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Since my open letter and analysis the Des Moines Register has taken several steps in creating a better experience for its readers and subscribers. They have started looking for an online developer, had the Business Reader Survey, and they are making changes to the Business section in the paper.

They still haven’t contacted me. Have they contacted you? If they haven’t they should. You know what they need to do. After all, You are the Time Person of the Year.

It’s funny since my analysis of the DM Register website and Gannett news services in general I’ve had some good feedback. I’ve had some Gannett employees email me because they didn’t want to have a public comment (apparently Gannett doesn’t like criticism from within) and I’ve had other Gannett newspapers request analyses of their website so that they can improve their user experiences.

It’s just ironic that I’m from Iowa, blogging in Des Moines and I cannot get a response from the Des Moines Register, yet I get responses from Gannett papers across the country.

Tags: Gannett, Des Moines, Des Moines Register, Iowa

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Mike Wagner started a new meme I guess I couldn’t help joining in on. I mean, everyone else is doing it. The idea is ‘Thin Slicing‘ - “Thin-slicing refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience.”

So here’s my 5 Thin-Slicing Observations on using new software or web application.

1. What is it? If I don’t know within thirty seconds of what the application does I give up. If I can’t decipher in that amount of time than I can bet using the software will not be a valuable experience for me.

2. Is it useful? I’m a big proponent of what I have coined ‘Real Life Software’. This is software that helps me solve problems and automate daily mundane tasks and processes. The most useful software out there does one thing and one thing good (Google Search, Backpack, Zillow, BlogDesk)

3. Thin, Clean, and Neat That’s right, I like my software thin clean and neat. There’s nothing worse than bloated software that takes forever to load and has way more features than it needs. Yes, I’m talking to you Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat.

4. Usability This is a factor that generally separates good software from bad. What’s the learning curve? Do I need a manual to use the software or can I jump right in, get work done, and close it? Obviously the latter is best. I want to be able to launch the application and know intuitively how it works. If you want viral software that spreads WOM then make it easy. People don’t recommend software that’s impossible to figure out how to use.

5. Design Yeah, I’m superficial when it comes to software and web applications. Design is at the heart of the user experience. Design includes layout, typography, content organization, images, and much more. Awhile back TJ wrote a post that I love referencing called ‘First Impressions‘. Your mind is made up within the first twentieth of a second as to whether you find a website visually appealing. If your software is not visually appealing to me I’ll leave without ever trying it. (delicious and google are the only exceptions thus far).

Check out Applications I Use and what TJ uses on his Mac.

Tags: Software, Design, Thin Slicing, Meme

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In anticipation of upcoming launches in 2007 for Microsoft (including Office 2007 and Vista) Microsoft is having a ‘Microsoft Across America Launch Event’ of which one is in Des Moines.

There are several different presentations you can attend based on your role or interests. All presentations will be held in the Polk County Convention Complex at 730 3rd St in Des Moines, IA. As a bonus you get a FREE copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and Microsoft Office Groove 2007 (worth the day right there).

I haven’t decided which morning track I’ll be attending but I will be attending the Developer Track in the afternoon.

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Agenda

Small Business Track - 8am - noon (checkin begins at 7am)

Gain insights on using Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system to run a more efficient, conntected, and profitable small business.

IT Professional Track - 8am - noon (checkin begins at 7am)

Learn about the features that will simplify deployment of Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 in your organization.

Noon - 1:00pm - Break

IT Executive Track - 1pm - 5pm (checkin begins at noon)

Discover the management features and operational efficiencies in Windows Vista that can postitively impact your business’ performance.

Partner Track - 1pm - 5pm (checkin begins at noon)

See live demos and learn effective sales and support methods to build your business and make it more profitable.

Developer Track - 1pm - 5pm (checkin begins at noon)

Explore the new features that let you create applications to help users communicate and collaborate in powerful ways.

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You can register here.

Tags: Microsoft, Launch Event, Vista, Office 2007, Developer

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Apple Inc.’s stock jumped 8% on yesterday’s announcement. Is it me or is that a huge jump after a product announcment? It closed at a record high for Apple Inc., while shares of other cell phone makers dropped. Oh, yeah they changed their name from Apple Computer too, since they don’t want to corner their brand. They want to be a consumer electronics company now (as if they hadn’t already accomplished that).

Many people are writing how this new product will cannabilize their current market for MP3 players. I disagree - it’s a versioning tactic. They are also extending their market reach. I can’t envision any adverse effects on their current product line.

You may not of heard about the other major announcement by Apple since the iPhone has taken over the tech news wire. Apple TV is Apple’s response to the Living Room War. They want to bring iTunes and digital content to your living room. I’m not too excited about this. For the money - go buy an XBOX 360. It does the same and much, much more. (Especially once you buy Vista).

If you aren’t buying the hype quite yet, check out the iPhone video I found via Megite Video.

Is it worth the price? Will it be better than Windows Mobile? We’ll see.

Tags: Apple, iPhone, Apple TV, Gadgets

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I’ve written about Megite before and they’ve recently released both a 2.0 version and a video site. The video section is something I have been looking for awhile and is a very promising niche. YouTube and other sites are great but there is really a lack of organization and thus, I watch a lot of videos that I really don’t want to watch.

Megite Video is taking the first step in organizing video along the same lines as it organizes its news content - based on popularity. So if you want to check out the most talked about videos on the web in one sitting, check out Megite Video.

Megite 2.0, which was released about a month ago, has several enhancements. From Matthew (via Google Talk chat):

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Matthew: We launch Megite 2.0 with new features and significant improvements.

1. New blog discovery algorithm: Megite introduces the new blog auto discovery algorithm. So not only the A-list bloggers, other bloggers can be the sources to Megite. This improves the coverage and inclusive of Megite.

2. Better Ranking algorithm: Megite introduces the blog quality importance evaluation metrics and improves the the ranking algorithm by combining the blog importance, content relevance, linkage info, freshness, user feedback, and more.

3. Better Clustering algorithm: Clustering algorithm is used to group the posts about the same topic under the same thread.

4. Better Thumbnail image extraction algorithm.

5. Cache thumbnail images on Megite server.

6. Crawling infrastructure improvement that helps us to update more frequently and process more verticals.

7. Better title and description extraction algorithm.

8. More verticals are covered: Entertainment, Science, Food, Fashion, Chinese IT, etc.

9. Megite River of News by crowdsourcing.

10. Refresh main channels in less than half an hour

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Excellent work Matthew. You have replaced Techmeme as my one stop news shop for knowing what’s happening now in business and technology. The video section is a bonus! Another cool feature Matthew mentioned is their River of News which, from their site, ‘is a constant flow of what’s new and interesting by crowdsourcing’. Just sit back and watch the news roll in.

(Disclosure: We designed Megite)

Tags: Megite, Memetracker, Techmeme, Newsriver, River of News, Video, Youtube, Tracker, Web

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