With the release of the Qwidget fast approaching, I want to give a quick update on what is occupying our time in the lead up to our launch.

• Our QA (quality assurance) server has been set up to run a few VMs so we can test how the Qwidget works with different OS/browser combinations.
• We are tweaking the design of the Qwidget interface to make it easy on the eyes and easy on the brain.
• Refining the feature set that we will launch with.  As we play with the early versions, we are discovering features that seem necessary even though they weren’t in the initial specs.  I am also working with our awesome engineers to refine and improve a few of the existing features.  To be clear, we’re not adding new features willy nilly.  It’s simply a process of adding new and better ways to accomplish the one and only goal of the Qwidget - to increase reader participation on publisher sites.
• My fantastic designer/animator friend Erin Kilkenny (who posts great sketchbooks online) has been designing the Qwidget logo and style guides.  We are in the last rounds of notes and the logo is looking pretty awesome.  When it is finished, I will post it here along with some of the logo treatments that we did not choose.  We will also relaunch this blog with a custom theme that Erin built.
• Preparing to build the Qwidget.com site.  We have wireframes ready and are waiting on the style guides from Erin.  It will mostly be a site that shows how the Qwidget helps publishers increase engagement on their site and then showcases some of the activity generated by Qwidgets around the web.
• Assorted other items like: establishing a TOS, setting up feedback mechanisms, etc.

In my ongoing series about how Joshua Porter’s great Designing for the Social Web helped us develop the Qwidget, I now turn my thoughts towards chapter 4 “Design for Sign Up” in a series of posts that will cover a few aspects of his thinking on this matter.  At the end, I will describe how the Qwidget sign up process was influenced by  this very important chapter.

When creating a social web product or service, it can be dangerously easy to imagine throngs of new users beating down your door to use your fantastically innovative, convenient, feature-filled, awesome new tool.  But as Josh points out, when they first encounter your social software, most potential new users are skeptical and perhaps confused by what you’re offering.

He suggests that you approach designing the sign up process in the same way a journalist would approach writing a news story: by focusing on who, what, where, when, why and how.

What is it?

This is the first question that you must answer for any potential new user.  The key here is to explain very clearly what your product/service does without being confusing.  A user must immediately grasp what you do and consequently which of his/her problems you can solve.  Porter gives a great example of a website that aces this task and another that doesn’t.

Example 1: If you looked at the top of Blinksale’s site for only two seconds, you’d still know what they do.

Example 2: Bill My Clients has a clear name but does the design immediately convey what they do? As your eye travels across the page, you’ll probably see the login box before you see anything about what they do.  All that communicates to me as a new user is that this page is not really meant for me.

Note: Porter’s book has an image of a previous version of the Billmyclients.com homepage.  However, the new version pictured above is as unclear as the one in the book.

The launch of Cuil, a new search engine founded by ex-Googlers, has been covered extensively in the blogosphere so far. But a couple of great tech bloggers have begun to point out the amusing/strange results that come from “Cuiling” their names (doesn’t have the ring of googling, does it?).  These are people whose names are plastered all over the web, theoretically giving a search engine much to work with.  Chris Brogan’s own blog didn’t come up when he cuiled himself. A cuil search for Louis Gray turns up some of his social web profiles with hilarious mismatched photos.

Joining the fray, I was surprised to learn that Hometown Baghdad was not about three Iraqi students trying to survive during wartime. It was about American football. Who knew?

In all seriousness, I am in no place to criticize a new tech product. We are a few days away from launching our very first release of the Qwidget. So tiny bugs in first releases are something I can certainly forgive. I just couldn’t resist posting this screen grab.

With all the information Facebook collects about its users, they have a strange habit of showing users ads that are obviously meant for completely different demographics.  One 33 year old was shown an ad for a social site for people over 35. I just signed in to Facebook, went to my profile page and saw this.

Notice the ad that I circled. Here’s a close up.

“Hey Jew” is how they address me. Not only is that weird and borderline offensive, but I am most certainly not Jewish. While I don’t publicly announce my religion in Facebook, I have checked off my preference.  It’s not Jewish.  Strange. Who’s fault is this? Facebook’s ad targetting? The advertiser’s misdirected campaign?

Our Webby Award statues for our web series Hometown Baghdad arrived in the mail two days ago and I got the chance to play with them up close. I was surprised by how heavy they are and how bouncy the slinky is. I thought it’d be stiff metal. Check out the detail shots below:

	Here is a close up of the label on the award we won for Best Reality.
	A close up of the News and Politics Series award.
	A close up of the Best Public Service and Activism Award. This one was especially meaningful to us because the series was done in the spirit of public service and was funded by philanthropists at the Shei’rah Foundation and Cinereach.
	Here are all three awards lined up. Where on earth should we put them in the office? The conference room? Near the entry-way? WWSGD?
	I thought it was pretty cool that there are 1s and 0s on the slinky.
	Here is a little detail that I almost missed myself. The Webby Award logo is printed inside the slinky.