Picture this: I’m walking through the park with my dog last week and my phone rings.  I take my phone out of my pocket to answer it and I can’t.  Why not?  Because I have gloves on.  I made it work by using the tip of my nose but you can just imagine how silly I looked!

For the rest of my very cold walk through the park I took my gloves off so I could text, take a picture of my dog and answer my phone…I might have been able to do all this with my nose but I choose not to look like an idiot and just let my hand freeze.

Fast forward to last night when I’m Christmas shopping at Target and I happen to come across the perfect present for everyone who has a smartphone:  TOUCH SCREEN GLOVES!  How did I not know about these before?  I ended up buying a pair for all my friends and family with smartphones – which is everyone.  So after my semi-expensive trip to Target, I Googled these gloves and it turns out they are everywhere!

While I realize you (or my boss, hi James!) are probably thinking this has absolutely nothing to do with what we do here at Thoughtprocess Interactive, consider this:  Morgan Stanley’s analysts believe that based on the current rate of change and adoption, the mobile web will be bigger than desktop Internet use by 2015.  That means if you want to get on the internet anytime during the winter in the future (without your hands freezing off) you may want to invest in these touchscreen-friendly gloves.

Or you can just use your nose.

We know, we know, Facebook has had so many changes lately it’s hard to keep up with them all. If you are a casual user, there are plenty of new features to explore. You may see some changes in accessing some of your games, or notice different content on some business pages, but generally you’re good to go.

However, it gets trickier if you’re a business owner who has developed Facebook apps. Starting October 1st, apps that run on Facebook must be hosted from a secure server. Facebook is requiring this to help protect the privacy of its users. What does it mean to you? If you don’t have a SSL certificate for your app’s site domain, your app will not show up on Facebook anymore – meaning your fans won’t see it!

Don’t worry, we’re here to help. If you host your application with us, we can get a SSL certificate set up for your domain. If you use a different host, they’ll be able to help you. Either way, you’ll just need to provide some specific information that verifies you are the owner of the site, and you’ll likely have to pay a small amount to buy the certification from the company that provides it. The most commonly known certificate provider is VeriSign, but there are plenty to choose from, with a variety of features and prices.

If we can help you, let us know. In the meantime, enjoy the latest features on Facebook… we will be back soon to guide you through more of the interesting changes that are happening there — stay tuned!

Change. No one likes it.  There are a lot of complaints on the social feeds today about the new features on Facebook.  Every 6 month or so our News Feed fills up with “I hate this new layout” and “I’m gonna stop using Facebook if they keep changing it” (like that will ever happen).  However, if you take a couple minutes to figure these features out it you will see that they are actually very useful.  So don’t fret, we have put together a quick and easy guide to understanding these new features.

Ticker & Chat: The new ticker on the top right of your homepage shows real-time posts making them easier to go through.  Just hover over any story to see entire update.  Additionally by clicking your chat sidebar the ticker attaches to the top.  You can chat while navigating to any page you like while watching your friend’s status updates change.

Photo Layout: You probably noticed the creative way our pictures are now laid out in our News Feed.  This is purely for our viewing experience and gives business pages a more unique way to attract “likes”.

Top Stories:  Facebook’s new concept shows posts that you will most likely find interesting and puts them at the top of your feed when you first log in.  The top stories are marked by a blue tag on the top left corner of the post.  To remove them from your top stories just click on the blue tag and they will be removed.  To add a top story that you are interested in just hover over an update where the blue tab would be and click-it’s that easy!

Friend Lists:  Facebook’s new “Smart Lists” are just that-Smart.  Smart lists automatically create lists for your city, work, family, and school.  You can add friends or brands you follow to the lists Facebook automatically created for you, or you can create a new list to organize your friends even better.  To create a new list or edit an existing list click on “Lists” on the left of your News Feed.

Here you can see a list I created based on my favorite movies and television shows making it easy for me to skip all the news feed and go straight to my shows.

Friend List Dropdown:  You can also organize your friend into lists right from their profile page.

Subscribe:  The subscribe button allows you to hear from people that you are interested in, even if you’re not friends.  You are automatically subscribed to all your current friends updates and with the subscribe button you can choose which of their updates you see.  For example, if you have a friend who is always playing Facebook games (we all have those friends), you can hide all those game posts in a simple step.

Not all profiles have a Subscribe button.  Only people who allow subscribers will have the Subscribe button on their profile.  If you choose to allow Subscribers they will only see the things you share publicly.

What do you think of all these new features?  Love it or hate it?

