I noticed that when you pause a video, and you put your mouse over it, a search box appears. It’s like they’re saying “Hey, why not explore some other videos?”. It’s a really natural and interesting way to encourage folks to stay on the site.

Here’s a screen grab of a paused video on YouTube:

It’s important to think about small and helpful ways you can encourage your site visitors to stay a bit longer and explore.

The amazing photo of the sunrise was taken by flickr.com/photos/kanegledhill

Thankfully we’ve enjoyed a couple successful ideas here at Carsonified on the web app front:

* DropSend was built on a budget, grown to a profitable monthly revenue and sold for a healthy sum of money.

* Our internal event booking web app EventStream has been a big help to the company.

* Matt was a successful small app which didn’t make us any money, but was really fun to build and got us a ton of press coverage. Awesome.

But we’ve also failed pretty badly with another web app called Amigo. We launched it in late 2006 and received some great press. The idea was solid (pay-per-click advertising in email newsleters) but the problem is that we were naive and we thought we could run it in our free time.

Wake up call: you can’t run a web app in your free time.

You can build a web app in your free time, but you sure as hell can’t market it, grow it, maintain it and promote it. Once you build a web app you need to pay attention to all the details. Things like:

1. A/B testing
2. Conversion rates
3. Usability tweaks
4. Email marketing
5. Blogging
6. Networking and sales

So Amigo is going on the chopping block at Ebay so another owner, with time and money, can make some serious money with it. I’ve never sold a web app on Ebay, so it should be an interesting ride. Stay tuned.

Time to build a big app again

So now with three successes and one failure under our belt (well, two if you count DropSend’s short-lived predecessor FlightDeck that I coded in PHP), we’ve learned a huge amount about what makes a great app and what doesn’t.

With that in mind, I’m very excited to announce that we’re building a new web app called Truvay (a play on the Frech word trouver which means ‘to find’). It’s the brainchild of Keir Whitaker and I’m fricken excited about it.

Mike Kus will be designing it and Elliott Kember will be building it and we’ve set up a pretty interesting arrangement with Elliott (as he’s no longer working at Carsonified).

Here’s the rough contract that Elliott has agreed to:

Maintenance
=====================

* Work at least 8 consecutive hours per week every Monday

* Answer all support emails within 24 hours

* Use Basecamp for project milestones and todos

* Use a bug tracking solution (suggestions?)

* Blog at least once a week on Carsonified.com about the development and progress of Truvay, before and after launch. This isn’t a part of the 8 hours of consecutive work every Monday

Ownership
=====================

Carsonified will own all intellectual property for the project.

Financials
=====================

There will be no charge for building or maintenance of the app, but instead Elliott will receive a monthly cut of the revenue. This will be after expenses, which include:

1. Hosting bill (bandwidth, rental, etc)
2. Marketing costs (variable but will include AdWords), which Elliott will be consulted on
3. Bookkeeping
4. One day of Ryan’s time per week for management (normally charged out at £800 per day, but reduced to £300)

Elliott will receive 10% of monthly revenues, after the expenses listed above. If he launches the site on time (3pm April 20th), this will increase to 15% (hat tip to Natasha on that idea). When the site hits $25,000 monthly revenue (excluding VAT), his take will increase to 25%.

His monthly cheque will be determined by a snapshot of the revenue on the 1st of every month at 9am.

If the app is sold, Elliott will receive 10% of the cash price, after lawyer and accountancy costs.

Notice period
=====================

Either party can terminate the contract with one month’s notice. After the one month notice period has ended Elliott will stop receiving monthly revenue and will no longer be eligible for 10% of any future sale price. If we receive a Letter of Intent for an acquisition, we will not be allowed to cancel the contract, providing he is still dedicating at least one day (8 consecutive hours) per week to the project.

Your thoughts?

Normally companies would just hire a developer to build a web app but we don’t want to take that financial risk right now. I think that this deal is a win-win for Elliott and Carsonified. He has the potential of making serious long-term revenue and we get to launch the app with very small financial risk.

Love to hear your thoughts …
[Photo Credit: http://flickr.com/photos/babsphotosecosse]

“My sis is looking for an affordable, but fast and reliable backup drive for her Mac. Suggestions? Is Firewire or USB faster these days?”

I got a huge number of really helpful responses, so I thought I’d go ahead and share. Enjoy!

