Long Exposure Photography: Planes Jun 22, 2010
Long exposure photos of aircrafts at San-Francisco International Airport. Stunning. Credit: Terence Chang and some other unknown photographers.
Adding Twitter Button to Your Blogger.com-powered Blog Jun 14, 2010
Now that Twitter offers the "official" button for sharing interesting links, it's time to add this button to your blogspot-powered blogs and stop using third-party providers.
- Open your blog settings - "design" - "edit html".
- Click the "expand widget templates" checkbox.
- Locate this text:
<div class='post-footer'> - Paste this right after it:
<a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" expr:data-url="data:post.url" data-count="horizontal" >Tweet</a> - Paste this just before the closing "body" tag:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
Optimizing the Funnel Jun 12, 2010
If you think of it - everything that a startup does (except for the actual software development part) is "optimizing the funnel".
It's all about making it easy for the customer to find, try and buy the product.
Designing a nice website and writing a definitive description for your product. Promoting and SEOing the website. Buying AdWords and sending out news hoping to attract the buzz - it's all about shortening that path: finding, trying and buying.
Here are some tips on how a mISV can improve the conversion rate:
It's all about making it easy for the customer to find, try and buy the product.
Designing a nice website and writing a definitive description for your product. Promoting and SEOing the website. Buying AdWords and sending out news hoping to attract the buzz - it's all about shortening that path: finding, trying and buying.
Here are some tips on how a mISV can improve the conversion rate:
- Describe your product carefully. Work on the "bounce rate". Your product description has two tasks: a) - a visitor should be able to tell what your product does just by glancing at the text. And b) - tell what makes it different from similar products.
- Offer .EXE not .ZIP downloads Not everyone is familiar with archiving.
- Have a "launch me" checkbox at the end or your installer. This is a must.
- Have this checkbox CHECKED by default!
- All "download" links on your website should point to the actual file. Not some download page.
- Don's ask for the user's email on the download page. Only if its a web-based product sign-up.
- Keep your "sign-up" page neat (for web-based products), requiring as few details as possible. Have your friends and colleagues look at it.
- "Buy" links should point to the actual order form, where users enter their payment info. But also keep in mind that this page is a place to slow down a bit and stay delicate - let users review the order, change the quantity.
Gmail SMTP Jun 2, 2010
I'm so sick and tired of trying to make the Gmail SMTP-server work.
If you plan to use Google-Apps for your startup's outgoing email the short answer is - don't! I'm trying to make it work for 2 years now. Two freaking years. I even created backup accounts and programmed a dispatcher that switches between them, if the outgoing email count exceeds the Google-Apps limit... It just does not work. Even with a paid account.
Tons of errors, account suspensions due to bouncing emails, every 4th email throws an exception etc. etc.
This headache is over, I'm setting up an SMTP on our own server.
If you plan to use Google-Apps for your startup's outgoing email the short answer is - don't! I'm trying to make it work for 2 years now. Two freaking years. I even created backup accounts and programmed a dispatcher that switches between them, if the outgoing email count exceeds the Google-Apps limit... It just does not work. Even with a paid account.
Tons of errors, account suspensions due to bouncing emails, every 4th email throws an exception etc. etc.
This headache is over, I'm setting up an SMTP on our own server.