Customer Feedback Loop – 5 Easy Tools to Help You Listen and Act by Kevin Dwinnell

The ability to capture the voice of your consumer today is quite abundant and that’s a fantastic thing. Like at most businesses, Brand Thunder continuously looks at how it can improve its product. We’re thankful for the various channels available that allow our users to voice their own thoughts on where we should focus. Collectively, we build a better product faster.

It’s also not too surprising that what half the audience thinks is great, puts off the other half. I think that’s where a blend of looking at your business metrics and listening to your consumer helps paint the more complete picture of what you should be delivering. A recent example for Brand Thunder can be found in the New Tab search box we include with our interactive browser themes. To look at the performance of the tab search box shows active usage and win for our users, however, listening to complaints in our uninstall survey suggests a contingent dissatisfied with the placement. We added a simple check box to allow users to remove the feature. Win-win.

I’ve captured the placements and tools we find most useful to hear what our customers have to say. Would love to know your thoughts if there are some obvious ones we’ve missed.

Surveys

In the web applications business, you realize that when you get a lot of people trying your product, you get a lot of people leaving it. That’s a great pool of people to help you understand likes and dislikes. We tapped into it by looking through the WordPress Plugins in search of a survey tool we could use on our Uninstall page. We felt Surveys fit our need best and the developer offered good information on his site.

Get Satisfaction

Get Satisfaction has been our support tool for a long time. The site has been growing its capability and adjusting its pricing structure to be more available to small businesses. It’s a great place to talk directly with your consumers and address their immediate needs. We’ve been able to help users find the tweak they need to a product for features that aren’t available or haven’t rolled out yet. It’s been a great community tool.

TweetAlarm

Just as much commentary is going to happen outside your channels as it will in them. I’m a big fan of TweetAlarm. It’s proven much more reliable than other Twitter alert services I’ve used. It might help that its mostly good news that its been sending.

Google Alerts

For all the printed word of the web, you’ll need to tap into Google Alerts. It’s a great tool for tracking articles, commentary or re-posting of stories about your company.

Real-time Search

If you’re in a category that’s hot, or something is breaking in your industry the real-time search tools that are available are a huge help, and your options are growing. You can use a comprehensive discovery tool like Bing which has integrated Twitter search, has Foursquare up and coming for its maps and a host of other features. You can also use specialty search engines like Collecta which does an amazing job of scouring blogs, comments, photos and other content as it gets posted.

These are some of the tools we like and depend on. If you have some we shouldn’t miss, please share.

Posted in Commentary | Tags: Bing, brand thunder, browser themes, Collecta, Get Satisfaction, Google, Twitter, Web search engine | 1 Comment »

Weather Forecast Dynamically Updates in Browser Theme by Kevin Dwinnell

I’m going to double dip here and talk about the same thing we issued a press release on this week — the Brand Thunder Weather Theme. I’m doing so because I think the technology behind it and the experience in front of it are simply amazing.

Almost the entire background changes with the weather. This theme creates a new level of opportunity for our partners and users. Think of the implications if you’re in the business of “new.” Whether it’s fashion or celebrity, photo journalism or visual content, the ability to change the theme with the visual elements that keep it fresh and your audience in tune is pretty cool.

It also opens the opportunity to create new themes where the visuals update based on a timed sequence — something like a life-stage theme. It could be as simple as theme of Seasons, so last week’s vernal equinox would have welcomed in the Spring theme automatically. Or maybe an expectant parent theme tracking the changes in the unborn child. The communication channel created with these interactive themes are not left to the content feeds, they are inspired with the visual connection as well.

The Weather theme is a showcase of the functionality and what browser themes can become. We’re modifying your browser experience based on the local weather conditions. Your location is determined by entering your location or by letting the Firefox browser use its location services to determine your location.

For the weather content, we leveraged the WeatherBug API, which gave us a great resource for more weather information than you can imagine. With the API, we had a good foundation to work with for a rich sidebar featuring live weather conditions, radar weather maps and more. Plus, we had all the standard elements needed: current temperature and at-glance-forecast.

A portfolio of stylized weather conditions were designed for the browser theme backgrounds and they meld seamlessly with the forecast icons from WeatherBug. The theme also allows you to set the number of forecast days you want to see. It’s beautiful, interactive and useful on so many levels.

This is the next step in what a browser theme can be and I invite you to try it out at http://brandthunder.com/weather.

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• Weather Boom by Brand Thunder (kaply.com)

Posted in Commentary, News | Tags: Application programming interface, brand thunder, browser theme, firefox, Temperature, weather, WeatherBug | 2 Comments »

Brand Thunder Introduces Innovative Weather Browser Theme Powered by WeatherBug – Backgrounds Change to Reflect Local Conditions by Brand Thunder

COLUMBUS (March 23, 2010) — Brand Thunder LLC (http://www.brandthunder.com), the browser customization specialists, announced today the launch of its Weather theme for the Firefox Browser. The Weather theme is an advance in browser theme capabilities featuring a background that dynamically changes based on the user’s current weather conditions. The Weather theme also features the full range of weather information from WeatherBug, the leading provider of consumer and professional weather services and operator of the largest weather observing network. The theme can be downloaded for free at http://brandthunder.com/weather.

