Basecamp Project Management

A vendor of mine recently switched over from a custom tool to Basecamp for project management. I have to say, this is one easy system to use and looks nice and clean. Very easy collaboration and an RSS feed to track. Another nice feature is an automatic link to iCal on the Mac or Mozilla Calendar… but I use Outlook.

• Assign to-dos and tasks
• Post messages and gather feedback
• Simple scheduling and permissions
• Share files internally or with clients
• Track people’s time
• Whiteboards

I just need a reason to play around with the free personal account I setup, to get a feel for the admin side of things.

Consumer Web Behavior

A study using eye-tracking equipment by Nielsen Norman Group of 230 consumers, sheds some interesting light on how people tend to use the internet. (Yahoo News article)

• Individuals read Web pages in an “F” pattern. They’re more inclined to read longer sentences at the top of a page and less and less as they scroll down. That makes the first two words of a sentence very important.
• Surfers connect well with images of people looking directly at them. It helps if the person in the photo is attractive, but not too good looking.
• Images in the middle of a page can present an obstacle course.
• People respond to pictures that provide useful information, not just decoration.
• Consumers will peek at ads in search engines as a “secondary thing,” Nielsen says, since they usually have specific product targets in mind.

Jakob Nielsen (a principal at the firm), also has an article on growing a business website.

Favicons

The easiest way by far to create a little icon for your website is FavIcon from Pics. I added by green ack logo not too long ago, but before I found this site.

Favicon (short for Favorites Icon) is a feature that makes it possible to associate a special logo or other small graphic with a web page.

The favicon is usually displayed next to the web site address. Much like the way shortcut icons are used on the computer desktop to distinguish computer programs and files, favicons can be used to personalize or brand your web sites.

The site also gives a bit of how-to regarding getting the icon to show on your blog, which is the second step of the process.

For those wanting to take this to the next level, Michael Mahemoff has created a cool javascript that you can use to dynamically change your web site’s favicon, which I hope places like Meebo and Gmail build into their products, to show new message/email for example.

Thanks to Lifehacker for the details.

Spreadsheets 2.0

I really like the idea of using web apps instead of installed software. I like the idea of universial access to information, group sharing, and automatic updates. And since Google already bought Writely.com, I’m hoping a spreadsheet is next, just for the backing of the concept and integration.

Forbes has a review of the online spreadsheets offerings.

iRows is the best one that I have seen, and has some nice features, although is not quite a replacement to Excel (but does have some functionality that Excel does not have - like automatic stock updates):

1. Universal access Access your data from any computer with a browser. No installations, no version incompatibilities.

2. Global management The data is stored in one place. Users who are allowed to see your data, all see the same latest version. No need to remember who got which version by email, no need to send updates, no need to merge changes.

3. Security You control the access to your data. You can change the permissions any time and they are effective immediately. Once you remove a permission to someone, that person can no longer open the data sheet.

4. Reliability We backup your data every day, save several copies to separate machines, encrypt the data, and take additional measures to protect your data from disasters, or from people who should not see it.

5. Sharing We enable data sharing. several users can view or update together the same data. Sharing can be in a small community, or worldwide: one person can create a data sheet that can be used by everyone (example: a loan calculator).

The ongoing efforts can be following on the iRows Blog.

Thanks to TWIT for this link.

Performancing Metrics

I have now added a third level of analytics to the site, since I am a numbers guy. I use PHK Tracker for some WordPress raw data, and Google Analytics for the website stats. So I have now added Performancing Metrics as a blog-specific reporting tool.

• Real-time blog statistics
• Track mutiple blogs with one user account
• RSS 2.0 feeds for your news reader
• Firefox blogging plugin

RSS for Marketing

Given all the trouble with email marketing tagged as spam, as well as possible email postage (NYT), having another online marketing channel is a necessary strategy.

Of course, RSS is still fairly unknown by most people, but is making progress (but has a way to go according to this Pew Institute study). Not sure if B2B users have a higher percent of knowledge of these keywords. I like the idea of RSS since it pushes out content to subscribers and doesn’t get as “lost” as email does, and both can drive to a website.

eMarketer article regarding using RSS as email alternative:

Really Simple Syndication was originally established as a way to distribute news updates to individuals and is now becoming a way for marketers to distribute product alerts and other messages. A small percentage of users are currently familiar with the term, but that number is about to grow higher as marketers begin to experiment further with RSS and perhaps one day make it a significant way to reach online customers.

Accoona Search

There is another search company on the block, and this one is from Jersey City. What sets Accoona apart is that they use artificial intelligence to find results that the others miss.

According to the NYT:

Accoona says its search engine is different from others on the market. When users type “Oscar winners” into the search box, for instance, Accoona delivers stories about Academy Award winners, whether or not the stories mention the word Oscar…

Furthermore, users can refine the search results using a short list of scroll-down menus, including “people mentioned” and “publisher,” among others. Each menu offers a maximum of 50 choices, and denotes the number of times each choice is mentioned in the results.

But another interesting aspect is their advertising model:

Accoona’s version looks like this: if a user searches for plumbers or airline tickets, the search results will include a line of text asking if the user would like to be contacted by three companies selling services related to the query. If the answer is yes, the user is prompted to enter contact information, and is told to stand by for either a call or an e-mail message from a company.

Anyone else find the layout and logo looking familiar? Imitation is the highest form of flattery?

And since I did just post on my Google ranking… as a comparison, I show up at #15 here (and #7 with quotes).

Alive and Well in Silicon Alley

After a long dark age, things are once again looking up for Silicon Alley. Jobs are being added (and tech positions can’t be filled easily in the city), NYT talks about the resurgence of the Alley, and yet a friend of mine from Bubble 1.0 just moved out to Silicon Valley.

The good thing about Bubble 2.0 is that the new breed of net companies are focused on financial discipline, instead of the hype and burn of the good ‘ol days.

My March Google Rank

A friend had a good idea to include the actual results, so I included those under the summary. The longer term tracking is on the About page.

Results from GoogleRankings.

March 2006: G went from 3 to 6… back to the drawing board.

Keyword: adam karas URL Pattern: adamkaras.com
Google: Position: 6
Yahoo: Position: 12
MSN: Position: 1

Google Page Rank: 0
Number of Backlinks: 0

Keyword: “adam karas” URL Pattern: adamkaras.com
Google: Position: 7
Yahoo: Position: 9
MSN: Position: 6

Google Page Rank: 0
Number of Backlinks: 0

Top 5 Google results: adam karas

1. College football junior in Texas on ESPN
2. His stats on SI
3. Polish photographer on fotocommunity.com
4. His website
5. Another one for the college player on AOL

Top 5 Yahoo results: adam karas

1. College football junior in Texas stats on SI as a WR
2. His stats on SI as a QB
3. Polish photographer website
4. College player game stats on Sam Houston vs. Baylor
5. A Oberlin College vs Penn St game stats not related to college player

Top 5 MSN results: adam karas

1. My About page
2. My Home page
3. My Amazon wish list
4. Blogger.com profile for Bryan Karas
5. A quote from a 10 year old on tolerance.org

So MSN is my friend and for some reason doesn’t like the college player. I plan on adding my name to the page titles to see if that helps, since I know Google places higher value on it. Next month will show the impact of that.

Pizza Italia

As an update to my quest to figure out why the local pizza parlor, Pizza Italia has been closed for the past few months, I think I may now have the answer. It seems that the entire building is closed off due to some water damage, due to a fire and gas leak. So no quality Sicilian food in the near term it seems.