For those of us in the business of creating web sites, the concept, the message and the look/feel is literally just the beginning – not the end. From there the Designer is charged with carrying the design throughout the site while doing the original concept justice, the Copywriter has pages and pages of “consistent message” to write, the Technical Architects and User Experience Engineers have to create a feature set and figure out how the whole thing fits together. Then, the programmers have to bring it to life while making sure that it’s stable, looks right in all browsers, matches the comps/requirements and is easily adminable by the client. All the while, the Account Manager and Producer are doing their best to make sure that the original expectations of the client are being considered and the whole thing is on brief, on budget and on schedule. Madness.

However, consider the concept of a market targeted website compared to a print campaign. It’s an intangible, interactive, engaging, analytics gathering machine and by its nature lends itself to experimentation and a fair amount of trial and error. Print designers don’t have the luxury of real time analytics, they can’t experiment with different callouts or navigation schemes or tag lines. There’s no SEO on Outdoor. Try changing a typeface on a billboard and then ask it how effective it was the next day. Nope, they have to go with what they think their demo will respond to – and when they get it wrong, the work just sits there and stinks. Hell, even when they get it right, it’s damn near impossible to truly quantify the effectiveness. So, while we may have a bigger mountain to climb, the extra work adds up to more complete, goal driven solutions for which we are accountable to the client. When we get it right, conversions go up, visits go up, we can track provable improvements in brand awareness and can calculate an actual ROI – but even if we get it wrong, we can fix ‘er on the spot. I don’t think I could live without that, I don’t think any of us could. So, we’re web guys for life – or maybe I’ll just go be a UPS man.

Google’s 2011 big strategic (mobile) initiatives include Mobile Money.

After limited testing in 2010, Starbucks just rolled out their Starbucks Card Mobile App payments system everywhere (not just Target locations anymore).

These seemingly incremental moves are part of a groundswell change in the way we pay for things, how brands engage consumers…or we, as consumers, interact with the brands we love. And they have additional upsides, like now Starbucks won’t have to pay for, produce, distribute as many cards, which is surely not bad for the environment. Will physical credit cards (and the smart cards than never got traction in the US) go the way of paying with checks?

Mobile, catch the wave…could be an ’80’s throwback movie.

A few years ago, while working for Sterling Rice Group, I produced an on-site live web-cast for the unveiling of a new Bernina product. Most people would agree that a Broadway style production whose ultimate climax consists solely of yanking a sheet off of a sewing machine is nothing to get excited about – and I just wanted it over with. Nonetheless, after a week of being immersed in this intense culture of dealers and super-customers, I found myself in my hotel room at nights sketching designs for a back pack concept constructed from dog food bags (you know, those heavy duty, foil lined ones). I was into it! The subject matter literally couldn’t be lamer but they got their hooks in me. And we’ve all been there.

This sort of palpable enthusiasm and energy is a powerful thing. It has a profound effect on your perception of what’s possible. It brings something out in us – probably a remnant of a selected-for trait in humans that naturally gets us excited about whatever others in close proximity are groovin’ on. It makes sense.

So, how does this relate to business, or more specifically our business? Having worked with the Akavit clan since September 2008, I’ve always had a sense that there’s something different about this team. There’s an “it” factor that I couldn’t put my finger on. The week before Christmas 2010, while jamming with the team on a hairy deadline, it hit me. Number one, we love what we do. It’s December 23rd, we’re under the gun yet we’re still having a blast, staying on brief and right until the end we’re tossing out ideas to make the product the best it can possibly be. There is a genuine, fanatical enthusiasm generated by this team when we’re together getting shit done. In those moments, that product is our “thing” and we’re all about it. Mind you, I’m not talking about the synthetic, contrived Salesman style enthusiasm; I’m talking about boys at Christmas opening up slot car tracks. Number two, we love this company and we love our customers. This is key because it keeps the enthusiasm up and passion flowing through the glamorous and unglamorous projects. Because of this passion for,it’s easier to stay focused on the bigger picture.

Since it’s already too late to avoid full-blown pontification with this post, I might as well say it. Akavit rules as do our customers. And I’m honored to be a partner in this fine organization as of Jan 1st. Here is to growth, integrity, class, quality and profit in 2011.

