Wanted to share a really good IM client resource. Recently I have been looking to decrease the amount of time I spend checking email, IM’ing and Twittering. Mainly because time is an increasingly important thing in my day to day work load. By chance I happened upon Digsby. Digsby basically mashes everything together; IM, gmail, twitter. My three main items I have been using on a day to day basis. This has saved me heaps of time by not having to open Gmail for everything and I can twitter and IM right from one piece of software. If you feel like giving something new a shot, definitely check out this program.

Download Digsby 

Has Digsby helped you cut down time in your day to day work?

-Ryan

So for those of you who are part of the massive Twitter Revolution! Something I have become quite annoyed with lately. Mostly due to the massive amounts of trash messages that come through it. I have found a better solution for me, namely Pownce. Pownce really pulls together all the elements of Twitter and add some file and event functionality to it. Overall its user interface is extremely streamlined and easy to use. The big benefit to me, is that Pownce allows you to easily reply directly to other peoples messages, rather than the whole ‘@youtwit’ Twitter method, this is a direct and inline messaging system. Makes things much more simple and easy to understand.

The system is still going through its growing pains, so it has the occasional hic-up.  The only things I have had trouble with, was finding friends and looking at older messages in the system. Pownce has some quirk in the system when you add a friend it stop displaying their old messages. Makes it a little difficult to check out and comment on the older things they have done. Regardless Pownce does have a desktop app and a mobile app to keep you jotting notes where ever you may be.

If you’re on Pownce feel free to add me as a friend: http://pownce.com/ryanyockey/

Or just go over and sign-up for an account: http://pownce.com

So in case you’ve been hiding under a rock in the tech world, Flickr has recently added a nice new feature for its users, or so they thought. They gave users the ability to add 90 second video clips to their accounts. You have to be a PRO user to be able to use this feature. Now there are three schools of thought on this topic, let me break it down.

1. The New User: Looking at Flickr from a completely new user standpoint. I’m here to upload photos, maybe meet some new friends, but most likely connect with family. Now the addition of video for these users, probably not a highly used feature never the less its probably used here and there. I know a lot of my family likes to snap some quick video clips with their digital cameras. So really not getting any problems from this group. I’m sure this take up roughly 50% of the user base of Flickr.

2. The Casual User: This is most likely the user that uploads new photo sets weekly from various things around the net. Maybe he has purchased the PRO account for the cheap 25$ a year. Now that this new video ability is here, why not take the extra five minutes and upload your latest clips of you jumping on a couch or getting plowed at the bar. This is the group I would say I fall into. I have the PRO account, but i’m no avid photographer. This user group would most likely land about 30% of the Flickr user base.

3. The Die Hard User: These are hard core photographers or they are part of the original group who started using Flickr. They tend to take everything photography very seriously. They have been doing since long before Flickr, or learned and done it professionally, or as a serious hobby. Either way they are photographers and at heart they love the camera and not the camcorder. To this group the addition of video is an abomination to photography, the very thing Flickr stood for from the start. Now I would peg this group at the remainder of 20% of the Flickr user base.

Now really I personally am glad they added these short video clips. It shows that Flickr is thinking outside of the box and ready to gain even more marketshare. Whether these Die Hards accept it is up to them, but unfortunately their voice isnt big enough to sway the good folks at Flickr. People lack the ability to change and adapt. I try to look at it from their perspective, but its just the elitist attitude. I see no problems with it, its not like people are being forced to watch the movies or even forced to stare at the pictures. Time will tell how this develops. Regardless, good job Flickr. Lets see some more great ideas from their group.

Where do you stand on this one?

Just finished doing the third episode of The Net Raiders. A very rocky start, but we’re coming along with our radio skills. Check it out if you have a few free moments. If you have time drop us a line at our site.

TNR Episode 3

Recently I got together with some friends of mine and started doing a live podcast show. We don’t really stick to just one topic. It tends to run around between Tech News, Entertainment, and lots of Gaming discussions. We have some basic topics set in place and just discuss everything we can gripe or praise about it. Over all its pretty fun show to do.

