Here is something to do during the silent days of christmas: Start a virtual snowball fight
Oh, and Merry Christmas to you all!
[Via FlashGuru]
John Dowdell has experienced the spreading bad service of a big shop when doing his Mac shopping at CompUSA. He writes that he so far has visited the store twice - in total spending 1 hour and 15 minutes to get the wrong RAM for his iBook.
These kind of shopping experiences are becoming all to common. And at shops like CompUSA (In Norway, simular shops could be Elkøp, Lefdal, Spaceworld and a bounch of other big chains). The problem is high demand, not enough people to help the customers, and low knowledge of the products they are selling.
While there is still hard to pick the good from the bad online, I still think that those kind of shopping experiences are pushing the sales of products on the net. People are starting to find that its easier doing the reserach yourself
and shop for what you have found you need - on the net. All we need to do is make sure the shopping experience is userfriendly to start taking BIG chunks out of the sales of shops like CompUSA.
I am doing some research myself these days on how to make sure the shopping experience of online shops gets better. First I would like to give some tips, and then later on I will follow up with links to sites I think does it right and sites that I think does it terribly wrong. (Unfortuantly there are more sites showing how not to do it).
One way to accomplish better usability is to start using tools like Flash, to make the interfaces more interactive. The lack of repsonse to your selections has been a big usability problem of forms and static HTML pages for a long time. Another way is to avoid wasting your customers time. Let them get to what they want as fast as possible, avoid using splash screens, and try to avoid the user having to do more than three clicks to get to what they want. Registration is another example of wasting a customers time. One of the main gripes about web-shopping I hear from people is that they have to register to be able to shop. If you want to store customer information, make it optional and include it in the shipping process of the store.
Thats a few suggestions and tips. Now lets shop online - with retailers that show they apperciate their customers :-)
Interesting article in Wired: Google vs. Evil, its about the challenges facing Google as it (to use Wired's words) matures into teenage, its interesting to get small glimpses into the culture that drives Google.
Anyone interested in copyright vs new uses of technology should read Tim's Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution, it really shifts the point of view from the big media corporations somewhat paranoid view of digital content, to a more down to earth and possible way of using the new digital opportunities.
One thing to remember, before reading Tim's story, is that historically all new technology has been looked upon with great paranoia and promise of doom from the likes of RIAA and MPAA. Evidence of that paranoia can be found in historic statements such as:
"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."
From Jack Valenti leader of the MPAA. The statement was made at Jacks famous testimony in 1982, where the Movie Cartel was attempting to sue the VCR out of existence.
I am sure Jack and MPAA is happy today that they weren't able to sue the VCR out of existence. But it does not appear they learned anything from the course of history.
BTW: Tim writes about some of the initiative that O'Reillys have taken to meet the new opportunities and challenges in the digital era. One of the things they have done that really impressed me, and shows clueness, is that they have opted to make freely available digital versions of books that are out of print or otherwise have small markets in their Open Book Project. This is a great idea for music, movie and software publishers alike. Why not make available products that otherwise would just gather dust and never surface again. Theres nothing to be lost in doing it, and everything to be gained.
A cool new way to watch search results are shown with the Google Viewer, fresh out of the Google labs. I am ever amazed how fresh and clued this company is :-)
Must be perfect for people that just want to browse through search results, although using it on my 800x600 laptop wasn't 100% perfect.
Google has put together a really good FAQ named Google Information for Webmasters, it answeres all the questions many people have had about Google and how it works.
Its nice to see put into word the good thoughts that is behind the web's best search engine and search engine company.
About time.
[Via JD on MX]
