Toolbars

We have toolbars on our computer monitors, and these are widgets. These are on-screen tabs, buttons, menus, icons, or other input/output components that we use. Toolbars give us easy access to what we need in our office suites, and web browsers. Most of the time a toolbar is located horizontally at the top or bottom of our screens.

There are (2) types of toolbars:

Bookmark/Browser Toolbar

This is where we keep our ‘favorite go to’s’ and all contemporary web browsers have these (Firefox, Safari, IE, and Chrome). The bookmark toolbar provides the user with quick access to all the information they frequently seek out online including web bookmarks, folders of bookmarks, live bookmarks, and web/info feeds.

Website Toolbar

Modern websites like Facebook, MySpace, and CNN.com have website toolbars. This type of toolbar provides the user with quick access to a specific website’s features. For example on Facebook, we are able to quickly access the features we need by using the tool bar. Example: Home, Profile, Account, Messages, Chat, etc.

Website toolbars are different from Bookmark/Browser toolbars as website toolbars appear when a user is on a specific site unlike bookmark/browser toolbars, which appear consistently no matter which site a user is surfing through.

Browser Themes

As indicated above, browser themes can have toolbars implemented within the theme. A toolbar can be part of the overall theme whereas a browser theme cannot be part of a toolbar. The big difference between a toolbar and a browser theme is that browser themes have more complex graphics. Visually this is a huge difference as the user can see much more on the theme in a very defined and bold way.

Cleveland Cavs Browser Theme

Browser themes have the ability to take the information that is being presented to the user and not only make it interactive, but update with new designs and graphics on a regular basis. These (3) qualities are what separate browser themes from standard toolbars.

Graphic Ability – Heavy graphic design is needed to create a browser theme as its parts are much more complex than that of a standard toolbar. These graphic abilities engage the user visually and capture their attention in ways beyond that of a standard toolbar.

Interactive Ability – Browser themes are alive as they provide news feeds, videos, and links to social media sites directly in the browser. A standard toolbar does not have this ability.

Updates – The information in a browser theme can be updated. Unlike standard toolbars, where the user quickly tires of the stagnant information presented to them; browser themes keep the user engaged by frequently changing the appearance of graphics and interactive information provided.

Creating your own browser theme has never been easier. BT:Engage provides the ability to create your own theme in minutes.

Image by brandthunder via Flickr

Marketing Sherpa gave an in-depth look at how the Ohio State University and Fathead used an interactive browser theme to engage OSU fans and offer them a special chance to win an OSU Fathead.

• 99.6% clicked when promo button was added to browser theme
• Active users of browser theme grew 52.7% month-over-month

Compelling data for using the browser to create a persistent communication channel with your audience.

SUMMARY: From mobile to social media, marketing teams are constantly in search of the next hot tactic to help engage customers with their brands. In doing so, they may overlook more traditional avenues for communication.

Read on to find out how one online marketing team leveraged the venerable Web browser, a technology invented in 1991, and promoted a new, branded version of the tool to engage their most active customers. The full Marketing Sherpa: OSU Browser Theme Case Study

UPDATED…

The link above is now for view by members only. Here are the results of what was reported.

RESULTS

The most impressive result around OSU’s themed browser release is among the most engaged users, that is, OSU customers who downloaded the tool and were counted as “active daily users,” 99.6 percent clicked on the new prize promotion button when it was added to the browser.

About this result, Brown said, “It gave us the knowledge and the confidence to know that the people who are using the browser on a regular basis will, for the most part, click on something that we suggest they click on. To us, that’s invaluable.”

Other metrics include:

- Overall, the prize promotion had a more than 40% click through. From the soft launch of the themed browser through the March Madness promotion, active users of the browser grew 52.7% month-over-month.
- Total browser downloads from the email blast and Facebook post represented 2% of the email send list.
- The email blast promoting the browser and prize sweepstakes had a 9% open rate. Of those who opened the email, 75% clicked through. This compares favorably with a typical mass email send from OSU with 8-10% open rates.

I’ve had my home on the market lately and had to live “show ready.”  At a moments notice, the realtor could (and did) call saying “we’ve got a showing scheduled for today.”  The house had to be ready to sell.  Part of the difficulty in these moments is to see the issues with the items we live with every day.

