All Things Cahill

Chris Willis outlines the lessons from his launch at footnote.com – a good list for technology intensive site launches that dovetails nicely with my experience. The list (go to his site to dive deeper): Make sure it’ll play in Paducah Be a Beta hater Identify the core functionality that defines your story Make sure it works Don’t launch a new site within minutes of a major press release To paraphrase – understand the market, always improve, know your strengths, test and…

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BrandAutopsy has a great video up dissecting the design of the slimmed down Wall Street Journal which debuted on Jan. 2.

David Churbuck has another epic post today entitled “Dark days for the press – my advice to a middle-aged reporter” For those of you that hold newspaper journalism as close to your hearts as I, it’s a sad truth. When I started in college with The Cynic – the student newspaper of the University of Vermont, then moved through The Boulder County Business Journal, and The Worcester Telegram, I would never have considered a world in which the value of print…

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Bray Studios London 1992

Another landmark online media move today by the New York Times – they’ve posted their first online video Obituary, for former columnist Art Buchwald, that includes an interview with the deceased about his life (and death). This is one of the areas where newspapers have the upper hand – they’ve got the talent to produce and the access to the players to do something more with an obit, or any story.  Bloggers may beat them to the punch but they…

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The NY Times, WSJ, Washington Post, and most of the big boys are now committing to blogging.  The NY Times has just implemented WordPress MU, which is interesting, as it’s an open source product.  Now word comes from MediaPost (and tons of other sources) that major metro papers websites have increased views on blog pages three fold. Now, however, there’s some objective support showing that online newspaper readers have taken to the publications’ blogs. Data released this morning by media…

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Okay, it seemed like a good idea the first time I saw it.  Snap preview is that bubble pop up when you hover over a link here.  But it’s starting to seem like those “intellitext” ads now.  I throw the question out to you: is Snap preview increasing the value of your Vario reading experience, or is it just another disruption?  Comment or email me to let me know what you think. I’ve also added avatars so that it’s easy…

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Mary Schmidt does it again – another must read, this time on the subject of “Building and Managing Your Online Office.”  Read her “When Bad Creativity Happens to Good People: post here, then read her full article here.  In my consulting work, I often have to review really bad web sites, from all sizes and types of companies and organizations. Some of the largest and most expensive sites are often the most broken (lots of style, very little substance with…

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I was reading an interesting bit in MediaPost today – entitled “Best Practices are Not a Crutch” and was struck by the truth of David Baker’s closing line: While many folks make a living off copying other programs and tactics and re-applying them in a different context, the best marketing programs don’t rely on best practices alone. They rely on a mix of discipline, business rules, creativity, and timely intervention to reinvigorate the programs and teams. I remember a friend…

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Playing “Volunteer Slavery” – I don’t know when, I don’t know where, but figure mid-70’s.