da Blog

Here’s a little story of something that’s happened recently.  In the end, it goes mostly to making sure that the webmaster of the sites did his homework, but maybe I’m supposed to remember things better, I don’t know.

So, as I mentioned in the blog post about the ILikeAndy.com T-shirt, I enjoy Andy Osenga and his music.  I’ve also loved reading his blog over the last couple years in addition to his music.  He’s one of my favorite bloggers.  But what I found while writing that story was that I’ve not been reading his blog for the last six months!

How does this happen?  Well, I’ve just been reading his blog via the RSS feed in my Google Reader, so I haven’t been visiting his site.  However, about six months ago, he got a new site, and the new site’s RSS feed was not the same.  Google Reader doesn’t notify me of this, so I probably at first assumed that Andy was too busy to blog and then forgot about his blog completely.

The great thing is that Google Reader keeps track of what’s new for me.  Google doesn’t usually screw up, but what happens when the webmaster forgets a little detail like that?  I miss six months of content and have to spend a couple hours on a Saturday catching up.  Should I be checking people’s actual sites more often?  I hope not - there’s way too many sites that I follow via RSS to do that.

I guess the moral of the story is to make sure that you’re not missing anything that’s important to you on the ‘net.  Unless you’re a webmaster, in which case, you should make sure you got your stuff together.  And speaking of which, I gotta go manage some sites.

And people thought that Windows Vista took forever. About four years ago, I saw a green GoTo Card reader on a MetroTransit bus and asked a bus driver what that was. He said they were introducing a new kind of SuperSaver in time for the launch of the Hiawatha Light Rail line. Just this month, the GoTo Card has finally come out for public use, even though I’ve been using one for most of a year.

The system works much better than the flimsy paper SuperSaver passes they’ve been using for a long time. Although they say the GoTo Cards will cost $5, right now they’ll give ‘em to you for free if you put $20 on them. Like the SuperSavers, every $10 you buy comes with $1 of free value on it to encourage use over change and bills. The card just needs a quick swipe over the pad to transfer data, so it’s nice and quick. You can reload the card with value via any Light Rail fare machine or via the GoTo Card Website. Plus, it can also handle monthly passes as well. For the last 9 months or so, I’ve been using the card, and maybe for the past 6 months, I’ve been using the monthly pass without a hitch even though nobody officially said I could as a part of the early test group.

I thought that they spent some money doing some kinda fun ideas of ads to put on the light rail stations. These ads are stuck underfoot on the light rail platform and liken the GoTo Card to other common items. Too bad the website is so boring (and only viewable over an SSL connection for no reason).

It seems that, these days, you have to have some really unique, really attention-grabbing marketing to get people’s attention. And, I have to say, the folks at Fox have been pulling out all the stops in this regard for The Simpsons Movie. Here’s a couple good examples:

One of the coolest thing in a while is the official Simpsons Avatar Creator over at the official movie site. (Above are some that Andrew Osenga made to depict him and his family.) It’s fun, because you can make almost an infinite number of possibilities of characters, including all the characters in the movie and, hopefully, yourself. I haven’t played around with it enough, but I didn’t find it too easy to make whatever, or at least not make something that you say, “That’s totally my friend Isaac as a Simpsons character.” It’s definitely fun, and you can share them with your friends if you like what you came up with. As the site says, “Ready to work some yellow magic?”

Also, one of the most ingenious things is their recent partnering with 7 Eleven to transform a dozen stores into a full-fledged Kwik-E-Mart for a month or two. There’s not one in my market, but everyone who does have one seems to be talking about it. Not only does the outside look like a Kwik-E-Mart, but they’ve hired people that look like Apu to man the counter and make the usual silly comments. They also have all the signature Kwik-E-Mart foods, such as Squishies, Buzz Cola, and Krusty-Os cereal, and even a Radioactive Man special-edition Comic Book. In my opinion, this is a very creative and fun way to promote the movie, and I applaud 7-Eleven for doing something a bit risky but ultimately fun.

Via WordPress‘ Matt Mullenweg I found this interesting post about building online communities. There were some interesting points. None of them really surprised me, but they are good points to keep in mind when endeavoring to build an online community. Also, if you’re looking for more of the basics of building an online community, I recommend the earlier post he mentions as well. I’m going to keep these in mind as I’m building up inReview.net, for sure.

My life has always been close to the east side of Bloomington, MN. For the last 15 years or so, the People of Praise has had their headquarters there. I went to middle and high school at Trinity Schools in the same building. And now, I work just a mile away from there. Of course, though, the big presence in the area is the Mall of America, one of the largest enclosed malls in the United States. According to their press site, “With 40 million annual visitors, MOA has more visitors than all other attractions in the state combined and nearly 10 times more visitors than Minnesota’s second biggest attraction, Cabelas® in Owatonna.”

For years there has been talks about the proposed Mall of America Phase II. I recently found their new promotional website and it contains a lot of interesting information.

The expansion will be add 5.6 million square feet to the north end of the existing mall and will apparently be more open and let in more natural light than the original structure. The plan includes more parking structures and a skyway connection to the nearby IKEA. The expansion will integrate seamlessly with the current mall and connect to it on all four floors (including adding connections to the near-dead fourth floor).

