The Stairwell

Great idea: Convince 10,000 digital artists to create a tiny piece of a US treasury note, then assemble it into a collage and sell the prints. Each artist received a penny for their time, and each print costs about $100. It is vaguely reminiscent of the widely publicized site "Million Dollar Home Page" of 2007. But Google isn't amused and they've removed "Ten Thousand Cents" from their legitimate ecommerce vendor list.

The project can be found here:

http://www.tenthousandcents.com/top.html

In their words this is a bold experiment:

"Ten Thousand Cents" is a digital artwork that creates a representation of a $100 bill. Using a custom drawing tool, thousands of individuals working in isolation from one another painted a tiny part of the bill without knowledge of the overall task. Workers were paid one cent each via Amazon's Mechanical Turk distributed labor tool. The total labor cost to create the bill, the artwork being created, and the reproductions available for purchase are all $100. The work is presented as a video piece with all 10,000 parts being drawn simultaneously. The project explores the circumstances we live in, a new and uncharted combination of digital labor markets, "crowdsourcing," "virtual economies," and digital reproduction.

Perhaps. But a good experiment is one that can be replicated, and we can't imagine anyone boondoggling 10,000 busy people to work 3 minutes for a penny - twice. Even Marx and his gang couldn't pull that off for very long. Perhaps this has merit as a structure for 'crowd-sourcing' and 'virtual economies' if its profits are channeled into deserving charities. And try something besides legal tender next time. Then we might see it become a popular means for fundraising on par with more old-fashioned bake sales and lemonade stands.

-- Update --
I'm no longer fond of Apple Spaces. It's a great idea, but until the bugs are worked out I've turned it off. It was switching when I didn't expect it too, despite my concerted efforts to assign specific apps in different combos, etc. Maybe they'll update it soon.
-Ted

Old Entry:
I've been using Apple Spaces for the past couple of weeks now, and it's really been a positive experience. Spaces allows you to create multiple desktops to group applications and their windows. It essentially emulates multiple monitors, allocating more desktop space to keep things in smaller piles. OS Shortcuts can also be assigned at the same time, but I tend to avoid those beyond the norms (i.e. save, open, close, cut, copy, paste, search, etc.) since I use so many inside the apps. Thank you Apple for this subtle yet powerful tool.

Jupiter Research, which provides unbiased research, analysis and advice, backed by proprietary data, to help companies profit from the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies on their business, has issued its latest report on Rich Internet Applications and their impact on online retailers.

According to their latest findings based on a recent survey of shoppers, 56% cited multiple product pictures as most helpful when considering a purchase; 50% also reported they like product quick views; 46% reported utilizing color change and zoom ; and 26% cited 'recommendation' products or 'matching suggestions' helpful.

In short, visualization tools have become the most important part of a site's sales and conversion process. However, they conclude, not enough online retailers measure their site's metrics carefully in order to choose which RIAs are most effective for their customers. The analysts at Jupiter Research stress that in the coming months and years, online retailers take a proactive approach to introducing RIAs only after doing careful ROI and site metrics analysis. Furthermore, retailers should follow up the introduction of these tools with careful measurement of customers' use of these tools. The outcome would likely be a decrease in shopping cart or product page abandonment rates. Even the most successful retailers online, according to Jupiter Research surveys, report proactive and reactive analysis and strategy processes only about 50% of the time.

"Incorporating a system of proactive measurement, analysis, and strategic decision-making against specific goals for Web 2.0 appropriation will be essential to retailers' success."

This entire website is navigated without clicking. Hmm. Cool. But did I have a problem with clicking to begin with? Oh sure, I've had problems with jittery rollovers and broken links and drop-downs that don't drop down, and the usual mystery-meat navigation. But, perhaps, just maybe, it was inside the action of 'click' where I have always felt most safe, in control and certain about my choices. It was my un-vetoable vote about what I wanted next. In this system, like in an auction, if I leave my mouse on any part of the site for too long I'm swept away into someplace I wasn't intending.

At first try it's a little unsettling for this and other reasons. Try it and see what I mean. But don't give up until you've taken a tour of their 'sweep' functions. There's something worthy here, I just need time to figure out what that is. Regardless, it's what's new and being checked out around here.

http://www.dontclick.it/

Regardless, it's what's new and being checked out around here.

Billups Design is proud to be a Chicago agency. We love our city. So from time to time we like to report on what's going on around town.

The newest sport in Chicago these days is pontificating on Chicago's chances for winning the Olympics in 2016. Observers point out everything that occurs in the city as being good or bad for its Olympic hopes: the marathon, crime statistics, skyscrapers lit up to say '2016', Mayor Daley's latest tax hikes, etc. But there might be a channel that Olympic Committee members are checking out that matters more: Chicago blogs.

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"It's all about the follow up."

As a group servicing large e-commerce accounts, we've spent years working on ways to minimize abandoned shopping carts for our clients. We developed more streamlined information flow, posted clear order and shipping policies, special promos for online purchases and tried to minimize the number of clicks necessary to finish the order, among many other things. But the truth is, no one can ever get cart abandonment to a net zero. It's human to err, and shoppers are human.

