Category: Not Cartoons

Cross-Stressing

andertoons2 Comments

SwtJust lately I finished up Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and picked up Lego Star Wars II. Despite the fact that my 7-year old nephew is playing the same game, I gotta tell you it’s a hoot and a half.

So I was mildly interested when I saw that a Lego Batman title is in the works, but at the same time, I’m disturbed by all this cross-branding as of late. (Star Wars Transformers?! Yeesh!)

Taking the associated brands into a video game seems barely acceptable, but you just know that Lego Batman Tansformers are around the bend. Or Teenage Mutant Ninja GI Spider-Joes. How about Simpsons Lincoln Log Monopoly?

The whole trend just screams “hey America, we’re all out of ideas! But we’d love it if you kept buying our crap!”

I say once we hit “three, three, three brands in one!,” it’s officially time to move to Sweden.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Amazon’s Emetrics Don’t Suck

andertoons2 Comments

AmazonOK, first off this data is at least three years old, but I still think it’s fascinating.

I ran across it at Web Pages That Suck (I looked for a permalink, but couldn’t find one.  Look for "When Simple Design Doesn’t Work").  It’s a PDF of an Amazon.com presentation from 2004 that discusses, among other things, Amazon’s A/B testing.

There’s some great examples starting on page 14 showing differences in their top navigation tabs, a scaled tab that never was, and, the most interesting part for me, a look at simpler pages vs. more crowded pages.

Now, if you believe the current Web 2.0 trends, which I like from a design standpoint, you’d think more "white space" and less crowding would be more attractive and, hence, more profitable.

Well, it turns out that for a retailer like Amazon with lots to browse and recommend, more is better.  Cart adds were down and abandonment was up.

Amazon is well known for leaving nothing to chance, and letting the numbers speak for themselves, so, looking back at my own redesign, I’m really glad I looked closely at how they organized their home page.

I’d love to do some intensive A/B testing when time and budget allows.  Not only would it yield some interesting results, I think it’d just plain be a lot of fun.

Anyway, check it out.  It’s pretty fascinating.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Andertoons 2.0 – New Filemaker Database

andertoons2 Comments

I love Filemaker.

I think the common conception of the artist is one surrounded by various piles of slovenly creativity.

Not me.  I’m a neat freak.  (OK, I leave dirty clothes next to the hamper in my bedroom, but that’s another blog…)  I revel in being able to take gobs of information and organize it into tables and layouts and such. 

So getting to design a new Filemaker database to match the data structure of the new Andertoons?  Heaven.

Here’s my old FM layout (click to enlarge):

Olddb

Not too bad for my first try, and it served me well for years.

But here’s my new digs (again, click to enlarge):

Db2

 

Oh yeah…  That’s nice!

With Fliemaker 8.5, I can now pull the thumbnail from my site and see it live in the database instead of adding thousands of JPEGs to the database itself.

And each tag now has its own entry, instead of being a single field filled with comma-separated keywords.  (Notice how they alphabetize themselves?  JOY!)

I’ve also added some new buttons for myself at the top and side to speed repetitive tasks.

Everything I need at a glance.  And fun little icons to boot!

I’m such a nerd.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

The Andertoons ChaCha

andertoons

Ran across ChaCha again over at TechCrunch, and finally gave it a try. Here’s a transcript of my human guided search:

Status: Connecting …

Status: Looking for a guide …

Ring: …

Status: Connected to guide: joshua(79876)

joshua(79876): Welcome to ChaCha!

You: Hey there

You: I need some good business cartoons

joshua(79876): Welcome to ChaCha! Please wait a moment while I search for your results.

You: k

joshua(79876): Please be more specific as to what you’re looking for on this topic.

You: I just need some funny business cartoons for a presentation

You: Where could I purchase some?

joshua(79876): does it matter of what business the cartoons are about

You: Nope

You: Generic business

You: Sales and stuff

Then results started appearing in the right column:

Chacha

I waited until four results showed up. to continue:

You: Cool, that Andertoons looks good

You: Thanks!

joshua(79876): no probuno momento por favor

joshua(79876): lno problem

joshua(79876): anything else i can help with today

You: Nope

joshua(79876): k have a nice day and thanks for choosing chacha

joshua(79876): Please RATE ME. Thanks for using ChaCha.

Status: Session ended.

I rated the guide as “GREAT” even though the results I got were under the heading “Health > Conditions and Diseases”

ChaCha is interesting, but dreadfully slow in a “I’ll just Google that real quick” world.

Anyway, kinda weird, but nice being #1.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Congratulations!

andertoons3 Comments

A quick congrats here to my brother-in-law for landing a great economics teaching gig at the University of Kentucky!

Turns out that when you’re interested in microeconomic theory, industrial organization, and applied microeconomics, work your ass off, get a PhD, and generally impress the hell out of everyone in your field, people really want to hire you!

Seriously, the guy is smarter than three of me put together, and that’s even if you dress all of me in lab coats.

Again, a HUGE congratulations! No one deserves it more!

Technorati Tags: