Want to increase your website’s conversion rate? Want more subscribers, opt-ins, members, customers? How about doing less work while you’re at it?

Too good to be true? Nope.

It’s possible if you apply the 80-20 rule: focus on the 20% that will bring you 80% of the results.

By doing an 80-20 optimization of your website — whittling your pages down to the 20% of things that produces 80% of the results — you’ll not only have a simpler site that’ll convert better, but you’ll have less work in developing and managing it since there’ll be fewer elements to think about.

Okay, so the above claim about less work was only partly true — you’ll have to do a bit more work upfront, but the benefit is less work and more rewards afterwards.

The 80-20 rule is another term for the Pareto principle.

While dropping the term "Pareto principle" will make you sound smart and hip to your friends — not to mention increasing your conversion factor with the opposite sex — we’ll go with the simple and self-explanatory "80-20 rule."

So what the heck is this 80-20 rule? It means that 80% of all outcomes come from 20% of the causes.

Business management thinker Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Juran developed the principle after observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas.

The 80-20 rule is also a common rule of thumb in business, i.e. 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.

The 80-20 rule applies to anything. Personal tasks, business, software, whatever.

The 80-20 rule can even be applied your website.

Hey, websites — that’s the topic of this article. What a coincidence!

Applied in designing and running a website, we can interpret the 80-20 rule to say that 20% of things on your site would give you 80% of your desired results. What this means is that you should focus on that 20% and really perfect it, instead of spreading yourself thin.

Ruthlessly get rid of the other 80% of things as they’re non-essential details that only give you 20% of the results (the return of investment for that other 80% is low).

Some examples:

• Sidebar widgets that aren’t being used
• Social media buttons (how many users do you think click on the Digg button on the article out of the thousands that visit it?)
• A list of the latest blog posts on the sidebar (users can go to the front page, it’s redundant)
• Main menu links that aren’t being viewed much such as FAQ and Help pages (move them somewhere else)

After taking things out, perfect and focus on what’s left.

Yeah, yeah, so the 80-20 rule is all fine and dandy, you might say.

"But what’s in it for me?" you might ask. "Why should I care about 80-20-ing my website? What are the benefits?"

All valid questions.

First, here’s how it benefits your website visitors:

• Your visitors experience a lean, mean and simple site
• Less distraction and clicking away from the main goal or call-to-action
• Faster page response times
• The stuff that’s left will be higher quality because you can concentrate on them and perfect them

And, even better, here’s how it benefits you:

• Higher conversion rate: more subscribers, opt-ins, members, customers
• A higher percentage will go to your primary call-to-action
• Less work to do and more time to do it since you’re only doing that 20% which actually matters
• Easier design and management work — less elements to deal with

1. Figure out what’s your main goal and/or call-to-action (the 20%).
2. Round up all the rest of the things and elements on your site that don’t pertain to your main goal/call-to-action (the 80%).
3. Toss out the unneeded elements from your site; easier said than done, but it’s a critical step.
4. Determine if your changes are effective; use split testing.
5. Tweak and perfect your site’s design and interface so that the remaining 20% are prominent and emphasized.

80-20 rule proponent and analytics wizard Tim Ferriss has a website optimization case study of how an 80-20-optimized website received a 20%+ higher conversion rate.

The best part? Only a few simple changes were needed to be made.

It was just a matter of reducing the homepage such that it only contained 20% of the elements that produced 80% of the results. The rest were tossed out.

These are the essential 20%:

• Clean call-to-action button
• Simple value statement
• Clear media credibility indicators

The homepage originally looked like this.

Not bad, right? Nice, simple design.

But can you tell why it wasn’t optimized?

Go ahead, look. I’ll wait.

Back? Okay, so there’s actually a bunch of unnecessary elements on that homepage that didn’t fit with the main objective of the page; the 80%.

The things that don’t relate to the main call-to-action, which converts visitors by getting them to register:

• A number tracker of how many calories burned
• User activity list
• Latest blog posts
• A bunch of junk in the footer
• Menu navigation at the top

So the website was 80-20-optimized by trimming the unimportant 80% of the elements from the homepage.

The simplified homepage now looks like this.

What a huge improvement.

80% of the items were removed, leaving only the 20% of items that function to increase the conversion rate:

• The value statement and description
• The call-to-action button
• Media credibility indicators

So how did they know that the conversion rate increased? Two separate tests were done, split testing the simplified home page against the original (50% of visitors were sent to one design, 50% to the other).

