I don’t want to add any fuel to the flame, I just want to report an annoying problem that I hope will get addressed soon. After all, according to Sue Decker’s memo, Yahoo is going to focus more on the customers, rather than on the advertising products.
Here is my problem – as a premium Yahoo AT&T user I want my Yahoo Mail to be ad-free. Well, for some reason Yahoo insists on showing me ads. . No matter how hard I try to hide the advertising panel on the right it keeps coming back the second I move between tabs within the application (read message, compose, back to inbox etc).
Take a look – just follow the cursor:
Technorati Tags: Yahoo Mail, Usability
[This post is for those who read Hebrew websites...]
TheMarker is one of the few Israeli web sites that constantly introduces new products, features, technologies and improvements such as: Tag Cloud, Social Network and experimental UI
I visited TheMarker earlier today and was surprised and pleased to see something new once again. TheMarker IT (still in Beta) which covers the Israeli Internet & technology industry is their latest product and from a first look I can say that the TheMarker team did a pretty good job.
Things I like in particular:
- The site seems to load faster compared to TheMarker (although there is always room for improvement when it comes to speed). Hopefully this will continue to last even with the (expected) increase in the number of ads on the site as well as the (expected) increase in traffic to the site
- Overall design style
- The width of the pages was increased by 200 pixels and more information is now visible above the fold. The extra width makes the page feel lighter and less cluttered compared to TheMarker. I assume that this change is due to the fact the majority of the readers are IT professional using high resolution/large displays and they all saw large empty margins screaming “Use Us!”
Things I think can be improved:
- I have an issue with the fact that the site has no navigation bar and that the only way to access different sections is by using the tag cloud at the top bar. Tags are great but should not be the primary navigation method
- “Popular Stories” section could be moved above the fold to increase visibility and serve it’s purpose. The “Upcoming Events” section is probably not that important and could be moved down
- The integration with TheMarker can be improved. It is not clear to me why top stories on TheMarker’s High-Tech section would not show up on TheMarker IT. Perhaps this is a symbolic sign that the there needs to be a better connection between Israel’s Technology and Internet industries & the rest of the world
Final suggestion – The Search results page could be greatly improved using Snap Shots next to each search result. This will improve the user experience (especially since some of these pages load really slow) and would add some web2.0 glam to the site.
Technorati Tags: TheMarker, Usability, Snap Shots, Website design, TheMarker IT
I love popurls. It enables me to get a quick snap shot of the current buzz on the web in one place and in less than 5 minutes.
popurls.tv is a brand new mashup of popurls and Google Maps. It displays real-time traffic of the most viewed stories on popurls.
So what is the problem and why is popurls.tv the dark side of popurls? Because it does the opposite of what popurls is there for – it does not save time. On the contrary, it sucks time since it’s an extremely addictive service…Thomas–Nice work!
BTW, There is plenty of room for improvement, but knowing Thomas, I am sure he is already working on v1.1.
Technorati Tags: Mashups, Google Maps, Popurls, Thomas Marban
I landed tonight on eBay’s new home page (they are testing new versions and making it more personalized) and was a bit surprised/lost in the first minute.
Although the direction eBay took is right and the page is better organized and much cleaner and with less clutter compared to the old one (clutter is one of eBay’s home page trademarks 
) I think that too many elements were moved from their original location making it somewhat difficult for existing/loyal users to find their way.
Some of the elements that were moved are now in non-standard locations compared to other high traffic web sites, making the orientation of average Internet users difficult. For example: The welcome and register buttons in center-low right area (vs. upper right corner in many cases), the “What’s Hot” was buried below the fold close to the bottom of the page (power feature that should be better highlighted). In addition, the page is longer and require the user to scroll down more if he/she wants to see all the elements on the page.
One thing that I do like and think is a smart move in order to increase the number of searches/products being browsed is the horizontal layout of the categories at the upper area in a hotspot.
Bottom line, I think eBay should continue to test and optimize. Their new home page still does not fully work for me.
BTW, one page eBay should redesign & improve is “My eBay” and the preference page. I was trying to setup IM Alerts earlier today and had to look really hard for this option. Defining the “Send alert X minutes prior to end of auction” alert would be a nice feature as well.
Old page New Page
WordPress is a great blogging platform offering plenty of templates and extensions. One thing that WordPress needs to improve is their text editor which is often slow and buggy. For example – The built in spell checker displays spelling alternatives but does not commit changes. It also does not have a personal dictionary that can be built over time. Formatting text is often buggy when switching between preview & HTML modes. Previewing a draft is slow in many cases. Another challenge is embedding images and controlling their position, size and margins like you see at the top-right corner of this blog. In order to get to the exact result you probably need to be an expect in HTML.
