jabfish's posterous http://blog.jabfish.com Most recent posts at jabfish's posterous posterous.com Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:55:09 -0800 IKEA's brilliant Facebook campaign http://blog.jabfish.com/ikeas-brilliant-facebook-campaign-3 http://blog.jabfish.com/ikeas-brilliant-facebook-campaign-3

 

The Swedish town of Malmo is a wonderful place.

Some feel it is wonderful because it is the spiritual home of a band that was once cool, the Cardigans.

But now all committed social networkers will think Malmo is wonderful because of its IKEA. You see, the Swedish purveyor of fast-food furniture decided to open a new store in Malmo and didn't really have a lot of money to let people know about it.

So it engaged a rather outre advertising agency called Forsman and Bodenfors to create a rather special launch campaign.

The agency created a Facebook profile for the store manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Over a two-week period, it uploaded images from of IKEA showrooms to his Facebook photo album.

Then it put out word that the first person to tag their name to a product in the pictures, won it.

Facebook being what it is, word got out and needy, enthusiastic Swedes begged for more pictures so that they could tag themselves to a new sofa, a new bed, or a new vase into which they could stick their plastic flowers or their dead grandparents' ashes.

Before Facebook could take credit for its own wonderful ingenuity in creating the world's most needed Web site, thousands of Swedes were spreading pictures of IKEA showrooms all around the personal galaxy known as their profile pages.

Please look at the video I have embedded, as this idea is, as the best always are, simple and inspired. Which, some would say, also perfectly describes the clever, affordable, if sometimes maddening-to-put-together little things made by IKEA.

source

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/223925/emblem_big.png http://posterous.com/users/36ESxPRa7qnv jabfish jabfish Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:27:32 -0800 Freelancing For Agencies: Pros and Cons | FreelanceFolder http://blog.jabfish.com/freelancing-for-agencies-pros-and-cons-freela-0 http://blog.jabfish.com/freelancing-for-agencies-pros-and-cons-freela-0
Media_httpfreelancefoldercomwpcontentuploadsfreelancingforagencieschairsjpg_fwjlgfdngyejatg
via freelancefolder.com

Freelancer's take on working with agencies...

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/223925/emblem_big.png http://posterous.com/users/36ESxPRa7qnv jabfish jabfish Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:21:38 -0800 Keep Your Startup Virtual http://blog.jabfish.com/keep-your-startup-virtual http://blog.jabfish.com/keep-your-startup-virtual
My advice for those starting a new company: Stay virtual as long as possible.
via davidcancel.com

Currently Jabfish only has 2 people on the team. Coffee shops are good for short meetings but sometimes we go for long 4-5 hour what I like to call "power brainstorming sessions", its great to have a proper place to do this.

I recently just commented to my co-founder, "You know the one thing I never really thought was important when choosing office space is? The proximity of decent food supply."

That is probably the second most important thing on the list right after free parking.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/223925/emblem_big.png http://posterous.com/users/36ESxPRa7qnv jabfish jabfish Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:20:34 -0800 The importance of a good portfolio http://blog.jabfish.com/the-importance-of-a-good-portfolio http://blog.jabfish.com/the-importance-of-a-good-portfolio When it comes to web development or design its really hard to judge based solely on a resume. Potential clients are always asking to see some of the previous projects you have worked on. Designers know this very well and right now there are lots of options for designers to showcase their work. This is a great list http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/articles/10-solutions-to-easily-create-your-online-portfolio. I personally like krop.com and carbonmade.com.

But when it comes to developers, its a slightly different ball game. We are not designers by training and lots of the time, the design of the website might not be something we even came up with. The best way to showcase our talent is to demonstrate it with a live working application. But many a time, this is not possible due to a multitude of reasons. To help, we've come up with a list of the next best things you can do:

  1. Show pictures. One of the most important things about the portfolio is the pictures. Most of the people that view these portfolios are going to be non-technical folks and all they are really going to be looking at are the pictures. Hell, even being a developer myself I rather look at the pictures. Make sure you snap some nice high-res images to showcase your work. We suggest 3 per project.
  2. Provide a short writeup. Here its good to describe some of the more challenging parts of the project and detail your specific involvement if it was a team effort.
  3. List down technical skills. List out some of the more common well known technical terms so that those more technically inclined have a good idea of what was involved. This could include stuff like APIs, Frameworks, Platforms, Programming Langauges and CMS used.
  4. Tell us who the Client is. Although lots of the time this might be confidential, if you were able to show pictures. Means you probably would be able to state the client. This just gives your potential clients more confidence.
  5. Tell us how much it cost. Potential clients almost always want a quote from you. By stating a rough range of each project, it gives them a good idea on how much you cost and if they can afford you.
All this takes time and effort but if we are going to be judged based on this we should really put in the effort. This helps make the decision to pick you a much easier one for the potential client.