Reasons for dropping a purchase aren't always a product of frustration with the site. Perhaps they ran out of free time before finishing the purchase, or needed to check a credit card balance first, were interrupted by kids, etc. So the opportunity isn't in negating those behaviors, but in following up after they've occurred in order to convert the dropped purchase.

This is the area where innovative marketing can have the greatest impact on converting dropped items. A great article put out recently by The e-tailing Group, entitled, 'Avoiding Cart Abandonment', (November 7) addresses the focus online-retailers should be placing on resurrecting online transactions that were dropped, and thus improving overall sales. They note that according their latest research only 1 in 10 e-commerce sites follows up a dropped shopping cart transaction with an email reminding the customer about the item and a chance to buy it again. Of those who do, the average time elapsed was 6 days. Too long.

Some sites which do, and have been, investing research into the area of maximizing returns to dropped carts include smartbargains.com, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, drugstore.com, Ebay and Amazon.com (usual suspects) and 1800flowers.com. They use various strategies to bring the buyer back to the dropped item in the email, including shipping specials, personal greetings, reduced prices on the item, an image of the product, and clear policies on when a product will be cleared from the site.

We expect to be doing more work in this area in 2008 and we are convinced it will improve even further our clients' online sales. If you want a copy of the article, send me an email and i can forward you a text version (on behalf of e-tailing.com).

You know those towns along the state highways that have a Welcome and You Are Now Leaving... message on the same sign? Well that might be the case for Flash Lite. In my last post, I mentioned that decision makers in commercial online concerns had better get hip to Flash Lite. Hopefully, a few readers brushed up on Flash Lite and how it is making it possible to display their sites on mobile devices like cellphones. However, I have bad news (and good news).

The bad news is that if you're just learning about Flash Lite, you're behind the curve. It is currently making it possible for content developers to bridge the gap between desktop computers and mobile devices so that, despite cpu and software differences, the two display content fairly consistently.

The good news is that the hardware and software required to run web sites on desktops or laptops is now increasingly being found in mobile devices too. This means that the need for Flash Lite may not be there is the months or years to come.

Essentially, Flash Lite is a second (pared down) language of Flash 8 that can be processed using less memory by smaller devices. Since these devices soon will possess the same computing and storage capabilities of basic desktop computers, the need to have a pared down language just for them will be gone. Already, Nokia has introduced a line of phones for 2008 that run Flash 9 itself without code modifications. Pretty cool.

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Something evil is afoot in the world of domain registration. There are tiny traces of its presence if you look hard enough. No one seems to notice them, but slowly, I think, people are figuring this out.

Recently, we searched for a new domain name on GoDaddy for a client. The name was highly unique (his neighborhood and his profession) and when the search was executed, the domain name came up as 'available'. We wrote down the relevant details and called the client for final approval. With the approval in hand, we went back to GoDaddy to register and pay for the domain. Lo and behold, the name had been taken by some unknown entity hours after we completed our initial search request.

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If you want to see how your favorite music artists line up in the popular music galaxy, then visit TuneGlue.net. It's a lot like Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but for musicians.

Not sure if it's in beta version or not, but there are some perplexing things about the site's interface that may leave you a bit confused. Despite the large blank gray stage, the site is ready to use. Simply type in an artist's name in the top right search area, then type in another. You'll see them linked together on the large gray stage. You'll get the rest.

Ever feel like you were unsure of whether to join or support a particular social issue campaign? You might ask yourself, "Why give these folks money or time if their cause is not generating support from others?" Well, someone's got an answer for that now.

At thepoint.com (alpha version) you can be a committed activist (in escrow). According to their web site - "Campaigns are at the center of The Point. Find a Campaign that addresses a problem you have. Join it and do nothing now. If and only if enough people commit(the tipping point) the entire group takes action to solve the problem."

Although this is an interesting application of technology for mobilizing individuals around a cause, there is something unsettling about someone committing to a cause, if and only if others join them. Maybe we're old-fashioned, but when you believe in something, you work for it without contingencies. Your passion is, perhaps, what motivates others observing you. Promising to fight at a later date, in other words, misses the moment and deflates the psyche.

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Who thought they would make a documentary out of a font type. Now they're reeeaaally reaching, you might be thinking. But wait a minute, this film has impact.

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I wanted to extend a BIG thank you to Aaron Harnly for creating Letterbox, the Apple Mail plugin that allows you to view in 3 vertical columns. This is especially nice for those of us with wide screens, which seems to be pretty much everyone with a Mac these days. BTW, he built the plugin as a response to requests at Ars Technica. I'll bet Apple steals this idea for v10.5.

