tdog.blog

These are my links for November 23rd from 20:40 to 21:06:

• 10 Principles of the PHP Masters - NETTUTS - Ten principles to live by, from not trusting your users (hey, half of you want to break my apps, the other half are intent on doing something naughty/evil/fun) to investing in a good caching technology.
• SimplePie: Super-fast, easy-to-use, RSS and Atom feed parsing in PHP. - I recently added SimplePie to an existing CodeIgniter project I was working on. Very simple, very easy to implement. Within 15 minutes or so, I had RSS syndication up and running, no fuss.
• PHP 101: PHP For the Absolute Beginner - A client recently asked me about basics of PHP. If you're in the same boat and want to learn a little more, then check this article out.
• MiniAjax.com / A showroom of nice looking simple downloadable DHTML and AJAX scripts - We all know you don't have the time to figure out all that Ajax stuff, so just go ahead and download these scripts. We won't tell on you. Honest.
• Max Kiesler - Round-up of 30 AJAX Tutorials - A useful roundup of many Ajax tutorials–learn how to handroll Ajax, how to use JQuery, Prototype, Dojo, whatever. Bring it on!
• O'Reilly — What Is Web 2.0 - Okay, people ask me all the time what Web 2.0 is, and here's the definition from the guys who came up with term.

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Back in the 1990s, all the digital cognoscenti ran around warning everyone that the Internet Was Going To Change Everything. Sure, sure, everyone replied, stop the hype, yada yada, we’ll build a stinkin’ web page already.

Okay, so now it’s almost 2010 and you’ve got millions of bloggers blogging, and social networkers networking, and twitters tweeting, and guess what? We don’t necessarily need to get our information from the companies, right? If I can do my preliminary research on a social bookmarking site, rely on my network to filter suggestions on Kaboodle, then use a nice little search engine to further explore any niche in the long tail…why is it that I need marketing and sales to butt in?

Good question.

The explosion of blogs, wikis, podcasts, online videos, social networking sites and Internet chat rooms that has upended the traditional relationship between companies and their customers is the subject of a new book by two top analysts from Forrester Research.

In “Groundswell - Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies,” published this past spring by Harvard Business School Press, Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li lay out the threats and opportunities posed by this unmediated, 24/7, often anonymous cacophony.

Bernoff and Li define this groundswell as a grass-roots movement of people deploying online tools to connect and trade information, tips and rumors about products and support.

“The groundswell,” they write, “is a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other instead of from companies. If you’re in a company, this is a challenge.” But, of course, there is no turning the clock back. The trend can not be ignored by executives responsible for their brands.

Read the Whole Thing

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Michel (pronounced Michael) Fortin is a prominent Web copywriter. He’s written an interesting ebook titled The Death of the Salesletter. In it he makes some pretty good comments about how the social Web is forcing change on the online direct marketing business.

I’m not sure if we’ll see an end to those one-page web sites that look like sales letters, but they do seem to be more and more ridiculous as the weeks go by. I especially hate it when I go out looking for an ebook or info product on X, but have to wade through tons and tons of copy convincing me that I need this thing (I already know I need it! I looked for it! Can’t I just skip to the end?) and then at the last moment I’m weighed down with 17 bonuses that have nothing to do with what I want.

Listen. I don’t want your bonuses. I just want the thing. I don’t care if it is 100 pages, 10 pages, 10 minutes, 73 hours, or a video of an interpretive dance troupe. If it solves my problem, it’s good. If it doesn’t I don’t want it! Perhaps you can give me some way to get a sneak peak before I buy it? Or a way to discuss with others about the results they got from buying the product? Before I shell out my $99?

How about some of that instead of a bunch of hoopla, overblown rhetoric, and lists of meaningless bullets? And can we please cut out the cheesy stock graphics? I don’t need to see another image of dollar signs or girls in bikinis. (Okay, maybe we need more bikinis.)

See that? I’m telling you how I want to buy! I’m trying to intrude on your marketing process. I may be the only guy out there saying it, but eventually there will be others saying the same thing. And eventually, the sellers will listen and give me what I want….

An easy way to handle all this is to change the experience. Perhaps when I arrive at a landing page you can ask me to segment myself. Am I interested in X or Y? Then on the next page, ask if I’ve used product Z before or something like it. Then deliver me to a page with highly targeted copy. Perhaps you could have some questions at the top of that letter that involve my interacting with a set of radio buttons (are you married, single, divorced? latin, white, black? male, female?) that kicks off some Ajaxian sorcery that loads different copy at different points of the letter.

Perhaps I’m there because I got an email from you. Maybe I’ve visited other promotions you’ve sent out? Perhaps you’ve kept track in some way, and maybe you can alter my experience in subtle ways? Like maybe you already know that I’m a male small business owner in my late 30s who jogs regularly? I don’t know how that might change things, but we’re bound to figure something out to get me to the sale.

Read it for FREE

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Every once in a while, I get asked by friends and colleagues to share some of my favorite business books. I don’t know why, mostly I guess because I read about 10 books a month and let everyone know what my opinion is. In any case, I used to maintain this list in PDF format and email it out to anyone who asked. However, at some point (probably when I switched to the Mac) I lost track of that document.

So what I’ve done is create a Listmania list over at Amazon.com that I’ll keep up to date as I discover good books. The list has 9 books on it now (and I’m sure I’ll add a few more before the weekend is out!). The URL provided by Amazon was horribly long, so I created a redirect URL here at Tripledogs.com:

http://www.tripledogs.com/bizbooks

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Presenting a very short (around 12 minutes) screencast tutorial on creating a simple Google AdWords campaign. The screencast covers campaigns, groups, and creating ads and ad variations.

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