"What's Next?"

Get fired up! Or not

2007-01-30T17:21:00.000-05:00

Windows Vista: Wow?

(File under: "No matter how hard you try, you can't change your company's DNA".)

Membership website options, part 2

2007-01-29T19:35:00.000-05:00

I love the Internet. (I know, I know... "paging Captain Obvious".)

Via a link from a link from a link, I found a great resource called Web Developers (I know, zzzzzzzz — but the uninspired title belies some good writing). The CMS (Content Management System) category of posts helped me uncover some products to compare to Wild Apricot. I'm particularly interested in Drupal, which blogger Lockergnome (a.k.a. Scott Buresh of Medium Blue) covers pretty thoroughly and seems to like.

So, yesterday I tried to set up a trial account with Bryght, a hosted service based on the Drupal platform. Something went south during the registration process and I'm waiting for support (which was responsive and is working on the issue) to let me know when I can start playing with the system.

As long as that initial hiccup doesn't turn into a deal-breaker, I figure the decision breaks down like this:

Wild Apricot
Pro - donation module; email-your-members module; event-reg module; faster set-up
Con - price; limited number of modules

Bryght
Pro - significantly broader selection of content and community modules; low price
Con - I would need a non-integrated solution to handle the 'pros' WA brings to the table

Are Wild Apricot's donation and event systems worth (up to) $200/month; or do low price ($20/month) and broader content modules tip the scales? With Bryght, I would probably have to use a service like Network for Good to take donations, and I'd have to manage email marketing with yet another service.

I'll let you know where I land!

How Yahoo! screwed up

2007-01-29T18:41:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows in the business world, you learn from failures, not successes. They don't have to be your failures, though. WIRED has a great article about Yahoo! trying to compete against Google in the pay-per-click advertising market. And failing — big-time.

The key takeaway: Great ideas, no matter how simple they might seem on the surface, are not necessarily simple to implement. In fact, a product's ease-of-use is usually inversely proportional to the complexity of the system driving the product. Simplicity takes more thought, not less. "Ads appear based on the words a person is searching." Piece of cake, right?

Respect the genius of simplicity and arrogance won't come back to bite you when it's time to deliver that quarterly report to investors ;)

Testing a website-creation and membership-management app for non-profits

2007-01-28T12:31:00.000-05:00

I'm directing the startup of a new non-profit called Hannah's Socks, and of course one of the first and easiest things you can do with a new business is create your initial online presence. So I snagged a domain using Yahoo! Small Business, and for the first couple weeks we used the free 'starter page' that comes with their domain service to introduce the business and provide contact information.

Then a couple days ago I found a service called Wild Apricot, having accidentally come across it while doing other research for the org. It looks like they launched just last summer, so the number of features is impressive: easy page-creation and site-management tools; member database management; email module to contact members who've opted-in; donation-acceptance capability; and an event-registration system. It's geared specifically toward helping orgs handle some core aspects of their business.

I immediately opened up a free account and am currently deep into determining whether it will work for us (hannahssocks.org is running on the platform right now). It's important that I choose a solution that other, non-technical team members can easily use — otherwise, I'll be responsible for all site maintenance and more likely than not I'll become a hindrance as my attention is soaked up by other areas of the business.

Wild Apricot passes the ease-of-use test, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the business model: pricing is based on the number of members contained your database, and it rises quickly.

Now, we've got some respectable momentum going on the Socks project, so we'll probably break through the 50-member 'free' level quickly. With as few as 250 members in your DB, you're suddenly paying $50 per month. Ouch — especially if the efforts to build a customer file outpace fund-raising efforts early on (which is likely for us).

The second problem, which tumbles from the pricing issue, is that higher levels don't add any significant features to the platform. With essentially the same feature set at both the free level and the unlimited level ($200/month), it feels a little like being punished for growth.

For $200/month, the service will need to be significantly more robust. I would need to see a mashup of (just off the top of my head): 37 Signals' BaseCamp (project-management system for the leadership team); a Google-like calendar system (with a leaders-only view for business meetings and project milestones, and a public view for events); a respectable discussion forum for members; an easily deployable blog platform; and a wider variety of page-types (right now, there is one type of flat-file page and I'd like to serve different kinds of news and articles out of a simple content-management system). A module set like that would help me manage the business and give me more ways to create public-facing content. I don't think I'm asking for too much at that level of cost.