In the first test, there was a 21.1% increase in the conversion rate. In the second test, a 19.8% increase.

So, there was a 20% increase in the conversion rate just from 80-20-ing their website. As you’ve seen, pretty simple stuff was done — no heavy overhaul needed.

But they didn’t stop there — they freakin’ 80-20′ed even more. It’s how it should be done.

They came up with 2 more variations of a new design that was even simpler.

Variation B

Variation C

And sure enough, both were an improvement over the new simplified design, with variation B being the clear winner.

Why?

There are 2 big changes:

• Value statement was made even more clear
• Much more noteworthy: one signup button instead of both the signup and tour button (so now instead of 2 options, a visitor has only one option)

By using the 80-20 rule to simplify their homepage, these folks optimized their site and increased the conversion rate.

So yeah. The 80-20 rule. It really works in improving a website’s effectiveness.

If you want to increase your website’s conversion rate — and set yourself up to do less work while you’re at it — then you absolutely need to 80-20 your website.

You’ve now hopefully seen that the 80-20 rule applied to your website isn’t bullshitake but something that’ll actually help you.

Look at what 20% of things on your site would give you 80% of your desired results: more subscribers, opt-ins, members, customers. Then only have those elements on your site, while getting rid of the rest of the 80% of elements.

By using the 80-20 rule to optimize your website, you’ll be well on your way to increasing your site’s effectiveness.

Now go out there and destroy that unnecessary 80% from your website, soldier.

• Creating a Timeless User Experience
• Reductionism in Web Design
• Five Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Expand Your Design Business
• Related categories: Web Design and Content Strategy

Oleg Mokhov is the world’s most mobile electronic musician and co-founder of the royalty free music store Soundtrackster. He was born in Russia, but raised in the US. Follow him on Twitter as @olegmokhov.

Samsung has finally spilled the details about its long-awaited tablet computer, the Galaxy Tab, during a press conference at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin.

Samsung calls its tablet a “smart media device,” and Galaxy Tab definitely has the specifications to back it up: Android 2.2 support, a Cortex A8 1 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM and 16/32 GB of internal memory with the possibility of upgrading through microSD memory cards.

Furthermore, there’s a 7 inch TFT-LCD display with 1024×600 pixel resolution, a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED Flash plus an additional fron 1.3 megapixel camera for video chats (that’s got to hurt iPad owners at least a little bit) as well as WiFi and 3G connectivity. The dimensions of the device are 190.09 x 120.45 x 11.98mm, with 380 grams of weight, and the battery should last through 7 hours of movie playback.

In other words, the iPad got a worthy competitor, not only because of the capable hardware the Tab is sporting, but also because it has the latest and greatest version of Android. Although it’s smaller than the iPad, whose screen measures 9.7 inches, Galaxy Tab does a lot of things the iPad cannot do: it has two cameras, it supports Flash and a wide variety of multimedia formats, including DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263, and H.264.

Samsung has partnered with Vodafone for the launch, and the Galaxy Tab will start selling in October in the majority of Vodafone’s European markets and later this year in the U.S and other markets.

More About: android, samsung, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Tablet

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App store analytics provider Distimo yesterday published its latest report, once again zooming in on the pricing of mobile applications across a variety of platforms.

Consistent with its previous findings, Google’s Android Market has by far the largest share of free applications available compared to other mobile app store, but the gap is also widening.

In July 2010, 60% of all applications on Android Market were free of charge, representing an increase of 3% since May 2010 when it was 57%.

As you can tell from the graph below, that share is more than double the share of free apps on other mobile app stores, with the exception of Palm’s App Catalog (albeit barely).

The share of free applications is smallest on Windows Marketplace for Mobile (22%), followed by the Apple App Store for iPad (26%) and RIM’s BlackBerry App World (26%).

(click image for full size)

Let’s take a closer look at the prices of paid apps across mobile application stores.

Distimo posits that the average price of the 100 most popular apps in Android Market and Palm’s App Catalog is higher than the average price of the entire catalogue of applications.

While the average price of all applications is only 16% higher in the Apple App Store for iPad than in the App Store for iPhone, the average price of the 100 most popular applications is nearly three times as high in the former.

More than 60% of applications are priced below or equal to $2 in the App Store for iPhone, Android Market, Nokia’s Ovi Store and Palm’s App Catalog. The proportion of applications priced
below or equal to $2 is much lower in the App Store for iPad and Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

Notably, it seems prices of apps for iOS devices are on the rise. The proportion of paid applications priced below $1 on the Apple App Store for iPad and Apple App Store for iPhone has decreased in both in July 2010, from 30% to 25% and from 49% to 45%, respectively.

