As explained yesterday, Good Web Writing:

• is part of a conversation
• answers questions
• lets people grab and go

Who am I? I still sign up for newsletters to get deals.

I open this email, which tells me “Congratulations! As a member, you have access to this brand new program,” giving me an opportunity to pass along discounts to families and friends, while also earning rewards.

(Lesson: This email answered questions effectively. Who? Me and My Friends. What? A discount and promo code. Where? Online shopping. When? Now – though I don’t know when this offer ends. How? Get my friends to buy a kit so I get a gift. Why am I here? You’ll get a discount or a gift certificate, even if I don’t want the product.)

I click on the Tell Me More because in the email, there is no way to sign up for the project without clicking on the link to the site. My main goal in heading to this site is to learn how to send the deal to my friends.

(Lesson: I’m taken directly to the area of the site I wanted to go to, without a preamble sales pitch. The conversation element is there – lots of headings posed as questions, the option to sign in is in the first person (log in to my SKINID) and the graphic showing has speech bubbles to remind me of the special and subconsciously emphasize the conversational element of the deal)

The only question I have is “what is my SKINID? Is it a different log in than what I used for the newsletter?” I try to enter in the account details I use for my newsletter, but it doesn’t recognize it – so, I guess I need to sign up for something new if I want the gift certificate or the discount. Worth it? Depends on the user (me).

How Did This Email Campaign Do?

• The website was part of a conversation - absolutely. By creating digital copy that uses questions to help guide the user through the process, this site is simple and engaging.
• The website answered questions - For the most part. While the SKINID membership is a puzzler (why would someone have that if it’s a new product?), everything was explained – the who, what, where, when, why and how. A user knew why they were on this site, whether they planned to follow through with the offer or not.
• The website let me grab and go - Again, for the most part. By needing to sign up for a new membership, it created a step that didn’t let me immediately grab and go. But props to the designers and content strategists who brought the user right to the information about the campaign rather than forcing then through content about the promoted product. It trusted that, if I were interested in learning more, I could find the information in myself the navigation.

I had a hard time watching this. Why?

- it uses only her celebrity to make it viral
- it uses pre-established memes rather than coming up with something original
- it’s, as someone wrote, “Jay Leno” funny
- if you’re going to make fun of internet memes, tip your hat to them, don’t belittle. Here’s an example:

And this is how you make a good viral video:

Why?
- high production values
- well written song and great direction
- content is relatable and directed to its intended audience
- it’s not “Jay Leno” funny

Now, there’s Convore, a site that takes the Quora concept and turns it into live chat.

Basically, you create groups formed around a topic you’d like to discuss. So, I recently set up a group called Toronto- Interactive and posed a question – whatcha working on? I can invite my friends on Twitter or Facebook to join the site and participate in a live conversation, or I can join other groups and speak to international experts in the fields of tech, user experience, etc. You can even set up private groups, so if you’re working on a project with a group of people, you can set up live chats on this site.

Group chats are nothing new, but this site is free, easy to use and so far seems to be nicely focused on the topic at hand. It’s also a great research tool and a way to chat instantly about your favourite things. This TV Discussion, for example, separates each conversation by TV show.

So far, the site is interesting because it’s small and manageable. It’s also easy to see where your social media friends are chatting, which is a great feature. Let me know what you think of this in the comments.

Airlines and hotels are increasingly encouraging the public to book directly on their corporate sites rather than through third party aggregators to offer additional buy-ins like hotel room upgrades and airline seat choices to the consumer. This trend could force Expedia, Travelocity and others to change their business models slightly in order to stay in business.

While Global Business Travel Assn says booking directly with the airline and the hotelier may increase costs for the customer, other sites are popping up to help you compare prices and make sure you’re getting the bang for your buck. Here’s one to show your colleagues: Hipmunk.com is a very easy-t0-use site that organizes its search based on time, price and agony. It doesn’t support all airlines, yet. Toronto’s Porter Airlines for example, wasn’t appearing in any of their beautiful charts.  Upon chatting with their very helpful live help chat, they thanked me for letting them know the airline was missing. How nice!

Bonus: OK, so say you’re flying to the U.S. and you want to check up on an airport’s hands-on TSA review process, look no further than this TSA Status site, created and updated by its users.  This heavily rainbowed site doesn’t have the cleanest of interfaces, but it is handy. It’s also a great place if you feel a compulsion to complain about a TSA agent online.

So next time you need to book a flight for work or pleasure, impress everyone with your knowledge of these two handy sites. Got others?

Memolane – Your time machine for the web from Memolane on Vimeo.

What’s great, I found, is not only the ease of use, but also the privacy options. I looped in my Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare accounts and had an option to choose whether I wanted my timeline public to all users of Memolane, visible only to friends who’ve signed up, or completely private.

What’s also neat is it provides an actual, visual timeline of my activities and how my posts online have increased since 2007, from one post a day about 3 years ago to about 10 or so today.

The site is currently in beta, so you’ll need to sign up for an invitation. Worth it, I say.

Cable TV and Internet providers in Canada, such as Rogers and Bell, currently implement a form of User Based Billing on their customers by putting a cap on internet use, and then charging additional $2 per GB when they go over (even though bandwidth costs are dropping). Customers who didn’t wish to go with User Based Billing used to have an option to sign up with other internet providers, some of whom purchase their bandwidth from larger ISPs at a bulk rate. Not anymore, though – the CRTC last week allowed Bell, Shaw and Rogers to place a cap on these wholesale suppliers, meaning these independent ISPs must cap their plans at 25GB a month. To put it in perspective, that’s about five HD movies from iTunes, without even touching your email, YouTube or Skype.

The major ISPs say this is an important step to prevent those who use a lot of bandwidth from creating congestion. The CBC reports, however, on-demand video services provided by Rogers and Bell do not fall under these caps, meaning you can watch a bandwidth-hogging TV show on Rogers On Demand Online without fear of additional cost, but try to do the same with Rogers’ competitor Netflix, and you could see your internet bill jump.

Here’s a good explanation from the CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos.

OpenMedia.ca, a NFP site, is collecting signatures to encourage the CRTC and government to rethink its stance on allowing these companies to meter the internet.  Backlash against bandwidth caps appears to be growing in Canada, with the site gaining approximately 110,000 signatures in the last week. I’ve included the petition here for anyone interested:

The same organization’s website points to further CRTC discussions on the merger of BCE and CTVGlobemedia. Michael Geist writes a fantastic article on what this merger should be addressed during discussions, alluding to the recent takeover by cable giant Comcast of NBC Universal in the States. Whereby the FTC stipulated that merger must support net neutrality and could not negatively impact growing competition from companies such as Hulu and Netflix, Geist is concerned the CRTC isn’t addressing these same concerns in Canada.

Watch this video for an explanation (and to see an example of green screen gone terribly wrong):

Outside of crowd-sourcing, if you work professionally in a creative field (television, gaming, etc), this site may offer a unique vision into what’s being pitched, what’s piquing interest form the masses, etc.

Zippycart created an awesome infographic so I don’t have to explain a thing about how it works. Love that! (And if you’re interested in e-commerce, definitely read up on Zippycart.)

Click to Enlarge
[Via: ZippyCart - reviewing the best ecommerce software online]

(Click on the image for a larger version)
[Source: Online MBA]