MichaelValiant.com

Hacked for 2010!

By Michael | May 10, 2010

Well, looks like someone didn’t like my blog – and my web traffic from Russia and China have both spiked in the past month… Coincidence? Perhaps, but someone brought me down…

Until I have time to sort out templates, and plugins etc. I’ll be looking a little vanilla.

Unfortunately I’m not much of a ‘remember to back it up’ kind of guy and the last DB backup I have is from January 2009 (must have been a new years resolution to backup my blog in case anything bad ever happened – like getting hacked in 2010)

C’est la vie!

I’ll be back shortly.

Michael

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

New Year @ MichaelValiant.com

By Michael | January 8, 2009

2009!

Where on earth did 2008 go? My baby turns 1 year old in a few days and it really does just feel like a few weeks ago that I was in the hospital as she cried for the first time (she raised hell when she got a needle in the leg… what can I say, I’ve taught my kids to tell it like it is! )

The number one lesson I learned in the last 52 weeks is something that I’ve known, and said out loud for years; but it really hit home this year:

There is way more opportunity (read – things to do) than time

Now, I’m not one for new year’s resolutions, I really don’t believe in them (I DO believe that if we don’t try to improve a little bit more each and every day, what’s the whole point of being here anyway!) But that being said, this year I’d like to set out some goals

As my job with 1ShoppingCart evolves, I’ll be taking on new and exciting challenges to help try and grow the business, improve our services and try to figure out how to better solve the needs of our growing merchant base (that’s you! or at least some of you)

So one of the main things I’d like to acheive this year, is to use this blog as a space where I can investigate, learn, and otherwise sound-out the many issues that small businesses struggle with as we move towards the close of the first decade of the millenium.

I really believe that, in order to be successful we need to help make you successful (because that’s really what it’s all about right!?), and the only way to do that is to ensure I, and we, really understand what it is you’re going through on a day to day basis, so we can be there to help where we can.

So, my #1 goal for 2009, is to be dedicated to you, through this blog; understand the issues, answer questions, and solve problems.

I know I’ve neglected posting over the past few months (Christmas is our busy season and I’ve been crazy, but that’s no excuse), but I hope that once I get ramped up again, you’ll feel free to step in and join the conversation.

Topics: Small Business | 1 Comment »

Is Product Management the same as Community Management?

By Michael | October 8, 2008

One of my coworkers read my post yesterday and, stopping me in the hall said “But isn’t your job (Product Management) basically the same as a community manager?”

I’m just going to cut straight to the chase with this one and say it… No, Product Management is not the same as Community Management (unless the community is your product I suppose).

Although there are overlaps.

For instance, if your organization has a product management team, but no community team, then your product managers need to take on the role of advocating the customers voice within the dev process; and making sure the development cycle works FOR the customer (and not for the MACHINE!). I also produce my fair share of content and wrote for the company blog and newsletter (both of which are currently defunct unfortunately).

And while this is all important, and the product managers should always consider the end user as one of the most important share holders during their research cycle, they will never (or should never anyway) have the amount of time needed to really engage, foster and build a community.

Enter the Community Manager.

The Community Manager has the enviable job of, if not defining then at least executing your companies overall outreach strategy. Think: Advocate, Evangelist, Promoter, Conversationalist, Schmoozer, Moderator, Networker, Coordinator and so much more.

Of course there’s tracking and reporting, analyzing and metrics, worrying about ROI (which can be more difficult for the Community Manager), producing multi-channel content, staying up to date with the latest online social tools, ferreting out hidden communities and working varied hours (unless of course you can convince your community to stick to YOUR 9-5 schedule!)

So yes, there are similarities, but no, a community manager is not a product manager.

Topics: Community Manager | 2 Comments »

Community Manager

By Michael | October 8, 2008

I’ve spent a good amount of time this week looking into the roles of Web Strategist and Community Manager and the one thing that I can say I’ve learned without any doubt is that the responsibilities that fall within these roles seem to be as varied as the companies that staff them.

For instance:

Some companies seem to staff the community manager as an entry level position, with little more to do than write for a blog or moderate a forum.

Other companies (seemingly the ones that get ‘it’) offer this as a senior management role with salaries rising well beyond the 100k mark (although the average seems to be in the 80k neighbourhood) and including a broad range of roles and responsibilities.

Currently we don’t staff for a community manager at 1ShoppingCart; we have a few people carrying out what I would consider to be community manager tasks like monitoring external forums and I personally watch our brand across multiple channels (like Twitter and Facebook); but these aren’t our primary roles.

