Welcome to the Escape Blog

A recent newsletter from E-consultancy has an interesting interview with Trevor Ginn, head of consulting for the newly formed eBay service provider Auctioning4u.

Auctioning4u has been set up to help those running e-Bay business accounts increase their sales and reduce time spent on the lengthy sales process. Typical clients include retailers wanting to dispose of last season’s branded stock & mail order companies with returns. Auctioning4u deal with the whole process of selling on eBay from describing the item, taking photos, answering bidder enquiries, taking payment and dispatching.

Whilst there are 300 online auction sites in the UK eBay is by far the most dominant and ranked as number 47 in Business weeks 2006 list of top brands. 

The article also mentions Google Base which allows free listings for those who have no web presence and it’s believed that this will eventually integrate with Google checkout to form its own online auction site.

For all you keen eBay junkies out there keep your eyes out for eBay express, which is set to launch in the next month.  This will allow buyers to search for fixed price (buy it now items) listed by professional buyers who offer guarantees such as 7-day money back guarantees.  Both Comet and Toshiba have set up auction sites to bypass eBay, and for a slightly more niche market see reptile auctions.

Happy Bidding!

Google CEO, Dr. Eric Schmidt, has joined Apple’s board of directors.  The announcement was made yesterday just after Schmidt was voted onto the board.

“Apple is one of the companies in the world that I most admire,” said Eric Schmidt. “I’m really looking forward to working with Steve and Apple’s board to help with all of the amazing things Apple is doing.”

Eric also sits on the Princeton University board of trustees and, of course, on Google’s board of directors.

"Eric is obviously doing a terrific job as CEO of Google, and we look
forward to his contributions as a member of Apple’s board of
directors," Jobs said. "Like Apple, Google is very focused on
innovation and we think Eric’s insights and experience will be very
valuable in helping to guide Apple in the years ahead."

The motives behind the move are unclear, but speculation amoungst experts is rife.  A common opinion is that this might be the first step in lining Schmidt up to be Steve Jobs’ replacement.  Others speculate that the two companies are banding together to take on Microsoft.  Who knows for sure? We’ll have to wait and see.

You can read the full press release from Apple here:

www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/aug/29bod.html

Google Book Search is an excellent online research tool that allows you to search the contents of books.  Upto now you have been able to read the pages of the scanned texts online but now google has gone one step further - PDF downloads.

Only titles which are copyright free (public domain) are available so you won’t find the latest Stephen King novel for download, but if you’re a fan of obscure texts or classic novels this is the place for you.

Simply visit www.books.google.com, select the "Full view books" search filter and search as you normally would.  If the book is public domain you’ll more than likely be presented with the option to download a PDF copy.

It probably won’t ever replace traditional libraries, and that’s probably a good thing, but if nothing else this certainly is a very useful tool.

www.books.google.com

If you’re interested in/work with design or typography this video will be both interesting and inspirational if you have a spare 5.

Paula Scher is one of the most successful and influential Typographer/Graphic Designers of the last few decades.

It got me thinking about how important the rationale behind a design route is and how useful it is as a sales tool. Sure your designs may all look great but if the client doesn’t truly "get it" then they won’t really buy into it. It is so obvious to the designer, or agency, that the rationales and reasoning behind a design route can be glossed over or not even mentioned at all at the point of presentation.

I will be taking more time explaining the "reasons why" in future rather than just hoping my “lovely, pretty work” will be understood and appreciated on its own.

P.S. as a designer, this quote about when a design finally "Clicks" really made me smile:

There is a moment when you figure it out and get it, and you think its going to be the best thing you ever did and it’s really exciting…as long as you still feel that, you can do it

It’s that moment that made me want to and continue to do this great job…

Thanks to brandflakes

A large chunk of what we do here at theEscape is website design.  The Web Team design and build the arcitecture of the site and the Design Studio design the look and feel - In essence designing the Graphical User Interface for the code of the website.

