07.07.04
 By
Gerry McGovern
Listening to customers and making sure your website is usable are
important to website success. It is much more important, however,
to have a website that delivers real value both to the organization
and the reader. Going for value can sometimes mean going against customer
feedback and usability best practice.
When asked, Amazon.com customers seemingly didn't want one-click ordering.
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, felt otherwise. >From his experience,
he knew that people hated purchase processes. I read about this a
couple of years ago and it really made me think. Here was someone
who did not listen to his customers wishes, gave them something which
they said they didn't want, which after a while they really got to
like. |
Listening
to your customers doesn't mean following your customers. Management
is about making the right decisions. Sometimes the customers don't
know what they want. You need to be able to have the ability to analyze
feedback and make a reasoned decision that reflects a clear strategy
and set of objectives.
The United Kingdom Department for Transport was commended in a recent
usability study for saving GBP130,000 by relocating its employee newsletter
to the intranet. The report entitled "Ten Best Government and Public
Sector Intranet Designs" is by the Nielsen Norman Group.
Why do you have a staff newsletter in the first place? To inform staff.
Why do you want to inform staff? So that they will become more productive,
and so that they will become more loyal because they feel the organization
cares enough about them to keep them up-to-date on key issues.
The core objective of the intranet should not be to save costs, but
rather to create value. It should be focused on making staff more
productive and loyal. Placing the print newsletter on the intranet
is not necessarily achieving any of these objectives.
I have come across internal communications departments that see the
intranet as an easy and cheap way to get stuff out. If they get it
up on the intranet, then their job is done. In proper communication,
your job is not done until people have read, understood and acted
upon what you have published.
If putting a newsletter only on the Web was such a good idea, then
why haven't all the commercial newspapers and magazines saved costs
and dropped their print editions and published only on the Web? Because
it is blatantly obvious to them that the majority of people still
like to read a lot of content in print.
I stayed in this cool hotel a while back called the "W." The W is
a usability nightmare. There's very little familiar about it, as it
goes deliberately against the grain of standard hotel design. For
example, they give you white pencils and black paper. The W hotel
chain is doing extremely well.
Usability sometimes misses the point. If you're trying to sell me
red shoes, I don't care how user-friendly your website is, I'm just
not interested in buying. If you're charging me 30 percent more than
your competitor, all your fancy usability is pretty much irrelevant.
If I think this product is cool and I must have it, I will gladly
suffer an unusually designed website just to get my hands on it.
About the Author:
Gerry McGovern is a content management consultant, author and speaker.
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com
 By
Chris Richardson
In what seems to be a response to Gmail invitation auctions, Google
has updated their Gmail policy
page to reflect these activities. The changes now make it a violation
to "sell, trade, resell or otherwise exploit for any unauthorized
commercial purpose or transfer any Gmail account."
Since the announcement of Gmail, a large portion of the Internet community
has been hell bent on attaining a Gmail account. Invitations have
appeared on eBay, with one notable
transaction that had an invite selling for $262. Currently, they
appear to be selling for $0.99.
Not only have Gmail invitations been appearing on auction houses,
but also there have been a great many Gmail competitions, where winners
receive accounts. There is even a site called Gmail
Swap, a community-based website that allows people to offer services
in return for a Gmail invite.
It appears that Google is going to try and stem this tide, however
tardy they may seem. The
Inquirer points out that the eBay offerings should not be too
hard to cease. Essentially, all Google has to do is request that they
stop this practice, and eBay should comply. It's the private transactions
that Google is going to have a hard time stopping.
The Inquirer calls it a case of supply and demand. The demand for
invites is high, while the supply is low. Although, if current
prices on eBay are any indication, the invite craze seems to has
crested, and appears to be falling back to normality.
By Chris Richardson
Affinity Engines, a social networking service provider, filed a lawsuit
against Google on May 25. The suit claims that Google's social network,
Orkut, is using a source code that was stolen by an engineer that
was previously employed by Affinity.
According to a report that appeared in Wired.com, the lawsuit names
Orkut Buyukkokten, co-founder of Orkut,
as the one who stole the source code. Not only is Buyukkokten named
as the code thief, Affinity also says that he would not start a competing
social service when he left for Google.
Affinity (AEI) claims in the lawsuit they uncovered nine software
bugs that are present in Orkut and AEI's inCircle. They believe these
similarities indicate that each service uses a common source code.
In a statement to Wired News, David Krane of Google says, "We have
repeatedly offered to allow a neutral expert to compare the codes
in the two programs and evaluate Affinity's claims, but Affinity has
rejected that offer. We have investigated the claims ... thoroughly
and concluded that the allegations are without merit."
Affinity is looking to receive punitive and compensatory damages from
Google, including royalties from Orkut.
Thanks to Wired News for breaking this story.
About the Author:
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer for WebProNews.
Visit WebProNews for the latest
search news.
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| From
the Forum: |
| How
to set up a completely 'virtual store'? |
I've seen Yahoo stores across
the net that look to be selling the same exact product lines,
as if they are coming from a single 'catalog'. I've seen no
reference to a universal 'catalog' anywhere on Yahoo (or around
the web!), but unless these dozens of sites are just one guy,
I assume there are companies out there that 'feed' you a virtual
catalog of products, handle calls, dropship, returns, etc.
That true? ...
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