Google Wave Experience And Productivity

Written by John W. Furst, has got 3 Comments.

Google Wave

About three weeks ago I euphorically wrote about Google Wave, had a Wave embedded in the blog post, got a lot of comments, … and did many things with Wave in the meantime.

Since then I also have started a list with my humble suggestions for improvement of the user experience.

Let me give you a quick update on my personal Wave experience.

Status Quo

Wave has already become a sort of everyday tool for me. My firefox plugin shows the number of unread messages in the inbox and the number of people I communicate with is on the rise.

We even use the ties from Wave into Google Groups to create private Waves with restricted access. Therefore, with a small circle of partners and friends Wave has partially replaced email for some communication needs.

Never having been fond of walkie-talkie style instant messaging or chat conversation or Twitter the feature of instantaneous, collaborative, style of communication is certainly a great one. And Wave crushes it. We nailed communication which would have taken much more effort and time for accomplishing the same results via email, chat, skype or phone.

Brilliant Concept

The concept of hosted conversations with synchronous access for working collaboratively is just brilliant. The real power comes from the combination of — the removal of the barrier between — synchronous and asynchronous collaboration in one tool, one document.

→ Continue reading: Google Wave Experience And Productivity

 

Posted by John W. Furst in Google Wave, Marketing, Project Management, Usability, Web Site Development on Sunday, December 6, 2009 has got 3 Comments.

Defined tags for this entry: google wave, productivity, usability, webmaster, webmastergoogle wave

Improving The Usability Of Google Wave - A Personal Wish List

Written by John W. Furst, has got 2 Comments.

Google Wave Usability Issues - Some Road Work Ahead

Since I have started using Google Wave a couple of weeks ago I keep a list of potential improvements that come to my mind while working with it.

You can find my original wave at the link below (requires a Google Wave account).

Daily Suggestions For Improving The Google Wave Universe (↑)

In the list below I omitted some minor issues.

Usability And Other Improvements For Google Wave

(1) Search panel: Selecting one wave or multiple waves with Shift+Click is unfamiliar. Shift+Click lets you select a range, but not single entries. There is no obvious wave to deselect one. A click without a Shift will open the wave and the Ctrl+Click will open the wave in a new panel.


(4) Right/Access Management: This will be essential to protect blips from being edited unauthorized and to keep conversations private.


(7) Privacy: A privacy feature for the “green presence dot” would be great. Like on Skype. Invisible, don’t disturb, away, online, chat with me, … Something like that.

→ Continue reading: Improving The Usability Of Google Wave - A Personal Wish List

 

Posted by John W. Furst in Google Wave, Marketing, Usability, Web Site Development on Sunday, December 6, 2009 has got 2 Comments.

Defined tags for this entry: google wave, usability, webmaster

How To Speed Up Your Web Site [advanced topic]

Written by John W. Furst, has got 3 Comments.

HTML Tips For Faster Web Sites [Video]

It just comes to my mind that I am writing posts about web site development issues only when something bothers me. Like the DNS problems with my ISP that I had in July this year.

It might not only be me who has noticed that many “Social Media Rich Web Sites” and blogs load very slowly. Even in a modern browser on a new computer.

The first guess is:

“It's all the widgets and external components they load.”

But it is not only how much you load. It is also about in what order you load it … and from what servers … So what do we usually have to deal with:

• many images
• various CSS style sheets
• Javascript files for improved navigation and AJAX trickery within the site
• Javascript widgets and iframes for interaction with other sites
• Flash files
• Java applets
• … etc.

The browser has to request each file individually. Some files are cached in your browser and will be downloaded only once (if your web server is setup correctly).

Then there are other cases where your web server might have to wait for data from third party web sites before it can complete to build a dynamic web page and deliver it to the browser.

The richness of Web 2.0 doesn't make it necessarily easier to be a great webmaster. It's true that widgets can be dropped into a site and add substantial interactivity to it in matter of minutes, but optimizing a site for performance hasn't become much easier.

A lot of different elements to deal with.

Examples:

• affiliate banners or affiliate data feeds
• RSS news feeds
• embedded video and audio content
• Digg, Reddit, and other social media votes
• Twitter, Facebook and Disqus widgets
• User avatars like from myblogcatalog.com or gravatar.com
• etc.

The list is really endless.

And last but not least the HTML part of the page itself (this one single file) could be already pretty big by itself. Or don't you have 20+ comments on your average blog post?

And don't forget, if you are running a content management system like a blog all this content is created on the fly out of a database. (Or are you using Wordpress Super Cache already — or whatever it is called.)

You will notice the longer you have been working on your website the slower it usually gets.

Time to speed up your web site again

→ Continue reading: How To Speed Up Your Web Site [advanced topic]

 

Posted by John W. Furst in Usability, Video Series, Web Site Development on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 has got 3 Comments.

