As a sports fan that plays fantasy sports and likes to look up stats, I have always wanted an easier way to look up information and stats about my favorite players (as well as the ones on my fantasy team). A site like ESPN or even the league’s site has the information I’m looking for but requires a lot of searching and clicking to find it.

Yahoo! Sports Shortcuts has made it pretty simple by integrating it into their search. By just searching the name of the player, a stats summary of the player and additional links for more detailed stats is made available as well as their Fantasy Ranking. Currently it is only works for Baseball and Football but will likley be available for Basketball and Hockey when their seasons start.

JetBlue is a low-cost American airline, known for their award winning customer service (not to mention DirecTV programming in every seat). They sell the majority of their airline tickets through their website. Since customer satisfaction is a vital factor in JetBlue’s business, reputation and brand identify, it is imperative that their website reflect this as well.

My main goal when visiting the JetBlue site is to search for and possibly purchase tickets when planning for a trip. Upon first entering the JetBlue website, there are input boxes that allow you to do just that. One doesn’t have to click a link first to bring up the boxes which is nice since this is probably what the majority of Users will want to do when visiting the site. However, if the User went to the site to check in or check a flight’s status, those links appear directly underneath.

Have you ever been to a travel site that required you to enter the departure and arrival cities 3 letter airport code? It can be quite frustrating because unless it’s a big airport (like LAX), I’m usually not one to remember what it is. Sites have gotten better and more flexible allowing one to enter the city name or the code. Others, like Southwest, provide a long drop down list to select from. Unfortunately, you are limited to the number of airports you can see at one time and may force someone to have to scroll down to find their desired airport.

JetBlue’s site has made it more elegant and easier to select by displaying a formatted list of cities and airport codes. Not only that, users also have the option to type in the city/airport code where a simplified look ahead search drop down box appears. Furthermore, since JetBlue flights in one city has certain cities it flies to; JetBlue filters them out for you when selecting the arrival city. Another nice feature to point out – JetBlue remembers a past search so next time you return, you can simply select it and the arrival and departure fields are filled in for you.

JetBlue has done a great job in translating the JetBlue brand experience on the web. The changes are so simple, yet make a world of difference compared to competitor sites. Not only will past customers continue to be loyal to JetBlue but new customers, who are busy trying to compare prices and flights on different sites, will have the impression that JetBlue was thinking about its customers when designing the site.

In order for a social network to succeed, they must have a focused audience definition on the types of Users to build their site towards; otherwise, they could just be spending time building features no one will use. Social networks have all types of Users but some of the main ones include:

• The Socialite. They use online social networks to communicate with friends and meet new people. They publish information about themselves frequently and are typically members of other social network sites.
• The Private User. They use social networks to reconnect with old friends and strengthen connections with existing friends and typically not to meet new people.
• The Entrepreneur. They use social networks to help promote their business ventures as well as for social purposes. An example of this is MySpace, where an lot of independent bands, comedians, and businesses have a profile.
• The Dater. They use social networks to establish new contacts with the goal of possibly starting a personal relationship. Example sites include eHarmony.com
• The Lurker. They use social networks to view information about their friends and others but rarely participate.

In my opinion the Socialite, Private User, and Lurker would be the most prominent Users for Pownce. Let’s look at the Private User in more detail and create a Persona for this type of User.

The Private User Persona
Here is a short summary on Mandy, a potential User for the next great social network.

Mandy Wright

• Law Clerk / Legal Assistant

Personal Description

• 25 years old
• She has been a law clerk ever since graduating college, primarily working for small law firms.
• She takes law school part time while working and hopes to eventually run a firm one day.
• Because of her busy schedule, she rarely has free time to hang out with friends.

Technological

• Mandy has a year old Sony notebook that she mainly uses for school work, browsing the web, and chatting with friends.

Web Use

• Mandy has used the web since high school.
• She typically browses the web to look at and shop for clothes.
• She is a member of social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster but keeps her information private and only accessible to friends.
• Occasionally she will write a blog but that information is also kept private for friends only.

Goals

• Mandy would like to do a better and efficient job keeping in contact with her friends.

Tasks

• One task Mandy typically does is try and get together with her friends for dinner. She currently does this by logging on to MySpace and sending a separate message to each of her friends. She will also email, text message, or call some friends.

Current Problems

• Mandy does not have that much free time so anything that would save her time would help. Right now, when she wants to contact a specific set of friends, she has to post to everyone in the group. She also has to use different forms of communication because not all of her friends are on the same social networking site or not on any.

Desires

• Mandy sometimes wants to communicate with only a certain group of friends.
• She also wants to easily update friends that are not on the same social network without doing additional work.