Comments for Not Will Smith

Comment on The Yellow Brick Road to Salem by Dad

Dad — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:50:34 +0000

Be careful! Bad weather out there! Have a safe trip.

Comment on The Yellow Brick Road to Salem by Latest photos from the road – Not Will Smith

Latest photos from the road – Not Will Smith — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:33:22 +0000

[...] are some of the latest photos from my trip from Arizona to Oregon. Check back as I will be adding to this gallery. jQuery(document).ready(function(){ [...]

Comment on The only thing constant by Cori Marx

Cori Marx — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:19:35 +0000

Will,
I remembered reading this post so long ago and thinking how sad it was – for those friends – and how lucky we (me) were to have you at OMA. We are around coworkers more than our “loved” ones, so finding ones you enjoy makes work about 90% better. For me, working with you made me feel smarter, funnier, like I was a better designer, and like I had someone to help – even if it was to find an image, demystify a program, explaining what the heck was happening on TrueBlood or not crawling under the table when I customize/send back all my lunch orders. All the things a good friend does, few that you can hope for in a mere coworker. I hope we can maintain some of our friendship – after all, Spark is our main form of communication – but I do agree with your post – there is magic in being thrown together under certain circumstances that is hard to keep up with a keyboard.
If one of your future co-workers is smart enough to read your blog – I hope they realize just how lucky they are – and how lucky I know I was.
Go forth and conquer William – I can’t wait to read all about it!

Comment on AZIMA talks Facebook Marketing by Hello world!

Hello world! — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:03:59 +0000

[...] crazy huh? Well, maybe it isn’t so far fetched. I’ve debated the concept ever since Facebook sent some representatives to come speak at AZIMA, the Arizona Interactive Marketing Association meeting a few weeks [...]

Comment on Facebook – your company’s new web site? by Heidi Cool

Heidi Cool — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:19:42 +0000

Interesting. Like Joseph, I’m also a Web developer, so I’ll admit to having a certain bias towards self-hosted sites.

I think having a Facebook Fan page is probably better than not having a Web site at all, but I think there are still too many drawbacks for most businesses. The advantage you describe of having your fans see your updates on their walls is a plus, it’s like getting people to subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed. But it doesn’t allow for evergreen content that people might want to access in the future. One can click the more button or do a search, but otherwise there’s really not a good way to archive and categorize those little snippets we share on Facebook pages. Tools like FBML and Posted Items Pro allow us to more easily customize our Facebook content, but it’s still pretty limited.

For someone who can’t afford to have a site built, I think I’d be more likely to recommend using a self-hosted Wordpress installation with a free template theme. This way they can get started with a pretty clean and functional site, then as they grow and have more money they can hire someone like me or Joseph to customize it to better suit their needs. They could still have a Facebook page as an additional online presence and traffic generator, but the Wordpress site could serve as a more permanent and adaptable home, complete with analytics, SEO, etc.

I find it interesting that you are seeing such a high bounce rate for social media traffic. I’m getting a high bounce rate from StumbleUpon (82%) which seems logical given the nature of the service, but I’m averaging 35-60% from LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter with those visitors reading an average of 2.77 – 3.81 pages per visit. I think our bounce rate from social media depends a lot on our given social media strategies, who we engage with online, as well as the content we provide.

Having a Facebook page is certainly a good idea, but I’m not sold on having it be one’s primary site. I also agree with Joseph that it’s important to have your own space and not be entirely dependent on a free service like Facebook. As big and stable as it is, it could still go away someday, or lose the popularity race to some new service we’ve not yet seen. I was an avid user of Pownce. In 2007 Pownce and Twitter were perceived by the media as direct competitors. Pownce was more robust, with a cleaner interface, the ability to embed media, create friend groups, etc. It was far more useful than Twitter, but Twitter won the popularity game and Pownce shut down in December. We never really know what the future may hold, even for a heavyweight like Facebook.

Comment on Apple Tablet: Will you buy one? by Rob

Rob — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 03:58:58 +0000

The “prototypes” don’t actually look that appealing to me. When I think of tablet I think of something with a pen that I can use to write and take notes and such. My HP work tablet is not bad, it flips around and closes with the screen out to use with a pen, it’s not bad, I just don’t use it that often. My boss loves it and uses it all the time. Also not sure I’m ready for a touch computer. The iphone is fine for that but we bought a few of the HP touchsmarts and they’re a pain in the ass to actually touch the screen to use it while the keyboard and mouse are right in front of you. Seems like they were in such a hurry to release their cool new toy and beat Apple on something they forgot to think about real world functionality. I probably would not buy a tablet.

Comment on Facebook – your company’s new web site? by Joseph

Joseph — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:10:54 +0000

Now, if we were talking about a community-oriented non-profit, it would be a completely different story. Non-profits could be perfect for something like this.

Comment on Facebook – your company’s new web site? by Chase Granberry

Chase Granberry — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:06:09 +0000

Facebook is an ecosystem of it’s own and one that’s growing at a pretty crazy rate. There’s no reason why a Facebook page can’t represent a business entirely on it’s own. Like you pointed out, Facebook as a platform has just about anything the good majority of businesses need and there’s no complicated setup or risky/expensive developer you have to pay.

For the micro business it’s perfect. I have a buddy who’s a chef and he’s started selling his rubbing salt to anyone willing to pay. He’s got a website but it looks like crap because a buddy set it up for free on GoDaddy and he doesn’t know how to use it. Will, I may have invited you to fan it (Slavo Salt), can’t remember but it’s amazing by the way. Anyways, the site and blog look like crap but the Facebook page is an entirely different story. It’s clean, interactive and easy to customize / add content. It’s also got those viral hooks built in so people get exposed to it.

I’m trying to convince him to focus on the Facebook page and not spread himself too thin with a website, blog and Facebook page. He could do much more damage on Facebook than anywhere else especially considering his technical knowledge.

Facebook has made it much more efficient to connect as “Friends” and if that platform enables small businesses to reach more people more efficiently … well, then that’s big business.

Comment on Facebook – your company’s new web site? by Joseph

Joseph — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:00:32 +0000

Insanity is a bit harsh… maybe.

There’s a difference between not thinking it’s the right solution for every problem, and not taking it seriously. I take it very seriously.

Facebook a great platform, but a site that can show something like this (http://twitpic.com/ek4d6) as one of the first things a user sees after login has no business being the homepage for any serious business.

Comment on Facebook – your company’s new web site? by William Smith

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:59:07 +0000

Insanity is a little… harsh?

I am merely stating that, with very few exceptions, you can technically replicate the functionality of a web site through a Facebook page. It requires some customization and development, sure, but it is possible. It wouldn’t be for everyone, but I think it is an interesting concept and I’d love to see someone try it.

The way people consume content these days is just different. I don’t believe that you need to have a large, complicated web site anymore. And, i think that social networking is here to stay. I don’t think you can really compare Twitter to Facebook (or even MySpace for that matter). Those sites don’t have the user base of Facebook, or the same type of mature platform. MySpace went after kids (now, they are going after bands) and Twitter can’t get their act together and even keep their site up. I am not sure that Twitter is built for the long haul, whereas Facebook is. I also believe that Facebook Connect is a step towards a unified login and that Facebook will serve as the sign in for all of your essential web services within 2 years.

With all of these things going for it, I don’t see how you can’t take Facebook seriously.