The crazy rotation that’s a part of any contractor’s life continues, but most of my gig time since HomeAway has been spent doing work for Ace Hardware. A handful of Facebook apps and a microsite made up the hit list.

I’ll actually be at work during the Super Bowl, sweating through one of the most nerve wracking launches I’ve ever been a part of. My contract gig at HomeAway is wrapping up, and after two months of ActionScript-slinging and Airport-sprinting, we get to share it with the world.

Third Quarter. Griswolds. Stay tuned.

For a brief moment this morning, Facebook and Twitter were both down. I quickly crafted a few succinct, snarky sentences before realizing I had nowhere to post it.

While Facebook seems to be back up and humming again, Twitter has confirmed that the site was forced down, and is being kept down, by an ongoing Denial-Of-Service (DDoS) attack. What’s a DDoS? Imagine 10,000 people descending on your local grocery store, not looking to buy anything, but just stroll up and down the aisles. Everything gets congested, and no one accomplishes anything.

Well, no one except for the people orchestrating the attack. Regardless of your feelings on Twitter the medium, there’s no denying its full-blown media darling status, or the huge bulls-eye that status places on its back. And Twitter’s (surprising) single network provider architecture certainly doesn’t help.

So what does this outage mean for users? Well, a lot and a little. We’ve all seen the stats on low retention rates for users that don’t dive into the conversation quickly–there are a lot of nascent n00bs that I’m sure will completely drop off because of this.

But then again, Australia and much of Japan will sleep right through it. The early-adopting Twitterati will probably enjoy the nostalgia of the Fail Whale. Heck, I’ve read reports of people taking strolls around the block to kill time while it’s down. What crazy times we live in!

So what does this mean for your brand? Well, a lot and a little. Companies like StockTwits and Bit.ly get smothered while sucking on the Fail Whale’s teat. Symbiotic relationships are great as long as there are multiple sea anemones for your Clownfish. No brand should place all of their customer service, marketing, or customer acquisition eggs in the basket of a pre-revenue startup still trying to find its way.

But then again, that’s not a news flash, because you knew that already. Right? Right?

Tossed on my lap by @jrea, this is easily the most imaginative integration of Facebook Connect I’ve ever seen. From now on, whenever someone asks what Connect can do, I can just point to this. We all get that you can log in quickly and post items back to your page, but it’s sometimes hard to explain why it’s any better than a vanilla Facebook app.

I literally screamed out loud once this got going.

For Pete’s sake, someone please convince a client to launch something this awesome so I can build it.

Many great products fail because they’re not explained well. But with its intentional, palpable disdain for servers, this video absolutely nails it, with language everyone can understand.

On the surface there aren’t many commonalities between a women’s professional sports league and the world’s largest airline, but they struggle with what we all do these days: how to make money.

Following the lead of international sports, the Phoenix Mercury have become the first WNBA team to put a sponsor’s name on their jerseys. Under the three-year deal with LifeLock announced Monday, the identity theft protection company’s name will replace the “Phoenix” and “Mercury” across the road and home uniforms, respectively. The team’s logo will appear above the “LifeLock” on the left side.
Mercury jerseys to have LifeLock name across front

The WNBA is a third-tier league, and European clubs have been doing this for years, but this is definitely the highest profile team sponsorship of a U.S.-based sports team. If you contrast the new jerseys with any vehicle in NASCAR though, the differences hit you like a brick. Instead of a simple logo on a mostly sparse jersey, NASCAR seemingly crams in every logo in existence.

Earlier today my friend Liz sent me an interesting article on FastCompany talking about the design difficulties of AA.com.

Designer Dustin Curtis was so disgusted with the American Airlines Web site that he redesigned it, and posted the results as an open letter to the company. Guess what? One of AA’s designers responded with a long defense about why better design dies a slow death at places like AA.
American Airlines Web Site: The Product of a Self-Defeating Design Process

The article says what you would expect, talking about red tape and bureaucracy (complete with obligatory 37signals reference), but the first comment brings up an interesting question: Does simplicity of design always improve revenue? The suggested design is pretty and more pleasing to the eye, but does that actually mean more tickets would be sold?

