by Carol Logan Newbill
Jesse Chambers at Birmingham Weekly just posted
We stumbled across another cool green web site, called www.grist.org. Based in Seattle, Grist is a clean site, displaying a lot of content without looking too busy. Grist bills itself as having “the most recognizable voice in environmental journalism: funny, opinionated and intelligent.”
On looking at the site, my first thought was “Gah! CLEAN??!!”
Jesse, unless you are looking at a different grist.org than I saw, I don’t see how you can call a site with a 300-pixel-high header, two banner ads across the top, three horizontal menus, a double column of ads, links, and stuff down the right, and no breathing room around the elements “clean.”
Not to mention the horrible orange/green mustache image and the naked woman with painted boobs front-and-center on the page. (Ok, now I just sent them 1,247 more pruriently curious visits.)
While I’m at it: I did not post this comment at Birmingham Weekly because their comment system requires joining Disqus, which appears to track all your comments across all sites to “allow you to manage comments in one place.”
Come on, Birmingham Weekly. Even Blogger gives you the option to post using name and email address without registering — and without such a direct invasion of privacy. Don’t make people jump through hoops to share their opinions.
by Carol Logan Newbill
I’m on quite a few newsletter lists. Like most people, I tend to sign up for them and then lose at least some interest in the company. If a newsletter comes in that happens to offer something I am looking for right now, I will probably click on it. Otherwise, I’ll skim the email and delete, which is most of the time.
So this one from American Science & Surplus really caught my eye this morning. (Highlighting added; click to enlarge photo.)
Did I click on that link? You bet I did! I mean, who doesn’t want 25,000 bonus frequent flyer miles if AS&S ever buys a surplus airline? 
If I were running this campaign, I would add anyone who clicked to the preferred customer list and just let them all believe that they were in the first 250. I’d have a special landing page that the link goes to, with my very best product deals on sale. Customers have to click on the email link to get the deal — anyone else pays regular price.
Now I have no immediate need for a boxed set of Cosmos DVDs or a robot hamster wheel, two of the items on the sale landing page. But clicking the link got me to their site, where I might find something else I didn’t know I wanted until I saw it on sale, and reminded me again that browsing AS&S is just plain fun. And who doesn’t need a chuckle now and then?
What a great marketing tool!
American Science and Surplus
How can you use information like this in your next customer newsletter?
by Carol Logan Newbill
Tripwire Magazine posts a useful list of tools for web designers. Some, like the font makers, may not be everyday needs, but others, like templatr (template maker for blogs and web pages) and Browsercam (screenshot capture for numerous browsers and mobile devices — unfortunately, rather high-priced) could be very useful and deserve to be considered as part of your design toolbox.
Not mentioned in the article is the Web Developer Add-on for Firefox, a compact and extremely useful tool that replaces the last two sites mentioned: W3C Link Checker and Markup Validation Service.
All in all, this article is a good start. We’ll be adding to the research in the coming days.
Subscribe to our RSS Feed for updates.
by Carol Logan Newbill
Yesterday the New York Times published a piece called Networking for the Shy Entrepreneur. It covered the basics: don’t try to sell, be yourself, think of it as “relationship-building” instead of “networking.” Nothing much new there, and nothing that really helps an introverted IT professional when he or she is dragged to the monthly Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
Here’s another tip.
Continue reading Introverts, Networking, and Social Media
