• A large number of vendors register to participate in a business-to-business marketplace. Vendors indicate what services they are best placed to offer, and pay a fee to register.
• Visitors to SitePoint looking to purchase services such as logo design, web design, web hosting or SEO services can request quotes from participating vendors. This service is free for interested parties looking to get quotes on a job.
• SitePoint receives a small payment for bringing the customer and the vendor together (there’s our disclaimer out the way).

There are a couple of reasons why we think this is a great model, and potentially a terrific fit for SitePoint:

1. We’ve used the service ourself, and had great results. In fact, we were hugely impressed both with the process and the vendor who provided us with the service we were after. If we didn’t stand by the service, we wouldn’t be considering integrating it into our site to this degree.
2. We already have a thriving community of savvy, entrepreneurial folks who are constantly looking for these kinds of services.
3. We also have an even bigger community of individuals who provide services such as these to clients every day, and could be eager to expand their client base through such a network.

At this point, some of you may be thinking, “Isn’t that what the SitePoint Marketplace is for?”

Yes and no. The Marketplace is good for auctions and classified listings, but this services offers the following additional benefits:

• Interested customers can receive no obligation quotes.
• Customers have access to a much larger network of vendors—one that extends beyond those who visit the SitePoint Marketplace.

As I mentioned above, we thought we’d try the service for ourselves, to see whether it was something we wanted to stand by, and we’re convinced it is a Good Thing. We’re interested in hearing your thoughts about this service though.

Is this something you would consider utilizing, as a client? (If you’re looking to get a quote for something, I’d encourage you to trial the service before weighing in. Note this is restricted to clients and vendors in the USA at this stage) And if you offer web development-related services, consider registering with VendorSeek and let us know your experience in the comments. As I mentioned, this is a trial, so its success along with your feedback will help determine whether we continue offering the service.

Check out the SitePoint Services signup page.

I’ve been following Microsoft’s $300 million dollar counter attack on Apple’s “Mac vs PC” campaign with interest. And whilst it’s taken some time, it’s good to finally see Microsoft on the front foot. Here’s a snippet of their ad creative.

The disappointing thing is that this new campaign has a snowflake’s chance in hell of actually working.

Here’s why …

5 Reasons Why This Vista Campaign Is Doomed

1. The “Mac vs PC” Campaign Speaks Directly to its Demographic.

   Apple’s “Mac vs PC” campaign worked because it leveraged a sentiment that already existed — the appeal of being a little bit different, a lot more fun, and a lot less “suit and tie.” They (very cleverly) positioned a Mac as being a “PC for real people” and executed a stellar campaign consistent with their brand. The campaign spoke to us with a voice we’d expect from Apple, so when they told us why the Mac was better, in their own cheeky and humorous way, we believed them and people lapped it up.

   On the other hand, Microsoft has worn the grey suit-and-tie of corporatism for years now. Many people see Microsoft as a corporate giant, while Apple is viewed as a regular company. Like it or not, people generally don’t like being told what’s what by a big corporate, and amongst those people are a bunch of vocal influencers who will scream their disdain for Microsoft until they’re red in the face and can scream no more.

   So when Microsoft tries to tell us that Vista is great (and does so in a way that is unexpected from the corporate giant) those dissenters will be rebutted with cries of “We once believed the guy who told us the earth was flat! We’re not going to make the same mistake again!

2. Tit-for-Tat Tactics Rarely Works for the Retaliator.

   Apple got in first with a great campaign — going into a tit-for-tat battle with them on their home turf will take a lot of money, a lot of time, and some seriously good technology to back them up. Whilst $300 million may sound like a lot for you and me, in the battle of big business it’s a drop in the ocean. As for the technology, well the jury’s still out …

3. It’s Just Taken Too Long to Respond.

   The slow moving beast that is the Microsoft marketing department needs to realise that if they’re going to counter attack, they need to do it fast before their enemy has established a stronghold.

   Oh, to have been a fly on the wall during the raging debates at Microsoft over whether they should piss in Apple’s pond to beat them at their own game! But the hesitation they’ve shown in addressing “the Apple problem” will cost them …

4. Microsoft Doesn’t Have the Brand Advocacy It Needs, and This Campaign Won’t Change That.

   I was born into a Microsoft world, as were many of my friends and colleagues. Perhaps you were too? Our first computers ran MS-DOS and Windows, as did our schools, and our offices. We embraced it as part of the personal computer revolution — we didn’t change because we were too ignorant to care, or too cash-strapped to seek alternatives. Over time, Microsoft products became part of our lives.

