Well, at least they’re mentioned. Real ones would have been tough to depict in a podcast, although me screaming might have helped paint the picture.
But this week is a solo show, hosted by Travis, guest starring Travis. I disucss the tease of salesmen, a big idea free for your taking, and some type of reptiles on a form of transportation.
We should be back to our two man show next week, but hopefully you’ll still enjoy this week’s lonely episode.
Swap the word medium for industry, competitors, market, etc… and repeat this quote to yourself before you begin any project.
Take a listen to two geniuses, Stefan Sagmeister and Joshua Davis as they have a series of discussions about what makes design great, from which this quote came.
They’re the poster child of the new web, and just so happen to actually be great at what they do. We’re talking about 37 Signals, creator of Basecamp. If you ever had to manage a project, organize assets, and make sense of it all, you’ll appreciate how much easier Basecamp will make your life. That’s why we love them.
When you invest a lot of time and energy into a project you make yourself vulnerable. Vulnerable to sucking. Not you yourself, but your work.
And when you get that “are we done yet� feeling, chances are your work sucks. But don’t worry, there’s an easy way to find out.
1. If your work is visual hold up a picture of it. If it’s descriptive, read aloud what it’s about.
2. Ask yourself, “does this suck?�
3. If you said no, you’ve just lied to yourself.
4. Show your work to a complete stranger and ask them whether or not they like it. Chances are they’ll reassure you how much it sucks.
No need to fret. There’s a simple way to fix your suckiness. I present two examples of viral marketing. If your idea is more like the second example, it sucks. If it’s more like the first, good job kiddo.
I’m a huge fan of HBO’s hit show Entourage. If you haven’t seen it, shame on you - go watch it! If you have seen it and you didn’t like it, make an appointment, you need to be checked.
I stumbled across an article from Entertainment Weekly where they asked Jeremy Piven (who plays the character of Ari Gold on the show) to channel his character and give some “Gold-en” advice. Yeah, cheesy I know, but I didn’t come up with it.
They’re two of the largest businesses on the net, each worth billions of dollars. They rank in the top 10 in traffic, have millions and millions of users, and are powerhouses in their markets.
I’m talking about eBay and Yahoo. You may have heard of them, once or twice.
At some point an entrepreneur came up with an idea and the startup process began. It happened for eBay, it happened for Yahoo, and it happens with every business.
We spend so much time and energy trying to make our businesses and ideas perfect. By doing so we lose focus on the problem we’re trying to solve and possibly interest in what we originally loved.
eBay and Yahoo were created from nothing and were far from what trends and standards would define as perfect, or bee-yute-eee-full. Here’s a look at their first versions.
They’re both gigantic portals now that millions of people make a part of their lives each day.
If your product or website somewhat resembles the first versions of those sites, don’t worry. Like I’ve said, something is always better than nothing and can always be improved.
Launch that project that’s been sitting on the backburner and let the public help you better it over time.
If you have any involvement in the web biz this is a utopia of sound bytes for you. Webmaster Radio is an internet radio station that features nearly two dozen different regulary updated shows that discuss anything from advertising to making money on the net. Each show’s professional production values are an added bonus and another reason why we love Webmaster Radio.
Socialmeter is a handy tool to test your site’s link popularity.
Lucky for you, there’s the Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator.
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