Hip Hapnin - Marketing, Mac, and other geeky things

How to save the book business

June 25, 2008 – 6:36 pm

Inspired by this Seth Godin post I have done some brainstorming of my own on how the book industry could save itself. First of all they should change the name so that people stop thinking inside of the constraints of books as we know them.

Book 2.0 kindle
1. Allow passengers on airplanes to reserve a book any book when they purchase their ticket and when they arrive it is waiting for them on their seat for free. Chances are they won’t be able to finish it so give them an insanely simply way to buy the book. Take it with you and they automatically charge your credit card, leave it in the seat and your not charged. The airline can get a cut on the up sell and passengers are happy. You could also implement a system that allows the book to be purchased and sent to their home, a friend, or the Kindle.
2. Still on the airplane? Why not supply pre loaded ipods? Full of audio books consume all you want while in the air. Send the flyer an email when they land telling them what they listened to and where to buy it.

3. Free channel on satellite radio that plays audible audio books. Again chances are you won’t be able to finish a book during your commute but that does give you enough time to get really into it and then you can go download the rest.

BTW: you don’t have to wait for Audible to do this if you want to start a podcast you could sign up as an affiliate with Amazon and Audible and then read a chapter from a book you recommend as your podcast. People can then go back to your website to buy the books you are recommending. There is a lot of money in filtering content (think google, trip advisor)

4. Print on Demand – If I am a local small bookstore and I have been able to survive the big box bookstore craze I can now strike back. Begin printing books on demand in that backroom. Anyone who doesn’t want to wait for Amazon to deliver some weird long tail title can just walk into your store and you will have a warm of the press copy for them in 30 minutes or less. You could start a whole new experience “there is nothing like sitting down in a big comfy chair with a warm book.”

Josh Carr Superstar |

Other Stuff |

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Going Green in Spanish Fork Utah - Curbside Recycling program

June 14, 2008 – 4:24 pm

Have you signed up yet for the new Spanish Fork City curbside recycling program?

Recycle Arrow

They Need 2000 people to voluntarily sign up and then the program will begin. At the time I wrote this post there were just under 500. Not bad because the program was just announced about a week ago.

Click Here to Sign up for the Spanish Fork City Curbside Recycling Program

Here is a PDF with the Details of what Items you can recycle in Spanish fork

They will pick up at your curb most of the items you would expect: Paper, Plastics, Aluminum Cans, Tin Cans, Cardboard and I thought this was a little unusual “Small Appliances” and “Pots and Pans”

They won’t pick up yard waste but the city already has a program for that: Spanish Fork City Compost and Yard Waste

Summer Hours

Spanish Fork Yard Waste Recycling Facility
1100 East Expressway Lane Spanish Fork, Utah
Monday thru Friday	8:00 am to 6:00 pm
Saturday	8:00 am to 5:00 pm
Closed Sunday

Here is a PDF with the presentation made by Spanish Fork city on Recycling.

Josh Carr Superstar |

Green Power, Green Tech, Spanish Fork |

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Complete web 2.0 directory

May 30, 2008 – 12:14 pm

Web 2.0 directory

This is a very cool listing of web 2.0 properties and what they are used for.

complete web 2.0 directory

I consider myself pretty plugged in and I probably only knew about 10% of these companies. There are a couple things that I think are really interesting about this.

1. It is amazing there are so many people doing such incredible things. This truly is the long tail and have I said yet today that I love technology?

2. It is equally amazing that they are all waiting for google to buy them.

If your project isn’t on the list go to this link to submit it.

Submit your project/website to the web 2.0 directory

Update: Apparently Scribd a web 2.0 company that is on this list can’t figure out their embed codes. this doc totally screwed up the formatting on my blog and it is doubling up on the document. I am going to spend about 10 seconds trying to figure it out before you end up with just a link to the directory.

Josh Carr Superstar |

Marketing, New Media, Web Marketing, Website Stuff |

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What Celebrities look like after moving to utah

May 26, 2008 – 6:16 pm

Somebody sent me this powerpoint I thought it was pretty funny so I modified it a little bit and now I am sharing it with you.

I Laughed, I Cried, I Hurled…

This is also my first trial run actually using slideshare. So far I really like it. If you aren’t familiar with slideshare it is basically youtube for powerpoint. So far thought the big difference is most of the content is actually very good and professional instead of amateur like YouTube (until I uploaded this stupid one)

Josh Carr Superstar |

Crap what makes you laugh |

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Rocky Mountain Voices website gets slapped around by google

May 22, 2008 – 7:13 pm

I just happened to discover this today as I was busy doing nothing online.

Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!

I found this by searching Google images for a photo of Jack Sunderlage. I don’t know exactly why this happened but it can’t be good.

UPDATE: I talked to Brad Baldwin tonight and asked him about this. He said it was because he didn’t update his wordpress blog and got hacked. So let that be a lesson to you kids that you should stay on top of that stuff.

The other thing we talked about is how bad it sucks when something like this happens to you. There is absolutely nothing you can do about it other than fix the problem and then hope and pray google smiles on you again some day.

Josh Carr Superstar |

Website Stuff |

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It is a medical miracle - I can’t believe he survived

May 21, 2008 – 11:26 am

medical-miracle It is a medical miracle - I cant believe he survived

Here is another very interesting link on the same subject. Don’t click on it if you have a week stomach. Ultimate Colon Cleanse

Clay Blackham is testing that stuff right now he says it is going well but no alien babies yet.

Josh Carr Superstar |

Crap what makes you laugh |

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Update on new Wind Turbines in Spanish Fork Utah - Aerial View

May 15, 2008 – 5:33 pm

Ryan Robinson sent me this picture. He is a Helicopter Pilot and has a cool RC business he is running. This picture was taken from a Remote Controlled Helicopter Airplane that he has mounted a digital camera on. Pretty Amazing shot and what a hobby - that is the ultimate mash-up “Remote Control Photography” celebrity weddings will never be the same.

As you can see all 9 of the windmills are installed but not yet operational. They look really cool and you can see them from almost anywhere in the south half of Utah Valley.

Somebody asked me in the comments where the power is going and if you can choose to buy green power. Apparently there is a rumor that the power is being sold to people in California.

This is what I know: The power is being put on the grid just like power from any other source. What does that mean? Even if you wanted too you couldn’t buy totally green enegry. Rocky Mountain power is buying all of it so if you live in Spanish Fork you won’t see any of this power. If you pay your electric bill to rocky mountain power you will see some of it. But it will me mixed with “dirty” power sources like coal and natural gas.

Interestingly I found out that Spanish Fork residents are getting some of their power from a windfarm in Wyoming which means you don’t have to feel totally guilty when you turn on the lights.

These are 2 megawatt windmills so if everything is running as planned they should be able to power about 5000 homes.

Going on the Grid for rocky mountain power - Utah Power and Light Orem, Southern Utah, Salt Lake City

Josh Carr Superstar |

Green Power, Green Tech |

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Important Questions to Answer before beginning a new website

May 14, 2008 – 1:41 pm

A client asked me to put this together so they could understand exactly what I do as a consultant. I think often times we make it look way too easy. People say they want it to be easy and they don’t want to think about it but often times if they don’t understand what is going into the process they will think it is easy. Maybe that is why so many people when pressed about the website suggest they have a neighbor or a nephew who could do it.

So this is my advice for the day. Let your clients know how involved it is and that you are saving them tons of time by knowing the answers to these questions. Maybe you could present them with this list and have them fill out everything they know or at least what they are thinking. Spend a little bit of time educating your clients and they won’t try to tell you how to do your job.

Why are you building a website?

Recruiting
Awareness
Retention
Cost savings efficiency
Commerce
Partnering
Generating leads
Launch a new product
Sales
Promote industry

Personas/Audience Segments
Who will be using the website and what will they search for?
What will your visitors want to do immediately once they get to the website? (let them pee) How will they go about doing that?
Should you be using the web to build community?

Blog
Forum
Newsletter
Podcasts

If you could only communicate one thing from your website what would that be?

Marketing strategy/launch plan
Where does the website fit into the marketing mix?
How will people find you on the web?

Brandable URL?
Web Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Pay-per-click
- Buzz building
- Affiliate Marketing
- Banner ads = waste of money (usually)
- PR
Offline Marketing
- Print
- Radio
- Flyers
- Direct Mail
- Television
- Billboards
- Trade Shows

How will you get people to stay on the website and then comeback later?

Newsletter
Email opt-in list
RSS feeds
Frequently updated content

Where does this website fit within it’s web ecosystem?

Measurement
How do you define success? How will we measure that? What are the metrics that matter?

