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MailUp
August 31, 2006 in 3 out of 5 stars, Email newsletter management, Hosted softwareMailUp: MailUp is a web based tool for managing email newsletters. It can be integrated with web sites or CRM applications. It manages subscribes (single or double opt-in), unsubscribes, bounces and provides statistics. NWeb Pricing: MailUp does not have a "pay per message" or "pay per contact" pricing model, you pay only a flat monthly fee and you can send whatever you like plus and you can have any number of subscribers in your DB. However, there are different pricing plans. Lower plans offer less features (lowest plan doesn't have bounce management for example) plus the lower the plan, the slower the send rate, ranging from 720/hr to 103,500/hr. Nice features: attachments, embedded images, international charsets support. Their sales site is terrible (they tell me they're in the process up an update), getting started requires a human-mediated sales cycle (yuck). Polls/survey module not yet completed, SMS Module available only for Europe recipients, admin tools are slightly cumbersome to use. Admin tool doesn't work in FireFox. The parent company is Italian and you'll occasionally run into poor translations to English, or fully Italian language portions of the service. I had to email them to get this, but they claim it will be on the site once they redesign. They are responsive on email. $59/mo - $120/mo - $450/mo - $3,300/mo Reviewed by Carson McComasWhat is it?
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Happy Quote
August 24, 2006 in Happy Quotes"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
-Steve Jobs
Google Analytics
August 22, 2006 in 5 out of 5 stars, Analytics, Free, Hosted software, SEO/SEMGoogle Analytics: Web analytics (statistics + analysis) software that anyone with a website can use. After Google initially launched this service, they were crushed with interest and they shut down new sign ups. However, after several months, the gates are open again. Google (although they bought and tweaked Urchin's product to create this). The information it provides is super-rich without being unwieldy (unwieldiness is a common ailment afflicting analytics software). It has great visual representations of your information, making it easily digestible. This includes graphs, charts, and a very nifty site-overlay showing you where and how people click through your site on their way to conversion Also, Geo-targeting map representations, date-range comparisons, and more. It's simple and quick (just a few minutes) to integrate into your site, just drop a snippet of code on each page you wish to track. Some of the more common data feels buried. The data is always about a day old. Potential for some tin-foil hat anxiety about Google's increasingly Sauron-like all-seeing-eye. Astonishingly Free Reviewed by Carson McComasWhat is it?
Who makes it?
Why is it the killerest?
You can use it to track simple traffic statistics, but you can also you use it (and here's the real power) to track conversions and associated behavior (this is the heart of Seth's point number 5). It integrates closely with your AdWords campaigns but can also track any marketing initiative you run, Google-based or not. It's hard to overstate the power and importance of that. If you do commerce online, you're insane not to be using this to measure.
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Happy Links
August 21, 2006Kiko Demise Edition (because this is brutally instructive):
Quick summary. Kiko is an online calendar application, and a darn fine one at that. It was funded by Paul Graham's Y Combinator. Only something happened along the way, and now it's for sale up on eBay, bids start at $50K.
- The last Kiko blog post
"To our users, thanks for sticking with us through this whole journey.
The horse's mouth:
- Paul Graham - Funder.
Says Google Calendar killed them.
"Google may be even more dangerous than Microsoft, because unlike Microsoft it's the favorite of technically minded users... The best solution for most startup founders would probably be to stay out of Google's way." - Richard White - member of the Kiko team (UI designer).
Says Google Calendar didn't kill them, they killed themselves by (a) getting distracted, (b) releasing a sub-par product too soon, (c) having too many features, (d) no plan to escape the "technospehere" i.e. you (and me).
This is a great read. - Justin Kan - member of the Kiko team (founder/programmer)
Says it's demise stemmed from (a) getting distracted, (b) Hiring wrong, (c) "cute hacks" "Take the time to do things right from the beginning" (d) Working from home, (e) Not getting investors involved, (f) trying to do it all at once.
Ouch. Fantastic lessons.
The Peanut Gallery:
- Dharmesh Shah - Blogger at OnStartups "Google is the new Microsoft"
- Stowe Boyd - Web 2.0 dude extraordinaire. Says they didn't release too early, they released "with too little of the social dimension in place."
- David Heinemeier Hansson - of 37signals, creator of Ruby on Rails. "Google does not win by default in any territory it enters."
- Don Dodge - of Microsoft's Emerging Business Team. "Calendars are a feature, not a company."
