Tom Pimental : Web Creative

While mobile device manufactures haven’t figured out the right way to market their Android-powered phones, Google has taken their own marketing efforts (albeit through agencies) to a new level with some recent viral videos I’ve seen lately.

The first example is their Google Chrome OS introduction which was done by Epipheo Studios:

They’ve also released a set of videos called Search Stories, which gives search a human side (not sure if these are from an agency or internal):

At any rate, I think Google has realized that people (for some reason) still use Hotmail and Ask.com, and in order to reach those people, they need to simplify their message.

The original TechDispenser (blog aggregator and ad network) eventually evolved into the IDG TechNetwork so when the idea came about to create a technology-focused custom newsletter tool, we thought we’d reuse the name. So for the last 2-3 months, I’ve been product managing the significant build to get this rather unique product to market.

It’s not ready yet, but I put together a screencast preview video to show the world what we’ve been working on. Check out the video and let us know what you think.

I’m writing this blog post from an iPhone and you can too (as long as your blog is on WordPress) with the new WordPress 2.0 app.

Typing on the iPhone is still a bit clunky but if absolutely must blog on the go this app will make it all possible.

[Online Update: I'm new to the app, but I couldn't figure out how to easily add a link to a post. Obviously, that's a problem. So here's a link to the app store. Oh and did I mention the app is free?]

If you’ve got about 8.5 minutes and are interested in what the future of computer graphic user interface, check out 10/GUI’s impressive glimpse of the future. It’s just a concept, but seems logical enough to actually work.

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

Just a quick note about this site’s newest redesign. I really liked the birch tree image and color scheme of my old site, but felt the layout didn’t focus on anything. So I rearranged the homepage, introduced clear navigation and generally tightened up the whole design.

It took a few months to complete due more to a lack of time than the site complexity.  Obviously, its built on top of WordPress, but has a completely custom template.  The birch tree illustration came from iStockPhoto and the icons were curtosey of Komodo Media.

Some highlights include the “What I’m Reading” section which is a “best of” listing from interesting stuff I’ve found in Google Reader and my resume (which still needs a lot of work).

Last, but not least, I even tweaked my Twitter profile design to reflect a bit of what I did here.

I hope you enjoy it.

If you own a local business and you’re not listed in Google’s Local Business directory, you are missing out on a valuable (and free) targeted marketing opportunity. Google allows business owners to freely add their business contact information to the directory and will display these listings above natural results when users search for local services (i.e. Photographers in Duxbury, MA).

Additionally, you can categorize your business, add photos and videos, specify your hours and payment options and even offer coupons.

Looking at Omniture this morning, Google’s Chrome browser is already the # 4 browser on Computerworld.com today. Computerworld’s readers have always seemed ahead of the browser curve, but this is impressive considering the completely new browser launched yesterday. Here’s the breakdown:

1. Mozilla Firefox 3.0 – 27.9%
2. Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 – 26.8%
3. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 – 18.9%
4. Google Chrome Beta – 8.8%

I doubt Chrome can sustain those numbers in the short term, but after playing around with it (and making it my default browser) I think the reduced CPU usage alone could launch it ahead of Firefox very quickly.

When I read about Google’s move to mainstream RSS on ReadWriteWeb, I was shocked at how obvious this was. However, there’s still one giant hurdle new users will face with RSS regardless of the terminology we use in links: The landing page.

Helping people understand RSS has been a pain point of the amazingly useful technology since it first popped up on blogs several years ago. Whether it was “Subscribe to RSS” or consistent icons, everything else fell short. “Follow this *(blog, site, topic, whatever)” gets to the point immediately and should help users know what to expect when clicking on the link.

But when a user lands on a traditional RSS page (listing of the last 10 or so links) with various calls to action to subscribe via various RSS readers, we still haven’t got there. Google has an advantage. They own one of the largest blog platforms and arguably the best RSS reader. They can seamlessly tie the two together. Publishers that don’t use Blogger don’t have that luxury.

That’s why I’d encourage Google Reader (and other RSS readers) to make it simple for publishers to mimic the functionality they’re proposing for Blogger. Imagine if all the “Digg This” links in the world simply took a user to the Digg homepage and required them to figure out how to add the story they were just on. RSS is even more complicated after the “Follow this” click simply because of the number of confusing options presented to the user.

I envision the process looking something like this:

1. User clicks on “Follow this…” link
2. User is presented with 2 options
1. “Follow this…” using [[Publisher's preferred reader]]
2. “Advanced users” follow using your existing reader
3. If option 1: user creates a simple account and the feed they clicked is added to their reading list

Feel free to pick this idea apart in the comments below.

I stumbled onto Noah Brier’s Brand Tags concept today (a little late) and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. The concept is simple: display a company’s logo/brand and have a viewer type in the first word or phrase that enters their mind. Marketers and researchers have been doing this forever, but never on this scale. Sure, the Internet, with it’s techie nature, skews the results a bit, but the results are fascinating.

Here are some examples:

Comcast – The cable conglomerate everyone loves to hate. The top 3 words are “cable”, “internet”, “tv”… their basic services… good so far. But it gets ugly quick with words like “evil”, “expensive”, “crap”, “sucks”, “monopoly”, “ripoff”… it gets worse…

Compare Comcast to Klondike’s top 3 words: “ice cream”, “bar”, “cold”… more simple terms about their products, but instead of “evil” their marketing slogan (“what would you do”) comes next. And most suprisinlgy, the word I entered “Yummy” comes in 5th. Think about that. Of all the words that mean tasty, “yummy” was the 5th highest word/phrase people associated with Klondike. Klondike’s marketing head needs a raise.

If you’ve never seen this site, I encourage you to look around and ponder what people would say about your brand… and then do something to help improve that.