A number of major structures are included in the mall plans. One of the main tenants is Bass Pro Shops, a major national outdoor sporting goods retailer. Major entertainment provider AEG will be building a 6,000-seat performing arts amphitheater. Some information says something about an NHL-size hockey rink, and I don’t know where that’s going to be located. The plans also leave room for an office tower and a couple hotels attached to the complex, including a family waterpark/hotel.

The new space seems to be designed to have different districts or areas of shopping, most of which look a bit more high-priced and trendy. The fourth floor seems to be devoted to entertainment attractions such as a movie theater, dinner theater, nightclubs, etc. According to the designs, there’s also a “High Fashion District” and a “Home District”. The main event looks to be a very open “Town Square” area, which looks like it may even mimic Times Square a bit. A central corridor of the new expansion is called “Canal Street” and is rumored to be a Venice-style center completed with gondola boats and everything. The plans also show an environmentally-friendly co-generation facility that will generate some heat and electricity for the building.

The annoying part is that there’s no news as to when this will be implemented, although the mall’s Wikipedia article says groundbreaking is supposed to happen in Spring 2007. The Wikipedia article also cites some concern from “outside forces” such as the city of Bloomington who are concerned about the ability for the $1.78 billion project to be completed. A state bill that aims to make the building construction tax-exempt seems to claim that construction will start in 2008 and finish up in 2011.

There are a number of improvements to the mall that seem to be a bit closer to reality and completed sooner. One is the reintroduction of a bar on the vacated fourth floor in the form of Cantina Corona, a Mexican bar/restaurant that is the first-ever place to bear the Corona brand. Also planned is the very high-end Klimpton Hotel near the south end of the mall. And finally, The Park at MOA will soon begin construction of a Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter type roller coaster, to be completed in 2008. These style of rides are some of the most cutting-edge and the mall says it will be the first upside down roller coaster at the Mall of America. Nice!

I always like the pictures and diagrams, so below are the floor-by-floor plans off the website: (more…)

OK, that’s not exactly true. Google has announced the acquisition of DoubleClick, which has been the leader in Internet advertising as long as I can remember. Although most had valued the company at $1 billion, the $3.1 billion cash purchase will make Google, by far, the biggest player in the online ad game. Not surprisingly, other players in the Internet advertising market such as Microsoft and Yahoo! are crying foul.

Should you, as a consumer care? Probably. Besides Google, DoubleClick has the best profile of what sites you visit and your purchasing habits through their DoubleClick cookies. Of course, there is the possibility of Google trying to use this data to better target and identify you. Of course, DoubleClick quickly tried to destroy that rumor. However, a full acquisition from Google, a merging of systems, and/or a change in their terms of service could easily change that.

While Google by no means has a monopoly on Internet advertising, they’re quickly becoming the evil empire of the Internet that we somehow just can’t help but love. And, heck, as long as my Google stock keeps going up, I’m OK with it, I guess.

I recently ran across this article on a Search Engine Optimization site. Many may not know that SEO/SEM peoples are also interested in interface design for the best and easiest way to reach their customers. Bill Slawski of SEO By The Sea found some interesting research papers from Stanford about a point and click interface - except without a mouse. I haven’t read through them entirely yet, but somehow the computer senses which part of the screen you’re intently staring at and if you hang on it for long enough, your eye will “click” it. It’s mostly for people with disabilities at this stage and it might not be too easy to figure out, but it may become the “wave of the future”, as some say.

Marketers are odd people. Internet Marketers - doubly so. Sure, their jobs are getting their client’s sites to the top of the search engines, but they also know how to use the web for fun (or personal gain - or both). And, of course, they’re not your normal blue-collar workers; they’re out-of-the-box, mind-blowingly smart people.

In the last couple years, one thing they’ve used the media for is to make engagement proposals. The owner of Search Engine Roundtable, Barry Schwartz, even made mainstream news headlines by working with Ask.com to propose to his girlfriend.

But only this year was Barry one-upped by another member of the search industry. Apparently Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz (which has a great site and Internet marketing blog, btw) had been secretly planning to propose to his girlfriend during the Super Bowl. It didn’t work out because even the local the Super Bowl ads are sold out far in advance, but about a month ago he did the next best thing. Rand ran a spot during his girlfriend’s favorite show, Veronica Mars. She agreed and they are to be married, but that’s probably the most public thing I’ve ever seen anyone do for a marriage proposal.

Web analytics tools such as Google Analytics can provide a lot of useful information, but you have to dig through the data and know where to look. Of course, for large companies, there are the expensive, full-featured packages such as WebSideStory and WebTrends. I recently found this interview with Jim Sterne, who seems to be a leader in this field. I found some good ways to think about Analytics. Many people try to say that there’s no way to get accurate information about your visitors, but he counters that you can discern changes in user behavior and figure out most of what is going on. If you’re trying to market your own website, I would recommend giving this a read.

So, about a week ago, I was browsing Digg and said to myself, “Oh nice, Google’s showing me a Chipotle text ad! How did they know I loved the large burritos so much? Do they know I have a T-Shirt?” After looking at it a bit more, I said, “Hmm… I wonder where this new location it mentions is?” Here’s an image version of the ad on Last.fm:

After a bit of looking, I found that this location is in St. Louis, MO. However, I’m in Minneapolis, MN and have never been to St. Louis. What’s going on? Is it Google’s fault or is the advertiser doing a bad job? I don’t know, but I find it intriguing.