Pemaquid Communications

Standing in long lines
Throngs wait for pricey iPhones
Don’t these folks have jobs?

iPhones sure look cool
But sadly, the carrier
is AT&T

Wisdom or Folly?
In six months will you still be
Glad you paid so much?

got an iPhone Haiku? Post it in the comments

As everyone in North America knows, today’s the day Apple launches its new smart phone, the iPhone. Apparently no one is working today b/c they’re all standing in line to get one.

• iLine - People standing in line to get their iPhone
• iLike - New York Times says iPhone’s revolutionary interface design mainly lives up to the hype
• iDon’t - In case you were wondering, there are some people who don’t want an iPhone

What can the iPhone do? Play clip below.

Hello… Houston… we have a tech bubble. TechCrunch reports that one of the latest startups to gain funding is MizPee, a site for your mobile devices that lets you know where the nearest loo is located.

Consensus on the new site is “Huh?!?” (Read the comments). It seems most people just look for a Mickey D’s or an Irving station when they’ve got to go, instead of whipping out that cellphone and scrolling through search results.

Which brings us back to Web site usability, interestingly. Moral: think about whether people will use that Web interface before you sink millions into a Web site (oh, wait - it’s not their money they’re spending, it’s venture capital - forgot)

Looks like the whole Web 2.0 thing is bottoming out (remember companies that wanted you to buy pet food online and had sock puppet mascots?) The canary’s coughing. Deja vu, baby.

It’s official: we’re a Clicktale beta tester. We’ve set it up on a Client Web site that gets a lot of visitors to quickly gather data.

It records movies of a person’s visit to your Web site - you can see where the mouse goes onscreen, what links they click. Looks like it’ll be a useful tool for improving the user experience.

We’re excited to announce that a Pemaquid site, MaineLobsterFestival.com, has been nominated Best e-commerce Web Site by MESDA, the Maine Software and IT Industry Association. The Maine Lobster Festival’s Web site was redesigned by Pemaquid in 2006.

The online store is a custom-built version of the Pemaquid Commerce Manager, and allows Festival organizers to self-publish product imagery and data as well as access order information for fulfillment. The Commerce Manager is just one piece of a larger CMS, the Pemaquid Content Manager, that makes it easy for non-technical people to keep the Web site up to date.

The MLF Web site is one of three finalists for the award, which will be presented on Friday at Geeks in Black, MESDA’s annual gala; it’ll be held at the Portland Marriott at Sable Oaks. (Looks like I’ll be going…)

We’re really jazzed that a Web site that was such fun for us to design is up for this award!

There are a lot of sites out there that are “under construction”. It’s easy to find an entire site that’s under construction, like TaxpayerBillofRights.com, or maybe just a section or a page is in the works. I have a couple of thoughts on this.

First, in terms of usability, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to have a section of your site that’s under construction, especially if it’s in your site’s navigation.

People will click a link expecting to see “T-shirts”, “boats”, “free beer” or “hot sexy singles” - whatever. Instead they’ll see… nothing. You’ll leave people disappointed (especially those seeking the sexy singles). Not a good impression for your site.

It would be better in most cases to either leave out that page/section completely, until it’s ready, or at the very least, put more enticing information about the content that’s coming soon and, ideally, a date when the page will be ready for a return visit. Then at least you can encourage people to come back.

My second thought has to do with search engine optimization. If you are selling products online and have plans for line extension (you sell shirts and will expand to sell pants), you may want to have some sort of page that has some copy optimized for the new product line, to give the search engine spiders something to latch onto and bring the Googlers over to your site even before the line is out, in a form of advance online marketing.

Anything, though is better than “Under Construction”, which simply sends the message that your Web designer hasn’t built a page yet and there’s no telling when it might get done…

Apple has launched Safari 3, the latest version of its Web browser. Probably the most interesting thing about it is that for the first time it is available for Windows.

In terms of Web design, one of the good things about this announcement is that Web designers will now - finally - be able to apply CSS to form elements like input and submit.

Downloading….

As with most things in life, when it comes to content management systems, you get what you pay for. There are a lot of open source solutions out there, including Joomla, Drupal and Plone (interestingly, all three of these Web sites are “dot-org”, not “dot-com”. Hmmm…) Many of these CMS’s are “free”. Just download and go.

Often, that’s when the fun begins.

A “free” CMS is something somebody else built without knowing anything about the people who will use your Web site. They say they are “customizable”, and, yes, they are right. My car is also customizable - if I can just get Ricky Craven’s pit crew to soup it up. You get the drift.

When seeking out a content management system for your Web site, it’s important first to make a list of all the things people will commonly do on your site (post news, events, jobs, upload photos, buy stuff) and make sure the CMS you select will do all of those things well. Most of the open source CMS’s will let you download a copy so you can kick the tires (sorry about the auto-racing pun, it was not intended).

When a Client signs on w/Pemaquid, we’ll go through this process w/you. Then, we can customize our own standard CMS, the Pemaquid Content Manager, as part of the overall design process.