MailBuild
August 18, 2006 in 5 out of 5 stars, Email newsletter management, Hosted softwareMailBuild: MailBuild is an email newsletter tool built just for web designers. You design a template for each client and they log in to their own account to manage their subscribers, create and send their own emails and view reports on the results. Freshview (formerly Switch I.T.) I've been using Freshview's other product, Campaign Monitor, for over a year to manage my email campaigns. It's still the best software out there to send email campaigns for yourself and your clients. But I've had several clients for whom Campaign Monitor wasn't a fit because they wanted to create and send their own (good looking) email newsletters. To meet that need, Dave Greiner and company now bring us MailBuild. It's a great tool for your clients that want to take control of their own email marketing. The idea is a simple one. You design an email template for each of your clients using the simple MailBuild template
system. Your clients can then log into their own account, add their own content to each newsletter using a very cool and easy to use AJAX-based editor, and send it to their own subscribers. As with Campaign Monitor, they can also see great looking reports on the results of their campaign and easily add and remove subscribers to their account. The entire interface is so polished and can be re-branded to look like your own product. Your clients can even log into their account from your own web site. Freshview have a knack for polishing their interfaces so that they
hold your hand, and read your mind, and this is no exception. These guys really are an inspiration for how to properly do a web app. In an effort to keep things simple, they don't yet allow custom fields. This might be a nice addition, and Dave has indicated that if the demand is there, he'll add it. Like Campaign Monitor, you pay $5 + 1 cent per email. You pay on behalf of your clients so there's plenty of room to charge each client a marked-up fee for your management of it. Reviewed by Carson McComasWhat is it?
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The top five mistakes entrepreneurs make when they market
August 17, 2006 in Killer AdviceSeth Godin is an entrepreneur's entrepreneur (spell that 3 times fast). A successful and seasoned entrepreneur himself, plus a fountain of excellent advice for other entrepeneurs. He's a renowned speaker, the best-selling author of the lionshare of my favorite business books, he has a very widely read blog, and is the founder of Squidoo.
As an exclusive here on WorkHappy.net, Seth generously shares with us the following truly killer advice:
The top five mistakes entrepreneurs make when they market
by Seth Godin
- Expecting gratitude in exchange for having done something that was hard. Yes, you built a company, you might even have bootstrapped it. Yes, you've got the machinery and the packaging and the retail space. Yes, you've navigated hiring people and yes, you finally shipped. I couldn't care less. I'm not going to buy your brownie/consulting/services just because you worked hard on it.
- Spending money as a substitute for doing something great. Spending on marketing an average product isn't working anymore. You're far better off spending money on making your product better. A lot better.
- Not realizing that it's your company, and your marketing better be as good as everything else. It doesn't matter if you don't like marketing or don't think you're good at it. Figure it out or go home. Sooner or later, you succeed because you were able to spread your ideas. So go to school and figure out how it works.
- Listening to other people. If they're so smart, why aren't they running your company? Don't take a poll. Don't ask your mother-in-law, that's for sure. Cover your downsides, double your desire to take a risk and then just do it.
- Failure to measure. All this is worthless if you don't test and measure relentlessly. Do what works. Kill what doesn't. Repeat.
For more nuggets of wisdom, make sure you check out Seth's latest book which was released today. Small Is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas
Happy Links
August 15, 2006 in Happy Links, SEO/SEMSEM/SEO edition:
- What you must know before hiring an SEO company
is an ebook written by Jonathan Cook who knows what's up (and what isn't). As an SEO/SEM guy myself, I was pumping my fist in the air reading this. Great advice and a must-read before you hire someone to help you with search engine marketing. - Hit Tail
This is really an interesting new service geared toward helping you tap into "the long tail" and gain natural search engine traffic to your site. The methods they use are solid, and the tool they offer appears to be a great help. It definitely has my attention. If anyone has experience with them, please let me know. - Top 50 SEO Resources
This modestly named list really is a treasure trove of good resources.
Happy Quote
August 11, 2006 in Happy Quotes"Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive."
–Howard Thurman
Bug Juice
August 7, 2006 in 2 out of 5 stars, Hosted software, Issue trackers, Software DevelopmentBugJuice: A bug tracking application for web developers. SmallPositives This hosted software is simple and uncluttered. It's a glorified to-do list nicely tweaked for issue tracking. You can add "pages" (kinda like a wiki) for whatever purpose you like (e.g. one for each project), which is nice and flexible. You can add comments and screenshots to bugs. An interesting option for small teams, or single person development. It's missing most of the features of a mature issue tracker (although that's kind of their point). No support for Safari browser. Admin should be able to assign users to bugs (but can't, for now). Free, $5, $10, $20/mo. Reviewed by Carson McComasWhat is it?
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Happy Quote
August 4, 2006 in Happy Quotes“I’ve never been concerned with competitors, execution is everything in life.”
- Lynda Resnick, half of the husband and wife team who have grown POM Wonderful (pomegranate juice) from $12mil/yr in 2003 to $91mil/yr today and after buying Fuji Water for $150mil increased sales 67% last year. Jason Fried's summary. The Newsweek Article.