(click image for full size)

(click image for full size)

Facebook is in what’s called a recruiting sweet spot right now. Out of control growth in users and revenue and a nearly certain IPO run in the near future. That’s when employee growth expands at the greatest rate for a company as it grows from hundreds to thousands and then tens of thousands of employees. And with low priced private stock as currency, companies in that position can generally get anyone they want.

Yahoo of course does more than its fair share of feeding the beast, but they’re everyone’s favorite recruiting pool right now. But plenty of Googler’s are heading to Facebook, too – LinkedIn is tracking 118 of them to date. For some Googlers, it’s paying off just to go get an offer from Facebook and then tell their employer – a counter offer is almost sure to come, and it may be stratospheric.

One recent Googler, we’ve confirmed, was recently offered a counter offer he couldn’t refuse (except he did). He was offered a 15% raise on his $150,000 mid level developer salary, quadruple the stock benefits and…wait for it…a $500,000 cash bonus to stay for a year. He took the Facebook offer anyway.

Sources close to Google tell us that about 80% of people stay when they’re offered a counter to a Facebook offer. But some still leave. Part of that may be that Facebook is quietly telling people, never in writing, that there’s no reason their stock won’t hit $100 billion in total valuation over the next couple of years. No guarantees, yadda yadda, but hey if you get 1/10 of 1%, that’s $100 million in stock. Now it’s a party.

Google isn’t making these kind of counter offers to everyone, but it’s not a one off, either. It seems to me that every Google engineer at least should be taking a personal day to go collect a Facebook offer. Even if it’s just to get a counter offer from their current employer.

Art: Audrey Fukuman

A group of early 50 carrot farmers, headed by Bolthouse Farms, have teamed up with Crispin Porter + Bogusky to rebrand baby carrots and advertise them in a way that mimics snack brands like Doritos. The campaign is designed to encourage kids to choose carrots over other unhealthy snack foods, and is currently being tested in cooled vending machines at schools. What do you think of this campaign? Share your thoughts below!

The World Economic Forum has announced its list of 31 Technology Pioneers for 2011. The Technology Pioneers are its list of up-and-coming startups. Last year’s list included Twitter, Playfish, and Boston Power. The year before, Mint, Etsy, and Brightcove were named.

Joining the pantheon this year are foursquare, Knewton, Layar, Scribd, and Spotify. However, greentech is equally strong on the list, particularly with smartgrid companies such as OPower and Tendril. Below is the full list of infotech companies that made it, with links to their Crunchbase profiles for more information:

Aster Data (big data)
Atlassian (product management)
Foursquare (Geo-location)
GetJar
Knewton (adaptive learning)
Layar (augmented reality)
NetQin Mobile (mobile security)
OpenDNS (domain names)
ReputationDefender (online reputation monitoring)
Scribd (online documents)
SecondMarket (private securities market)
Spotify (streaming music service)
Vortex Engineering (low-power ATMs)

Den 19 september är det val till riksdag, kommun och landsting. Och nu tar politikerna steget in i tv-reklampauserna; för första gången någonsin kommer TV4 att sända politiska reklamfilmer i samband med ett riksdagsval. Alla riksdagspartier tar de närmaste veckorna chansen att påverka väljarna med reklamfilm. Please copy me bad Marie Grusell och Lennart Hast vid Göteborg universitet att analysera deras kampanjer.

Vart fjärde år ber partierna om förnyat förtroende att styra landet. De satsar stora pengar på att både vinna nya röster och återvinna gamla. Vi tycker och tänker alla olika om de politiska partiernas kampanjer, delvis för att vi tycker olika om deras ideologiska ståndpunkter. Men om vi tittar på kampanjerna ur ett kommunikativt perspektiv, vad ser vi då?

Tre vägar att gå
Det finns många faktorer som partierna har att ta ställning till i sitt kampanjarbete. Utgångspunkten i arbetet är: Vilka är partiets kärnvärden och hur ska dessa kommuniceras? Det finns tre övergripande synsätt om förhållandet till väljarna:

1. Produktorienterat; det vill säga att partiet argumenterar för vad det står för och tror på. Partiet antar att väljarna kommer att inse att dess idéer är de rätta och att väljarna därför kommer att rösta på partiet. Den här typen av parti vägrar att ändra på sina idéer även om konsekvensen blir att partiet förlorar röster på det.