At Jabfish, the two questions most asked about developers by marketers are:

  1. Could we see some of their past work?
  2. How much will it cost?
And since we could not find any online portfolio solutions just for developers, we decided to built our very own. Hopefully it makes creating that portfolio slightly easier. I've included some screenshots of how a profile with some portfolio projects filled in would look like.
Remember, most of the people viewing your profiles are not going to be technical. So make those pictures pop!

Jabfish_1257863476820 Jabfish_1257863506834
See the full gallery on Posterous

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/223925/emblem_big.png http://posterous.com/users/36ESxPRa7qnv jabfish jabfish Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:51:43 -0800 Do-It-Yourself iPhone Apps http://blog.jabfish.com/do-it-yourself-iphone-apps-2 http://blog.jabfish.com/do-it-yourself-iphone-apps-2 http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2009/tc2009111_312995.htm?c...

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/223925/emblem_big.png http://posterous.com/users/36ESxPRa7qnv jabfish jabfish Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:16:30 -0800 Product Management For Version 1 Products: Creating Something from Nothing http://blog.jabfish.com/product-management-for-version-1-products-cre-0 http://blog.jabfish.com/product-management-for-version-1-products-cre-0

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/223925/emblem_big.png http://posterous.com/users/36ESxPRa7qnv jabfish jabfish Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:54:00 -0700 A Graphic History of Newspaper Circulation Over the Last Two Decades http://blog.jabfish.com/a-graphic-history-of-newspaper-circulation-ov-13 http://blog.jabfish.com/a-graphic-history-of-newspaper-circulation-ov-13
Media_httpwwwtheawlcomwpcontentuploads200910circ2jpg_phuygeeetdizbfd
via theawl.com

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/223925/emblem_big.png http://posterous.com/users/36ESxPRa7qnv jabfish jabfish Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:26:37 -0700 What Startups Are Really Like http://blog.jabfish.com/what-startups-are-really-like-0 http://blog.jabfish.com/what-startups-are-really-like-0
Why do people take too long on the first version? Pride, mostly. They hate to release something that could be better. They worry what people will say about them. But you have to overcome this
via paulgraham.com

Another great article by Paul Graham. Its good to hear these over and over again.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/223925/emblem_big.png http://posterous.com/users/36ESxPRa7qnv jabfish jabfish Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:19:00 -0700 Volkswagen to Rely Solely on IPhone App for GTI Launch http://blog.jabfish.com/volkswagen-to-rely-solely-on-iphone-app-for-g-0 http://blog.jabfish.com/volkswagen-to-rely-solely-on-iphone-app-for-g-0
Viral tactics work because media buys aren't that compelling anymore," he said. "You can get clicks, but even if an app is free, people don't want to download it. They really have to be invested or told by a friend.
via adage.com

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/223925/emblem_big.png http://posterous.com/users/36ESxPRa7qnv jabfish jabfish Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:06:29 -0700 Convincing Business Executives on Facebook? http://blog.jabfish.com/convincing-business-executives-on-facebook http://blog.jabfish.com/convincing-business-executives-on-facebook
Facebook4biz

A very awesome presentation, co-produced by Ogilvy APAC with WSJ Asia, it seems. Right amount of stats and graphics to make an impact hopefully, on Asian business execs. Check it out here.

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]]> Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:23:50 -0700 Classic article: The Case for APIs for every consumer web service http://blog.jabfish.com/classic-article-the-case-for-apis-for-every-c http://blog.jabfish.com/classic-article-the-case-for-apis-for-every-c
Amazon-platform-website-2008

Two words: Platform Thinking. And where APIs play a role in that. Revisiting Feld's brilliant article in 2008 on how APIs benefit web startups. True when u consider how the iPhone, Amazon and Facebook have morphed from single-point device/ web service to full-fledged ecosystems with hundreds of millions of users, revenue or downloads (billions for the former!). One might say APIs begets platforms. How then, can the marketing industry, long the gatekeeper of customer knowledge and their commercial tastes, leverage these APIs to deliver new interaction touchpoints? More to come on this thought in future.. :)


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]]> Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:43:02 -0700 Twitter Apps under the Acquisition Spotlight? http://blog.jabfish.com/twitter-apps-under-the-acquisition-spotlight http://blog.jabfish.com/twitter-apps-under-the-acquisition-spotlight
Mrtweet_on_oneforty_ldrboard

Still an unconfirmed rumor by Techcrunch, Oneforty's 1000+ twitter apps are eyed for a potential "App Store" by Twitter mgmt. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/07/should-twitter-buy-oneforty/

Check out the current apps leaderboard over at http://oneforty.com/ oneforty

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