After researching and working on various landing page optimization projects, I’ve compiled a checklist, if you want to design your own effective landing pages to optimize conversions:

• Large, clear, concise Primary Headline
• Large, germane product shot when appropriate
• Large, direct Call To Action (CTA) above the fold
• Multiple additional CTAs throughout the page
• Minimize off-page navigation
• Short, prioritized Key Features list
• 2 Columns
• Testimonials
• Pricing
• Human face(s) for testimonals or in images
• Highlight search terms (of referred traffic) in page
• Use A/B and Multivariate Testing
• Optimize page for fast loading
• Measure, Tweak, Repeat

3 Key Questions:

1. What is offered?
2. Why the prospect should care?
3. What does the prospect need to do?

A few other optional ideas you might want to consider:

• Orange may be the best color for CTA buttons
• Design for least-common-denominator browsers – could be 800×600 and/or mobile

For the first 18 months I’ve owned an iPhone, I’ve been able to see past the shortcomings of the service, but I’ve had a change of heart towards the lacking service.  Changing expectations, history with a more reliable provider/phone, and a few specific incidents where service quality (dropped calls, missed calls) has had an acute, detrimental impact on my work or personal life.

Now that I’ve made the mental leap to make a change, it’s time to evaluate the options:

1. Get AT&T to fix the service
2. Jailbreak the phone and swicth to T-Mobile (the only other GSM provider in the states)
3. Buy a Palm Pre, Android, or HTC phone

After a stop at the local AT&T store, the manager helpfully submitted an on premise service request – apparently they will actually check my home address and make make adjustments to the tower.  She literally said they might ‘turn the antenna’.  Needless to say, I’m not optimistic that will resolve the issue.  She also confirmed that the Santa Monica area does suffer from ‘capacity problems’, and that AT&T is in the process of adding capacity in the area.  Promising, but who knows how long that will take.

Next up, I acquired a first generation iPhone to test a jailbreak and a T-Mobile SIM.  Fortunately, the phone was already jailbroken, so after a few updates, I dropped in a T-Mobile SIM, and the phone was running.

The ability to compare an AT&T iPhone and a T-Mobile iPhone side-by-side was eye opening.  I’ve heard lot’s of speculation that the iPhone was at fault for service problems – different provisioning of towers for iPhone users, a weaker radio, lot sof reasons, but nothing I could confirm.

This test was in no way scientific, but here’s what I observed:

• Visible difference in the number of bars on the phones.  In most areas of my Santa Monica residence, the T-Mobile phone show more bars.
• Several areas where there is no reception for AT&T, but a few bars for T-Mobile.

I made several test calls – simultaneously calling both phones via Skype – as a conference call.  In 4/6 tests, both phones rang. In 2/6 tests, the AT&T phone never rang and the calls went straight to voicemail.

Disappointing results by AT&T to be sure.  At this point, I plan to give AT&T a few days to attempt to resolve the issues, then on to figure out which direction to take.

Viruses infect w/o consent, Addicted users are complicit – is it time to retire ‘Viral Marketing’ in favor of ‘Addictive UX’?

Addiction by / Arthur Tsao Photography

Had a great time at WordcampLA. I expect this might the first of quite a few events. Congrats to Austin and the rest of the folks that helped made it happen. As promised here’s a copy of the presentation I gave. Learn it, live it, know it:

Yes, when it comes to displays, bigger is (almost) always better. Here’s a little helper to see when ‘break-out’ deals show up, so you know when to upgrade.

Screen diagonal and price

This tip is a ‘2 For One’ – it’s a neat trick to help you practice the power of positive thinking to achieve life goals, while helping you create strong passwords for websites to make your online identity more secure.  Never forget a password again. Here are the steps:

1. Write down a few positive life goals, mantras, or other statements that The Secret, Napoleon Hill or Tony Robbins told you would make you happier and more successful.  Some examples:
   • Practice a Random Act of Kindness
   • Exercise every morning before work
   • Build $1 Million in net worth
2. Turn elements of the phrase into an acronym.  Look for opportunities to swap out words for numbers or symbols, and emphasize the important words with some capital letters:
   • to, too, two = 2
   • for, four = 4
   • money, wealth = $, $$
   • I = 1,!
3. Use the phrase as a password for those sites that require complex passwords with combinations of letters (incl. mixed case), numbers and symbols
   • Practice a Random Act of Kindness = p1RAOK
   • Exercise every morning before work = Xemb4w
   • Build $1 Million in net worth = b$1Minw!!!

Steve Jobs has completed the third chapter of what I see as a 4-part story to take over entertainment.

In chapter 1, he built a little film company called Pixar that helped a bigger company Disney stay relevant during an otherwise tough time for the mouse.  Since Pixar’s films represented the lion’s share of revenue during their relationship, and Disney never developed any of their own digital skills, they picked up Pixar – along the way making Steve Jobs the single largest shareholder of Disney stock.

