Thanks to pda, I came across what could be the next big thing: skimbit.

Founded by Alicia Navarro in Sydney and developed overseas, skimbit, an internet research and decision making tool, sounds like a combination of my del.icio.us, google Alerts, and your very own personal assistant.

In Alicia’s words: “You can use Skimbit for all sorts of group decisions, like choosing accommodation for a group holiday, planning the various aspects of a wedding, or choosing a home with friends, or for more private decisions like researching a TV or car. It’s like an online scrapbook that is populated automatically with sites you pick.”

“With Skimbit, when you find a site you like you simply click a button we install into your browser and we automatically skim the best bits from that site. We create a project webpage for you with these bits so you continue your normal search, and continue skimming, eventually compiling a page with all your options presented in a way that makes it easy to compare and analyse. Friends can view and give feedback on the page, and then Skimbit collates this and tells you what the consensus is.” (emphasis mine)

Oh how I wish this tool were available to me last summer when seven members of my extended family, in five cities — related only by blood — attempted to plan and coordinated a family vacation. But once again, I have to wonder the usefulness of a tool that requires all participants to have a certain level of web knowledge (and by certain level I mean, at least high speed access!).

In fact, in a survey Alicia herself commissioned, she found “only 5% of people regularly use and contribute to a large number of social applications.” This poses a challenge. Not only for developers but for people like me who want to use these tools but need to convince friends and family to invest the time it takes to get over the learning curve.

So apart from the laggards of any group restricting its reach, skimbit just might be a name we start hearing about in places other than twitter feeds.

And for any skeptics, Alicia says, skimbit “isn’t forcing you to be social or to buy something. We like to think of ourselves as ‘just social enough’ as we are more about helping you collect and manage your internet research, than about forcing you to share your life with strangers.”

Tags: , aggregration tool, Delicious, my del.icio.us, pda, Skimbit, twitter

I really wanted to blog about Blackalicious’s song Alphabet Aerobics but couldn’t think of context apart from “I like these guys…”
This blog, posted yesterday, gives me a great reason.
Check ‘em out:
Blackalicious:

ABC3D:

Tags: ABCs, Blackalicious, Books, music, music videos, silly books

Les prix Juno, les prix du musique canadienne, passe sur l’antenne le 6 avril, 2008. Les gagnantes sont choisis par les membres de CARAS et Damien compète dans le meme classe que Céline Dion et Isabelle Boulay, deux géants de la musique francaise.

Si Damien n’a pas change trops depuis nos jours a l’ecole secondaire, je pourrais dire qu’il est completement inexplicable. Mais ceux qui on essayé on dit “Damien Robitaille est un phénomène qui s’explique sur scène seulement,” (lire la pleine article ici), “la meilleure façon pour Damien Robitaille de s’exprimer, d’apaiser les tourbillons qui soufflent dans son esprit, c’est lorsqu’il se tourne vers l’espace, qu’il se place au-dessus des choses,” (lire la pleine article ici).

Checké le tres cool site de Damien pour un gout de sa personalité, incluant des vidéos de Damien qui parle a propos d’Lafontaine.

Voir un biographie de Damien a MuchMusique.

NB: I’m still looking for an amazing feature article written about Damien that I read online a few months ago. After reading that article, Astronaut took on a whole new meaning. I’ll post the article when I find it.

Tags: Astronaut, Damien Robitaille, juno

Theodore P. Savas opened his blog post yesterday by claiming that “We live in the Internet age. If you do not have a powerful website, you don’t exist.”

Meanwhile, in the top 50 most “powerful” blogs sits boingboing, huffingtonpost, and thesartorialist; which begs the question, “…you don’t exist” … with whom?

These sites, like many others, often cater to a niche market not only in their content but in their medium. I can imagine my roommate really enjoying the pursuits of girlwithaonetrackmind; or my aunt subscribing to Talking points memo; or my dad checking in on Techcrunch once in a while; but I happen to know that their ease of both online content and web tools and their regularity of visits are both very low.

So with all this talk of getting users into your site, we might put more effort into considering how to get users online in the first place. Hell, my parents still use dial-up for chrissakes! What could they know about RSS?!