   Today, those of us who remain Microsoft users do so simply because it’s comfortable. Changing to another operating system seems like too much hard work.

   Translating this mindset into brand advocacy terms produces key influencers like “it’s in my comfort zone”, or “it’s forced on me through work” rather than “this product is something I really believe in”.

   But those who do make the switch to a Mac (or even to Linux), regardless of whether the decision was the result of marketing hype or because of thorough research, made that choice themselves. This is a key difference affecting how that user describes their operating system to others.

   For example, if you’ve switch from a PC to a Mac, but your Mac experience is actually much the same (or worse) than your experience on the PC, then you’re likely to keep your mouth shut. You wouldn’t want to admit that you made a poor choice and show everyone how wrong you were!

   If, however, you rate your Mac experience as the best you’ve ever had, then you’re going to tell anyone who will listen just how good that product is, to show them how smart you are.

   Once again, if we were to translate this into brand advocacy terms, you’re operating either out of fear of admitting a bad choice, or from an association of a shared experience of pure elation. So those who are unhappy people keep their mouth shut, and the people who are excited, make sure it’s known. No wonder we read so much good press about the Mac.

5. The Product Just Isn’t Good Enough.

   I’m a simple PC user. I barely tap the surface of my computer’s potential. My satisfaction from an operating system is based on three simple things:

   1. Does it work when I need it?
   2. Does it help me complete the tasks I have today?
   3. Is it easy to learn how to complete new tasks that come my way?

   I’m sad to say that so far my Vista experience has been a resounding “No” for all three of these questions. And I’m the fan boy.

   Given that I feel this negatively about Vista, and that the majority of people with whom I discuss this topic also seem to feel this way, I can only conclude that there is something very wrong with Vista.

First of a series? We’ll see…

This first round of ads looks like the emergence of a series of ”false-belief” analogies. I’d be very surprised to see them get to round two. Perhaps Apple will come up with its own marketing campaign to counter this approach, thus putting the nail in the coffin for Vista?

What do you think? Can Microsoft save itself, or is it too late?

Google’s initial announcement was so incredibly vague as to render it all but useless. Developers came away knowing that Google was doing something different with their Flash content, but that’s about it.

While Google’s Dion Almaer suggested that search engines have always been black boxes and that it was up to us to discover what had changed through testing, just about everyone else was crying foul.

Google’s credibility was immediately in question due to the obviously bad advice it contained:

"If you prefer Google to ignore your less informative content, such as a "copyright" or "loading" message, consider replacing the text within an image, which will make it effectively invisible to us."

For the record, replacing fast-loading, accessible text content with a bulky image simply to hide it from search engines is never a good idea.

Google’s list of caveats in the announcement were similarly perplexing:

"Googlebot does not execute some types of JavaScript. So if your web page loads a Flash file via JavaScript, Google may not be aware of that Flash file, in which case it will not be indexed."

What types of JavaScript? Established best practice for publishing Flash content is to use the SWFObject JavaScript library to overcome bugs in older browsers, so was Google saying that it would only index Flash content that was authored using broken/outdated HTML-only techniques?

"We currently do not attach content from external resources that are loaded by your Flash files. If your Flash file loads an HTML file, an XML file, another SWF file, etc., Google will separately index that resource, but it will not yet be considered to be part of the content in your Flash file."

Any experienced Flash developer knows that if you are going to have any significant amount of text in your Flash content, your best bet is to stick it in an XML file and load it on the fly, so you don’t have to rebuild your Flash movie whenever you change the content.

Apparently, not only will Google not see Flash content authored this way, but it will track down the XML file anyway and index it as a separate page on your site! That’s right, Google will helpfully direct people searching for your content to the raw XML file that contains it, rather than your slick, Flash front-end.

All this stuff made so little sense, that many developers questioned whether Google was actually able to index any Flash content of consequence. Within a few days, however, the Search Engine War blog was able to verify that Google was indeed indexing Flash content.

Finally, after several days of developer outcry, Google admitted it had left too many questions unanswered, and four days later, it posted a significant update that is well worth reading if you have any Flash content on your site.

Here’s a quick summary of what we now know:

• The July 1st release didn’t index Flash content inserted with the SWFObject library’s dynamic publishing method, which writes the Flash content into the page entirely with JavaScript. The recommended static publishing method (where two nested <object> tags are included in the page) was indexed. Google is now deploying an update that supports the dynamic publishing method as well.
   
