Create an Effective Website Under Construction Homepage

Ideas are everywhere! And I found Modal’s website not long ago when doing some research for a client. They were featured in one of the CSS galleries for their new website landing page. Or, I’d say their functional under construction page.

Who said under construction pages always needed the “Men at Work” signage or the yellow-black bar barrier with a huge message telling visitors your website is still under construction.

Think out of the box whenever you’ve a website undergoing maintenance, construction (new website) or even, when webpage errors arise.

Have some fun and stop being a stick.

Tracking Twitter Marketing Performance

Twitter has slowly but confidently grown to be a massive online marketing tool for small-business owners to celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Guy Kawasaki, Britney Spears and etc. The entrepreneurial Twitter users are using the online marketing tool to promote their business and personally share knowledge they’ve stumbled online.

However, I’ve noticed Twitter is now missing a key tool for it be a real business enhancer. Which is to track the marketing performance done on it.

Here’s a quick example, imagine McDonalds Malaysia used Twitter as part of their online marketing campaign. I’ve advised them to use Twitter to share their McDonalds vouchers online and ask their friends with Twitter accounts to do the same. After all, who doesn’t like freebies?

I’ve posted on Twitter a catchy headline along with a call-to-action for people to get more information or download the vouchers right away.

But what’s lacking right now for me as the advisor to McDonalds is, I can’t track how many people viewed or activated the link.

Twitter is definitely not the only role to play here, even URL shortening services could think about implementing a performance tracker. A simple number of how many users activated the link is good enough.

Wouldn’t you want to track your twitter performance besides only generating the number of followers?

Is an Apple iPhone The Only Prize Worth Winning?

I was observing the current advertisements on my blog and noticed Nuffnang’s now running the McDonalds Value Lunch campaign. The same one you hear on the radio to buy a McValue meal for only RM5.95. Besides advertising, McDonalds is also running an online blogger contest.

It’s the same old story, they invite a blogger to blog about their experience having a McValue lunch and they’ll stand a chance to win a prize. The grand prize for this is an Apple iPhone 3G + Maxis Value Plus 80 (8GB, 6-month contract) Plan worth RM3,020.

Yes, hooray to those who want the iPhone – even after I said Blackberry trumped Apple iPhone in the US smartphone market. But what I’m getting at here is, why is the grand prize an Apple iPhone?

I’d have expected something else like:

• 1-year (or, 6-months) supply of McDonalds vouchers.
• Family vacation – Disneyland, maybe?
• GPS device – find nearest McDonalds?
• Computer – who doesn’t want a desktop or laptop?
• Gaming prizes – Software Boutique voucher upto RM1000?

Know this, I’m not complaining about the prize but the thought put in coming up with the prize. By the way, there’s only 1 grand prize and no other prizes – based on their minisite.

On another note, they’ve removed their Double Cheeseburger McValue meal from the McValue Lunch.

Apple iPhone Loses to Blackberry in Q1 2009

Now, this was quite unexpected. Especially when Maxis in Malaysia recently launched the iPhone. According to the research company; The NPD Group, they reported BlackBerry mobile devices gained 50 percent of the US smartphone market.

On the other hand, is it really a surprise because I’ve told Apple iPhone enthusiasts in Malaysia the Apple iPhone isn’t really a smartphone. It’s more of a lifestyle mobile phone. Lifestyle being a mobile device to make people oogle and awe at your Apple iPhone when you whip it out.

In terms of being a smartphone for entrepreneurs or businessmen, the Apple iPhone is definitely lacking in key areas. Otherwise, heavily relies on the iPhone applications in the iTunes store.

One such example is ability to forward SMS messages. Another good example is the ability to edit or view common digital office files by default. Like, Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF and etc.

If you’re not using the Apple iPhone, what smartphone are you using now?

All Malaysian Bloggers Project Star Trek 2009

The All Malaysian Bloggers Project (AMBP) recently organized a blogger gathering come movie screening of Star Trek to kick-off 2009. In summary, there wasn’t as many bloggers as I’d have expected from AMBPs large database but the Star Trek movie was awesome! And, I’m not a trekkie.

Be warned, this post is going to have a number of photos. At the end, you may download these photos including some other ones I took during the event. Live long and prosper!

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