Arthur Freydin’s Blog

Online marketing, gadgets, business, and thoughts.

One add-in that no longer functions in Firefox 3 is Google Browser Sync. The add-in syncs bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history across all PCs and Macs that have Firefox installed. Unfortunately, Google has decided to completely terminate the add-in for any future versions of Firefox which saddens me quite a bit; it has been an indespensable tool for me.

Fortunately, I have already found an alternative: Foxmarks. It only syncs bookmarks and leaves out all the additional functionality that Google Broswer Sync has supported but it’s one step closer to solving the issue. Foxmarks also allows you to access all your synced bookmarks from a web portal that it creates for you for free.

So it looks like a few people are having issues (myself included) with their old Firefox 2 bookmarks transferring to Firefox 3 – this includes bookmarks stored in the dropdown as well as toolbar bookmarks.

Here’s a quick workaround that worked for me:

1. Open up Windows Explorer and go to: C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\1ks8ivke.default\bookmarkbackups
2. You should see dated bookmark backup files as .html pages such as bookmarks-2008-06-16.html
3. Open up the file. It should contain all your bookmarks in their most recent backed-up state from Firefox 2
4. Simply drag the bookmarks you need into your bookmarks menu or toolbar

There you have it, one Firefox 3 headache solved.

First of all, it is a bit befuddling to me why Mozilla chose to release their latest version of Firefox at 1pm EST instead of shortly after midnight. Oh well.

Well, now that 1pm EST has dawned, it looks like Mozilla.com is down for the count. While I would love to support Mozilla in its record setting ambitions, I really want the new Firefox so I went ahead and downloaded it from their ftp. Two words: it rocks.

People today go to the web to research their options and to get answers to their questions. They want clear, accurate information and they want it quickly. This means that your website has only seconds to grab the attention of a potential client. How can you make sure that you’re getting the most out of your online presence?

1. Know your audience
   Are you targeting accountants or is your webpage geared for business owners? These two demographics are very similar but can have very distinct minor differences. An accountant may require more in-depth information than a business owner and this should reflect on your site.
2. What’s the goal of your website?
   The goal of your website will determine the actions that you would like your users to take. If your goal is to get the user to fill out a form, then build your site around that premise. If your goal is to educate the user, then provide plenty of content to help them in their quest – or link to more authoritative content elsewhere.
3. Analyze your traffic through web analytics
   Traffic on the web can come from many different sources including search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc), direct referrals (bookmarks or word of mouth), links from other sites, and many other sources. It is very important to keep an eye on traffic patterns to determine trends and create actionable reports. There are hundreds of online web analytics packages available such as Google Analytics to help you track your site traffic.
4. Keep your content fresh & unique
   Almost any site can benefit from fresh content. Updated content will keep your existing users engaged and will attract new prospects to your site. Blogs, newsletters, press releases, and company news are all great examples of content that keep users engaged.
5. Solicit feedback & optimize
   Your website is for your users, remember that. If your users are not happy then your website is not serving its purpose. The most sophisticated market research and web optimization guidelines do not consider your intimate user base which means that your website can not be truly optimized for your audience unless you hear directly from them! Consistently solicit feedback through surveys, site reviews, and comments. Don’t be afraid of criticism from your audience; they are the ones you built your site for in the first place!
6. Fulfill a niche
   There are over 570 million websites online discussing real estate. How would you feel if you had to compete with that many voices? People are also getting much more granular in how they search for what they are looking for. A person looking for “lease abstracting” is not going to search for “real estate”, therefore, now more than ever, it is vitally important to be able to fulfill that niche.
7. Maintain a transparent personality
   These days, an “online reputation” can be turned upside down within minutes through blogs, news outlets, and forums. Maintaining a transparent identity to yourself and your business associates personality and creates a certain comfort level for your users while mitigating reputation issues in the future. Your potential clients will want to know who they’re going to be working with and what values that person represents. This is your chance to virtually meet your clients and convince them that you are indeed the only choice in the industry – you don’t want to miss that opportunity.

Web 2.0 is all around us. It’s changed the ways we interact with online entities and has facilitated the creation of many great tools we use today.

However, there are still countless of uses out there that have [probably] not been exploited yet.

I gave myself a little test the other day on the drive back home from work: think of any industry and try to come up with a web 2.0 enhancement. Here’s the list:

Imagestorm
Brainstorming – but with images.
Say you’re a marketing agency and have a new project that requires you to create marketing collateral for a new visual (video or static imagery) campaign. Your campaign is marketing hotdogs. Unfortunately, this is the first hotdog campaign you’ve ever done and are drawing a blank picture in your head.

That’s where Imagestorm comes in. You type in hotdog and you are instantly blasted with various logos, newsletter images, and video promos that other companies have had success with. Kinda like MarketingSherpa but more web2.0.

Amazon2.0
The Amazon product pages are notoriously known for being ridiculously overpopulated with info. While this is great for SEO, product education, and cross-sell, it may not be exactly what the user expects to see on a product page.

Google Website Optimizer would help here but with so many moving parts and predetermined user expectation, it may not appeal to the Amazon usability group. So why not hand over the control to the users entirely? Allow the users to customize every content block’s position and remove if necessary. Not only would that provide the users with that power but it would also give Amazon valuable insight into what the consumer really wants to see on a product page.