Yep, after nearly a year and a half in this office space, Akavit HQ now has permanent signage, mind, nothing fancy, but with a little Akavit-style. It’s strange how something as simple as a sign can make a place feel different…maybe even official. Not sure that it fits in with the song’s point anything, but we have a sign, and it says, if you’re looking for Akavit, you’ve found it.

Thanks to our producer maximus, Mr. Betts, for his part in making it happen. Looks cool!

First of all, I’m a proud alumni of the Avaya/Lucent companies. My tenure spent with your company was a great time in my life. You’ve always treated your employees and customers with lots of respect but I’m afraid, your product offering has been boring. But, last week I watched your guided tour of the Avaya Flare product and I must say, Well Done! Your Avaya Flare product is one of the most innovative approaches to modern communication in a relevant, sexy, easy to use package.

The Avaya Flare, nice work Avaya!

Trying to aggregate the complex threads of modern communication is a formidable challenge. We’ve seen mobile and web companies trying it for a few years without much sustained success. The Avaya Flare seems to have succeeded by bringing all aspects of modern communication into a seamless, abstract presentation. Thus allowing all current and future communication sources to be consumed and produced using a very simple touch interface. This product is the business smart phone of the future (or next 2 years). Speaking of which, I love how you’ve wrapped your core business with the Android platform to produce the Flare. We here at Akavit love doing Android development and you have provided a new target for our customers.

Needless to say, I want a few for the Akavit office. I’ll post again if we manage to get a few Flares and I’ll post about the actual experience. Here is a link to the Avaya Flare Experience Guided Tour

Best Regards,
Gary
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The most visible change in the “new” Google is how search results are dynamically displayed while the user is still entering their query. No longer are you required to click or hit ‘enter’ in order to see result sets. For example, if you’re searching for the word “restaurant”, you start seeing results as soon as you type the letter “r”. Furthermore, as you continue typing the remaining letters, the visible result set dynamically changes to reflect what Google believes you are searching for. In essence, Google tries to predict your search before you’ve finished entering it. It is trying to determine your intent.

This is major change from the “old” way of searching (prior to last Wednesday) when you typed in a word or phrase, hit ‘enter’ and waited for Google to return a set of (hopefully) relevant results. If the results did not reflect what you were actually searching for, you were forced to change your search phrase, hit ‘enter’ again and wait for the next result set. This iterative process was in many cases repeated several times before arriving at something useful.

With the newly released system, a user receives immediate visual feedback on the quality of results. This in turn lets that user modify their search phrase while simultaneously observing the exact effect of the change on the result set. In effect, the new process allows for more results to be shown in a much shorter span of time. The official estimate from Google is that it will save an average of two seconds per search query. If the average person performs around forty searches per day, this translates into 7 hours or saved time per year!

As you can imagine, this seemingly small change will drastically impact Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy and best practices, but not even Google knows exactly the impact of their changes. The majority of companies offering SEO-related services focus on tactics targeting Google’s secret algorithms. Our approach has consistently focused on a blend of those same tactics but with the addition of modeling user search behavior. The fact is that the modeling portion is about to become a whole lot more significant and web sites that want to rank at the top must embrace this new strategy.

Google’s recent updates bring about a few tactical issues to consider for your web site:

Although Google may not know the full ramification of their changes on SEO, it does know that the new system will produce more overall search results. For most web sites, more is better as it presents additional opportunities to appear in users’ search results, hopefully resulting in more actual visitors. It also means that it’s more important than ever to make sure your web site appears higher up on the results page based on your target keywords. In the new system, users are more likely to scan only the first couple of results before potentially modifying their search phrase if they don’t see something they like.

Several clients have asked if the new model changes the number of keywords needed on your site. This particular question spawned from the fact that Google might return relevant search results after only one or two keystrokes. This begs the question of whether your site should include partial words in your Meta tags. For example, if your site is targeting fans of the Denver Broncos, should you include ‘br’ or ‘bro’ as keywords since Google could conceivably return a relevant result set from only those few letters?

The short answer is ‘no’. Results from a few letters are still based on complete words.