To experience this break-through browser theme, an end-user downloads an easy-to-install browser add-on. The add-on enhances the functionality of their Firefox browser to include the dynamic theme plus forecasts, temperature, maps and more. It also includes a multimedia sidebar enabling users the ability to monitor live weather conditions while they surf the web.

“We continue to push the boundary of what can be delivered within the browser experience,” says founder Patrick Murphy. “Brand Thunder’s goals are to make the browser more personal, fun and functional. WeatherBug has extensive hooks into their content and a supportive team that enabled us to create a showcase of what a browser theme can be.”

“Brand Thunder has taken toolbars to the next level, utilizing the entire browser chrome to display valuable dynamic content” said Alan George, Director of Business Development for WeatherBug. “We are excited about the development of WeatherBug “Boom!” offered through Brand Thunder. It makes WeatherBug information even more accessible and very interactive for users.”

Brand Thunder’s interactive themes provide an extreme makeover of the Internet browser. They are free, lightweight active customizations that can include themes, toolbars, sidebars and other content or functionality. Users can switch real-time between any installed Brand Thunder themes.

About Brand Thunder:
Formed in April 2007, Brand Thunder creates extreme makeovers for the Internet browser. Brands enjoy a persistent connection to their Internet consumer driving more website visits and increased revenue. Through a software installation, end users change the drab Internet browser into an immersive experience from their favorite sports team, entertainment franchise or Internet site. The interactive browser themes feature official logos, colors, content and functionality, and can also extend capabilities including video, music players or other Internet widgets. Current business partners and clients include Bing, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Major League Soccer, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA, NFL, NHL and Universal Music. Samples found at http://brandthunder.com/gallery/.

Contact:
Patrick Murphy, CEO
Brand Thunder, LLC
614-408-8202

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Posted in News, Press Releases | Tags: brandthunder, browser theme, local weather, Mozilla Firefox, weather, weather alerts, WeatherBug | No Comments »

B/T Labs: Making the Browser Chrome Marketable by Kevin Dwinnell

We often talk about our interactive themes as offering an immersive visual experience integrated with content and functionality. I don’t think, however, we’ve referenced the intersection of the visual theme and integrated content. Specifically, how we’ve enabled the browser chrome to be an active communication tool and not just a placeholder for the theme and address bar.

Features

We’ve made the theme dynamic for partner’s like The Daily Beast, who put a thumbnail of their current feature story right into the browser theme. It’s a visual invitation back to their site that updates throughout the day allowing the user to keep up with the hot story of the moment. It’s compelling, it’s cool and it’s engaging. You can see a large screen shot on The Daily Beast’s browser theme download page. The image of Tiger Woods is the photo that updates automatically.

Sponsorships

For some partners, we’ve placed sponsorships into the browser chrome. Ontario University Athletics extended their sponsor agreement with the Dairy Farmers of Canada’s “Recharge with Milk” campaign and integrated the logo into their theme design. It’s a great example of making the sponsorship work while maintaining design integrity. The continued high percentage of click through is testament to its effectiveness.

Commerce

We’ve even leveraged the capability in our own topical themes, connecting our Valentine’s Day theme to the Ghirardelli Chocolate Store. The design incorporated a box of Ghirardelli chocolates and utilized that design element to provide a direct link to their store, turning the passive design into an active revenue opportunity.

It’s great stuff and it’s working. In the week’s to come there should be even more potential for making the themes ever more engaging.

Posted in Commentary | Tags: browse theme, browser chrome, Dairy Farmers of Canada, OUA, The Daily Beast, Valentine Day | No Comments »

Indianapolis Colts Win Best Browser Theme in About.com’s Reader’s Choice Awards by Kevin Dwinnell

Nothing like getting recognized by the readers of one of the biggest tech networks on the Web. For the first time, About.com‘s Computing Channel ran a coordinated Reader’s Choice Award program in early 2010. During January, thousands of nominations were submitted by readers in a wide variety of categories including Best Browser Theme. Based on the total number of nominations, five finalists were chosen in each category. Throughout the month of February, About.com readers voted for a winner in each category.

Brand Thunder is thrilled to see its work for the Indianapolis Colts take the prize for Best Browser Theme. It’s a showcase product for us. They are among the NFL elite. They have a very active community, which played a part in helping with this win. The Colts organization has also taken an active part in making this a very engaging theme which shows itself in the details, like the multimedia sidebar.

It all adds up to a winning combination and that resulted in the win at About.com. You can check out the theme at Colts.com/browser.

Posted in Commentary, News | Tags: About.com, brand thunder, browser theme, Indianapolis Colts, reader's choice | 2 Comments »