closer eye on social media marketing activities than ever before, they’re also the best way to steer clear of the legal and brand liabilities that noncompliance could create.

More business resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Manage Successful Social Media Promotions
- Mashable’s Social Media Guide for Small Businesses
- 4 Ways Social Media is Changing Business
- HOW TO: Use Twitter Hashtags for Business
- 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses
- 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, skodonnell, DNY59

Tags: business, FTC, FTC rules, law, List, Lists, social media

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New brand for two trendy gay farmers, Phil Palmer and Michael Butcher. A set of labels that are then rubber stamped for each product, saving time and money for this new farm shop. The idea’s in the imagery…!

Designed by Brandhouse
 

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However, with the advent of Internet marketing, that time process has been greatly accelerated. You can now become a person of influence in your industry and become known to other industry VIPs in a matter of months, rather than years. Here are 7 strategies that will help you build successful relationships with your industry VIPs:

1. Become the instant guru. One quick way to do this is by recording an audio. You determine your target market and the top 3 problems that plague your target market. Then, create an outline detailing solutions to those top 3 problems, and record an audio of yourself speaking about those problems and your proffered solutions. Create an audio CD and CD cover and have the CD duplicated. Offer your CD as a client attraction device on your web site and blog.
2. Create your strategic alliance list. Write down your ideal list of strategic alliances or product launch joint venture (JV) partners. If you’re just starting out, you might want to begin with a second- or third-tier list (i.e. those who are not as well-known as the industry gurus but have some standing in their own right).
3. Use Web 2.0. Use social networking on Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter and follow/friend the members of your list. Interact with them often, commenting on their status updates, videos, etc. Retweet useful information to your followers that they send out to their followers and friends. Go to their blog posts and comment on those, as well.
4. Become a customer. Buy a product from your person of influence. Review the product on your blog or in an article and submit the review through your social networks. If you purchase a physical product, take a photo of yourself holding the product and send the photo to your VIP or send the VIP a card containing your photo and some word of praise about the product.
5. Attend live events. Many industry VIPs attend a number of live events each year. Because you’re now following these industry VIPs via social networking, they will tell you what events they plan to attend. Attending these same events and meeting these people in person helps them remember you, especially if you take a photo of yourself with that person and send it to them or post it to your social networking profiles. Many times you can buy your VIP a drink or take them to dinner and have a 1:1 conversation with them. Remember, if you don’t ask, you’ll never know!
6. Become an affiliate. If you love your VIPs products, become an affiliate and promote those products to your list. If you can genuinely talk about how this product has helped you, you’ll be of service to your list members and attract the attention of your VIP, as well.
7. Stay in touch regularly. Set up a direct mail “stay in touch” campaign. Rather than using email or social networking exclusively, I think the most effective strategy at this stage is to send a direct mail card or postcard, as those get more attention as they are used far less often these days.

Begin your campaign today to increase your visibility in your industry by connecting with industry VIPs. You’ll soon discover how quickly your business will grow when you’re in touch with those in the know!

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

7 Strategies for Building Online Relationships with Industry VIPs

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Commenting platforms for blogs are nothing new. Companies like Disqus have provided publishers with an alternative commenting mechanism — with juicy features like Reactions for adding social media commentary to posts — for some time now.

Today JS-Kit is trying make a big splash with the unveiling of their re-branding effort and a new name: Echo.

Echo’s only real news is the company name switch (which was already the product name) and the release of customer names like CBS and Discovery News. When it comes to the product itself, Echo isn’t unveiling anything new. The rechristening is a much-needed — albeit belated — move by the company executed in order to draw attention to its impressive yet under-appreciated technology. It also appears as if Echo is shifting its attention toward the enterprise.

As a real-time comment platform, Echo’s offering is nothing to scoff at. When they say real-time, they mean it, so comments actually automatically trickle in via various social networks as they happen, no refresh required. Commenters can also share their on-site comments with Facebook, Google, Twitter, FriendFeed and Yahoo, as well as add formatting, style, images, video and custom notification options as they comment. You can also log in to the commenting platform with any of your social media profiles.

Echo’s technology and feature set is certainly competitive with the companies that share the space, and if you’ve failed to notice it before, the service is hoping its customer list will encourage you to pay heed. As of today, Echo is publicizing its enterprise relationships with CBS/CNET, Discovery News, Dow Jones Local Media Group, Hearst Digital News, The Press Enterprise, CanWest, Technorati and KQED.

Is the rebranding strategy enough to make the company echo through the blogosphere and make a huge impact? While that remains to be seen, Echo has proven that it can offer a premium version of its product and attract more traditional, top-tier clients. That’s enough to convince us that Echo has a solid business model in mind, and has the potential to entice even more enterprise-level customers.

Tags: comment platform, echo, js-kit

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Sam Decker is chief marketing officer of Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales. You can follow him on Twitter @SamDecker.

By now, most companies realize their customers are their most valuable advocates – and when their customers share their credible opinions via reviews, it increases sales of their products and services and deepens brand engagement. The majority of large brands now offer some type or ratings and review system on their sites, because consumers now expect to be able to read and contribute peer reviews before making purchase decisions – so much so that some 82% of consumers say they find reviews “extremely valuable or valuable,” according to a recent survey. If all you’re doing is offering rating or review functionality, you’re likely not getting the maximum benefit.

If you already have a ratings and reviews system in place – or if you haven’t yet taken the plunge – there are several steps you can take to improve the effectiveness of your consumer reviews programs.

Why Ratings and Reviews?

Done correctly, ratings and reviews deliver a significant increase in sales; one third of retailers reported an 11-20% overall increase in conversions as a result of adding reviews to their sites, while consumers are willing to pay up to 99% more for a 5-star rated product than for a 4-star rated product.

But engaging in a conversation with your customers isn’t just a way to generate sales; having reviews on your site also boosts SEO traffic and page views, increases average order value, lowers returns, reduces customer service calls, and results in more satisfied customers overall. What’s more, companies can analyze ratings and review trends to improve overall marketing strategies, improve customer service, and fine-tune merchandising.

1. Integrate Reviews with Your Login System

Ask people to register or log in to post a review. While some companies see this as a barrier to generating a critical mass of reviews, we’ve found that requiring registration does not have a significant impact on the number of reviews created (though it does tend to improve the overall quality of reviews), and the value of linking reviews to a customer profile is enormous. When you know who is writing reviews, what they are saying, what products they’ve reviewed, what products they’ve purchased, etc, you can use this information to segment messages to that person and to see overall trends that will lead to better marketing decisions. What’s more, when you require registration to write reviews, you can see who is writing the most reviews and reward frequent reviewers with badges, discounts, and other incentives.

2. Mine Your Data

You can tell a lot about your business by reading and analyzing reviews. In fact, review content can positively impact every function of a business if you collect data in the right way. Analyze the content of reviews, ratings and opinion trends, and the number of reviews for certain products, then compare this data to web analytics, CRM, and purchase data to get a complete picture of how your merchandising mix and overall marketing programs are performing. Make sure multiple teams – technology, product design, marketing, sales, management – have access to this data, so they can use it to improve their business results.

3. Integrate Ratings and Review Content into Marketing

Don’t just leave ratings and reviews on your website, put them to use in all of your marketing materials. You can include top-rated products and snippets from positive reviews in search ads, e-mail campaigns, circulars and catalogues, and on in-store banners. Integrate with Facebook and Twitter, allowing reviewers to automatically share their reviews to these and other social networking platforms, virally spreading your brand’s review content across the web. One of our customers, Office Depot, included top-rated products in its paid search campaigns and saw a 156% increase in ROI on that campaign vs. its traditional paid search ads.

