Angie McKaig

14 tips for Twitter contests that build followers and brand visibility

2010-05-06T19:58:37-05:00

14 tips for Twitter contests that build followers and brand visibility
Deconstructing a Threadless twitter contest to learn from it. Great ideas for Twitter contests.

How to Turn Humdrum Photos into Cinematic Portraits

2010-05-06T19:55:21-05:00

How to Turn Humdrum Photos into Cinematic Portraits
Yes, I know the style is overdone but it has many techniques in here that are very useful for more stylized portraits. Until it starts looking "so 2009", anyway.

Did Your Boss Thank You For Coding Yourself to Death?

2010-05-06T07:37:23-05:00

Did Your Boss Thank You For Coding Yourself to Death?
Fantastic quote: "I can see the necessity of occasionally putting in some extra effort and burning the midnight oil at work for a day or two. But when "occasionally" turns to "often", when your boss stops thanking you profusely for your efforts and just treats it as norm, this is when we're all in trouble. It sets bad expectations, not just for you, for the whole industry."

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

2010-04-29T11:52:45-05:00

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
In light of today's tweet, a good once-over for those who actually still want their information and interactions to be private. Which apparently makes us quaint, mondo adorable (do people still say mondo?) dinosaurs with no real understanding of how the intertubes work. Mmmmkay, but I'd still rather keep some things just between myself & friends, y'know? Is it really just me? Am I a dinosaur? Your thoughts welcome.

Miss me? Did you know I tweet?

2010-04-28T14:07:19-05:00

I heard from one of you, my valued and much ignored readers today, asking where I've been for the past two weeks and when oh when will I blog again?

I'm working on it, with two posts in the saved-but-not-finished pipelines. They'll come next week. But in the interim.

Did you know I tweet? Most business days I tweet at least once a day, usually links to techno geeky marketing business designy stuff, just like I've always done over the years with assorted sweets and the lovely inline links I now host on the site, only shorter and more transient-y.

(Transient-y? Transientlike? Transidaciously? When inventing new words I never know which way to go.)

At any rate, I do have a fairly active Twitter feed and encourage those of you who just can't get enough Angie from this blog to follow along.

Also, if you're a big fan of the designy-photographic-shopWANT side of things, you may also enjoy my Tumblr feed which also gets updated near-daily with lovely yummy goodness. Feel free to follow along there, too. :)

(Many thanks to James for the nudge, and will also post his link later today!)

Best User Interface Design Resources

2010-04-12T12:41:09-05:00

Best User Interface Design Resources
Except they mention B&A in there which hasn't updated since January (why?) but there are some must-haves, some new-to-mes and some cool apps listed in there as well. Kuler rocks. Some questionable choices, though - Twitter? An uneven list but some gold to mine.

Web Standards for E-books

2010-04-12T11:34:55-05:00

Web Standards for E-books
The indefatigable Joe Clark takes on the concepts of HTML, HTML5, and e-book publishing's future. I tend to agree with his basic premise: that HTML, for all its shortcomings, is quite simply the format for delivering text, transforming text, and distributing text that continues to win out all others. And it, of course, is why I continue to be in love with Berners-Lee. He made my job, my life, possible.

How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment: 10 No-Brainers

2010-04-12T08:45:46-05:00

How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment: 10 No-Brainers
Why is it when you compile a list of such seemingly obvious and innocuous methods to increase conversions, you suddenly realize just how many retailers don't follow these practices? The statistic: "23% of shoppers will abandon when asked to register before checking out." I've heard that a million times before, yet how many sites allow guest checkout, or even better - allows the user to register MUCH LATER in the checkout process? And persistent shopping carts are, IMO, a must-have; it's horrifying how many retailers fail to implement them. I've personally changed my mind on dozens of products because two days later when I went back to finish the sale, my cart was empty.

Inline Validation: Can It Improve Conversion?

2010-04-09T06:34:34-05:00

Inline Validation: Can It Improve Conversion?
Such a simple thing to make such a marked improvement. Behooves us all to remember that sometimes the Big Hairy solution isn't the thing that will make the user's experience - and conversions, by extension - better.

Driven to Distraction

2010-04-07T18:31:20-05:00

Driven to Distraction
"A month isn't 30 days. It's 30 todays." Liked that quote. I also liked the idea of getting rid of WE. And I've always loved the Don't Worry About Your Competition rule - it's one of the best to ensure you're innovating, not following.

Warren Ellis on space travel

2010-04-07T15:52:20-05:00

Warren Ellis on space travel
"The single simplest reason why human space flight is necessary is this, stated as plainly as possible: keeping all your breeding pairs in one place is a retarded way to run a species." Great quote, good article, thanks Robb.

Log usability tests like a pro

2010-04-05T19:56:51-05:00

Log usability tests like a pro
Brilliant solution to a usability test shorthand that lets you actually find a way to manage the data coming in, stay focused, and produce a very quick report (and beginnings of a bug fix list!) afterwards. With samples - always a nice extra.

Marketing: Social Media vs Banner Advertising

2010-03-30T17:59:00-05:00

Marketing: Social Media vs Banner Advertising
Fabulous results from this study - really worth your time visiting. Unsurprisingly, the most effective ads were ones related to the content on the publisher's web site. Really? Is this still news? WHY is it so difficult for the industry/publishers to figure this out? If ads are relevant to the content on the web site, the ads can be seen as a value-add. If not, they're at best irrelevant (would you ever put any OTHER kind of irrelevant content on your web site? No? Then why devote so much ad space to it?) and at worst detracting from the content you've spent so much time creating. Hello? Common sense.

Are You Willing To Strike Out?

2010-03-30T17:44:36-05:00

Are You Willing To Strike Out?
Loved this line: "Most people want to hit home runs, the problem is they are afraid to fail in order to get there. As Babe Ruth proved, you can't have one without the other. "

Packrati.us = Twitter + Delicious

2010-03-30T09:41:06-05:00

Packrati.us = Twitter + Delicious
That's just brilliant. Packrati trolls your Twitter feed and, when you post a link, it will automatically enter it into your Delicious account. It will even explode out snipped URLs (owly, bitly etc) to the end link and convert hashes into tags. Nice!