Incredible Sitemap

[gabrielcrowe]

so the more anal go away

There's always room for more anal.

Oh wait, did I read that wrong?

[jont]

Is that short for analysis?

[LINGsCARS.com]

I do own www.analspecial.com (nothing there though)

[gabrielcrowe]

Ling has unwittingly started the plot to one of my favourite films:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...42154209383351

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...82420167&hl=en

Watch on the second clip, for when the cryo chamber, crashes through the window of his soon to be lawyer. Watch the adverts around the outside of the screen. In fact, look at the adverts everywhere.

I think you're absolutely right Ling. We definitely need to dumb the internet down. I seriously think that that as the human race degrades into this idiocratic world where we have to learn all about your good self, we'll need less cohesion and more random flashy gifs.

A disclaimer: I'm a bitter, standards compliant software engineer, trapped in the body of a footloose and fancy-free hippie.

[LINGsCARS.com]

Right!!!!!


I have new feature.

Click on the image of a footpump and a jamjar (an RBS brand hahaha) and watch my customers do a dance. It is rather good.

The image is at the bottom of the main car compound. Turn up speakers. Comments please.

This page: http://www.lingscars.com/sitemap.php

[gabrielcrowe]

comments... err, well, i cant actually decide if a chinese internment camp, with a soundtrack is perhaps the best choice, for a sitemap.

dont get me wrong. i love the technology behind it all, and i've love to chat about that, but well, how can i put it?

its a little wierd?

[LINGsCARS.com]

Don't see what is wrong with an internment camp, the Americans have had one for years.

Point is, like this is an Actinic Community, customers can feel part of a community on my site. The big question is:

Why are customers always separated and treated as completely alone in ecommerce sites? It is always very rigid: you go here and buy that and transact.

However, in the real world there is a lot of interaction and communication, but this is never really considered online. In my view, this is the future. In 10 years we will look back and think todays ecommerce is very basic and singular.

Allowing customers to FEEL something is 99% missing from ecommerce today. How this is achieved is very exciting.

Are there any Actinic plug ins which allow interaction between customers? I would be keen to see any examples.

[leehack]

The internet is full of areas where people interact and communicate, you're in one here. You seem to think that people wish to interact when shopping, however when I am shopping the only interaction i ever see is people saying no to either the 'big issue', RAC membership or a platinum credit card. The last place people go to interact is a shop. Whose evere been to Marks & Sparks for a chat or socialise. I think your thoughts are somewhat misaligned in this area i must say, but you challenge the norm and make people consider things out of the box, so that's aways a good thing, if nothing else.

[gabrielcrowe]

There are plenty of social examples.

http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/ for example, allows a typical peer social system, with widgets ahoy.

You're expressing nothing new, and i resent the notion that customers dont/cant interact on a a website. This is not something you are bringing to the universe, its been around for a long time.

Every comments system allows a type of simple interaction. I have written one myself that allows the site owner to reply to a customers comment or question, and there are some pretty good wiki/chat/comments/reviews extras out there. Actinic is a web platform, and as you're surely aware, its not plugins for actinic that are the case here, its the very nature of the web that allows plugginable architecture.

Granted, the ability to see where other users are on the site is interesting from a techncial standpoint, but to be honest, its trivial to create such a system. Just Because We Can Do a Thing, Does Not Mean We Should Do a Thing.

Traditionally, a sitemap is so that a lost user can navigate a site. When I clicked on yours, I half expected a logical way to find something on your site. In reality, you have changed the sitemap, to be a way to look at where people are. Very clever, but it misses the original point, and I think as trinkets go, this one is fairly disuptive.

Against my better judgement, i reference another tool, google
https://www.google.com/analytics/siteopt/splash

This tool uses customer data to allow you to check the overall effectiveness of a set of pages, so that you can allow your site to be more effective.

I'm sure you're great social experiment is a valid one, but i'm just not convinced that sharing all that social data with your end user is the best use of it, because after all, you should be using it to better design your site. I'm sure the structure of your site has been altered to suit the best path to sale of your visitors?

Ling, I *double dog dare* you to employ this, or a similar method, to compare your sales and bounce rates, with your eclectic mess of a site, verses some pages with real structure.

If you can prove that you tatty animated shambles of a site actually benefits from its design, other then the gimmicky nature of its layout, then i'll eat my hat.

Put it this way, for you its a win win situation.

a / your site stays the same and you get the fuzzy warm feeling that you were right.

b / your conversions increase and you get richer.

[Jan]

Ling - can't find you on twitter.com

Regards,

[Duncan Rounding]

Ling - can't find you on twitter.com

Regards,

Bet we will soon!

[gabrielcrowe]

"customers can feel part of a community on my site."

I have to question that showing that other users exist, and giving them browser information as distinguishing features actually constitutes a community? Don't these people have real names? merely showing their browser head avatars faffing about in your camp, isn't actually a community of people.

IT obviously works for them, the impersonal notion that others exist in the same space as yourself, may be comforting to them on some lonely level.

Where on your site can users comment, in real time?

[gabrielcrowe]

In fact, I'v just realised, that you're behind on the social networking game.

- Facebook
- Myspace
- Twitter
- opensocial

etc, etc

Unless you're on all of these, telling them all how wonderful you are, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to say that you're woefully behind on integrating with your prospective customers.

These aren't attacks Lingy, they're observations, with a view to help you sell more cars.

[Mike Hughes]

Sorry Gabe, but I think you're going down the wrong path with this. The whole point of social interaction is to build a relationship with visitors. Not to drive them down the sales path.

Once a good relationship has been established, there's a hugely increased likelihood that people will remember you and possibly buy from you in the future. But this is a completely different approach to the normal approach of getting customers to the site and then driving them down the sales funnel.

For someone new to break into and be successful in a traditional business like car leasing you need to pick a segment of the market, do something different and stand out from the crowd. Lings website may only appeal to 2-5% of the market (maybe more, maybe less I don't know), but if she can dominate that segment then she has a very viable business.

Lings business can only survive by being different and I think she does it brilliantly. The combination of wackiness and self promotion really makes her stand out, but it makes a statistical comparison of funnel drop out and conversion rates irrelevant.

Having said that. There does come a point where customers switch into buying mode and want a simple, clear transaction process. I haven't looked at Lings funnel and if she hasn't focused on this there might be some work to do there. From what little I know though, I'd be surprised if there are any huge gaps there.

Mike

[gabrielcrowe]

I also see Earl's SEO work there. Please tell him, he's awesome from me.

"I haven't looked at Lings funnel" - hehe!

...and your right mike. it really does come down to uniqueness.

I think the point i'm trying to make is that she already has the data, the great prices and the intention. If the site compromised between whackyness and a little more usability, other than hours-and-hours of browsability, then I can see a more serious approach making better conversions.

Traffic > Conversion > Repeat

Is the basic model for *all* ecommerce sites. They get progressively less as they cascade onto one another.

The reason this works, I think, is the relationship between ling and her customers. since its like a kind of in your face disclosure, it allows the site to have personality. This probably means that the 'Repeat' part of the chain, is much higher than most other sites. Dragons den and the quirky design brings plenty of the 'Traffic' part i'll bet. I'm just guessing that the average user, that has never seen dragons den would mean that conversion would be less, primarily due to the same reason its got high traffic: quirky design.

Its like a messy blog with cars on it.