4. Motivate the Community

Research has shown that even one review on a website will instantly drive up conversion on that product. But, of course, the more reviews your site has, the bigger the impact. To encourage people to post ratings and reviews, offer sweepstakes and prizes to reviewers, give badges to top reviews or list their names on a leader board, and promote participation in the review program on all of your marketing materials. You can also implement Ask & Answer type services, where people ask each other for purchase advice, or invite people to discuss their personal stories with your brand, products and services. The more content your customers create about your brand, the more your sales will increase.

5. Remember to Moderate

You want to encourage people to be open and honest in their reviews – a good mix of positive and negative reviews is credible and authentic – but you don’t want to leave rants and irrelevant reviews up on your site. Make sure you work with a reviews provider that offers full moderation (using humans to scan reviews, not just fallible natural language technologies), or task people in-house to moderate reviews.

If someone writes a flamingly negative review, perhaps due to a customer service mishap or a defective product, you don’t have to leave that review on your site – but make sure to reach out to that person offering customer support, as well as with a mitigating gesture like a discount.

6. Don’t Forget About Ratings

While it’s the review content that really counts – some 80% of people value the narrative review content more than the star-rating in making purchase decisions – ratings are still crucial. We’ve found that products with star ratings receive on average a 120% higher click-through than those that don’t have ratings, which means ratings are the “eye candy” that pull people in to seek more information on a product.

7. Push the Participation Chain

You need to keep people engaged with your brand over the long term, so encourage participation in your reviews platform by promoting the program through social channels like Facebook and Twitter. Think in terms of building a “participation chain” that cultivates user involvement, where each action builds upon the one before through sharing. By lengthening and deepening customers’ participation on your brand site, participation chains improve brand opinion, increase sales, and make customers more likely to recommend a brand to their friends.

By seeing ratings and reviews for what they really are – an integral part of your entire business strategy, and not just a widget on your site – you’ll be well on your way to attaining maximum value from consumer-generated content.

More business resources from Mashable:

- Mashable’s Social Media Guide for Small Businesses
- 4 Ways Social Media is Changing Business
- HOW TO: Use Twitter Hashtags for Business
- 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses
- 6 Must-Follow Steps for Selling in Any Economy
- 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Barghest

Tags: engagement, List, Lists, ratings, reviews, tips

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What is CodeIgniter?

CodeIgniter is a powerful PHP framework with a very small footprint, built for PHP coders who need a simple and elegant toolkit
to create full-featured web applications. If you’re a developer who lives in the real world of shared hosting accounts and clients
with deadlines, and if you’re tired of ponderously large and thoroughly undocumented frameworks, CodeIgniter is for you!

In this tutorial, I am using the latest stable version of CodeIgniter, V1.7.2. This tutorial requires you to have some modest knowledge of CodeIgniter and the MVC pattern. The following tutorials will get you started right away!

• Everything You Need to Get Started by Ben Haines
• CodeIgniter From Scratch: Day 1 by Jeffrey Way

Resources

Before we can start, we need to download CodeIgniter and jQuery. Click here to download CodeIgniter, and here to download jQuery. Alternatively, you can reference jQuery via Google’s CDN: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js” type=”text/javascript

Folder Structure

Before we start coding, I would like to create a solid structure for our application. I prefer to move the application folder out of the system folder; this is not required, but
it makes the update process easier in the future.

The final folder we need to create before beginning is the assets folder; this is where I store my images, Javascript, CSS and other assets.
Let’s take a look at the final folder structure:

Inside the folder assets/js, we place our jquery-1.3.2.min.js file, and an empty file called core.js. In this file, we will write our JavaScript.
And one more thing remains: we need to create our stylesheet. So create a new file in assets/css called core.css.

Database

We are going to retrieve our products from the database; so let’s go to PHPMyAdmin and create a table called CI_Cart.

And for those of you who want to copy and paste, the SQL Code…

	CREATE TABLE `products` (
	  `id` int(128) NOT NULL auto_increment,
	  `name` varchar(128) NOT NULL,
	  `price` varchar(32) NOT NULL,
	  `image` varchar(128) NOT NULL,
	  PRIMARY KEY  (`id`)
	) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
	

Now, let’s insert some data into this table:

Again – for those who would prefer to copy and paste:

	INSERT INTO `products` VALUES(1, 'MacBook Pro', '1199', 'macbookpro.jpg');
	INSERT INTO `products` VALUES(2, 'MacBook Air', '1499', 'macbookair.jpg');
	INSERT INTO `products` VALUES(3, 'MacBook', '999', 'macbook.jpg');
	

There’s everything that needs to be done for our database in this tutorial.

Step 1 – Application Config

Before we can start using CodeIgniter, we have to setup our configuration. Open application/config/config.php, and change the following:

	$config['base_url']	= "http://example.com";
	

Replace http://example.com with the url to your installation. Next, look for Global XSS Filtering located near the bottom of the config.php file.

	$config['global_xss_filtering'] = FALSE;
	

Let’s change FALSE to TRUE, in order to make this filter active when GET, POST or COOKIE data is encountered. Next, open application/config/database.php and
enter your database information.

	$db['default']['hostname'] = "localhost";
	$db['default']['username'] = "root";
	$db['default']['password'] = "root";
	$db['default']['database'] = "CI_Cart";
	$db['default']['dbdriver'] = "mysql";
	

Next, open application/config/routes.php and change the default controller to “cart”:

	$route['default_controller'] = "cart";
	

Now when someone visits the url to your application, the cart class will be loaded automatically.

We have one more file to edit, so open application/config/autoload.php and autoload the following components:

		/*
		| -------------------------------------------------------------------
		|  Auto-load Libraries
		| -------------------------------------------------------------------
		| These are the classes located in the system/libraries folder
		| or in your system/application/libraries folder.
		|
		| Prototype:
		|
		|	$autoload['libraries'] = array('database', 'session', 'xmlrpc');
		*/

		$autoload['libraries'] = array('cart', 'database');

		/*
		| -------------------------------------------------------------------
		|  Auto-load Helper Files
		| -------------------------------------------------------------------
		| Prototype:
		|
		|	$autoload['helper'] = array('url', 'file');
		*/

		$autoload['helper'] = array('url', 'form');
	

Libraries

• database – Allows your application to connect with a database and makes the database class available.
• cart – Allows you to access the shopping cart class, more information.

Helpers

• url – The url library allows you to access different methods to create and retrieve links, more information
• form – This library helps us with creating form. For more information…

Step 2 – Cart Controller

We changed our default controller to “cart,” but this controller does not yet exist. So, create a new file called application/controllers/cart.php and add the
default controller structure.

	<?php

	class Cart extends Controller { // Our Cart class extends the Controller class

		function Cart()
		{
			parent::Controller(); // We define the the Controller class is the parent.
		}

	}
	/* End of file cart.php */
	/* Location: ./application/controllers/cart.php */
	

Now, let’s create our index function. This will run automatically when the class cart is requested.

		function index()
		{
		    $data['products'] = $this->cart_model->retrieve_products(); // Retrieve an array with all products
		}
	

So what happens here? Well you will notice that we assigned the output of our cart_model to a variable called “$data['products'].”
If we refresh our page, we will get an error, because we haven’t made our cart_model yet.

Step 3 – Creating our Model

What is a Model?

Models are PHP classes that are designed to work with information in your database. For example, let’s say you use CodeIgniter to manage a blog. You might have a
model class that contains functions to insert, update, and retrieve your blog data.

Models are created in the following folder: application/models/; so let’s create our model file called cart_model.php, and make a few edits.

	<?php 

		class Cart_model extends Model { // Our Cart_model class extends the Model class

		}

	/* End of file cart_model.php */
	/* Location: ./application/models/cart_model.php */
	

It’s as simple as that; we have created our model. It’s important that you extend your Cart_model with Model in order to make it work properly. Remember when we called our model in the index() function of our cart controller? We called a function called retrieve_products, so let’s create that!