So since I can’t compete with most bloggers in terms of traffic or even content, I’ll do my part by getting my non-web-nerd friends and family to learn a little about The Internet.

…and I’ll start with this useful guide:

Tags: boingboing, how.to.use.the.internet, huffingtonpost, Internet, marketing, marketing.strategy, tesartorialist, Theodore.P.Savas, top.50.most.powerful.blogs, web2.0, YouTube

Product as Marketing

Almost all the money Radiohead makes is from touring. As Chris Anderson says, “let’s use the product as marketing for the performance… spread that kind of undifferentiated thing, the album, as far and wide as you can to stimulate demand for the really scarce thing which is that personal experience of seeing the band.”

Radiohead, having been released from their recording contract, decided to make their new album, In Rainbows, available by a name-your-own pricing strategy — anything the consumer is willing to pay.

This strategy gained major props with the content-is-free bunch and reinforced their edge as innovators (though that title shifts from musical to marketing). Here’s yet another of Radiohead’s kudos to the web nerds, reminiscent of Colbert’s Green Screen Challenge.

I’m not sure if it’s still to early to know the effectiveness of this plot, but one thing is sure: the book publishing industry should take note.

Radiohead, an established band, can drop their music publisher out of the loop and still garner both publicity and sales. What does that say about the future of book publishing?

While we ponder this, let’s enjoy some tunes.

Tags: marketing, publishers, Radiohead

I’m catching the Twitter-bug. But I can’t say the attraction was immediate. At first, I thought, Why would I want to know when so-and-so is doing their laundry?! Or just got 5 new projects?!

Twitter can be annoying if you follow the people who post such things. But otherwise, it’s a great way to have your finger on the pulse of any network. For example, I heard about the Zucherberg and Lacy interview before a video of the interview was even posted!

Twitter is not an exclusive club. Anyone can sign up and figure it out. But how can one effectively network when high-profile people use pseudonyms? I started by adding absolutely everyone. Everyone that my teacher follows, I now follow. Some guy posts something useful, I now follow as his followers. And so on.

BuzzMachine, in a blog post, quotes political blogger Patrick Ruffini saying, “Traditional news operated on a 24-hour cycle. Blogs shortened this to minutes and hours. Twitter shortens it further to seconds. It’s not right for every piece of information. But when it comes to instantly assembling raw data from several sources that then go into fully baked news stories, nothing beats it.”

Now I have more people to follow than god. I’ve surpassed my twitter terminal velocity. It’s now time to cut out the “laundry” people. Basically, if youdon’t post a useful link or really enlightening comment, you’re gone. This is how I’m making Twitter work for me.

Tags: BuzzMachine, Lacy, Patrick Ruffini, social network, terminal velocity, twitter, Zuckerberg

HarperCollins Canada’s website (www.harpercollins.ca or www.harpercanada.com both direct to the Canadian site) is easily searchable and accessible. Its last update date is a vague 2008 but the site is clearly updated frequently as it features a newly released book in the forefront and has daily updates to the newsletter.

The user-friendliness of the site is not great: the menus can be hard to navigate because they are all roll-down menus that appear only when you scroll over them. This is difficult for a user to quickly assess the range of information on the site. Furthermore, there is no “home” button to return to the home page. When you explore the site and want to return to the home page, the only option is by retyping the main site’s address. This is enough to lose the user’s attention and have them leave the page.

First impressions of the site, from a marketing perspective, are that it embraces the web 2.0 rage and creates a loyal readership to the publishing house. The level of participation and interaction is so high that readers have no choice but to engage fully in the lists of each season and news about HCC. The site makes effective use of blogging, RSS feeds, participatory multimedia, podcasts and videos. It also works beyond the main site to further this community through Facebooks groups, a MySpace page, a podcast site (called prosecast) and member-only features such as First Look (ARE book club), Author Tracker, Invite the Author, and newsletter subscription.

HHC does not sell books or other products online and the language is more obviously to inform than to sell. The “news” and “newsletter” portions of the homepage are quite prominent and are also subscribable services. The member priviledges also function to inform regularly. The menus suggest informing the user “books”, “authors”, “readers”, and “members” while the other secondary menus also suggest informing: “Browse”, “Bestsellers”, “News Releases”, “Upcoming Books”, and “Award Winners.” In terms of selling, the site doesn’t exclude that push. “Just because the holidays are over doesn’t mean the gift-giving should end and after a stressful season who better to gift than yourself?” This is the intro to the feature book on the front page. “On Sale Now” is also a very large button on the main page and each book has very clear “Buy the Book” buttons featured in blue text and set apart by borders.

