Abra is a partnered in a number of start-ups, providing our expertise in branding, marketing, and web development. It’s really exciting to be a part of a complete project like this where we get to be involved in every facet of seeing an idea go from literally notes on a napkin to – in some cases – actually profitable online businesses.
One of these projects is an online photo and video-sharing website called FamilyBook.
One of the partners had shared the site with some potential new users and received a laundry list of new features they thought should be added to the site.
Below is my response. I think this will also give insight into anyone taking a look at their own brand.
When running a project like FamilyBook, all sorts of suggestions from users will come in.
It’s important we are very careful about determining which suggestions fit with our vision for the product and our users and which should be ignored.
Google became the #1 search engine because when they came out they did exactly the opposite of what was most popular at the time. All the search engines back in the nineties were pages filled with features. Google came out with a simple white page with only one function: a search box in the middle.
While everyone else was trying to out-zig eachother, they zagged.
I think FamilyBook’s biggest strength is that it is the opposite of Facebook. It’s for the people who don’t want their lives out for everyone in the world to see. They just want to share something important to them with the people that are important to them. They don’t want to be a part of this big ‘social media’ thing.
In fact, I think they’re the ‘Mark’s’ of the world who really don’t get the Facebook frenzy.
It’s like Robert, the coach of my son’s soccer team. Robert doesn’t want anything to do with texting. To him, a phone is for phone calls.
He is certainly not interested in Facebook or Twitter. But he is really excited about the FamilyBook page I set up so we can share videos of the kids games and use them as a tool to teach the kids things their doing right and wrong.
I think the privacy and values of FamilyBook are its biggest strength, followed by ease of use.
It’s important to keep our product simple and focused. That’s how new users will be able to quickly get their mind around what it is and connect with it.
Later in the lifecycle it may make sense to add more features, but for now we should keep it as focused as possible.
All this brings us back to our branding statements that I think should be what we are working on most.
What is FamilyBook?
Who’s it for?
Why should they try it?
What will it do for them?
Once we have clear answers to these questions, we’ll have a stronger message to promote the site and also assess how it should evolve.
]]>On Think Pink Day, 10/15/2009, Nor-Cal Think Pink will be lighting the Sundial Bridge in Redding, CA in pink lights – with the help of Morpheus Lights – as part of their incredible efforts to raise awareness of breast cancer and the importance of early detection . The pink lighting of the Sundial Bridge will also include pink refreshments, live music, and a talk by Nor-Cal Think Pink organizers and breast cancer survivors.
So why does a marketing agency include Web Applications as one of their service lines?
When we received approval to light the Sundial Bridge in pink, I knew we would get a lot of great attention to Think Pink’s cause in the local area and hopefully the region.
But I wanted to take this local event and find a way to get more exposure from it. That is when I came with the concept of the Pink Sundial Bridge View/Share Web App.
The concept goes like this: the Pink Sundial Bridge event will draw a lot of people who will be taking photos and videos of the event. Naturally, afterward they will proceed to a variety of photo-sharing and video-sharing resources (flickr, youtube, etc) to upload and share those images.
It is my hope that be creating and publicizing a dedicated sharing site for this event, we will be able to capture a bulk of these photos and videos that would otherwise be drawing attention elsewhere. Nor-Cal Think Pink’s Sundial Bridge View/Share will hopefully also eclipse these other sites by creating a uniquely focused collection of all of these still and moving pink images in one place.
The benefits of the system are:
1) I believe it will actually create a unique, fun experience for the people sharing images and video vs. if they were just dumping them into the mass of photos and videos on all the other site. They will actually be participating in the creation of an online public art piece.
2) It will draw more people in contact with Nor-Cal Think Pink and their breast cancer awareness messages for multiple audiences:
– those who want to see the images of the pink Sundial Bridge
– those who want to share their images and videos of the pink Sundial Bridge
– friends and relatives of people who upload to the site who then refer people to the site.
In addition to expanding Nor-Cal Think Pink’s message to more people locally and regionally, it hopefully opens up our message to a potentially national and maybe even international audience.
3) An essential piece of the strategy behind the site is in addition to the larger audience we seek to create, the web site now gives us more of an opportunity to create ongoing dialogue with these visitors. Most of Nor-Cal Think Pink’s efforts center on Breast Cancer Awareness Month every October and specifically the activities of Think Pink Day. Through this enhanced website, we are seeking to create an enticing feature to draw in people regularly, create a relationship, and have an opportunity to create a consistent communication of the opportunity we all have to save lives by helping people take the actions that can lead to early detection of breast cancer.
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