Just some random Stephen King quotes. Cuz he’s  just a very quotable guy.

So the pope was on a plane…

And forgot his vow of poverty. The air is thinner up there…

I’m not exactly sure about Google+ yet. Though my circles are filling up day by day and more and more people join the (once so elite) club, my main thought is: “Oh no, another network.”

Nevertheless –  even though I’m still not a true believer – I have found ya’ll some Google+ Chrome extensions to enjoy. I’m assuming here that you do use Chrome….I mean what else would you use?

FYI: many of these extensions are also available for Firefox.

Extended Share for Google Plus

From Twitter to LinkedIn, LinkedIn to Facebook and Myspace to…well nowhere…My point being that it is practical to choose one network and share from there. If Google+ is you one network, then this extension will come in handy. It adds a link to your updates which enables you to share them to Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Facebook.

Share+ Social Buttons for Google Plus

That one not enough sharing for you? Try this extension and fertilize even more social networks with you thoughts.

+Photo Zoom

Lots of pictures in your Google+ timeline? And too cool to wear your glasses (I know how you feel) this extension  automatically magnifies images, when you move your mouse over them.

Surplus

This extension enbles you to read and respond to Google+ updates right from your browser bar.

Reacties en meer voor Google+

This extension adds reply to author link to your Google+ stream.

Helper for Google+

Share on Twitter, Translate updates, linked hashtags and more…you can have it all with Helper for Google+

Skins & Share for Google+ Facebook

Want your Google+ stream to look like Facebook? Install this extension. To be honest, I have no clue why you’d want to, but hey…it’s your party.

Google+Tweet

Full integration with Twitter is what this extension offers. Je haalt er namelijk je hele timeline mee binnen. Inloggen doe je via oAuth, dus da’s zo gepiept en je krijgt er dan een knop bij voor je Twitterstream.

Google Music to Google Plus Poster

Use this extension to share the music you are listening to!

GPlus notification

If all you are aching for is Google+ notification in your browser bar, get this extension!

Usability Boost for Google Plus

According to the developer of this extension, it improves the usability of Google+. I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but yeh – it’s free!

Which extensions do you use?

After being on Google+ for about 2 weeks I have finally figured it out. Google+is an Escher painting. Alternatively it may be a glitch in the Matrix. You see, people on Google+ only seem to talk about Google+. It’s the hipster thing to do.

And of course, in order to say witty things about Google’s social network – aka Facebook killer – you need a witty image to go with your update. Well don’t worry, I’m here to help you out! Behold, the most awesome collection of Google+ humor found on the world wide web. Right here for your viewing and borrowing pleasure.

Have fun, use them wisely and may the force be with you!

(do let me know if I’ve missed one)

WordPress is the preferred blogging software for many. But it can be used for much more than just blogging. I’ve gathered 5 themes that are suitable for making your own online magazine.

Name: StyleLife
Price: € 49
Demo
More information

Name: Duplex
Price: € 35
Demo
More information

Nem: Xecon
Price: Free
Demo
More information

Name: Sight
Price: Free
Demo
More information

Name: Magnificent
Price: Yearly subscription fee for all themes $ 40
Demo
More information

I have been chasing zombies for over a year now. Never knew that plants would be an effective weapon against these highly annoying, braineating idiots. But plants vs zombies has taught me different. If zombies ever attack, all you need are some daisies. But all that is besides the point of course. Popcap has announced that they will release Plants vs zombies for Android in 2011. Finally! This is one of the best games I’ve played in a long time, but it is annoying that I have to be at home to play it. Good call Popcap.

Source: Pocket Gamer

Email newsletters are still a great way to reach your customers. When properly executed they are not just valuable for you, but also for your customers. But it’s the execution where things don’t always go well. There is of course no golden rule for creating newsletters – it is after all not math – but it’s possible to come up with some basic guidelines.  So I have tried to, just for you.

General
Before we talk about the contents of the newsletter, let’s set some basic general “rules”.

Sender
Make sure the sender name is the name of your company and not the name of the person sending the email. This way the receiver has a clear idea of the source of the email.

Lots of newsletters are sent from an email address that is not read or doesn’t even exist. Make sure your mail clearly states that using the reply-button won’t work. Be sure to offer your readers an alternative address to send their questions and comments to.

