The Blog

At the recent Future of Web Apps conference, investor Fred Wilson gave a talk entitled 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps.  His third point, Software Is Media, compared consumer software applications to media products like magazines, movies and tv shows: they need their own personality, style and attitude:

This is one that I got a lot of questions on. My view is that software is media today. Particularly consumer software, when people use it, they approach your software in the same way they would approach media. When I say media, I’m talking about a magazine, or a newspaper or a TV show. When you think about the New York Times versus the Wall Street Journal, or you think about Vanity Fair versus Vogue, or you think about Fox News versus CNN, each of these media companies have a voice. They have an attitude, and a style, and it’s unique. It’s different.

I think software has to feel that way. Your software has to have a personality. People have to feel like they’re consuming media when they consume your software. If your software is bland, and has no attitude, something as silly as the “Fail Whale” which became a symbol of Twitter’s inability to stay up, also was a personality. People were walking around wearing “Fail Whale” shirts. It’s embarrassing for the people at Twitter, but nevertheless, it spoke to the fact that there was some attitude and media savvy behind the service and it created a voice that people connected to. That is what I mean by voice, and I think it’s terribly important in a web app.

Found here.

Good advice.

How affective would this spot be without the song? On whatever project, campaign or strategy you are working on, how can you tweak it to connect with people emotionally? Music is one of the best ways to do this.

Interested in marketing, PR, digital media or web development? Do you read blogs when you should be doing work? Have an unhealthy relationship with Facebook and Twitter? Excellent writer?  We’d like to hear from you. We are looking for a few interns to join the Cloudbrain team for the summer. Our internships are project-based (you won’t be fetching coffee) – you will manage a blog, build a website or design something that will be on the front lines of what Cloudbrain is doing.  If you are interested, send a resume and cover letter to jobs@cloudbrain.com.  Feel free to email with any questions as well.

Past interns built text-messaging-based games, wrote blogs, designed iPhone apps and managed Facebook marketing campaigns.

Questions and Answers:

1. Is this a paid internship? Yes
2. I have summer travel plans, is that OK? Yes, we are flexible. We understand people have plans. We’ll work with you – just let us know.
3. What are the hours? Can I have another job? Yes. This will be 10-20 hours a week. You can set your own schedule.
4. Can I work from home? No. You will be working out of our office in Charlottesville. We want to hang out with you.
5. What if I still have questions? Email jobs@cloudbrain.com

Above pictures from a video shoot we did last week in the office with Cramer Photo. That’s Becky, our Marketing Content Director, Jenn, our Content Director and Will our Multimedia Guy.

From a 1995 article in Newsweek:

Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

Oops. Of course, we may know more about this prediction pretty soon:

Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.

A great video of a magician explaining the most important thing in a good magic trick, user experience design and marketing – empathy! Watch it just for the magic, it’s a great video!

To most people, “browser” = “google”. This is why building applications and user interfaces is so difficult – details that developers take for granted (like what a browser is and how to use the address bar) are complete mysteries to the average user. Here’s an even better example. Don’t make your website / application pretty – make it usable.

Here are my rules for web apps for the average person:

1. No one reads anything. If it takes more than 5 words to say it, don’t bother.
2. Don’t be fancy. Users expect web pages to work a certain way: the default browser behavior. Fancy javascript, slideshows, animations, buttons and styles are confusing. This is why Craigslist works.
3. Design for scrolling. Users like to scroll. It’s easy and it keeps them in control. Users don’t like clicks, it forces a decision. Instead of a slideshow or a confusing list of categories, just put your content out there. Let the user scroll through it. This is why blogs are affective and newspaper websites aren’t.

Google had a super-bowl commercial for the first time.  You know, just in case you had not heard of them.  If you missed any of the others, you can see all the super bowl commercials here.  Oh yea, and congrats to the Saints.

Cleveland.com just posted the first interview with Bill Watterson since 1989.  Is the iPad the savior of the publishing industry?  Did it live  up to the hype? Who knows.  But if someone figures out how to put a Calvin and Hobbes app on this thing, there is no amount of money I wouldn’t pay.