An auto mechanic used to be there if I remember correctly, and the smells, colors, and all-around groovy vibe make it feel like the absolute antithesis of the space’s former tenant. Last weekend I tagged along with Shannon to satisfy her sudden hankering for a smoothie.

The “wow”s started as soon we opened the door, and continued as our eyes repeatedly found new nooks and crannies to explore. We stood there for a while, pointing out different things and taking in their great attention detail, not realizing how quickly each person in the line in front of us was dispatched. Suddenly it was her turn and I watched as her head tilted back and her eyes open wide as the enormity of the menu dropped on her. Think Chihuahua at a dog park trying to figure out what the hell a Great Dane is.

The word intimidating really doesn’t do it justice. 40+ wittily-worded, delciously-described drinks beg you to pore over the ingredients of each one, but when you’re finished you’re no closer to knowing what you want.

Once I gave up on trying to pick something I might like, I noticed the “We Suggest” column. Each drink had a recommended $1-ish add-on to make the drink just a bit more perfect. It’s a genius way to up-sell when you have a lot of options, but it’s worth bupkis when you’re trying to just sell.

With a menu as daunting as theirs (and granted, DJ may not consider it as such), why not give customers a view that flips it around? Lead with the add-on that in turn sells the drink. Love hemp granola? Consider a blah-blah, blah-blah, or a blah-blah. Intrigued by raw pecan butter? Tough choice between a blah-blah and a blah. Sure, I’ll giggle at your clever word choices, but if I don’t feel informed enough to make a good decision, I’m less likely to buy.

And that, my friends, goes for $6 smoothies and $60,000 cars.

The next time you’re around Hyde Park, you should stop by and have a drink. The next time you’re visiting a site you manage, take the time to think about how daunting your menu/navigation/products might be to a visitor.

Sure, your nomenclature makes sense to you, but does it make sense to a Chihuahua?

“It is clear from the public response over the last two weeks that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about our plans to roll out additional tests on consumption based billing. As a result, we will not proceed with implementation of additional tests until further consultation with our customers and other interested parties, ensuring that community needs are being met. While we continue to believe that consumption based billing may be the best pricing plan for consumers, we want to do everything we can to inform our customers of our plans and have the benefit of their views as part of our testing process.”

Time Warner Cable Backs Off Metered Broadband Everywhere

Never.

The idea first popped up when I stumbled upon and applied for WK12, Wieden+Kennedy’s “experimental” internship program. I didn’t get in.

That was back in ’04, and I should’ve realized the match earlier, because I was obsessed with commercials and billboards as a kid. The socioeconomic delta between my neighborhood and my friends’ cranked up the contrast on the beer and luxury car dominated, predatory campaigns.

Wearing the heads down on my VCR with repeated rewinding of commercials, it didn’t take me long to identify what, in my head, I call the “Majority of Minorites” rule:

Unless attempting to market specifically to a minority, fewer than half of the members of any marketing piece will belong to said minority.

…

Hm.

…

So…I started writing this post about Next Day Air (can’t wait to see it) and The Matrix: Revolutions being extremely rare exceptions to the rule, but I’m calling an audible because I just remembered something.

A few days ago @hyams posted a tweet about a gay couple in a commercial. I just took the time to track it down and it’s terribly interesting.

Granted, this commercial isn’t an exception to the Majority rule, but its rampant ambiguity is fascinating. Is the “couple” gay? Are they targeting the Gay community? Is the rainbow pattern on his shirt a clue? Is never seeing a clear shot of either man’s ring finger on their left hand a coincidence?

Does the rule apply if you’re not sure if the subjects are members?

Have a look for yourself, and be sure to check out the conversation on YouTube and Twitter as well.

Have you seen the new espn.com commercials? I was giddy with excitement at the thought of hackable URLs on a site as large as ESPN’s, but much like prom night, I was left disappointed. What could have been a great campaign that would encourage users to use the URL as a navigation device, ended up being a classic demonstration of the divide between Marketing and IT departments.

So where did they go wrong? It’s a long answer that starts with some simple Google stats. Let’s run a Takedown, breaking down stats for the official URL used in commercials and marketing for three big brands: ESPN, JCPenney, and BestBuy.

