The Viral Garden is a blog about marketing by Mark Collier. He lists the top 25 marketing blogs each week. I'm not sure how he gets his data, but it's a nice resource.

Most children's entertainment sites feature primary color layouts, cute characters, simplistic animations and obnoxious sound bites. Leave it up to the Japanese with their own style of children’s media to lead these sites to the next level.

Toonami, a cartoon on The Cartoon Network, has come up with their own streaming media site, Toonami Jet Stream

Awesome design, cutting-edge Flash work, really cool.

The creator’s parent company, Vis Media, although newly formed, is poised to bring other Japanese media to the Net. Hopefully the days of the animated GIF and lame Flash game are soon over.

I guess my interest in this site lies in the fact it's a kid's site, but it isn't designed as such; yet the site is appealing to kids. They are sophisticated enough to understand "adult" design.

Taken further, the general adult public is often considered not sophisticated enough to appreciate and understand good contemporary design and are often handed the same old crap.

The moral of this story: don't underestimate your audience and don't be afraid to push the limits. If the work is done well, they'll get it.

BJC HealthCare, headquartered in St. Louis, MO, recently won a Silver Award for its web site, http://www.bjc.org.

The Aster Awards Program provides national-level recognition for healthcare organizations and advertising agencies who strive for excellence in medical marketing.

As part of the team responisible for the design, I am happy to see BJC and our work get this distinction. BJC puts a lot of effort in creating great health and wellness content for BJC and all their member facilities.

Congratulations BJC.

Because of Amazon.com and other mega ecommerce sites, online shopping has hit the mainstream and consumers expect their experience to be easy and flawless.

Shopping carts come in a wide variety of configurations and the basic functions of allowing a user to save items in a basket, create an order and process a transaction are common to every one. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Regardless of choosing an ASP solution, pre-built app, or custom development, the details require careful analysis to ensure the cart will meet all business requirements. Here are some things to think about and questions to ask.

Inventory

The meat and potatoes of a store are the products. Map out fully how products are categorized and make sure the shopping cart accommodates this structure. Document all the attributes a product can have: name, description, photos, size, color, options, SKUs, and special customer part numbers to name a few. Is it necessary to show a sample or excerpt like a sound clip of music, or table of contents of a book? Does the store inventory need to be tied to in-stock product availability?

Orders

Are orders taken individually or as part of a user account? Do partial orders need to be shipped seperately? How long do orders need to be stored?

Accounts

Another important part of an e-store is how user accounts are handled. Are customers required to log in at some point during the shopping process thus creating an account? At what point? Is this optional?

An account may take a user some extra time to initially complete, but the benefits are worth it: saved personal info expedites the next purchase, orders are grouped under an account providing a history, and preferences such as saved products, and special pricing can be established.

Accounting

How is the store tied to the brick and mortar business accounting software? Is there an easy way to get order and customer info in and out of the store? Some have APIs or modules that make the downloading orders a one click effort.

Shipping

Businesses handle shipping an infinite number of ways. Which carrier? (UPS, USPS, FedEx, other) Is there a separate handling charge? If so, is it a flat rate, percent of shipping cost or order total? Again, are partial orders shipped? Does everything get shipped from the same location and to the same address?

Payment

Credit cards, which ones? Checks? PO numbers? Split payment? When is the transaction processed, at time of purchase, when shipped or when received?

Security

Use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology with at least 128 bit encryption. Also encrypt any stored Social Security numbers and financial account numbers. Make sure the handling of any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) meets Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standards. Security is paramount and regulations are getting stricter every day.

Sales Tax

Collecting sales tax? In which states? Some states have rates by county. Will the cart calculate these? Perhaps some products will be taxed and other not. Some customers may be tax exempt. Can the cart handle this?

International

Are orders going to be accepted from countries other than the US? Which ones? Other currencies accepted? Can the shipping address be in another country than the billing address?

Promotions

Are promotions important? Some merchants like to provide a promotional code to select customers for discounts. What other types of promotion does the business require?

Pricing

Most shopping carts can accommodate one price per products, but what else is needed? Many businesses have different prices for different customers (wholesale, retail, VIP). Do products need to be priced “on sale” for a specific timeframe?

Reviews

Some retailers like to allow customers to write reviews for products. Is this important?

Wish List

Much like a basket, the wish list allows customers to save items outside of the cart.

Email to a Friend

This can be for any items or just those in the wish list.

Related Products

Up-selling can be a powerful marketing tool. By relating product to each other, customers maybe introduced to items they didn’t know existed or are needed with a particular product.

Statistics and Reporting

In addition to typical site visitor statistics, e-stores often supply data that helps companies cater their inventory or improve the store: Most or least frequently ordered item, customer with the most orders, average order amount, state with highest number of orders…

There are many more things to consider when gatheing the requirements for e-commerce. Selling online has become easier and less expensive, but not simpler. Make sure to ask the right questions and make the best decision based on the requirements. Customers will not tolerate a sloppy and risky ecommerce experience.

A nice resource for books and articles on everything web. Including chapter excerpts.

Some cities like New York, San Francisco, Portland and even Minneapolis have flourishing freelance resource markets; St. Louis, on the other hand, does not. Several factors may contribute to this:

Size – St. Louis’s creative market is not large enough to consistently employ freelancers.

Culture – A traditional worker bee culture encourages people seek full-time employment or leave.

Talent – Most beginners are not talented or smart enough to be independent contractors.

Business Practices – Agencies find it less risky to hire people than to constantly search for temporary resources.

True or not, these reasons are interrelated: If there was more work, the need for freelancers would increase. If agencies wouldn’t hire as many creatives, the need would increase and sustain more freelancers. If young folks saw freelancing as a viable work situation, more would consider it.

