as I was saying to Dan in a comment, I’m probably going to take this blog in another direction, that of branding and web marketing, rather than seo and linkbuilding and so on. thus, I’m happy to present you a bit of an article which emphasize the design patterns in viral media. Part of it is branding and part is SMO, so even you seo-s out there will like it. I was going to just leave you with a link, but here’s a summary of the thing.

Firstly, point here is that this is not a real analysis, which kind of bums me out, me expecting a nice analysis of all viral media so far and boiling it down to a few points. But nonetheless we have some points here and it sounds like they may work. Also, these do not work by themselves, one needs to know how to weave them into what they may be doing.

1. show that your employees are doing their best to die for providing you with the most awesome ingredients. this works best with companies which are cheap.
2. reverse that, and show that customers are dying to get your products. this works when there really is some reason for people to do so.
3. scare them. show them what happens when they don’t buy your stuff and how people around them may suffer because of this. and it’s their fault, the bastards!
4. “brand halo effect” whatever that is. didn’t get this one, but it’s something about pairing companies with cash to spare with smart creative expensive ad agencies.
5. make a hot showcase of the product. use chicks if possible, naked if possible. also, good for distracting people from the oh so obvious flaws of your products.
6. show something that no one can have and may never actually be produced. again, think chicks, voiceovers and a general sense of awe for the customer when he watches it.
7. just say something everybody knows but make it sound important. and corporate-like. make it impressive. think “i’m sure you know what water is. but did you know that heated at the right temperature, this can actually turn into gas?” tam-dam-daaaam
8. make something crazy, like people who can fly using your sneakers. make it a legal loophole and amaze people with the abilities of your product. also, film it low-quality so that it looks like just some guy filmed it on the street or something, adds credibility, makes people think if it really happened. then when people complain they can;t fly mention the guy in the film was superman and you were just showing off the design. simple, eh
9. do the above, but make it be some regular guy, again taking it closer to the people. make them believe they can also fly.
10. this is a crappy youtube trick which i hate. youtube creates thumbnails of clips by extracting the middle frame. so simply add some chick in a sexy position in the middle of the video and everyone will think it’s porn and watch it. it works, but it screws up your brand.
11. get a celebrity (with a well defined character to people) and put them in another character. make them smart if they’re normally goofy, or sexy if they’re normally goofy, or popular if.. well you get it.
12. use animals, make them act human.
13. do science. think brainiac, or mythbusters.
14. make fun of stupid, fat, etc people. it is in our evil core that we find that really funny.
15. make a funny and ORIGINAL song
16. use wierd people, or people one doesn;t tend to interact with. think ninja, cleaning lady, bank robber
17. shock people, make them expect one thing then shock them with something completely different.
18. rape a stereotype. oh, wait. violate. what they mean is again, put people in different positions than are expected of them. think schumacher driving a pinto.
19. use a catchphrase, make it catchy
20. change the use of normal items. same as 18 but with items not people. however items that behave like people in a way, show emotion
21. link popular video games to reality. like the coca cola gta thing. however this must be a recognisable thing and usually only works with teens.

that was it, just remember these are my words, if you want to read the article, and i suggest you do, since it has nice videos exemplifying what each is about, plus larger, more useful descriptions, visit the article here.

Blog will be silent now unless i find something interesting soon. keep tuned for the nice ebook.

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I know I said the blog would be back on track but you can clearly see it’s not, and there’s no chance it will get there anytime soon. Thing is, I’m busy right now, I have finished my Bachelors but there’s so much I need to do this summer, while I still have the time. I struck a deal with a local training center to finally get my diploma in Photography, and I revamp their website and they take me in no charge. I’m going for various jobs in branding, which has always been a passion of mine, but which doesn’t mean I don’t do the usual SEO consulting and so on.

All in all, I’m busy as busy can be. So I must put this project on hold, which means it’ll probably die out eventually, traffic is quite significantly taking a dive, it’s been perhaps a month or so since I’ve last posted. (The SEO in me is taking notes as to what effects this is having in Google) and I won’t lie to you guys.

I think the site will get redesigned a bit, and the blog will be reedited into one nice pdf ebook so that everyone can read it when they want without my confusing navigation

I’ll also post my Bachelors paper, many thanks to Dan (I didn’t know your last name so I called you Smith in a quote, please tell me so I can change that) and JJ who helped me with some content and all the people who voted

So don’t delete this bookmark yet, but don’t expect much out of it soon. I’m supposed to leave the city for a couple of weeks and then who knows…

Thanks to all the readers and remember, if you need some SEO advice ship an email to business@eydryan.com and we’ll help you with our grade-A service. And no, money is not what we’re after, but we’re not a charity either. We give you knowledge, and that is hard to come by.