• Text content loaded on-the-fly from an XML file is not yet indexed, but Google is working on fixing this in the near term.
   
• Google will do its best to detect when duplicate content is there to provide an HTML alternative to Flash content, and will only display one of the two versions in the search results. No penalty is applied to a site’s search ranking due to duplicate content.

There are still unknowns here, but that will always be the case with the Google search engine. Though it took a few days, Google is answering what questions it can, and responding to developer concerns with enhancements.

Before very long, most of the text within Flash-based web sites will make its way into the Google search index. Nevertheless, uncertainty will remain over how deeply Google is able to probe Flash content for a while yet. Providing non-Flash alternative content will remain an effective means of guaranteeing your most important content a place in the Google index. It also gives users of non-Flash-enabled browsers (like the iPhone) something to look at.

Though Google’s initial message was pretty half-baked, the follow-up has put most of my concerns to rest. How about yours?

Balls.

Multitasking is great if you want to fill your time doing a lots of things not very well, over a long period of time. Sure you can: flicking between checking your email, Twittering, writing a report, trying a new web app and chatting on Facebook. Are you busy? Probably. Are you productive? Probably not.

As I see it, there are two key problems here:

1. Doing non essential tasks
   Due to procrastination and self-distraction you are putting off certain tasks, by doing everything else but, the task you are supposed to be doing.
2. Task switching
   The other often overlooked issue is that of task switching — moving between one task and another. This is the issue I want to draw your attention to in this post.

Task switching

Your conscious mind effectively works like a single thread processor. We do things best in a linear fashion. One thing followed by another. Multitasking is like trying to make yourself a multithread processor. Unfortunately, evolution hasn’t caught up yet, so you are stuck with your good old fashioned single thread brain. Sure you can sort of do multitasking, but it’s a bit of a hack and doesn’t really work.

The problem with multitasking is you keep changing backwards and forwards from one thing to another. This means you need to switch your thoughts from one task to another repeatedly, and then repeatedly having to recall all the pertinent information about each task, before you actually do the task itself. This all takes time.
When you multitask you are effectively (to put it in computer terms), opening a file, doing something with it, closing it, opening another file, doing something with it, closing it and opening the previous one again, doing something with it, closing it again etc, etc. This is obviously inefficient. Infact depending on how often you switch between tasks. You can waste 40% plus of your productive time just in task switching!

Could do better

There is also one more good reason not to do it: quality. It has been proven that, trying to do more than one thing at a time generally leads to a poorer performance of each task, compared with doing each task separately.

Of course, having said all that; it is not always possible to work on things in a linear manner, but generally, if you want to get more things done and to a higher standard: stop multitasking. TTFN.

I use this analogy because, as anyone who’s been to a nightclub knows, on that dance floor you have a very precise view of a small area. On the balcony, your field of vision is wider, but it’s much less detailed.

It’s important to appreciate this different perspective when working with your team to develop customer service strategies. Remember, your customer support team members will bring a very precise picture of what’s happening in their place on the dance floor, so listen to what they say. If you’re a manager, it’s your job to take a broader view of the situation and make decisions and changes that benefit the entire group.

Don’t question what your support team tells you — listen, research, and take action!

One of the best initiatives I’ve seen to ensure that people on the balcony don’t forget just how real things are on the front line is exactly what goes on here at SitePoint.

Now, I can’t take full credit as this initiative wasn’t my own idea (hat tip to Luke, our General Manager), but here’s how it works: we have a policy that every single employee of SitePoint must do a full day of Customer Support about one day a month. This includes our Co-founders, our Managing Editors, Programmers, Designers, and even me.

Having the whole team involved in customer support on a regular basis ensures that every single person in the company understands just what sort of impact an error or a flawed process has on our customers, regardless of whether they are directly involved in the customer-facing parts of our business or not.

It’s one thing to show an employee or a manager a report listing ten customers who haven’t received their books on time — it’s another thing entirely to ask that person to personally respond to each and every one of those customers. I bet the next time our customer support team mentions “we might have a shipping issue,” they’ll have a vocal ally to help champion their cause.

In virtually any role, in any company, your customers are your lifeblood. Even if you never get close to having a conversation with them, it’s important to never forget that what you do does have an impact. And while you might not hear it directly from your customers, if your support team tells you that there’s a problem, it’s a pretty safe bet that there is!

So should you ever find yourself forgetting about your customers, regardless of whether your business sells a product or service, consider getting back on the dance floor and checking out the action for yourself.