The Swiss Army knife for web developers:
Web Developer Toolbar

FTP inside the browser:
FireFTP

Save embedded objects like Flash:
Download Embedded

Save videos from sites like YouTube:
Fast Video Downloader

View the cookies for a web site:
View Cookies

Switch the user-agent (Firefox, Netscape, IE, Opera, etc.) for the browser:
User Agent Switcher

Gomez, an Internet performance tracking company, shows that many consumers who have had a bad online experience with their retailer are punishing the actual stores by not going as frequently, or tying up store personnel with questions about the site.

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I don't have the energy to discuss this intelligently (or maybe i don't have the brains), but it's someplace you should go and hear it all from the horse's mouth. Does it give you any ideas?

ThickBox - One box to rule them all

I'm amazed at the creativity, resourcefulness and optimism of futurist Jacque Fresco. His work as an inventor is now a movie, Future by Design, which has a great trailer and related info.

I especially like the similarities between web usability and his "dynamic equilibrium" approach to design - in that both require much common sense during the creative process.

We just finished this for a group of clients a few weeks back who wanted some way (apart from stats) to measure their own site's strengths and weakenesses. So here's what we came up with. Though we'd been practicing these principles for years, we were happy to have a good reason to put them into one concise document.

Seven little words if you're in a hurry.

-Brand
-Message
-Organization
-Utility
-Timeliness
-Compliance
-Feedback

If you'd like a free pdf (with a little elaboration), be our guest! We love to see great web sites everywhere and maybe this will help in some way.

7 Characteristics of Effective Web Sites

For web designers, developers, coders, scattered psuedo-intellectuals and the rest of the 21st century proletariat, there's PixelGroovy.com. We liked it so much, we wanted to share it with our readers who also may get something of value from it.

I'm really into both of the photo viewers in this demo page. It's well worth seeing this one. Try both "launch light" and "launch information".

10 Ways

This is a photo essay by one photographer traveling Japan who brings the journey to us very nicely, thank you.

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The Elements of Typographic Style: Vol.3.1 by Robert Bringhurst is a seminal best-practice reference for any designer, digital or otherwise. If you haven't got it yet, read about it here and then arm yourself!

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One of the most fundamental elements of any successful commercial web site is content that brings visitors back time after time and keeps them on the site longer. This is critical to making conversions and increasing your customer base. But how?

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Thinking one step ahead of our relationship with digital objects, Dialog05 in Munich offers you a digital exhibition of ideas. It's well thought out and executed, and is also a great example of creating a strong brand with smart ideas and simple creativity.

This is amazing and a little scary at the same time (for property owners especially.) Now you can spy on the value of your friends/enemies real estate:
www.zillow.com

Sun and Google's new OpenOffice application will use the Open Document Format, which will guarantee documents will be separated from a specific software vendor (hint: Apple/Microsoft). Anyway, check it out at www.openoffice.org

digg spy

Review by Jm. Mayol, Billups Design Creative.

Check out this collaboration of some of the most notable creative people in the industry. Infiniti, a division of Nissan North America commissioned The George P. Johnson Company to create an entirely unique, human size interactive installation to showcase their brand's philosophy and how design was manifest in Infiniti vehicles.

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From Jm. Mayol, Billups Design Creative -

The 2-time FWA site of the year awardee, Fantasy Interactive once again awe us on their newly launched AOL Session (beta version) - a project developed together with AOL.

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This new app called CoverFlow allows you to browse through your iTunes library as if it were albums. Love it.

CoverFlow software (beta)

To get the great album artwork I use Export Artwork.

I love these t-shirts:
Busted Tees

If you've got five minutes, this video used by Hallmark Corporation a few years back, will not only make you laugh, but it might also inspire you to think of ways your corporate culture can be defined and elevated by creatives in multimedia.


ShoeBox Corporate Video.

Seems like everyone has a music list. Well, I want one too!

Top 15 albums, today ...

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Adobe's (April 15, '05) announcement that it had reached agreement in principal to purchase Macromdia has caused a maelstrom of private and public opining about the motivations behind such a deal and its effect on technological innovation for designers like us.

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At 12.7 mph, this little beauty can run down any number of smaller woodland creatures and still provide enough power to escape the hungry mountain lion. How could we resist sharing it with you?

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Human Interface Technology New Zealand has some amazing 3D integrated into daily life as we know it, http://www.hitlabnz.org/route.php?r=page-view&page_name=download_movies

Here's an interesting discussion in Digital Web Magazine of what might be next in web sites - designing and marketing to all five senses. It's not as far fetched as it sounds when you think outside the box of designing only in color, grid and pixel. It's also an interesting article because it touches on 'inclusive design' for the elderly or the handicapped.

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Very simply put, I think "plug and play" portable satellite radio players (what a name, eh?) are going to take a huge bite out of the iPod's bloated market share. What's not to love? With XM Radio or Sirius you get sports, music, and even talk radio. If they put a 4gb flash drive inside it would be the finest thing out there.

• Sirius portables (my favorite)
• XM Radio portables

Just saw a cool new handless watch that uses light movement on an innovative face to display the time. The web site is a design nightmare, but one can order directly from the shopping cart.

Have a look.