I’ll be posting my presentation on this blog post later this weekend using SlideShare - so watch out for it.

I’ve taken one of my most popular blogs posts on web apps and turned it into a slide presentation - this should be a fun talk!

As any CEO, I’m very proud when we get coverage like this, in a major print publication - so I just had to share it!

Once of the main reasons to date that free software has not become mainstream amongst average computer users is that the free stuff is generally written by open source techies, and no one really focuses on design and usability. So generally, free = open source = unusable by the common man.

Matthew Paul Thomas wrote a great post today in his blog about free software usability - and this one of the best pieces on the topic that I’ve seen written to date. He describes 15 points as to why free software has poor usability, and how to fix it.

Now that you’ve done that (or not, you don’t have to, but I hope I make sense!), I’d like to briefly speak to the headings of the 15 points he mentioned, and discuss how we (SynthaSite) as a company are trying to push the envelope with high quality free software, and pioneer a new way to build businesses and income around free software with alternative revenue streams, rather than charging the end user. We hope to inspire other software companies to be creative in the way, that they also try to build out their business models.

Certainly the thoughts of Chris Anderson follows what leaders on the web have been doing for many years, but usability is going to take the front seat, if you want to be successful in this space.

I’m going to make some points against each of Matthew’s - probably best read after reading his post. Remember though, SynthaSite, although free, is a commercial piece of software, so we do have a different approach to it than traditional free and open source products. Now, I’m not going to do what most bloggers do, and reiterate his fantastic piece of work by cut and pasting - so I highly advise you to read it first before continuing - it’s the best 5 minutes of your life that you will spend on this topic.

Matt’s problems with developing free software and how SynthaSite deals with it:

Weak incentives for usability - The more usable a product, the quicker it goes viral. In the current paradigm of large user bases, usability is key if you want to keep users coming back and spreading the word about your web application.

Few good designers - So true. Typically, open source & free software doesn’t get much attention on the design side, after all, it’s free - right? Wrong. Interface design is one of the most important areas of the software development phase and if done incorrectly, will certainly bamboozle most users (who probably won’t try your product again)

Design suggestions often aren’t invited or welcomed - Matt’s point says it all.

Usability is hard to measure - Not at all, we utilize a number of methods, including metric which are unique to each business. Figure out what goals you want your users to achieve, and test how changes to your interface affect those outcomes. If you’re trying to encourage users to build a blog, then see what percentage of users do that, before and after you make changes. It’s not rocket science.

Coding before design - Most startups can’t afford a user interface specialist - understandably, and we didn’t have one when started, but since getting funding, changed that quickly by hiring UI people - design first, then code.

Too many cooks - Like anything in life, too many opinions won’t help. Someone needs to take charge. We have a dedicated UX team that deals with usability issues, and within that team, the roles are clearly defined.

Chasing tail-lights - what works for Apple won’t necessarily work for you. Understanding YOUR users, and design accordingly.

Scratching their own itch -

remember this if nothing else

- 9/10 times, you are probably NOT the target customer and your needs are definitely not representative of the masses, especially if you’re an engineer building a consumer app

Leaving little things broken - this is a difficult one that all software companies will face. How do you deal with the small stuff and the big stuff at the same time. We try our best and over time, we get better at it. Things are never going to slow down, deal with the small stuff on an ongoing basis.

Placating people with options - Here is a nugget: “Less is more, if more is hidden”. Hide complex functionality - power users will find it, beginners won’t need to!

Fifteen pixels of fame - This is where good UI people come in. They want what’s best for the user, not the engineer and his or her ego. Incidentally, I think this point is more prominent in open source community projects where people feel the need to stand out in forums of thousands of people, rather than companies I have worked in of less than 20 engineers, so I don’t think I have personally experienced this problem.

Design is high-bandwidth, the Net is low-bandwidth - Some of the most amazing bits of innovation has been in a room with a white board and some markers. As great as the Internet is, it can’t take away that fresh smell of a marker, and the innovation it brings

Release early, release often, get stuck - SynthaSite has put out over a half dozen releases this year already - with more to come. We are an agile organization and our ability to get high quality work out regularly proves that, in my opinion. I seriously recommend that everyone read “Getting Real” and modify as required for your environment. It’s not absolute, but a good guide nevertheless. We work on 3 week iterations, 2 weeks of coding and 1 week of QA & debugging. My CTO, Brent Viljoen, is a whiz at gearing the company into an agile organization and aligning different departments with engineering to deliver the goods as promised. Many CTO’s still live in the past with their long term outlooks and development processes - in the current paradigm, it’s technically retarded. The key really is to incrementally improve your processes - you won’t get it 100% done from day one, but over time, it will definitely become a way of life, and create order from chaos.