It may turn out that Wild Apricot is still the right choice; I need to research competitive products, and I need to measure the cost savings of a traditional setup (cheap host, FTP, html pages, hand-coding, kludged email manager of some sort, etc.) vs. the convenience (and limits) of WA's platform.

Other opinions of Wild Apricot:

Des Traynor posted a video usability-review that includes WA
Mitch Keeler agrees price is an issue

(P.S. Kudos to "Chief Apricot" Dmitry Buterin for being a responsive presence in the WA support forums. If you're working in the non-profit sector, the company's blog has valuable advice and resources as well.)

Wiki-wha?

2007-01-25T00:52:00.000-05:00

Like a lot of nifty technology on the web, I like the idea of a wiki and have used it to great advantage in lots of different ways. But some applications have their problems. Here's one that looks like fun, though: WIRED has launched a wiki to try to answer The Big Questions, complete with requisite Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy reference.

Buying books... by the chapter?

2007-01-23T17:47:00.000-05:00

My publishing background is more magazine-y than book-y (and then more online-y above all :), but Ars Technica caught my eye today with this headline: Buy your books by the chapter. Single songs I get (hellllllo, iTunes), but this one is curious. I love watching smart companies try new content models; we'll see if this one has any traction!

Design; or, if you're knocking it, you're probably not good at it

2007-01-22T23:32:00.000-05:00

Coding Horror has an insightful post that looks back at some things Steve Jobs said about design more than 10 years ago, and how well the philosophy holds up today. Having been lucky to work on several amazing design-related products, I have an appreciation for the sort of creative vision Apple has brought to the market since Jobs returned. Apple is easy to pick on — and sometimes asks for it — but I'm constantly amazed that an entire industry of smart people just don't get it. (Love this: "The PC industry is so inept they can't even copy Apple correctly".)

P.S. It's fun to watch Steve Ballmer go wacko every time Apple does something. I know, a little mean, but he kind of asks for it too :)

AdSense for video?

2007-01-22T17:33:00.000-05:00

GigaOM points to a company called Nexidia, saying they're on the road to delivering "AdSense for video." One of the most exciting meetings I had last year was with someone from PermissionTV. It should be fun to watch what unfolds as online video matures.

Update: Google in the mix, naturally

The 59 smartest orgs online

2007-01-22T15:54:00.000-05:00

Don't you love it when useful information lands in your lap at just the right moment? I'm very active as the director of a new non-profit startup, and came across this juicy item today courtesy of Seth Godin: The 59 smartest orgs online. They were selected for, among other things, their "Web 2.0" savviness.

The Wii, focus groups, and Big Buford

2007-01-22T12:49:00.000-05:00

The Nintendo Wii has arrived (for some people). Since Nintendo has chosen to compete with Sony and Microsoft not on gaming horsepower but on gaming experience, it will be interesting to see how the battle for our living rooms pans out. Nintendo doesn't use focus groups when it develops new products, which I like. A focus group is a Band-Aid for a company that isn't in the habit of talking to and listening to its customers on a daily basis, a company that hasn't invested in smart people who carefully observe the target marketplace.

Rally's invited me to be in a focus group about 15 years ago, and in addition to sampling food they asked us some marketing-type questions. When they asked me what the name "Big Buford" brought to mind, I said "a big smelly uncle." A week later you could buy a Big Buford burger, and it's still on the menu today. I guess they were paying attention to the marketplace, too.

This first post is full of....

2007-01-22T12:33:00.000-05:00

ESPN football analyst Mike Ditka plugged Scott Tissue's Clog Clinic in an interview this morning with Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio. My first reaction was "What.... ew." But I spent some time on the site, and I think it's brilliant. I hope Kimberly-Clark blows this campaign out, i.e. invests in a significant Super Bowl presence. I do think they're missing an opportunity by not having a can't-miss "Tell a friend" call to action on their home page, though. They also could have some fun taking it viral via a creative YouTube video. Maybe there's more, we'll see.