You can listen to it here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thenetraiders

So I broke down and finally bought an Apple product. I ended up buying an Apple iPod nano. *giga-gasp!* Yeah well its a great little MP3 player. My wife has the old nano and she is totally jealous now. So score one for me.

Overall I made my decision because I like the sleek small style of it. I like that it plays video. The clarity on movies is surprisingly very good. I wasn’t expecting much from it. I also wanted something small for when I go out jogging. I will most likely rarely use it for anything other than jogging or maybe when I’m reading.

So what kind of MP3 player are you using?

I am pretty much all about listening to music while I work. These days I listen to just about anything I can get my hands on. What keeps me the most productive while working though is mostly instrumental music. Mostly movie score soundtracks, classical music, or trance. I also frequently listen to KCRW. Its a great Los Angeles radio station that I used to listen to a lot more when I lived in LA, but now that I’m in Seattle this is the next best alternative. You can find them on Shoutcast if you want to give them a listen.

So my question for you is what music keeps you productive while working?

During a few research quests I’ve been on. I stumbled upon a site by Rob Abott who deals with user experience at Ribbit. He made a real interesting post about the YouTube video player and how it could be improved. Now I’m not looking to make the next YouTube or anything, but I do find his ideas very interesting. It also makes you want to take a step back on your own work and really look at it from more of a user perspective and see where you can improve it.  In any case take a moment to read his post.

Link: YouTube Video Player Redesign

Well I was greeted today with what I was surprised to see was an apology email from Andy Jenkins. It goes into how his newsletters had gone a little off topic as off late. He linked to a new video entitled Going Natural 2.0. Now let me say that I was merely looking for more written content from Andy and his crew. Rather I found a video that starts out with a very serious note on how StomperNet had gotten a little away from its roots of free content and how he wants to improve on that. He took the time in his video to talk about my post on newsletter marketing(link: Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon Newsletter Marketing).

Now of course I had to continue on with this video and see what it was all about. I have to say it starts out with one crucial piece of advise on increasing your natural traffic. Andy didn’t go into any SENSATIONAL CLAIMS(j/k Andy), he just talked straight about improving your websites traffic. Andy really takes John Reese’s advise on not just delivering whats expected, Andy goes above and beyond my expectations for a newsletter and for StomperNet overall. Now I’m not some huge eCommerce man, but I do find tons of value in what Andy has to say. Its great to see StomperNet going back to what it does best.

Take 30 minutes of your day and check out the video you won’t regret it.

link: Going Natural 2.0

Customer service is such a key point in internet marketing. Often times I will stumble onto a site where all I find is someone blatantly pushing people to click on Adsense. At times this is an excellent option, but more often than not its a poor choice because it just drives your customers away from the site.

Customer doesnt have to be such a retail phrase. Think of customer as a user on your site and I mean any user. If all you are doing is pushing Adsense and not providing that customer what they want all they are going to do is go away from your site to somewhere where they can find exactly what they came in for. They are looking for service. If you provide a good service for them then they will return and usually return with more people.

Lets take a real life example here. I went into a Pottery Barn Kids recently looking for some thing for my son with my wife. There were about 15-20 customers in the building. All my wife and I needed was a little help with some various questions about products, but all we found were a bunch of customer service reps standing around the store talking to each other about various little pieces of gossip they had heard. I must have walked right by three or four reps without even a hello from them. What kind of customer service is that, when you walk in and no one wants to help you get what you need. You know what that made us want to do? Leave the store. Do I want to go back there? No. Why? Because they failed to offer a service that my wife and I needed.

If you take the time to do a complete job on your service for the users of your website it will pay off. Always try to step back and see how the customer would look at your site. A good way to do that is have a friend of family member run through your site once or twice. Chances are you will see where you can improve the experience. If the experience is better you will almost always convert more sales or make a better impression on the user and that will cause them to want to come back for more.