Kimpton's Wifi Network: Pay or Register

September 11, 2012

I have written before about business' clever usage of free wifi networks (example of Philz Coffee who lands users on their Facebook Page). Here is another good one. I am in the lobby of a NYC Kimpton Hotel (early for a breakfast). To access the wifi network, I can either pay for a 24-hour access OR register for their rewards program and access for free. Which do you think I chose? And what's in it for Kimpton? A new loyalty member and all that comes with it: information, offers, etc.

Google's Travel 'Widget' for Search Results & Mobile

August 19, 2012

Google's intelligent search result pages keep getting better... particularly on mobile. We've seen the weather and the stock 'one boxes' before. This integration for travel calendaring is fantastic - dynamic, colorful, crisp and - above all - accurate and fast.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi: A Tale of Raw Fish and Dedication

August 12, 2012

At the encouragement of Andrew Machado, I watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi this weekend - a documentary about Michelin winning sushi chef and 85-year old Jiro Ono. Absolutely fantastic movie: 1. It is focused on sushi but really about work-ethic and dedicating oneself to art, his/her craft and the chase for perfection. Even if you are repulsed by sushi, you'll find it inspiring.

2. The movie is essentially a 90-minute version of the Facebook / Twitter / Path feeds that are filled with food pictures...

"A great chef has the following five attributes: First, they take their work very seriously and consistently perform on the highest level. Second, they aspire to improve their skills. Third is cleanliness. If the restaurant doesn’t feel clean, the food isn’t going to taste good. The fourth is impatience. They are better leaders than collaborators. They’re stubborn and insist on having it their way. And, finally a great chef is passionate. Jiro has all of those attributes. He is a perfectionist.

Ive seen many chefs who are self-critical. But ive never seen a chef who is so hard on himself.

He sets the standard for self-discipline. He is always looking ahead. He is never satisfied with his work. He’s always trying to find ways to make the sushi better or to improve his skills. Even now, that’s what he thinks about all day, every day."

Jetsetter Navigation Panel - More UI and Design from Jetsetter.

July 16, 2012

Jetsetter is known for great design (see here) and here is a nice little UI treatment that we recently saw on The Verge (who uses it on mobile and web). As you scroll through Jetsetter's sale page, an icon scrolls alongside the right progress column. It serves two functions: 1. telling users what kind of content they are viewing, ie vacations or curated lists. 2. showcasing the depth of product / offering that Jetsetter offers. In other words: there's a lot more than what I've seen!

Digg, Content Publishing, Content Consumption and Kate Middleton's Wedding Gown

July 15, 2012

Much has already been written about Digg - and two of the best pieces currently sit atop Techmeme. MG's "Requiem for a Digg" and Om's "In Memoriam: Even in losing, how Digg won." I encourage you to read both as Digg has been important - dare I say instrumental? - in how we think about aspects of tech, news, news feeds, gamification, community, algorithmic aggregation, etc. Digg can - and hopefully will - remain important. As MG wrote, "it’s hard to imagine a better steward than Betaworks to try to make that happen."

I wanted to also touch upon two themes related to Digg:

Most importantly, Digg is a fascinating paradox between aggregation and personalization. I have had blog posts hit the front page of Digg and received 75,000+ unique visits within the sixty-minutes (if my memory serves me correctly). That's a staggering amount of traffic and really, for non-major media sources, not available anywhere else. That amount of traffic and immediacy could only really occur from an aggregated, one-for-all feed (by the way, Digg's impact on the 'newsfeed' as we know it is very under appreciated). That one-for-all feed made:

- Digg such a valuable source of traffic - gave power users such power and authority - and made Digg's homepage a newspaper / Techmeme-like hub

The paradox of course is that consumers want personalization (Facebook's feed and the focus on Edgerank are an example of personalization effectively working) - but this weakens the power of the publishers and therefor the traffic generation to the top destinations. Tough to balance.

Secondly, there is a fascinating article on Slate about the imbalance of Wikipedia's power-users and what it means for content (creation, publishing, traffic): "How Kate Middleton's Wedding Gown Demonstrates Wikipedia's Woman Problem." I encourage you to also read that as it has timely parallels to Digg and its community.

Both themes are of course related: there is a difference between publishing and consuming. For those complaining that Kate Middleton's gown is not worthy of a Wikipedia entry, they don't have to read (or append) the entry. Some of that is personal choice and some of that can be affected by personalization.

Jetsetter Mobile App: Effective App Promotion & Conversions

July 13, 2012

Jetsetter is known for great design (see here). Here is a good example of good design and effective mobile promotion. I have written before that promoting mobile applications via the web is challenging: for instance, conversions are weak due to web to download and data is limited (device, OS, etc). SMS and email are powerful ways to promote applications because they are consumed directly on the device. Good examples by: Sparrow, Redbox, Groupon and Gilt.

Here is another good example by Jetsetter (whose parent is Gilt). Login and you get the following promotion: - awesome slogan: "travel made, travel sized" - good looking promotion - big action item of downloading the app via SMS (enter your cell number)

Much cleaner for users and more powerful for the brand.