117 karma · joined September 22, 2008
However, big brands might find creative ways to use them on search results. Check out the one for Pedigree (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=pedigree) This commercial first ran during the Super Bowl and is pretty funny. I'll bet certain campaigns could do well in search, prodding the user to dive into the ad experience more (i.e. hangintherejack.com)
The script felt very wordy. The words and screencast should compliment each other, but they felt very duplicitous here. I'd cut out 30% of the voice over, allowing the video to get the point across. My favorite resource for learning how to be concise is "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser. Check it out.
barf
While inquiring HN minds may watch all 4 min, I doubt most users will. I recommend a 30 second teaser which gets the message across, and turn the rest into a how-to video which users can watch if they need help. The UI/UX of the site seems pretty simple, so I don't think people will need a walk through unless they're really dense.
Also the layout on http://www.cloudfireit.com/what_is_cloudfire.html is pretty off balance. Hurts my eyes!
That being said, I like the idea and I'll be signing up for the free trial :)
Once I actually saw the article, my ulcer came back. (been employed at y! since MSFT rumors ramped up in spring 2007.
While I was interested in the topic, about 30 slides in I got tired of clicking through the "presentation" and gave up. I'm getting tired of slides with huge text and no design. Makes me almost miss bullet point monotony!
Found this in the FAQ of http://sixhourstartup.com "frequently the best results come from the .NET developer who tries his hand at writing web copy, or from the marketer who’s never done any marketing before."
A marketer who's never done marketing before! Impressive!
:)
But seriously, I'm sure all the hard work that's not mentioned in the post is starting to pay off. Congrats, and thanks for the encouragement and advice.
Uh, fuzzy math? He's paying $60/week + food, so $100/week would be more like $7/meal (assuming breakfast isn't a fully cooked meal since eggs/pancakes don't cook so well). Would be $15/meal if he's only talking dinners.
Still seems like a good deal considering the time he saves, and I'd like to have a mother's cooking rather than my own feeble attempts :)