Marketing Lane.com
Published October 21st, 2008 | 
From time to time, I’m asked to give an opinion about a website — the quality design, content and such. Marketing Lane.com is a social marketing site launching soon. It is the corporate website for an online marketing and consulting company offering web design, search-engine optimization, ROI, blog development, etc.
Overall, I liked the site design although the website is clearly not finished given the broken links, lack of a portfolio/clients, and less-than-perfect copyediting. Nonetheless, I liked the color scheme. The combination of black and blue and grey and white works as does the seamless and minimal use of flash graphics. Many flash-based sites overuse flash to create bandwidth-sucking pages with distracting images. The pages are also fairly well organized with easy-to-navigate menus.
On the negative side, I thought the banner was a little too small and scrunchy and hard on the eyes (at least on my screen). I’d recommend a slightly wider banner with a bigger font for the lettering. I’d also raise the client logon and newsletter sign-up on the frontpage either above the copy or add these elements to a sidebar.
The Politics of Fear, Loathing and Division
Published October 21st, 2008 | One of the more absurd moments of this campaign season, for me, was during the second Presidential debate, when John McCain attempted to recast himself as a modern-day Teddy Roosevelt. What made it so absurd is that the Republican Party has, over the last 40 years, gradually lost its mind, its heart and its soul. I’m sure if T.R. were alive today to see what has become of his Grand Old Party, he’d be furious and sick at the sight of it. Ever since Nixon gave voice to the “Silent Majority” and lobbed the first bombs in what has come to be known as the “Culture Wars,” we’ve seen this country divided more dangerously and saliently than at any time since the Civil War. Even during the Reagan Era, the country wasn’t as divided as it is today.
Then along comes a smart, relatively young, capable, multi-racial candidate in the guise of Barack Obama who has made a career out of the idea of political and cultural reconciliation and has, in fact, staked his whole candidacy on the notion that the American people are ready for that to happen.
And he was doing swimmingly until John McCain decided to whip out the old Republican book of down and dirty campaign strategy when it became clear he couldn’t win this election on the merits of his own policy positions and ideas. Over the past several weeks, John McCain, his VP selection Sarah Palin, his surrogates and an army of ultra-conservative right wing pundits have unleashed an almost unprecedented litany of attacks on Obama characterized by words, images and tactics that seek to demonize and de-Americanize him.
It’s sad, really. Sad for this country and by extention, for the world. Even though the Republican playbook has a track record of winning elections for conservative candidates, it has an abysmal record for accomplishing anything good for the country. The last eight years are the surest proof of this. The politics of fear, loathing and division hasn’t solved one major problem or made a single person’s life better. It has produced a more cynical, apathetic electorate and a generation of politicians who talk to the citizens they serve as if they were a bunch of children instead of speaking to them like adults. This isn’t the democracy we were promised in our youth. This isn’t the democracy true patriots have fought and bled and died for throughout our short, but tortured history. It is, instead, a betrayal of that promise of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” An act of the most scurrilous form of treason.
Lushpad.com
Published October 20th, 2008 | Are you interested in designer furniture?
Maybe you’re looking for a special chair or have a piece of funiture or art deco you’d like to sell for some extra cash. If so, you might want to take look at lushpad.com, a site of collectors dedicated to the buying and selling of modern and antique funiture and art. Their website is neat and well-organized with a number of categories to browse.
I viewed a number of pieces on the site. I liked the Barack Obama painting, although one might do well to wait and see if he actually wins the election before laying down cash to buy it. My favorite item, though, was the Modern Mid-Century Tripod chair. Nifty design and the chair actually looks as if it might be rather comfortable. I can certainly imagine myself sitting in that chair, watching my favorite movie or T.V. program, snacking on some chips or something. Admittedly, the items featured on this site are not exactly thrift store cheap — the average price for most of the stuff is about $1500 from what I saw, but furniture isn’t exactly cheap in most stores and most stores don’t necessarily feature items like these and you’d likely pay more if you purchased these pieces at an auction so if you have the cash and are enthusiastic about this sort of thing, it’s worth a look.
