| LED Digest 2688: Viral Ideas? |
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The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom http://www.AudetteMedia.com : the LED's Publisher The Internet Marketing Boutique: SEO, SEM, Social Media http://www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. July 31, 2008 Issue no. 2688 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Viral Ideas ==-- ~ Will Bontrager "I would like to make something go viral and there is not a lot of time to do it in." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Design Resolution & Sizing ==-- ~ Peter D'Aprix "...it does seem that a lot of hot air is and has been wasted on this topic." ~ Tom Anson "...designing websites with auto-wrap is intuitively obvious." ========= NEW ===================================== From: Will Bontrager Subject: Viral Ideas I would like to make something go viral and there is not a lot of time to do it in. They are documents containing the daily lucky numbers of the two primary USA presidential candidates. Download is at http://affinity-numerology.com/Lucky-Numbers/Famous/ I'm especially interested in getting lots and lots of people to download those documents. Each one has a link people can click to order their own. Yet, three months is not a lot of time. It may not be possible to have a viral effect. But if it is, the sooner the better. Any ideas on how to do this, LED people? Come to the rescue of someone fresh out of marketing ideas :) Will Bontrager ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Peter D'Aprix Subject: Resolution For what its worth, it does seem that a lot of hot air is and has been wasted on this topic. If it is one thing I think we can all agree on, it is that in web work especially, there is no such thing as "one size fits all". Whenever I begin to frame a thought that might become a definitive statement, I have to stop myself since I can immediately think of a bunch of exceptions. I too started to design some sites for clients a couple of years ago where we knew the visitors were working professionals with large monitors and used high screen resolution. Then with the advent of smaller lap tops with high resolution but smaller screens that they use on the road and to take home with them, we had to rethink - again. With the difficulty of air travel in this day and age, more people than ever are downsizing their lap tops. I know I have. But each choice we may make, from fixing font size in pixels to pages that expand or contract to fit a browser window, there are trade offs. There is just no way to make everyone happy. I think the trick has to be to analyze your market and try to determine what sort of viewing characteristics it represents. For most of my clients, the number of visitors who are using 800x600 is about 3% which is about the same as those using Windows 98 and most of those have come to the sites by mistake. Since most of my clients have a market of high end buyers with a high percentage that use their computers in their work in design of one sort or another, we have a pretty good idea how they will be viewing our sites - and that is at high resolution. But if they are viewing on their laptops for whatever reason, they will still need a narrower site with the important content "above the fold" especially if they are using their lap tops to make a presentation to their clients. But for sites that have a very eclectic or hugely diverse set of visitors, I would think it should be designed to accommodate the widest possible scope of visitors within the ability of the site to put forth its product. In other words, this type of site should sacrifice some visual design control that us anal retentive designers like for usability instead; maybe using em's instead of pixels to spec our type. If this is known going in, then that kind of viewing flexibility can be the foundation of the construction of the site. All this does call for market research before pen hits paper or mouse opens design program. But then that should be a given for any site built, but sadly, so often is not. After all, a site is just a tool to achieve a goal or set of goals. Without defining that goal(s) in advance, a site is like a ship without a rudder. I have found that a clear goal definition is instrumental in making the most effective decisions in both visual design and programming techniques to achieve those goals. All my best Peter D'Aprix - Visual Communications http://peterdaprix.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Tom Anson Subject: Resolution Hi everyone, It seems that every year or two, we get into another discussion about how wide to design a website for. I agree wholeheartedly with Will Bontrager and Tom Aman that, just because your stats say that I have such-and-such a screen resolution, doesn't mean you should design a site for that width. I also agree completely with Karl Baldwin that designing websites with auto-wrap is intuitively obvious. I have a 22" monitor, set to 1600 X 1200 pixels; but I never have my browser set to full width. I got the large monitor specifically to have room to work with several open windows, many of which are visible at one time. My OutLook Express (even with the Folders and Contacts on the left side of the window) takes up just over half my monitor's width. I hate resizing OutLook so that I can read an email, and I'm not crazy about having to do that for web pages, either (although I generally have my browser width set a little wider than OutLook -- don't ask me why; I have no idea). I hate even more having to scroll side-to-side. I'm not too crazy about having a web page sitting there at a fraction of my browser's width, either. It just seems amateurish -- if not tacky. "Why can't people learn how to design a page?!?" Once I learned that you could design a page for variable widths, using a percentage factor rather than a pixel setting, life got much easier. Admittedly, for some pages, making the layout work for 640 px AND 1200 px can be a challenge, but the results are far more satisfactory most of the time. Another related point: I've started using Constant Contact for my email newsletters. One thing I found is that the templates are all set to a fixed width -- too wide to fit into my OutLook Express window. However, I've found that you can adjust the style sheet, changing the table widths from pixels to percentages. That has made everything work better. I really wish I could convince the people who send out my favorite newsletters (other than LED Digest) to use this option. I'd have more hair left if they did. Tom Anson www.doterra-aromatics.com (c) Copyright 1995-2008 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Happy anniversary to my dear, loving, sweet, one-and-only, partner, wife, mother of our girls, friend, confidant, lover, and hero: Sally. |