	<?php 

		class Cart_model extends Model { // Our Cart_model class extends the Model class

			// Function to retrieve an array with all product information
			function retrieve_products(){
				$query = $this->db->get('products'); // Select the table products
				return $query->result_array(); // Return the results in a array.
			}			

		}

	/* End of file cart_model.php */
	/* Location: ./application/models/cart_model.php */
	

Refresh the page, and see what happens:

We created our model, and called the function retrieve_products from our cart controller, but we forgot to load it.
There are different methods on how to load a model, but in this tutorial I’m going to call it in the construct function, or in this case, the cart function located at
the top of our controllers/cart.php file.

	<?php

	class Cart extends Controller { // Our Cart class extends the Controller class

		function Cart()
		{
			parent::Controller(); // We define the the Controller class is the parent.
			$this->load->model('cart_model'); // Load our cart model for our entire class
		}

	}
	/* End of file cart.php */
	/* Location: ./application/controllers/cart.php */
	

Now, test it out by printing the array.

		function index()
		{
		    $data['products'] = $this->cart_model->retrieve_products(); // Retrieve an array with all products
		    print_r($data['products']); // Print out the array to see if it works (Remove this line when done testing)
		}
	

If everything processed correct, you should see the following in your browser.

		Array ( [0] => Array ( [id] => 1 [name] => MacBook Pro [price] => 1199 [image] => macbookpro.jpg )
		        [1] => Array ( [id] => 2 [name] => MacBook Air [price] => 1499 [image] => macbookair.jpg )
		        [2] => Array ( [id] => 3 [name] => MacBook [price] => 999 [image] => macbook.jpg ) )
	

Now that we have retrieved our content, we have to display it using a view!

Step 4 – Creating our View

What is a View?

A view is simply a web page, or a page fragment, like a header, footer, sidebar, etc.
In fact, views can flexibly be embedded within other views (within other views, etc., etc.) if you need this type of hierarchy.

Views are never called directly, they must be loaded by a controller.
Remember that in an MVC framework, the Controller acts as the traffic cop, so it is responsible for fetching a particular view.

Open the folder application/views, and create a new file called index.php.

		<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
		<html xml:lang="en-us" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
		<head>
		<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
		<title>CodeIgniter Shopping Cart</title>

		<link href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>assets/css/core.css" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

		<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo base_url(); ?>assets/js/jquery-1.3.2.min.js"></script>
		<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo base_url(); ?>assets/js/core.js"></script>
		</head>
		<body>

		<div id="wrap">

			<?php $this->view($content); ?>

		</div>

		</body>
		</html>
	

This is going to be our core template. As you can see, we load our jQuery and our stylesheet.
Because we loaded the url helper, “base_url();” will return the url to our application.

We are also loading a view that contains a variable called $content. This allows us to dynamically load content. If we define that ‘$content’ is ‘demo,’ the view
views/demo.php will be loaded for example.

Step 5 – Sending Data to our View

In Step 3, we prepared our index function, and retrieved all products from the database, but we haven’t sent the data to a view yet; so open
/application/controllers/cart.php

		function index()
		{
		    $data['products'] = $this->cart_model->retrieve_products(); // Retrieve an array with all products

			$data['content'] = 'cart/products'; // Select our view file that will display our products
			$this->load->view('index', $data); // Display the page with the above defined content
		}
	

As you can see, we have set the variable $content to ‘cart/products.’ We haven’t made this view yet, so let’s do that now.

Create a new file in application/views/cart and call it products.php. Within this file, we’ll display the data that we received from our cart model. We are going to
use an unsorted list to display our products.

	<ul class="products">
		<li></li>
	</ul>
	

Because the product data is being returned in a array, we have to use foreach in order to display all products

	<ul class="products">
		<?php foreach($products as $p): ?>
		<li>
		</li>
		<?php endforeach;?>
	</ul>
	

Now that we’ve started a foreach loop, we can start displaying the product data.

	<ul class="products">
		<?php foreach($products as $p): ?>
		<li>
			<h3><?php echo $p['name']; ?></h3>
			<img src="<?php echo base_url(); ?>assets/img/products/<?php echo $p['image']; ?>" alt="" />
			<small>&euro;<?php echo $p['price']; ?></small>
			<?php echo form_open('cart/add_cart_item'); ?>
				<fieldset>
					<label>Quantity</label>
					<?php echo form_input('quantity', '1', 'maxlength="2"'); ?>
					<?php echo form_hidden('product_id', $p['id']); ?>
					<?php echo form_submit('add', 'Add'); ?>
				</fieldset>
			<?php echo form_close(); ?>
		</li>
		<?php endforeach;?>
	</ul>
	

Let’s break the above code down into consumable pieces.

	<h3><?php echo $p['name']; ?></h3>
	

We display the product name in an H3 tag.

	<img src="<?php echo base_url(); ?>assets/img/products/<?php echo $p['image']; ?>" alt="" />
	

Here, we use the base_url function to retrieve the url to our application, and then access the folder assets/img.
Then we request the product image from the database.

	<small>&euro;<?php echo $p['price']; ?></small>
	

We display the product price retrieved from the database, and wrapp it within small tags.

			<?php echo form_open('cart/add_cart_item'); ?>
				<fieldset>
	

We use the form helper to create the form opening tag, and set the action to “cart/add_cart_item”.

					<label>Quantity</label>
					<?php echo form_input('quantity', '1', 'maxlength="2"'); ?>
					<?php echo form_hidden('product_id', $p['id']); ?>
					<?php echo form_submit('add', 'Add'); ?>
	

This is the part where the user can define the quantity of items he/she wants. We use the form helper again to create an input field with the name “quantity” and set the default value to “1.” We also pass through some extra data – in this case, we set the maxlength to “2.”

We also placed a hidden field – again using the form helper – and named it “product_id.”

Next, we have the submit button, with the name “add” and the default value “Add.”

				</fieldset>
			<?php echo form_close(); ?>
	

Finally, we close our fieldset, and the form. Now let’s add some CSS!

	body{
		font-family: "Lucida Sans";
		font-size: 12px;
	}

	#wrap{
		width: 1024px;
	}

	ul.products{
		list-style-type: none;
		width: 525px;
		margin: 0;
		padding: 0;
	}

		ul.products li{
			background: #eeeeee;
			border: 1px solid #d3d3d3;
			padding: 5px;
			width: 150px;
			text-align: center;
			float: left;
			margin-right: 10px;
		}

		ul.products h3{
			margin: 0;
			padding: 0px 0px 5px 0px;
			font-size: 14px;
		}

		ul.products small{
			display: block;
		}

		ul.products form fieldset{
			border: 0px;
		}

		ul.products form label{
			font-size: 12px;
		}

		ul.products form input[type=text]{
			width: 18px;
			background: #FFF;
			border: 1px solid #d3d3d3;
		}
	

I’ve added three images to assets/img/products, which correspond to the names from the database.

Step 6 – Adding a Product to the Cart

We want to add products to the cart using jQuery, but we also want it to work for users who don’t have JavaScript enabled. Let’s dive into our JavaScript file, assets/js/core.js, and start with the jQuery opening tags:

	$(document).ready(function() {
	/*place jQuery actions here*/ 

	});
	

Because CodeIgniter uses a mod_rewrite kind of url “index.php/cart”, we are going to define a var with the url to our application:

	$(document).ready(function() {
		/*place jQuery actions here*/
		var link = "/tutorials/CodeIgniter_Shopping_Cart/demo/index.php/"; // Url to your application (including index.php/)

	});
	

Don’t forget to change it accordingly to your situation. Next, we want to see if any form is being submitted. We can use the jQuery submit function to do just that.

	$(document).ready(function() {
		/*place jQuery actions here*/
		var link = "/tutorials/CodeIgniter_Shopping_Cart/demo/index.php/"; // Url to your application (including index.php/)

		$("ul.products form").submit(function() {

			return false; // Stop the browser of loading the page defined in the form "action" parameter.
		});

	});
	

Before we can send the data using jQuery, we have to get the values that we have to send. So we use the jQuery find function to find the fields we need, and retrieve their values.

