Are You Creating a Sanctuary for Your Customers?
I dropped in on Barefoot Coffee yesterday to enjoy one of their fabulous Cubanos and noticed they had remodeled. It still feels cozy there, but it lost a bit of its independent spirit. I’m going to miss their quirky chairs. But, they still pull a great espresso drink and they still create nice latte art. And that, with a number of other touches, make Barefoot one of those sanctuaries that you seek out when you want a great cup of coffee that doesn’t come from the faceless corporate chains. I have a similar experience in one of my favorite dark little coffee houses in NYC, Caffe Reggio (image in this post). The funny thing is, I will go considerably out of my way to visit these places, when I could simply grab a drink at a place like Starbucks. Easy enough, since there is one within every quarter-mile radius. Read full article…
The Yahoo! Search team
See if you can find me. A “Where’s Waldo” experience
Auditory Bliss at 30,000 feet
I have always been interested in trying noise-cancelling headphones when I fly. But, I prefer the portability and comfort of in-ear headphones. So, until recently, there weren’t many desirable options. Then I discovered the audio-technica ATH-ANC3 in-ear noise-cancelling headphones at my local Apple Store. 
From the audio-technica site:
Read MoreElectronics in the control box create a noise-cancelling wave that is 180° out of phase with the ambient noise. This wave acts like a noise eraser: it cancels out the annoying sounds that surround you without diminishing the audio you want to hear. The result…a peaceful enclave to enjoy the music or movies of your choice.
Is Your Email Inbox Killing You?
After I missed a few critical email messages recently, I spent a good part of today simply trying to get my email inbox under control. Over the past decade, the “email problem” has slowly grown into an unmanageable beast. I looked at my work inbox today (this isn’t even counting my personal email accounts) and noticed I had over 18,000 emails in the Inbox alone, with over 3000 marked unread (and I file and filter even more than that). Ouch. Staying ahead of email, responding to one as several more come in, has become a Sisyphean task. Quite simply, email is failing us. The system hasn’t scaled with the volume and variety of communication we deal with today.
I’m obviously not alone in reaching this massive point of failure in the email system:
- Lawrence Lessing publicly declares email bankruptcy
- TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington returns from a trip and decides to simply delete his entire inbox
- Andrew Baron starts over as well, telling everyone to resend their email if it was important
Yahoo Search Goes Way Open
Well, we finally announced it. Yahoo Search is going way open very soon. We will be allowing publishers and site owners to provide us with additional information about their site. This will provide a next-generation search experience with results that can display some of the rich data that is today only available on the website after the user clicks through. For example, ratings and reviews, great photographs, useful site links, etc. The additional beauty is that users can control whether they want to see this additional info or not. Their choice. Read full article…
Read MoreApple TV and the 2.0 Upgrade
Yes, I’m an early adopter. That’s why I bought an Apple TV last year. And, I will admit that it has mostly just been an experimental toy until now. The biggest benefits? Being able to access my iTunes library of music and view my photos all from my living room entertainment system. My kids love going through all of our photos on the big screen HDTV. The YouTube videos were fun for a little while, but that faded quickly.
The 2.0 Upgrade
However, the latest 2.0 software upgrade finally made it a lot more interesting. Now I can instantly rent movies (including a number in high-definition with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound), buy TV shows, and browse Flickr photos on my widescreen HDTV (and I love Flickr)… Read full article…
Blu-Ray Wins: High Definition DVD Format Battle is Over
Well, it looks like Sony’s Blu-Ray technology has won the high definition DVD format battle. Toshiba is dropping support for the HD DVD format. This is great news for consumers who will no longer have the confusion of the competing high-def formats. Well, except for those consumers who invested in HD DVD systems. Sorry! 🙁
The Importance of Contextually-Relevant Differentiated Consumer Experiences
I have talked about the commoditization of the coffee business before. You can certainly get a good cup of coffee (or name your favorite coffee drink) at many of the coffee houses that sprang up over the past decade. So, when “quality” is no longer the differentiator that it once was, what is a coffee house owner to do? Well, as many industries are discovering, you start focusing on differentiating through the consumer experience.
Read full article…
New Yahoo! Search Experience has Launched!
Well, the biggest consumer-facing change to the Yahoo! Search experience has arrived. We just launched our new Search design this week, which features an incredible amount of great new improvements including Search Assist, multimedia integration, and enhanced shortcuts. Read full article…
Read MoreWhitepaper published: Search Engine Results 2010
The final whitepaper has been published by Enquiro Research for “Search Engine Results 2010”. In it, they cover what search engines may look like in the future, thoughts on personalization, universal search, eye tracking research, and interviews with leading industry experts such as Marissa Mayer, Jakob Nielsen, and Danny Sullivan. Read full article…
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