2007 Web 2.0 Award Winners Announced

SEOmoz has announced the winners of their annual Web 2.0 awards. Although there were a few surprises it was great to see Threadless recognised as the premier Web 2.0 retail site - something I've been saying for ages :-)

There were no kiwi sites there but it was great to see Grant Robinson get a mention for his truly addictive "Guess-the-Google"

It also made be stop and think that so many of these winning sites are part of (almost) everyday life on the web. Think about it -

• Del.icio.us, Digg - Social tagging / news
• LinkedIn - isn't everyone?
• YouTube
• Google - iGoogle is my home page + Google Reader, Docs, Analytics, AdWords, Gmail and Blogger
• Picasa organises my photos on my machine and online
• LastFM is what i listen to at work (and it listens to me too)
• And that's just for starters - there's many more that did not win awards such as TradeMe

YouTXT Blog up and running

The YouTXT Blog is up and running.

OK - It's only got 1 real post talking about some of the big brands using SMS Marketing in New Zealand - but it's a start...

Web 2.0 Twilight and Challenge

I just got back from Intergen's Twilight seminar on Web 2.0 and I've got to say I was impressed. John Lewis was an excellent presenter and made some interesting points and especially liked his 4 part "web 2.0 challenge" to all the attendees...

1. Users front and centre
2. Re-imagine your UI
3. Free your data
4. Getting better, the more people who use it

John works for Intergen as a whiz-bang producer in our creative team. Check out more of his wize words on his blog umamiblog

Check out the presentation

Or download the presentation as a PDF - You can also find presentation material from other Intergen Twilights here.

Lastly - if you're interested in taking up John's challenge - Intergen is prepared to help you for free. Contact me at work on haydn.thomsen@intergen.co.nz

YouTXT - Creating and Sharing Information by SMS

I’m pleased to announce that a new service that I’ve been working on has gone live! YouTXT is a service that brings TXT marketing to smaller organisations.

Some of the benefits to businesses:

• Free to setup, no ongoing costs for the business
• Easy to use site for managing TXT codes
• Detailed reports on campagin effectiveness
• Our success depends on your marketing success, we’re motivated to help you succeed!

If you are offering a service and would find benefit by allowing potential customers to TXT for more information then this would be a fantastic service for you. YouTXT is a small business that’s looking to help small businesses succeed by enabling this type of service to businesses that don’t have multi-national sized budgets for marketing. We really look forward to seeing how you guys use this service and I’m really excited about the prospects for some new features we’ve got planned.

More detail about how the service operates can be found on the site. If you would like to discuss with us about how this service could be adapted to your organisation please feel free to contact me.

My partners in this venture are the stars - JD from Mindscape, and top notch creative Sam Allen
Check it out here: http://www.youtxt.co.nz

All the cool kids are doing it

Usability Twilight - Part Two

The Intergen User Experience & Usability Twilight was great, and the most successful in terms of attendees that Intergen has ever hosted. Approximately 100 attendees came to the Grande Plaza in Auckland and feedback collected on the night was excellent.

Thanks to all the speakers who did a fantastic job...

• Natasha Hall – TradeMe User Experience: Speaking on the importance of creating a good user experience
• Shailesh Manga – Optimal Usability: What is Usability and why should it be employed in projects
• Henry Poppelwell - AMP: How AMP engaged usability in their last project, and perspectives on the benefits of doing so.
• Miriam Walker - Usability Professional Association (UPA): Introduction and summary of what they do.

Intergen have started a blog to continue the discussion - I'll let you know when the presentation materials are available.

UPA "Interactionary" Event

At the latest Usability Professionals Association meeting, I had the chance to team up with Sahilesh Manga, Blake Lough from Optimal Usability, and Sam Allen from Intergen in a "Interactionary Session". We had 10 minutes to solve a design problem revealed on the night and design a solution. You are judged on teamwork, process, user focus and the final design.

The problem was to design a dump truck remote control for a child - with a broken right arm. It was fun and I thought we kicked ass but unfortunately the judges didn't :-) We lost by 16 to 15 1/2 out of 20 to a Ninetend Wii like controller (which I hate to admit - was quite cool).

Anyways lot's of fun, and the UPA meetings are definitely worthwhile. If there's one in your neighbourhood I recommend you go check one out. You don't have to be a member to attend.