Analytics?
Call Tracking?

Do you know what your acceptable customer acquisition costs are?

Operations
Who will create/update the content?
How will the website be kept current who will be updating it? How often? CMS?
Who will answer the email?
Who will answer the phone?
Who will maintain the website?

Constraints
Are there any Imperatives

Creative
- Colors?
- Images?
Platform
- Windows
- Linux - This is what I prefer
- Unix
Hosting
- Who is the current host and what do they support? Can they scale? Are they reliable?
- I like Media Temple
- (more) I need a reliable link that isn’t just a bunch of affiliate marketers
Web Programming Languages
- ASP
- PHP
- xHTML
- Ruby
- Java
- Flash
- (more)
Database
- MySQL
- ColdFusion
- Microsoft SQL server
- PostgreSQL
- (more)

What is the budget?
What is the timeline?
How long do you need this website to exist before it is redesigned?
Who are the stakeholders in this process and the key decision makers?
What is the approval process?

Josh Carr Superstar |

Information Architecture, Marketing, Web Marketing, Website Stuff |

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Dear Josh Where have you been?

May 3, 2008 – 2:03 pm

So April has been one of the worst/craziest/hardest/longest/stressful months of my life there are about 100 stories to tell but let me just put up the latest development.

I would like to tell you that I have some great story to tell about slamming down a few red bulls and then reinventing EXTREME! The truth is far more boring. I just woke up with it…I know weird huh. About a week ago I got up in the morning and I couldn’t walk it felt like I had sprained my ankle. So I waited a couple days because I am a tough guy (cheapskate that doesn’t want to pay for the doctor) and it got worse instead of better. So then I went to see Dr. H. Gary Morley Doctor of Podiactric (sp?) Medicine . He had fixed my other foot after an 18 mile run dislocated a bone in it. We don’t know what is wrong with it. It isn’t sprained, it isn’t broken but my goodness it hurts. I have two theories, foot cancer, or the gout. I am not sure what gout is but it is just as likely as anything. Gary thinks I’m nuts he says if he can keep me from moving it then it will get better. We will see who is right in the end.

If you have never had a hard cast here are a few things you may never have imagined.

It’s really warm when they put it on. As it dries it heats up and it is very soothing.
You feel like a pirate because it clunks when you walk on it
after a few days they really start to stink
you can’t get them wet so you end up doing this weird pelican stance while you are in the shower. Very dangerous - please review the Karate Kid before trying this at home.
Last night I woke up 3 times and I was totally inebriated with sleep as I tried to unlace this weird boot.
for some reason you are required to decorate them with crappy cast Graffiti - casts are really hard to write on so everything looks like crap. somebody should invent a shrink wrap cast cover that is perfect for decorating and you can add to your scrapbook later.

Well whatever the problem is it needs to be fixed quickly because I just registered for the St. George Marathon in October and I am getting fatter by the second.

Josh Carr Superstar |

Crap what makes you laugh, excercise |

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Putting customers at risk. Website registration done wrong

April 15, 2008 – 4:50 pm

A few months ago I posted about the horrible UI experience when trying to buy a printer on the HP website.

Here is another example. But instead of coming from a big company that you would expect to be clueless it is from sphinn a forum on internet marketing

Not only do they make you go back and try to remember some math problem from fifth grade. They also make you decrypt a secret code. I tried to make it through the registration 5 times before I realized my encrypted code was actually case sensitive-it seems like that would be an important detail to include.

So the point of this is that with any transaction the risk must be shared. If consumers are carrying too much of the risk they will sense that and go away. Traditionally companies pass on the risk to the consumer with restrictive return policies, expensive warranties, etc. Typically the lower the price the more of the risk you will inherit.

In this transaction they obviously don’t want to pay somebody to go through every account and moderate them and make sure they are legit. So they are passing on the pain in the transaction to real users. I pay the price because they don’t want to pay another forum moderator.

I tried to create an account 5 times before I cracked the code. How many times would you try?

How are you frustrating your customers and making your job easier? how long do they have to wait at your call center? How many questions on your contact us form are for you and not them? What are you charging for that you should be giving away? Just because a few people abuse a service that is offered doesn’t mean you need to make a policy about it. You should be finding ways to make it easier for your customers every step of the way.

Josh Carr Superstar |

Information Architecture, Marketing, Usability, Web Marketing |

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