Youtube marketing coaching

Monday, September 27, 2010

Reputation is NOT dead: Overlooking Indiscretions is Wishful Thinking

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Docs.com takes Facebook Beyond Facebook

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Sunday, September 26, 2010

Web 2.0 Button Design

Web 2.0, THE popular style and standard for contemporary web design, utilizes the use of clean, bright colors, and gradients. A key visual indicator of Web 2.0 design is the use of large, 3D buttons that grab the user’s attention. Buttons can be used to promote a sale, contact, and/or have a slogan such as “Lose Weight!”, while at the same time, tempt the user into clicking and going where you want them to go. You know you couldn’t resist pressing the red button when your mom told you not to!

The impact of having a button is far greater than just having a link on your site. For example, if your site said “Contact Us” at the bottom within the content, the viewer would most likely have to read through the content until they get to the “Contact Us” to even know its there since its buried in text. But a button that clearly states “Contact Us” is more likely to visually attract their attention.

In this post, I’m going to go through how to make web 2.0 buttons that “pop”, even if you’re not that Photoshop savvy.

I just learned how to create web 2.0 buttons a couple months ago. It usually takes me a couple hours to get the right effect and gradient exactly the way I want it to look. Luckily, I stumbled upon an awesome resource for gradients and styles that made making buttons much easier than I could’ve imagined. I was searching around various blogs trying to find a post that was interesting and useful and found this BIG TIME TIME SAVER!!!

After downloading these photoshop styles/button templates, all you really need to do is minor tweaks, and your button is ready to go.

Here’s how:

First thing you have to do is download the zip file from dezinerfolio.com, who shared their styles on their blog.After you download the zip file on this page, upload it into your Photoshop,Open up a new Photoshop file and go to Window > Styles to bring “Styles” into your toolbox (shown below).

Now that you have uploaded the style, you’re ready to create a web 2.0 button in little to no time!

Open a New Layer on your file and find a style you like best.Once you’ve found a style you like, simply click on the style and the settings of that particular style will automatically be implemented onto the layer.As you can see in the images below, the image on the left shows the styles in the toolbox and the one on the right shows how the styles effects automatically updated into the layer.

Next, choose a shape for your button; I like using the rounded rectangle tool for a button.After you’ve chosen a button shape, click and drag the mouse to make the rectangle as big as you want. As you can see in the image below the color of the style/gradient I chose fills in the rectangle.

After you have the button, color, and style you want all that’s left is adding text and layer effects. Below I have an example of the button with text. I have put some layer effects on the text to make it pop out of the button.

After you have stylized the button how you want it, you can trim the white space around the button.

And there you have it, a button! That didn’t take long at all!

Technorati Tags: web 2.0, web buttons, web design

Tags: web 2.0, web buttons, web design

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 12:26 PM and is filed under web design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Weekly LAB Twitterings 2010-09-17

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Neworld: Facebook Places, Pages, Streetview & When to PostNeworld: Facebook Spam, Blogging Tips, Google Realtime, Facebook Places ResourcesReaders! Here’s a load of new articles written by me…Neworld: Facebook Credits, Google Instant, Priority Inbox & Calls, 16 Blogging Tips, Ping & Why Social Media Fails2010: The Year Video Marketing Kicked it up a Notch

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Folio for iPad

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Why Hulu Fees Will Bring Its Collapse

Last week I talked about Walmart purchasing Vudu, and why this was a smart move for them. This week AP Business Writer Deborah Yao wrote an article suggesting that Hulu very well may be charging for its content very soon. As opposed to Walmart, this is not a good move when it comes to the consumer.

While I completely understand the need to charge for the videos that Hulu shares—TV Shows like The Daily Show and Family Guy—doesn’t mean that I like it. The fact is, for me, and the majority of users, this will drive me away from the site altogether. Why would I pay for content that I can easily find somewhere else online with a quick Google search?

According to the article, Comedy Central is being pulled by Viacom from the site, which I confirmed on Hulu’s blog, where they called it a “Fond Farewell.” This may hurt The Daily Show’s viewership if the viewers don’t know how to find this show elsewhere, but I also think most people will react the same way I will and find a new place to watch the show they love. Like Yao states, “many viewers are drawn to Hulu because of its ease of use, not because they couldn’t get much of the same content elsewhere.”

With Comedy Central being one of the first to bid the site adieu, it is not unimaginable that other shows will be soon to follow, forcing Hulu to make a compromise that will dramatically affect the current flow of the site.

One of the most interesting things in this article was the reporting of a Leichtman survey, that said “81 percent “strongly disagree” with the notion of paying $9.95 a month for a service like Hulu, while only 5 percent “strongly agree” to pay.” Can you imagine 81% of your sites’ users leaving, while 14% teeter on the fence? If these survey results are like Tarot Card reading predictions, then I’ll be Ms. Cleo and say that the site will definitely be going down.

Yet, there are ways to keep the site up, for instance, if Hulu decided to go the movie rental route, they can sustain a business by offering a cheaper video on demand rental system. In essence, the way for the site to stay afloat is to offer some sort of exclusive content that viewers cannot easily access anywhere else, and would be willing to pay to watch—bringing them into direct competition with iTunes, Amazon and a few others.

I like Hulu, and would feel a bit at a loss if I had to watch it go, but is it just another sad reminder that all good things must come to an end?