Category Archives: Commentary

Personal views of the post-er (sanctioned by Gabardine, of course).

Broadway gets social

By Bre | Bre's articles April 25, 2012 | Permalink

For a girl that loves Broadway, my frequency of actual theatre visits usually amounts to one every 5 years.  Long overdue for my fill of a show, in celebration of my birthday a few weeks ago, I hit the streets of Broadway with my sister to see “Newsies”.

A dud musical that came out in ’92 starring Christian Bale (his Batman voice was a little less mature at the time), “Newsies” became a cult phenomenon with fans my generation’s age after its DVD release.

After hearing my beloved childhood musical was coming to Broadway, I begged my husband mercilessly for the chance to go. With my birthday as the perfect guilt tactic, I become armed with my husband’s roll-of-an-eyes approval and quickly started searching online for tickets…only to find a completely new experience awaiting me.

A little behind the times when it came to Ticketmaster’s site, I was fascinated with their recently launched Interactive Seat Maps. Like most, I’m constantly logged onto Facebook, whether at work, home, or out on errands, so I had no qualms when Ticketmaster suggested I log onto my Facebook account to “See Who’s Sitting Where” – the first step to their new interactive ticket purchasing experience.

From Ticketmaster’s site, I was able to see if any of my Facebook friends had bought tickets to see “Newsies” and was even able to view seats of fellow fans in the Facebook community that had opted in to displaying his/her seat. Special note: Ticket buyers are also given the option to choose if they want to share with everyone or just their friends (for those wary of the stalkerish tendencies of exes).

Excited to become even closer to the “Newsies” fan community, I booked our seats, completing the second step, “Tag Your Seat”, to this new experience. In a manner of seconds, my Facebook friends were able to see exactly where I’d be sitting on my big day.

I was then able to tag my wonderful little sister who co-choreographed our “Newsies” musical numbers with me when we were growing up. To me, this third and final step, “Tag Your Friend”, was pivotal in that it recognized how truly special event going is for fans, their family and their friends.

After tagging my sister, she received a Facebook message and was asked to confirm on her end if she wanted her seat displayed. And my sister, representing the not-so-social-media savvy / hesitant consumer, declined the request. No hard feelings since she’s certainly not the first do so, but again, there’s no need to be alarmed about the lack of privacy in this new purchasing endeavor. At all steps in the process, I was asked to confirm the level of privacy I wanted.

With my Facebook wall boasting of my recent purchase, I found myself more engaged as a fan before the big event. I checked my Facebook daily to see if anyone had commented on my seat, and sure enough, I had Facebook friends commenting on their own experience of the show that got me even more pumped to don my newsboy cap!

When the big day finally came, I was more than happy to end my social media experience sharing this pic taken at Nederlander Theater.

All in all, as a relatively savvy and trusting consumer, I’d recommend this experience to my fellow theatre-going friends and have no doubt I’ll find a new experience waiting me in 5 years!

 

 

 

 

 

Why our sites cost more than $7.99/mo.

By Jonathan | Jonathan's articles March 21, 2012 | Permalink

And why we may not be the agency for you.

Resources like Homestead, Volusion and Intuit’s sitebuilder use pre-made templates designed to suit the wide-ranging needs of different businesses. Within those templates, you change things like color schemes, navigation elements and content. Plus, you can update text and imagery whenever you want, since a content management system (CMS) is built right in. All of which is fine. Great, in fact, if what you really need/want is a basic site, with limited functionality that more or less serves as brochure-ware; a piece of collateral that users can click through like they would turn pages.

That last bit isn’t meant as a pejorative. On the contrary: we acknowledge that, for many businesses, especially those of limited size and resources, using a ready-made site service is the way to go. It’s just not how we approach what we do.

We build custom websites. Rather than using pre-existing templates or assets, we create sites ‘from scratch,’ following a clearly articulated, proven-effective process. That process is professionally managed through clear estimates, collaborative meetings and scheduled reviews. It includes comprehensive requirements analysis, content & functionality development, detailed information architecture, high-end user centered design and hand-done code that’s fit for purpose—not just anyone’s purpose; your purpose.

