Silas Notes

Wanna be 2.0?

Rhea — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:48:38 +0000

I have to admit, I cringe whenever I hear 2.0 appended to anything nowadays. I guess it’s just overused, but this label I came across today is pretty appropriate in my opinion.

Jakob Nielsen writes in his weekly email, “Much talk about whether Facebook is worth a fortune. The numbers being bandied about are a good sign that Bubble 2.0 is getting close to its peak.” So should we be concerned? He refers back to a post from April which makes two great points straight of the bat:

(more…)

Link Friday

Jacob — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:57:48 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a bunch of links without much comment, but over the past few days a bunch of new things came across my “desk.” Looking over them I realized I could weave these four disparate links into a narative.

Google has cemented it trend of giving away services to nonprofits by announcing, free payment processing from Google Checkout. Speaking of free stuff and Google YouTube is letting nonprofits setup video channels free of charge. This means your nonprofit can extend your brand onto YouTube.

And if you thought online video was just fun and games, the Will it Blend videos increased sales of blenders five times.

Now as I’ve mentioned Web 2.0 isn’t a build it and they will come venture. So you need to think more about what exactly your organization is trying to accomplish, Michael Brooke calls this being a ball bearing not a beach ball.

Worry less about your subject lines

Jacob — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:00:48 +0000

Silverpop, an email marketing firm, recently did a study of subject lines and open rates. The research didn’t get off the ground, because initial data showed the subject line didn’t affect the open rate. What Silverpop did find was that the “from” email did materially affect open rates.
(more…)

Navigating Web 2.0

Jacob — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:56:57 +0000

There was some good news for companies like mine and some bad news for nonprofits today.

NTEN is reporting a new study about Web 2.0 adoption by nonprofits published by the Overbrook Foundation.

The line that will grabbed my attention: “I’m in a perpetual state of anxiety about which tools I’m supposed to be paying attention to.”
(more…)

Flash Player gets HD Support

Jacob — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:19:40 +0000

Later today Adobe will release a new version of the Flash player with H.264 support. That means that churches and ministries have a new option for delivering video online.
(more…)

When the branding gets tough, the tough …

Jessica — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:59:24 +0000

I just read a an article on UX magazine that talks about the challenges in maintaining brand guidelines online, when at times these guidelines were created without online, let alone interactive, applications in mind. A situation like this can put designers in between a rock and a hard place. It’s our responsibility to respect and preserve the brand– to represent it well. However, when branding guidelines box us in to the point that we feel it is hampering user experience is when it gets tough.

It takes discernment to know when to embrace the rules and when to stand up and say that the rules need some improvement (which is a tough sell when these guidelines were set up specifically to preserve the brand). And, to me, that’s where the heart of this conundrum lies: your brand is upheld by all interactions with your audience. So maintaining your logo standards is one piece of it but by no means is it a silver bullet because overall user-experience can make or break the brand.

When making decisions about you online presence, some things to consider are usability, tone, clarity, reliability, and the list goes on.

The Fold Versus The Scroll

Jacque — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:39:06 +0000

The fold… that mysterious moving target that webmasters around the globe wrestle with daily. Their challenge; to make sure that all branding, navigation and primary content is located at the top 600 pixels of their web sites so that visitors won’t miss any important messaging. This practice presumably based upon the assumption that web users don’t scroll.

A recent article published on Boxesandarrows.com called “Blasting the Myth of the Fold“, author Milissa Tarquini challenges this notion. Tarquini quotes recent studies which have found that most web users not only scroll, but they will scroll and respond to features located at the bottom of a website. The key to successful web layout is therefore not to cram your content above the fold, but to write compelling content that will entice the user to want to scroll to read more.

Soda fountains not fire hoses

Jacob — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:34:28 +0000

Some churches and ministries look at email as a fire hose it is either on or it’s off. For the most part this is going to get people soaked, but not satisfied.

(more…)

CCO + Cool = CCOol!

Rhea — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:12:17 +0000

Okay, so I couldn’t think of a “pun-nier” title for this piece, but that’s not the point. I got “CCO” in the title, which is good enough for SEO.

Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO) has the unique endeavor of helping churches, colleges, and other academic organizations. They do this by providing (more…)

Church of the Incarnation

Jacob — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:29:32 +0000

I found the Church of the Incarnation website via Godbit. Overall I think it is a great website: good looking and easy to navigate.

(more…)