A huge by-product of a strong freelance market is a better skill level of these people; competition would demand people become better at what they do. In turn, the agency’s work would become better and they would get more projects. When they get more projects, there is more work and they hire the best people.

Imagine…

All agency owners fire their creative staff and hire the best ones back as freelancers.  All talented creative individuals begin to stand up for their rights and don’t work at crappy agencies for sub-standard pay. They gain confidence and take their work to the next level increasing the competition. They get more experience by working on a bigger variety of projects and make more money to boot. Companies seek St. Louis as a hot bed of creativity.

… and then I woke up.

I'm looking for an experienced Flash developer for an upcoming project. Must have excellent ActionScripting with XML skills and experience playing video in Flash.

Also looking for web designers with experience in highly-usable, application interface design.

Send me your stuff. mail (at) jamesbielefeldt (.) com

Stephen Birkman is creating very interesting portaits that emulate 19th century studio photography in a surreal fashion. Visually historical, yet a fantasy. Imagine looking at these images out of context, let's say mixed in with real ambrotypes from the 1870s.

http://www.stephenberkman.com/index.htm

A reverse auction is one of the most perverse ways to win business I have ever heard. Very little information about the project is presented: no schedule, no creative brief, no technical requirements, no examples, just a few basic facts.

“Design a promotional web site to collect recipient’s information with some reporting over a 6 month period.”

The only solid information is the budget. The object of a reverse auction is to estimate costs for the project within the budget based on a vague description, gut reaction, assumptions and an educated guess. In other words, a wing and a prayer.

I guess the project is awarded to the lowest bidder, but it can’t be as simple as that. This practice seems to be common in the sales promotion industry, but is foreign to me and violates everything I’ve learned about conducting sound business practices. Only in the advertising business could something this preposterous be acceptable. How low can an agency’s self-respect be to risk loosing money by winning a project they know little about? The very act of participating is an act of submission.

I don’t have an answer on how to fix this situation other than don’t play the game. If the project begins with this much in the client’s favor how can it ever get to a point where it’s fair for the vendor. Up front it’s a loose-loose for everyone. There is no honesty, no trust, no respect, no communication and no relationship. Money is the only factor – is there a profit margin or not.

The other day my son said something that resonated with me. He was practicing his printing skills -- he's six years old. He referred to what he was doing as drawing words, not writing, spelling or printing. What a simple yet accurate description. Isn't that what good typography is?

The act of writing is content creation, but laying out type is refinement of the display of the words. Much like drawing, typographic execution is important to communication. From now on when I'm thinking type, I'm drawing words too.

"I believe that the Internet is the one true integrator because it links all brand and messaging touch points. Using the analogy of an atom, the Internet is both the nucleus (the core) of integrated marketing programs and an orbiting electron. To employ a different image, the Internet is like Grand Central station, where consumers arrive, depart, and are funneled from node to node on the consumer adoption curve, and it is simultaneously one of many mediums controlling the flow of traffic to the desired destination.

As the chameleon of modern-day marketing, functioning as a storefront, distribution channel, medium, communication device, entertainment interface, fulfillment center, customer service mechanism, and information resource or productivity tool, the Internet is the key to turning the failed promises of integration into reality."

The above is an excerpt from Life After the 30 Second Spot, a book by Joseph Jaffe. Chapter 10 is available for download. Well worth the read, as he examines the purpose the Internet serves tradional advertising media.

I've been reviewing project mangement software to use in our business. The robust Microsoft Project was the first to be crossed off the list. It certainly would do the job, but the server version is too expensive and we need to share information.

The ubiquitous Outlook/Exchange was then considered. It has tasks, a calendar, public folders, contacts and now SharePoint. All useful, but it is not really suited for our needs.

A portal approach using DotNetNuke could work. The price is right, but I couldn't find any modules that provide task distribution and deadline notification, important features.

37 Signal's baby, Basecamp, is a contender. It is easy to use, web based and has plenty of features, but it's a bit pricey for us.

JotSpot Wiki is a nice site with a bunch of apps from which to choose. Collectively they can be used to manage a project, but they are not related making it difficult for team members to easily find information. 

So far, I like The Copper Project the best. It comes in two versions: standard and corporate. Of course the corporate version has all the features we need, but it is more expensive. However, it's cheaper than Basecamp.

The jury is still out and hopefully we'll find some young energetic entrepenuers out there with a good product that isn't too pricey and works well. The search continues...

Unlike the famous line from the movie Field of Dreams, just because you’ve built a really cool, innovative web app doesn’t guarantee a lot of traffic. Furthermore, even if you get visitors, they may not become users.

There’s a lot going on when trying to gain acceptance by users. It usually requires work on the user’s behalf to learn how to use an application and to incorporate it into their normal behavior. It must be worth their while to make an effort to use it. Acceptance of a new application will be more successful if several steps are taken to communicate, inform and educate:

User input – Users are more likely to adopt your product if they are allowed to help decide, or create part of it. Beta testing has turned into marketing by getting end users involved in the final development stages.

Awareness & Interest – Users need to be made aware of the new app. This can be done a multitude of ways: traditional marketing and advertising, search engine marketing, blogging, word of mouth…

Evaluation & Trial – With web apps, trial is essential. It is far more likely someone will pay to use something if they can try it for free. Trial periods or trial memberships have become the norm.

Part of the project plan and budget for developing a web app should include techniques for attracting users. Afterall, why build it if no one is going to use it. It’s easy to get caught up in planning development, but it doesn’t end there. Get the word out early using on and offline tactics. Ask for opinions and suggestions from users. Offer free trials, or a free level of membership. Have a marketing plan and get help executing it.