Mixed Bag of Links

Every now and then I have a slew of webpages open that sit between that precarious point of closure and being bookmarked and likely never looked at again.  They remain open because I feel like there is something to say about them, and am likely to write a post or two, but as yet haven’t pulled myself into a mindset to do so.

Anyhow, to that end I have decided to collect todays current batch together and throw them into their own raggle taggle set of links in my favourite blog category ‘link roundup’:

To kick things off is Mike Rowehl on his This is Mobility blog with a post entitled Why Mobile Developer Programs Aren’t Working.  In it, as the title suggests he looks at a variety of reasons why individual mobile developer programs online are not very effective, from their function as a form of marketing to developer lifecycles.  There are many fair points and worthwhile eleemnts to learn in developing your own ideas for such a program.

Moving on, we have the ever popular Sazbean, making points about Pricing Based on Customer Expectations.  This post talks about ideas for coming up with reasonable pricing for your products or services and who to divine that tricky path to sales nirvana.  Choosing your price point is never easy and sometimes, as is ever clear in the world of art, you just have to make it up as you go along, but for those with a need for more tried and tested methods, Sarah Worsham comes up with some great points.

On the topic of price and money we have a great post by Michael Grey on When to Pay Top Dollar for Copy in which the talks about the value of good copy.  I can only really scratch at the surface of Michael’s post but he really takes a long and hard look of what is up with the web, the real costs of content and how to produce value from content.

From a slightly different angle, but still on the same topic of price, money and value of things.  The Tech Crunch article on startup funding, and the spectre of VC capital as the shackle and chains to your fledgling company – Startups: Poverty is Underrated. Be Glad That You’re Not Rich.  In the course of the article, Vivek Wadhwa looks at the impositions of VC capital and how it affects start up companies.

Moving on from money and off into the world of development (nice little segway there!) I liked Contentini post entitled Web App Strategy – Why Market Research is Important and Doing It For Free.  The article, written by Dan Zambonini, looks at the renaissance of strategic thinking – seems a bid idiotic it ever went away! – and looks at ways in which you can best justify your development time for an untested website or service.  Using similar techniques for SEO, he helps you find ways to triage development ideas and time.

In a completely different direction, is an interview on The Daily Beast with all-round genius Charles Saatchi.  The post provides some interesting thoughts and ideas and definitely has some laugh out loud moments =)  Need I say more?

Last but not least, and not so much a blog post as a service, is CSS Kill Switch which “lets you non- destructively black out a difficult client’s website with the click of a button.”  The idea is a clever one, but really got me thinking about whether or not this is the best way to deal with errant clients.  it’s always tricky when you are delivering subjective services to a client and not a finite resource, but still.  I suppose it provides an option for anyone not willing to cut their losses and run.

So there you have it!