I read somewhere today (and I can’t find my reference note at the moment unfortunately, I think it was from a Gartner report, but will update my post when I do find it) that 60%+ of all Fortune 1000 companies will be fostering online communities by 2010. So do we need a standardization of the Community Manager role?

This is a topic I will be delving into a little deeper in the coming weeks, and I hope you’ll join me by adding your own feedback in the comments section (I know there are people reading my blog that know more about this than I do!)

For now, I thought a good way to get the ball rolling would be to break down what the role/roles looked like, from a responsibilities POV. Click the image below to open a mindmap I’ve created and be sure to share your thoughts & corrections! Thanks!

> click for full-sized image <

FYI the mindmap is an aggregation of dozens of sources (esp. blog posts & job postings), as well as the culmination of my thoughts over the past year.

For more information on the subject (and I will be compiling more resources as I identify them) the two single best sources of information on Community Management that I can recommend are Connie Bensen and Jeremiah Owyang (both of whom I’ve also been following on Twitter for ages)

Topics: Community Manager, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

OMG! Off to SF for OMW!

By Michael | September 30, 2008

Ignore the title of this post, it just sort of happened…

Tomorrow… actually, a little later this morning (I can’t sleep), I’ll be heading to the airport and off to the west coast to attend the Online Market World conference in the Moscone Centre in Sunny San Francisco (IS it sunny in SF?)

I’m looking forward to the event, even though I have to leave a little early and won’t make it to any of the sessions held on Friday.

If you are in SF, or will be for the event, drop me a line and we’ll hook up for coffee! (or tea, I hear there is an amazing Tea House in MC north!) I’ll be checking blog comments, twitter and email while I’m away, although will be refreshingly unplugged for the most part.

okay, that’s it, short and sweet. Look for me in SF… I’ll be looking for you!

Topics: Conferences, Product Management | 2 Comments »

1ShoppingCart Buttons

By Michael | September 11, 2008

Periodically we receive requests for the ability to remove the ‘continue shopping’ button from the shopping cart checkout page.

This is a common request from merchants who are only selling a single product (or at least a single product per site) and therefore have nothing to Continue Shopping for!

Well, we don’t have a solution yet (sorry) but I do have a work around for you!

One of our merchants, who is a much better CSS guy than I am, provided me with this:

/* Temporarily Hiding the Continue Shopping Button */
#ctl00_scPageContent_continueShoppingButton { display: none; visibility: hidden;}

I tested it and it works, the Continue Shopping Button disappears when the code snippet has been used.

But Where Do I Stick It?

um… yes.

Simply copy the 2 lines of code above and paste them into the ‘Custom CSS’ field on your ‘Options >> Cart Customization’ page within your account. 1SC screen cap

I should also mention that this should ONLY be used if you are ONLY selling 1 product and ONLY if you are using the 1 Step Checkout Links!

If you are also using a 2 step process through the same account, the Continue Shopping button on the ‘View Cart’ page will also disappear as it shares the same name!

Hope this helps – caveat emptor!

Topics: 1ShoppingCart | 1 Comment »

Techcrunch 50

By Michael | September 8, 2008

Techcrunch started this morning. I’ve been watching/listening to the great live video feed (although I missed the Aston/Goldberg presentation).

I’ve been looking over the program and I’m looking forward to playing with some of these new services! Check it out:

TechCruch50 Program – Get more Information Technology

Topics: Technology | No Comments »

Ecommerce Tracking through 1ShoppingCart’s Google Analytics integration

By Michael | September 5, 2008

Update – 3/5/2009 – I’ve been demo’ing the 1SC/Google Analytics integration quite a bit lately (to staff and others) and put together a little document to try and show the results of a successful implementation. You can take a look at the document here!

It has been brought to my attention that I completely glossed over a fairly significant aspect of 1ShoppingCart’s Google Analytics integration in last weeks post.

Sorry, I included a link down at the bottom of that post to cover the topic, but didn’t say much about it.

But now, thanks to the wonders of social media and the smart people who follow me, I will correct that!

Ecommerce tracking through 1ShoppingCart’s Google Analytics integration…

Basically the end result of this is that Google Analytics will track and display transaction related stats right from your Analytics account dashboard.

This is a great feature and I highly recommend using it, unfortunately 1ShoppingCart didn’t integrate this portion of the tracking script.

The reasons are two-fold:

I had the opportunity to squeeze through a SMALL project and get it released quickly.
You can still set it up and use it (/track it) manually!