When you’re getting the house ready it’s easy to spot the cracks that need patching, or the paint that needs a fresh coat.  It’s much harder to see what’s part of the everyday that might turn a buyer off, like when I forgot to clean up the yard after my dog.  I got dinged from a buyer on that.

When it comes to your web site, what are the things that get overlooked and your customers might step in?  Here’s a check list of considerations:

• Images – Are the screen shots and imagery you use current?  Are there elements in the images that might work against you.  (I used to work for a major portal and we always made sure our screen shots avoided the story of devastation that was the feature lead.)
• Descriptions – Is the language you’re using still current and accurate?  Are you using terminology that your customer uses?
• Links – Have you clicked through on links, especially after any site redesign or changes?  404 errors and page not found are killers.
• Legal – Is your TOS (Terms of Service) and Privacy Policy up-to-date?  This is another area that should be reviewed after any product or site changes.
• Copyright – Is the copyright current on your web pages?  Seeing a (c) 2005 just looks sloppy.
• Web Browsers – Have you looked at your site in different browsers?  Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome.  They each have a large audience, and your standards-based web site should serve them all.  Does it?

Hope your site is “show ready” and it sells!  What are the other easy to miss items to review?

Interactive browser themes are like an extreme makeover for the web browser. With an easy-to-install browser add-on, end users transform their drab web-browser into an immersive experience. Where many Brand Thunder themes feature official logos, content and functionality like video, music players or other Internet widgets, the Expressions line limits functionality to popular sites like Facebook and Twitter and a sidebar with headline news videos.

“Many of our themes leverage the affinity relationship between a brand and its fans,” says founder Patrick Murphy. “We heard from our users that we were under serving an audience who prefers to change the style of their browser more frequently. Expressions were designed for more visual focus than our average interactive browser theme.”

Brand Thunder’s interactive themes provide an extreme makeover of the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers. 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

###

Image via Wikipedia

Between Firefox Personas and Google Chrome’s Themes, browser themes are getting a lot of attention this year. Brand Thunder is pleased to be at the front with such distinguished company. While each of us helps you move beyond the dull gray of the standard Internet browser and personalize your browser with enticing visuals, Brand Thunder is the only one to move the theme into the realm of experience. We make things happen in the browser to increase engagement, connection and interaction.

And to go a step farther, we are the only ones to bring this level of customization to the Internet Explorer browser. It’s an impressive feat and is in the early stages of rolling out.

Here are some of our themes that showcase the interactive capabilities of our browser themes.

Weather

The Weather Theme is a full integration using WeatherBug’s API and Brand Thunder design elements to create a browser theme that pulls in weather forecasts, local conditions, alerts, weather maps and more. The theme itself changes based on your local weather conditions. It also pulls in up to three days of forecasts into the theme (the user can set the number). Location can be set by the user, or the can choose Firefox’s built-in location services. The multimedia sidebar is a full weather station window with current conditions, radar maps, local weather cameras and more. It’s a truly amazing infusion of weather information in a stunning visual context.

The Daily Beast

The Daily Beast is a leading news site and their theme pulls an image from the latest feature story directly into the browser theme. The user can hover over it to get the story headline or click through to read the full story. The sidebar keeps users connected to the latest news via special views of the Cheat Sheet, Buzz Board, Blogs & Stories and Video sections of The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast Theme demonstrates several methods to keep their users connected to the breaking news of the day, and how to get users back to your site more frequently.

Movie Premier

Brand Thunder’s Movie Premier Theme is a fun and functional theme for us movie fans. Like the Daily Beast theme, Movie Premier has a feature block that updates regularly with the movie posters of opening movies. Clicking on the poster takes you to an overview page of the movie with reviews, synopsis and more. The theme is also tightly integrated with Fandango for instant access to reviews, showtimes, tickets and even trailers and other videos in the sidebar. It’s a great example of how content and commerce fuse together in an interactive browser theme.

Baseball for IE

The Baseball Theme for Internet Explorer demonstrates a new frontier for building community and connection within the IE browser. The visual capabilities created through this add-on have not been seen in the Internet Explorer world. It makes the visual takeover as seamless of the end user as it’s been in Firefox. It’s a significant advance and will help us better meet the needs of our clients.

I think these are killer examples of what a browser theme can be – a better and more engaging browser experience. What do you think?