In chapter 2, while music industry exec played ivory tower games and attempted to turn off the internet with attorneys and fruitless DRM efforts, Steve took the novel approach of vertically integrating music distribution with the personal computer and a line of devices that turned digital music into mobile assets that you could pack in your pocket. These efforts have put Apple on a path that today controls over 70% of digital music sales and could account for 28% of all music sales in 5 years.

In chapter 3, Steve decided that he could apply his smarts to the telecommunications industry, in one fell swoop, creating more innovation with the iPhone than the industry had seen since the creation of the mobile phone itself – fundamentally changing the way people interact with their phones.

Obviously much more can be written about each of these chapters, as well as the previous period which led to this series of breakthroughs, however the point of this post is a prediction about what I believe will be the next major chapter in the Apple Story:

CHAPTER 4: Re-inventing Television

Image: Dan Wiersema (http://www.danwiersema.com/)

Like music distribution and the mobile phone, the television industry finds itself in a transitional period.  The industry has been devoid of significant innovation since the advent of color.  HD, cable, satellite, DVRs, and now Internet TV are fairly obvious, incremental improvements, but even these improvements lfailt to deliver a fulfilling user experience.  It’s the same vacuum that was felt by the music industry, and the mobile phone user before Apple delivered their solution.  It’s a huge market to boot, and Apple now knows everything it needs know to enter in a meaningful way.

Here are some of the factors that frame this prediction:

• Apple has significant investments in flatscreen manufacturing with Samsung and LG
• the current Apple TV box is a test, to learn things about the market and user experience
• The experience of flattening hardware ala MacBook Air enables Apple to fit lots of gear in the back of an LCD case
• A line of high quality, flatscreen TVs with wifi + storage + an elegant remote + great media browsing UI would be a leap ahead for the TV marketplace (my Motorola DVR remote control has more buttons than my computer keyboard – count ‘em) – clearly an area where some iPhone like UI magic could assist 

I’d suggest that Apple’s entry into the convention TV marketplace is inevitable – guessing when is a much harder task. Analyst Piper Jaffray suggests it will be in 2011, but I think we might hear something as soon as at the June 2009 Developer Conference.

There are many more reasons why this is a great next step for Apple – share your thoughts in the comments.

The marketplace for SSDs is getting more and more competitive. Intel just slashed prices on many of their drives, and all the other manufacturers are doing the same on a regular basis. Capacities are going up, prices are coming down, and performance is getting better - especially with the advent of the new PCIe based cards which lap SATA II.

Remote working has become more and more prevalent in today’s corporate world.  With an eye on saving money on travel, energy, and other personnel related expenses companies are starting to look for software solutions that cut costs and increase productivity. Some friends of mine in Atlanta have come up with an application that seeks to address the problem of many remote apps not being immersive enough, or not having enough personality. Their company, called Meetsee, is a 2.5D virtual office built using Flash.  According to their site, Meetsee is:

“Your personal virtual office is a space online filled with rich
ways to communicate, share content, collaborate on documents,
and build rapport between remote co-workers.”

I signed up for my free virtual office on their Web site. You can choose between four different office templates that come bundled with a set of furniture and tools that you can use. Navigating my office was easy enough by just clicking on objects such as chairs, filing cabinets, and TVs to interact with them.

My Meetsee Office

The goal of any virtual office or meeting space is to facilitate communication between remote parties as easily as possible, and to make sharing information feel natural.  Having recognizable objects with familiar functionality is a strong point of Meetsee’s application. They rely on common metaphors in their environment, for example, the TV plays videos. 

To that effect, my room came with a whiteboard, an entertainment system for playing YouTube videos, a filing cabinet to share files, a clock, and a corkboard where people can leave photos, messages, or weird little animated stickers. I was also able to add new stuff to the room, like a news ticker style RSS viewer and a Twitter display. You can even open the tools in a bigger window.

My Meetsee Office Preview

Meetsee gives the room owner a lot of control over how their office or meeting space is used.  You can choose various permission levels that change what other users are or are not allowed to do, and you can even track room activity from a report on the site.

You can add your virtual office to your Web site or even your Facebook profile. If you want to check out my office you can jump in as a guest:

The (currently free) upgrade to a Meetsee Plus account gave me access to new tools including audio conferencing, a presentation viewer, web cams and new virtual meeting rooms. These tools provide all the basics to conduct successful business meetings and have integration with all the standards you’d expect: YouTube, Flickr, PowerPoint, RSS, and Twitter. 

My Meeting Room

For a virtual office, I could see many uses for my Meetsee room. The web cam would definitely be nice to have for meeting “face to face” with my remote team members.  The ability for my remote collborators to share virtual space together has the potential to really change the way we work.

Since Meetsee is currently in public Beta, all upgrades are free.  This means you can jump in and check out their more advanced features, like web cam and user networks.  There are many options for remote work and granted there are some that would prefer the colder, simpler style of doing things, however if adding personality to the experience is for your team, then I highly recommend checking out Meetsee.

You can start out by signing up at Meetsee.com or by adding their Facebook App.