Over the holidays I caught up on reading and responding to email, in the process managing both my personal and work email inboxes to zero. One of the messages I processed came from the National Football League, or NFL. As I am a New England Patriots season ticket holder, this is probably why I received it. An image of the short message is below:

The message text read as follows:

Dear Michael,

In the next few weeks we'll be redesigning the Patriots website, and are hoping that you will share your opinion with us about the current website. By participating in this short survey, you will provide valuable information to help us evaluate the design and functionality of your favorite team's website. To get started, please click here to take the survey.

Thanks for your help!

Sincerely,

NFL.com

After reading it and re-reading it, as well as taking the brief survey, I had one question, are NFL team Web sites moving to a unified platform?

Such a move does not surprise me, as other sports leagues have taken a similar approach. Major League Baseball, or MLB, first comes to mind as they made this move many years ago. Other US pro sports leagues, such as Major League Soccer and the National Hockey League also have. The National Basketball League (NBA) appears to have, but the Boston Celtics Web site appears different from the other NBA team Web sites, though it does not mean it’s not on a common platform.

Having all team Web sites on a common platform provides many gains, which outweigh the negatives. First and foremost is cost and technical management – no need for 32 separate Web sites (there are 32 NFL teams), where you technically have one. Each team Web site (or section of the NFL site) will have a similar navigation structure, making it easy for the Web visitor to navigate from team-to-team. You still have your team-based content writers and coordinators, or whatever their title would be. You can also better leverage content across team sites with relative ease, both the written word and rich media, and the latter may be driving much of this. MLB has been very successful and providing broadcasts and audio and video of games, and charging for it. The NFL, which is known for its high-quality NFL Films, will probably make a similar offer.

If there are any drawbacks from combining Web sites is the complete control of the look and feel and overall content of the Web site. This will be more of an internal team issue than for the fans. Hopefully combining all Web sites will force all teams to offer a consistent level of quality content and design, where currently some team sites offer more content than others, not to mention some have a better design as others.

I performed a few searches and did not see anything specifically mentioning any form of unifying move. I welcome any thoughts and opinions on this, not just from a sports standpoint but from a branding and design view as well. Plus any insight into if the NFL is actually doing this is welcome too.

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After a whirlwind trip to Berlin, Germany for the Microsoft TechEd Europe conference and the opportunity to meet and query members of Nokia’s enterprise mobile team among other Nokia staff, I am back in the Windy City with a head full of thoughts and ideas.

As I get settled back and unwind from this learning experience, I will be writing more detailed posts on what I took away from the people I met over the last few days. Look for more information on Nokia’s next flagship device, the E7, as well as information on how it works and where ti fits in with everything else Nokia is working on now.

E7 Coming Soon

One piece of information I will share now is the answer to the most asked question of me to relay to Nokia staff – when the E7 is coming out. Their answer is Christmastime. It will be a phased global launch over the next few month, with availability in some countries by the end of 2010 and the rest soon after in 2011. Nobody told me which countries would be when, but it was inferred markets such as China and India would be in the first phase, and there was no specific indication when it would be available in the US.

In the meantime, I will share this photo of an E7 hooked up to an HDTV – it has an HDMI out port and with a cable it can be hooked up to any HD device with HDMI input.

Special thanks to Nokia and WOMWorld/Nokia for sponsoring all of my travel, accommodations, hospitality and admission to TechEd. Rhiannon from WOMWorld/Nokia was a gracious host and facilitator and did an excellent job ensuring all was coordinated, especially keeping us well fed. It was also great to again see Dennis Bournique from Wap Review and meeting Craig Richards from Geek Computers. Kudos to the Hotel Berlin, Berlin, an excellent hotel with great service.

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Recently Google changed their search results page to incorporate something called Google Instant, whereby as you type the search results on the page change. This type of “instant” technology has been met with mixed opinions, where some love it and others hate it, and I am in the latter camp. This “instant” idea was recently applied to Amazon.com book searches, and I have to admit I do love ShelfLuv.

ShelfLuv is the brainchild Pek Pongpaet, a Chicago user experience designer and developer, among other hats he wears. For the sake of full disclosure, I know Pek. One of the benefits of knowing him is seeing the ideas he makes into reality, and one of them is ShelfLuv. Rather than just refreshing a page with book suggestions, he created the visual of a bookshelf to show the book suggestions based on the keyword or keywords you enter. As the words change, so do the books on the shelf. And when you click on a book, you can see a brief description, review and excerpt if available. You also have the option to view similar books.

Below is a screenshot of ShelfLuv where it displays 4 books written by one of my clients, Steve Jermanok who blogs at ActiveTravels.

ShelfLuv is definitely something you want to experiment with for yourself. For example, I typed in 3 words, one at a time – new, England and Patriots. With each word, the selection changed from new releases to knitting books to books on my favorite football team. It is not only a unique way to shop for books, but a great example of how a great presentation layer on top of technology can make all the difference in the success of any Web site or service.

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Editor’s Note – This post is in follow-up and support of The State of Your Web Site, a checklist from Dunkirk Systems, LLC which helps guide Web site owners to objectivity on the current state of their Web site. You can download a free, no obligation PDF copy at TheStateOfYourWebSite.com.

Do you have goals for your Web site? Did you ever think of setting goals for your Web site?! As a Web site is a living, breathing 24/7 representative of your business, you should have goals – even just one goal – set in writing for your Web site. This fact is why it is near the top of the list on The State of Your Web Site checklist.

Yes, “goal” is a 4-letter word. Whenever people talk about goals, they often cringes or get defensive or have some adverse reaction to it. Even if they have goals for their life or their business in general, when it comes to their Web site, they will wonder why they are needed. With the expense and exposure that comes with a Web site, there is the reason right there to do so.

Where To Start

What your goals should be depend on your business and the Web site itself. If you have a store but do not sell products and services online, your goals would be much different from someone selling online with an eCommerce Web site. A “brochure” Web site is also much different than one with an extensive support forum.

Like anything in business, start someplace with goals, and review and refine as necessary. Write down statements such as “drive more traffic into my store” and “10% of overall sales made online.” Then you will want to ensure your Web site has the content or functionality to accommodate these – a printable in-store coupon and an eCommerce are part of this. Then measure – review your Web site analytics and ask new customers who come into your store how they heard about you. This is a simple example, but a point to start from.

If you are still unclear about your Web site’s goals, talk to your Web consultant. At Dunkirk Systems, LLC we work with our clients, both those with established Web sites or new ones, to set such goals, and integrate their measurement into their overall business analytics and review.

Do you have goals for your Web site? How has the goal-setting and review process worked for you? And if you do not have goals, why? Please share your thoughts in the comments for this post.

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In the September/October 2010 edition of NFIB MyBusiness magazine there is an article called “Click Here for Profits” which is geared towards new, moderate and experienced Web site owners. The magazine is published by the National Federation of Independent Business and is geared towards its members, all business owners. In the section titled “Getting Online for the Moderately Experienced” by Christina Galoozis, I was proud to have been able to contribute to this part of the overall article. You can read the article here at the NFIB Web site.

In the article, I shared several points, including offering a variety of content in your company’s blog, planning and writing a blog consistently, and on local search. I had a great conversation with Christina who asked me very insightful questions, and related my thoughts very well in the article.

Thanks to Christina for the opportunity to be in this article, and if you are visiting The Hot Iron as a result of the article, welcome! I also welcome your thoughts and opinions on the article here in the comments to this blog post.

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