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Get maximum brand lift from widgets

Here's a look at a few ways your brand can take advantage of the users you're currently not talking to.

How much is your brand missing out by not employing a widget strategy? There's no easy answer to that, but since comScore starting tracking an audience of close to 300 million users, most brand managers have that itchy feeling like all their users are watching a TV channel that they just can't get space on.

Luckily, brands that haven't gotten in on widgets or mini-apps are closer than they think. Keeping the premise simple and the audience discourse in mind provides surprising amounts of lift in all kinds of places, which those experimenting with the medium are enjoying with great frequency.
So let's take a look at just a few of the ways brands are making a measurable difference in the space; ways your brand can take advantage of these hundreds of millions of users you're currently not talking to at all...

Continue reading “Get maximum brand lift from widgets” featured in iMediaConnection's Desktop Applications section.

Our Private Audience With The Krug

Here in the Aware conference room, before a crowd of about 20 Upshotters and Emergers stands usability super-genius Steve Krug.

He’s calling it, Everything you need to know about usability… in 150 minutes or less.

Starting with an introduction, Steve lives just outside Boston, and works as a usability consultant. His one-man company, Advanced Common Sense has the corporate motto, “It’s not Rocket Surgery™.” He works from his home office. With a chipmunk in the backyard.

Now he tours and does workshops with Lou Rosenfeld, and is working on a new book, but mostly does expert reviews. His biggest problem is getting people to send him stuff early in the process.

You can’t start too early, but you can start too late in the process. You can take a sketch of the homepage, and show it around, simply asking people what it is they think it is. Showing 3-4 people a sketch on a napkin will reveal very important things about your design when you can easily fix them. When you get these great discoveries late in the process, often you’ve spent too much time and/or money to actually make any of the important changes.

Look At That Handsome Banner

Packing up for my day of Krug tomorrow, had to throw a shout-out on the excellent design work now showcased on our site here: in the banner space to the right.

Plant a Widget, Grow an Audience was designed by Justin "Dr. J" Aram. Looking good over there!

The banner will take you to our equally well-designed widgeteers splash page (Josh "No nickname yet" Webb), where you can download whitepapers on Widgets and Facebook applications.

Thanks again, doctor -- just another glimpse of what's to come from Emerge's two new design guys.

The Angled Webb We Weave

Emerge is  proud to announce yet another immensely talented artist added to our already talented bullpen: Josh Webb.

A recent BFA graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, his portfolio and flikr collection are anything but collegiate. As our Creative Director Adam Stipanuk says, "His fantastic illustration and animation skills are what first caught my attention. His seemingly natural eye for design and attention to detail will make him very successful in the graphic and Web design community."

Countdown to Krug

It's so exciting I almost don't know what to write. A week from today, usability super-genius Steve Krug will be spending two hours at  Emerge's partner Upshot's offices to talk usability.

If you don't know Steve Krug and you're reading this, go to Amazon and buy the book, Don't Make Me Think immediately. He really has a great perspective that brings both theory and practicality to the usability practice. In a field that quickly gets as dry as the desert, you walk away from this quick read with a solid understanding of usability and how to make effective Websites in a way that no one else is talking about.

He'll be in Chicago giving an all-day seminar, but has graciously agreed to visit the Upshot offices and do a smaller setting presentation and workshop.

Thanks so much to Paul Marran, interactive creative director, for taking the initiative to rope such an influential figure into the fray. I know everyone is going to walk away from that time a better professional, regardless of how they are involved in making or marketing Websites. I just hope Steve survives. Something tells me he will.

In any case, I'm going to do my best to blog this event and share it with everyone who couldn't make it, right here on the NMB, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, the crowd starts softly chanting krug-krug-krug-krug....

Be a Widgeteer! What You Need to Know About Widgets.

If you find yourself asking, "Why do I need a widget? Or is it a gadget? What is the difference between a desktop widget and a Web widget? What do I -- and don't I -- know about widgets?" Then you've come to the right place.

The premiere installment of our new series of free whitepapers, The Art of Widgetry is a sort of widget state of the union. You'll have a document that covers all the basic forms of widgets so that you can make more informed decisions about how to best invest your dollars in this powerful channel.

More than just a thorough introduction, the goal here is to have you come away with a sense of how to practically apply what we know in the widget space to your business. Clicking over to the Widgeteers page, you'll also see a few practical examples from clients of Emerge's.

Lots of stats and shiny charts, too. That makes it great to print in color and hand to your friendly neighborhood executive to give them a quick rundown on everything they need to know about widgets.

