Three Things I Love About Jerry Seinfeld’s New Website
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld recently launched a new website that brings together highlights of his 35-year stand-up career. I love the site, and I’m not really even a fan of his stand-up. Here is a breakdown of what I love about it.
1. The Approach
The site posts three videos a day, chosen by Seinfeld himself. And that is pretty much it. Videos aren’t archived, so if you don’t see the three videos the day they are released you are out of luck.
In a time when we can all pretty much access anything, anywhere at anytime, Seinfeld has chosen a curated approach that actually seems novel.
By limiting the length of time videos are available, the site also creates a compelling reason for people to visit every day. www.jerryseinfeld.com will immediately become a daily visit for fans. In a recent interview, Seinfeld called his approach “portion control.”
2. The Design
Like the overall approach, the design here is exceptional in its simplicity. Black and white, with the only color on the page being links to the three videos you can view that day. A single photo with names of routines overlaid. A signature for a logo. That’s it. It is perfect.
Here is what Seinfeld had to say about his inspiration for the site, and hatred of clutter:
“I hate people begging me for my attention and trying to sell me and entertain me and delight me and surprise me, that’s what makes the internet so annoying. I did my best to uninternet it. You know my literal metaphor was one of those little galleries in Chelsea, there’s just five paintings in there, that’s the kind of place I like to go to.”
3. The Lack of Monetization
Online publishers are becoming increasingly desperate to monetize. Online ad units seem to become more obtrusive by the day. Content is taking a back seat to Sear Engine Optimization.
Into this environment Seinfeld has launched a website with no monetization strategy whatsoever. No pay wall. No SEO. No ads. No t-shirts. Just content. While Seinfeld clearly doesn’t need the money, I think it is awesome to launch a site with the sole purpose of sharing his content with the world.
Social Media and the #Four26DC City Council Election
As Washington D.C. looks to further establish itself as a center for technological innovation, isn’t it fair to ask that our candidates and elected officials maintain a professional online presence? In reviewing the websites and social media accounts of candidates for the vacant at-large seat on the Washington D.C. City Council, is there anything you see (or don’t see) that sways your vote one way or another?
Alan Page: http://alanpagedc.blogspot.com/
The only Blogspot site of the candidates, the site is very basic but it gets by with clear navigation and good content. Donation button links off-site to Paypal.
Twitter: @AlanPageDC 1,970 Tweets, 287 Followers
Facebook: Unknown
Brian Weaver: http://bryanweaverdc.com/
A clean and concise WordPress site with simple navigation and plenty of content. Donation links off-site to Act Blue. Twitter feed is featured on the site but no link to Facebook. Bonus points being the only candidate I have seen who is running Google Ads for his own name as well as his competitors!
Facebook: 604 Fans (Most of any candidate)
Twitter: @BryanWeaverDC 1,811 Tweets, 1,017 Followers (Most of any candidate)
Dorothy Douglas: http://www.dorothydouglas.com/
This might be by far, the worst candidate website I have ever seen. Although campaigns for local office are by nature low-budget operations, you can still have something that looks professional and is informative without spending a great deal. As local governments increasingly turn to offering services online, anyone who votes for Ms. Douglas should be very concerned that according to this website: “our company” is located at 123 Main St, Anytown, MA.” Continue reading “Social Media and the #Four26DC City Council Election” »
March Madness: Hey ESPN, Your Facebook’s Broken
I'm a big fan of sports – I'm also a big fan of fantasy sports – kind of a nerd/jock hybrid and I'm completely fine with it. That being said, March is a big month for all fantasy sports nerds due to the NCAA tournament. Fans spend all season watching their favorite team in hopes that they will make the tournament and it all comes down to one day: Selection Sunday. Of course as soon as the teams were chosen, I, like many, rushed to my computer to start filling out my first of countless brackets that I would no doubt end up creating.
I must say, brackets have come a long way since the pen and paper versions of not so long ago. Both ESPN and Yahoo use what looks like a combo of HTML, CSS and JQuery (no doubt staying away from flash for mobile and tablet users) to create a pretty slick user experience. There are even some nice little Facebook sharing features and the option to email your friends. And these things are all great – if they work.
In my love for competition I thought it would be a great idea to invite some of my family and friends to join a group. I logged into ESPN, quickly setup the group and visited the invite screen. The first tab that shows up is a nice little email invite that appears to work fine- but who has the time to look up all those email addresses? I was much more intrigued by the Facebook tab.
At first glance I thought ESPN had created an awesome little tool. You could easily search all your friends, select multiple people and send them a private message including the group name and password. Simple, straightforward and effective – seemed great. Sadly, after I attempted to send my incredibly witty message filled with trash talk and sarcasm, I was brought to another screen with the same tool – only not in the ESPN site wrapper. Frustrated, I again typed my brilliant message, selected the same set of friends and tried to send again only to be greeted the same screen again. Now if my messages were actually sent I would be OK – not how I would redirect the user but hey, if it works it works. But it didn't.
Now its not the end of the world that I can't send my friends a Facebook message, in fact, I used the email tool and got the same desired effect. What bothers me is that its still up as an option. At this point ESPN obviously knows it doesn't work, if you attempt to use the Facebook tool you just get a link to a "#" so they are most likely working on it. But why is the tab still there? Shouldn't the kinks have been worked out beforehand? March Madness rolls around but once a year – shouldn't the platform be tested thoroughly beforehand?
And don't get me started on how the I couldn't post this awesome picture of my nephew as my family's ESPN group pic.
