Userbility

Google Caffine was finally released. You can read about it on Googles blog by going to this link:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

I used caffine quite a bit in the sandbox and it was fast and fresh all the time. I’m curious to see how it affects rankings if at all.

You can buy it here. Seth Godin’s audio book called, “All marketers are liars” is on sale at Amazon right now. Go buy it.

Every marketer tells a story. And if they do it right, we believe them. We believe that wine tastes better in a $20 glass than a $1 glass. We believe that an $80,000 Porsche Cayenne is vastly superior to a $36,000 VW Touareg, which is virtually the same car. We believe that $225 Pumas will make our feet feel better, and look cooler, than $20 no-names…and believing it makes it true.

Successful marketers don’t talk about features or even benefits. Instead, they tell a story. A story we want to believe.

This is a book about doing what consumers demand; painting vivid pictures that they choose to believe. Every organization, from nonprofits to car companies, from political campaigns to wineglass blowers, must understand that the rules have changed (again). In an economy where the richest have an infinite number of choices (and no time to make them), every organization is a marketer and all marketing is about telling stories.

Marketers succeed when they tell us a story that fits our worldview, a story that we intuitively embrace and then share with our friends. Think of the Dyson vacuum cleaner or the iPod.

But beware: If your stories are inauthentic, you cross the line from fib to fraud. Marketers fail when they are selfish and scurrilous, when they abuse the tools of their trade and make the world worse. That’s a lesson learned the hard way by telemarketers and Marlboro.

This is a powerful book for anyone who wants to create things people truly want as opposed to commodities that people merely need.

I know it’s early, but I am going to call this one our real quick. The winner is Zappos.com. Wow! What an improvement. I think their usability is hands down- great! I’ve always been a big fan of Zappos, they provide a really quality service and I can find my size sneakers/clothes there with no problem. That may be easy for most people, but I am 6’5″, 290lbs. So, to find a company with affordable, brand name stuff in my size is excellent. I’m glad they redesigned their site and made such great imrpovements to the usability and I am sure the technical SEO of their site. I will be sure to watch their traffic numbers for the next couple months and see how it is.  Congrats guys….check out the screen shot below or go visit the site….