I won’t go over ALL the details here, because Googles help is actually pretty good for this topic; which you can find here.

What’s Required?

This is going to be a ‘little’ sketchy, because I haven’t set this up before, so keep that in mind:

The Google Analytics script has the ability to capture transaction details from the Transaction Thank You page. All you have to do is install the Google script on one of your own pages, tell your analytics account to start tracking and tell your 1ShoppingCart account to use your new page as your default order thank you page.

Then, after every successful transaction on the 1ShoppingCart system we’ll automatically post the details of the transaction to your thank you page (no sensitive information is sent of course!) and your google script will capture the information.

Once you have your Thank You page setup and ready, update the ‘Thank You URL:‘ field on the ‘Setup >> Orders‘ page with your new URL. * Remember, this is your account default setting, there is an over-ride on every products details page!

That’s about it! It’ll take a little while to get your Thank You page setup just right I imagine, but the rest is pretty straightforward.

Information that the google script will capture:

Order ID
Affiliation
Total
Tax
Shipping
City
State
Country
Order ID
SKU
Product Name
Category
Price
Quantity

You’ll have to remove the Category option from the Google Script, since this is not information that we currently pass to the thank you page!

Topics: 1ShoppingCart, Google | 11 Comments »

Good News Canada

By Michael | September 5, 2008

Some good news for Canadians today.

The NewYorkTimes reported a 6.1% increase in unemployment south of the border today. The highest level in 5 years, this accounts for more than 84,000 slashed private/non-farm jobs in August.

North of the border on the other hand, our outlook is a little sunnier; not sunny, just sunnier. Canada added a modest 15,000 jobs in August, lowering our unemployment rate to… 6.1%.

It looks like our North American community (of two!) is continuing an ongoing trend of reaching parity on multiple fronts.

Topics: eCommerce | No Comments »

Online Ads Work

By Michael | September 5, 2008

This week I’ve been dabbling my toes in the perpetually ongoing ‘Online Ads’ debate.

Specifically looking into the ‘do people really click on ads’ portion of this multi-armed octopus.

And then it hit me… even I click on ads all the time!

The realization came to me on the NewYorkTimes website as I tried to click-through to a specific article I wanted to look at. Up popped the hated & intrusive Interstitial Ad; and right away I raced my mouse to the top right corner to seek out and click on the “Skip This Ad” link.

So you see… Online ads really do work!

Topics: Marketing | No Comments »

NoFollow links at Twitter

By Michael | September 5, 2008

I don’t usually make posts like this, but:

As both a practitioner of ‘the arts of SEO’ and a regular user of Twitter I completely agree with Rae Hoffman – And whether blame lies with Twitter, or Google, or both, this boils down to a kick in teeth to all legitimate ‘customers’.

(& yes, I know I’m a couple days behind the times on this, but I’ve been on vacation…)

Topics: Google, SEO, Twitter | 8 Comments »

1ShoppingCart & Google Analytics

By Michael | August 21, 2008

On July 10, 2008 1ShoppingCart released a new Third Party Integration with Google Analytics to all Basic and Pro package accounts.

It’s a great feature that has been requested for ages and I’m happy to have been able to push it through.

Generally 1ShoppingCart doesn’t offer a ton of support or more than basic help information for our Third Party Integrations, typically letting each third party provider support their own products instead.

This usually isn’t an issue as most of our merchants using an integrated third party solution (henceforth referred to as TPS) tend to know more about that solution than we do. But Google Analytics seems to be a little bit different.

Not that we know more about Google Analytics than our merchants, but there is definitely a unique dynamic surrounding this particular integration that hasn’t occurred with any of our previous TPS integrations and I’ve been approached a few times for more information on how this new integration works

I’m sure that the major differentiator is simply that, while most of our TPSs are fairly specialized, Google Analytics is fairly mainstream and widely used (for obvious reasons… I use it myself!)

Anyway, I’ve talked to our support team about creating a guide of some sort, but in the meantime I thought I would clean up my notes and post them here as a short term solution.

*Disclosure: I don’t talk a lot about my great ‘day job’ here, so if I’m confusing any of you right now here’s the skinny: I’m a product manager for 1ShoppingCart.com (a web.com brand). There aren’t very many corners of the app that I haven’t had a heavy-hand in improving (and occasionally breaking – sorry about that) over the past few years and Google Analytics was one of my pet projects earlier this summer.

Google Analytics

This integration was pretty simple and straightforward, which is one of the major reasons I was able to sneak it into our busy development cycle.