	$(document).ready(function() {
		/*place jQuery actions here*/
		var link = "/tutorials/CodeIgniter_Shopping_Cart/demo/index.php/"; // Url to your application (including index.php/)

		$("ul.products form").submit(function() {
			// Get the product ID and the quantity
			var id = $(this).find('input[name=product_id]').val();
			var qty = $(this).find('input[name=quantity]').val();

			return false; // Stop the browser of loading the page defined in the form "action" parameter.
		});

	});
	

If you’d like to test it out, add an alert and let’s see what happens.

	$(document).ready(function() {
		/*place jQuery actions here*/
		var link = "/tutorials/CodeIgniter_Shopping_Cart/demo/index.php/"; // Url to your application (including index.php/)

		$("ul.products form").submit(function() {
			// Get the product ID and the quantity
			var id = $(this).find('input[name=product_id]').val();
			var qty = $(this).find('input[name=quantity]').val();

			alert('ID:' + id + '\n\rQTY:' + qty);

			return false; // Stop the browser of loading the page defined in the form "action" parameter.
		});

	});
	

So that works fine! This means we can start sending these values using jQuery Post.

	$(document).ready(function() {
		/*place jQuery actions here*/
		var link = "/tutorials/CodeIgniter_Shopping_Cart/demo/index.php/"; // Url to your application (including index.php/)

		$("ul.products form").submit(function() {
			// Get the product ID and the quantity
			var id = $(this).find('input[name=product_id]').val();
			var qty = $(this).find('input[name=quantity]').val();

		 	$.post(link + "cart/add_cart_item", { product_id: id, quantity: qty, ajax: '1' },
  				function(data){
 		 			// Interact with returned data
 			 });

			return false; // Stop the browser of loading the page defined in the form "action" parameter.
		});

	});
	

In the code above, we post data to our cart controller and request the function add_cart_item. This an example of the posted data:

• product_id: 3
• quantity: 1
• ajax: 1

Besides the product data, you can see that we also send through a variable called ajax, with the value ‘1.’ We can use this to check if the user has JavaScript enabled
or not. Because when it’s disabled, only the product_id and the quantity will be posted.

Before we can start interacting with the data returned from our post, we have to create the function that returns the data. Open
application/controllers/cart.php and add a function named “add_cart_item”

	function add_cart_item(){

		if($this->cart_model->validate_add_cart_item() == TRUE){

			// Check if user has javascript enabled
			if($this->input->post('ajax') != '1'){
				redirect('cart'); // If javascript is not enabled, reload the page with new data
			}else{
				echo 'true'; // If javascript is enabled, return true, so the cart gets updated
			}
		}

	}
	

In the code above, we start our function add_cart_item. Next, we use an if statment to check if the cart_model function called validate_add_cart_item()
returns true. We still have to create that function, but what this does in the end, is check if the product exists, and then adds it to the cart. We’ll go over this a bit more shortly.

You can now see why we’ve added the ajax value in the jQuery Post. If no ajax is posted, it means the user has disabled JavaScript – which means we must reload the page
so that the user sees a refreshed cart. If ajax is posted, we return the value true, so jQuery knows that everything processed correctly.

Let’s move on and create the validate_add_cart_item() function! Open application/models/cart_model.php

	// Add an item to the cart
	function validate_add_cart_item(){
		// Validate posted data, and then add the item!
	}
	

First we are going to assign the posted data to a local variable.

	// Add an item to the cart
	function validate_add_cart_item(){

		$id = $this->input->post('product_id'); // Assign posted product_id to $id
		$cty = $this->input->post('quantity'); // Assign posted quantity to $cty

	}
	

Now, it’s time to validate the posted data, and see if the product exists.

	// Add an item to the cart
	function validate_add_cart_item(){

		$id = $this->input->post('product_id'); // Assign posted product_id to $id
		$cty = $this->input->post('quantity'); // Assign posted quantity to $cty

		$this->db->where('id', $id); // Select where id matches the posted id
		$query = $this->db->get('products', 1); // Select the products where a match is found and limit the query by 1

	}
	

We create a query, and request to return 1 result where the posted id matches the id within the database.

	// Add an item to the cart
	function validate_add_cart_item(){

		$id = $this->input->post('product_id'); // Assign posted product_id to $id
		$cty = $this->input->post('quantity'); // Assign posted quantity to $cty

		$this->db->where('id', $id); // Select where id matches the posted id
		$query = $this->db->get('products', 1); // Select the products where a match is found and limit the query by 1

		// Check if a row has matched our product id
		if($query->num_rows > 0){

		// We have a match!

		}else{
			// Nothing found! Return FALSE!
			return FALSE;
		}
	}
	

If nothing is found, we return false. If a match is found, we add the item to cart.

	// Add an item to the cart
	function validate_add_cart_item(){

		$id = $this->input->post('product_id'); // Assign posted product_id to $id
		$cty = $this->input->post('quantity'); // Assign posted quantity to $cty

		$this->db->where('id', $id); // Select where id matches the posted id
		$query = $this->db->get('products', 1); // Select the products where a match is found and limit the query by 1

		// Check if a row has matched our product id
		if($query->num_rows > 0){

		// We have a match!
			foreach ($query->result() as $row)
			{
				// Create an array with product information
			    $data = array(
               		'id'      => $id,
               		'qty'     => $cty,
               		'price'   => $row->price,
               		'name'    => $row->name
            	);

				// Add the data to the cart using the insert function that is available because we loaded the cart library
				$this->cart->insert($data); 

				return TRUE; // Finally return TRUE
			}

		}else{
			// Nothing found! Return FALSE!
			return FALSE;
		}
	}
	

Before we can use jQuery to reload the cart, we have to create the cart list.

Step 7 – Creating the Cart View

First, let’s open application/views/index.php and add a div for our cart.

	<div id="wrap">

		<?php $this->view($content); ?>

		<div class="cart_list">
			<h3>Your shopping cart</h3>
			<div id="cart_content">
				<?php echo $this->view('cart/cart.php'); ?>
			</div>
		</div>
	</div>
	

Above, we created a div called cart_list, and, inside, a div with the id cart_content. Now inside the div cart_content, we are going to load another view
called cart.php.

Create a new file in application/views/cart/, and name it cart.php. Add the following code:

	<?php if(!$this->cart->contents()):
		echo 'You don\'t have any items yet.';
	else:
	?>

	<?php echo form_open('cart/update_cart'); ?>
	<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
		<thead>
			<tr>
				<td>Qty</td>
				<td>Item Description</td>
				<td>Item Price</td>
				<td>Sub-Total</td>
			</tr>
		</thead>
		<tbody>
			<?php $i = 1; ?>
			<?php foreach($this->cart->contents() as $items): ?>

			<?php echo form_hidden('rowid[]', $items['rowid']); ?>
			<tr <?php if($i&1){ echo 'class="alt"'; }?>>
		  		<td>
		  			<?php echo form_input(array('name' => 'qty[]', 'value' => $items['qty'], 'maxlength' => '3', 'size' => '5')); ?>
		  		</td>

		  		<td><?php echo $items['name']; ?></td>

		  		<td>&euro;<?php echo $this->cart->format_number($items['price']); ?></td>
		  		<td>&euro;<?php echo $this->cart->format_number($items['subtotal']); ?></td>
		  	</tr>

		  	<?php $i++; ?>
			<?php endforeach; ?>

			<tr>
				<td</td>
	 		 	<td></td>
	 		 	<td><strong>Total</strong></td>
	 		 	<td>&euro;<?php echo $this->cart->format_number($this->cart->total()); ?></td>
			</tr>
		</tbody>
	</table>

	<p><?php echo form_submit('', 'Update your Cart'); echo anchor('cart/empty_cart', 'Empty Cart', 'class="empty"');?></p>
	<p><small>If the quantity is set to zero, the item will be removed from the cart.</small></p>
	<?php
	echo form_close();
	endif;
	?>
	

That’s quite some code; let’s break it down into different parts.

