Yesterday, Brad blogged about how hard (and painful) it is to get products out of their “plastic jails.”  Today, Seth wondered if “smaller and lighter” will become “sexier” when it comes to product containers.  In addition to being a healthcare issue (Brad’s hands are apparently a bloody mess) and marketing issue (heavier Gatorade bottles apparently sell better) it’s a huge environmental issue. 

I think it’s up to us.  If, as consumers, we decide that heavy, excessive, wasteful packaging is bad, and we show our position by buying products that embrace less waste (and by telling companies why we aren’t buying their over-packaged products) we can change this.  I think it’s a worthwhile issue.

I like “personality” in a web app.  It helps users form an emotional connection — a relationship — and that’s good for the user and the app.  The trick is to treat interactions between app and user the way you’d treat interactions between people.  Then, build your app with the “people” personality of someone everyone likes — charming, polite, a little bit funny even.

There are a few things to consider:

• Your audience.  The personality of BOOMj (social network for baby boomers) should be different than Nymbler (naming wizard for expecting parents).
• Your purpose.  Sites like Mixx and Twitter can afford to have amusing error pages because the state-of-mind of the user is rarely too serious.
• Your experience.  What is the user experience as they interact with your app?  Just as you would in the “real” world, communicate with your users in a way that takes into account the experience they’re having at that moment.

The advent of widgets, which allows a part of an app to be “plugged” into a larger site, creates a new challenge.  The personality of the widget needs to conform to the site it’s wrapped in. 

This morning, I was reading a very serious article on cnn.com about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.  I was intrigued by the option to continue reading about the topic with the “From The Blogs” feature, provided by Sphere.  My state-of-mind was somber — this wasn’t an amusing topic.  When I clicked on the widget, I got this loading message:

“Sit tight, we’re getting to the good stuff” sounds good if I’m reading about the foul-mouthed posthumous tipper (how is this news, by the way?) but given what I had been reading, it stopped me cold, like someone telling a joke at a funeral.  I wasn’t in the mood for “cute.”

The technical solution to this issue is simple — it just takes planning.  The best web apps will increasingly offer highly-personalized user experiences where every interaction is more and more human (and charming).  If you’re building one, build this in.

I just posted on viget.com about VigetRocks, this year’s annual Viget gift.  Every year I think we might decide to not do it (since it’s no small effort) but I’m a sucker for tradition and it’s just so much fun …

TechCrunch reported the end of ProtectMyPhotos, a backup service that competes with Mozy (my service of choice), a few weeks ago.   David posted today another candid interview with an entrepreneur — in this case ProtectMyPhotos founder Cliff Shaw — who is refreshingly open about what went wrong.  A few nuggets I found interesting:

• Be passionate. “We were bored with backup … an idea that put us to sleep.”  It’s impossible to run a small start-up well if you’re bored.
• Know your market.  “On paper, ProtectMyPhotos looked like a slam dunk … People may care - but do they care enough to part with their money?”  Mozy and Carbonite seem to have cracked this code, but, for whatever reason, ProtectMyPhotos couldn’t.  First, know that there is a market.  Then, make sure you know how to serve it.
• Build-in viral.  “ProtectMyPhotos had no way to promote itself to the friends and family of its members.”  If you’re trying to stay small and limit marketing spend, enabling your users to promote the service for you is essential.  Even if you have sizable marketing budget, viral should be part of your core strategy influencing not just into your marketing plan, but your product design.

Cliff offered some specific numbers.  They launched in October, 2006, went through $280,000, and earned 4,400 customers.  They also kept very small - 2 founders and a part-time developer - which Cliff took pride in.

“From the outside, with a 2 person team, we made ProtectMyPhotos look like a heavily-funded market leader.”

While I agree with his suggestion to “fail quickly,” I have to wonder whether the business would have been better able to compete with a slightly larger team and more money.  He says “we could’ve lost $2.8 million” but it would seem they also could have sold for $76 million. 

In the end, I think it’s about balance.  You don’t need to raise VC, but you need the right team, funding, and strategy to create the right product at the right time for the right market. 

Easier said than done.  Luckily, when guys like Cliff share their insights about failure, we can all learn a bit and have a better chance of being successful ourselves.

We talk a lot about search engine optimization at Viget.  Seth posted a new ebook (download it for free) and in the post he notes:

“… the best way is the long way. The long way is to create content that is updated, unique and useful. Again and again we see that sites that do all three manage to get more than their fair share of traffic.”

Well put.

I ordered - or thought I ordered - a few things for Adena from Sundance.com last week.  Their site has always been frustrating from a usability perspective, and I found the checkout process particularly confusing this time (it’s been a year or so since my last order.)  I thought I checked out correctly, and when I didn’t get a confirmation email, I assumed it was caught in my spam filter or just delayed.

For once I was ahead of the game.  My order was placed (or so I thought) well in advance of Christmas and Adena’s birthday a few days before.  Regular shipping had it slated for delivery last Thursday or Friday, and even if it was a bit late, no big deal.  Until, of course, Adena decided she wanted to celebrate her birthday this past Saturday rather than the following one as I’d planned.

Friday morning, I logged into Sundance.com.  I saw the order in my history, but no delivery date was displayed.  Everything looked normal, just no indication that it had shipped.  I called, and they explained that the order had been “placed” but not “completed” meaning they never got the credit card information.  I had to provide that via phone to complete the order — there was no such option online.  When I complained about that, the rep gave my favorite archaic line (not a direct quote):

“We don’t work with the online group — you’d have to talk with them about the web site ordering process.  I don’t know anything about it.”

When will they get it?  I don’t care about their groups and misguided legacy divisions.  I just want to give them money — why do they make it so difficult?