Marc Andreessen muses on his blog about switching to Mac after using a PC for the last 13 years. What does Andreessen, creator of the first browser - Mosaic - and a co-founder of Netscape, like best?

The most wonderful thing about the Mac in 2007 is that it has what Bill Joy refers to as the “it works” feature.

I’ve followed a similar path. After many years of using Windows, I finally got a Mac PowerBook Pro in February. Like Andreessen, who wanted ‘…to experience what most of the rest of the world was using…’ I felt pretty strongly about having a user experience that was similar to most Clients when surfing the Web.

Things finally came to a head for me, though, when: it took too long for my Windows XP machine to start up in the morning (10 minutes would be generous) ; it’s memory ran low (it happens to the best); and I realized I could run Windows apps on my Mac (that was the kicker - I use Parallels).

Not to mention the fact that I was planning on attending South By Southwest Interactive and would look like a total dweeb if I was the only one with a Dell (My fears were well-founded; I could count on one hand the number of PC laptops at the entire SXSW convention).

After a few months, it’s the little things about my Mac that mean a lot. I can’t explain it b/c I’ve never had the time to thoroughly investigate, but it seems like it’s easier/faster to do things like check my email. I’m betting that one fewer click for this or that activity is the reason, and after a while all those clicks I don’t have to make add up to a significant increase in productive time.

I’m trying really hard not to be a Mac snob, but that’s just it - I find myself trying really hard.

Did you know: People are already selling iPhones on eBay, even though Apple’s highly-anticipated cellphone doesn’t officially hit the market until June 29th?

Can’t wait to see more of Clicktale, a new service in beta right now that could prove useful in improving Web site usability. It’s a service that records every mouse movement, every scrolling action and every click as people navigate your site.

Can’t wait to try it. Please let me be a beta-tester!

We’re excited about some new features we’ve added to Portland Diner, the restaurant guide for Southern Maine. There are expanded listing pages and Google Map links to each restaurant in the system.

Even better, you can now create your own account and then rate restaurants and add your own mini-review.

More features coming soon. In the meantime - Bon Appetit!

(Editor’s note: while the names of those involved in this tragic incident have been changed to protect the innocent - and shield the guilty from shame - the events depicted have not)

Recently a Web designer I know emailed me to ask for suggestions as to how to handle a request from a client, a magazine publisher in Southern Maine. The request was how best to put a PDF version of the entire magazine on their Web site. We’re talking 50+ pages, and even after compression that PDF weighs in at… wait for it… 14.8MB79MB!! (14.8 was, unbelievably, for just one section - updated 6/8/07)

C’mon, people.

Let’s put down the latte and think about this for a minute. Does anyone know anyone, high speed connection or no, who says to themselves “Hmmm…. I wonder if the latest version of Portland Digest is available via PDF download from their Web site? I better make sure I have enough printer paper for that one!”

You don’t? Me neither.

Why does this publisher want to bestow this glorious journalistic achievement on a supposedly adoring public? According to my pal the Web designer: Just because. Just because they can. Actually, they feel they want to ‘extend their reach’ beyond their local Portland-area readership.

Huh?!? I think I’ve got an idea for extending your reach online. It’s called HTML.

Most print publishers are completely flummoxed by the Web. They realize they need to have a “dot-com” (b/c everybody does, right?), but beyond that, most would rather not think about the Internet. It’s wreaking havoc with their offline product’s business model (and things are only going to get worse as advertising dollars move online), but most respond by sticking their fingers in the crumbling dyke instead of figuring out how to take advantage of the new business opportunities the Web provides.

Right now, most publishers consider the Web to be a place where they shovel content that they previously put out in print. To an extent, I think the reasons are cultural. Many editors and journalists are not technophiles, so getting a newsroom or editorial staff up to speed on the how their businesses can be enhanced through new and innovative online offerings takes time.

As for the Giant PDF, if they do insist on putting this Godzilla-sized monster online (shudder), I hope that at least - for the love of usability, people! - they put the filesize in the link text so I’ll know I’m not supposed to click on it.

Mobile dating services are sprouting up to help people find a match while they’re sitting at the bar.

MeetMoi.com is one. You enter your ZIP code into your cellphone and soon you receive profiles of other daters in the vicinity. In theory, if your blind date’s a bust, you can get on the horn and call in a replacement while the night is still young.

Sounds like a great idea - if you live in San Francisco. In Portland, Maine, you might end up like the only guy in town w/a fax machine (no one to send your message to).

I could be wrong - I haven’t personally tested the service (I’m married, after all).

Think about it: when’s the last time you saw a cell phone ad that featured the user interface? Well, that’s just what Apple does in three new spots out in advance of the release of its anxiously-awaited iPhone.

I have one guess as to why Apple decided to show off the phone - at a base price of $499, the company had to show people why it’s worth shelling out the extra moola (they sold me). Second guess: the user interface is so different from other cellphones that the ads serve as a brief tutorial on how to get the most out of the device.