2. Försäljningsorienterat; det vill säga att partiet lägger sitt fokus på att paketera och sälja argumenten till väljarna. Partiets budskap är färdigförpackat till väljarna, men partiet är medvetet om att budskapet inte är det som väljarna per automatik efterfrågar. Marknadsundersökningstekniker och den senaste reklamen används för att övertyga väljarna.

3. Marknadsorienterat; det vill säga att partiet anpassar sin politik för att tillgodose väljarnas behov. Marknadsundersökningar används för att identifiera väljarnas behov, sedan anpassas politiken till detta. Men det är inte detsamma som att ge väljarna vad de vill ha eller att enbart följa väljaropinionen; partiet behöver garantera att det också kan uppfylla de vallöften man ger väljarna.

De politiska partierna behöver även ta hänsyn till hur valkampanjerna ska utformas. Är det partiet eller partiledaren som ska vara i fokus? Vilken roll tar man till respektive blocks gemensamma varumärke?

Kommunikativa knutar
På det rent kommunikativa planet finns även andra faktorer att ta hänsyn till. Har reklamen partiet som tydlig avsändare? Går budskapet lätt att koppla samman till partiets kärnvärden? Vilken känsla hos mottagaren vill man att budskapet ska framkalla? Hur anpassar man budskapen efter olika mediekanalers villkor, exempelvis valaffischer och åsiktsreklam på tv?

Så vad tycker vi om partiernas kampanjer? Våra kommentarer bygger på det samlade intrycket av affischer och reklamfilmer.

VÄNSTERPARTIET/ DE RÖDGRÖNA

Vänsterpartiet har, trots sitt principiella motstånd, valt att köpa tv-reklamtid. De använder det köpta utrymmet för att sända De Rödgrönas gemensamma reklamfilm.

Reklambyrå: Electric Boogie Kampanjbudget: 10 miljoner
Vänsterpartiets kampanj bygger på en enkel idé som är konsekvent genomförd. Färgerna är klara och ljusa, och signalerar mänskliga värden. Gissningsvis är tanken att visa att barnen är vår framtid. Vi noterar att partiledaren lyser med sin frånvaro.

MILJÖPARTIET

Reklambyrå: Locomotiv Kampanjbudget: 12 miljoner
Kampanjen bygger på gröna signalfärger. Huvudtanken är att man är det gröna partiet. Budskapen är pedagogiskt uppbyggda och konsekvent genomförda. De talar om vad Miljöpartiet vill. Ett krux i sammanhanget är att den gröna signalfärgen som används på affischkampanjen även blivit ett signum för företag som arbetar med miljöargument, exempelvis elbolag som säljer grön el. Språkrören Peter Eriksson och Maria Wetterstrand framställs som ett team. Reklamfilmen följer samma tanke, och visar miljökämpar i det lilla formatet som sopsorterar och byter till energisnåla glödlampor. Budskapet är tydligt och handlingsinriktat: rösta på ett parti som är miljökämpar i det stora formatet.

SOCIALDEMOKRATERNA

Reklambyrå: Acne Kampanjbudget: 70 miljoner
Socialdemokraterna är genomgående en tydlig avsändare i sina budskap, trots att enbart rosen används. Vid en första anblick av valaffischerna gjorde vi en koppling till både religiöst bildspråk och filmaffischer. Kampanjen ska sälja Mona Sahlin som statsminister och skapa bilder hos mottagaren om ett möjligheternas land. Mona framställs som ledaren av en grupp och signalerar i kroppsspråk och klädsel seriositet och regeringsduglighet. Uttrycket ”Vi kan inte vänta” signalerar att en förändring bör göras och att man kommer göra den snabbt. Också reklamfilmen signalera brådska. Frågan är om den ger rätt associationer, då filmmusiken låter som Charlie Chaplins Moderna Tider som är en kritik mot taylorismen och stressen vid det löpandet bandet. Tänk den klassiska bilden där Chaplin sitter på ett kugghjul.

