I was going to blog about another fashion site but since the net is abuzz about the new Google browser chrome, it seems only fitting to discuss. From first appearances, chrome looks pretty nifty. Chrome remembers your most visited sites, integrates Google maps, instant bookmarks, has intelligent anti phishing functions, and dynamic tabbing. I’m sure Google will use all of the data for good and not evil (sarcasm here)
Withstanding any major technical problem (and there are always problems in beta), chrome has made the browser war more interesting. With Microsoft light years behind, Safari lacking compatibility, Mozilla’s lack of marketing, and Yahoo’s just basic lack of anything; chrome is easily positioned to become the king of the browsers.
I’m not a major fan of all things Google- in fact their dominance scares me. But when a company consistently puts out high quality software and easy to use tools then even an anti-trust advocate like me must appreciate the power of that company. Congratulations Google and further success on your continued world domination.
Now, I just expressed my view to one of my techie colleagues and he whole heartily disagrees with my assessment.
See for yourself and download chrome here
From Wikipedia:
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September. The holiday originated in 1882 as the Central Labor Union (of New York City) sought to create “a day off for the working citizens”.
We hope that all of you working citizens enjoy the day off!
KVH
I came across this site while googling a prospect last night. It has nifty easy-to-use features with a good UI that allows you to get a lot of information about a company from the types of keywords that are used for searches that end up directing traffic to that site. And it allows you to see a list of competitor sites that are vying for the same keywords. While it’s free to unregistered guests, you are limited to only 10 searches unless you sign up for a free account. After showing this to KVH, she mentioned that it seems to work better than Google Trends… You be the judge.
JCY
I know, what you’re thinking. An agency still in the womb has the gall to critique a major retail site. At birdhouse, we have a lot of gall and some of us specialize in constructive criticism.
The new site Calvin Klein website at calvinklein.com was designed by the luxury-brand digital agency Createthegroup. I actually admire that Createthegroup has been able to not only find a niche market but to seemingly dominate that market. The problem is that most of their sites tend to have a very similar wireframe look and feel.
The major announcement accompanying the release was CK leveraging online video. I’m not really a fan of video on ecommerce sites because for the most part video is used poorly. The CK site has fairly high quality video and the clothes look pretty good. Now here’s the strange part — the video on the site has its own url — ck tv. If a user wants to view the video, then they click a link and are taken to the Calvin Klein TV site. It may come as a surprise to the people at CK but I predict few people will love CK enough to bother clicking and going to another site just to view video. And then return back to the product page to purchase. Why not have the video incorporated on the product page? One idea: A CK sweater product page could have a video of the sweater from a photo-shoot or the runway. The customer could then see how the sweater looks like on a moving person- albiet on a supermodel. The customer gets another push to buy the sweater without disrupting the buying process. And the marketing people can still keep their catchy little TV site.
Can the people at Createthegroup and CK explain the logic behind their use of video? Anyone want to take a guess. We invite your speculation and feedback.
KVH