We don’t pretend to have a monopoly on this process. Any good team worth its interactive salt (whatever that is; we totally just made it up) would go through many if not all the same steps. And we don’t mean to suggest that this is the only way to build websites successfully. Every business is unique, and in some cases a part or parts of the process can be replaced with existing work/inputs.

What we do know is that our way is better. The usability is better, more intuitive; the interface more nuanced and detailed; the content and functionality more aligned with customer needs. As a result, the sites themselves perform better, delivering some combination of improved task completion, deeper engagement, greater brand recognition & positive trending across KPIs.

As an agency that’s more accessible, approachable and nimble than the big boys, we get inquiries on the regular from prospective clients who want big-boy results, but have limited budgets. That’s understandable, especially these days, when businesses need to scrutinize every expense. In some cases, though, the folks kicking our tires lack a fundamental understanding of both what sites cost and why there’s such a variance between templated experiences and custom-crafted ones.

“we create sites ‘from scratch,’ following a clearly articulated, proven-effective process that’s fit for purpose—not just anyone’s purpose; your purpose”

We spend a decent amount of time helping prospects big and small reconcile their expectations with their budgets, taking care to avoid the “How much website can you afford?” approach. On occasion, though, we have to tell them they’d be better served with a different option. It’s odd to turn away work, but we’re in business, too, and have to evaluate potential clients as much as they evaluate us.

And although they may not be equipped to say how much our work is worth, we are.

Basecamp, you’re your own worst customer

By Jonathan | Jonathan's articles March 14, 2012 | Permalink

The customer is always right. Except when she isn’t. To be successful, companies have to be able to determine the difference and adjust accordingly.

The challenge is understanding your customer’s needs. We often say, when evaluating customer needs, don’t tell us what you want it (the app, site, brochure, widget, etc.) to do. Tell us what you want to accomplish, and we can engineer accordingly. Some companies, though, take a different approach. Like 37 Signals. They’ve come out with some very functional web-based tools, many of which have caught fire with a wide range of customers, Gabardine included. In particular, we use their Basecamp product as a project management/collaboration tool.

Well, 37 Signals just went live with a new version of Basecamp, called BCX, which has been met with mixed reviews.

Of course, people always have a problem with new. Humans don’t like change, even though it happens all the time. Online tools and mobile apps in particular update features and functions all the time, and users adapt. Except when something critical stops working, or even disappears, as happened with Basecamp’s time-tracking function.

BCX no longer has time tracking, because 37 Signals doesn’t track time. And because 37 Signals doesn’t track time, they didn’t think you did, either. Or at least, they claim they didn’t know enough about what you did to build that function effectively.

“However, since we don’t track time at 37signals, we don’t have a deep understanding of the time tracking problem. Plain and simple, this is why time tracking isn’t in the initial release of the all new Basecamp. We simply don’t understand it well enough.”

How is that possible?

Basecamp started as an internal tool. 37 Signals realized others could use it, and they could monetize it, and the product was born. The issue is that it stopped being a 37 Signals-only tool a long time ago, but 37 Signals still thinks of themselves as the primary customer. No weight given to the 14% of paying customers that actually used time tracking, and no apparent research into why the other 86% don’t use that feature.

37 Signals can get away with this approach, leaning on their heavily monetized “less is better” approach. But it doesn’t mean they should. Something in their process diminished the results they got from testing, or their very testing was flawed enough that this requirement wasn’t revealed. Or they decided that the 14% wasn’t important.

They acted as their own customer for the development of BCX, developed accordingly, and then release a product that doesn’t meet the needs of their actual customers.

Mixed bag: the week that was

By Jonathan | Jonathan's articles March 9, 2012 | Permalink

This week’s links are a jumble of oddities that have little, if anything, to with one another, besides the fact that we find them fascinating, hilarious, weird, disturbing and a little bit silly. Try to guess which is which…

All true—we read it on the Internet.

What’d you read this week?

Facebook Brand Timelines? Meh.

By Jonathan | Jonathan's articles March 2, 2012 | Permalink

Facebook launched their new Brand Timelines this week, and the tubes lit up with reviews and commentary about the new features. Reviews have been consistently positive and enthusiastic, with everyone from Mashable to Forbes verily gushing  about the superiority of this latest advancement over the old way brands were able to use FB—better photos! Better layout! Private messages!