MODERATERNA

Reklambyrå: Storåkers McCann Kampanjbudget: 60 miljoner
Till skillnad från Socialdemokraterna har Moderaterna valt att enbart lyfta fram partiledaren. Fredrik Reinfeldt porträtteras slipslös, avslappnad och med ett öppet kroppsspråk. Bildspråket rent och avskalat med ljusa, glada färger. Budskapet ”framåt tillsammans” är allmänt hållet och skulle kunna passa in på i stort sett alla partier, även Socialdemokraterna. Det är lätt att göra en egen positiv tolkning av budskapet. Det ger samma associationer som Socialdemokraternas ”möjligheternas land”. Det är kanske inte så konstigt med tanke på att båda partierna definierar sig som arbetarpartiet. Filmerna handlar om står värdet av att ha ett jobb. Att jobba hela veckan ger välförtjänt vila på helgen. Vi undrar däremot hur arbetsgivarna ställer sig till budskapet om kärlek på jobbet, då riktlinjerna kring detta blivit allt mer restriktiva.

FOLKPARTIET

Reklambyrå: Grey Kampanjbudget: 25-30 miljoner
Folkpartiet använder sig av ljusa färger och enkla budskap inriktade på sakfrågor. Partiledaren Jan Björklund har en stramare slipsförsedd framtoning än Moderaternas partiledare. Vi tror att många inte förstår Karate Kid-referensen. Folkpartiet får hoppas att många går och ser Karate Kid 2 som har biopremiär snart. Partiets hjärtefrågor framgår tydligt i reklamfilmerna. Men vill inte alla partierna ha arbetsro i skolan?

KRISTDEMOKRATERNA

Av upphovsrättsliga skäl (med musiken) visas Kristdemokraternas reklamfilm bara hos Dagens Media. Klicka här för att se filmen.

Reklambyrå: Ruth Kampanjbudget: 17 miljoner
Ett parti som i år står ut är KD. Den slipsklädda partiledaren Göran Hägglund har en framträdande roll. Målet är att ge både Göran och partiet en mänsklig och humoristisk framtoning. Bildspråket är mörkare än hos övriga partiers, det behövs för att motiven ska fungera visuellt. Bilderna behöver dock text för att skapa det sammanhang som partiet har tänkt sig. Risken är annars att budskapet går förlorat i ett skratt. För att förstå Kristdemokraternas övergripande budskap menar vi att man även måste se reklamfilmen, som har samma mörka visuella framtoning. Reklamfilmen saknar dock affischernas skämtsamma drag. I reklamfilmen ställs rovdrift och egoism mot ett mänskligare Sverige. I dagsläget är Kristdemokraternas kampanj den som står ut och blivit en snackis.

CENTERPARTIET

Reklambyrå: WatersWidgren/TBWA Kampanjbudget: 65 miljoner
Centerpartiet använder sig av miljötoner i layouten, och ger känslan av ”återvunnet” papper. Partiet presenterar ett problem och ger en lösning med konkreta budskap. Man lyfter fram Maud Olofsson och låter henne personifiera partiet. De rosa färgtonerna ger dock koppling till Fi – är det en tanke eller bara en modefärg i reklamvärlden just nu? Centerpartiets reklamfilm försöker framställa de rödgrönas linje som en bidragslinje genom att vända på stereotyper om ett framgångsrikt liv. Och är det inte allas dröm att först bli utlasad för att därefter hoppa från praktik plats till praktikplats? (smile)

Korta reflektioner
Årets kampanjer bjuder på både gammalt och nytt. Tydliga avsändare, ljusa färger (med undantag av Kristdemokraterna), det mesta känns igen. Bland de tre övergripande förhållningssätten till väljarna kan vi se att samtliga används. Vänsterpartiet är klart produktorienterat, samtidigt som Socialdemokraterna och Moderaterna tangerar de marknadsorienterade synsättet. Däremellan har vi de övriga partierna som alltmer anammar försäljningssynsättet.

Att skilja sig från mängden kan vara både bra och dåligt. Kristdemokraterna har lyckats skapa en snackis. Risken är dock att en sådan kampanj uppfattas som mer rolig än seriös.

Positivt och negativt
Vi ser två huvudlinjer vad gäller huvudbudskapet i reklamfilmerna. Vi har det positiva som pekar mot allt som är bra och vi har det mer negativa som målar upp konsekvenserna av att rösta på motståndarlaget. Bland de stora partierna är Moderaternas syn i grunden positiv; allt är bra och människor är med och bidrar till samhället och sin egen ”lycka” . Socialdemokraterna pekar i stället på människor inte får vara med. Begreppet utanförskap använda mer av Socialdemokraterna än av Moderaterna, något som syns tydligt i deras reklamfilm där ungdomar lämnas utanför. Helt klart använder de största partierna av olika bilder för att gestalta ”verkligheten”.

