Infographic: E-Books VS Paper Books

We have two eBook readers around our house, the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Apple iPad. Of course, the iPad isn’t an eBook per se yet I love to read on mine. There are about a million opinions on whether or not eBooks are as user friendly as paper books and even more  on how the iPad stacks up against more traditional eBook readers.

Naturally, there is no one “right answer” for everyone and/or every medium. And, of course, technology changes so fast that any right answer would be wrong 15 minutes later.

Regardless, here’s an interesting “just for fun” infographic from Newsweek comparing the production costs, cool factor, and content price.

Newsweek: Backstory Books vs. E-Books, does one have to win?

Facebook “Like” Button

Interesting development in Facebook’s hopes to dominate the Web was announced at f8 this week. Sites now have the ability to add a Facebook “Like” button to any page or post of their site or blog. This *may* develop into yet another way to get some serious face time in front of Web users who may be teased into visiting a site they may not normally stumble across.

InfoGraphic Humor

Yes, there is such a thing…

Seen too many infographics lately?

Phil Gyford @ Flickr via Gizmodo

Facebook VS the United States

Interesting infographic comparing the population of the United States with the population of US Facebook users.  There are a few surprises including the fact that South Dakota has the highest percentage of users of any state.  Only the District of Columbia beats it with a whopping 125% (how is that even possible?).

Click image to view the remainder (its a biggie!)

From mashable

Know Your Audience – Internet Habits By Age

Think you might capture kids with a hip blog?  Doesn’t look like it from these numbers.  Stick with social networking and Twitter or SMS if you really want to get their attention.

Age group online usage from ngonlinenews.com

From ngonlinenews.com

Mobile Market Share

Thinking about creating a mobile version of your site? Keep an eye on browser stats and know how to tailor your templates.

Mobile Market Share February 2010. From icrossing.co.uk

What’s perhaps going to be most interesting is to see if Apple can keep the market share that they currently have. Adding the iPad won’t hurt but Android phones are quickly catching up and may very well surprise the folks in Cupertino.

From icrossing.co.uk

The Effects of Social Media on Your Content

We talk a lot about social media and how we can use it to generate buzz and traffic to our Web site.  By using Twitter and Facebook to our advantages, TJSL is attempting to raise awareness of the institution and the excellence of the education at our school.  In particular, this part of a strategy to generate traffic as we prepare for a major redesign of our site.

From socialreflection.com, the impact social media can have on your site.

Sarasota Opera | Web Redesign

The Sarasota Opera Web site struggled to communicate the richness of programming offered by the opera and did not represent their newly renovated theater. Because Sarasota patrons tend to be retirees who range from upper-middle class to wealthy, Sarasota recognized that the site needed to be a balance between presenting a “sexier” look and feel while retaining strong usability. By renovating the site they hoped to reach out to younger patrons while still serving their existing ones in order to continue to develop a strong audience for ticketed events.

Microsoft ThinMan Concepts | Application Flow & User Profiles

POP worked closely with the developing markets team at Microsoft to do concepting for Microsoft discovery and user testing sessions in Asia. Microsoft’s ThinMan project is a “getting started” concept aimed at helping new computer users become comfortable using Microsoft products. The work done by POP included crafting simple personas and user experience flows in order to help Microsoft craft their local user testing.

Download ThinMan Personas & User Flow (PDF 278KB)

Lyric Opera of Chicago | Pre-Discovery & Pitch

Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the premier opera houses in the United States. This was not well reflected in their site at the time of this project. POP met in Chicago with key stakeholders to run 2 days of discovery meetings and create a project proposal. In preparation for this discovery POP worked with Lyric to collect survey data from current Lyric supporters as well as analyze site metrics. The below documents are samples of how POP communicated what was learned from these exercises.