=============================

stuscuba: @ryancarson Firewire if you can…I wouldn’t touch Western Digital I’ve found them serioulsy flakey

boboroshi: @ryancarson there are drives with both - check out owcomputing.com. not sure of shipping to uk. i have abotu 8 of em

davehodg: @ryancarson anything but lacie.

maxshanly: @ryancarson Will that do? http://tinyurl.com/6kqnv5

kyleridolfo: @ryancarson For the absolute fastest speeds I’d recommend an eSATA card and eSATA drive. They are available for both MBPs and MacPros.

erskingardner: @ryancarson that is one i have and it’s awesome.

erskingardner: @ryancarson fw is faster,but new macbooks don’t have fw so prob easier to get usb, try http://tinyurl.com/5aqxrb this one does usb and fw.

lewisking: @ryancarson firewire is faster for big files as it stays at a constant rate, USB jumps up and down in speed. As for drives, WD 1TB £80 odd.

pd0: @ryancarson what kind of backup drive? If just USB HDD, buy any. Otherwise, Time Capsule or @dropbox, IMHO

stevekennedyuk: @ryancarson FW800 is faster than USB2.0 (800Mb/s vs 480). FW is 400Mb/s, however USB max is burst, FW sustains

SteveMarshall: @ryancarson FW800 is, as @drewm said, fastest. FW400 runs 380MB/s stream, USB2 can only do that in bursts (ie. short periods).

tanya_peasgood: @ryancarson FW is a more consistent transfer speed than USB and FW800 is much faster if available. I’d get a Seagate FreeAgent - has both.

nikf: @ryancarson Maplin were doing some good deals on External drives recently (Maxtor & Seagate USB drives).

john_oshea: @ryancarson Go Firewire if possible. Avoid Western Digital “MyBook” products like the plague unless she has a penchant for data-recovery
herus02: @ryancarson Firewire = 800mb/s, USB = 400mb/s.

rik1p: @ryancarson DON’T BUY AN IOMEGA ULTRAMAX - had 3 fail in less than 2 months. Buy 2 seperate drives and RAID (mirror) them. FW800 FTW.

drewm: @ryancarson FW is faster. FW800 is fastest, but new Macs have no support. USB2 is similar to FW400 for small files, slower for large.

pauljevans: @ryancarson Recommend USB 2. I *love* WD Passports, small, silent, robust, cheap. Up to 320GB. Perfect Time Machine drives.

JulianKross: @ryancarson FireWire trends indicate it’s on it’s way out. FW800 still beats USB 2.0, and the deals are everywhere on those drives

lachenmayer: @ryancarson USB2.0 is slightly faster than FW400 (480 vs 400Mbps). And seeing as FW has disappeared from MacBooks, I’d say go with USB.

lvtrii: @ryancarson Firewire’s still faster, for now. USB3 is coming, though. And that’s 10x faster

kjlloydie: @ryancarson this is an awesome portable backup drive: http://is.gd/aZ8W. Also, Firewire is way faster (shame it’s not on the new MacBook)

roba3000: @ryancarson WD my book http://twurl.nl/4z7hps

spaulds1: @ryancarson ur sister will want firewire;I like Western Digital or LeCie Drives. Use Carbon Copy Cloner.

awojtowski: @ryancarson Personally prefer Western Digital. If she isn’t editing video or rendering high end graphics I would say usb 2.0.

nikf: @ryancarson USB are cheaper. Firewire more consistent transfer speeds (but would only matter for 1st backup w/Time Machine). Avoid MyBooks

G_Masta: @ryancarson Firewire is still the faster interface, no matter what the USB guys say. FW800 is the shizza. WD MyBook is great

Ben Huh of I Can Has Cheezburger - Tuesday 3rd February 2009 More Information

Paul Boag of Headscape - Tuesday 10th February 2009 More Information

Eric Meyer of meyerweb.com - Monday 9th March 2009

Ryan Singer of 37signals - Monday 27th April 2009

Tara Hunt of Citizen Agency - Monday 22nd June 2009 More Information

Daniel Burka of digg/Pownce - Tuesday 8th September 2009

Dan Cederholm of SimpleBits - November 2009

Passes are available to book for Ben Huh, Paul Boag and Tara Hunt. Be quick as there are only 10 early bird passes at £375 +VAT. If you would like to register your interest for the other workshops and receive more information please e-mail natasha at carsonified dot com.

Have a great Christmas and hopefully see you all in the new year :)

If you’re for an amazing developer, Elliott really kicks ass. If you’re trying to find someone who really understands the web industry and has amazing ideas, Simon is your man, and if you need someone who’s an expert in Mobile, just get in touch with Dom. We’re really sad to part ways with these guys - they kick ass.

So why did we do it?

We did it to make sure that Carsonified would make it through this recession. These weren’t emergency cuts. It was a pre-emptive decision that will give the company plenty of what Jason Calacanis calls ‘Runway’ - cash to see us through slow times.

