Facebook Ads

Google owns me. It probably knows about me more than I do. I store most of my life on Google. My photos (Picasa), my plans (Calendar), my contacts and conversations (Gmail/Gtalk), my interests (Reader/Blogger) and so on. In fact they own me so much that I've never dared to think that I could use a different advertising service than AdWords. That's hell of a brand loyalty! Until recently that is.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to check out Facebook's ad system, so I started a small campaign for my company. Here's a short summary of my experience.
I love the targeting options! Facebook makes it damn easy to target very specific groups (say, people on their birthday - great idea!). It also lets you specify criteria like age, education, marital status, spoken languages and region. But what really put smile on my face was the ability to target people associated with specific events, groups, pages or even applications! Can you imagine the endless possibilities?
Another thing that I really appreciate is the instant estimation of number of users who fit the criteria. Very informative and useful.
Now to the downsides (of course there are some!). The most obvious one: not everyone uses Facebook and if they do, they may not use it to the extent that will let you do such narrow targeting. Basically, success of your ad heavily depends on completeness of target users' profiles.
Another thing that prevents me from falling in love with Facebook Ads is the long approval time. I like to tweak my ads a lot and test many versions and it's not uncommon for me to change my mind every day or two. Facebook makes me wait 10 hours or more for even a very small change to get approved and published. Takes all the fun away.
And the worst thing of all. Their click-through stats were significantly higher than what Google Analytics showed. I have no idea where this comes from (and I can't say it's Facebook's fault), but I have the nasty feeling that I pay for false clicks. I know Google put a lot of effort to detect and eliminate false clicks in their AdWords platform.
Overall I'd give Facebook Ads 4 out of 5 stars. I hope the platform will continue to grow and above issues will eventually go away.

Be formal, but not too formal

Every now and then I hear different opinions on weather or not to do business plans, SWOT analysis, schedules, road maps, etc. I'm surprised how extreme some positions are. There are people who believe that hundreds of pages of documentation is a must before any actual work can be started, others take it for a total waste of time.
Well, all these documents have a purpose - to provide information and help you keep track of your goals. If prepared properly they can be extremely helpful and will help you stay focused on what you should do. They are also great reference point in many cases. Your mission statement should make it much easier for you to create products that are consistent with company's values and goals. Having market segments nicely described will help you discover new opportunities and new ways to reach your target. Periodical SWOT analysis will make you more aware of the risks your business takes.
So why so many people are so negative about them? Well, it seems they just haven't seen these tools implemented correctly. They usually associate business plans with many long, bloated pages of worthless forecasts and predictions most of which have no solid foundations. And sadly, that's true in many cases. Here's good news - it doesn't have to be like that.
All these tools are great as long as they serve their purpose. Having these done just because it's "the right thing to do" will get you nowhere. First of all make sure that you and your team knows exactly what to expect from each of these tools. Secondly remember that the output has to be readable and informative above everything else. I'd rather have single page of analysis I can understand and draw conclusions from than 10 pages of overly detailed, incomprehensible reports, which will just waste hours of my precious time.
To be honest my company is lacking in the area of formal documentation. This is something I want to work on over the next couple of weeks. What's your experience with using these kinds of tools in small companies? Did it pay off? Did it turn out to be helpful or did it get lost and forgotten?

Android - my $0.02

So I've been using using HTC Magic for a couple of weeks now and I love it. I wouldn't switch to anything else right now and Android is definitely my platform of choice. But it ain't perfect. It is a bit more complex than iPhone and it could use some work on UI obviousness. It also has a lot of minor bugs, which don't really get into your way, but the overall experience isn't as smooth as it could be. I haven't found any major issues so far, thankfully. The biggest danger I can see is the lack of something I appreciate so much in Apple's products - consistency. It feels like there are no clear guidelines for Android developers on how to build GUI and user experience in general. There are slight differences between apps' behavior, which makes learning curve a bit more steeper. It should be very clear to user what will happen if you hold an item, what if you tap it, what kind of things are found in pop-up menu and what on the on-screen buttons. This kind of consistency makes you feel that you already know the app even though you run it for the first time.
I hope to see a lot of usability work on the platform. It's still much better than other platforms (WinMo for example), but still not the best (iPhone) and we want to be the best, right?

Always talk to your client!

Working at Aenima helped me understand a lot about business dynamic and client-provider relations. I always knew good communication is very important in any business relationship, but now I think it's like the single most important thing companies like us need to worry about.
First of all project success rate dramatically improves with good communication. When all the risks and dangers in the project are brought to attention as soon as their spotted you have a much better chance of dealing with them in non-destructive manner. The sooner you know about a problem the more time you have to work on it.
Feedback from your clients is the most valuable information you can get. As Donald Trump said - it's actually good when your clients complain to you - it's the best lesson you can learn! If you want to stay in business you have to know exactly what your clients expect from the product/service you're selling. So listen carefully, take notes, draw conclusions.
At Aenima we're working very hard to improve all aspects of communication both internally, in our teams and externally, with our clients. Our clients need to know that they are being listened to and that they are always up-to-date with the status of their projects.