And there we go, the first thorough usability and site review from the Four Seasons 18 million website.

The tell all quote:

As UX expert Tom Stewart commented ”despite the umpteen millions it cost, it still appears to have been designed by a photographer (they are stunning) and a computer programmer”.

This is a shitload of money, for a website.. This weekend after I was joking around with a few other people on Twitter I started thinking about it and how it could get to that amount of money.

Let’s analyze how they could have “invested” this money.

First up is the design of the Four Seasons website.
The design is nice and clean with even responsive design coming in . This is especially important with about 70% of their costumers using mobile phones and about 60% tablets.

Second I really hope that they’ve tagged the shit out of the website.
So they can find every little error and UX error and being able to improve upon. With 30 Million visitors this will costs quiet a lot of money as well.

Third the CMS and CRM system behind it.
This will have costs the most money to connect the new website with their backend and the backend from all their hotels. Furthermore I suppose the hotels will be having a unique entrance and area where they can upload new information and see what they write about the hotel.

Social Media Integration.
The integration is very well done with Tripadvisor, Twitter and Facebook integration. It’s one of the nicest designs in the hotel business I’ve seen.

But now I get to a point I absolutely don’t get…

So they recognized the need for mobile adaptations, hence the responsive design.

But where ARE the mobile Apps?

If 70% of their customers are carrying a smart phone and 60% a tablet, you want to be there if they look for apps.

Not only for the booking process but as well the moment they arrive and give the best customer service they could have imagined themselves.

This is the point where they really should have invested and getting the most out of their dollars. I have no idea if they will be launching new apps soon, if yes, I’ll certainly check them out.

The conclusion of the Four Seasons story.

While I suppose it was a good investment, a bit overpriced but still a good investment I’m actually surprised with the fact that they’ve invested in the current and yesterday’s way of booking and not for tomorrow’s.

I suppose they’ve done their calculations before they gave the go-ahead, but I think it’s gonna be hard with this new website to an extra ROI from this 18 million dollar.

And I think it’s a shame that they haven’t invested more in their mobile efforts and less in the desktop experience.

Have a look at the this post from econsultancy with some very good comments

Sven de Meyere has a SEO directed write-up on his website (In Dutch)

It was a busy day on the Google Analytics front, with a few nice improvements within the product.

Below you find a short rundown of the 2 new options and the links to a more extensive explanation.

Real time Google Analytics

It’s a nice little addition to Google Analytics to have real-time stats.

Until recently Google Analytics used to be like 15 min behind. This was for most cases enough. Especially because in my opinion, Google Analytics is a tool to help you make decisions and visualize some patterns. That’s why I don’t see that much of an added benefit in real-time.

I still have doubts ab the new option from google analytics but I think a very few moments to actually pay attention to. For example if you want to check if the Analytics tag is installed correctly… Many people are talking as well about Social Media engagement.. let´s see if that will improve anything…

The main problem I see is that it´s not easier to get lost in the moment and lose sight of the overall picture… Time will tell… Read more about the Real Time Tracking at the Real Time Google Analytics announcement

Google analytics premium

Quiet a large sum of money for Google Analytics. 111,086.43€ / year. But with some bragging rights… Still I don´t think this will keep Omniture and Webtrends awake the whole night….
Visit the blog post to learn more: Google Analytics Premium announcement

Google+ has been out for a few weeks now and I’ve been in the project for about 3 weeks.

Of course in the beginning everything is all nice and beautiful and I was following just a handful of other geeks who are in the project as well.

But finally after the first week, closer friends came in and started to discover. All very rosy and beautiful of course

Strangely, my use of Google+ has been going down lately, and this is for a couple of reasons:

• I miss a lot of my friends posts
• The iPhone and Android app sucks

To start with the first one, I miss a lot of my friends posts.

How can you miss them you ask me? They´re just there in the stream or in the circles…It’s so obvious… !!

Yes it is indeed obvious if you have a few people whom you follow. But when you start to follow more then 100, then it´s getting more of problem.

I know I´m not a power user by far but it struck me that you cannot give a preference to your circles. For me it´s obvious to prioritize posts from Family and friends. These should be the more  obvious and sticky then for example my Blogger circle. Or that I should be able to exclude a certain circle from my stream, in case of the acquaintances circle for example. These posts I can always read when I click on the circle.

I only have to look at my Gmail inbox where it is integrated quiet nicely actually, with my Priority Inbox and Other inbox.

Furthermore for example Friendfeed had en still has a great group feature where you can choose if you wanted to have the posts of that group posted in your main stream.

For me it´s a bit a pain in the … that I have to click everytime on my Family and Friends group to not miss posts from them. And that is just the most obvious reason to be on a social network for me.

Now we’re getting to the Mobile app.

By the way, number 1 is actually more obvious and needed in the mobile apps and the mobile view.

