Bye-bye Tumblr

I’ve moved my Tumblr blog over to clearbold.com/blog. Thanks to Andrew Weaver for his DataGrab module for ExpressionEngine, which helped pull the posts over, and his help in troubleshooting.

Things I like about using Tumblr:

• It’s free.
• It’s easy. Not just posting within the Tumblr dashboard, but posting from other apps as well.
• It’s community-based.
• It posts to Twitter.

I still recommend it for people looking for a quick solution or to spread their marketing message. Long-term, though, integrating your content into your site is better practice.

Daring Fireball on the iPad2 Introduction →

I love this post from John Gruber about yesterday’s iPad2 Introduction.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, everything you think you know about personal computing is changing.

http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/the_chair

The Internet Explorer 6 Countdown →

Microsoft says: Please, say “goodbye” to IE6 with us.

Good riddance.

http://ie6countdown.com

Realtors: Here’s Your Competition

If you’re a real estate brokerage, I’m sure you’re using your website to present listings and to generate leads. If you’re affiliated with a major firm, you’re probably using their site with your own custom pages. If you’re local, you’re on your own.

Your website presents an incredible opportunity to own homebuyers’ attention and keep them relying on you for listings and help. But you face steep competition. It’s not from other realtors in your town, city or region. It’s from these guys:

Boston.com Real Estate iPhone app

REALTOR.com iPhone app

ZipRealty Real Estate iPhone app

Zillow iPhone app

Redfin’s Real Estate App for the iPhone

Know who shows up alongside those listings? Not you. The listing agent.

Have you seen people use iPhones? They do it casually. They have a minute or some downtime, and they open an app and browse some listings. Wouldn’t you like to be right there, every time, a constant presence and reminder?

You don’t need your own app. You just need a better website. One that works as well on a mobile screen as it does on a laptop or desktop computer. One that pulls MLS listings into your own database, so that users can save and interact with them right alongside your contact info.

Want to own your local market? Become the go-to website for browsing listings. Offer location-based services for people out and about with mobile devices. Put URLs on yard signs so passersby go to your site and see everything they can do. Imagine how powerful it’d be to see a map showing yourself standing right next to the house you’re looking at.

You don’t need an iPhone app to do this. You need to work smarter with your MLSPIN data. You need a solid platform driving your website, with functionality that retains users’ selections and preferences and keeps them coming back. You need to know that mobile is going to eclipse laptop & desktop web access within two years. You need to beat your competition to the market.

Social Media Is No Silver Bullet →

Basically, what I told them is that they need to do a whole bunch of things, before they could really hope to get any of that aforementioned social currency. In fact, I told them that they would likely have to do a lot of things weeks, months, maybe even years in advance before being able to reap the rewards of social media traction.

It takes effort, but the good news:

Most people don’t want to hear this. They want social media engagement to be immediate, and frankly, they don’t want to believe that you have to invest so much in advance and then hope that the effort gets repaid at some point in the future. But you know what? It’s worked for me. It’s worked for clients I’ve worked with. It’s worked for colleagues I know in our industry.

LAUNCHED: DispatchWire Email Marketing Services →

LAUNCHED: DispatchWire Email Marketing Services by CLEARBOLD Online Marketing & Website Development.

Visit DispatchWire.com

What Design Can't Do →

An article from the AIGA that applies to Technology as well. Give it a read.

Strategical, then Tactical.

- @circa1977

Before design comes people, products and plans. Design is important and design can provide a methodology for communicating vision and insight, but before Design or Technology kick in, there must be strategy.

I’ve been emphasizing this with a number of prospects recently. They’re people that know their website is important to their business and know it needs to do more, but they’re jumping to design or technology tactics. “If I could just update these parts more easily and add this function.” Or, “If I could just get more hits on the site.”

Having worked with websites and online marketing for over a decade, I can tell you, that’s the easy stuff. Where the challenge, and real effort lies, is taking a step back and looking at strategy:

• Who’s your ideal customer?
• What are you selling them?
• What value are you providing?
• How do you communicate to them?
• How do you effectively engage them and convert them into a lead?

A strategy that fully incorporates online marketing must come first. Only when that has been properly defined can we start to figure out what your website should look like and offer.

• Once we know what you’re saying or selling, we can determine how big a site you need.
• Once we know how and to whom you’re saying it, we can determine what the design should look like.
• Once we know who your ideal customer is, we can determine where they find value and offer that to encourage them to purchase from, or contact, you.

A pretty website that’s optimized for search can get you 1000s of hits. But they might only translate to 1 lead. A site that is focused and designed with a specific type of customer in mind might not rank high on Google for broad searches or have mass appeal, but its 100 hits might net you 20 leads.

Your website is your 24/7/everywhere employee. It’s there to do a job for your business. Maybe you like to hire employees that have no experience in your industry and are just a pretty face to do sales for you. I’d bet that an employee who knows your business inside and out and knows how to connect with your ideal customers is a much better investment, though. And I’d bet that the most successful employees rely on a firm marketing strategy that you’ve defined.

2010: The Year in Web Standards – Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report →

Why the Web feels new again (to me).

(via Instapaper)

Advertising Agencies: Kiss Your Creative Teams Goodbye | TalentZoo.com →

(via Instapaper)

4 Predictions for Web Design in 2011

Mashable thinks like we do.

1. Mobile Web Goes Mainstream

This is a core tenet at Clearbold. Mobile devices are mainstream and your site must be accessible on mobile. Clearbold.com was designed and built with the iPad in mind. It looks and works great in a desktop browser, but fits the iPad like a glove, and holds up well on an iPhone. (Though we’d like to get a true mobile version in place too). Your site must work for mobile. If you’re location-based or provide site-based services that might be accessed on a mobile device, you should really be thinking about a mobile website.

2. Web Design as a Profession Will Become Specialized

I’d say it already has. Universal design principles still apply, but a web designer needs to understand: How their site will degrade in older browsers, tools available for typography and visual effects, how a design will adapt to varying screen and device sizes, how to optimize a design for content management systems (where the design must support user-generated content), and so on.

3. Simpler Aesthetics for Websites

I love this one. I’ve really had my eye on HTML email design lately as a model for site designs going forward. I love the efficiency, the simplicity, the flexibility of email designs. Sites that were designed with lots of polished graphics don’t hold up well when they scale up or down on iPhones and iPads; Using web fonts and CSS-based design elements make those sites much more adaptable. There’s more room to focus on the details in a simpler design, both the visual details and the little, content-based details behind the scenes that optimize your site for SEO and users.

4. Web Design Will Replace Print Design (Even More)

Another one that’s already transpired. Mashable’s point here: Less business cards, more LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook profiles. Less newsletters & brochures, more HTML emails. I couldn’t agree more.