Enjoy, and stay subscribed, or subscribe now for the future ebook.

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I just installed a game in russian… with no russian language support, which basically means everything looked like AEECPP CAACIVA and some other strange signs that weren’t even the cyrilic alphabet.

Now i have no idea of Russian. There not one word i know in Russian, and if there were, I wouldn’t know how it’s written. But this game is so interesting I had to try it. I’m not sure how many of you still enjoy video games but if you’ve ever played Diablo and liked it, well this is like that but better. Of course, it was in Russian and it wouldn’t start because I didn’t sheel the cash for a dell xps, but that’s not the point, this isn’t a gaming blog.

My point here is how important usability is. If you design an interface properly the text isn’t even important. Nor is the language. How did I make it through a setup interface, a hardware configuration interface and an autolauncher? Well, it’s simple really. And it’s a great study into how interfaces work.

Firstly I was completely overloaded with all the strange text because the option buttons were all in Russian too. Then, I thought for a bit, what buttons does an installer offer? Back, Next and Abort. Simple enough, let’s go So I clicked the strange button (which as a minus did not have the > symbol most english next buttons have) and it took me to the next page where I recognized the license agreement bit. How extremely interesting I clicked the top radio box and that activated the next button. I loved the idea, it was like a puzzle. Then came the tricky bit. I was presented with no buttons on the bottom, and two button options, each with a pictogram, one had a computer on it and the other a computer with something on top. I presumed this was the normal or advanced install and I clicked the simpler version of the icon and from there i just kept frantically clicking on next until it was all done.

I did get a bit of a penalty in that I installed an Aegeia PhysX driver which I don’t need but no harm done so let’s move on. I got to actually starting the game, which presented me with a plethora of choices, with tabs on top and many options in the window. I guessed at resolution (the 1280×800 format) and antialiasing (the option above 2x, 3x, etc). Then I had to guess which was save and play, and that was hard, since the configuration was two buttons stacked on a third… I miraculously picked the good one and was presented with the splash screen which was in Russian, but I immediately recognised the biggest button as being play (and the lowest one as being exit). And then the game crashed but displayed an error with Directx9 in it leaving me to understand my video card sucks and they don’t know how to program software rendering.

So what is the point here? Well, the point is that if done properly, usability can lead to people understanding your message quicker and more effectively, even if you have a problem expressing it.

So I propose to you to take the Russian Game Test from now on when designing a website. What this test is composed of is simple and is basically an applied version of prototyping. First, look at all the things you feel are important on your website, page by page. I’m referring mostly to navigation, but that’s not necessarily all. It can be the logo as well, various bits and pieces like buy now badges and so on. Turn the text on those to gibberish, and I don’t mean lorem ipsum. I mean really crazy stuff, like symbols or foreign languages, then ask a person who is a regular visitor (or actually at least 20) to do normal activities on the site with the gibberish version. Make sure all important elements are gibberish. However you are allowed, nay, encouraged to use icons and pictograms to indicate meaning. See how that works out.

Then, step two is to get rid of them altogether. Turn your website into dark rectangles on a white background. I don’t care if you have buttons shaped like cabbages, make them black rectangles. This is meant to show you that with all buttons the same size it’s hard to know your way around something…

Of course if this doesn’t trigger an instantaneous desire to redesign your website then you’re ok, but my bet is, most of you will want that… I hope you enjoyed this, and for any other questions comment or email me. If you want a website usability review that’s going to cost you, but feel free to contact me anyway

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PS: the blog is technically going to resume its normal schedule now that i’m in the clear with the exams and all that. also, i’m still working on my paper so if you feel like voting, please do…

I know excuses hardly make up for the lack of activity here but the truth is… I’m tired. I’ve been through exams these past weeks, some pretty hard tests, and now I have to prepare my bachelor’s degree, well actually finish the rough draft within about a week or so. In that direction I ask you to please vote using my widget so that i get some reasonable data for my project. As for my disappearance, give it a couple of weeks at most and I’ll be back posting really interesting stuff here

If everyone helps me out I’ll even post the thesis online here, it’s called “the business model of Google”.

So everyone, get voting! and I’ll be back posting SEO stuff as soon as I can.

And so you don’t get lost when i get back: Don’t forget to subscribe to the feed or who knows what you’ll miss out on. You can also subscribe by email.