The majority of the coverage follows a familiar boilerplate that goes something like…

  • short paragraph about how excited everyone is
  • 5-6 new features – factually reported
  • obligatory Coke FB profile screencap*

* As a participant in the beta rollout of Brand Timelines, Coca-Cola, has become something of a poster child for the awesomeness. The brand, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a leader in social media marketing for consumer goods and has done an admirable job of leveraging the features that FB has put in place specifically for brands.

Glaringly absent from each of these hastily crafted posts, however, is any semblance of a real opinion (to say nothing of critical opinion). Instead, everyone and their editors seems happy to prattle on about what are, in truth, minor enhancements, instead of addressing the larger issue:

This latest ‘breakthrough’ may be better than what came before, but it’s still incredibly weak in comparison with what’s possible. In short, FB pages for brands, Brand Timelines and all, still suck.

To be clear, I’m not talking about a specific feature set or new functionality that’s missing (but give me a couple of hours and I’ll come up with something). Those details aren’t really important.

So what is? The way FB is forcing people to interact with brands on the web. In a word, it’s not how people want it to go. But because FB is the de facto social media communications platform (yes, Twitter is important, but Tweets live in many places. FB is the only destination for FB content), they have the juice to dictate how brands relate to people, and vice-versa.

A brand can’t not be on FB. Like it or not, even as a me-too exercise, a brand has to have a presence. But who says that presence has to be structured as a brand page or a Brand Timeline? Well, FB, of course. As a result, people are kept at arms length from the brands they love solely because FB says that’s as close as they can get. And that’s wrong.

Rather than simply using what are really ever-more elaborate templates from FB, brands like Coke should use their considerable leverage to force the social juggernaut to enable functionality that brings them closer to people. Allow them to contribute to and engage in real two-way conversations, not veiled marketing exchanges between a corporation and a consumer. That, after all, is what we’ve come to expect and want from brands.

It happens on Twitter, where brand accounts are manned by—get this—actual people who are actively engaged in building customer intimacy. They’re in the figurative chair next to us, having a chat. On FB, by contrast, brands still maintain a faceless (see what I did there?), formal identity that is anathema to most consumers, regardless of which brands they ‘fan.’

I’m concerned that the love for FB Brand Timelines is based largely (solely?) on the fact that it’s Facebook. We need to look at such features critically and objectively decide if what they’re doing is truly great, or just great because they’re the ones doing it.

 

The week that was: Super Bowl edition

By Jonathan | Jonathan's articles February 3, 2012 | Permalink

The most-watched live television event in the world is this Sunday. Whether or not you’re a fan of either team or even of football in general, odds are you’ll be somewhere, eating gut-killing food with at least one complete maniac. These links should help you prepare. How, we don’t exactly know, but we’ve got to make it seem like this post has a higher purpose…

  • Why shouldn’t food look like the stadium? (1. It’s disturbing. 2. See 1.)
  • We know why you watch: A guide to all the new commercials
  • And the reason you’ve probably seen most of them already
  • If you’re feeling nostalgic, check out the last 40 years worth of spots
  • And if you’ve got something to say, big brands are listening
  • Of course not everyone’s into the game; that’s why there’s counterprogramming here and here
  • A good rule of thumb for the day: Don’t believe the hype

And, our vote for the best commercial of the 2012 crop.

SOPA & PIPA: More than four-letter words

By Jonathan | Jonathan's articles January 24, 2012 | Permalink

Last week may go down in history as a critical one for the Internet, and the open, unfettered access it grants us to things both good and bad. Proposed legislation known as SOPA and PIPA was hotly debated, and eventually (likely temporarily) defeated in the wake of efforts by a voluble brigade of Internet denizens who used social media, online communities and activist sites to create a public outcry — one that triggered whiplash-inducing reversals by politicians and an official response from the Whitehouse.

Not sure what happened, or why it’s even important? Well, we took some time turning out our usual Friday post  to look at the whole picture, understand everything that happened, and attempt to explain it in a way that adds clarity. So here goes…

First, what are SOPA and PIPA? The short answer is they’re different versions of the same bill, both intended to give the US government more power to fight online piracy. Sounds good right? And it would be, however, provisions of both bills allowed the government unprecedented and near-unilateral power to shut down sites with little evidenced justification.