Mediocrity through modularity - this point really speaks to building a product from user requirements back into engineering, and not the other way round. We are using GetSatisfaction to constantly get feedback from our users - their wish is our command…

Gated development communities - API’s are changing this field rapidly. Web apps are now integrating 3rd party apps seamless. We recently deployed a Widgetbox integration into SynthaSite, which now gives our users instant access to over 60,000 widgets - from a simple drag and drop interface. The power of API’s and partnerships are only beginning.

If you read this far, thanks - it’s one of my longer posts, and certainly more engineering and usability focused, but highly applicable to any industry that develops any type of product for consumers.

The book, entitled ‘eMarketing - The Essential Guide to Online Marketing’ is targeted mainly at universities (and businesses). Quirk is supporting the Creative Commons licensing pogram.

Rob Stokes, CEO of Quirk eMarketing and author of the book says, “We have been working with various tertiary institutions, including University of Cape Town (UCT), AAA School of Advertising and the Red and Yellow School for the past nine years. It became clear that there was not enough source material for lecturers and students who wanted to learn more about online marketing. And, what was available was based purely on American case studies which don’t always make sense in the other markets. The thing I am most excited about is that this book is freely available for download. It’s the distillation of all of Quirk’s knowledge and to be able to offer it to all without any limitations is a privilege.

To add to the innovation, Google South Africa is also supporting it!

Stafford Masie, country manager of Google South Africa was very impressed, saying eMarketing – the Essential Guide is “the perfect starting point for anyone entering the world of online marketing.” Google has also included a $15 Google Adwords voucher in every printed book to give people who have never tried the service an easy way to do so.

I really think that this is a phenomenal effort to try and increase the level of education in schools and universities about the area of online marketing - it would be great if this book could lead to more programs and curriculums being created in parts of the world where it’s especially expensive to obtain this type of material for coursework. The future of the Internet is “Free!” - you heard it here first

We’ve just released a major new upgrade of SynthaSite’s Site Builder, which we believe is a substantial improvement over the previous version. At SynthaSite, usability is a key focus, and we recently hired a Director of User Experience and a User Interaction Designer - most startups will not focus this much on usability - which I personally do not agree with. When building web applications, one of the most important things to remember is that average Internet user does not have the patience to go through the learning curve of your product - you need to make it as easy as possible, with as few steps as possible to achieve what your solution offers.

We spent many months this past year trying to figure out how to improve our offering to the average Internet user. We conducted live, in-person usability tests, to outsourced ones with usertesting.com. We a team of guys from MIT conduct usability testing with the man on the street. We also contracted in the guys over at Momentum Design Labs in San Francisco, including Brad Damphousse who did some excellent work for us, much of which is being released today.

I urge you to try out our latest version - all feedback is greatly appreciated. Our official press release follows:

SynthaSite Launches New User Interface Making it Easier for Everyday Internet Users to Create Free Professional Quality Web Sites

More than 70 Percent of Small Businesses Don’t Have a Presence Online; SynthaSite Breaks Barrier Offering Web Site Builder for All

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF., — July 10, 2008 — In today’s Internet age, having a presence online is standard, if not critical. SynthaSite, the leading do-it-yourself free Web site builder, today released a newly enhanced user interface that makes it easier for everyday Internet users and small businesses to leverage the reach of the Internet and create a professional quality Web site quickly, easily and for free.

SynthaSite’s Web site builder is an intuitive tool that allows anyone, regardless of technical know-how, to create and publish a Web site with ease. Using the What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) system, SynthaSite’s offering facilitates the design process by displaying a user’s content during the creation and editing process similarly to how it will appear when published. With SynthaSite’s drag and drop technology, users can easily incorporate a variety of widgets including Flickr streams, YouTube videos, Google Gadgets, Genbook online appointment booking and many more. Users also get free sub-domains and hosting for their sites. Web sites created on SynthaSite are universally compatible across operating systems, as well as browsers such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla.