	<?php if(!$this->cart->contents()):
		echo 'You don\'t have any items yet.';
	else:
	?>
	

We use an if statment to check if the cart contains any content. If the cart does not have any content, we display the message “You don’t have any items yet.” If
the cart is not empty, we will run the rest of the code.

	<?php echo form_open('cart/update_cart'); ?>
	<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
		<thead>
			<tr>
				<td>Qty</td>
				<td>Item Description</td>
				<td>Item Price</td>
				<td>Sub-Total</td>
			</tr>
		</thead>
	

Next, we create our form open tag using the form helper, and set the action parameter to cart/update_cart. We also created a table with a tableheading, and
added the Quantity, Item Description, Item Price, and Sub-Total fields.

		<tbody>
			<?php $i = 1; // Keep track of the amount of loops ?>
			<?php foreach($this->cart->contents() as $items): // We break the cart contents into parts ?>

			<?php echo form_hidden('rowid[]', $items['rowid']); // We added an hidden field which contains a unique id in array format, this is needed in order to update ?>
			<tr <?php if($i&1){ echo 'class="alt"'; // If $i is odd, we add the class "alt" in order to change the background color }?>>
		  		<td>
		  			<?php echo form_input(array('name' => 'qty[]', 'value' => $items['qty'], 'maxlength' => '3', 'size' => '5')); // Here we created an input field with the name qty[] this allows us to interact with it as an array when its posted.?>
		  		</td>

		  		<td><?php echo $items['name']; // Display the item name ?></td>

		  		<td>&euro;<?php echo $this->cart->format_number($items['price']); // Display the item price ?></td>
		  		<td>&euro;<?php echo $this->cart->format_number($items['subtotal']); // Display subtotal ?></td>
		  	</tr>

		  	<?php $i++; // Add 1 to $i ?>
			<?php endforeach; // End the foreach ?>

			<tr>
				<td</td>
	 		 	<td></td>
	 		 	<td><strong>Total</strong></td>
	 		 	<td>&euro;<?php echo $this->cart->format_number($this->cart->total()); // Display the total amount ?></td>
			</tr>
		</tbody>
	

What is a Row ID?

The row ID is a unique identifier that is generated by the cart code when an item is added to the cart.
The reason a unique ID is created is so that identical products with different options can be managed by the cart.

For example, let’s imagine that someone buys two identical t-shirts (same product ID), but in different sizes. The product ID (and other attributes) will
be identical for both sizes because it’s the same shirt. The only difference will be the size. The cart must therefore have a means of identifying
this difference so that the two sizes of shirts can be managed independently. It does so by creating a unique “row ID” based on the product ID and
any options associated with it.

	</table>

	<p><?php echo form_submit('', 'Update your Cart'); echo anchor('cart/empty_cart', 'Empty Cart', 'class="empty"');?></p>
	<p><small>If the quantity is set to zero, the item will be removed from the cart.</small></p>
	<?php
	echo form_close();
	endif;
	?>
	

Finally, we close the table and create a link using the anchor function to cart/emtpy_cart. We will create the empty cart
function shortly.

Refresh the page and take a look:

We havent told jQuery to update the shopping cart when Add is pressed. But we can test it out using FireBug. Click “Add,” and review what happens:

As you can see, jQuery posts the data to cart/add_cart_item; now let’s see what the response is.

TRUE is returned, so refresh your page, and you should have an item in your shopping cart.

Now that this works, let’s move on with jQuery, and refresh the cart when an item is added to the cart.

Step 8 – Refreshing Cart

Remember that we ended up with:

	$(document).ready(function() {
		/*place jQuery actions here*/
		var link = "/tutorials/CodeIgniter_Shopping_Cart/demo/index.php/"; // Url to your application (including index.php/)

		$("ul.products form").submit(function() {
			// Get the product ID and the quantity
			var id = $(this).find('input[name=product_id]').val();
			var qty = $(this).find('input[name=quantity]').val();

		 	$.post(link + "cart/add_cart_item", { product_id: id, quantity: qty, ajax: '1' },
  				function(data){
 		 			// Interact with returned data
 			 });

			return false; // Stop the browser of loading the page defined in the form "action" parameter.
		});

	});
	

Now it’s time to interact with the returned data, in this case ‘true’ or ‘false.’

		 	$.post(link + "cart/add_cart_item", { product_id: id, quantity: qty, ajax: '1' },
  				function(data){	

 		 			if(data == 'true'){

 		 			}else{
 		 				alert("Product does not exist");
 		 			}
 			 });
	

By using an if statment, we can refresh the cart if true is returned, or give an alert when the product the user is trying to add does not exist.

		 	$.post(link + "cart/add_cart_item", { product_id: id, quantity: qty, ajax: '1' },
  				function(data){	

 		 			if(data == 'true'){

    					$.get(link + "cart/show_cart", function(cart){ // Get the contents of the url cart/show_cart
  							$("#cart_content").html(cart); // Replace the information in the div #cart_content with the retrieved data
						}); 		 

 		 			}else{
 		 				alert("Product does not exist");
 		 			}
 			 });
	

When true has been returned, we use jQuery’s “get”, to load the url cart/show_cart, and we replace the div #cart_content with data returned by that url.
But, you might notice that the function show_cart does not exist yet; let’s create that now by opening our controller application/controllers/cart.php

This is a very easy solution. We just have to return the contents of the cart, create the function, and return the view views/cart/cart.php

	function show_cart(){
		$this->load->view('cart/cart');
	}
	

Refresh the page, and try to add another item. jQuery should add it without reloading the page. (Unless you have JavaScript disabled, of course.)

Step 9 – Update Cart

Just a few steps left! When you have items in your cart, press update, and take a look what is actually being posted:

As you can see, the rowid is unique for every item in the shopping cart. We’re going to use these ids to check which item must be updated.

Open application/controllers/cart.php, and add the function update_cart.

	function update_cart(){
		$this->cart_model->validate_update_cart();
		redirect('cart');
	}
	

Again, we use a model to handle the data. After that’s done, we refresh the user’s page. Open application/models/cart_model.php, and create a new
function called validate_update_cart.

	// Updated the shopping cart
	function validate_update_cart(){

		// Get the total number of items in cart
		$total = $this->cart->total_items();

		// Retrieve the posted information
		$item = $this->input->post('rowid');
	    $qty = $this->input->post('qty');

		// Cycle true all items and update them
		for($i=0;$i < $total;$i++)
		{
			// Create an array with the products rowid's and quantities.
			$data = array(
               'rowid' => $item[$i],
               'qty'   => $qty[$i]
            );

            // Update the cart with the new information
			$this->cart->update($data);
		}

	}
	

As you can see, we first assign the total amount of items in our cart to a local variable called $total.
Next, we assign the posted rowid’s and quantities to local variables as well.

We use for to cycle through all items until $i equals $total – this makes sure all items are updated.

When cycling through the posted items, we create an array with the posted rowid and the quantity. When the array is created, we update this information using
the cart library function called update.

Give it a try and see if the items are being updated!

Step 10 – Empty Cart

Our final step! We have to create a function to empty our cart. Open application/controllers/cart.php again and create a function called empty_cart.

	function empty_cart(){
		$this->cart->destroy(); // Destroy all cart data
		redirect('cart'); // Refresh te page
	}
	

Add some jQuery to that! Open assets/js/core.js and write the following:

	$(".empty").live("click", function(){
    	$.get(link + "cart/empty_cart", function(){
    		$.get(link + "cart/show_cart", function(cart){
  				$("#cart_content").html(cart);
			});
		});

		return false;
    });
	

Our “Emtpy Cart” link has a class called .empty; so we attach a click function to it with no problems. You might notice that we are using the jQuery live function.
We have to use this in order to make it work. If we left it out, and you add an item to the cart, and then press empty cart, it won’t work.