Here at Bivings, one quickly acquires the knowledge that websites must be tested. Tested over and over, and then tested again. We have some very detail oriented members of our staff who enjoy testing forms and pages until they break. These things are bound to happen, to quote one of our programmers: “The internet doesn’t run on magic and unicorns” – but maybe ESPN could use a few more of the Steve Petersens and Todd Zieglers of the world to test their products so it seems like it.
*Since this post was written, ESPN has fixed the issue with their Facebook tool. Nice job ESPN.
Is a Bad Website Your Best Move? Is Your Rent Too Damn High?
Last June at the 2010 PDF Conference our panel focused on Political Websites: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Taking top honors last time was George Hutchins followed by the Jerry for New Mexico site.
This week, after insurgent New York Governor candidate Jimmy McMillan, founder of the now legendary “Rent Is Too Damn High Party” shocked and amazed our nation with his debate performance (See Gawker for comprehensive coverage) it seems that the first thing many people did was immediately visit Mr. McMillan’s website: http://www.rentistoodamnhigh.org
We have also discovered what appears to be the official campaign site at: http://www.jimmymcmillan.org/
Make sure you have your headphones plugged in, as you will be in for a musical treat. Really!
A couple points on the website:
If the goal is to gain pageviews, the websites are doing quite well as according to the wonderful counters, we have tracked at least 100,000 hits to to http://www.rentistoodamnhigh.org just in the last 24 hours. Of course, while the recent spike is undoubtedly due to his memorable debate performance and subsequent media coverage, that does not explain the first 2 million hits. (Currently 262,00 results for “rent is too damn high” in Google, with an astounding 912 articles!)
Secondly from a stylistic and messaging standpoint, as Mr. McMillan states in one of his lyrics, “Your rent receipt is my campaign literature.” Given this, the website Geo-cities-esq use of animated gif images, counters, and generally cumbersome navigation is perfect. In fact, after most of our team spent the better part of their lunch hours looking over the site, we concluded that in this special case, because information is hard to find and the website is slow to load- discovering something new or interesting is actually more exciting then usual.
On the minus side, while we wish McMillan Entertainment had done something to anticipate the traffic spike, perhaps the fact that you couldn’t load the page makes it all the more appealing?
Secondly, yesterday there were several items in the RITDH store, such as a CD, campaign button and poster that I briefly considered purchasing as an impulse buy / joke to give away to friends and colleagues. Alas, today it appears the store is out of commission. Even his Etsy store lists nothing for sale. The sole item mentioned is an $18 tee shirt, but the Paypal order form does not ask for anything about size or quantity.
Third, I am not a campaign finance expert, but when you click the Paypal link to donate, you are not asked any of the standard questions that Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Paladino ask on their contribution forms about your citizenship status, whether or not the contribution is your own money and so on. Perhaps his best move would be to drop the candidacy, start a 527 and sell advertising on his website?
Finally- What do you think- Is the website so bad, that is is actually good?
The New GOP.com: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
I gave the new www.gop.com a mixed review when the RNC first re-launched the site in October 2009. A few days ago the RNC launched a new version of their flagship site, so I figured I’d take a fresh look at it. Overall, I think it is a nice improvement, although naturally I find a few things to pick apart. Following is the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the redesign.
The Good
(1) The use of space on the homepage for top stories/headlines is much more logical and cleaner than the previous site. I particularly like that they removed the giant Facebook fan box that took up way, way too much real estate for a questionable payoff in the old design.
(2) Under the prior navigation structure, there were an overwhelming number of drop down options, which I suspect lead visitors to be confused as to where to go. The options now are much clearer, and I like the use of primary and secondary navigation elements.
(3) In the previous iteration, users had to click a button in order to sign up for email alerts. I wrote at the time:
“The main call for users to sign up for email updates is hidden behind a click. While I appreciate this as a user who is already on their list, as someone who builds sites for a living I would never want a user to have to click more than once to give me their email. I’m a firmly believer in making the sign up process as simple as possible.”
This has been fixed and you can now sign up without a click.
(4) I like the little take action option that appears on the left side of the page, mostly because it is different. I do vaguely worry that it is a little too cute and that some users will simply not see it.
(5) I like the idea of having a list of Trending headlines on the homepage. However, I wonder if these items are handpicked or chosen based on an algorithm given the content featured (links to YouTube videos, external sites, etc.).
(6) The Volunteer Match tool looks really interesting. Curious as to whether it works.
The Bad
(1) The Issues section needlessly uses Flash – I presume in a misguided effort to mimic iTunes Coverflow. It is really clunky, and I think a more traditional presentation would have been much more effective and helped with SEO. They over though that section.
(2) The Blog section is also a little too cute. The RNC has nine different blogs, and in an effort to highlight all of them they developed a layout that is a bit overwhelming. I think they would be better served aggregating the latest entries and presenting them in a format that actually looks like a blog (basically one blog stream). A presentation like GigaOm would have been much more effective. As it is now everything is too compartmentalized.
(3) The RNC’s social network, Our GOP, continues to strike me as not very user friendly and not up the standards of the rest of the site design wise. It also doesn’t look to have gotten great traction, with around 10,800 users according to this page.
(4) It has been almost a year since the launch of the original site, and the design didn’t change much until today. I think the RNC should be iterating and improving constantly instead of holding back from these big release once a year.
The Ugly
(1) The new site allows you to change the background color from red to anything you want using a color picker. This allowed me to change the background to a sort of fushia/purple and add a pattern. The result of my artistic expression is below.
This strikes me as silly. It is the sort of thing that seemed cool back in 2002. Plus it isn’t implemented very well. If you change your color, the original color will flash briefly every time you navigate to a new page.
More importantly, if I’m the RNC I’d want to control my brand and present the site as the designers intended. Team Obama certainly wouldn’t have let me change www.barackobama.com to fuschia.