The buggy & slow WordPress web interface led me over time to develop a clunky process – I used to write my drafts using MS Word (including spell check and proof read). I would then copy and paste the text into Notepad (so the rich-formatting from Word will not be preserved – otherwise I will have to switch to HTML mode inside WordPress and clean all formatting). From Notepad I would then paste the non-formatted text into WordPress. Then I would add links and photos/videos, preview the draft, switch again to edit mode and fix whatever formatting needs to get fixed, preview again and finally post.
A few days ago I installed Window Live Writer and it instantly became my primary blogging device. I must say that I am impressed with this simple productivity tool. It took me two minutes to setup the tool and connect it to my blog, including downloading the blog’s template and categories (once thing it does not allow is to create new categories), so now I can preview posts easily, instantly and even when offline. Live Writer offers a WYSIWYG editor that supports many of MS Word features and more: paste in rich media content using drag and drop, spell checker with ‘add to dictionary’, insert tables and embedded maps, add tags of different services and more.
Overall, the time I spend now on writing, editing, previewing, proof reading and posting to my blog has been significantly reduced.
What a great tool from Microsoft. Highly recommended to any blogger. This is a real time saver.
Snap Shots Add-On is now available for Internet Explorer. What’s so great about it? It enhances the experience on the web sites you visit regularly and can save you a lot of wasted time by previewing the content behind the link.
What I really like about it is the fact it truly upgraded my Netvibes experience. I use Netvibes as my favorite RSS reader and with the Snap Shots Add-On I can preview any external link inside posts. In addition to Netvibes, the Snap Shots Add-On supports a wide range of sites including:
- Search engines ? Google (in any language), Yahoo (in any language), MSN Live, AOL Search, Ask, Lycos and Baidu
- Blogging platforms ? Blogger, Typepad and Vox
- Web based RSS Readers ? Netvibes, Google Reader and Bloglines
- Social Networks & Video Sharing ? Myspace, YouTube, Metacafe, Google Video, Xanga, Veoh and Revver
- Popular news and blogs sites ? Google News, Huffington Post, Drudge Report and more are on the way
- Reference sites – Wikipedia, IMDB
- e-commerce – Amazon.com
- All other web sites will get the Snap Shot functionality as long as they have links to sites associated with a “Rich Snap Shot”: Video, Wiki, Product, Photo, Stock, Audio (but not RSS or Preview)
Try it out – Download the Snap Shots Add-On for Internet Explorer or FireFox
CO2 Saver, a little side project we developed at Snap in order to make the world better and greener has been getting a lot of momentum recently. This morning it hit another milestone.
It was featured on ABC’s Good Morning America by Sam Champion and Zem Joaquin (green editor for House and Garden magazine and author of ecoFabulous.com) as one of the simplest things anyone can do around their work cube/desk in order to save the environment.
In case you have not done it yet, simply install CO2 Saver on your desktop computer and this lightweight application will automatically adjust your computer’s power settings (including hard drive and monitor) in order to save electricity when the computer is idle (I am sure you are familiar with those endless screensavers running forever day and night…what a waste…)
By the way, since it was launched about three months ago, C02 Saver users collectively saved almost 160,000 lbs of CO2 from being released to the atmosphere (use this calculator to convert to more conceptualized terms – trees, cars etc)
Technorati Tags: CO2 Saver, Eco-friendly
A funny one (Hebrew with English subtitles). BTW, try the “smart player”. It is a unique feature with some powerful capabilities.
Update: The Smart Player was causing script errors whenever the page loads and I had to remove the embedded player. To view the clip, Click here.
Technorati Tags: Viral Marketing, 5min, Venture Capital
Since the launch of Snap Shots back in Nov 2006 (at the time the product was called “Snap Preview Anywhere”), we have been receiving plenty of requests from users asking for a browser add-on that allows them to take the Snap Shots functionality to the entire web.
Today, we are happy to announce the release of Snap Shots Add-On for Web Browsers (Firefox version available today, IE version is coming soon).
Here are just a few examples of Snap Shots Add-On can make improve users browsing experience:
- Search engines – Get Snap Shots and previews on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Live and others. I am sure you will appreciate the fact that by being able to see what’s behind the link your “Back” button usage and the time you wait for different pages to load just to find out they are not relevant will significantly reduce.
- Myspace – Snap Shots Add-On displays profile information of people who leave comments on myspace page…
- Wikipedia – any link to a wikipedia page turns from ‘just a link’ into an instant encyclopedia
- RSS – Visit blogs on different platforms (blogger, typepad, vox etc) and rollover their blogroll just to read the RSS excerpts of the linked blogs
- and there are plenty of other useful examples – just try it when you visit Amazon, Wikipedia, IMDB, YouTube, Metacafe and many other sites.
To get started Download the Snap Shots Add-On.
BTW, Snap.com home page also got a nice facelift and it now features Snap Shots solutions for Bloggers/Publishers and End Users more prominently.
Technorati Tags: Snap.com, Snap Shots, Firefox, Browser Add-On