Defined tags for this entry: html, usability, web site development, webmaster

Why .COM Is The Best Of All Generic Top Level Domains (gTLD)

Written by John W. Furst, has got 10 Comments.

There is a huge debate about which domain extension to use. Internet marketers usually have a different opinion than registrars who want to sell the most exotic domain extensions like .BIZ .TV .ME .NAME and so forth for a nice profit. Here is my answer to to that discussion.

The short answer: .COM is recognizable as Internet domain by the largest group of people when compared to the wide-spread of other generic top level domain extensions (gTLD) like: .NET .ORG .EDU or .GOV

When you say, MyBrand.COM, almost everybody will know instantly that you are talking about your Internet domain and they will associate it with a website as well.

.COM is definitely the strongest brand among all top level domains

As the domain name space has filled up rather quickly new gTLD were invented for use by businesses worldwide: .BIZ .INFO

And as I have read today the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN.org, which is the governing body of the Internet, plans to introduce hundreds of new top level domains.

→ Continue reading: Why .COM Is The Best Of All Generic Top Level Domains (gTLD)

 

Posted by John W. Furst in Marketing, SEO, Usability, Web Site Development on Sunday, March 8, 2009 has got 10 Comments.

Defined tags for this entry: domain registration, marketing, usability, web site development, webmaster

Impressive Inauguration Mega-Pixel Foto With Mars Technology

Written by John W. Furst, has got 1 Comments.

President Obama's Inauguration - Impressive

When I first saw this interactive mega-pixel photo I certainly thought, “Wow!”, and since I have mentioned Obama in my post “Yes You Can”, I decided to share it with you.

Check it out. It is quite impressive, you can pan and zoom around and therefore it's fun too.

GigaPan: President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address by David Bergman (↑)

Photographer David Bergman used the same NASA technology that was used to create the stunning picture from our Red Planet Mars.

The result is an unprecedented 1 474 mega-pixels photo. In comparison the average consumer digital camera operates on 5 mega-pixel. The detail is amazing. Pan around and take a closer look on the 2 million people who came to Washington to take part in this historic event. What earrings does Hillary Clinton wear? You even can make out that little detail.

David Bergman says,

“Covering the inauguration of President Obama was one of the biggest thrills of my life. Little did I know that it would be topped by the reaction to a photo I made that day. …With the ability to zoom in and move around the photo, it turned into an international game of ‘Where's Waldo?’ In the first 5 days, the image was viewed by millions of people in 186 countries.”

You might also want to check out the Gigapan (↑) site for more information about that technology and to view other “highest” resolution images.

Yours
John W. Furst

Posted by John W. Furst in Miscellaneous, Usability on Thursday, February 5, 2009 has got 1 Comments.

Defined tags for this entry: blog, obama, photo, politics, usability

Email Marketing Tips - Edition 6

Written by John W. Furst, has got 5 Comments.

Update on Feb. 8, 2013: Deleted all entries with outdated tips or broken links.

Update on April 12, 2015 We have discontinued this blog carnival.

Welcome to the sixth edition of email marketing tips on August 06, 2008.

Today we have only one post per category (almost). I purposefully assembled this carnival edition in order to eliminate unnecessary choices for you and get you to read the tips. But don't stop there, actually go out there, do it, and make more money from your efforts.

My absolute favorites are Gavin Ingham's and John Carlton's posts. Regarding John Carlton I have to confess I found his post. It's not that he found my email marketing tips blog carnival.

Anyway it does not matter, my goal is to provide value with this carnival. And I don't care how I get the content that I am featuring. I hope you appreciate it and I will continue to throw in content from top guys. John Carlton makes an announcement for email marketers at the end of his post by the way. That was another reason why I included this one here.


Did you feel that some some hands-on tips were missing here?

I felt that way. Therefore, I start featuring selected posts from AWeber's Blog. AWeber is a leading email marketing tools service provider. I use it personally and simply know their tips will work out for you. Could there be a better reason for including them. I don't think so.

Some readers wrote me they liked it whenever I throw in “third party content” that fits. There are many folks and companies who produce valuable content, but simply don't bother with Blog carnivals for whatever reason. Let's continue to take advantage of it.

Contact me to host an edition of this carnival on your Internet marketing related Blog.

• Get your Blog more exposure!
• It's easier than you might think.

Also submit your articles to this carnival.

Thanks in advance for your contribution.

We have a lot of categories today (as I said above), but only one or two posts in each. It's quite manageable. The categories are

• Strategy
• Tools And Services
• Copywriting
• Web And Email Design
• Code Of Practice
• Call For Participation

Let's rock'n roll…

→ Continue reading: Email Marketing Tips - Edition 6

 

Posted by John W. Furst in Email Marketing Tips, Marketing, Usability, Web Site Development on Thursday, August 7, 2008 has got 5 Comments.

Defined tags for this entry: blog, carnival, copywriting, email, marketing, tips, usability

Email Feedback Loops And Some Internet History

Written by John W. Furst, has got 8 Comments.

