Testing Website Usability

A good website design is not only visually stimulating, but it must also have functionality. Potential customers can be intimidated by overly complicated sites, and become frustrated when they are unable to find what they want, whether it be information or a product.

Testing usability is a vital part of all of Meta Media, Inc.'s website design or redesign projects. We test and retest every aspect of a site to ensure a great overall user experience for all of our client's websites.

Mashable.com recently posted an interesting read providing an in-depth exploration of this topic. The article emphasizes the importance of assessing a website from the user's perspective, not just a marketing/business angle. Check out their article: "22 Essential Tools for Testing Your Website’s Usability."

Cupcakes on a Casual Friday!

At the end of the day, we all manage to get through the conference calls, email updates and deadlines, but what's more important is we still like working with each other!

Meta Media, Inc. truly is a special place to work. Finding a reason to celebrate isn't that hard around here; birthdays, new accounts and Fridays are always great reasons.

Friday is usually everyone's favorite day because we can dress casually, but last week we had an additional surprise. Michele, our VP of Marketing & E-Commerce treated everyone to delicious cupcakes from Piece of Cake!

Cupcake break! Here's a picture of Michele and our Creative Web Designer extraordinaire, Doug.

Here we have our enthusiastic Content Writer and budding starlet, Amy.

Key members of our sales staff Dallas and Ronell take some time to discuss their favorite cupcake flavors.

Lastly, we have our Content Writer/Administrative Assistant, Cindi. She didn't want to miss out on the fun!

Keep checking for more updates. Next on the agenda is the Meta Media, Inc. Halloween Party!

Upcoming Facebook Changes

As some facebook users are still reluctantly adjusting to the recent changes made affecting their news feed, even more changes are on the way. Facebook has plans to expand the popular “Like” feature by adding additional “Read,” “Listened” and “Watched” buttons.

From a marketing and advertising perspective, these new features will allow facebook to provide more detailed data to companies.

Will these upcoming changes encourage society’s current facebook addiction by increasing activity and involvement, or will these changes create a massive negative backlash? With every change comes a risk of alienation, but the new information could help a lot of companies with more detailed targeted ads.

http://www.newser.com/story/129003/new-facebook-buttons-coming-watched-read-listened.html

Daily Deal Site Craze is Winding Down

Groupon, Living Social and other daily deal site competitors have been experiencing significant drops in popularity and revenue recently. Facebook decided to end its version of daily deals, just after four months of testing.

Daily deal sites managed to overcome the stigma of coupons, but it seems their novelty is wearing off. From a marketing perspective, which deal sites are still worth recommending to clients, and for how long?

Groupon is hoping to move in a new direction with Groupon Now, a real-time mobile application that allows users to search for deals near them. Real-time deal apps might be enough to captivate consumers, but based on recent data customers are definitely looking for the next stage.

http://mashable.com/2011/08/30/one-too-many-daily-deals/?WT.mc_id=obinsite