http://www.rendle.org Joel's review of websites Quality is such a key issue - so why is quality so often sacrificed for speed? Try submitting a phishing attach in Firefox 2.0. It directs you to a page owned by Google, -- only the 'thank you' page is broken, so users have no idea if their report was sent or not. In all liklihood, users will hit Back, and resubmit it, in case the error was theirs (it wasn't - it's Google's poor quality control). So Google and the Mozilla Foundation end up with double reports, and have to hire someone to go through them and clean up the data. Inefficient, and unnecessary. http://www.google.com 2007-06-29 It is so easy to disparage those who do well - and even easier to insult and pour scorn on the number one player. But for today's blog, I'd like to send a small note of congratulations to eBay Europe. The number 1 auction site has for years delivered extraordinarily bad service, and ripped off both sellers and buyers with poor fraud detection, appalling buyer protection, expensive listing costs, and painfully protracted claims processes. Damned with faint praise, one might say. But eBay have clearly listened to their community, and have begun to turn things around in the past 18 months. Anti-spam and anti-fraud measures are now clearly in place (and, what's better, clearly working) and both buyers and sellers have legimate and easier ways to protect themselves. While you're still exceedingly expensive for the service you provide, eBay, you deserve an 'A-' for both trying hard, and - in part - succeeding. Well done, number one. http://www.ebay.co.uk 2007-07-05 I'm taking aim at Churchill insurance here, but this goes for so many insurance companies on the web, that they must have originally copied each other's model. I suspect this was originally done to give a completely false sense of security to wary new internet users. But the days of 'trust-concerns' are rapidly waning, so why do insurance firms insist on forcing pop-ups when you make an application, when the whole purpose of the web is to have browser-agnostic pages that don't change the user's navigation experience, unless the user specifically requests it. So, Churchill - along with peers such as More Than, Norwich Union and Hastings Direct, and others with similar high-profile advertising budgets - why not try some customer user testing, and find out what is causing your low conversion rate? http://www.churchill.com/ 2007-07-11 Arguably - and I'm certainly going to argue it - JK Rowling's epic Harry Potter books would not be the success they are, were it not for the internet, and specifically internet-based retailers such as tesco.com and amazon.co.uk. Using Harry to both increase costs (the last Harry Potter book will be published this Friday, and most internet retailers are selling it for less than the wholesale price) and raise awareness, and hopefully sales of other product lines. The HP phenomenon has been great for children's literacy, and booksellers generally, but it has also certainly helped the growth of internet retailers, both pure-play and hybrid. However, it must be asked, with prices below cost, does this devalue the price of a book? Does this hurt independant booksellers? Or does it raise awareness of how easily accessible and disposable the internet has helped our lifestyles to become? http://www.amazon.co.uk/ 2007-07-17