Now, more than ever, social media experts are on notice. The days of free flowing indiscreet self-inflating webernet titles has come to an end.

And it is about time.

The Problem

These clods found their way to expert level by signing up for web services offered them the ability to communicate with their friends and long lost acquaintances. That’s it.

They aren’t the type of people that worked with the API’s, asked the hard questions or looked at creating programs to create a metric that might actually mean something. They are simply users.

Social media experts have come to prominence through their own soothsaying. Bouyed by their own hot air and the finances of those too early to know who is telling the truth and who isn’t. They are lying to themselves and clients.

This post was inspired by a voice of reason, Dave Binkowski @dbinkowski.

There are companies and individuals that can help companies get social platforms right. Unfortunately, the current lay of the land is full of posers offering nothing but lip service and buzzwords.

Fixes

If you’re hiring someone to do social media work for your company ask them questions until you are blue in the face. Ask for previous samples of work. Ask for metrics of all kinds that previous clients used to measure success of campaigns.

And once you are blue in the face from asking questions hit them up hard on how they would measure the success of your campaign based on your criteria. If they can’t measure it or tell you that they will get back to you in a 48 hours with a solution, interview the next potential social media company or agency.

If you’re a social media expert, hang it up. Get a new moniker based on something you’ve actually done. It could be as simple as product development or analyst or strategies, etc. If you haven’t actually done anything online like build a website, graphic design, information architecture, user interface work or user experience work, hang it up.

What are the trusted credentials of a social media expert? I’m not sure. But what they leave in the wake of their fouled up business dealings are companies that are hesitant to use services that could actually help client businesses.

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Social Media Expert Save Thyself is a post from: TechStartups.com

For those of you outside the influence of Jason Calacanis or his startup Mahalo, this one goes out to you. It also goes out to the Calacanis haters because you might have missed significant change in Mahalo’s appearance.

It is all brand new, blue, typey and very clicky. That doesn’t simply mean the new homepage but the rest of the site as well.

Let’s break it down.

New Homepage

Thank all the Greek Gods that the yellow and green has been replaced with blue. I’m a big fan of the Web 2.0 greens, many of my own designs rely on the hues, but Web 2.0 blue is easier on the eyes. The blue is also a great companion to the new information architecture of the page.

There are three elements that represent a significant change in the way that Mahalo perceives itself in the marketplace. Sure, they might have what you are looking for via search, but they surely believe they can provide a better filter for what you want than a pile of search results. It is evident on the homepage.

1. Search is marginalized on the top bar of the site – see: tiny
2. You have questions, they have answers – ask a question box the size of DC

3. Click and you shall find – the reliance on images for navigation

I’m liking this approach because it essentially turns the entire homepage into a navigation system. As part of the display layer it is quick access to curated information. It isn’t your typical homepage with ads, lots of copy or a single navigation system.

The ads, copy and navigation have all been saved for the sub pages and are made up for in spades on these pages. As part of the funnel, this homepage design requires that if you are interested in the information that Mahalo has you will need to view a second page. Think of it as two page views for the price of one.

This is the best example of not placing ads on a homepage that I have seen from a site that relies on advertising dollars to reduce its burn. It is a brilliant solution for killing multiple birds with one well weathered stone. Because you know that a simple homepage like this was created from lots of meetings, hurt feelings, great insights and a ton of testing.

Sub pages

Let’s talk about those sub pages. I’m not sure if all the ads are there to fill negative space and work as place holders for future information or widgets but there are more of them than Donald Trump could shake his wild hairs at. That was my first impression and remains still.

There is good content on these pages but I wish it had been given the same testing and care that the homepage got as part of this new layout. In the main body below content the ad break is so large that it doesn’t let my eye flow past it to the next set of content. I gave up on most of the sub pages because I didn’t think there was anything else below it. But I was very wrong. There is a lot, excuse me, let me clear my throat . . . A LOT below the first ad break.

What is down there is a mix of photos, links both onsite and offsite, ads and references used to create the content that is on the top of the heap. Stacked up on this mix is what you really want. However, if your looking to kill some time and not interested in getting all social on Facebook these pages are as good as any to get lost in. That is especially true if you want to stay within a certain topic.

There are other elements on these sub pages that I do like. One example would be the category links on top of the content that remind me of a blog style layout.  The menagerie of search options that can keep one within the Mahalo family of sites is also a great feature.

Kudos to the team that has put out this release. It is an iteration to be proud of.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Design: Mahalo Getting Touchy Clicky With It is a post from: TechStartups.com

Like you, I’ve been a member and user of PayPal’s service for years. They were early to the game and grew accordingly with a product that made buying online drop dead easy. With an exit to eBay they were integrated into a powerful money minting machine.

They also joined a culture of apathy and disdain for those that help them line their pockets – developers.

Like their acquirer, PayPal continued to build a mediocre developer community, foster it with partial code samples, limited information and limited support. Now in kindness to PayPal they did begin providing better support a few years ago and are pretty good when it comes to engaging  developers on the message boards offering solutions – a problem that has plagued eBay for years.

Visit any eBay developer board and you’ll find replies that focus on posting in the wrong thread topic instead of offering a solution. It shows the developers that they aren’t a priority.

I was looking forward to the release of the brand spanking new PayPal X Developer Network. Hoping that my previous experience wouldn’t hold true and that there would be a renewed focus on the developers that are integrating the PayPal gateways and API’s into their platforms. But they let me down.

The new developer community site is plagued with broken links, the same old code samples and forums that stopped loading threads on October 28. The intention is there but the execution is hit and miss.

I can forgive them this time, though. Because it appears that their intention is to focus fully on their API implementations and integrate the legacy products like IPN and PDT into a more standardized solution.

Which will help PayPal as it moves toward working with developers to create a wider range of solutions like mobile and in application micro-payments.

Something else of note with the new PayPal X Developer Network is the improved site IA. Thank you to the person(s) that restructured the information and worked with the UI person(s) to highlight what developers want most . . . documentation.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

PayPal X Developer Network Same as it Always Was is a post from: TechStartups.com