Not really sure why but the other day we got to thinking about how GUIs (inparticular the Windows and Mac GUIs) have changed over the years.  Anyway to cut a long story short we found this great blog post that shows you how the two GUIs have evolved - r-101.blogspot.com.

This got us thinking a little more and a Google search resulted in us finding www.guidebookgallery.org - a smashing resource showing how loads of GUIs have changed, including spashscreens, icons and even advertising campaings that accompanied them.

Do you ever read an email or text message filled with emoticons and wonder what on earth they all mean?  We’ll wonder no more!  Ask.com have added emoticon definitions to their search results, so next time you get one you don’t know simply head on off to Ask and type it into the search box.  It doesn’t explain all of them but it might help.

Check it out here: www.ask.com.

This 220 foot wide Firefox shaped crop circle was discovered in a wheat field near Amity, Oregon earlier this month.

Whether it was done as a publicity stunt, some fans playing a prank or even a
message from ET, it really doesn’t matter. Which ever way you slice it
this has to be one of the coolest crop circles ever made!

More Information. Firefox, crop circles

We often get asked by prospective clients about retention and getting people to re-visit their website time and time again. They have an existing web site, but no repeat traffic and few enquiries.

They come, but then they go, and they don’t come back.

Now, if you bear in mind, people won’t necessarily be convinced about your business after just one visit, it makes common sense for you to give them a big reason for coming back.

Have you got a reason?

Many of us concentrate so hard on getting traffic and visitors, we don’t really know what to do when we get them, let alone, how to get them coming back again and, do we do enough to attract them back?

You see, your web site is like a romantic movie that needs a happy ending. Boy meets girls and they meet each other some more.. and more… and more and more and… they fall in love. What are we doing if not trying to entice new clients (or lovers of us and our business) to meet us time and time again to take our relationship to the ‘next level’?

Seth Godin, in his book Permission Marketing, discusses this as a dating ritual and that’s one of the clearest ways to see the analogy.

Because, and this is nothing personal, why should anyone really give a damn about you and your company? You need to get them to buy into you and your business and that takes quite a bit of effort on your part.

The Answers

Companies are now taking up the blogging mantle (you’re reading one), which allows them to create [relationship building] conversations. You could also build valuable white papers or tools into your web site to keep ‘em coming back and, more importantly, fall in love with who you are. It’s all about the personality.

I’ll leave you with one last thought… it’s always the clincher. When was the last time you changed ANYTHING on your website?

Image Ref. When Harry Met Sally

Friday afternoon fun with jacksonpollock.org - go on, be creative.

Link ref. Brandflakes

Title ref. Stone Roses (Going Down)

So, I checked my RSS feeds this morning and TechCrunch pointed me to Topix.net - another news site I thought.

So I did the usual and typed in Basingstoke for search and a whole load of news articles came up. I have a little side hobby and was amazed to see some of the same stories (mine and through another web site (PR Leap) theirs).

I guess that’s why it’s called the web!

So here I am, I’ve signed up and posted a News article - all in the space of twenty minutes.

The free version makes me wait for 2 days, but that’s fine, me and Charlie have been busy elsewhere:

• Blink List
• Digg - Accessibility
• Digg - Better Web Sites
• Digg - Intro To Web 2.0
• Del.icio.us
• HubPages

Now, you may be wondering if it’s worth it. Well first of all you attract traffic to your website. You also create links into your web pages, which helps with your page rank. What’s more, other people pick up and blog about you, which in turn opens up a new audience.

Now you could argue, quite rightly, that it is not necessarily relevant traffic. It’s a very valid point, which is why we have localised our content throughout our web site. As great as it is being big in South America, we need to know who we want as customers and attract them. What these propagation techniques do achieve however, is an increased profile and increased relevance for what we do. When you tie up the increase in profile for what we do and combine it with the localised (Basingstoke, Hampshire) content, what you get is increased findability.

But Has it helped traffic?