Just in the last few weeks. I won't disclose details for any particular customer, but I assume that Tom @ RG will make a public statement about it at some point.
I hope you realize that you are exaggerating. Out of all of those, the only one that an employer has ever had any interest in was my GitHub account and I have gotten software dev jobs before I even had one
Of course i'm exaggerating, I've worked in software for 10 years and never had any of those. Until about 3 months ago I didn't have a twitter account. I've never been out of work.
BUT, the amount of people that look at me funny because I didn't, and the article that i linked to just reinforces that.
I know I would be very interested. The company I currently work for is attempting to do something similar, so it would be good to see how you guys did it and what the pitfalls are.
Am I the only one who thinks perhaps his expectations were too high. I'd be extremely happy if the redesign I'm working on increased the conversion rate by 20%. How is that failure?
He was starting from extremely low numbers.
" . . . the rate itself was so low to have very little effect on the company’s bottom line."
20% of a half of a percent still sucks, for instance.
right, but wouldn't low numbers to begin with indicate problems beyond just the website? What's the metric then? If the site is generating 100k a year and you bump conversions by 10% is that success? If the site is only generating 10k per year, then does conversion need to go up 50% to be considered successful?
Right, I understand that part, but it still sounds like it converts your site into a native app. If I then made a change to the site, I would have to do the whole process over again. I'm looking for something that points to the site, so I can update the site all I want without having to change the app at all.
I believe you can have it load dynamic content. For example, I made an app that had a pretty much static front page, then the other pages loaded RSS feeds. Ajax and jQuery are you friends if you decided to go that route. Otherwise, what would be the point of having an app that just points to a webpage?
Basically, I'm trying to appease higher ups who insist that we need an app, but dont understand all the complexities about maintaining separate codebases, app store approval process, etc... As long as there is something installable in the app store, they're happy. And I can code the site in such a way as to mimic a native app, so the end user wont know the difference.
What's to stop you from switching to Amazon? Have you tried watching a movie on Amazon? Way less usable and its hard to find movies sometimes. Netflix has a way better interface and what I find myself doing is checking on Netflix first, and then only if they don't have it, do I go to Amazon.
I've watched things on Amazon Instant in the past and didn't find it any less usable. In fact, I actually find Amazon more usable since it works on my operating system.
It's kind of a moot point to say "Well, Amazon has a crappier interface, so Netflix is safe", since Amazon can always update its interface to something more friendly. The important point is that Netflix has given up one of the major incentives to use its service -- the integration of DVD and streaming.
I think the parent's point was, that is the case -now-. But that could change with one new release of Amazon's steaming service. Previously, even if Amazon released a new offering, the mailing service added an additional incentive to stay with netflix. Now if Amazon releases a better streaming option, you can simply dump Netflix streaming.
