One of the great things I personally enjoy about working at Load is that on any given day I can choose to work on corporate marketing material, edgy marketing material, product/service design, business development, or technical support (if I'm feeling crazy). And while nothing at Load should ever be considered personally tragic or overly challenging, there's always something to get done and something to make better. One of those "things" is the re-design of the Load.com website along with all of our subsequent service sub-sites. While you'd think that would be something simple, there is a lot to think about when re-creating your site. Here are just a few questions being thrown around the office in meetings:
- Will the new design negatively impact our search engine ranking? (Load ranks #1 for many of our competitive phrases)
- How are we going to position the products? Has our market changed over the past year?
- Should we change the look and feel of our site? Or have we created high brand recognition with some of the services based on the current design?
Why am I bringing this up? Because many of our customers do NOT think about any of these things when building their sites and then I get asked, "Nick, why am I not #1 in Google?" or my personal favorite "Nick, can't you just make me #1?". I still smirk just thinking about that last one. Over the next few months, I'll be dishing out pointers relating to website design and how some of the choices you make will impact the overall success of your website. Stay tuned because there's a lot of good stuff coming down the pipe.
Sign*A*Rama's Technical Team Is Toon'd In
If you don't already know, Sign*A*Rama (SAR), the world's #1 sign franchise, is a long-time client/partner with Load. One of the great things about SAR is that they are always trying to learn new ways to make their online presence better and more efficient. Recently, SAR took a page out of the Load book and decided to create illustrated versions of members of their staff to be used internally for communication with franchisees (and I'm sure other things). At right is a quick peak at some of the illustrations created by none other than Steve Reed.
Coming Soon...
As a side note to some of the illustration work, be sure to keep an eye out for a few new LoadToons in the works and also our new product tour demos that will be sure to make everyone that's ever had to deal with technology laugh.
Setting Up Your Avatar in your Load.net Account
Traffic continues to pick up on the Load.net site (and we haven't even officially launched this site to all of our members) and we've been getting a few questions regarding creating a personalized avatar to associate with user logins. Well, I'm not going to get crazy with the details, but here's a quick run-down of how you do it. (Note: You must have a Load.com login that is used for managing your Load services.)
- Go to http://www.load.net and click the Sign In link in the top right corner of the page
- Login using your Load.com username and password
- Once logged in, the community site will say that you're Signed in as you
- Click your login name (should be your e-mail address)
- You will be redirected to the Profile Properties page
- Click the tab labeled 'Avatar'
- Follow the instructions on the page. For best results, your avatar should be 80 x 80 pixels.
Man We've Gotta Get LoadGear Up and Running...
There are very few things in business that make me happier than seeing people proudly wear Load swag. It's one thing to get a t-shirt at a Las Vegas convention that says 'Get Loaded.' and proudly wear it in the casinos while getting loaded (that's awesome). It's completely another to be in Australia as a client and proudly wearing our Load hat and then sending us the pic to stick on our 'blog. SWEET!
I think in the future we're going to have to come up with a section strictly for our clients to send us photos of them in LoadGear. For the record, all photos of beautiful women in LoadGear should go to nick@load.com and photos of hairy fat men should go....elsewhere. Anyway, a BIG THANK YOU to Shannon for helping people Get Loaded down under.
Random Sports Thoughts
Yankees look brutal and it makes me feel sorry for them...WHAT?
Today, the Yankees lost for the 7th time in a row as Andy Pettitte failed to stop the bleeding. I never thought I'd say this, but I feel sorry for the Yanks. If I can't get pumped up for the Yanks vs Red Sox because I don't honestly think the pin stripes have a chance, it may actually hurt baseball. To make matters worse, rumors now swirl around that Joe Torre may get canned if they don't start winning. You've got to be kidding me. So here's to hoping they can get their act together. By the way, Dice-K was good enough again even though he struggled with his control. Red Sox look tough and Manny Ramirez hasn't even started hitting yet.
NFL Draft is tomorrow - FINALLY! let's get this crap over with
Oh my goodness. I love sports and can talk sports with the best of 'em, but get the draft over already because I'm tired of talking about it. I can't believe how many shows are about mock drafts -- a fake draft which takes its best guess at what teams are going to do in the real draft. I hope something totally screwed up happens tomorrow and turns all the draft gurus and prognosticators on their ears. On a side note, it must be great to go to sleep this evening knowing you're going to wake up tomorrow and have your name called by Roger Goodell and instantly be a millionaire. Gotta be the best night's sleep ever. For the record, I'm rooting for Load's current NFL clients: San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Jacksonville Jaguars. Good luck!
Mavs are going to make Mark Cuban kill himself
If you don't know me, you don't know how I have marveled at Mark Cuban's business success. That man is the perfect example of siezing a market opportunity at the right time. Absolutely brilliant and lucky. But it seems that's where his luck may end because the lowly Golden State Warriors have broken out the whooping stick and are taking it to the #1 team in the NBA AND they're making it look easy. It's an upset like that which leads me to believe that Steve Nash is the MVP even though Kobe Bryant is the best player.
Former Mets Employee busted for steroids distribution (Read the news story)
Does anyone care at this point? I mean if we found out tomorrow that every member of the Mets was using HGH, steroids, or Sex Panther (They've done studies, you know. 60% of the time, it works every time.), would that change the fact that only Barry Bonds is getting thrown under the bus while many other players are looked past? Believe me, America doesn't want the truth to come out because it will let this generations greatest hitter in baseball off the hook a little bit.
A-Rod may opt out of his contract for even more $$$ next year
Okay Yankee fans, how do you let the best player in baseball who will probably shatter Bonds' HR record go to another team for the final 10 years of his career? A-Rod must sit at home giggling as the Yankees suck and he's the only bright spot. As a capitalist, I love A-Rod's agent, Scott Boras. What a frickin' snake. That said, I'd want him representing me if I was in my contract year. But it also goes to show that Yankee fans should have kept their mouths shut because payback is a b*tch and A-Rod seems to have a good memory.
ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd is ridiculously funny and often dead right
If you don't listen to sports talk shows in the morning on the way to work or while you're in the office, it's time to start. Colin Cowherd has a show that, while sometimes random and ridiculous, delivers an accurate viewpoint on what's going on in the sporting world. AND he gets the best idiot callers from all over the country. If you want to hear how unintelligent some of your fellow American's are, just tune in. By the way, Colin was once a local Las Vegas sportscaster and did a high school football highlight of yours truly running back a 103 yard fumble recovery. Yeah baby!
Miami Heat fans are so brutal that Dodger fans seem committed till the last inning
I watched Shaq's team lose this evening and I personally believe the Miami fans are partially to blame. If you watched the game, you had to notice that nobody was cheering or standing with the game hanging in the balance. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? If you're going to pay to see a playoff game, please try to get into it. For crying out loud, at least Dodger fans cheer like crazy on their way to the parking lot in the 7th inning.
Just watched Rocky -- hopefully the last one -- and it sucks (sorry there's nothing more to say)
Well, that's it for this week. I could easily keep going, but this is a good place to stop. Oh, if you're near a sportsbook tomorrow (Sunday), take the OVER in the Yankees vs. Red Sox match-up and then send 10% of you're winnings to Load. Have a great weekend!