Photo credit: Brian Barnett

If you’re a regular in our marketplace then you’ll want to keep an eye on this competition — the World Championships of Web Site Flipping are happening (a first for the site flipping industry, I believe), proudly sponsored by SitePoint.

Check out all of the contenders that have been spotlighted on the site — nothing really in there to suggest the talents of these flipping warriors, but fun if only to put some real faces to names in the site flipping industry.

There are a stack of prizes on offer — up to $20,000 worth, and that includes a copy of SitePoint’s Web Site Revenue Maximizer kit.

Watch the SiteFlipAcademy blog for more details as they come.

I’m a bit late reporting this, as the date for registering to compete has passed.Chaunna from SiteFlipAcademy informs me that it’s not too late to register and be involved. “You have until July 12th to flip like crazy and the score cards (that you’ll receive in the contender kit) need to be submitted by the 16th.” So if you’re interested in getting involved, get flipping!

But here’s one simple reason why you can never EVER forget why site performance is so important.

In the last few weeks we’ve upgraded our our blogs and moved our forum to the latest version of vBulletin. Very quickly our sys admin became concerned with the growing pressure on our servers. I’m no expert, but even I could see the dramatic shift in some of the utilization graphs I was shown…

The tipping point was Wednesday and we raised the priority of some longer term plans as well as implemented a quick upgrade to our server hardware (a couple of shiny new AMD Opteron Dual Core CPU’s.)

The effect was instantaneous and dramatic. Our response times were better than before the upgrades…

Result: The next day, bang, a 33% increase in our forum traffic!

So you can search engine optimize to your heart’s content, run A/B split testing, run advertising campaigns, made sure your design is accessible and usable, but it your servers can’t deal with the traffic, you’re slamming the door in visitors faces. And with so much choice these days, they’re not going to wait in the cold outside - they’re off to visit your competitors.

But if you’re yet to find that killer strategy to earn a profit from the Web, I’d like to introduce you to a brand new product that’s going to make your journey to online prosperity simpler, easier, and oh so much faster…

The Web Site Revenue Maximizer

By Peter T. Davis & Georgina Laidlaw

Niche sites with the right content and monetization strategy are extremely valuable assets and this new SitePoint kit will walk you through, step-by-step, how to generate profit from the Web. You’ll learn from the pros just how easy it is to plan, build, and earn a steady income from your online portfolio.

Then, when you’re ready to cash out, you’ll learn how to flip your sites for profit.

It doesn’t matter if you’re new to the Web, or you already own a couple of sites. You’re sure to find some amazing nuggets of wisdom which will ensure this kit pays for itself again and again…

Here’s a just snippet of what you’ll learn:

• Turn small sites into a growing income.
• How to achieve affiliate marketing success.
• Use your online content to generate revenue.
• Flourish in the competitive ecommerce market.
• Learn how to buy, renovate, then flip your site for profit.
• Build a web estate portfolio for a steady income.
• And much much more…

So go order a copy and discover how niche sites with the right content and monetization strategy can become extremely valuable assets.

Well, the site is now for sale with a minimum bid of $50,000 and a Buy It Now price of $100,000.

While the concept of playing chess on the computer is not new, what makes CrowdChess different is its approach to team games — rather than your standard one-on-one fare, games of chess are played by groups of people who vote each hour, digg-style, on the next move to be played. In what some consider to be the ultimate duel of the mind, this popular web application is also the ultimate test of whether the “wisdom of the crowd” can improve or hinder the decision-making process.

In fact, the featured game on CrowdChess at the moment is between Grand Master Gawain Jones and everyone else. By that, I mean that literally anyone can become part of the team and cast votes on the moves made against this high profile opponent. If you’d like be to be part of the team that defeats (or loses to) a grand master, it’s not too late to get in on the action.

CrowdChess’s sellers are offering to include a business plan as well as consulting to ensure a smooth transition to the successful buyer. If you’ve got a mind for this kind of duel (and a cheque book to match) then check out the auction page.

One style of coverage that very hard to miss is when your compared against the competition. What’s even harder to ignore is when you’re ranked number 1!

So what does this tell us? Perhaps that just one person, on one blog thinks we are the best, or maybe that generally we’re heading in the right direction.

The real lesson here is that you must find time in your day to actively seek and listen to what your customers are saying. Look for trends and be prepared to change. At the end of the day if you’re offering a product or service, what YOU think doesn’t matter. It’s your customers that will ultimately drive success.