After the link is clicked, we use the same code that is in the update cart function. First, we fetch the empty_cart url so our cart will be empty, and then we simply fetch the new cart content, and place that content into our #cart_content div.

Done!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! If you did, please let us know within the comments!

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A Google product manager has responded to the Google Phone tweets leaking out with a vague non-denial. Google’s Mario Queiroz calls the new handsets a “mobile lab” being used to test “new mobile features and capabilities”.

What he doesn’t say: is this handset set to become a flagship “Google Phone” to challenge the iPhone? Will it carry Google branding and be distributed by Google? Or is this merely an expanded test for new features in Android?

His non-denial implies at least some of this is true: Google is set to be more involved with this HTC phone (almost certainly the rumored HTC Passion) than previous devices.

Queiroz writes:

At Google, we are constantly experimenting with new products and technologies, and often ask employees to test these products for quick feedback and suggestions for improvements in a process we call dogfooding (from “eating your own dogfood”). Well this holiday season, we are taking dogfooding to a new level.

We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe. This means they get to test out a new technology and help improve it.

Unfortunately, because dogfooding is a process exclusively for Google employees, we cannot share specific product details. We hope to share more after our dogfood diet.

What do you think? Could a Google Phone be imminent?

Tags: Google, google phone

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Although announced back in June and touted for a release this December, in time for Christmas, the new Logitech Squeezebox Touch is taking longer than expected before it makes it to the production lines as a company spokesman has announced that “due to an unexpected product delay, this product will not be available (for review or sale) until February 2010″.

(…)
Read the rest of Logitech Squeezebox Touch Delayed for Next Year [Squeezebox Touch Wi-Fi Media & Entertainment Hub Available from Feb 2010]

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Here is the official video for the release

A fierce market

Unlike its web version, HootSuite comes with a price tag: €1,59 / $1,99 and this only until December 17th. According to the information available at the iTUNES store (ITunes link), this is a special price that includes a 30% discount.

If we think that HootSuite’s main competitor Tweetdeck gives its iPHONE app for free and has come to the iPHONE market months before HootSuite, the success of this new product will much depend on the loyalty the current web users have towards it.

In my opinion, one of the main obstacles for HootSuite is that it took way too much time to develop the iPHONE app thus opening a space for its web users to get used to others  when they are mobile. With so many Twitter applications for the iPHONE already established on the market  (some for free and some of them less expensive than HootSuite’s new product) it will be interesting to see if the Owl will sing victory on this one.

What do you think? Are you a HootSuite user? Will you go and buy HootSuite for the iPHONE? If not, why? Please let us know on the comments!

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Buzzillions is a product reviews site that helps shoppers avoid costly mistakes. Buzzillions offers product reviews and tools for you to research purchases before you buy.

We’ve collected over 8 million reviews across a wide range of categories and our reviews come from real people – not paid reviewers. We work with our network of retailers to identify people who have purchased a product and ask them to write a review. Our job at Buzzillions is to collect and analyze these reviews to help you with the decision making process.

http://www.buzzillions.com/

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Due in part to Luke Wroblewski’s work, the great divide between the business side and the design side of organizations is shrinking. What started out as an internal training course for a group of Yahoo! designers has since touched hundreds of designers seeking to break free of design pigeonholes, striving to make a greater impact on business strategies within organizations and in agencies.

Wroblewski, head of a team of interaction designers, visual designers and engineers who collaborate on new products and make experiences consistent across Yahoo! properties, believes designers have valuable—but largely untapped—abilities that can be put to good use in the boardroom as well as in the studio. He believes that designers just need to learn how to apply their unique problem-solving and visual communication skills to better participate at a strategic level.

In this interview, Luke talks about how designers can leverage their unique talents to influence product strategies, how they can use data to communicate abstract concepts, and why they should take a more proactive stance to help organizations and clients reach strategic goals. Luke also shares a case in point about how an eBay design team initiative made a huge organizational impact.

UXMag: For the past several years, you’ve been passionate in teaching and writing about the influence design can have on business strategy. Can you tell us what your latest thinking is about that topic?

Wroblewski: When my partner Tom Chi, the senior director of search at Yahoo!, and I started teaching about this topic, a lot of other training focused on helping designers learn the language of business to essentially “sell” what they do. We took a different approach.

Rather than try to teach designers the explicit language of business, we give them a core level overview of what happens on the business side so they can understand the context people are coming from. We then focus on organizational dynamics and talk about how designers can play an important role in affecting where a company is heading.

The problem-solving approach that designers use can be a very valuable addition to strategic discussions. Those skill sets are often absent from the boardroom. Instead of trying to compete at a business level, we know that designers bring a different perspective to the table. They have the ability to extend and complement conversations, and communicate visually in ways that business stakeholders often cannot.

We talk about access to data and how designers can really do data-driven design. They can visually represent metrics, illuminate relationships, considerations, decisions and implications at a strategic level—and tell stories at a glance at an executive level. Telling the right story means using the tenets of design and the conciseness we strive for, and the clarity we seek in interfaces—to wrapping data into presentations about where products should go, why and how products are interrelated, and what the situation is in the business.

UXMag: That makes great sense from a design perspective, but what can we say to the business side of the table? How can non-designers be shown the ROI for leveraging good design?

Wroblewski: That conversation is a losing battle from my perspective. I’ve seen many design teams pull together a road show and run out to champion design. Hey, aren’t we great? Look! We make wireframes and we do process diagrams. Include us because our deliverables are important!

As Tom likes to say, it’s the equivalent of the finance department spouting about how they do balance sheets and depreciation worksheets. Therefore, they should be included in strategic conversations.

First, people aren’t really interested in what we do; they’re interested in the results that we deliver. Second, running around and selling things is not as effective as actually applying your design skills to problems that matter. In many ways, business people look at things and size up the problems. They may avoid complex variables—the who, what, where—simply because they are complicated factors.

UXMag: Can you give us some examples of how designers might apply their skill to business-side problems?

Wroblewski: Interactive designers spend a lot time documenting design patterns, looking for commonalities and recognizing commonalities when they create solutions. They have naturally built-up pattern recognition skills. It follows that someone working in the design space can apply that pattern recognition skill to the types of data sources that businesses are looking at—analytics, business metrics, consumer insights, consumer feedback channels, technical opportunities and so forth. You can start to detect and rationalize patterns, and all of a sudden you’re painting a much clearer picture of business information. Designers can transfer their specialized skills from interaction design to the business domain.

Another example would be for visual designers to apply their knowledge of hierarchy and prioritization of information to creating artifacts that clearly communicate business concepts like market landscapes, competitive marketplaces, growth timelines, alignment issues, and product interdependencies. Visualization skills are immensely valuable in the boardroom and to product teams because they help people see the big picture, gain consensus, and make decisions. It’s basically the same process that designers follow when they do consumer Web products, printed products or industrial design. You’re just applying existing skills to a different medium that has strategic impact—like market factors, technology opportunities, how the distribution channel aligns to sales strategy, and how all these factors might be related.

Tom Chi says that the human brain has a huge capacity to parse visual information. Nearly 100 percent of people understand information visually, but very, very few can actually communicate visually. So people with skills to communicate visually suddenly become very valuable to all those people that can understand information visually but can’t necessarily form their output in that way.

UXMag: You’ve had students in your classes from major companies—Google, Hewlett Packard, and Intuit, to name a few. What do your students see as their biggest challenges?

