Jess Sloss aka @thattallguy

we have carefully selected 55 design agencies and Web development agencies, analyzed their porfolio websites and identified popular design patterns.... In the end, we came up with a bag of 40 solid portfolio-related questions — sorted, grouped and ranked according to importance. Finally, we searched for a good mix of established design agencies and well-designed portfolio websites of small and large agencies

So I guess the question is, do you follow the crowd ( for usability sake ) or do you step out of the box to create something remarkable?

Eitherway, its worth the read. Click here to read the full post!

While we’re sure this was a great deal for customers, it was inadvertent, and we took a big loss (over $1.6 million - ouch) selling so many items so far under cost.  However, it was our mistake.  We will be honoring all purchases that took place on 6pm.com during our mess up.  We apologize to anyone that was confused and/or frustrated during out little hiccup and thank you all for being such great customers.  We hope you continue to Shop. Save. Smile. at 6pm.com.

Ca ra zy. But talk about a good investment.

Not only will they get a tonne of great PR, they'll clean up with the amount of word of mouth from those lucky customers.

Way to go Zappos.

I posted this for 3 reasons.

1) It was produced by my favorite people in the world.

2) It's T-Lind being funny

3) It does something that the majority of commercials out there don't do.

Giant Ant created a TV commercial for Clearly Contacts featuring Trevor Linden, you may have seen it on CTV the past few weeks. ( see it here )

That's where most commercials end, but not this one. The dud(ette)s at Giant Ant have been creating "behind the scenes" video shorts (2 so far and I bet there will be another one) destined for the Internets.

More videos, more personality, more funny. Well done folks.

a whole lot of eye-opening information offered with the intention of empowering authors and aspiring authors with the ability to sell more books in a digital world and the knowledge to avoid wasting time and money on stuff that doesn’t work

There's been a trend that's picking up steam lately, one where authors and idea people share valuable knowledge and insights for free. Click through to see the latest one I've stumbled upon.

They avoid the need to enter an email address or sign in or up, instead focusing on the information that viewers want to see. No selling, nothing in your face, just great info.

Brian Clark (http://www.copyblogger.com) released one a few weeks back titled Authority Rules .

So why the trend of giving away something for nothing, not even an email address?

Easy, these folks know that attention is what matters. They see value in having people easily access information, share and link to the site.

Some even say that they get a higher opt in rate if they put the call to action at the end of the offer, not the beginning.

Chris writes, "Reciprocity is a much stronger psychological motivator. If you deliver great content and then ask for the subscription, the research shows that twice as many people will go ahead and subscribe at that point. "

My suggestion to you is, think about how you can use an authority based strategy to build your business. What do your customers want/need to know to be better at what they do? If you can give them that, you'll be their hero for a long time to come.

Being a Hero is way better than getting an email address..dont you think?

Not only are you in charge, you also answer the phone and read your email and man the desk and set the prices.

So, don't pretend you have a policy. Just be human.

Have a click through and read the whole article. I totally agree ( and have been saying the same thing to my small biz seminar participants for awhile)

Personality is a differentiator.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/08/lessons-from-very-tiny-businesses.html

How does an Internet junkie, news organization, or political operative monitor rapidly evolving real-time events, from the crucial details to the bigger picture? More importantly, how can a data stream be turned into real-time action, reaching the people who need it, when they need it, and in a form they can easily digest?

In this real time, all the time world, sometimes the importance of certain things drift out of our consciousness as fast as they drift out of our news feeds.

#iranelection ( the use of twitter to rally, communicate and break news about the recent election issues is Iran) is one such instant. It will go down in history as one of the turning points in the way humans connect and communicate.

Brave individuals (thousands of them) used twitter to bring us live action, from the streets of Iran. Something that CNN, BBC or any other network could not do. It created a world wide uprising, something that I'm sure has struck the fear of the crowd into most governments around the world (be they legitimate or not) ... even the Whitehouse has blocked twitter on it's computers.

The point here isn't that Twitter is Awesome, though I think it is, but rather that control of the communications tide has changed hands. Out of the few, into the masses.

Regardless of the tools used, twitter, facebook, the internet in general, has altered the way "we" communicate, and I LOVE that.

That being said, it's new, it's imperfect (spam!) and it's still not reached the majority of connected people on the planet.

Though that seems like more of an opportunity than a fault.

Learn, have fun/socialize, advocate, Express, Do Business, then shop.

Now you know why people are online, market appropriately.

via http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/07/21/22-why-reasons-people-go-online-which-is-your-blog-connecting-with/

Not much surprise here. I love how well this graph shows the huge variety of ways people share content online.

Are you making it easy for them to share? "Email your friend" is just not enough.

From Steve Rubel - "The takeaway here is that anyone can become a trusted resource. Over time, I suspect that as marketers fully understand this shift in attitude so will the dollars."

Agreed good sir.

random thought alert!

If I'm a company, with a fan base (lucky!), I would make a version of this that would allow my fans to connect with each other.

Hello Jonas Brothers? Sports Teams? Fanatics of all sorts?

Just think of all the people who will be talking mostly about you!