Easter egg for NMB readers: Downloading The Art of Widgetry also gives you a link to another insightful whitepaper about creating applications for Facebook -- more on that when we officially release that campaign.

And who can end this post without thanking the Emergers behind this eloquent and well-designed project? Not me. So thanks to Dave Albert, our president for shoveling all the coal to make this engine run. Also thanks to Josh Webb (a new designer we'll be profiling in short order here on NMB), who was responsible for the beautiful widget box you see here and all the rest of the design.

If you haven't already, please subscribe to the RSS feed to get instant updates when a new post gets fired off the bow of the NMB. Watch out for the recoil!

Holy Stumbles!

Wow. Since posting the last article about my initial impressions of StumbleUpon, over 2000 people have stopped by to check it out. It has made the most popular lists on TheWebList and popurls. Even got some Sphinns. Three more sites I would have never known about if it wasn't for SU.

Thanks so much to everyone stumbling. It is extremely humbling, gratifying, and exciting (I'm sure I could have said this with one perfectly suited German word, if I knew German) to see so many people enjoy the writing.

It has given me enough confidence to open the laundry hamper and know for sure that Dave McClure is not actually hiding out in there. But again, it was his panel at sxsw where I first learned of SU.

But this has already changed some of my SU habits, like sending thank-you notes. The SU system swears I'm a bot, so I have to go through the validation system every time I write one. This has made a lot of the folks who were gracious enough to take the time to read the article hard to reach personally.

In addition, now my friends list is busting at the seams. If you have checked out the article or fan-d me, and you haven't heard back, please accept this post as my thanks -- and know that I see you, and really appreciate the gesture.

As always, if you like the blog, please check out the agency that spawns all this writing, Emerge Digital. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to the RSS feed to get instant updates when a new post gets fired off the bow of the NMB.

Thanks again, truly!

Michael

Five things I've learned about Social Media, StumbleUpon style

It started way back in March. On a whim that became a gauntlet of a dare to myself, I live blogged SXSW Interactive.

The more I posted here at the NMB, the more clicks our nascent blog was getting. Then, after posting this about Zappos handing out trash bag ponchos, I saw stumbleupon.com/refer.php in my TypePad statistics pane. Then there were 10. Two hours later there were another 440.

Holy smokes, what is this site?

After trying my initial hand at Twitter -- which was too little too late to enjoy at SXSW -- I decided to give StumbleUpon a good go to see what I had in common with what were now thousands of referrals to my blog.

In the five or so weeks since then, I can say that SU and I have moved past the honeymoon: still happily stumbling away.

Here are a few things I've picked up that I thought were worth sharing:

Emerge welcomes Justin Aram, Interface Designer

Cinco de Mayo is taking on a whole new look around the halls of Emerge, as we're excited to welcome the latest addition to our Interface Design department: Justin Aram.

To start, he's another classically trained fine artist who loves the challenge of applying fine art concepts to living, breathing, and engaging interactive presences.

Our Creative Director, Adam Stipanuk just has a great knack for finding folks like this, much to the delight of all our clients. It's one thing to come up in interactive and graphic design, but when you have classically trained fine artists applying themselves to interactive experiences, what results are really engaging visuals that capture an audience's imagination in a completely classical way.

Justin grew up in the arts, with his mother an art teacher. Following mom's professional path, he got his BFA from North Central College in Naperville, Il, where he also played for the basketball team.

Over the years, Justin says he's excited by every new challenge (both artistically and technically) that comes his way: from designing for the Today show to making a muddy paw print look more like mud and less like poop -- this one comment of his really stands out to me:

"I love having new challenges every day, and seeing my work get out into the world, wherever my talent can come in handy to help the team"

On the Radar: Upcoming publications featuring emerge

A quick note on some upcoming publications that will be featuring the forward thinking of Emerge Digital:

Radio and Records

What does major market radio and emerging media have in common? More than you think!

Thanks so much to Mike Stern at Radio and Records -- the radio industry bible -- for taking the time out of his day to talk about the opportunities radio stations have right in front of them to increase their digital presence.

It is such a small world. I never thought that I would meet another soul who knew of Gonzo Greg's Rock N' Roll Rubber Room. And yet, here we were on the phone. Mike was extremely nice and knowledgeable. I'm looking forward to see what ends up on the page.

His article should be hitting the Web and station mailboxes across the country in about a week.

iMediaConnection

My next article on how brands can get good lift from widgets and mini-applications is now making its way through the editorial process, and will be appearing in iMediaConnection's Desktop Applications section. Thanks as always to Gretchen Hyman, editor extraordinaire.

Of course, both articles will also appear here on the New Media Buzz -- so check back, y'hear?

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