Wroblewski: We always ask people what the factors are that limit them from moving forward. Their answers boil down to four top-level areas:

1. Organizational imbalance, which basically means that business units make decisions, not design teams. Short-term gains are always prioritized over long-term gains or design teams are not involved in the right kind of projects.
2. Another common comment is that there is a lack of shared understanding. People don’t understand the value of design. People think design doesn’t have broad enough responsibilities—that designers don’t have enough insight into the reasons why decisions are made.
3. The third bucket that comes up is resources. Not enough time, too few people, shortage of senior contributors, insufficient data.
4. And the fourth one is market dynamics. This one’s actually interesting because sometimes we hear people say, “Oh well, we’re number one in our market,” so people don’t listen to designers because we’re just doing great and we don’t have any problems and all decisions are right. We also hear about companies that are last in a particular category, so people just want to copy the leader. Designers don’t really get any input about anything that’s going on, which is funny because the complaint is the same whether you’re number one or you’re number zero.

UXMag: How do designers go about implementing your teachings?

Wroblewski: People expect Steve Jobs—a knight in shining armor—will bless you and say, “Yes, design is important. You will sit at this round table and people will listen to you.” I don’t think that happens. I think instead what you need to do become—and this is a phrase we took from Fred Kofman’s teachings on conscious business—you need to become response-able to factors in the organization so that you can begin to build up credibility and the wherewithal to actually make yourself part of strategic conversations.

To be response-able means at any point in time you can say okay, this is what happened. Now, how am I going to respond? You may choose not to respond at all, but you may choose to take action. It’s easy to make excuses why design doesn’t have influence. For instance, you can rationalize that in a typical product development cycle, design is only responsible for maybe one fourth of the equation, along with the engineering team, the marketing team, and the product team. So, it’s very simple to say that three-quarters of this isn’t my problem. Maybe the engineering team didn’t build things to spec, or the product team decided to put a giant ad on the page.

My first question about that is: When the engineering team didn’t build it to spec, what did you do? Did you start filing bugs and jump into Bugzilla and start triaging them? Did you go over and sit with the engineering team for a day to help them understand what was in the specs? When the product team decided to put a big ad on the page, did you have a conversation with them about what they were trying to achieve and possibly discover that revenue might be off in a particular area, which might be addressed by a different solution?

Or did you passively sit there and say that you were told to put a big ad on the page, or blame failure on missing specs. Being response-able doesn’t mean you make yourself responsible for everything, but you acknowledge the fact that you’re able to respond when things happen—and thereby begin to build credibility, start to build influence, and contribute to forward movement.

UXMag: Why don’t designers understand they can be proactive in organizational dynamics? Is there a gap in design school curriculum?

Wroblewski: Well, I think there’s a natural reluctance on the part of designers to get involved from an organizational perspective…

UXMag: Why is that?

Wroblewski: I’ve encountered many people in the design space who feel that response-ability puts a tether on creativity. They believe that creatives should hold onto their freedom. They feel that responsibility ties them down and crimps creative expression. That might be a really broad generalization, but I do see it happening.

I see a lot of people in the design space having a very hard time transitioning into product leaders even though they might have very good product sense. They might understand consumers very well, but they don’t want to get involved in all the other work that it actually takes to get that product out the door. There are some unglamorous and uncreative things that have to happen, alright. Your might have to sit inside of Bugzilla for a whole day. But guess what? Through that effort, you can manage all the bugs in the product.

Designers might not want to get involved in knowing how a project actually makes money. Well, if you understand how your products make money, you might be able to make that experience better for people and better align those business goals with user needs.

All these considerations are very real. You can begin to wield influence when you adopt an attitude of responsiveness, versus consigning yourself to factors that prevent you from being successful. Avoid the “poor me” attitude.

UXMag: What design disciplines do the participants in your courses come from?

Wroblewski: Mostly product interaction and visual designers. We’ve had some usability researchers and a few product managers, some developers, but for the most part it’s people who are interaction designers, information architects, creative designers, and visual designers.

UXMag: You mentioned developers. If designers pigeonhole themselves into not making a greater impact on organizational strategy, would you say developers tend to do the same thing?

Wroblewski: Sure. I think anybody who participates in craftsmanship or the technical side of the world, including engineers, designers, researchers, have a choice to make. Either they spend all their time working on their craft—which is a totally viable option—or they choose to have a bigger impact on things.

There’s a great book, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, about being an entrepreneur. The key point in the book is that just because you’re a really great pie maker, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be really great at running a business that sells pies. That’s a big shift. If you really love making pies and baking, maybe you shouldn’t run a pie business. You should be a baker.

UXMag: Is there an organization line that designers shouldn’t cross? Could there be a case where unsolicited input to business strategies might not be well received?

Wroblewski: There are always issues. But I have a unique perspective on this. I view my role as very much a champion of the customer and their user experience. So if I see something that I think is damaging, or wrong, or a lost opportunity, I’ll speak up. I’ve been part of many of those types of discussions over the years when it’s actually been a positive thing. I have a lot fewer examples of negative outcomes.

Here’s a simple example that illustrates my point. Back in 2004, the eBay design team was looking at a lot of data about the eBay registration flow and how it discouraged new customers. The team had visibility data, they had analytics—the things that showed how people actually made it through registration. They also had a best-practices audit, all this information about what was going wrong with registration.

But they couldn’t, in isolation, convince anybody to do anything about it. Instead, they applied their design skills to the data and made a big visualization showing the poor registration flow, highlighted all the issues and contacts, and began talking to different people about it using well-designed visual communication deliverables. They put their unique language and skill sets to work on the business problem.

They managed to push through a redesign of the registration process, despite lots of initial stakeholder objections. That quarter, eBay had to restate its earnings, I’ve heard, because the redesign made such a big financial impact on the business. Even though eBay was running a growth pattern at that time, the design team illuminated a different story and the outcome was tremendous.

That design team didn’t ask for budget to build a new product. Rather, they impacted the business by actually finding an opportunity, visualizing the business impact of it and driving to make it happen. The results spoke loudly. The company then realized the value of design. That’s the kind of approach that matters, and that works.

UXMag: Your books have been well received by the technical community, especially your most recent book about designing Web forms. Do you have another book planned?

Wroblewski: I have lots of ideas in my head. It’s a question of making time. Without revealing too much, I’ve already focused on optimizing the input side of Web interactions. Now I’m interested in the output side of Web interactions. I’m exploring some ideas, gathering data and research and finding case studies. So we’ll see what actually happens with my next book. It took me six years to write my last one.

Writing technical books is a labor of love. And by writing a book about form design, you better hope you’re making the Web a better place because you’re definitely not going to end up on the Letterman show or on Oprah.

UXMag: Do you have any evidence of design influencing strategy at Yahoo!?

Wroblewski: There are a number of small- and large-scale initiatives that grew from the kind of principles we’ve been discussing. On a small scale, we have examples of designers laying out and making the case for product features or changes using business context and metrics. Several of these efforts were launched to our users and more are in the planning stages. On the large scale, we recently formed the Integrated Consumer Experiences group whose charter is to look at people’s experiences across all our products. That’s a new priority and it was fostered by early work Tom Chi and I did together. In fact, that process—which spanned almost two years—gave us a lot of insight into how we could influence strategy using design. We used many of the experiences we had to help develop our design strategy training classes.

UXMag: You’ve talked mostly about designers working internally. How can your ideas drive sales and help grow business in an agency setting?

Wroblewski: It depends on the relationships the agency has with their clients, of course. If relationships are short term in-and-out, you don’t really have a chance to get immersed in context. That is challenging. If deeper relationships exist, it’s a lot easier to start applying these ideas.

Personally, I feel that there’s potential for a new model where agencies really begin to become recognized for bringing clarity to problems, as well as create solutions to problems. Often, it’s not that people need an answer, it’s that they need to understand the problem better.