The rep went on to say that if I wanted to get my gift in time, I’d have to pay express shipping.  Not acceptable, I explained, and to her credit she came through with approval from her supervisor to send it next day without any extra charge. 

I appreciate their independence and wisdom for the gesture, and I remain a Sundance fan, just not of their outdated web site.  Hopefully they’re tracking “customer service” costs like this in a way that will help their web group justify reworking their user experience.

Congrats to the Razoo team for their coverage on the front-page of the Washington Post business section yesterday. 

Social Networking for the Socially Minded
District Firm Razoo Joins Other Web Site Builders Trying to Reinvent How People Give Money to Charity

The WashBiz blog also picked it up in the post Social Networking For Social Causes.

Viget has been working with Razoo, which launched a public beta this past summer, for more than a year.  It’s always a thrill to see clients earn major coverage like this.  I expect this is just the beginning of this kind of press for Razoo.

Misery loves company.  It’s true in life, and it’s true on Twitter.  When you don’t feel well or are going through a difficult time, most people feel better when they share their experience with others.  It’s human nature.  To some extent, other people appreciate engaging with people going through a challenge, either indirectly (watching a drama unfold from afar) or directly (being able to support a friend in need). 

These long-standing realities of human interaction are taking place on Twitter, highlighted by two recent high-profile examples:

1. Jason went through a travel nightmare.  His tweets along the way provided dramatic entertainment for his 5,000+ followers, including Fred.
2. On a much more serious note, the recent passing of Marc Orchant inspired dozens of blog posts.  As news of his heart attack unfolded, however, it spread quickly on Twitter, with those who cared about were Marc compelled to share their concern and support.

A less public and more personal example occurred this past week.

Over Thanksgiving, I set my mom up with Twitter (and Snitter).  I set her to follow my brother and me, and honestly didn’t expect her to tweet.  She lives alone about an hour away from us, and her work has her online a lot, so I figured she’d just enjoy seeing tweets about what her kids (and grandkids) are up to all day. 

Much to my surprise, she was tweeting immediately, mostly about things happening around the house.  Occasionally she’d tweet about her old dog Lucy, who hadn’t been doing well for the past several months.  About a week ago, with the support of her vet, she made the very difficult decision to have Lucy put to sleep.  She emailed the family, and we talked about it in person (you know, old school human-style) during a recent visit. 

In the days following her decision, mom’s tweets were telling.  “Wishing Lucy was a lot younger” and “Feeling sad about my dog…” and “I don’t want to say goodbye to my dog.” and ultimately just “Two more hours.”  Mom is too strong and independent to ask more of us to be there with her (my oldest brother, who lives nearby, was), but it was clear that being able to share her feelings passively with more people along the way was comforting for her.  We emailed her and called her, but group support via Twitter somehow seemed best — a way for us to deal as a family.

For me, it was another example of technology being both wonderful — it allowed a degree to connectivity with my mom during a tough time that never would have happened otherwise — and completely insignificant.  Human nature shows through, no matter what tools we happen to be using at the moment.

Mike has a good post that offers a bit of a history lesson on the late 90’s venture funding frenzy and how that drove absurd decisions.  In my brief stint at CMGI, I also experience first-hand some of the nonsense that Mike refers to.  He notes that some entrepreneurs who went through that period have battle scars that make them too timid to now, at a point when funding sources are back and start-ups can again take changes in the hopes that they can change the world.

The analysis is interesting and no doubt accurate, but I’m a big fan of experience and perspective.  I think that really smart entrepreneurs can see what worked and what didn’t last time — what made sense and what, in retrospect, didn’t make any sense at all.  Making smart, hard, risky decisions is what entrepreneurs do all the time, whether they’re trying to establish trust funds for their great grandkids or just trying to make payroll.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but being confident enough to make them at all is what counts.

One nugget from Mike:

“Taking risks doesn’t mean raising more money than you realistically need. It doesn’t mean hiring 20 people to do what 4 can do just fine. And it certainly doesn’t mean taking massive losses in exchange for a small amount of revenue.”

Too true.  Run lean.

I’m lucky enough to work with some really talented people at Viget.  Our design group came up with a great concept earlier this year to launch a recruiting microsite specifically for the design community called TeamViget.  Today, the site was featured on Nick La’s Best of CSS Design 2007 post over at Web Designer Wall.  Congrats to our entire design team for the recognition, especially Rob Soule and Thanny Le Young.

2 inspirations in a row from Scoble.  This game and this video are just amazing.

I also like the tagline “Coming to PC when it’s done.”  Classic.

The coolest thing about what’s going on with the Web right now is that game-changing innovation is sparked by small teams of smart, motivated people who just do stuff.  They try things.  They hack on their ideas and put it out there.  Some take off, some don’t.  The difference between now and 8-10 years ago is that the audience is really there, so the really cool ideas can really take off.  And thanks to open source software and open platforms, part of that “take off” is others contributing to the ideas to make them better.

This model has been limited to software, but BugLabs is taking it to hardware.  The BUG is a collection of open-source hardware modules that you can snap together to make your own custom device.  If they can successfully connect these gadgets so that the collaboration and community building can happen as seamlessly as it does online, there’s no telling what people will come up with.  Check out the video with founder/CEO Peter Semmelhack and marketing guy Jeremy Toeman:

It’s cool to see this “rough” product display, brought to us via a cell phone video interview, generating buzz and getting the word out.  No need for fancy marketing speak and flashy demos.  I’ll take an unedited chat with a founder/CEO showing off his/her product any day.  In this case, my favorite quote from Peter is:

“I’m building it because I really want it.”

That’s how the best stuff comes to be.  Kudos to Scoble for the interview.  My second favorite quote is Peter calling his company “Bell Labs” — a mistake I’ve never made at Viget Labs.

My dad, who was hacking on hardware and software as far back as I can remember, would have loved this thing.