Sneak Peak: Behold New Categories!

New Add Stuff Page

I wish I could have gotten this to you all sooner, but I’ve been crazy busy working with our development team to launch the site before Christmas, so here it is the updated categories…now with sub-categories:

Our mission is to help people discover cool stuff and I trust you agree that sub-categories is a step in the right direction.  This is not finalized yet…so let us know what you think below.

Stay tuned.

Wordpress Blog Launch Task List

I’m a huge fan of tasks and checklists to keep me focused on completing a project successfully, so when it was time to update this blog I created the following to-do list.  I thought it would make a good post and a way to get reader feedback of what I’ve missed.

Fighting The Spam

• Update Wordpress – Whether on iliketotallyloveit.com or this blog we’re always fighting spam.
• Activate Akismet –  Akismet is just the best tool out there in the Spam Battle.

Social Networking

• Links to Social Media – Here is a directory of free Social Media buttons including the Facebook & Twitter buttons we are using on the top right of this page.
• Twitter Tool –  You can get the Twitter Tool that will update Tweets to your blog  here. It is simple but powerful. If you are not following iliketotallyloveit on twitter, please join us here.

Analytics & SEO

• Google Analytics – I have been researching Google Analytics alternatives to track web traffic and I always come back to Google.
• Create Site-Map – I chose the Google (XML) Sitemaps plug-in which you can download here.  It creates an XML-Sitemap that you can submit to Ask, Google, Bing and Yahoo. It actually very impressive.
• Webmaster Tools – Here are a list of Webmaster tools where you can manually sumbit your site-map, troubleshoot the crawling, indexing of your blog and view statistics.
  1. YAHOO: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
  2. GOOGLE: http://google.com/webmasters/
  3. BING:  http://www.bing.com/webmaster

• Create Feedburner Account – Sign Up to Feed Burner to manage your RSS feeds and track usage of your subscribers.
• Submit to Blog Directories- Here are a list of free Blog directories.
  
  1. http://www.blogged.com
  2. http://www.bloggapedia.com
  3. http://www.Technorati.com

Plug in & Widgets

• Facebook Fan Widget–  You can get the Facebook FanBox here.  If you are not an iliketotallyloveit fan yet, please join us here.
• FD Feedburner Plugin – This plug in seamlessly redirects the main feed to Feedburner.com.  You can get the FD Feedburner Plugin Here

There you have it, my checklist for updating this blog.  If I’ve overlooked something and I know I must have, please add it in the comments and I will update the post and link to your site for credit.

Image By koalazymonkey

Support is Private

What I am finding very interesting is that even with the large and predominant feedback button on the side of our site the number of private emails we are getting on a daily basis outnumber the number of public feedback post made to getsatisfaction.com.

It seems more people would prefer to have a private conversation with us then to add their ideas, questions, problems or praise publicly. I would have never imagined when we created our getsatisfaction account to better manage customer support that visitors would still prefer sending us a private email.

What makes it even more shocking is that our email address is not that easy to find. It is hidden on the about us page under our snail mail address.

I’m rethinking our getsatisfaction support solution and have started playing with a ZenDesk trial account.  Our getsatisfaction days maybe numbered especially if it is going to eventully cost us $900 a month to use support.iliketotallyloveit.com.

Keep on lovin’

Hello everybody!

As a more recent addition to the iliketotallyloveit team, it’s my privilege to start posting on the blog with five products that we loved this week.

Commemorative finger puppets

1) “Dead is the new Black”
Commemorative finger puppets, depicting six well-known figures of public life who passed away in 2008 (Heath Ledger, Yves Saint Laurent and Charlton Heston, amongst others). And since the new year has been here for some time already, you can get them now for $75 instead of $90.

Read & Roll

2) “Read&Roll”
The website behind this product is Turkish but the functionality of “Read&Roll” comes across in any language. Some space on the cupboard or a simple stack of magazines work probably just as well – and yet, we love acknowledging that this product finally lets you store magazines where they are really needed.

3) “Crime Scene Bandages”

Crime Scene Bandages

The adhesive plaster industry has long offered cute teddy bears and dinosaurs as decoration for kids, so why should grown-ups be limited to the boring skin-tone ones? Exactly, and this is why you can now properly tend to smaller cuts and wounds sustained in the daily fight for survival. And for those moments where the pain is just too much: a free toy is included in the metal tin to help you be strong.

Never Gonna...

4) “Rick Astley Loves This T-Shirt”
While Rickrolling seems so 2008, feel free to dress for the occasion with this t-shirt. In any case, it’s one of the best memory hooks for lyrics you’ll find.

5) “Mini Tape Gun”

Mini Tape Gun

In a past internship, I compiled company brochures about twice a week. The enjoyable part about that actually was packing them all up in dozens in a cardboard box and wrapping it in sticky tape like a pro with a tape gun in the end. So when I read Vat19.com’s definition of “Severe Shipping Envy Syndrome”, I knew that not only am I affected but I also desperately need one of their mini tape guns.