In our digital age, where we’re awash with data, and we’re awash with opportunity, and we’re awash with products and things. Getting clarity into situations and into the problems that organizations face is sometimes more valuable than coming up with solutions. There are many more designers trying to provide solutions than there are trying to clarify problems. So that’s the opportunity for designers working internally or externally.

This article was originally published on the User Interface Resource Center (UIRC). For more info, please see http://uxmag.com/uirc

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Ed: In this article Alex Hunter discusses why web developers and entrepreneurs can not afford to forget about their brand. Alex will be hosting an in-depth online marketing workshop at Future of Web Apps Miami in February 2010 – buy your ticket online today!

Brand is one of those things that often falls by the wayside with developers. Developers are constantly creating amazing technologies and incredible platforms that are fundamentally changing the way marketing and branding works.

Applications and platforms, i.e. social networking, now exist that allow consumers, i.e. users, to connect with brands for the very first time. Consumers today have the power and the tools to research, get feedback and participate. Today as a result of the platforms and technologies that YOU’VE created, and that’s beautiful irony, users have a really loud voice.

Why is brand important for web applications and products? Well, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of web apps out there. You’re in direct competition with them, every single one of them. You have to stand out in the crowd and get people coming back to your site.

If you’re developing a competing application to an incumbent you’re going to have to work ten times harder to get people to change. As sites start to use even more social currency, points systems, giving more “value” to a user, it will be harder and harder to bring them over. Bottom line: you’re going to have to work your ass off.

With this in mind here are some quick DOs and DO NOTs for building and managing a successful web brand:

What to DO

DO: Define your values

What are you? Your values are going to be the foundation of what you are, and more importantly, what you will be – now, tomorrow and in ten years time. Set them early and set them well because they will define you for the rest of your existence. It’s really, really easy to half-ass this. Don’t, because it will come back to bite you if you do.

The convenient thing would be to dump all of your “values”, your product, and brand name into a blender, dump out the contents and proclaim “There, we’re done!” It’s not that easy and more importantly, what comes out won’t be an accurate representation of what you are.

So to do this right, take the best of what your team, vision, and product represents, in appropriate doses, and create a whole new identity. Remember, this is NOT something a single person (e.g. founder) can do on their own. Involve the team, involve friends, involve advisors. Stop trying to do it yourself, take a step back and get people involved.

P.S. Everyone wants to be “fun”, “ethical”, “challenging” and “revolutionary.” Skip those values from your brainstorming and consider them as given.

DO: Be emotional

How are you going to get the public to love you? How are you going to get people to have that emotional connection with what you do? And let’s be clear this IS about emotion, so please BE emotional.

This is your baby, your blood sweat and tears that you’ve poured into your project. Your users will be able to connect emotionally if they sense the emotion, a key ingredient of loyalty, that you’ve put into your creation.

DO: Be transparent

Transparency, especially at the beginning when you’re building something or when it’s just an idea, is really beautiful because it brings people into the journey. It’s why reality TV is so hard to look away from.

The development cycle IS dramatic, emotional and painful with “4 o’clock in the morning” caffeine-induced coding frenzies, the wins, the losses, the highs and the lows. Bring people along on that journey.

But remember, when things go wrong, hold your hands up and admit to it – be transparent, be human. Don’t hide behind a brand name or a product name. People will engage with that. You don’t hear people talking about Spotify’s massive data leak very often, do you. No because they came clean, notified users, fixed it and busted ass to continue making a great product.

DO: Extend your brand

Despite what you might think, your app is not the be all and end all. Don’t believe this “if you build it, they will come” mantra, that is “weapons-grade bullonium”. It’s just not true. You have to extend the reach of what you do with content and engagement, physical and digital engagement. Build up a voice and personality around your brand.

Consider Digg, who are masters of brand extension in the web world. Their blog is written by the people who are responsible for rolling out new features, managing the database, marketing the site, not just the founder or the VP of PR. Real names, real faces, real people that we as users can connect with.

Whenever they roll out a new piece of technology or a new development, the person responsible blogs about it, explains what they did and asks for feedback. That breeds loyalty. They take it further with Diggnation, Digg Meetups, and DiggDialog.

DO: Bridge the gap between online and offline

Bridging the gap between online and offline with real world events breeds loyalty. There are a lot of web companies that are getting really good at hosting real world events where users meet up and are rewarded on a macro level, for example Digg or Qype here in Europe.

Both introduce users to each other and to the people that curate the community they’re involved in at events that are tailored to the users’ interests. Launch parties and regular user meet-ups get people talking and get people connected. That really breeds loyalty. It’s astounding what that can do in terms of competitive advantage and brand awareness.

What NOT to DO

DON’T: Ignore your brand

As web developers, application creators and programmers, we don’t think about brand nearly as much as we should. We don’t care. We don’t think it’s important. We’re busy building our apps. We’re not focussed on brand, it’s not our core activity. But you cannot afford to ignore your brand at any point in its existence.

Brand loyalty is getting harder and harder to gain and, ironically, easier to lose. As marketers get savvier and people are convinced that the same product is better just because it has a certain brand, the harder you’re going to have to work to build a loyal user base.

DON’T: Half ass your brand development

You have to put the time and energy into this that it deserves. Do this and do it well. So many people think that brand is about product name. Cute name, great brand, done. WRONG. So wrong it hurts. And besides, we can’t even get that right.

So many web apps out there have thoughtless names. There’s no rationale or logic behind the names at all, they just think it is cute and memorable. It’s oh-so-fashionable to drop a vowel here and there or misspell something and be done with it. That doesn’t mean anything and it’s lazy. Don’t do that. Or if you do, have a reason for it. Give your brand development the time and energy it deserves.

DON’T: Put your interests ahead of your users

I know this is hard because, ultimately, you have to pay the bills. But a reputation of looking after your users, being ethical, will put you head and shoulders above anybody else.

I often cite the example of Amazing Tunes, a site for unsigned artists. Sure, there are other unsigned artists sites out there, but not that give 70% of the profits back to the user and not that have a DAB radio station that artists are featured on. THAT is looking after your users. That’s the definition of an ethical web company.

DON’T: Be Precious about consistency or message

People often say to me “The more people I give the message or brand to, the more watered down it becomes and the less consistent the message is”. Big brands are especially scared of losing the refinement of their message. But realistically, they’ve been doing it for the last 30 years because the person who answers the phone in the call centre is the first point of contact that a user has with their brand.

The call centre employees are representing your brand. The receptionist is representing your brand. So giving someone an account on Twitter to do the same is no different, it’s just a little bit more of a public stage. But, that’s a GOOD thing because people can see you responding to positive comments and negative comments and reacting and helping people and participating in the CONVERSATION in a very public forum.

Ultimately, you’re giving people the tools to go and evangelise your brand and product – don’t fight that.

Ed: Need further convincing? Check out the video of Alex’s presentation at Future of Web Apps London 2009

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On one side there are the technical aspects of “Square” but the social implications that this new payment system can bring is one of the aspects that really strike me as interesting and exciting: I recently watched a documentary about e-bay and how e-bay had brought to a group of artisans in Mexico the possibility of cutting the middle man to  sell their pottery.  The main conclusion that I took from that documentary was that technology can affect people’s life in a positive and, sometimes, unexpected way.

If you think that a POS (Point of Sale)  system can cost more than $900 and that “Square” runs on a $299 iPOD Touch (and even on cheaper terminals when it gets rolled out to other systems) we are really talking about giving those with less financial power a possibility to bring an added value to their small business. What we are really talking about  is of a technology that is disruptive and that will bring a democratization to the POS market.

Add to this that “Square” will be donating a penny of every transaction to a charity, that the user chooses, and you have a product that aims to do good using technology that is available to all of us. Because of  all this I do hope that the world turns “Square“.

You can follow Square on Twitter for the latest updates and don’t miss the Square lists. I think they speak a lot about what Jack Dorsey’s new venture is all about.

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