A couple of days ago when I talked about ugly design getting too much credit one of the reasons given for MySpace’s success is that they simply give their users what they want. It’s such a simple concept that too many of us seem to overlook and when you run your own company it can become even harder to follow because you like to keep control in your hands.
Now depending on what your company does I don’t think you should apply every user request into your product, but for something like MySpace which is more of a fun site than anything it works very well. In contrast, if Basecamp started piling on the features due to what some users want you would simply end up with another bloated project management app.
What about the requests though that don’t really have to do with your product? What about people just wanting to have better interaction with your company? What about the people who simply wish to hear a voice every once in a while? I know of people who complain about these things all the time, but what are companies doing about it? The simple question is, are you really listening to your users?
Wednesday, Mike and I issued a blog network dance challenge and the response was extremely positive. However, when Tyme wrote about it, her readers were complaining because I was in the small window and it was a bit hard to see me. Since I was on a roll anyways I figured I would help them out and the dancing CEO was born.
Nothing difficult and just doing a small thing that people weren’t expecting. The results? Well here are some comments from another thread at Not Too Geeky.
This right here is why I read your site and recommend 9rules to anyone that will listen. You know how to interact with your readers and have fun with us.
Love the video! Thank you Scrivs/Tyme. It’s good to see bloggers and blog networks thinking about readers and what we want instead of feeding us what they think we want. I honestly had not heard of 9rules before Tyme started talking about them but I love 9rules now.
Anita, dead on. The bar has been officially raised. First with the FUN podcasts. Now the FUN videos.
Want our pageviews? Give us something WE want.
And all I did was act like a fool in my bedroom. Even in this day and age it’s amazing to see how poorly many companies interact with their customers. You figured lessons would have been learned from mistakes in the past, but then again, history has a nasty way of repeating itself. Creating passionate users for an entire blog network is not an easy thing to do, but it seems we are least moving in that direction.
Note: Not to be left out on the dance fun, Colin shows off his skills. There is no money in blogging, only money in dancing.
And because I really have no shame here is the YouTube link to embed it on your own site if you wish. Also, the 9rules YouTube video.
The other day I created a skeleton for the new 9rules subpages (we have new features and stuff so yes, a new one is necessary) and I kept on adding content to the page to the point where it became really long. Looking at the page after some time away I questioned whether the content was really necessary and knew that it wasn’t, but it was still useful for anyone that decided to scroll that far down.
So then of course I wondered how much of a negative impact does page length have on sites that use as much page real estate as possible to fit useful stuff in? There is a difference I know from having essential information hidden from your users, but what of the content that is useful for the x% of your readers?
Hopefully everyone understands what I am talking about here. With CSS and compression technology, what is the harm in adding just a bit more to your pages if they aren’t harmful? I guess this goes along with the whole conversation of incorporating useful data in your footers.
An interesting and in-depth look at the the logos of “web 2.0″ detailing what fonts they use and putting them into categories. The glorious and happy-spasm-inducing 9rules logo is up there as well.
Guess it’s too late to change the beast now…
There are times when as a company you must get down to business and then there are times as a company that you must really get down to business. Ask yourself why you don’t do stuff like this in your company because honestly there is never a reason not to have some fun. Well okay, maybe you actually need to get stuff done, but still…
And if you ever questioned the multiple skills of Mike Rundle, I say never do so again after watching the video. The man is untouchable.
Two weeks ago I announced the creation of 9charities (which should be coming out shortly) and in doing so purchased 9charities.org without even thinking about buying 9charities.com. I bought the .org because obviously this project isn’t about us making money as we won’t be making a dime off of this, it’s about helping organizations that need the help. I guess that doesn’t hide the fact that I should’ve bought the .com as well since they are so cheap, but honestly it really never crossed my mind.
Well today I got an offer from someone who bought it on March 25, 2006.
I have the domain name 9charities.com and was wondering if you would like to buy it.
I’m not looking for some ridiculous amount of like 800$ or anything, just a reasonable amount.
