This barely appears as a problem if you were to wade through the brands involved.  Its almost a practice.

Ironically some us do tend to do these ourselves. Some just evolve into similar patterns .

We’re talking about using psychology in user interfaces . We’re talking about sneaky practices some websites use online to get you to opt in and pay more. The author of this here article decided to name practices – Dark Patterns. It sounds good and I don’t mind. After all these dubious patterns tend to show up all over the place. They are legal or atleast a grey area. They are not breaking the law. They are designed deviously with an understanding of human psychology.

Quoting 90percentofeverything Blog

Low cost airlines that put insurance in your basket without you asking.

Social networking sites purposefully make it hard for you to shrink your social graph or move your content into private realms. I’m looking at you, facebook.

Email sending systems that require you to log-in (using a long forgotten password) in order to unsubscribe. (This is actually forbidden by the revised CAN-SPAM 2008 rules, but it’s widely ignored)

Systems that ask for your email / twitter credentials on the grounds of finding you friends, but then send messages as if they are directly from you, without your express consent.

Supermarkets (in the real world) that prevent you from comparing products on price, by putting items in different sized bundles.

To understand and see real world examples,

Check out the Dark Patterns Wiki here.

or type http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/wiki/Home into your Browser

In some cases the trick ups the conversion by a lot. Personally I never recommend tricking people . Respect your customers. Understanding your ideal customer and giving them what they want will give you everything you’ve ever wanted.

Happen to know any similar dark patterns or sites that use these clever techniques ?

Once again we’re not looking for obvious scams. We’re not looking for scams . We’re I’m looking for techniques used by known or branded products and services that trick users into doing things.  Just out of curiosity and the need to not be ordinary of course.

The creator of ruby on rails giving a speech on business and how he got started .  He is now partner at 37Signals. This has been eye opening for me . Running a website with the aim of making money from it is like any other business. It takes effort and adapting to various factors, People being the most important. Out Teaching instead of selling all the time. Business school does tend to drown people in heavy management theory and practices that possibly won’t help you when starting out small. Even billion dollar businesses start out small.  This a clever guy who understands the realities of business .  Personally I feel this video has been long overdue. Highly suggest you check it out. Real world advice from someone’s who’s not afraid to call out the bull.

The link to the Lecture

http://bit.ly/917FTL

Posting after what seems a long time. I’m currently working on a company website. I had ask myself these very questions. I’ve decided to stick with a catalogue for the time being . An online catalogue until i figure out what to do with the shopping cart and how they want to handle it.

That being said this article is a great introduction to selling online/ setting up an ecommerce website.

• What are you selling?
• What shopping functionality should you offer?
• How will you take payment?
• How will items be delivered?
• What reporting and other functionalities are required?

It discusses the various considerations you have to make.

Do you need an open source software ?

Is modification to a commercial software your best solution ?

Or maybe what you need is a complete custom made solution

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/02/getting-started-with-e-commerce-your-options-when-selling-online/

It honestly couldn’t come from a better source. It’s an article published on the smashing magazine blog. It helped me save tons of energy and get the big picture.

Before this I had been modifying and working on and trying to achieve similar results on other CMS’s and various other means. They all fell short or became too complicated or was taking too long. This article clarifies it all .

If you’re in a real world business and are considering going online , then you need this. Get into ecommerce now while local marketing is still hot and easy. Its going to get harder to compete a few years down the road. You really couldn’t be considering this at a better time.

Once again here’s the link

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/02/getting-started-with-e-commerce-your-options-when-selling-online/

Good Luck

Why Bother Paying For Anything ?

–Recommended–

Here’s something that you’re absolutely going to love.  Simply superb information you can use now.

For once information overload isn’t all that you get for FREE.

http://www.cambridgebusinessacademy.com/

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

So here’s one of those things you end up asking.  Why even bother paying for something ? Money doesn’t grow on trees and most of you wouldn’t mind paying for something truly valuable. But that isn’t something thats very obvious right off . People do lie and some of them are quite good. Rubbish marketing claims seem to be the order of the day sometimes. So why paid communities. Why paid membership sites ? . And why ask people to pay if all they want to is help. Read on for a good answer.

Over the years, I have had the chance to be part of  paid communities and free communities open to the public. I have found “free” communities are good but filled with many “haters” and hackers and people uploading bad scripts to hurt members. Also, there is a “free only, scarcity” mentality in many cases with some bad apples rather than an “entrepreneurship, abundant” mentality. These places are filled with not only mad information from people that have never and will never have success, they pose opinions as fact without testing real world practices. This misinformation and disinformation is often bad advice given by “know it all haters”.  They are annoying and you don’t want them dragging you down. There is no need to put up with this kind of negativity. There’s only so much you can put up with.

Haters never pay. Of course there always is the fact that you want your business paying for the resources it consumes. But that’s another story. Criticism is okay but hating only drags everyone down. There’s no point to it and its a nuisance.

This is why getting into a Paid Community is worth it.

Today’s blog post isn’t so much about internet marketing . Its around Sales and real world skills. It was going to be a mix mash of a lot of things. But I decided against it. Have no doubt. There is no escaping this. These are things you are better off knowing. 

If you haven’t heard of Kevin Hogan or Dave Lakhani then its time you did. They are well known in their fields. The amount and quality of information these two individuals put out is simply ridiculous. But I let you make up your own mind about that.

Hypnotic Strategies Ending In ‘Yes’ by Dr. Kevin Hogan

“How to Sell When Nobody’s Buying and How to Sell Even More when They Are” by Dave Lakhani

Both the above are clickable Links that should take you to the respective Sites.

I strongly recommend checking out the above Links.

The first link is to an article by Dr.Kevin Hogan. The quality of information on Dr.Kevin Hogan’s Site is amazing. I’ve mentioned him before. He also has an Internet Marketing Course and was once a Student of the one and only Rich Schefren. There is a lot more on that Site. I recommend checking whatever peaks your interest.

The second link is to Dave Lakhani’s new book. Check out the sample chapters and other Information. I honestly doubt there is anyone on the planet who wouldn’t benefit from the information inside. Please do give it a look. I honestly believe its worth your Time.

Once again the Links. Click on them and check them out. 

Hypnotic Strategies Ending In ‘Yes’ by Dr. Kevin Hogan

“How to Sell When Nobody’s Buying and How to Sell Even More when They Are” by Dave Lakhani

As Always

Have a Great Day !