What are you doing about the Recession?

Whether you’re a employee, freelancer or entrepreneur, you need to be thinking about several important issues right now. These tips should be followed at all times, but they’re especially important during an economic downturn.

Employees

1. Make sure you’re earning revenue for the company and covering your salary. As brutal as it sounds, the founders of the company are going to be looking at your salary versus the amount of revenue coming in and making a decision accordingly. If you’re not directly bringing in enough revenue to cover your salary, it’s going to be very hard for them to justify keeping you on board. If you aren’t currently covering your own salary, then make sure to be able to demonstrate that your revenue stream is increasing dramatically and you’ll soon be covering your salary and making a decent profit for the company.

2. Demonstrate that you have profit-generating ideas. Create and execute simple ideas that bring in profit for the company. These can be things like selling t-shirts or sending valuable leads to the sales team (make sure your boss knows you did this!).

3. Volunteer to do extra work. I’m not talking about kissing the founder’s ass. I’m talking about doing anything you can to help the company survive. The more you demonstrate that you’re committed to helping the company make it through the recession, the more valuable you’ll become.

Unfortunately, even if you’re working hard on the above three points, sadly there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to keep your job. Sometimes your company just doesn’t have enough time to allow you to build up levels of revenue or value and they will have to make a tough decision. If you think this might be the case in your situation, it’s important to communicate early and often with your boss to ask whether your job is at risk and what you can do about it.

Entrepreneurs and Freelancers

1. Cut unnecessary costs. And I mean all of them. Here are some ideas:

- Sell the company car and ride a bike. I sold the company Audi A6 and now ride a bike to work - great for getting fit.
- Rent out desks in your office.
- Book your travel tickets way in advance to take advantage of early-bird offers.
- During business trips stay at a cheap B&B instead of in a hotel room.
- Learn how much your broadband, phone and electricity cost. Can you change providers to save money?
- Go through your P&L statement line by line and check all the figures. Any over-spending should be identified and cut.
- Double-check everyone’s credit card statements and get on top of any over-spending.

2. Get deadly serious about watching your cash flow. I’d recommend doing this every week, no matter how big your business. The most important thing is to plan on a decrease in your revenue of at least 20% with costs increasing by 5%. Make this a variable that you can change in one cell which then updates all your revenue forecasts.

3. Require 50% payment up-front from your customers and make sure this is in their contract. Don’t be a hard-ass (as they’ll just ignore you) but make sure you get paid early.

4. Diversify. At Carsonified we recently branched out into consultancy, marketing, design and development. We are pretty good at all these things but we previously only did them for our own products. As soon as we offered these services to other companies, we immediately created a new revenue stream.

5. As hard as it may be, it’s time to lay off staff who aren’t directly generating revenue. If you avoid doing this now, you might go out of business later which means you have to lay off everyone, which will be much, much worse.

6. Think hard about what sets you apart from your competitors. Why should your customers spend their hard-earned cash with you?

7. Take really good care of your big customers. We should take good care of all our customers, but make sure youre paying extra attention to the folks who do a lot of business with you. Ideas: Send them thankyou and birthday cards, call them, send them a personal gift and remember their partner’s or kids’ names.

Thoughts?

Times are tough but if you’re smart, you have a great chance of surviving. The key is to not stick your head in the stand - be proactive.

What are your tips for surviving the recession? Please share below.

In a (misguided) bid to stimulate the economy the British government has just decreased the sales tax rate here and all the shops and businesses are having to update their prices.

Here’s what it said:

==================================

(Thank you Darling!)

We’re passing on the new lower VAT rate immediately.

Pret’s ‘Just Roasted’ coffee, ‘Just Made’ Soups & Hot Wraps, dine in prices … in fact all VAT inclusive prices have already been reduced.

Good news for you, a bit of a nightmare for us. We’ve got thousands of price tickets, hundreds of menu boards and now they’re all wrong!

You’ll pay less straight away.

We’ll get the labels right as quickly as we can.

==================================

The funny thing is they’re simply obeying the law, not doing something special or out of the ordinary. They are required by law to charge the new sales tax rate. So why does this flyer make you smile? Three reasons:

1. They’re using familiar and friendly language.

2. They’re letting you know that the tax rate change is a pain in the ass for them but it’s more important to take care of you, even if it’s harder.

3. They’re not afraid to be human and say ‘Hey, we’re bummed we have to do this. We’re like you and we hate boring admin crap.” It helps you to identify with them.

You basically think “Aw, thanks guys - much appreciated.”