But to be short, the mobile apps are really not on to par on what you can expect from Google. Ok, first we had the saga of the iPhone app, it took 3 weeks to get it into the App Market, I know that´s not Google´s fault. Then it came that it doesn´t support the iPad and iPod touch, only the iPhone running iOS4. Sorry guys but that´s all you can create?? You have been testing the bloody project already since last year (2010) and this is all you get?

For an iPad I can understand, it´s a different screensize and you had to develop already for so many different screensizes in Android, developing for 2 screensizes on the iOS is a big problem. But then not supporting the iPod touch, what is exactly the same thing as an iPhone? It doesn’t have a celular antenna in, but that’s all the difference there is. Now you are just being stupid.

Furthermore, what can you do with the app?? Both the iPhone app (when it’s working) and the Android app. See the streams, manage your contact and upload some photos. You can’t even see videos from posts in the app.

On top of that,  there is something strange with the Google Huddle. For an Android phone, it takes plenty of time to load when you don’t have the app open and you have 2 versions of the app. One is situated next to the Google Plus app and the other one is situated in the main Google+ app and for the iPhone app it’s only integrated within the Google+ app.

This makes no sense to me, maybe someone else can explain me why.

Hi there guys,

Since yesterday I’m into Google Plus and so I can help you with the Google Plus invitation system.

Leave a comment and if you can plus this blog post and I’ll try to get the Google+ invitation to you as soon as possible.

Mind you though, Google Plus sometimes closes the account registration.

The Tech Fortune blog just posted a nice read about the Skype story and the Microsoft acquisition.

It’s only a pity it reads like a proper PR article from Skype and Microsoft, maybe to fix their PR problems from a few weeks ago?

Serial entrepreneurs Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jason Goldman are getting back to their roots and the original company. They are relaunching Obvious Corporation, the birth bed of Twitter Corporation. That means that there’s only one founder left at Twitter….

I can’t wait to see what they’re coming up with.. Exciting to see this…

Read more about their decisions at Biz Stones Blog

Swiffy is a new tool from Google what converts Flash to HTML5. If you are a website owner with a lot of images in Flash or banners in flash, this tool will convert the banners on the fly for the iPhone and the iPad.

So you finally have a decent option for your website without worrying to much about Flash. For the moment it happens all on the fly, that means the visitor access the site and it comes through in HTML5.

The option is mentioned of providing a greater user experience, but I think it will benefit advertizers the most. At the moment, users from iPads and iPhones can’t see Flash ads. So basically they’ll never click on the banners, what’s not good for the website owner and Google. With this, they can see and click on the ads.

So if you are in the affiliate business or whenever your site is sponsered by banners, this tool is a no-brainer, get it to work directly at your website.

What Do You Love website is a nice mashup from all of Googles products. If you type in a search, for example Coffee, you’ll get a very nice designed page with almost all Google products with the search

term integrated. You can imagine yourself that these are all Widget mashed up together.

Try it out and have fun with it. The best part though, is that there are no ads….. yet

It seems that Tuesdays are the days that Google is on a roll to publish new projects.. So when I got home from a day off, they had launched 3 new projects in public.. Where as one is a total new Social concept around Google products..

So what are those 3 new projects you ask me? Let me give you a quick rundown..

• Google+ (This Blogpost)
• WDYL.com
• Swiffy.com

Google + (Official Google Plus Website)

There have been a lot chatter about it this year and last year, but now finally to where ready to present it to the world.
This is the most extensive social project until now from Google. It does everything what you might expect from a social network and for once it does look good. It seems that Google + mainly consists out of 2 different parts: Social Layer on top of existing Google Services and a few new Google + services. That means that it’s not a destination where you to, but a mere collection of destinations.

At the moment, what does the Google+ consists of?

• +Circles: This is the most important layer from Google +. With a circle you define your friend groups and contact lists and define with a circle what and how much information you share with these persons. To get a real – life example, here you define if someone is part of your friends, family or maybe your boss. And you can make sure that only your friends can see your new holiday pictures.
• +Sparks: Sparks are automated searches. Basically it’s a remake from Google Alerts and fitted nicely in a new jacket and a bit more polished.
• +Hangouts: For me the most interesting part, Video conferencing up to 10 persons. This all within your web browser. And the most inovative part is the fact that the person talking is always in the center and the largest video image. This could be very nice not only for friends but as well professionally it might be a great service.
• +Mobile: Within +mobile there are 3 extra services, build upon the strength of Google expertise in mobile. The great thing is that hey have been developping not only for Android but as well native apps for iOS. The other systems can use the mobile web.
  • +Location: Based upon the Google Buzz location option, you can add a location to every post you do.
  • +Instant Upload: Get your pictures automatic to the cloud and get access to your photos from everywhere. This is a straight copy from the new Apple service Photo Stream. Only done on the web.
  • +Huddle: Group messaging powered by Google Talk and a direct competitor to Whatsapp and iMessage.

Google + is open for invitations only at the moment and they expect to expand the availability during 2011.

I just love this video of hangouts, have a look.

More information on the official Website.