Machining & Models
Anyone ever hear of those 3d model printers that are being developed? Well, why not use the same web based software for the custom machining industry to build basic parts out of metals and plastics? The machining shop can charge by amount of corners, length of piping, etc. This would be a boon for industrial jobs as well as hobbyists.

Tire Design (can you tell I was driving while I thought of these?)
Have you ever met a true-to-heart car enthusiast? Someone that has done every single aftermarket modification that is commercially (and sometimes homemade) available for their car? These people are serious fanatics and will go to great lengths to make sure that their ride stands out from everyone else.

Enter the custom tire tread. Showfloor-only designs that can be anything from custom tribal imprints to club logos to manufacturer sponsored designs. The tread on these tires would not benefit the driver in a rainstorm but would be a huge hit on the showfloor. The custom tire tread can easily be created through an online application or submitted artwork.

Design Your Own Road Sign (once again, I was driving)
Plenty of stores already sell signs like “Parking only for Yankees Fans”. How about launching an online service that allows the user to completely customize a new road sign – custom sizes available of course. A web based application can accept text (in multiple fonts & sizes) and images and be able to overlay the creative right on the road sign shape of your choice.

Social Hot Sauce
Have you ever walked in to a niche food store in San Fransisco and noticed the seemingly endless wall of hot sauce bottles? People that purchase these bottles are more likely to pass them on to friends and document the experience than people that purchase a typical off-the-shelf brand. These people are fanatics about hot sauce.

In comes the hot sauce social network with a twist. Users would be able to design their own hot sauce by dictating ingredients and bottle design. They can then purchase the finalized product and showcase it to the masses for purchase & review. This would also be a great facebook widget.

Virtual House Hunter
Enter a internet savvy, home-seeking individual. This person knows what area they want to live in, how many bedrooms they would like their house to have, and how much they would like to pay for the house. This is the type of person that doesn’t need a real estate agent to literally hold their hands as they are viewing a house.

Virtual agents. An agent can be in Detroit, Michigan but will be showing three houses in 3 different corners of the USA at the same time of the day. This agent will also only be taking 2% commission. Oh, everything would be based on a very slick web application.

There are countless other ideas that I have come up with the rest of that day. There are just so many verticals that have not even touched on some of the cool new ways to interact with their users and it’s so damn exciting. I can only imagine what happens when the adoption rate booms.

How many times have you engaged in a service that requires a login to a web application and realized that the implementation totally sucks?

I have seen countless examples of this ranging from online marketing back-ends to real estate. Why is it that companies don’t invest on optimizing the user experience for existing clients? Is it because they stop caring after they sign the contract? To me, it seems like a great way to retain your company image and gain word-of-mouth business.

Having a great back-end that positively impacts the client/user will not only make your service easier to use (and up-sell), but it will also mean more word-of-mouth business from existing clients. Those valuable, already existing, clients will spread the word to other prospects resulting in free advertising!

There’s one really beneficial area of LinkedIn that has spurred it ahead of Facebook as a social network for professionals. Aside from the clear professional focus of the social network, it’s questions & answers format is a huge advantage to marketing professionals and other verticals.

By asking questions on LinkedIn, a user is able to leverage the immense base of professionals already on LinkedIn to gain valuable insight and get quick, [mostly] thoughtful answers. I’ve already used the service to ask a few questions that I’ve been having a hard time with and have gotten tons of really intelligent responses. It’s kind of like Yahoo! Answers for professional, and it works really well!

LinkedIn took it one step farther – not only did they launch the Q&A model, but they also introduced a valuable ranking tool. A user posting the question can rate their responses and pick the best answer. That best answer then follows the person that posts it and is visible to other users looking at their profile. By leveraging the best answer functionality, LinkedIn is then able to determine experts within the field in which the question was asked. Awesome!

So your online retail business has survived by advertising on Pricegrabber for 4 years? Sure you advertise on other shopping engines, and maybe you dabble a bit in SEM, but you’re not afraid to say that over 80% of your business comes straight from Pricegrabber. Now what happens when Pricegrabber reporting stops working or your feed breaks? Can you go even one day of no sales with nothing to fall back on?

It’s situations like these that just make me cringe. Sure, a business may start out a bit short-sighted, but there comes a time in its life cycle when you have to begin building disaster scenarios. Once you start planning for the scenario, it becomes painfully obvious just how quickly your empire can crumble. Can you afford to lose 80% or more of your sales? What would you do?

Invest in the future. As difficult as it may be, consider for a moment that you don’t have Pricegrabber, what are you left with? There are tons of various marketing channels out there just begging to be played with. You have affiliate marketing, search engine optimization (typically a very hard sell but oh so worth it), and paid search just to name a few. Each one of these channels has the capability of driving at least 20% of your business at a great ROI.

Breaking out of a tried and true marketing channel may be as difficult as tossing aside your security blanket but oh is it worth it. Five years down the road, when you’ve noticed your competition slowly beginning to disregard that security blanket, you’ll begin to wonder where they’ve gone and why they left.