Exploring the Buddypress Add-on for WordPress to turn our blog into a social community.

http://buddypress.org/

Check out these web sites:

http://2011.uxlondon.com/
http://www.saltercane.com/

Any person or company with a consumer-facing web site, if they are paying any attention at all, will want their site to be mobile phone accessible soon if not sooner. Assuming 1024 pixel wide screens isn’t going to cut it, these two sites show how it can be done really well in just one smart design, rather than the usual way (sniffing out the client browser and redirecting mobile phones to a different version).

Resize your browser and watch what happens as it get narrower. (Use Firefox or a webkit browser like Safari — IE need not apply.) The first site re-flows in each section and the bio pictures shrink down as the page gets narrower. The second site dynamically re-flows from three columns to two columns to one.  If you have a browser on your mobile phone, look at the sites there too. Very cool!

You can read about the technique from the guy who designed those sites here:

http://adactio.com/journal/

Something to think about.

I went to the movies on Labor Day and one of the previews was for “The Social Network” (which, just like actual “Facebook,” totally baffled my mom). I haven’t heard that much about the movie to this point. I remember reading some column about how scathing it was a few months ago, but that’s about it.

Unfortunately, now having seen the trailer, I still can’t tell you much about it. Why is that? Because I was so busy marveling at the choice of music that accompanies the entire preview to notice any of the actors or plot points. The whole thing plays against a gussied up version of Radiohead’s classic anthem, “Creep,” sung by a youth choir accompanied by piano.

As I listened to it alongside a montage of Facebook status updates, changes in relationship status, profile pictures and the like, I was totally blown away by what an absolute perfect commentary it is on Facebook and the population(s) it serves. Totally one of those connections you can’t believe you haven’t already made yourself.

To whomever is responsible for this stroke of genius: Bravo.

“First – and understand this, Harry, ’cause it’s very important – not all wizards are good. Some of them go bad.” – Rubeus Hagrid (Harry Potter and the Sourcerer’s Stone)

The world’s most lovable half-giant delivered a very important life message to Harry Potter in the statement above. Fortunately for Harry, he learned this lesson from a friend, rather than learning things the hard way. If only everyone could be so lucky…

To work their magic, SEO strategists make use of a variety of complex and ever-evolving tactics that can be difficult to explain, and even harder for those who are less than web-savvy to understand. To further complicate matters, not all SEO methods and professionals are created equal, and this uneven relationship can make it all too easy for web novices to end up getting scammed.

So put on your Sorting Hats. Here are a few simple rules to help you ensure that you are not one of the unfortunate many to get scammed by dark wizards.

Run away (Disapparate if you can) from:

• Companies that claim that they will optimize your site through “meta tag optimization and submission to the search engines.” It is well known that this tactic will no longer accomplish anything in terms of increasing search engine rankings
• Anyone who guarantees you a certain position in the search engines. Since the search engines run on their own proprietary algorithms, no one can guarantee a particular ranking
• Read fine print. Many companies use questionable tactics to meet their “guarantees”
• Be wary of anyone who won’t tell you what they are doing to your site, or says that they can do all of their work behind the scenes without changing the appearance of your site. The odds are that person is either doing nothing at all or engaging in some risky SEO strategies that can ultimately lead to a penalty for your website

Keep in mind:

• A high ranking is not everything when it comes to measuring SEO success. If you get a top ranking for a keyword phrase that doesn’t deliver relevant traffic to your website, then it has no value to your business. Having a lower ranking for a high converting keyword is far more valuable than being number one for some obscure phrase that no one searches. You and your SEO consultant should work together to find the appropriate keyword phrases for your business
• The SEO consultant you are working with should be concerned about your overall marketing objectives. SEO is just one component of an integrated marketing strategy, so understanding a client’s business is a vital part of any successful SEO strategy
• Be an active participant in the planning phases for your SEO project. Be sure to give frequent feedback on keyword suggestions, copywriting and site architecture recommendations
• Before any work begins, outline a detailed plan for measuring success with your SEO consultant. Specify what metrics will be tracked, what kind of reports will be generated and how often you will hold a review to discuss key accomplishments and next steps

I recently had a client ask me if email marketing was dead. He was interested in considering it as part of his marketing strategy, but he wondered if it was “you know, old, and not effective anymore.”

Au contraire, my friend. Email marketing is alive and well, and still gaining ground as an effective marketing tool. Let’s look at some supporting evidence:

• 73% of email marketers say they are planning to increase email’s priority in their future marketing plans. eROI (2009)
• 50% said they’re more likely to buy products from companies who send them email, whether their purchases are online or at a place of business. – Epsilon “Branding Survey” (Feb 2009)
• 80% of Marketers Report Email Is Strongest Performing Media Buy Ahead of Search and Display. – Datran Media, “Marketing & Media Survey” (2008)
• 44% of email users said email inspired at least one online purchase, and 41% said it prompted at least one offline purchase. – JupiterResearch’s The Social and Portable Inbox (2008)

Pretty impressive stats. I also explained to the client that I had just received an email coupon from a favorite retailer that very morning and was planning to make a purchase on my lunch, as I often do. Seriously, my inbox is liquid gold for retailers.

