The forgotten art of the landing page

I was reading some article on an Israeli content site and noticed an ad for a well-known israeli artschool called "Camera Obscura". I usually don't click on such flashy banner ads - but sometimes I do, wondering what the following page looks like.

It took me a few minutes to realize that I have no idea how I got the image above - it looks like some basic install of DotNetNuke (a web content management system), and it has a mini-form inside that asks the user for details such as name, email, etc.

The surprising thing is - this form appears to be real - it's not a bug - the people at Camera Obscura, or the agency that sold them the flash ad - sent all users clicking on the banner to this irrelevant looking page with the mini-mini form inside that's titled (loose translation): "Schedule a meeting / Request more information".

My bet is, only a tiny fraction of the users actually went on and entered the requested information. Most of them probably wondered what this weird pop-up page is and closed it right away.

It should be common knowledge by now, that animated flashy banner are not enough by themselves - they can be impressive and stuff, but if they direct users to a weird-looking page that has nothing to do with the look & feel of the original banner and context - they accomplish nothing.

The ad agency also abused its responsibility - it sold an online ad that achieves almost nothing - it only confuses users and leaves little or no impact.

For more on landing pages try seth godin's post on the subject.

Inquisitor is genius

Inquisitor 3 is a great search plugin for Safari (apple's web browser). It implements Spotlight-like functionality for Safari. (just type something in the search box and get immediate highlighted results, autocompletion suggestions, etc).

This application is an immediate Bonzai. The developer just completely nailed it. It works amazingly fast, it's dead easy (since the user is only required to use the search box the same way he is already used to) and it works just great.

I just wish I could have that on Firefox on my mac, and actually, on Firefox everywhere.

Media drives happiness - designing inspiring online platforms

For some time now, my grandmother is having problems with her eyesight. During this time, she's having problem reading and enjoys German audio books very much. She can use them to re-cap on childhood books she had forgotten, or on large classics she didn't find the time to read.

A few months ago, my dad asked me if I could find some mp3s of piyutim (Jewish prayers) from Turkish synagogues in Israel recorded at Yom Kipur. He said that my grandfather (from my father's Turkish side) loves hearing prayers on tape and perhaps I "could find some on the Internet".

At first, I told my father's there's no way I could find such extremely specific content online. German audio books were reasonably popular, but Hebrew mp3 recordings of Jewish prayers taken at Turkish synagogues? that's completely nuts.

I told him that finding audio book versions of popular geeky-stuff is very easy. stuff like Tolkien's LOTR is all over the place, but what he was asking was just too much for conventional media availability on the net.

A few months later I read in Haaretz about a site called piyut. It took me a few minutes to realize what it was all about, but when I followed the link to the site I found a categorized list of recordings. I was quickly able to download about 140mb of recordings and burn them for grandpa.

My grandpa was thrilled. He keeps talking about the 2 audio-cds I burnt for him and listens to them again and again.

The fact I could actually find these exact recordings (Turkish, from Yom Kipur, no less) on the net is astounding. It was simply incredible. Sometimes web/software platforms enable great things. This is clearly the case here.

Certain types of media can touch our lives. They can drive happiness. Certain software/online platforms can make this possible. piyut made my grandpa happier. He's not even aware of the files' origin, but they excite him nonetheless.

Designers and developers can create platforms that truly excite people. These platforms deserve to be acknowledged so we can analyze their success and be inspired.

What platforms do you find inspiring?