The Basics

We took Google’s provided script and coded it right into our shopping cart process. The script itself is exactly the same for everyone using Google Analytics, with the exception of each user’s Unique Identifier (referred to within the script as the ‘UA’).

So all you have to do as a (Basic or Pro package) merchant of 1ShoppingCart is find your UA and type (or copy/paste) it into the Google Analytics field on the Setup >> Third Party Integrations menu within your account and then update your product links (to tell Google that the destination needs to be tracked also.)

The Slightly Tricky Stuff

The one caveat to this is:

You need to be using the CORRECT script on your own website to make this work… and you probably aren’t yet

Google provides 3 or 4 different scripts; there’s at least one legacy version (legacy=old… i.e. don’t use!) provided as an urchin.js file and 2 newer versions provided as ga.js files.

I’m not going to talk about the legacy version here other than to say: UPGRADE! The urchin.js file doesn’t even offer the same functionality as the newer versions, and it won’t work with the 1ShoppingCart Google Analytics Integration.

Of the two new versions, there is a standard version and another provided to ‘track a 3rd party shopping cart’ (that’s us!)

You’re most likely using the standard version on your site now (assuming you are using Google Analytics already of course) but will need to update your site to use the ‘track a 3rd party shopping cart’ version in order to use our Google Analytics integration.

The ‘track a 3rd party shopping cart’ Script

I included a link to Google’s help page at the bottom of this post; I pulled all my information from there but I’ve been told from less tech savvy people that Google’s pages are difficult to understand. I hope my explanation is a little easier to digest, but if not, just let me know!

1. Get the right Analytics Script – Copy the code that follows and paste it into all the pages on your site (typically you would do this one time in a standard, site-wide include; like a header). This code must be placed ABOVE any product links, so don’t put it in your footer, or near the </body> tag which is often recommended:

2. Add your Personal Identifier to the script - In the code above, replace the (“UA-xxxxxx-x”) with your actually UA #. As I understand it, the #’s between the dashes represents your individual Google account, and the last # represents which site profile you are tracking.

You can find your UA within your existing script or within your Google Analytics account:

From the appropriate site profile within your Google account, click EDIT from the Settings column. At the top right of the Main Website Profile Information box, click Check Status. Your standard tracking code will appear in the text box that appears in the ‘Instructions For Adding Tracking’ section.

3. Update your product links – This step may be a bit of pain for any merchants with a large number of products… sorry, but it’s the only way.

You have to add the following to the end of every link on your website that sends traffic to your shoppingcart on our site (again, make sure any links with this addition are LOWER in your code than the main analytics tracking javascript):

onclick=”pageTracker._link(this.href); return false;”

So, if your link looks like this currently (These are some test products on one of my accounts!):

It should look like this, after you add the new bits:

4. Test that you did it right – When I was poking around I came across a service that offers Google Analytics Site Scans. If you have any doubts about whether or not you installed the Google script correctly, head over to http://www.sitescanga.com and see!

5. Watch your stats roll in!

Linkfest

If you want to go to the source, I’ve included links to pretty much all of the pages I visited to find the above information:

Google Analytics Site Scan:

http://www.sitescanga.com/

Tracking Transactions:

https://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55528&ctx=sibling

Google analytics on an ecommerce site:

https://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55528&ctx=sibling

tracking a 3rd part shopping cart:

https://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55532

Confirm tracking code on site is correct:

https://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55480&ctx=sibling

*** Update 9/5/2008 – Apparently I forgot to talk about the all important aspect of Google Analytics Ecommerce Tracking… so I wrote another post.

*** Updated 2/2/2009 – I needed to clarify where in the code the main tracking script needs to be added. It must go ABOVE any product links that include the _link parameter.

Topics: 1ShoppingCart, Analytics | 6 Comments »

If I don’t wave back…

By Michael | August 20, 2008

I’ve come to the realization lately (there was no real lightning bolt moment, it was a discovery that dawned upon me slowly) that I have some of my best, most lucid thoughts while driving around.

Many of my “Ah HA!” moments come to me somewhere along Steel Street; about the half-way mark on my drive home.

I don’t know what it is exactly, but it’s true. Maybe it’s the fresh air (I drive with the windows down typically) or empty mind state (by your 30’s driving doesn’t take much thought, esp. on a well travelled route), or some combination of other factors…

Whatever it is though, I drive with a notepad and a digital recorder lately!

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you see me on the road and wave, don’t be upset if I don’t wave back, I’m probably deep in thought.

Where’s your ‘Thinking Spot’?

