E-Mail Marketing: The Wild, Wacky World of HTML E-Mail
From: www.wilsonweb.com

"Not everyone sees HTML e-mail as it as sent due to the individual or organization changing the preferences on their e-mail client program -- or the company translating all HTML e-mail into text before letting it past the firewall. Let recipients choose how they want to see your e-mails -- text or HTML -- and send them what they want. Date: Sep 1, 2004, 11:08 PST"

Site Promotion: Improving Link Popularity
From: www.wilsonweb.com

"Increasing your link popularity to improve your ranking on search engines can be hard work. Article counsels avoiding link farms and other short cuts. Instead, consider obtaining incoming links through (1) reciprocal links, (2) major directories, (3) news releases, (4) free articles, (5) online forums, (6) award logos, and (7) outsourcing the project to SEO firms. Date: Aug 25, 2004, 09:59 PST"

E-Mail Marketing: Conducting E-Mail Surveys
From: www.wilsonweb.com

"E-mail surveys may not work correctly when an HTML form is included in the e-mail message. Alternatives are to use an exclusively text survey that can be returned by reply e-mail or to offer a link to an online survey. Date: Aug 18, 2004, 12:58 PST"

E-Commerce: Starting an Internet Business with Your Eyes Open
From: www.wilsonweb.com

"All businesses, especially Internet businesses, are risky. Don't quit your day job until you actually see enough steady revenue to warrant it. Recommends Site Build It!, especially for beginners. Date: Aug 18, 2004, 11:18 PST"

Site Promotion: A Domain Name for Every Product?
From: www.wilsonweb.com

"Should every product have a landing page on its own domain name? Not if you have a website that is already well ranked, according to Andy Beal of KeywordRanking.com. Only if the product is much different than anything else on your site is a new domain name recommended. Date: Aug 11, 2004, 11:35 PST"


Wotbox.com Back with 8 New Local Search Sites
From: www.webpronews.com

"Wotbox is an independent Search Engine that over the last year has developed a strong following on the web."

FindWhat.com CEO to Present Kaufman Bros. 7th Annual Communications, Media and Technology Conference
From: www.webpronews.com

"FINDWHAT.COM announced that Craig Pisaris-Henderson, FindWhat.com's chairman and chief executive officer, will present at the Kaufman Bros. 7th Annual Communications, Media and Technology Conference September 8-9, 2004."

Microsoft's Expands e-commerce Software Distribution with Help from Digital River
From: www.webpronews.com

"Digital River today announced it is working with Microsoft Corp. to expand Microsoft's e-commerce software distribution efforts."

Amazon Selects UltraDNS to Optimize Website Infrastructure
From: www.webpronews.com

"UltraDNS today announced that it will provide its Managed DNS Service to help optimize Amazon Web site infrastructure."

WebSourced Launches SEM Conference
From: www.webpronews.com

"Websourced announced the launch of its conference on effective search engine marketing (SEM)."


IPod Alternatives Abound
From: www.wired.com

"Creative Technology doubles its number of MP3 player product lines. Also: IBM makes the design of its 'blade' servers widely available & hellip;. Video game publisher Acclaim Entertainment files for bankruptcy & hellip;. and more."

MSN Music Store No Original
From: www.wired.com

"Microsoft insists its music store differs from iTunes, but the two services sure have a lot in common. The company will sell songs for $1 like Apple, and plans to match the volume of songs Apple makes available to users."

Techies Build a Better Mouse
From: www.wired.com

"Logitech International unveils the world's first computer mouse to use a sensor based on a laser. Also: Nintendo slashes some prices.... Sales of Boston Scientific's new heart stent dip.... and more."

Vote Swaps Revamped for 2004
From: www.wired.com

"If you'd like to vote for a third-party candidate, but don't want to cost the Democrats or Republicans the election, take heart. Sites are cropping up to allow voters in swing states to swap votes with people in non-swing states. By Joanna Glasner."

Microsoft Takes On ITunes
From: www.wired.com

"Microsoft plans to launch an online music store. Also: Copernic Technologies releases free desktop search software & hellip;. Hitachi, Matsushita Electric Industrial and Toshiba team up to make displays for flat-screen TVs & hellip;. and more."


How to Become the VP of Customer Experience
From: webword.com

" Mark Hurst -- "I occasionally get asked how one should go about becoming a customer experience practitioner. Which universities teach customer experience management? Should they take a master's degree course in usability, information architecture, or a related field? I can only answer from experience: most of the people running the top websites we've worked with do not have a degree in usability, human factors, or any related field. Creative Good has relationships with the site owners of over 100 of the top sites on the web - as I write this, I can't think of a single owner who holds such a degree."

Makes me think about Profits First, Users Second because Mark is saying what I am saying, in a different way. Basically, focus on the company and work your way into the organization as a usabilityresource. (Business first, usability second?) Sell usability, but don't sell it as usability. Devious, but that is a good approach. Sell the value of usability and don't call it usability. call it something else that makes more business sense. Furthmore, you don't need to have a usability background, and you don't even have to "do" usability to do great things for users. Take some time to wrap you mind around that.

Read the article...

"

Holiday E-commerce Ideas
From: webword.com

" 37signals -- "In these pages you'll find dozens of ideas for improving the holiday customer experience at your site. Each idea is accompanied by examples taken from top retail sites (we've visited hundreds of sites over the past two holiday seasons seeking smart techniques)."

Read more..."

Intranet Trends to Watch For
From: webword.com

" "As an intranet manager, what should you be worrying about? How can you create greater business value through your corporate intranet? Is your intranet going to be most impacted by a new technology, a new business idea or something else? Or is it all just about information retrieval?"

Read the article...
"

Pocket-Sized Design: Taking Your Website to the Small Screen
From: webword.com

" A List Apart -- "The main limitation of a handheld device is the small screen, which may also lack a mechanism for horizontal scrolling. Input is often with a stylus, not a mouse. Downloading to the device is likely to be both expensive and slow, the processors are slow, and the memory is limited. A lot of users may therefore choose to turn off in-line image loading."

Read more..."

Usability is Dead, And The Stink Turns My Stomach
From: webword.com

" "There are no quick and exciting and easy wins to be made. We know how to make things usable and it involves a bit of work, easy as that. No rocket science just research, common sense and good old user centered design, in short, stuff we all know, there are books on it for God's sake. So will somebody go tell the people at Opodo? I've just tried to buy a flight from there, 3 times (am I stupid) and each time something went wrong."

Read the rant..."