What does that mean? Well, as written, the legislation would enable the government to make a site with ‘infringing content’ (i.e. something posted without permission from the copyright holder) unreachable. And while we all understand the intent of such an effort — namely, protecting the integrity of legitimate copyrights — the reality may be somewhat different. For example: Let’s say you upload a video of your kid’s birthday party — piñata, balloons, cake…the whole nine, and all in the name of good, wholesome fun. But in the background, just over Aunt Jean’s massive, hunched shoulder, is a TV showing a Magnum P.I rerun (yeah, it’s still on). Well, because you didn’t get permission to air that footage, the rights holder would be able to alert the authorities, and the site hosting the video would have its DNS entries altered so no one could reach it.

On its own, that seems a little extreme; but what if that site is Youtube? That’d be crazy, right? And in that light, the legislation looks  Draconian, even. That’s why so many people who know more about this than you and I spoke out against it.

So January 18, 2012 was Blackout Day. Hundreds of sites across the web either blacked out their logo or their entire site as a way of getting attention for efforts already in motion to defeat the bills. Millions of phone calls, emails and other communications were generated, and politicians seemingly got the idea that no one wanted this legislation.

Well, almost no one. We haven’t touched on why these bills were introduced in the first place. Initially, there was speculation and lots of evidence that SOPA and PIPA were the result of lobbying efforts from the media and entertainment industries. That speculation was subsequently confirmed (we’ll pause here for you to collect yourself after that shocking bit of news) in an alarmingly blunt, callous manner by a Senator-turned-shill openly admitting the entertainment industry is pissed off that they’re not getting something they paid for.

The question we need to be asking is ‘Why?’

Some say it’s a desperate attempt by old media to protect its dying business model. Instead of coming up with new ways of creating and delivering content, they’re asking the government to pass laws that stifle the very type of sharing that is responsible for artistic innovation in virtually every medium.

At the crux of the matter is a critical question: Is piracy a problem? On the surface, it would seem so. However, there is lots of data and evidence that suggests otherwise. There are ways of approaching the issue that would likely result in methods that would benefit everyone, not just just the labels and studios. Silicon Valley and the Whitehouse are openly seeking input. No one thinks the independent artist should have to face-off against Internet pirates alone. However, many are developing business models that actually embrace piracy or leverage the power of the web.

Whichever side of the issue you’re on, you can be sure of a couple of things: 1) Political contributions will be affected, and 2) supporters of a free, unrestricted Internet will temporarily retreat to posting cat pictures and riffing on memes — but only until the next bill is introduced…

 

Coming soon: Our awkward holiday gift to you

By Jonathan | Jonathan's articles December 9, 2011 | Permalink

If you’re up on (or down with) Gabardine, you know that this space is usually reserved for either a riveting review of the week in links or  a transformative design makeover.

This week, though, we’ve been busy `wrapping’ a virtual gift to you that’ll be delivered early next week.

It’s a collection of our own awkward holiday photos. Think horrific sweaters, faux reindeer antlers, inappropriate glances, uncomfortable poses…you know, pretty much all the uncomfortable stuff in pics that friends and family have been sending you since Black Friday — with one major exception:

You’ll be able to write your own captions for each photo, share them with friends and, if yours are voted most popular, win $250 for the charity of your choice.

It’s our admittedly odd but (trust us) hilarious way of spreading holiday cheer around our little community, and beyond.

Get ready: Follow us on Twitter and like us on FB for updates and outtakes.

Then spread the word. And the awkward.

Privacy, secrecy and obsolescence: the week that was

By Jonathan | Jonathan's articles December 2, 2011 | Permalink

Winter’s settling in, and with it a collection of URLs that alternately chill us to the bone and warm us right down to our toesies…

That’s about it for us. What’ve you got?

Veterans, Sesame Street & moustair: the week in links

By Jonathan | Jonathan's articles November 11, 2011 | Permalink

With respect, admiration and gratitude for those who serve, we humbly submit this week’s choicest URLS…

Thank a vet for preserving your freedom this weekend, and send a few links of your own…