Topics: Errant Thoughts, Lifehack | 2 Comments »

The Ant Wars

By Michael | July 17, 2008

Once a month (or so) a colony of very small red ants and a colony of equally small black ants rise to the surface and go to war in an epic battle of miniscule proportions!

They carpet my front walk to the extent that we enter and exit through the garage for about 24 hours.

Then they disappear, I hose away the dead ones, and I don’t see them again for another month.

This is a picture of roiling ants fighting a smallish skirmish just off the front walk:

In previous summers, I tried killing them by placing ant traps, poison (or jumping up and down over and over) but it doesn’t seem to deter them, and they do a great job of killing each other anyway. So now, I just sit on the front steps and enjoy the spectacle.

Topics: Errant Thoughts | 1 Comment »

GTD – Step 1 – Prioritize

By Michael | July 11, 2008

On Tuesday I talked a little (ok, maybe a lot) about GTD.

To reiterate… Step 1 is all about taking care of the important things first.

And doing it is easier than you may think. I made this little image, printed it out and hung it on my wall (There has to be a name for this, I know I didn’t invent it!):

(* update – sorry, it won’t let me embed it! so I linked to flickr)

(* update 2 – added the image!)

That’s it.

Now EVERYTHING (and I mean everything) gets a label of 1 to 4. Everything I need to do that is going to take me more than 15 minutes goes on an excel spreadsheet and receives a rating of 1 to 4; then:

Things that receive a # 1 Get Done First.
Generally things that receive a # 2 Get Done Next, followed by things that receive a # 3.
And of course things that receive a # 4 get thrown out right away (very little gets a number 4).

It’s easy, it’s helpful, and it makes a huge difference.

Topics: Lifehack | No Comments »

Analysis of a Golf Swing

By Michael | July 11, 2008

I went golfing this morning and played with a couple of guys who were essentially new to the sport.

Topics: Errant Thoughts | No Comments »

Getting Things Done

By Michael | July 8, 2008

I am Zen… I’ve discoverd my Tao… I GTD (Get things done)

Oh wait, reality’s setting in, yup, work’s still piled up to my eyeballs.

-sigh-

I love dabbling in new things & I love multitasking (I get bored if I’m not busy), but I have a problem.

Lately… ok, for years now… I’ve had some issues Getting Things Done. Not that I don’t get things done, I do, but my list of things that NEED gettin’ done seems to grow faster than my list of things gettin’ done.

And I can’t stop. Everyday brings new things to look at, play with, test, tweak, fix, and before I know it I’ve yet another thing on my GTD list.

Unfortunately, at least for me, a really long GTD list is a little depressing. I know I can’t realistically get through it ALL, and if I try I won’t be able to really dig in and get it done in a way that would make me happy. Pretty soon I stop doing the basic stuff (like trying to stay organized) because it all starts to feel like too much work. And the snowball grows.

Eventually I get frustrated with my list of half completed projects, crumple my GTD list into a little ball (metaphorically speaking) and toss the whole thing out the window so I can start fresh; generally losing some things that really SHOULD have gotten done in the process!

So what do we do?

Todays world demands us to do things bigger, better, faster and more frequently, and many of us are happy to try and oblige. But at some point it starts to feel like we’re going to, crack, explode, go crazy or otherwise expire.

Maybe it’s just me? Maybe I’m the only one trying to fit way too much into way too little (time)?

I doubt it, most people I know are in the same boat to some degree or another. Very few people are really good at just one thing, love to do that one thing, and spend all their time and effort concentrating on that one thing… It’s just not human!

So again, what do we do?

Well, in the infamous words of Bob “Baby steps to four o’clock”.

Starting today I’ve decided (this has been building for awhile, I’m not making a rash decision to make some changes:

Less clutter
Fewer superfluous activities
More directed effort
More ‘work smart’ effot
More GTD!
More zen in my life

I’ve been agonizing over where to start for a while and am in the process of making a list of steps, but I think the best way to start is One Thing At A Time! So, as of today, I’m going to be exrutiatingly meticulous with Step 1:

Taking care of the MOST important things first.

I already try for the most part, so it should be a relatively easy transition. It’s funny how so many of the less important things seem to take care of themselves eventually!

Step 2 will be:

Wake up at a consistant hour

I know this may sound like an irrelevant thing to worry over, but I get out of bed anywhere between 6:30 and 9:30 and the fluctuation really effects my day to day patterns. My goal is to get up everyday between 6:45 and 7 am.