As you can see from the image above, Google is attempting to predict what you are searching for (the complete word or phrase) and dynamically returning results for that complete phrase. As you type, the prediction may change and thus presenting a different result set.

So you can still use the same keywords you use today, but you should strongly consider shorter keywords for the following reasons:

The shorter your keyword or keyword phrase, the fewer keystrokes it will take for a user to type. This means your site link will be shown in the result set at an early part of the query process (this assumes your link is returned for your targeted keywords, which it should if you practice good SEO).

This does not mean long-tail keywords are suddenly irrelevant. If you use strong long-tail keywords Google may predict the entire phrase after a few keystrokes and show those results. See the following example:

So what should you do to make sure your site continues to rank high on Google? You should definitely start formulating a long term strategy focused more around user behavior, but the good news is that you have some time. Google is currently only making the change to their standard web search. It should take several months before they launch it to mobile browsers and beyond.

By getting your websites ready and optimized for the future of search today, you’ll be in prime position when Google Instant becomes the Internet standard. Then you can sock it to the competition. And who doesn’t like socking the competition?

If you have any questions or would like some help preparing for future SEO best practices, please contact Mike Mathews or Thomas Dahl at Akavit.

It seems like a method from a different age, especially if you believe the buzz about social networking taking over the world. But, there is a long history (going back before written records) of alcohol at the center of social scene. So there’s gotta be something to it. And the madison avenue men, if you take Mad Men as historical evidence, certainly made an art form of it.

To me though the point is that making real emotional connections in professional circles is essential, though this article may over-stress the the drink to make the point. Relationships matter. You don’t know when you’ll need them, so that means investing yourself in connecting. In some cases it may be at the bar. The drink may or may not make a difference, it’s just something convenient to huddle around as a group. Now pour me that single malt Islay.

The one thing I know for sure about the Google vs. Oracle battle is the only true winners will be the lawyers. Which is pretty sad. On the flip side, your guess is as good as mine how this will end up. If I were to look into my crystal ball, I would say the Android Developers will feel some pain when this is said and done. The ADT will become perverted by some lame legal decision which will aim for the middle ground of the lawsuit. The decision will take some time, maybe even years. Until then, we’ll have to live with disorder. Good for you Oracle, way to screw the little people who love application development with the Android platform.

I would love to hear what you see in the crystal ball. Post your prophetic thoughts in the comments. If you get it right, I’ll buy you a beer at the local pub.

Gary
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ADT Plugin for Eclipse
The eclipse plug-in worked pretty seamlessly. My only hiccup was the initial setup. There was a readme file in the SDK which of course I didn’t read (because I didn’t know it was there…really). Once I figured out how to use the tools to install the different SDKs for the different versions of the platform, I was on my way. Java programming in eclipse is always a great platform to develop on…and Android development was no different. There is a remark on the Setting up a Device for Development which says it all : “If you’re developing on Mac OS X, it just works. Skip this step.”

Android Virtual Devices (AVDs)
The AVD setup is very cool. It’s like having a phone right on your computer. You can create your own virtual devices with different “hardware” to test how your application will respond to the [virtually] infinite number of Android phones on the market. Different screen sizes and resolutions were very easy to setup and test. The AVDs can be controlled by telneting to the port it’s listening on and provide different commands. You can set the GPS location, you can change the battery power, and even send an SMS to your device. They were fun to play with.

Logcat
Android uses a logging system called Logcat. You can easily filter the log being created by the system and application knowing exactly what was going on in the device. I found there to be plenty of JVM messages to let you know what’s going on at the lowest level. The Logcat, combined with break points, made debugging the application a breeze.

XML Parsing
XML parsing in Android is a pain for any platform less than 2.2 (Froyo). Since there were few phones supporting Froyo when we started developing, our target was the 2.0.1 build. I ended up using a package called Simple which made the parsing…well…simple. Even though it takes more device power to parse, there is less room for bugs.

Next Steps :: Publishing
We’re about to turn over the application to the client who will be publishing it to the world. I’ll respond in the comments about the process and share our experience. Until then, post your comment or questions about Android development.

Gary
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