Dapper opens up the web

Dapper is one of the more interesting applications I've used in a while. It is pretty cool.

Essentially, Dapper lets you create an API for any website which you can use to access the content of your choice, without needing to use RSS or programming. Once you choose, group and tag the specific information you want on a web page, it is stored as XML and can be accessed programatically or transformed into many formats including HTML, RSS, Google Maps, Email Alerts and more.

Simple uses include creating an RSS feed for a site that doesn't have one. More advanced is the mash-up site Magg which aggregrates the "latest and greatest movies" (their words - not mine) from various websites including Google, YouTube, MySpace etc. I'm still waiting to see a more commercial use however....

I only tried it yesterday and the UI is reasonably intuitive but the process for creating a Dapper takes a couple of go's to get used to so if you want to try it out - start with the demo on the home page.

Usability Twilight - Part One

Intergen are hosting a Twilight session on Usability circa. March 15th (TBC) and it should be a good one.

I can't confirm all the speakers yet but it's likely to be 1 from a leading NZ website that is at the forefront of putting User Experience first, 1 from arguably the leading Usability Services company and of course the client endorsement from an Intergen project.

I'm assisting Sam Allen and Bryce Scanlen setup and run the Twilight, so if you want more information email me at work - haydn.thomsen@intergen.co.nz

Watch this space...

Apple launches iPhone

So Apple has finally launched the iPhone... and what a phone it is!

Even though I've worked with Microsoft products, for Microsoft aligned companies and now for a Microsoft Gold Partner I am continually impressed by the innovation shown by Apple. From the iPod to the lovely new iMacs which are as close as a computer will get to a design classic Apple continually seem to be the 1st movers in user interface design, building products that people actually want, and doing really smart things with already existing technologies. The soft keyboard on the new iPhone is a classic example - touchscreens have been around for donkey's but by using it on the phone they have removed any constraints on the software placed by the hard keyboard. E.g. Too small, impossible to update. iPhone is all about the software.

Rod Drury has an interesting article on "Why Apple wins" with some great comments by his readers. He's even gone as far as buying some Apple shares which looks like a great investment!

Not to take the shine off the launch but it seems as if Apple didn't do everything in the right order and Cisco are suing them for Trademark infringement because they apparently acquired the Trademark for the "iPhone" name when they purchased Linksys. Here's the original iPhone - doesn't quite measure up does it...

Why Threadless is cool

You know you've made it when you have a reasonably large fan blog that raves about how cool you are.

If that's the case then the t-shirt design site Threadless.com has more than made it - and "Loves Threadless - The Unofficial Threadless Fan Blog" has no qualms telling us all about it.

Threadless is an online community t-shirt store which has been around since 2000 and is run by a company called SkinnyCorp in the good old USA. I've bought t-shirts from there for about 2 years and seen it evolve into one of the best B2C E-Commerce sites around which epitomises Web 2.0.

The concept is fantastic - Basically it's a t-shirt store with an ongoing design competition. Two or three user-submitted designs are chosen each week to be printed and sold online based on the ranking given by Threadless members.

Here's a bullet point summation of why I think it's so successful and cool.

• The user's are continually involved in the making of the website - they upload designs (Approx. 60,000 to date), rate designs, send in photos of them wearing the shirts, etc Threadless don't pay designers big fees for the t-shirts they print (Approx. 400 to date).



• They have connected with their customers providing feedback on their products, and in part informing their strategy by introducing new product lines such as Threadless Select, Kids Tee's and Type Tees



• The t-shirts they print have already been pre-approved by the target customer - and therefore have a good chance of selling



• The execution of the site is excellent - it's design, ease of use and featureset are fantastic.



• The t-shirts are cool and inexpensive - I own several so they must be.



• Threadless Street Team - Affiliate type program where members get points ($1.50 discounts of their next purchase) for link referrals via websites or email which lead to purchases. Earn me a point by clicking on this link and buying a tee.



• When you're considering a purchase, the site shows photos of real people wearing the shirt, and the odd celebrity such as Michael J. Fox and Zach Braff (Scrubs).

I have some support - Threadless.com won 2nd prize in the Retail category of SEOMOZ's Web 2.0 awards.

What do you think?