There are no products available for sale on the site, nor are there any discounts available in the form of coupons or promo codes. The user has the choice of buying any book via Amazon.ca, Chapters Indigo or a variety of independent canadian retailers (61 choices across Canada). This is a wise move considering HCC is a publisher, not a retailer. It also gives consumers (aka readers) a Geyco-esque choice when making a purchase. What the consumer doesn’t know is that HCC works with retailers closely to ensure the selling of their books. They do this through their HarperCollins Canada Hand-Selling Award to retailers. This partnership solidifies their online setup. McClelland & Stewart, as a comparison, sells their books directly from their site at a cost higher than the popular Amazon.ca.

The HCC profile reads:Consistently at the forefront of innovation and technological advancement, HarperCollins is the first publisher to digitize its content and create a global digital warehouse to protect the rights of its authors, meet consumer demand and generate additional business opportunities.

HCC doesn’t close the door on consumers by not selling directly. By giving the consumer many avenues to engage in the list, they enable a more effective marketing process. HCC gains so much by drawing the reader in for the long term.In terms of improvements to create a greater impact, there isn’t much I’d change on this site. It serves a purpose and does so maintaining the integrity of the publisher’s mandate. However, it would be worthwhile to include the links directly to Facebook (via the “share on Facebook” button), to their Prosecast site, and to the MySpace page. It would also be worthwhile cleaning the site up in terms of graphic design. There is a tremendous amount of information on the site and if it were presented more cleanly, it may be navigated more effectively. McClelland & Stewart accomplishes this clean, professional look that includes participatory media. However, few comparable publishers work as well as HHC in fostering an online community.

HHC’s message is clear: it’s all about the book! The attention they pay to their lists and back-lists draws readers in by participating and makes them loyal to HarperCollins as a brand.

Tags: Books, HarperCollins, marketing, publishers

gURL
gURL has had an online presence since 1995 and as such seems to be quite fluent in participatory multimedia. Immediately users are drawn into the site by an invitation to “connect” and join the community (for free). Users can also shop and enter contests. These features draw the user in to participate in the community rather than just read passively. Since gURL’s content is driven by user posts, it is essential to foster this community. A menu bar on the right-hand side urges users to enter polls, be seen and heard, get advice and play interactive games. There is also a newsletter available to subscribers (again, free). Despite all of this, gURL does not have an RSS feed option or bookmarking tools. The entire website functions as a blog by allowing users to fully interact, however, there is no formal blog- (columnist) type section.
New users are easily drawn into participating in the many areas of gURL while those familiar with the layout can easily manage by singing-in directly. Advertisers and publishers enjoy the benefit of knowing just how popular each section of the site is by how much users interact with it.

Salon
Salon’s homepage is an overload of content that can be very difficult for new users to navigate. There is an RSS feed that is located by performing a Find search. There is also an email newsletter and Salon mobile option. Salon has two online communities: Table Talk and The WELL that allow users to speak in a forum setting. There is a daily blog report that features blogs from the right and blogs from the left. Salon also offers TV podcasts. The content sites are updated daily or more frequently.
The placement of the participatory media that is available is difficult to find, being not in widget or gadget form. New users need to work hard to learn the ins and outs of this site.

Copyblogger
Copyblogger is a very clear and straightforward approach to participatory multimedia and thereby ups the value of these features. An RSS subscription feed is easily recognizable in the upper left-hand corner, directly under the logo. The orange RSS box sits just outside of the margin and is thereby set off graphically. There is also an email subscription option for updates. There is also an option to add Copyblogger to your Technorati favourites – not that I know what that is.
Other than these features, the site seems fairly flat in terms of listing articles by type of resource, archived by flag words or popularity. Each article, or post can be commented upon but the site urges users to take the advice and start their own website/blog, and not to interact necessarily with this one.

Tags: copyblogger, gURL, magazines, RSS, Salon, web2.0