webrampage

Breaking news! (And woohoo! I’m the first one to blog about this. I feel special!)

YouTube is playing with their video player. Take a look at my screenshot on the left. Notice anything different?

They’re making the player wider and everything below it. They’ve narrowed down the stuff on the right (related videos, info, more from, etc).

Well these are good changes, my friend. I like it! Wider screen is always better. But, are these changes temporary? Like are they just playing around or will these changes stay for good?

Anyways, I’m off. I’ll get my people looking into this tomorrow. And until then I wanna hear what YOU think about this. Good? Bad? Excited?

Yeah that’s right, Hotmail fixed the bugs. When? Not sure, but I noticed it yesterday.

Do you even know what bugs I’m talking about? Well there were two bugs that I found. One of them didn’t let me type in the textbox and the other one kept telling me to upgrade my browser even though I was on FF3.

So, as you’ve guessed I can now write emails and I don’t get that annoying upgrade notice anymore. But, there’s still one thing that really bugs the shit outta me. Its that huge banner at the top. I just fucking hate that!

Why would you put a giant ad banner all the way up there? It just screws up the inbox. It brings everything down. It doesn’t look proportional. If Microsoft really wanted to stick in some ads then why don’t they put it somewhere on the sidebar?

I don’t really care where they put it, but they should just take it off the top. One more thing, do they target an audience for the ads or what? Do I look like I’m interested in Disney shit? I’ve seen a lot of different ads on Hotmail and none of them seem to interest me.

And can they not add a few icons or something? It looks like someone’s grandma designed it. Like the design is alright, but seriously are they trying to copy Gmail? I think they are. They took off all the icons after the redesign. Wow. Hotmail, you faggot!

And please get a logo, Hotmail. Please. I can’t take this level of ugliness. Hey, would you get a logo if I said Gmail has a logo? Yeah that’s right Gmail has a logo. You better go get one for yourself, Hotmail.

Last week I let you guys ask me a few questions. And now here are my answers.

1. Milos asks:

Best ways to market and promote a site/product/service? Go

It really depends on the type of site, product or service. But, in general I would say Twitter. Build a profile with your logo as your background and match the colour scheme to your site’s. And simply start tweeting about things related to the site. After that become friends with a few power tweeters and make them tweet about you or your site.

2. MarkCarras asks:

How do I get more people to try and fight for this free Ausus Eee laptop I’m trying to give away at HeavyAsHell.com?

Well did you promote your contest? Did you tweet and plurk about it? Did you talk about your contest on different forums (ex: Digital Point)? Did you submit it to blogs that promote about contests for free (ex: Submit Your Contest or Contestu.com)?

And try not to make the contest too hard to win. But, don’t make it too easy either (not worth your time and money). You want it to seem like its possible to win. And make sure you post updates about the contest regularly. You could also try making a leaderboard.

3. javierjrdg asks:

Ok, here you go. What’s the quickest way to promote a brand online?.
Thanks!

I just answered this question. Please take a look at what I said to Milos (question #1).

4. Shalltell asks:

Whats are the best forms of online guerilla campaigns?

The thing is no-one is going to promote your site for free or without a benefit for themselves. But, there is an exception. If you can make your visitors say “This site is absolutely amazing. Its got great content and a kick ass design.” then you might have a chance. People might Stumble you, might tweet/plurk about you or might spread the link to a few friends.

But, if you want the real deal then you gotta piss off a big fish. That’s probably the best one. Read my post about that and you should be able to get a few ideas. And good luck because not everyone can pull this one off.

5. neboor asks:

Hi, im a web designer/developer with an entrepreneur soul and i love the web, my goal is to be rich with an online project. Can you give me some advice ? Thanks

I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but let me ask you this. What makes you better than all the other people trying to make some money online? Dude literally everyone is trying to earn the big bucks online, but only a few can.

My advice to you would be stop trying to make money online! Build something that you’re interested in, promote it, grow it and money will come with it. The amount of money in your pocket is like the weather. Its good sometimes. Its bad sometimes. So, don’t worry too much about it.

And if you’re looking for an idea for your online project then I’ll say you should look at what people need. See what you need. Think about what you wish was online. The simplest things can be the most successful ones.

With every problem comes an opportunity. You need to be able to see that problem and use it your own benefit.

More questions for me?

Hmm so lets do this again. This went well. I wanna try it for another week or so. Drop your questions in the comments and I’ll get you the answers again next week. See ya around.