In tough economic times, just remember that you need to give your customers even more reasons to spend their cash with you. Taking care of them and being a friend just might put you in front of the competition.

In addition to the financial benefits, it’s just a better way to live, right?

We’ve been working really hard to get you guys the best speakers for Carson Workshops 2009.

Check out the awesome line up:

February
Ben Huh - I Can Has Cheezburger
Paul Boag - Headscape

March
Eric Meyer - meyerweb.com

April
Ryan Singer - 37signals

June
Tara Hunt - Citizen Agency

September
Daniel Burka - digg/Pownce

November
Dan Cederholm - SimpleBits

Titles, passes and dates will be released on December 1st (next week).

Be quick (zoom zoom) as the first 10 passes for each of the workshops are at a reduced rate :)

A little bit about Carson Workshops:

For those of you who don’t know, Carson Workshops are a one day event, held at the beautiful RIBA, in the Wren room. It is a more intimate setting where you can be taught, ask questions and meet like minded people. Refreshments and lunch are included in the price, and we always invite you guys for a bevvie or two after the workshop.

If you have any questions or enquiries please drop me a line at natasha at carsonified dot com.

Some of you guys may remember our FOWA Road trip where we visited some major cities including Dublin. We had such a great reception from the web community there so are really excited to be launching the first ever FOWA Dublin.

Expect a fabulous debut with a line up including:

* Blaine Cooke (ex Developer at Twitter)
* David Heinemeier Hansson (37signals & Ruby on Rails)
* Mike Butcher (TechCrunch UK)
* Simon Willison (Co-creator of the Django web framework)
* Ryan Carson (Carsonified)
* Emma Persky (Trampoline Systems)
* Eoghan McCabe & Des Traynor (Contrast)
* Matthew Ogle (Last.fm)

We will be covering topics such as:

* How to sell your web app - Lessons learned from the acquisition of DropSend.com
* How to use APIs to build powerful mash-upsThe secret to making money online
* How to build amazing web apps - Lessons learned from building Twitter.com
* The future is Ruby without Rails
* How to build desktop apps that help your web app succeed
* Building content rich websites using Django web framework

The date for your diaries is Friday 6th March 2009.

The event will take place at Liberty Hall in the heart of Dublin, and in true FOWA style will be followed by a few drinks at the after party!

Tickets are €175 but we are releasing 200 for just €115!

Go to the booking page to get yours but be quick.

Keep watching for more FOWA news and info on the after party.

Bring on the Guinness :)

We constantly get folks asking if we can build sites or apps for them, so I’m really excited to see what will happen. We’re only going to accept a few interesting jobs, so please get in touch right away if you’d like to work together (ryan at carsonified dot com).

Here are the things we can help you out with:

1. Web app/site design and development
2. Web app/site consultancy
3. Small business and start-up consultancy
4. Online marketing consultancy

We’re looking forward to cranking out some beautiful and exciting work! Just shoot me an email at ryan at carsonified dot com or give us a call …

From UK: 01225 324 980
From US or Canada: 011 44 1225 324 980
From Europe: 00 44 1225 324 980

This week and just in time for Christmas we bring you the Carsonified T-shirt. Mike, who designed the tee, describes it as “a call to arms to ditch the computer and get back to basics with a pencil and paper”. We just think it looks cool and as my mother would say “it washes well”.

Once you have your tee you’re going to need to know how to fold it. Learn from the master, here’s Steve ‘Buzz’ Pearce from Poke showing us the perfect Top Shop folding technique.

The perfect way to fold a t-shirt! from Carsonified on Vimeo.

The tees are made from 100% pure cotton and are available in small, medium, large and extra large and are priced at $15 + p+p ($5 to the UK and $10 to the rest of the world). Orders will start shipping week beginning 10th November (after we all get back from Future of Web Design New York 2008).

Choose your size and shipping destination
Small (Shipped to UK) $20.00 Medium (Shipped to UK) $20.00 Large (Shipped to UK) $20.00 X-Large (Shipped to UK) $20.00 Small (Shipped to Rest of World) $25.00 Medium (Shipped to Rest of World) $25.00 Large (Shipped to Rest of World) $25.00 X-Large (Shipped to Rest of World) $25.00

We also have a handful of FOWA Expo Crew T-shirts available. Bright red and featuring the FOWA target on the back you are sure to be a hit with your friends.

Choose your size and shipping destination
Large (Shipped to UK) $20.00 X-Large (Shipped to UK) $20.00 Large (Shipped to Rest of World) $25.00 X-Large (Shipped to Rest of World) $25.00

Add your pic to our Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/carsonifiedtees/pool/