Let me know if you are interested.
Cute.
When I was down in Austin for SXSW, Will Pate congratulated me on the success of 9rules and I of course thanked him and asked him what his future had in store. He mentioned that he was in talks with 20 companies for a job (he now claims around 30) and from what I understand some of them were pretty high-profile ones, so it definitely perplexes me as to why he joined Flock.
Joe Clark, bless his soul, mirrors my sentiments in this comment:
With the greatest love and respect, fellow countryman, out of 30 offers you went for a job with a widely ridiculed company pushing an incomprehensible and unwanted product to an audience with such resistance it borders on active hostility?
In any case, I still wish the man best of luck.
When I came up with 9rules back in 2003, the only other company that I was aware of that used a number to start off their company name was 37signals. I am sure there were more, but at that time on the web they were the only ones I could think of and therefore I didn’t see any issues with using a number for my company. If I were to start all over today I would think twice about using a number simply because there are so many sites and companies out there that employ this naming scheme.
So what are the criteria for coming up with a godo company name? Well the list is short and sweet, but that doesn’t make the process any easier. So many names have been taken up that now you are either starting to see some recycled goodies or names that come from words that don’t even exist.
In his book The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier has come up with a wonderful list of seven characteristics that you should consider while coming up with your company name. Here they are along with my own thoughts.
- Distinct. Is it unique and does it help you stand out from the crowded field that you are more than likely entering?
- Short and sweet (aka brevity). Can people get it out without having to take a breath in between words? The longer the name, the more likely people will come up with an abbreviation that probably won’t make sense to the person they are talking to. Does anyone even care what IBM, GE, or GM even stand for anymore?
- Is it appropriate? This one is a bit more flexible because unique names are rarely ever appropriate. Yahoo and Google don’t signify what the companies really do, but Bob’s Plumbing should be a plumbing business and not a pizza delivery service.
- Easy. Can you say the name easily? Can you spell it easily? It’s hard enough getting people to talk about your company so don’t make it even less enticing by calling yourself Xzving.
- Popular. Are people going to like the name? I like saying Yahoo and Google. They are fun names and that already leads to a favorable impression.
- Extendability. Can the name be used for multiple purposes. This is the beauty behind 9rules. You can come up with your own set of 9rules if you wish or simply 9 types of anything.
- Protectability. You probably don’t want to go with a name like Apple today because it’s nice to be able to trademark your name. It’s also nice if the name is actually available on the web to use.
So if you can’t afford to buy a 3-4 letter domain like everyone else seems to be doing, I suggest you follow these guidelines when thinking of the next great thing you are creating. Don’t let a bad name put you back 10 paces before the race even begins. A lesson that Pajamas Media definitely learned with their original name of Open Source Media.
UPDATE: Great. Today Jon Udell linked us up in his entry about 9cays. Of all the numbers they chose…
I think Rundle would appreciate this list more than me, but I can definitely go along with it.
- When your markup is readable by humans
- When your functionality degrades gracefully
- When you can increase the text size willy nilly and it doesn’t break your layout
- When your site works in Internet Explorer without you trying
- When your site’s hierarchy is hierarchical even without your stylesheet
- When your url structure makes sense
- When you make a really awesome form
- When the client says “this is great, this is exactly what we wanted” and you agree
Brian Benzinger has allowed his brother Tim to redesign Solution Watch and unfortunately for me they have launched it the same day as my Whitespace redesign.
Nothing too fancy because there isn’t a need for fanciness when it comes to high-quality content sites. Just let the content do it’s thing and the tell the design to get the hell out of the way. I do wonder what will happen when a new month comes and how that effects the archives box on the side.
9rules Member, Jonathan Snook, has posted a CSS hack that allows you to target your code for IE7. Can’t say that I am preparing for IE7 at all and hopefully it doesn’t mess everything up too bad because there are just too many sites that I would have to go back and fix.
The hack isn’t valid due to the use of *border and hacks just suck overall in my opinion, but sometimes you need to go to great lengths to achieve success.
