Know When To Say No

Cool SvN post on how to innovate by staying true to your ideas and not being bullied into being something you're not.

How opinionated companies get customers to live without floppy drives, assigned seats, credit cards, etc.

Examples from the story:

Southwest
"...in the case of Southwest Airlines, customers who value more of the amenities, policies, and procedures of the legacy carriers aren’t ever going to be passionate about Southwest. Customers who are passionate about Southwest don’t just value the low fares that open seating supports, but have come to expect and enjoy the organized chaos that the experience involves."

Apple
If you simply had to have a floppy drive, then that new iMac was no good for you.

ING
You want to open an account with a million dollars? Please find another bank. “Rich Americans are used to platinum cards, special services,” Kuhlmann told me. “The last thing we want in this bank is to have rich people making special demands. We treat everybody the same, which is how we keep things simple.”

It's not easy being Yahoo!

Interesting blurb of an article on Jerry Yang of Yahoo. Too short, but a good glimpse at his feelings on their history and future.

Yang: Being Yahoo CEO is a 'lonely job'

My favorite throwaway quote:

"Today I'm still not sure why we added the exclamation point."

!@#$

Swearing at work boosts team spirt, morale
Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers.

The pair said swearing in front of senior staff or customers should be seriously discouraged or banned, but in other circumstances it helped foster solidarity among employees and express frustration, stress or other feelings.

Best Google Design for SEO Traffic

Let's say that I want our blog to get traffic from people searching on how to get relevant SEO-optimized content that will show up on Google.

Well, I'd make sure to talk about Google and SEO plenty of times, and that we're the best at helping people get great SEO results.

I'd also provide an example of how the Google home page would look if it was SEO-optimized.

http://www.meangene.com/google/design_for_google.html

Of course, I would need to use some nifty AJAX call-out boxes to guide the user through the steps to creating a relevant, SEO-friendly home page that will get indexed by search engines like Google.

Now just wait several weeks and your site should be picked up by the Google spider and show up in search results when people are searching for "best google optimized SEO".


P.S. I should throw in the original pointer from Slashdot:

"Web developers increasingly grow weary of having to put so much effort into designing their sites according to the whims of the Google search engine. When the most important thing is 'getting indexed' it is increasingly difficult for web site designers to offer the simple, uncluttered user experience they'd like to. Reminiscent of the famed what if Microsoft designed the iPod box here is a humorous look at what would happen to that famed, clean, uncluttered look if Google had to design for the Google Search Engine."

At least they tried...

New beta version of MapQuest:

beta.mapquest.com

Unfortunately they still don't get it...

I know I've been a MapQuest hater forever, but it's always been with good reason. They were first, and they're the most popular, but they still just don't know how to do directions in a useful manner.

People want to redo a route easily with drag and drop. They want to start on a highway without having to fake it. They want simplified line drive directions. They want to find a pseudo neighborhood even when they don't really know what they're looking for. They want to easily skip streets they don't like, and be advised as to "why" something is the best route rather than fastest/quickest via a mathematical stairstepping calculation. They want the simplicity of a Line Drive visualization instead of every intricacy of a turn by turn. They want notes, landmarks, and street level views for visualization.

They want something better than MapQuest.

Google Maps is the best (true that double true.)

R&B

If Gary named iNetNow...

Research Bitch

Aside from the comedic value of the funny name, the voiceover pitch for the site is pretty interesting and not something I've seen before.