Do you feel safe downloading a program from the Internet? Do you give more thought to visiting a web site or installing a piece of software? It’s questions like these that create challenges for web applications. If you’re offering a software download, you’re already operating at a disadvantage in the mind of the consumer — whether it’s conscious or not.

It’s an act of trust when a consumer downloads and installs your product. You’ve been invited into their life. That invitation is a powerful opportunity to connect with that user over a potentially long period of time. Don’t blow it. Here are some of the things we do and have learned to encourage adoption of our interactive browser themes.

1. Full Frontal Disclosure

In the connected world, it doesn’t pay to try to hide information. You will be found out. Just ask John Edwards. That’s why we put our disclosures upfront and prior to install. We include a default search engine with our product. Even though users can change it any time they like, we tell them up front that it’s coming.

It’s the proper protocol for software distribution on the web. Your user can then make an informed decision about everything they are receiving. It won’t protect you from negative comments, there are always dissenters. At least you’ve been open and can avoid greater negative fallout.

2. If You Love It, Let It Go

The best move we made was to change our product and allow consumers to switch between any theme they want. In the web 1.0 world, you got your hooks into the consumer and you didn’t let go. That doesn’t cut it anymore. Your fans are going to go wherever they want, whenever they want. If you’re doing right by them, they’ll be back.

Our themes help create return visits to our client site, and it’s powerful. Having messaging capability in the browser means you can reach them whenever they’re online. So, making it easy for your fans to change the theme and step away from a client’s experience can be a hard thing for clients to favor. It’s shown to be the right thing.

Our sports teams have a steady core of users that stay with the theme throughout the year. There’s also a large number that return each pre-season or join as the season rolls along. Recognizing your fans may have other interests and welcoming them back each season makes for a much stronger relationship. Giving the ability to switch between themes means you keep a foot in the door instead of creating a complete uninstall scenario.

3. Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

We all wish we could remove the barriers to entry. We try to minimize them by making the call to action clearly visible to the user, reduce clutter on the page, sell the sizzle and so on. Showing the graphics included in our themes is a big boost for us.

With Firefox at roughly 25% of the browser market, offering a Firefox-only theme would generally be perceived as a huge barrier to entry. Fortunately, the visual strength of our product and the affinity to the brands we work with has greatly reduced this obstacle. We’ve had clients double their Firefox penetration – outpacing Firefox’s own overall market share. We’ve also had clients get 30% of their total audience using their custom theme. Quite astounding numbers.

4. You Don’t Have to Shout

Our browser themes are an affinity marketing tool. We build them to help brands connect to their fans. And let’s face it, brands and the companies behind them are out to make money. If you’re sending stuff out into the market, it’s eventually got to make you some money or you’re out of luck.

As much as our product offers new sponsor and ad inventory, and there’s a persistent communication channel available to them, I think it’s great that the product owners tread lightly in this area. This is not the place for the hard sell. To coin the phrase of social media, this is for joining the conversation – you’ve got to be a part of the dialogue. Ongoing, timely and useful information will make the long-term connection where the marketing appeals are accepted. We’ve seen this respect around communication rewarded with an average of 10% click through to commerce offers from within our themes.

5. We Interrupt This Program

As mentioned above, timely and useful information is vital. The power of putting a message up front and visible to the user has resulted in phenomenal return visits to our partner sites. Most sites have feeds that are great tools to reach your fans when they’re not on your site. The question is “Are you offering enticing news?”

There are two items to consider. One, a killer headline gets attention. The Huffington Post is a master at this. You can also look to leaders in your industry to find out how they write to engage their readers. Two, inside information is a powerful way to build a relationship. Relationships get tighter when you share personal information about yourself. This can apply to businesses as well. You can get a good feel of this if you look at how Toyota mishandled their PR crisis. Take a page from the Tylenol scare years ago – open and immediate information sharing goes a long way to shoring up your consumer’s trust.

These are some of the things that are working for us, and why. What would you add to the list?

COLUMBUS, OH — January 28, 2010 — Brand Thunder LLC (http://www.brandthunder.com) and CollegeHumor (http://www.collegehumor.com) announce the launch of an interactive browser theme fully capable of infusing Firefox browsers with a sense of humor. Fans of CollegeHumor can find the free download at http://www.brandthunder.com/collegehumor.

Through a small browser add-on, users’ web browser skin will get a complete CollegeHumor makeover including links to the most popular sections of the website and a multimedia sidebar.