Unsubscribing made easy
Make sure your email newsletter contains an unsubscribe link. Don’t make it hard for people to unsubscribe. Unsubscribing from your newsletter, doesn’t mean losing them as a customer of visitor. Being too pushy may accomplish that though.  Remember that anybody who really wants to unsubscribe will find a way to do so. Frustrating them in what they want won’t make their experience with your company any more positive.

HTML or Text
If you’re sending out an HTML newsletter, make sure there’s also a plain text version available for people who can’t read HTML formatted emails. Also, some spam filers will stop HTML emails.

Images
Newsletters should be well designed and please the eye. But, never – never ever ever? – ever make a newsletter from just an image. These types of newsletters are usually not very clickable (the 1 image is the link) which is highly annoying. Do use images as a part of your HTML version. But test these images. Be sure to test your newsletter anyway. I have received many a newsletter that didn´t actually work – especially the images.

Content
Content is still the most important part of any newsletter. What your content is, is up to you to decide. But here are some pointers to help you along.

Subject
The title “monthly newsletter” doesn’t seduce your readers into clicking. Remember: people’s mailboxes these days are filled with content. When scanning their mailbox, your readers are looking for a reason not to click delete. A good subject for your mail will maximize the chance of them opening your mail to begin with.

Companies that take newsletters seriously use software to test different subjects. This type of software doesn’t just test by how many people an email was opened, but also which links within the email were clicked.

Just like with websites, it is possible to a/b test emails: send one version to one group of recipients and another version to another group. This way you can improve your clickthrough rate by learning what does and what doesn’t work.

Valuable content
The goal of your newsletter is usually to get people to visit your website. Just putting links in your newsletter won’t get you there though. Make your newsletter valuable in itself, in addition to the links that you provide to your website. One way to do this is by putting a full article (about a subject which is interesting to your readers) in the newsletter in and then maybe just intros other articles and a read more link. By putting full content in your newsletter, you can interest your readers in the newsletter itself, while the intros will get them to your website.

Call-to-action
Make sure your newsletter contains a clear call-to-action. Do you want your readers to buy something, read something, apply for something, do something? Make sure they know what is expected from them.

KISS – Keep it simple/short silly/stupid/shmuck
Keep it short. Really long newsletters really won’t be read.  It’s better to send shorter newsletters, more frequently than long epistles once a year.

The huge amount of mail that people receive forces them to not only scan content when visiting websites, but also when reading emails. Make your mail easy to scan, by putting an index at the top, by using subheadings and breaking the texts with images and some whitespaces.

Lingo
You may be a specialist at your trade, but your customers oftentimes aren’t. Make sure you know who they are and how they communicate. Make sure you speak their language.

What not to do
There are some things that you should never do. Pay attention, here they come:

Don’t disguise your sale as a newsletter. Sending an ad is fine, as long as people know that’s what they’re getting.

Never send people your newsletter without their permission. Your newsletter is there to build a relationship. Spamming won’t do that for you. Don’t be seduced into adding everybody whose business card you have or who’s entered into a contest at your site or who’s ordered something from you to your mailinglist. The only people who should receive your newsletter are the people who specifically requested to.

Don’t ever put all the addresses of the recipients into the To or CC-field of your email. Use the BCC-field if you don’t own special newsletter software. This seems obvious, but if I had a euro for every time that I received the email addresses of strangers in the To field of a newsletter – I’d be a very rich woman.

Do you have any tips & tricks for making  good newsletters? Please share yours in the comments!

What is quality? This question has been haunting me for months now. To this day nobody has been able to answer this question. Not even me, though this is a word I use often at work. Working at a company which – for Dutch standards – is big, it’s hard to avoid talking about the subject of quality.

The term is usually surfaces as a contradiction. A marketeer is interested in sales targets. While I feel quality is our target. The webanalytics specialist keeps talking about conversions (meaning sales for most webanalists). I keep going on about this quality issue of mine. They seem to be opposite points of view. There is debate. Frustration on my end. A deadlock all around.

Confusion
In the mean time I started to suspect that there was actually no contradiction in our debate. No debate even. The problem was a matter of semantics. A problem which by the way confused both sides. Those who felt “my” quality was too expensive and cost them sales. But I was confused as well, thinking they wanted to reach their targets at quality’s expense.

