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HotGloo Versus OmniGraffle for Wireframing

I tooled around with online wireframing/diagramming apps about 18 months ago, and kind of put the whole subject to bed. If you’re used to OmniGraffle, Balsamiq, or Visio, using an online app is a bit rough. I had played around with LucidChart the most, and made the simple conclusion: a Flash powered online app will not compare to an installed application (at least in the near future). If you read my blog, you know I’m all about web apps, but I felt like this is a use case where they still just aren’t an option.

But recently, I was urged to give HotGloo a shot by my partner at SwellPath, @johnpkoenig – somewhat reluctantly, I agreed. I wanted to give the whole web app thing another shot, and I like the collaboration opportunities that a web app provides, and a tool like OmniGraffle doesn’t provide. I had to put together wireframes for a project we’re working on; about 5 templates total. John had already been using it for the project, so it made sense for me to give it a go.

It really is incredibly impressive. It is one of the most impressive Flash/Flex applications I have ever used from a functionality standpoint. HotGloo just came out of Beta, and it is obvious they mean business – from a pricing and functionality standpoint. After spending a day working intimately with it, I would definitely recommend giving it a shot, and it definitely warranted a review.

I’m going to break this review down into key elements of using this type of application:

1. Time to Learn
   How long did it take me to get up to speed and feel comfortable using the app? Pretty quick. Some initial grunts and complaints, but I got it all down within less than an hour. This includes figuring out how to handle administrative tasks (adding users, setting roles, etc.) and how to actually wireframe.
2. Speed
   If you use Salesforce.com, you know how you have to sometimes “stop” and wait for a popup to complete a desired action; that happens a bit with HotGloo. It is one of those web apps where you learn when to wait – mostly I’m referring to when you upload an image. But once you learn when to have patience, you get a bit more efficient. I was able to complete the bulk of my work in one day. I would say it took me about 20-25% more time to do it in HotGloo, and that includes the time spent “learning” the app.
3. Collaboration Aspects
   Ok, this is where web apps like this can crush it. HotGloo does, simply by letting you add users to a project, who can login and review or edit your templates, and in a more complicated way by allowing users to chat while viewing templates. You don’t pay for users (see more below) so you can add any number of folks to a project. It would be cool to see some other hooks built in (Basecamp tie-in, maybe Gtalk or other chat hooks, etc.). But it looks like there are some new collaboration features coming in May, so it’ll be interesting to see what those are.
4. Overall Impression & Pricing Considerations
   Come on, it is a web app that lets you wireframe as-good-or-better than you could with an installed app a few years ago, that is awesome! That being said, it is still kind of constrained by Flash, browsers and bandwidth, and as a result, it isn’t quite as fast as using installed apps. But there is loads of promise for HotGloo, and I will probably continue to use it for certain projects. You can view the HotGloo roadmap here and see what features and enhancements are coming. Pricing is fair, you pay for projects (2 for $14/month to start, $5/month for each additional, $2/month for an archived project), and their are constraints on bandwidth, but they are large enough that I don’t see those being hit. I like that you don’t pay for users; you can add as many people as needed.

I personally would be interested in how an Adobe Air install would work in conjunction with a setup like HotGloo. But Air apps are resource hogs, and I don’t see this on HotGloo’s roadmap, so it isn’t something we’re likely to see. Anyway, give HotGloo a shot and see what you think, you might just find that OmniGraffle and other installs are now a thing of the past for you.

Tags: diagramming, flow charts, wireframing

Free Expedited Holiday Shipping Expected

I was a little surprised by this email I received from Patagonia today. Free two-day shipping on all orders over $100, through December 22nd. Of course, it’s a standard now that you can get your last minute shopping done and get a free shipping upgrade with larger online retailers. So why is the subject of this email “Free 2-Day Shipping – Our Gift to You”? I would guess that throwing in some free stickers, a free $2 donation to an environmental non-profit, free socks, something else – would resonate much more with most of Patagonia’s customers. I would guess that most of them are savvy enough to know that free two-day is standard fare with most retailers and brands, and it doesn’t have as much of an impact on the open or clickthrough rates as a subject like “Free 2-Day Shipping and Free Donations” or even just “Free 2-Day Shipping Begins Today”.

None-the-less, Patagonia is on it with the promotion, and right on target with timing for the last minute dash for consumers cash.

Tags: free shipping, holiday shopping, Patagonia

Thanksgiving is the New Black Friday

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! How many marketing emails have you received today? Not many? Me neither. Makes me wonder: why don’t online retailers take advantage of Thanksgiving as a jump start on the holiday shopping season?

The season essentially starts in early November these days, as most retailers start to ramp up  promotions and marketing. But Black Friday is the first day of heavy marketing. Remember when it was Cyber Monday? That’s no longer the case because most internet shoppers now spend time online at home every day, making the Friday after Thanksgiving more of a play than waiting until for everyone to get back to work on Mondays.

So, why not Thanksgiving itself? I was online for a while this morning – and I bet you were too. A quick scan of the analytics data for the various retailers who are clients at SwellPath shows that traffic isn’t down too much – maybe 25% to 50%. I bet it would be a little more solid if emails had gone out pre-dawn.

I’m going to make a forecast here and now: in the next couple of years, Black Friday will be begin on Thanksgiving morning. Shoppers will start looking for marketing promotions and special deals early Thursday; and they’ll start getting a little shopping in before NFL, turkeys, and pumpkin pie.  But make sure to get those emails (or Tweets, Facebook updates, etc.) out early, because as the folks at Clicky have pointed out, traffic drops off when it’s time to eat.

Magento & Google Website Optimizer Integration

I’ve got a new post over on the SwellPath blog that takes a look at multivariate and a/b testing.  Check it out.

Tags: a/b testing, Google Website Optimizer, Magento, multivariate testing

Birthday Wishes from Facebook and Adidas

Happy Birthday to me!  I don’t see enough sites taking advantage of stored birthdates to send customized messages on a birthday, but I got a few today.  I got several emails from vBulletin forums I’m registered on, all the same format:

Subject: Happy Birthday from [forum name]

Hello [username],
We at [forum name] forums would like to wish you a happy birthday today!

The first one was great, but after the 3rd I wasn’t that impressed.  Can’t these be customized a bit more?

Another message I got was from Facebook.  Of course I heard from about 75% of my Facebook friends, with birthday wishes on my Wall etc.  But Facebook itself took the time to wish me a Happy Birthday from the top of the home page.

Finally, one other noteable: Adidas sends a nice email with a 15% off coupon code every year, and they send it a week before your birthday, beating everyone else to the punch.

If you are capturing your members or customers birthdates, are you using that data to send them a special something?  If not, should you be?

Tags: adidas, Facebook, targeted birthday messaging, vBulletin