“CollegeHumor is already an incredibly addictive site,” said Patrick Murphy, founder and CEO of Brand Thunder. “By creating this kind of visibility in the browser, we think this could lead to a whole new 12-step program.”

Brand Thunder’s browser Booms! are lightweight active customizations that can include themes, toolbars, sidebars and other content or functionality. With a Boom!, users can switch real-time between any of the browser looks they created without restarting their browser.

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/.

About CollegeHumor:
CollegeHumor.com was founded in a dorm room in 1999 as an online depository for all of the content that floats around collegiate computer networks. The site has since grown into a daily updated source of original web content and now boasts a loyal following of 10 million unique users per month and more than 30 million monthly video views. With major blue chip companies such as Ford, Universal Pictures and Procter & Gamble advertising on the site, the release of Penguin Books’ The CollegeHumor Guide to College and Faking It…How to Seem Like a Better Person Without Actually Improving Yourself, and a movie with Paramount in the works, CollegeHumor has quickly emerged as an icon of online humor. CollegeHumor is an operating business of IAC (NASDAQ: IACI).

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

###

The sponsorship program was designed to simplify implementation for Brand Thunder clients. It leverages Brand Thunder’s ad server allowing for a full range of tracking and reporting, plus providing easy updates for sponsorship graphics. The browser chrome placement assures high-visibility and engagement due to its proximity to the web address bar and browser search box.

“Our clients have expressed a need to provide new and exciting opportunities to their corporate sponsors,” said Patrick Murphy, founder and CEO of Brand Thunder. “These new sponsor placements will allow us to meet that need in a manner that integrates seamlessly and stylistically with the rest of the Boom! and keeps the overall user experience intact.”

A Boom!, a free, lightweight, active customization, is unlike other browser-based tools with its visual immersion, integrated content and added functionality. It has proven to be a popular way for fans to personalize their web experience with their favorite sports team, music star, newspaper, news site and more. Users can switch real-time between any installed Booms!.

About Brand Thunder:
Formed in April 2007, Brand Thunder creates custom-browser experiences. Brands enjoy a more persistent connection to their Internet consumer through the custom browser Boom!, which increases website visits and revenue. Through a software installation, end users change the look and feel of their Internet browser into an immersive experience from their favorite sports team, entertainment franchise or Internet site. The custom browser Booms! feature official logos, colors, content and functionality, but can also extend capabilities including video, music players or other Internet widgets. Current business partners and clients include the Huffington Post, Major League Soccer, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA, NFL, NHL, Universal Music and Yahoo!. Samples found at http://brandthunder.com/gallery/.

Contact:
Patrick Murphy, CEO
Brand Thunder, LLC
614-304-1316

###

So, if that’s it, then why a blog post? One reason is it tells people about the feature. The other is that its a good reminder for the challenges facing product managers and UI designers. Less really is more in so many ways. Every step you place in between the user and their goal significantly increases the abandonment rate. For example, each screen in an installation or sign up process results in a 30% abandonment. What is the equivalent for the product and features essential to your business and consumer? How many barriers are you putting in front of your consumer from reaching them?

Congratulations to the Mozilla community on the launch of Firefox 3.5 today. It’s an outstanding product that can be found at www.getfirefox.com. If you’re using one of Brand Thunder’s newer browser Booms!, you’re most likely enjoying a seamless transition. If you’re using one of our older browser customizations or an older Boom!, you’re likely enjoying Firefox 3.5 but without the Brand Thunder customizations you want.

To those of you experiencing problems, we’re sorry and the rest of this post may seem like a series of excuses. We are working diligently to get the updates live and this is our foremost priority at this time. Once an update clears our quality assurance tests, it will push live. I’d anticipate a stream of updates occurring over the near term.

Now to move on to the excuses, most companies run very lean and we’re no exception. Many times, it feels like there’s a wave of impending doom curling but never breaking. In this instance, the wave came down on us. We had an influx of high-profile clients with fixed deadlines and a moving 3.5 delivery date. And whether there were late term changes in the 3.5 betas, or just bugs found late in our review process, we had troubleshooting to perform at a time we should have been in build.

The result is a delay in timing our updates with the release of 3.5. We regret this inconvenience.

Feel free to try our first NFL Boom! (Colts) or our latest NHL Boom! (Wild) and I’ll place a list here of all the functioning Booms! as I get them.