John W. Furst

In 1994 about 14 years ago I started to use the Internet at the University campus. Very quickly Email became one of the most important tools for me and it is still today. However, with the upcoming of spammers and anti-spam measures Email has lost some of it's reliability.

I mean, are you sure you receive all important email messages, or are you sure all your messages you send are received?

I'll show you in a minute what I do to make sure Email works reliably for me, even for most important communication needs. Before that, let me tell you, how it all began for me (scroll down, if you are in a hurry).


How It All Began

Do you remember those times, when the “World Wide Web” and it's HTTP protocol were fairly new. I remember using the following services and protocols to find and research information on the Net. (This was not exactly fun and easy like it is today.)

• Gopher
• Archie
• FTP
• Email

→ Continue reading: Email Feedback Loops And Some Internet History

 

Posted by John W. Furst in Blog Carnival, Coaching, Email Marketing Tips, Usability on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 has got 8 Comments.

Defined tags for this entry: blog, carnival, email, internet, management, operations, spam, tips, usability

Got Your Dream Domain?

Written by John W. Furst, has got 10 Comments.

What's A Great Top Level Domain Extension?

A couple of days ago I have received an email from some gmail.com address saying,

“You own the domain SOMEDOMAIN.BIZ^(*) and we thought you might be interested in purchasing SOMEDOMAIN.COM, which we own. We offer it to you for US$ 195.00. ...”

(*) I obviously changed the real domain name into a fake one.

Why would I want to buy SOMEDOMAIN.COM?

A short list of reasons:

→ Continue reading: Got Your Dream Domain?

 

Posted by John W. Furst in Marketing, SEO, Usability, Web Site Development on Monday, June 16, 2008 has got 10 Comments.

Defined tags for this entry: business, domain, usability, webmaster

Google Everywhere - Even More In The Future

Written by John W. Furst, has got 5 Comments.

inewidea.com

I hope you enjoy the weekend. It was a great sunny day (as usual) here in Tenerife. When stumbling (↑) (after coming back from the beach) I found a blog post with a well depicted, futuristic view of “How we might be able to use Google^® in the future!”

I left a comment as well, ... privacy concerns, and that kind of thoughts. However, I like the idea to have Google in my pocket, always ready to answer my questions.

Here's the post. Check it out:

• Futuristic Google Device (↑)
  at I New Idea Homepage (↑)

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: That's probably my shortest blog post ever.

Posted by John W. Furst in Miscellaneous, Usability on Sunday, February 24, 2008 has got 5 Comments.

Defined tags for this entry: blog, future, google, search, usability

Love Or Hate GoDaddy And Bob Parsons?

Written by John W. Furst, has got 5 Comments.

Learn From GoDaddy.com

Just in case you don't know, Bob Parsons, is the founder and CEO of GoDaddy.com, proud Ex-Marine, self-made multi-millionaire and responsible for building and growing his small domain business startup into a world leading registrar. Bob wrote on BobParsons.com (his personal Blog, which was actually much more personal in the early days) that it was not easy, and he blew away a fortune, before GoDaddy became profitable.

→ Continue reading: Love Or Hate GoDaddy And Bob Parsons?

 

Posted by John W. Furst in Coaching, Marketing, Web Site Development on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 has got 5 Comments.

Defined tags for this entry: business, godaddy, marketing, promotion, sales, usability, webmaster

Webmaster Articles Carnival - December 03 2007

Written by John W. Furst, has got 5 Comments.

Welcome to the December 3, 2007 edition of Webmaster Articles Blog Carnival!

My name is John and I am your host. This edition is packed with a great variety of articles. You'll meet “old friends”, as well as new fellows in the carnival scene. I am hosting this carnival for the first time, and I was pretty much impressed by the high quality of the submitted posts and Blogs. No problem with Spam Blogs (Splogs) at all. Might be the technology part of this carnival that doesn't attract so many spammers as compared to the business related carnivals.

Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Each of the 41 articles below is handpicked. I suggest that you do not only look at the articles, look at those Blogs, too. I have found a lot of great recent posts on those Blogs, too. Check it out. Maybe this carnival should be run at least every month. My comments are open, so just say what you think.

Question of the day: Who will be the next host for this carnival?

Write a note to the organizer.
Get more exposure for your Blog
Volunteers preferred.

You also can submit your article to the next edition already. More info at the bottom of this post.

We have the following categories today: Design, Monetization, Traffic-Building, and General

→ Continue reading: Webmaster Articles Carnival - December 03 2007

 

Posted by John W. Furst in Blog Carnival, Marketing, Miscellaneous, SEO, Usability, Web Site Development on Tuesday, December 4, 2007 has got 5 Comments.

Defined tags for this entry: blog, business, carnival, html, marketing, money, seo, traffic, usability, web design, webmaster