The number of pages that Google sees for a site is a good number to keep an occasional eye on for any site that you manage. You can peek at it by using the “site:” argument in Google as in “site:jcp.com“. Taking a look at these stats, ESPN’s numbers are woefully low, and JCPenney’s are just plain egregious.

Come on, Mark, be real. JCPenney has way more than 4 pages.

They most definitely do. Although you see espn.com and jcp.com in every commercial and every piece of marketing, those aren’t their actual URLs. Have a look for yourself. Click on espn.com and you arrive at espn.go.com. Click on any link from the jcp.com home page, and suddenly you’re on www.jcpenney.com.

I don’t want you to think I’m trying to pull the wool over your eyes, so let’s try this again with their real URLs.

Well that fixes ESPN’s numbers; 5.9 million pages seems more believable. JCPenney’s numbers are still broken, but how they caught a bad case of the Endeca is a story for another time.

So what does the 5 million page discrepancy between espn.com and espn.go.com have to do with the commercial? Everything. Here was my thought process the first time I tried one of these URLs.

- Hm, that’s enough Facebook stalking for the 11a hour.
- Let’s go waste time on ESPN.
- Wow, the Knicks are embarrassing.
- Oh, let me try that “slash” thing from the commercial!
- Okay, delete everything after the “.com”
- Type in “/fantasybaseball”. Hm, page not found.
- Okay, delete everything after the “.com”
- Type in “/rumors”. Hm, page not found.
- Okay, delete everything after the “.com”
- Type in “/trades”. Hm, page not found.
- This blows!
- I should check my Wall—it’s been a while.

If I open up a blank browser and type espn.com/fantasybaseball, I’m whisked straight to the topic. The problem is, once I arrive at the site, the URL is changed to games.espn.go.com/flb/welcome. Try removing everything after the slash and typing “trades” or “rumors”? A big fat 404.

espn.com/fantasybaseball – Works
espn.go.com/fantasybaseball – Fails

espn.com/rumors – Works
espn.go.com/rumors – Fails

espn.com/trades – Works
espn.go.com/trades – Fails

See a pattern here? The redirect to a URL reflecting the now dead-in-the-water Go Network introduces a fatal weakness in the campaign.

I chose ESPN, BestBuy, and JCPenney to examine because they’re all utterly crippled by their abounding content. Most notable on BestBuy and JCPenney, you can sense the weight of the content in their overloaded site navigation and ghoulish page URLs. Even clever campaigns like this (I’m an unabashed W+K fanboi) are handcuffed by kludgy redirects and a lack of communication between departments.

It’s a shame, because for every successful use of a “slash” URL this campaign triggers, I’d bet they’re creating twice as many Page Not Founds and just as many frustrated fans.

With Coke’s global footprint, sliding into the 2nd spot sounds about right—there’s no reason that they shouldn’t be in the top 10. The interesting part of the story isn’t their ranking though, or even that the page was created by a pair of fans that stepped up and made it themselves. No, with companies either falling all over themselves, or doing absolutely nothing in today’s more social media for fear of doing the wrong thing, the unique part is Coke actually reaching out to the two creators.

“Everyone has this vision that if something like this happens, the big company will send you off to Guantanamo,” he said. “This was exactly the opposite.”

Coke instead flew the guys down to Atlanta for a few days of meetings, a tour of the World of Coke museum and a visit to the company’s legendary archives. It was a friendly, not heavy-handed approach, Mr. Jedrzejewski said.

“We talked openly about ideas, the future of the fan page,” he said.

(more)

Despite Hasbro always acting on the right side of the law, and continuing to make the Facebook app more robust, Scrabble will never be as beloved as Scrabulous was. There will always be a negative stigma attached to the game because the IP ordeal played out so very publicly.

It’s refreshing (heh) to see Coke approaching fans with a syrupy sweet (ha!), inclusive mindset, knowing that the bubbly (zing!) authenticity of actual, sincere fans is the most valuable online currency.

And oh yeah: High Fructose Corn Syrup. I couldn’t find a way to work that one in.