The new user interface announced today is designed to make it even quicker, easier and more intuitive for anyone wanting to build a Web site. Highlights of the new user interface include:

* One Click to Begin: By streamlining the process for signing up, Web site creators can now start building and editing their Web site with just one click
* Increased Creation Space: The newly enhanced Site Builder incorporates more horizontal space, offering Web site builders more room for their creations to take shape
* Simplified Key Functions: Key functions such as the saving and publishing process, as well as the site manager page, have been simplified making the experience of creating a Web site more streamlined
* Friendly Look and Feel: The new user interface is friendly and intuitive, making Web site creation easy and fun

“The Internet is a powerful tool that, unfortunately, most people are not utilizing to its fullest potential. More than 70 percent of small business alone don’t have a presence online,” said Vinny Lingham, CEO and founder of SynthaSite. “At SynthaSite, we see ourselves as the onramp to the Internet for the everyday user; now, anyone who can access the Internet can have a professional-looking, personalized Web site.”

What Everyday Users Are Saying

“I created a site for my 88-year old mother with a guestbook where anyone can post their picture and write to her,” said Shirley Hodges from Rosebud, Texas, http://www.rosebudmercantile.com/grammyscorner/. “When she logs on to check on her site and read all the guestbook entries, she gets a grin on her face as big as Texas! I’m encouraging everyone I meet to check out the site and write to her; it’s something she looks forward to daily.”

“I am a retiree and teach an introduction to website building class at a private school that serves many senior retirement communities,” explained Ralph Thomas, a SynthaSite user from Summerfield, Fla. “During my four-hour class, I help my students develop and leave with a published website they can continue to improve on their own.SynthaSite offers the tool and opportunity to publish at no cost which is very beneficial to our students.”

“I just found SynthaSite and I love it! I’ve already created two photography websites and I’m impressed with how they’ve turned out,” said Brandon Baumgarten from South Lake Tahoe, Calif., http://www.flowskigallery.com and http://www.flowskipix.com/. “It was so easy to make; I was able to plug in the URL of any individual photo gallery at either of my SmugMug accounts and it made a wonderful slide show on the SynthaSite page featuring my photos.”

Press release follows:

The Search Monitor is an online monitoring service that tracks competitive advertiser activity on paid search, blogs, news, and web sites, announces the product release of three new automated monitoring utilities: Competitor Monitor, Trademark Monitor, and Affiliate Monitor.

With this launch, interactive agencies, SEM and SEO marketers, affiliate managers, and legal compliance teams gain critical insight into search marketing strategies, affiliate activities, trademark infringement, and brand buzz. The Search Monitor offers important information that can only be gained by careful 24×7 automated monitoring, and surfaces the information in 3 easy to use reporting sections:

1. Competitor Monitor gives insights into competitive bidding strategies, competitor market share and visibility, ranking on sponsored search, ad copy strategies, and promotions like free shipping, trials, or sales.
2. Trademark Monitor eases the tasks associated with reputation management by auto-detecting advertisers sponsoring branded keywords, use of trademarks and slogans in ad copy and display urls, and brand buzz on blogs, news, and web sites.
3. Affiliate Monitor simplifies oversight of affiliate programs by auto-identification of affiliates using sponsored search to detect violations of rank requirements, keyword restrictions, ad copy requirements or restrictions, and landing page copy requirements or restrictions.

Search engine marketing has become a critical component for advertisers. According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), North American advertisers spent $12.2 billion on SEM in 2007 and that figure is estimated to more than double to reach $25.2 billion by 2011. The Search Monitor was developed to provide the tools necessary to optimize the sizable investments being made in this medium and to protect brands from competitive threats.

“There is a big problem in the industry known as ‘Piggybacking’ which is when smaller advertisers use the trademarks or slogans of bigger advertisers in ad copy or display urls to lure consumers into clicking on their ads”, says Shaun Martinec, a TSM founder. “For our larger brand clients, we have discovered as many as 1 in 10 competitors engaging in this practice. We were quite alarmed to learn that some violators are parked domains, phishing, and spyware sites. With The Search Monitor, our clients are able to catch these activities and react quickly.”

Another advantage of having a monitoring tool such as The Search Monitor is that marketers and agencies can glean insights into competitive online advertising campaigns including ad copy, promotional offers and ad placement strategies. This has proven to be invaluable information to many of the clients already using The Search Monitor. “When we started using The Search Monitor, we envisioned it as a nice add-on. We were surprised when it rose to a critical component of our offerings - it is now a Must Have ” says Troy Lerner of The Booyah Agency.

TSM was started by an old industry friend of mine, so I can really endorse it. It fills a very important niche, especially within the affiliate marketing industry - merchants have really been missing a piece of software that can assist in keep a leash on their affiliates. Try it out.