Who doesn’t like free stuff? Another application trying to turn your MySpace page into one-stop shopping spot, Free Stuff Times draws from items that are listed on it’s blog about free stuff on the internet. It seems like of a great way to shill content from advertisers, and some of the items smack of Amway promotions.

It’s not a particularly good implementation of a great idea, but it shows how you can use MySpace as a decent advertising platform.

Application rating (1 to 5, 5 being highest):

• Usefulness: 4
• Usability: 2
• Fun Factor: 1
• Stability: 5
• Monetization Opportunities: 5

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I’ll be the very first to admit I do a lousy job highlighting RSS Feeds on this site, and I just got around to adding a subscribing via email function. Many sites do a wonderul job of it. The truth is that the vast majority of users still don’t know was an RSS Feed is (Hey Dave Winer, just because it’s called Really Simple Syndication doesn’t mean people know what syndication means).

So here are a few tips:

• Add a subscribe via email function (which I’m going to add soon). Feedburner has a few options, and make the text simple, like what I wrote on this site.
• Make the RSS Feed image big so people can find it (and i find those little feedburner images too small)
• Add a link next to this called, “What’s this?” I’ll be adding a page explaining what RSS is, and most sites, especially sites with less sophisticated users, should add this.

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1. If you think a JPEG is a large party kegger.
2. If you think websites are where lots of spiders hang out.
3. If you think Photoshop is a new form of vocational training.
4. If you think a complimentary color scheme is plaids and stripes, you may be a design redneck.
5. If you think Clipart is something you cut out of the Sunday funnies, you might be a design redneck.
6. You might be a design redneck if you think toner is rubbed on before going outside.
7. You may be a design redneck if you think software is your under garments after washing with fabric softener.
8. If you think typography is related to the hill behind your house.
9. If you think InDesign is a new wave rock band, you might be a design redneck.
10. If you think a light bulb moment is when you open the refrigerator door.

The complete list is at Graphic Design Blog.

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You want to build a public facing website using SharePoint? It’s not a trivial matter (and not something you would expect the corner dentist to be doing), but it’s a great tool for it, and where I work at, we’ve implemented a few really large websites, and I’m in the middle of designing a large one for a government agency in Alaska.

J. Boye has a white paper on what to consider if you want to implement SharePoint for a public facing site. It’s a fair article (and I think worth less than the $200 I paid for it), but if you need some kind of opinion to give to your executives, this is it.

(I need to get in the business of writing white papers.)

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Where I work at, we have this phenomenal client list, but there’s a good chance you’ll never see it. Most of the work we do is intranet work, and it’s boring.

It also pays well. Very well.

A lot of consultants want to work on only the most exciting projects, where I’m trying to angle for less exciting government and corporate clients, because they have work no one else wants to do. Smart consulting companies do well with these clients, because they aren’t competing with many other clients.

For example, tons of agencies pitch websites for Paramount movies.

Few agencies or firms pitch intranets at Paramount because, well, it’s boring. No one’s going to see it. Yet, on my company’s client list, we list Paramount as a client, and our work may be more important to Paramount than a website for a single movie.

The website for the movie has to be built only twice.

That intranet for Paramount goes on forever.

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From Signal Vs. Noise:

There's more than one way to skin the revenue cat:

• If you sell web software, you can also write a book. Or put on a conference.
• If you're a design firm, you can also sell jewel case packaging. Or start an ad network.
• If you're a site that collects funny videos, you can also sell tee shirts.
• If you're a popular local blog, you can operate a flea market.
• If you're a computer company, you can reinvent the music business.

Etc.

Your self-imposed limitations on how to make money are often just that: self-imposed. Seek out other routes to your destination.

Great post. Sometimes we miss the obvious (and not-so-obvious).

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The domain name kind of sucks, and it’s not exactly an original idea (people have been doing this for years, and part of the reason we’re in this mess is because of the investors buying futures, which is the investing in the future price of gas) but Mashable points out MyGallons.com is capitalizing on the current situation with consumers where can lock the price of gas in at a certain price.

How it works:

• Pay the $29.95 membership fee and get a card in the mail
• Pre-purchase gas at a certain price
• Use the card at any of the 200,000 participating stations in the network

The site is fairly usable, but when I checked it, there was no place to look for locations near me, but I was able to check out how much I would save. I haven’t been driving a lot lately, but they estimated my savings at $400 a year. That’s ironically just about what I would set down at a blackjack table in Las Vegas, so I don’t see it as that much of a savings.

But if you want to hedge your bets, this is the place to go.

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The real goal of MySpace opening up their site to external applications is so developers will extend the profiles and give the end users more functionality to view their MySpace content. Flash Photo Viewer is a good example at an attempt to extend the functionality.

Flash Photo Viewer is exactly what it’s titled: an application built in Flash that loads on your photos on your home page, profile and canvas so you can view all your photos in a scrollable list, and see a larger version of a photo in the primary window. Click on that photo, and a new window displays the full version of the photo. While you view the profile or home page, the viewer goes into slideshow mode.

The application isn’t very complex, but it doesn’t have to be — it does exactly what it advertises.

The application design has a few issues though. It looks the the developer didn’t build separate Flash applications for the User Home Page, User Profile and Canvas, so the size of the slideshow controls is painfully small on the profile and home page. Additionally, the interface is clunky, not polished.

Application rating (1 to 5, 5 being highest):

• Usefulness: 4
• Usability: 3
• Fun Factor: 4
• Stability: 4
• Monetization Opportunities: 3

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With some of the people I work with, they think I come up with some of the designs and user interface components out of thin air. What I really do is look for patterns and best practices at other websites, and use them over and over again i.e. design patterns.

Smashing Magazine has a great (but lengthy) article about a topic dear to me — web forms. Web forms are the most important aspect of what we do because they usually lead to conversions, yet we spend so little time on designing them.

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Never mind that Firefox 3, the new browser, is so fast it runs circles around Internet Explorer 7 and Safari for the Mac (this after a long time of bloatware with Firefox 2), their website is the best I’ve ever seen at identifying exactly at getting people to download the browser. The navigation of the site has always been phenomenal (is there anything more straight forward than add-ins?), and this release, it just gets better.

The wins?

Detect who the user is in a hurry

Am I a Mac or a PC person?

No problem!

We’ll just look at the user agent provided by the browser and server, and we’ll detect the language and operating system. No choosing, just a small note that tells the user exactly who they are. This is a detail most websites completely miss (how many times do I have to see PC Software listed when I access Download.com?).

At the bottom of the page there’s content comparing Firefox vs. Safari, the native browser for the Mac I’m on. Brilliant!

How much does this cost?

It’s free! And they tell you it’s free! Download now! Operators standing by!

But what if I have the wrong language selected?

I would have listed some of the languages here (how many Japanese people will be able to translate Other Systems and Languages if their browser is set wrong?), but for the most part, selecting another platform or language is straight forward. The secondary page does it a great job listing the languages, but a poor job of translating the word “Download” into each language. Was someone, anyone paying attention?

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