XHTML/CSS - Get a job

July 27, 2007 at 2:22 pm · Filed under Programming, RIA, Information Architecture, Visual Design, User Interface, User Experience

Terralever is currently hiring for several positions at our Tempe, Arizona office.  Here’s the job posting that was added to our career’s section today:

Terralever is on the lookout for a passionate, creative, standards compliant front end architect. We’re not going to bore you with the regular “must know CSS, XHTML, yada, yada”.The right candidate yearns for new learning experiences and has an exquisite passion and drive to be on the bleeding edge of technological revolutions. This candidate will have validation in life through amazing work and the W3C, a pixel-perfect attention to detail, an insatiable desire to be creative, and an ownership to their work that it’s the best. And a rockin’ iPod playlist doesn’t hurt.Terralever is located on Mill Avenue in the heart of downtown Tempe, offering our employees a hip, creative atmosphere. We have a team centric work environment which allows our staff to interact with all aspects of a project. We have amazing award-winning work for national brands, but we pride ourselves more for the extraordinary group of people that make it possible.If this sounds like you and a company you’d like to work for e-mail jobs@terralever.com with your resume and some sweet samples. 

The original posting is located on the careers section on the Terralever web site along with additional job postings for the roles of Senior Interactive Designer, Flash Production Artist, Senior Interactive (Flash) Developer, Interactive Project Manager, and .NET Web Applications Developer.We’re also always looking for best-of-breed candidates in search marketing (SEO and PPC) and viral marketing.

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Who did you say Microsoft bought? Did I hear that right?

May 18, 2007 at 9:52 am · Filed under Advertising, Online Marketing

Well, if you didn’t catch the news yet today, in a 6 billion dollar deal, Microsoft purchased aQuantive, best known as the parent company of Avenue A/Razorfish (which accounts for two-thirds of aQuantive’s revenue).

Here’s a quote from the AdWeek article:

The transaction, which must clear regulatory approval, will wed Microsoft’s technology firepower with aQuantive’s ad serving and network businesses. It also means Microsoft will own the largest interactive ad agency in the U.S., Avenue A/Razorfish, putting it in the position of both buying and selling online ads.

This seems like an odd marriage; Microsoft realizes, and addressed that, in the AdWeek writeup:

“We definitely recognize there will be a perception of a conflict,” said Joe Doran, general manager of Microsoft’s digital advertising solutions unit, in an interview with Adweek.com. “We want to make sure we draw that distinction for the rest of the ad community. We will be operating Avenue A/Razorfish as a stand-alone business as much as possible.”

You have to admit, Microsoft is putting their money where their mouth is. It will be interesting to see how this one moves forward.

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Google Universal Search, Timeline and Map Views

May 16, 2007 at 9:55 am · Filed under Beta

Google announced the beginning of a move toward ‘Universal Search’ today in a press release. Directly from the press release:

Google’s vision for universal search is to ultimately search across all its content sources, compare and rank all the information in real time, and deliver a single, integrated set of search results that offers users precisely what they are looking for. Beginning today, the company will incorporate information from a variety of previously separate sources – including videos, images, news, maps, books, and websites – into a single set of results. At first, universal search results may be subtle. Over time users will recognize additional types of content integrated into their search results as the company advances toward delivering a truly comprehensive search experience.

Of interest elsewhere in the press release is information about a version of Google’s search on Google’s Experimental Lab that provides the option of a timeline or map views of results. Here’s a few samples:Here’s a view of ‘gas prices’ shown on the timeline view:Google Experimental Labs Search: Gas Prices - Timeline ViewHere’s a view of ‘Starbucks’ shown on the timeline view:Google Experimental Labs Search: Starbucks - Timeline ViewHere’s a view of ‘Nato’ on the map view:Google Experimental Labs Search: Nato - Map ViewHere’s a view of ‘Katrina’ on the map view:Google Experimental Labs Search: Katrina - Map View

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Google and your personal information

May 13, 2007 at 9:58 am · Filed under Analytics, Privacy

There is a GREAT audio interview of Avinash Kaushik posted up on Eight Black. Avinash Kaushik is a Google Analytics Evangelist. The interviewer, Simon Chen, asks Avinash several times if Google intermingles the data it collects from various sources. Avinash answers “no” each time, which makes each subsequent query even funnier. Seriously though, it’s definitely worth a listen if you’re remotely interested in search, Google or analytics.

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Free Google multivariate testing tool now public

April 4, 2007 at 12:36 pm · Filed under Content, Analytics, Online Marketing, Beta

Google opened up its Website Optimizer (beta) to the public (anyone can sign-up). Website Optimizer is a fractional factorial experimentation tool (also referred to as a multivariate testing tool) which allows marketers to test various facets of the content and/or design on web page(s) their visitors view. In comparison to A/B testing, fractional factorial experimentation allows testing of a greater number of variables at one time while still providing reliable testing results.

The cost for Website Optimizer? It’s free. The catch? Depends on how you look at it, and more importantly, what your needs are. Things to consider:

1. It appears, although nothing in the documentation I read says it explicitly, that you can only run experiments on a single page (as opposed to a flow which consists of multiple pages-like a checkout process made up of 4 screens, for example).
2. I could not find any documentation that ensured me that users who were viewing a specific version of a page would see that exact same version of the page if they returned during the testing period.
3. Website Optimizer does not allow variable content to be a part of the test. You can apply Website Optimizer ‘experiments’ to variable content pages, however, the variable content itself cannot be tested against.

If you’re looking to test a single landing page which is well trafficked, or a part of a marketing campaign, Website Optimizer is definitely priced right. And, there is no doubt that multivariate testing is a more effective way to perform these types of tests. If you’re looking to perform more involved testing, you’ll likely be looking to other providers such as Offermatica, Optimost, or SiteSpect. Be warned: those tools are decidedly NOT free.

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