Thanks for your fantastic submissions – having such a great community makes working on iliketotallyloveit that much more enjoyable.

Tags:we love

Collaboratively Getting Things Done

As our team and my twitter friends know, I’ve been obsessed with project management software lately. I’m looking for a better way to collaboratively get things done, especially now that we have 4 people in different parts of the world and we are about to bring onboard a new programmer.

The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

I read David Allen’s Getting Things Done about three years ago and it had a dramatic effect on my productivity.   I must admit, I read the book and it did nothing for me. It was only after the second reading six months later that I really got it.

The big paradigm shift in my thinking was to work backwards from a desired outcome, e.g. send out our first newsletter and then mind map to create possible tasks to successfully reach that outcome, e.g. compile a master list of our members.

GTD for an Individual

Since reading Getting Things Done, I’ve created a system within the Outlook/Exchange/BlackBerry ecosystem and it works fantastic for me as an individual. Sure I get the daily; you should get an iPhone. My answer is typically, I write tons of emails and update tasks, calendar events and even memo’s on my blackberry hourly. I admit the web browser is hands down better on the iPhone and I’d love to learn how to play stairway to heaven on that whistle flute.

My dilemma, along with hundreds of other groups, is that I can’t seem to find a way to transfer this working backwards from a desired outcome into a team setting and continue to use my personal GTD method on Outlook & BlackBerry.

GTD for a Team

Currently we are using SharePoint (click here to see an overview video) as a file hub, message board, task list and wiki. It works great as a meeting place for the team but there is no way that I know of to create outcome based projects like you can in BaseCamp, GoPlan and tons of other project management software. With half of our team on a Mac the negatives of SharePoint are starting to out weight the one big positive; seamlessly integrating with Outlook on a PC.

GTD Experiment

My goal is to build a successful team to help more people find cool stuff, not force everyone to work in the same environment as me, so I have a new idea for the team. Let us use three different project management software methods for the next month. The only thing I am going to hold out on is that we continue to work within the GTD outcome based project method. I’ve already selected SharePoint and ProjectPier as two of the 3 software we are going to test. I will let the team decide on the Third.

The goal is to see where the team gravitates most naturally towards.

We’ll keep you updated on how this little experiment is going and would love your feedback.

We're Hiring Good People

For the past two weeks I’ve been working with our team at iliketotallyloveit.com looking for the right programmer. We’ve had two simple goals.

1. Create a document to give any possible candidate a clear vision of our needs. I’m a huge fan of no surprises.
2. Compile a list of possible candidates that we’d like to reach out to.

Then late last night, while I was searching for a podcast I once listened to about how large merchants like Modell’s have implementated the longtail philosophy, I found these two gems by the co-founder of 37 Signals Jason Fried speaking at Loyala University in Chicago.

He describes exactly what we are doing. Perhaps it’s because I’ve read Getting Real when it came out and it seeped into my unconscious.

After watching those two short videos, do you know any interesting programmers that should be on our our radar? Feel free to link to them in the comments.

Some Obama Items Posted by Users

In honor of the Presidential Inauguration, here are some popular Obama items that our members have posted [click on the image to see post]:

Pesident Barack Obama Shea Butter Soap

Obama Russian Nesting Doll Set

Bingo Players For Obama Photo Button

Obama Nike Sneakers

Click here to see some more unique Barack Obama items

Beginning Of A Berlin Adventure

View From Balcony

Today I moved into a new office space in the historic Mitte section of Berlin.  This neighborhood has an amazing vibe. The streets are peppered with interesting shops, young designers, cafés, restaurants and theaters.

It is going to be exciting to build our company alongside other internet startups and be part of the thriving Berlin dot com scene.

As an American that grew up during the cold war, being able to walk to the Brandenburg Gate where Ronald Reagan & John F. Kennedy challened the status quo and made history is especially inspiring.

As Lou Reed once said, this is the beginning of a great adventure.  Stay tuned.

Top Products of 2008

Like everybody these days we look back at the past twelve months. Without further ado, here are the top 15 products of 2008 on iliketotallyloveit.com (in no particular order):

Hi I’m Mat – Doormat

Transparent Canoe (or Kayak)

I Love You Egg Shaper

Bubble Calendar

Ramen Spoon/Fork

“I Will Do One Thing Today” Pad

The Bowl That Ran Away With The Spoon

Renova Pink Toilet Paper

Moneypad

MacBook Pro

Nintendo Wii

IPhone

Aquarium Toilet

Transparent Toaster

Livingstones Stone Cushions

We would also like to wish all of you an amazing new year with many awesome new products.

PR Work in a Startup

Parker from Blog Campaigning asked me to share our humble experiences with PR work in the startup world. You can read the post How To Get Your Company Into The Financial Times on their site.