Goals and such
In one of these debates someone stated: “reaching our website objectives can be done in many different ways. Usability or webanalytics but quality can also be one of the ways to reach our goals.” This got me thinking. Something in his story just didn’t sit right with me. It took me a while to figure it out, but then I did: webanalytics is not an angle to reach a goal. Webanalytics is a means of measuring. Quality however is a goal. More than that, it’s the central goal. Because really, doesn’t quality simply mean the point where everyone’s goals are reached to their fullest extent? Both visitor’s and publisher’s?

So to recap: what is quality? Quality is the theoretical point between customer goals on the one side and company goals on the other. Interaction design, W3c guidelines, IT infrastructure, content are all ways of reaching this point (on a website at least) and web analytics, usability testing, content quality testing etc. are all means of measuring how close to quality you are. All test results should be invested into the theoretical Q-point. Which means that all choices that are made after testing should serve both customer and company goals just as much. Adding to one, takes away from the other.

The focus of most marketeers however is on the company’s goals. The focus for most specialists is the customer’s goals. The trick is to find the middle together.

In my experience test results from any type of test are used to get closer to the company’s goals, thus taking away from the customer. This is a short term way of thinking. When the customer doesn’t feel his needs are met, he will take his business elsewhere. The q-model can help you find the middle. It doesn’t do much except tell you what place within the whole process the different items have (web analytics is not a goal, it is a measuring tool and should be used as such, visual design is a means and should be used as such). And it tells you what to strive for and by which means to do this and how to measure.

Oh well, it’s just a thought. Who know, maybe someone will find it useful.

I truly dislike most USB hubs. Even the best looking ones look just awful sitting on your desk. Like the dusty decorations at christmas in a cheap and old store. So I’ve decided that if I’m going to have one, it’d better be so over the top ugly that nobody doubts that I chose it for it’s practical merits. I’m still looking for the ugliest little USB hub. This one ranks way up there.US$17.00

Twitter is the search engine of the future. At least – that’s what some people say. I think that the Twitter content can be really helpful in giving better results to search queries. Two questions though:

1. How will Twitter come up with better results?
2. How can Twitter make money from their (free to use) application?

In this article I will share my thoughts on this subject, by giving you some possibilities for Twitter Search and a way a to make money. And yeah, it’s not that difficult.

What the Twitter?
Most people use Twitter to share whatever it is they choose to share. Most people who use Twitter want to interact with other people on Twitter, so a discussion / conversation is built. Often this is done by asking and answering questions. These questions and answers are connected, because users of Twitters reply to each other (@reinoutw for instance). When somebody replies to a Tweet, the reply is connected to this Tweet. Sometimes, a question or answer is accompanied by a URL. This is usedto enrich or explain the answer. All this makes Twitter a real Q&A machine!

Natural Language Twitter Search
The coolest thing about this Q&A machine is that it’s written by people; human beings! The questions are written in the natural language of the crowd and so are the answers. So, when somebody asks a question, this question can be found in the Q&A database of Twitter. But the biggest beauty is that the answer is also found in the same database.

So, when somebody asks a question, a natural language tool can read this question. By comparing this question with all the questions in the database a similar question can be found, after that, the question and the answer can be shown to the person posing the question.

The advantage of this Q&A system of Twitter is the matter in which people ask and answee questions. Up till now, serach engines try to find an answer to your question. As oposed to find a question accompanied by an answer. Twitter solves this problem because there are questions, answers and web pages connected to each other. Really interesting content!

Making Money

Now on tpo the second question surrounding Twitter. How to make money from this free service? We are familiar with Google Adwords, the sponsored results in Google. Twitter can introduce sponsored Tweets. Tweets by for instance manufactures who give answers to questions about their products and appear at the top of the ‘organic’ Tweets. These Q&A’s can be built easily even before anyone asks a particular question. Manufacturers can also collect all the questions (and his answers) and be given a more prominent place in the search results (by using visual markers instead of calling them sponsored results) . This is a plus for the the person searching (better answers), for the manufacturer (direct contact, in control of the answer) and for Twitter (making money).

Looks good to me, who will help me build this excellent tool?