So knowing that email marketing is alive and well, let’s look at some statistics related to email marketing best practices:

• Get to the Point With Your Subject Line. Emails with shorter subject lines significantly outperform emails with longer subject lines. 38 to 47 characters is the average number of characters that show up in the subject line of 57% of all U.S. email recipients’ email programs. – Epsilon (2009)
• Just Say No to Hump Day. Open rates are highest on Mondays, Tuesdays, and the weekends. – MailerMailer (2008)
• People like email with coffee and sandwiches. A recent eROI study found that 49.4% of marketers testing email find sending mid-day (10am-2pm) to be best, while 31.5% find start of the business day (6AM – 10AM) best.
• Beware of Frequency Freakout. A Jupiter Research Study showed that 40% of respondents stated the #1 reason they stopped subscribing to opt-in emails was because they were getting too many offers. While there is no magic number for how frequently you should send an email, the largest percentage of marketers choose to send weekly.

Ask me which of these two social networking giants I prefer and I’ll tell you Facebook. Now ask me which of these two I think will still be around in 5 years. I think you might be surprised to hear me say Twitter. Honestly, I’m kind of surprised by it too – but hear me out.

Obviously, both of these networks hold value (and/or create value) for their users. Both are very popular and both are adding members like mad. Both are also likely to take a hit in membership over the next several years as users grow bored with them and move on to the next big thing (which will probably be something from Google – like everything else). That said, if you had to hedge a bet on the success of one or the other, you might be inclined to go with Facebook since 250 million users is a lot more than somewhere around 5 million (though no “official” membership data has been released by Twitter). But it’s another shared characteristic of both networks that gives me pause: each has yet to turn a profit.

Popularity aside, we all know that nothing is free – and if these networks can’t figure out how to turn their fame into fortune, they’re sunk. Both have legions of super-smart people working tirelessly to try and figure out how to be profitable.

So why do I think Twitter has a better shot? Two reasons:

1. This article from today’s NYTimes.
2. And this article from Newsweek.com.

I found the most important information in the Twitter article to be this:

Twitter, which does not yet make money, is now concentrating on teaching businesses how they can join and use it, Mr. Banerji said, and the company plans to publish case studies. He is also developing products that Twitter can sell to businesses of all sizes this year, including features to verify businesses’ accounts and analyze traffic to their Twitter profiles.

For the Facebook article, it’s this:

The paradox of the social network is that trust—the very lifeblood of the site’s growth—may be the same thing hindering its financial success. Recently, the company faced a series of heavily-publicized battles when users were turned off by Beacon, an initiative by the site that targeted advertisements at individual users without their consent. After many Facebookers protested, discussions arose over what information Facebook owns about each of their users, and a new privacy code was established on the site.

Facebook members have grown too comfortable with the idea of the site being used for any purpose beyond the one it currently serves in their lives. They don’t want to get messages from advertisers in their inbox (even if they really might want what’s being peddled), they want messages from friends. Period.

Twitter on the other hand is new enough not to have fully cemented this kind of relationship with their users, and already seems to have an audience that is more open and accepting of commercial overtures. What’s more, some of the possibilities for revenue opportunities they’ve floated seem like winners. If I was a business owner or celebrity, I’d be more than happy to pay for the ability to weed out imposter accounts or access analytics of my profile page (at least one of which should be possible and free to begin with, but that’s a topic for another post).

Anyone disagree?

We recently buttoned up a pretty cool project for Black Magic Auto Care Products to highlight their sponsorship of Bullrun 2009. In case you’re wondering, Bullrun is an annual, seven-day, cross-country road trip featuring a rowdy, celeb-studded cast of characters and some of the hottest, most exclusive automobiles on the planet.

As part of their sponsorship efforts, Black Magic entered a customized, Ford F-150 SVT Raptor driven by the guys at Garage 419 into the rally to get in on the action and get extra mileage (pun intended) out of their participation.

To put rally fans in the passenger seat with the Black Magic team, we built a custom microsite with flash features for daily updates, race tracking and even a custom YouTube Channel. Through daily blog posts, an up-to-the-minute Twitter feed, maps, photos and videos, Black Magic fans were able to live the experience of an exclusive and world-renowned automotive event and interact directly with the brand in an engaging and authentic way. Check out our portfolio for more information or visit the site to see things for yourself!