This is the year I began to rely on voice commands in the same compulsive manner that we all reach for our mobile devices. Try this helpful catalog of over 150 questions and 1,000 variations you can ask Google. My favorite Easter egg: “askew.” Just when you thought it was safe to count on your distributed content strategy, Facebook tweaks the …
Friday 5 — 4.29.2016
Product Hunt delivers nine tools and resources that tell you everything you wanted to know about Snapchat but were afraid to ask. These tips may prevent your head from exploding when you try to understand Snapchat’s user interface. New axiom: Anything can be GIFed, will be GIFed — thanks to this new tool from Giphy. Is it …
Friday 5 — 4.1.2016
If the headlines you scroll through in your Facebook or Twitter feed seem remarkably similar, there’s a good reason for that. This Buzzsumo post on how to write viral headlines identifies the common elements that lead to successful reach. Low-res live video captured via mobile was all the rage last year with Meerkat and then Periscope, and recently Facebook Live videos seem …
Friday 5 — 2.5.2016
It’s been almost ten years since Watson beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy, and in that decade artificial intelligence has continued to advance. This week for the first time a Google DeepMind program defeated a professional human player in Go. Interesting take on how this advance reflects an “artificial imagination” capability, and what this breakthrough implies for business. Facebook is …
6 ways to create findable, useful website content
Search engine optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and increasingly, paid social media placement can achieve remarkable results. Using smart keywords and accessing segmented, up-to-date user data troves like Facebook’s can produce the kinds of attention that drive revenue, and occasionally even “go viral”. But sometimes these tools lead people to believe they can omit the first, essential step: creating …
Friday 5 — 8.7.2015
Smaller color palettes, large fonts, and meaningful microinteractions are among the trends highlighted in this article on the current state of mobile UI/UX. A recent Pew report highlights ways video games, social media, and mobile phones play a role in teens’ friendships. Interesting findings include: Boys are more likely than girls to make online friends: 61% of boys …
Friday 5 — 3.13.2015
Google Maps is an app many use daily — after all, not everyone can live in a CityMapper zone — but have barely scratched the surface in terms of functionality. Here are some useful tips, including offline access and one-handed use. New digital projects often start with an existential crisis of organizational identity. Land the …
Friday 5 — 12.19.2014
Everybody scrolls, but visual cues don’t hurt. HUGE is starting a series on usability best practices, and this first post takes on “above the fold” dogma. File under meta: here’s another piece why newsletters matter. Capable curation and a strong personal voice drive higher open rates and engagement. Larger organizations can reap the same benefits if they …
How to lead a responsive web design
Web thought leaders and authors Karen McGrane and Ethan Marcotte now publish a popular responsive web design podcast. Each episode features an interview with the people who make responsive redesigns happen, and covers the various complexities from change management and organizational readiness to design optimization and monetizing mobile. You can see my interview here, which talks about the current content strategy shift toward mobile, and …
Friday 5 — 8.1.2014
In less than a year Product Hunt has become an essential daily ritual for the tech obsessed. How did it get there? It identified a clear problem: “Help me find the latest new, cool things.”Then the team made a bunch of smart decisions, including launching with an early, buggy version (and improving from there!), starting …