He is Gardenfork’s community liason to the retirement crowd, spreading the word of online video to the retirement masses. Today he brought up an important point for everyone to keep in mind when designing web sites and user interfaces.

You can’t see the buttons on your site

Some of the buttons to play the Gardenfork videos are grey on white, not my choice, but that’s how the Flash player used on the site is designed.

The next thing he said is what everyone needs to keep in mind going forward.

You have to realize, you’re dealing with 70 year olds here.

Small buttons don’t work for older people. I’m at the point where I finally have to use reading glasses, and its only going to get worse, staring at computer screens all day.

More and more older people are using the web, we need to make it usable for them as well as 16 year olds. It is a must-do for web marketers, as seniors have more money than 16 yr olds.

I am big on customer service. Its a big part of my job.

I’ve watched as Netflix has tried to slay the Blockbuster dragon, and now they have moved things up a notch. They have eliminated email customer service and built a call center in Oregon because, people in Oregon are polite.

From an article in the NY Times:

He [Michael Osier] settled on the greater Portland area because of the genial attitude on the part of most service workers.

“In hotels and coffee shops and the airport, it’s amazing how consistent people are in their politeness and empathy,” said Mr. Osier, who is based at Netflix headquarters in Los Gatos, Calif. “There’s an operational language in the industry that people are so jaded about — phrases like ‘due to high caller volume.’ We’re very consciously trying to counter that mentality.”

This is quite different from many companies that try to drive you to their website to solve problems

“Everyone else is making it almost impossible to find a human”, says Tom Adams of Adams Media Research

To me,Verizon is the epitome of poor customer service, and they consistently try to keep you from reaching a human being. I’m still trying to resolve a payment made to my Verizon account 3 months ago. After many calls, I’ve found that if I am speaking to a person in the NYC area, its not nearly as pleasant or productive as when I speak to someone in their phone center in Florida.

The Netflix service reps have wide latitude in resolving problems, the Verizon reps can’t do everything you need done, the company is so balkanized.

I haven’t had to call Netflix, ( I am a subscriber ) but its good to know at least some companies get it. Perhaps when the internet/phone service market gets even more competitive, Verizon might get it.

Around the World in 2.0 is an Internet-based film project created to explore trust and connectivity. The primary objective of the project is to rely solely on users of video sharing websites, such as YouTube, for food, shelter, and transportation during a trip around the United States.

…through this project we also hope to disprove the notion of a lack of trustworthiness amongst America’s Internet community. We here at Around America in 2.0 strongly feel that the news media’s insistent concentration on negative aspects of American society has had a substantial affect on Americans’ perceptions of each other, not to mention the rest of the world’s perception of Americans.

I thought about offering him a place to stay in NYC, but I read that he lives in Brooklyn. If Matt’s quest gets enough notice, on the web and traditional media, I think he can do it. It will be helpful if he can connect to long haul truckers, who  have internet access at truck stops. If they pick up on it, he’ll do fine.

Make photo books of all those pictures.

Shared books takes the Print feature of iPhoto and adds custom books for different events in your life, weddings, adoptions, births, dogs ( of course ). All sorts of choices on their site.

Pretty smart, considering that many of us, once we get past that initial photo printer / multiple ink jet cartridge stage of digital camera enlightenment, just email a few picts now and then, letting the bulk of our pictures sit on a hard drive.

“Broadband video is growing rapidly on the Web, but the television will continue to be the key way viewers want to watch video,” said TiVo’s chief executive Tom Rogers. “Our overall goal is to provide as many types of content in as many formats to be displayable on the television through TiVo.”

story link

Initially they will only offer media that is not copy-protected, but they hinted that they are in talks with Apple and others.

Apple is coming out with a device that will connect a video iPod to a television. Which will be used more? I think the Tivo box prevail in the short term, as its easier to use than first plugging in your iPod to your computer then to the TV.

We are seeing the convergence of the desktop and TV, but for the moment its not there yet.

An Insider’s View from the Podcamp “Unconference”

If you will be in NYC on Nov 15th and would like to meet with people interested in the state of Video and TV on the Net, please join us. To RSVP, please click here

Jeff has built Network2.tv, a sort of TV Guide for the web. My friend Gary of wine library TV is on the main page of the site.

I’ll report back from the event, or I’ll see you there.

Which I did. I got an email inviting me to watch the episode and participate, and watched the show right away. Who would say no to a new cookbook? We’ll see if I am one of the first ten winners.

A good example of what one might call an old world industry reaching out to a new one. Its a smart marketing move, as I had not thought of buying a copy of the book, yet with Lenny and Waz talking about what is in the book ( its a cookbook and reference book ) in an honest way – this was not blatant shilling – if I don’t win I will go buy a copy.

WineLibrary.com is the online e-commerce site of a wine store in New Jersey. Click on the “Video” tab and their head of operations, Gary Vaynerchuk, sits at a table in a bare room and tastes and talks about wine. Gary has a good on-air presence, and like many videoblogs, there is a certain amount of humor, which is good.

For the wine novice like myself, I found it interesting and I learned a few things. Its a brilliant use of a videoblog to drive traffic to a commerce site. You can click on links to the wines he is talking about.

Judging from the comments section ( the site runs on WordPress, the same software we use ) he gets a good amount of traffic for each posting.

I see more and more commercial sites going this route. (For those interested, Choplogic can produce these videoblogs)

Rather than me rehash what has already been written, here’s a link to the blog entry

and the announcement on the Brightcove website : http://blog.brightcove.com/