Sorry for the lack of posting.  I’ll be short and just take this post to recommend a book I’ve been reading, titled ‘Predictably Irrational‘ (home page).  The book basically covers a wide scope of consumer and social behavior.  For example, every buyer decides whether or not to purchase something by weighing the positives and negatives.  By including the word “FREE” into your promotions (like free car wash with gas, buy one get one free, etc), you greatly decrease that negative consciousness and thus increase your sales.

Definitely a book worth reading for 2009.

peace

Lyrics:
Your site design is the first thing people see
it should be reflective of you and the industry

easy to look at with a nice navigation
when you can’t find what you want it causes frustration

a clear Call to action to increase the temptation
use appealing graphics they create motivation

if you have animation
use with moderation

cause search engines can’t index the information
display the logos of all your associations

highlight your contact info that’s an obligation
create a clean design you can use some decoration

but to try to prevent any client hesitation
every page that they click should provide and explanation

should be easy to understand like having a conversation
when you design the style go ahead and use your imagination

but make sure you use correct color combinations
do some investigation, look at other organizations

but don’t duplicate or you might face a litigation
design done, congratulations but it’s time to start construction
follow these instructions when you move into production
your photoshop functions then slice that design
do your layout with divs make sure that it’s aligned
please don’t use tables even though they work fine
when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time
make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide
remove font type, font color and font size
no background colors, keep your coding real neat,
tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet
better results with xml and css
now you making progress, a lil closer to success
describe your doctype so the browser can relate
make sure you do it great or it won’t validate
check in all browsers, I do it directly
gotta make sure that it renders correctly
some use IE, some others use Flock
some use AOL, I use Firefox
title everything including links and images
don’t use italics, use emphasis
don’t use bold, please use strong
if you use bold that’s old and wrong
when you use CSS, you page will load quicker
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker
they stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
and then they convert now that’s the real kicker
make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker
design and code right man I hope you get the picture
what I’m telling you is true man it should be a scripture
if it’s built right you’ll be the pick of the litter
everyone will want to follow you like twitter
competition will get bitter and you’ll shine like glitter
if you trying to grow your company will get bigger
design and code right man can you get with it

I open the package and in it is my book. of course, along with the invoice with a personal “thank you” message. This was also hand written.

Then I thought how this could be such a small little advantage this company has over the trillions of other online bookstores.

What I learned from this is that not only are customers important, they’re very important. Know what I mean? Being “treated right” as a customer is our standard today. We expect it. So, by finding ways to treat your customer EXTRA special, you can have a huge increase in popularity, while also building a database of loyal customers that will come back in the future.

Jeremy Schoemaker knows what I’m talking about.
Just a tip – take it or leave it.

By the way, I found this video at VirtualMarketingBlog.com – one of my favorite marketing blogs. The two authors of the blog post funny marketing-related videos, usually from youtube every Friday. Check em out. (not an advertisement).

So I signed up and entered my blog details (url, feed url, description, etc). When I hit submit, it gave me a parse error. I emailed John Reese, the creator, and got no reply.

Once Blogrush entered what they called “Phase 2″, I was able to successfully submit my blog for review. Hooray!

24 hours later I got an email saying my blog was accepted. Cool. And the blogrush widget was already displaying content on my site. I go to sign in to my blogrush account, only to get a message telling me that I can’t access my account because my blog is still in review. Wait, what was that email then?

I understand that Blogrush is a start up site/company, but that’s a pretty crappy start up. A crappy web platform on top of crappy service. I’m not alone.

Here are a few upcoming products/services that haven’t broke that barrier yet, but probably will in the near future (within 5 years):

• Solar Cell Technology – A new, eco-friendly source of energy.  Take that Common Wealth Edison.  The only thing that’s really keeping Solar Cells from taking over is cost.  Right now it would cost a consumer about $50,000 to convert their home’s energy source to Solar Cells.  It would take about 10 years to get your moneys worth.  My dad is in this industry.
• Digital Movie Downloads/Rentals – Blockbuster and Netflix have both dabbled in this industry.  They both failed in some way.
• Wireless Internet Cards – Sprint is probably the leading Wireless Internet Card provider right now.  The technology seems ideal and its something that a lot of people will want (supply & demand).  However, in order to get one of these cards, you need to lock into a 2 year contract with Sprint, at $59.99 / month.  Not really cost effective unless you’re really needing internet around the clock.  Some do though.  I expect this price to go down A LOT once more competitors jump into the market.

While it may not directly involved search engines, it certainly explains a lot about how America’s (and other countrie’s) economies work.  You can definitely use this knowledge toward your web development and marketing in some way, shape, or form.