2/15 Seattle Lunch 2.0 * blist

I attended another energetic Seattle Lunch 2.0 on February 15th hosted by blist and the hardest working man in the tech business, Josh Maher. Having experimented with the blist beta, I must say they truly are the world’s easiest database. 

Their “rich and intuitive UI” certainly makes creating and managing databases a fun, easy and motivational user experience. So having combined the words “database” and “fun” in one sentence, a round of applause to blist’s user experience consultant, who I chatted with, Amir, I believe is his name. I am looking forward to blist’s “aggressive” feature release schedule in the coming months, as well as their tailoring for mobile devices (i.e iPhone). Keep up the good work blist. 

What’s in it for me…it would be really cool to see blist take a look at building a learning widgets, as Mark Ohelert and Brent Schlenker call it. As the network of information grows and informal learning content continues to be king, giving learners an easy way to “track…knowledge and content directly related to their job and their performance” seems crucial. So blist if you are reading and need someone to help prototype or test drive, just let me know.

Another Lunch 2.0 * Zumobi

Thanks to Josh Maher for another exciting Seattle Lunch 2.0., which kicked things off with Buzz Bruggeman and a thought provoking presentation on getting seconds back in your life by using ActiveWords.

The host, with prime office space on Pike Street, Zumobi informally shared the good news, bad news and more good news about their launch. It sounds like things are really getting started for them (globally), so keep your eyes on them. They are here to give mobile users a “unique, lush and engaging” way of accessing content and their user interface is based on many years of Human-Computer Interaction research, which is device neutral and open for developers. Good (smart) move.

I am continually excited about how light-weight, easy to use and motivating mobile access will help everyone collaborate more effectively, as well as offer just-in-time information…performance support anyone? We have been chained to our workstations or to either clunky laptops, or clunky interfaces for too long. If any developers out there are interested in using Zumobi to collaborate on a ‘thin’ learning management application, feel free to comment.

Lunch 2.0 * Portent & Widemile

A coworker and I attended another downtown Seattle Lunch 2.o with an insightful informal discussion with Portent Interactive and Widemile. Hats off to Josh Maher for organizing this tech synergy and tasty food.

Portent Interactive, who helps organizations “realize exponential growth using the Internet”, presented an interesting Time of Conversion vs. Conversion Rate research study based on 10 sites over a one-year period, including 7 e-commerce and 3 non-e-commerce. Based on their data, direct to site, organic search, and pay per click have the highest generated revenue with less conversion time. Surprisingly, their data indicates that video, social networks and corporate blogs have the longest conversion time, with lower revenue. I wonder how a similar study would compare in the next coming years as the social network adoption rate increases (i.e. Facebook) and video delivery continues to improve.

Widemile, who “optimizes conversion rates with multivariate testing, presenting a case study of the Weather Channel Interactive. Their initial goal was to improve conversion (of the landing page) by 30% and the actual increase was by 225%. The incorporation of Flash significantly outperformed any static counterpart. It sounds like their testing methodology is solid and they know what to do with the numbers to move forward.