I recently attended the T3PR conference in NY. One of the most engaging presentations was given by George Wright of Blendtec. If you ever get the chance to see George put on his show - do it!

Blendtec is a small outfit out of Utah (Considering they're in the business of making blenders and blenders are, well, blenders). In order to market their product, Blendtec needed a "big idea" to separate them from the pack. They took the time to reflect and they found it: Video.

In order to create buzz (pardon the pun), they started blending everything from iPhones to rakes. Everyday stuff you wouldn't likely wake up in the morning and decide to blend (at least, I hope not). To prove that it's not a scam, George blended a standard size rake in front of our eyes. People in the room were riveted. Personally, I felt a certain closure in seeing the symbol of the labor that stole many hours of playtime from my childhood reduced to a pile of wood chips. It was a powerful demonstration.

To see the an example of how the concept has taken off on the web or to see the rake blend for yourself check out : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M32baqJGo0A

Blendtec translated this performance effectively online where the company's unassuming president blends everything. It has become a cult phenomenon and a highly successful viral campaign. Willitblend.com has won awards and drives large traffic. People recommend items to blend. Check it out at http://www.willitblend.com/ and see for yourself.

Many people shy away from the "big ideas" because they have big price tags. This project was done on a shoe string budget and has cost pennies per view - maybe less then a penny.  I have to double check with George. 

Note: The pictures are with George Wright and my fellow willitblend.com fan, Julie Brumlik ceo of Dremu Skincare in Miami. Thanks for the pictures Julie!!! And George, thanks for the memories.

 

Last week a few of us at Flightpath attended the Web 2.0 Expo at the Javits Center here in New York. I mostly attended sessions from the developer track and there is one theme in particular that I want to comment on: the future of JavaScript is bright.

JavaScript, the scripting language used in web browsers, is getting a boost. Firefox, Safari and, most recently, Google's Chrome browser have recently claimed improvements to the speed of their JavaScript engines. And we are not talking small improvements. When Google introduced Chrome, they stated that it was many times faster than that of other browsers and indeed benchmarks showed that. In introducing Squirrelfish Extreme (the new JavaScript engine for Safari), the WebKit team presented benchmarks that showed the new engine is over 10 times faster than Safari 3.0. Mozilla is also continuing to make JavaScript improvements for Firefox. Although trailing the speed race, Internet Explorer 8 is 2.5 times faster than IE 7 in some benchmarks. I believe the more dramatic improvements of the other browsers will pressure Microsoft into further improving the speed of JavaScript on Internet Explorer.

In addition to speed improvements, there are other browser related improvements that will empower web developers to build even more powerful applications. HTML 5 contains support for offline, locally stored data. Some browsers are starting to implment this features and Google Gears, a browser plugin, lets web applications store data locally in a fully-searchable database and run JavaScript in the background to improve performance.

What does this mean for web development? It means Web applications can be more robust and do more. It means that Ajax is a serious contender to flash for creating rich internet applications (RIAs). Other new features to browsers, including offline support, mean that browser apps are continuing to become more like desktop applications. Many of us were wowed by the improved user experience when Ajax first gained traction, and I believe we are entering a new era in which web applications are going to be able to integrate with the desktop to provide an even richer user experience. This is great for those of us who have extensive web development experience as it means we can leverage our HTML, CSS and JavaScript skills to create ever more powerful applications. After the last few years in which we've seen that the greatest improvement to web browsers has been the addition of tabs (well, maybe improved CSS support beats that, but you get the point), it is nice to see the competition and innovation heat up.

School's back in session. The leaves are changing color. And online retailers are gearing up for Q4 - the holiday season. The ability to market consumers is critical at this time of year. Website Magazine has just posted an article in their latest edition that includes 5 tips to help online retailers maximize their holiday campaign. The five tips include:

1. Build Seasonal Landing pages - Seasonal landing pages are a great place to showcase products, especially great gifts for the holidays. How about a snow globe? Holiday recipes with links to purchase ingredients. Give the consumer ideas and your conversion rates might increase.

2. Favor Offers Over Branding - During the holidays, the consumer is not focused on your company brand. They're more concerned about the products they need to purchase. Try applying a little seasonal touch on your web site.

3. Using Paid Keywords and Organic Search - The quickest way to drive traffic to your web site is through paid search. Ensure you are using the correct keywords to increase page visits.

4. Know Your Audience - Take a look your customer base and reach out to them with enticing offers. A good place to start is their Shopping Carts or Recently Viewed items list. If they've opted to receive email communication from you, send them an email offering them a coupon or free shipping for placing order on your site.

5. Seasons Matter - Match the season and create seasonal offers for your merchandise.

Here are some examples of what we've done for our clients:

Bring Pets Home - Every other month, on behalf of our client, we update the top navigation and Deals page to reflect the current season or holiday. For example, for September's Back to School we've dressed up the site with pencils and notebooks. The newsletters we send on behalf of the organization also use the same theme.

Cartoon Bank -  A section called 'Gifts' is often refreshed to reflect the latest holiday. Not only are the lead banners updated to show what time of year it is, but also the product selection.