Step 3 is Declutter

Both work and living spaces. I’m bad. Really bad. Not unorganized, but definitely cluttered (my parents, were they present during this conversation, would likely chime in right about now with some kind of ‘PackRat’ type comment)

But before I can get this far I need to deal with Step 1.

Starting now.

And right now the most important thing I can do is go home and spend a few hours with my kids! Tomorrow I’ll talk a little more about How I plan to go about Step 1.

Wish me luck!

Topics: Lifehack | 4 Comments »

Delicious Del.icio.us

By Michael | July 7, 2008

I’ve been alternating between Firefox 2 and 3 for a few weeks now and I have to say, it’s really frustrating.

I love Firefox, and especially version 3… unfortunately I also love my addons.

One of the issues I’ve run into through the beta of Firefox 3 is that most of my addons wouldn’t work… I found a hack, but it causes some stability issues So I’d rather the makers of these addons would update them!

Am I being demanding?

The Frustrating

I realized today that Del.icio.us has finally updated their Firefox plugin to be compatible with Firefox 3. They may have done this a while ago for all I know, unfortunately, for some reason, the automatic update addon function wasn’t finding the new version.

I don’t know why it was released in this way, but despite already having the older version installed I had to go to the Firefox addon site and search for the new version and install it manually. Not a big deal really, but if Firefox (or del.icio.us for that matter) had informed me that I may have to reinstall the newest version manually, I would have done it long before now and been less frustrated (the Product Manager in me would like to take this time to explain Usability 101… Don’t make the customer think! Make it EASY to get upgrades and new products and hard to leave!)

On the other hand, now that I know (.5 of the battle my childhood hero used to say), there is a beacon of hope for all the other addons I have installed that aren’t currently working with Firefox 3. But now I’m going to have to go down my addon list and check one-by-one… not a big deal… but frustrating.

The Good

The good news is that Del.icio.us wins in a big way. Once I recovered from the frustrating realization that there really was a new plugin available, and spent some time poking around the new features I have to say I’m really happy!

1 – Speed

This is what it’s all about now-a-days right? In our clones of clones online world there’s often little to distinguish one service from another… So if you can’t make it unique, make it fast! Maybe it’s just me (I work off two monitors and a laptop; and rarely visit myspace or facebook because they are in the annoyingly slow to load category), but I leave sites if they take too long to load, and the del.icio.us plugin in FF2 was, at times, painful.

I have a system to naming my del.icio.us bookmarks (likely one only I would understand at a glance, but it works for me!) and I found typing in categories in the old plugin tended to take a loooong time to filter.

Not so on the FF3 version! Type in your category and the expanded results appear instantly! No waiting, no frustration, awesome!

2 – Sidebar Bookmarks

I reference my Del.icio.us bookmarks all the time and this is the first FF sidebar that I’ve really found useful; sortable, searchable bookmark results – by both category and individual bookmark – I doubt I’ll have to visit my del.icio.us account again!

3 – Status Bar Icons

Del.icio.us drops a few useful icons down in the status bar. I listed this as good, because it was a good idea, but for me, it falls into ‘the bad’ for a couple of reasons (see below)

The Bad

1 – A Toolbar!?

A toolbar!? for 2 buttons? Arg – kill it! Thanks but no thanks Del.icio.us! If you only use Del.icio.us periodically, you could just turn the toolbar on and off when you are ready for it, but I bookmark everything! toolbars take up valuable real estate and this one is frivilous. Using the Customize feature (right-click your toolbar and click ‘Customize’) I just dragged the new Del.icio.us buttons to another toolbar I already have open and then turned of the Del.icio.us toolbar (right click the toolbar again and choose “Delicious toolbar”)

2 – Status Bar

While I applaud the use of Status bar icons, I would prefer the ability to customize them. I use the Del.icio.us ‘Tag’ icon most frequently and that’s the one I would want in my status bar… but I can’t do that (yet anyway… anyone from Del.icio.us read me blog?!

The Score

The Toolbar is silly, but easily thrown out and the status bar additions were a good idea, but not flexible enough.

Realistically though, I use the Del.icio.us addon mostly for tagging and in this Del.icio.us has seriously improved (in my opinion). And I’m pretty sure I will be making use of the new sidebar in the near future!

Verdict : If you use Firefox, have upgraded to FF 3, and you use Del.icio.us (even once-in-a-while) you NEED to get the new plugin!

Technorati Tags: FireFox Addons, Delicious Firefox addon, Delicious review, browser-firefox-addons

Topics: FireFox, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Next Entries »