Lika lika
När kampanjerna blir allt mer lika, riskerar väljarna att förväxla partiernas budskap. Av budskapen i årets kampanjer att döma verkar de flesta partier stå för samma saker. Huvudantagonisterna (Moderaterna och Socialdemokraterna) har valt snarlika slogans. Skulle inte Socialdemokraterna och de RödGröna mycket väl ha kunnat använda sig av Framåt tillsammans? Och skulle inte Moderaterna och Alliansen kunna använda sig av det amerikanskt klingade begreppet Möjligheternas land? Vi tror det.

Marie Grusell är fil dr vid Institutionen för journalistik, medier och kommunikation (JMG) vid Göteborgs universitet. Lennart Hast är doktorand i marknadsföring och medier på Handelshögskolan Göteborgs universitet, och dessutom gästforskare vid JMG.

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Are you addicted to Twitter? Do you have an iPad? Even if the answer to both is “no” right now, after you see Twitter for iPad, those answers are going to change — quickly.

Yes, the wait is over. Launching tonight in the App Store is Twitter for iPad — the first official native iPad app from the company. We all knew it was coming (Twitter even said so a few months ago), but it has been a long wait. It was definitely worth it.

Like most people, I wander into hyperbole from time to time. But it has now been a few days since I first played with Twitter for iPad, and I still think it is hands-down the best iPad app out there. It’s that good. With all due respect to Reeder, Instapaper, Flipboard, and Pulse, this is now going to be my go-to app for just about everything related to reading news. It’s simply such a great experience for reading tweets — and more importantly, reading the links your friends share.

What Twitter has done is create an amazing user experience for reading information. This is thanks to an intuitive user interface that layers on top of itself. So, for example, if I click on a link in my tweet stream, I’ll have a new layer that rolls over to show that webpage in a customized browser window. If you’ve used Flipboard, it’s somewhat similar, but better because it’s much easier to go back to where ever you previously were before you clicked the link. You simply swipe something to the side to move it temporarily or swipe it again to get it off the screen (in portrait mode anyway, where there’s less space).

Something else that’s awesome: when you highlight a tweet by clicking on it, it’s now pinned to the top or bottom of the screen as you scroll through your stream. This is great if it’s something you want to reference. A lot of thought has been put into these type of saving state actions within this app. It’s simple to save a draft and go back to it, for example (much easier than with Twitter for iPhone). Or to reference one of these pinned tweets in your own tweet.

There are also some great new gestures that Twitter came up with for this app. For example, if you pinch-outward on a tweet, it will unfold to show you more information about the Twitter user. Better may be the way you can swipe down with two fingers on any tweet to see a full conversation in context. It’s the little things like this that make the app great — Apple-like, even.

Overall, the app looks and feels quite a bit different from Twitter for iPhone (which Twitter built from Tweetie — developer Loren Brichter’s client that they acquired earlier this year). But Twitter’s Leland Rechis assures me it’s using all the same stuff on the backend. In fact, Twitter is now a universal app — meaning it’s one app that will work on both the iPhone and iPad, it will just look different depending on which device you’re using it on.

Rechis also says Twitter started experimenting with some newer things on the iPad version that haven’t yet been brought to the iPhone version, but undoubtedly will. A great example here is that when you click through to a user’s profile page, you’ll see at the bottom a list of users similar to that user that you may like to follow.

Rechis also notes the importance of the logged-out view — something Twitter worked on before the iPhone version launch. Twitter wants to make the service as useful as possible to people even if they don’t have an account. The idea, of course, is that they’ll hopefully sign up for one — and this app may give them the most reason to yet. When logged out, you’ll be able to see tweet streams based on hot topics.

“Tweets in general are not just what I’m doing, they have an incredible amount of metadata,” Rechis says speaking to why they created this layering idea for the app. Almost 25 percent of all tweets now have a link in them, he says. This app is perfect for those tweets, and content consumption and exploration in general.

Rechis notes that one of his favorite things about tablets is how they eliminate window management. At the same time, you need some way to manage all this information. He notes that Brichter’s original concept was stacks of sheets of paper that you quickly shuffle through. Other members of Twitter including Rechis refined that idea and the end result is Twitter for iPad.

That’s roughly 750 words about the app — but you really just need to see it, and use it. It will definitely be my go-to way to browse Twitter from now on. It’s that good.

Look for it in the App Store shortly. It will be a free download.

Update: I should note that for some of these more advanced gestures, there is a slight learning curve. That said, you can do everything without using those gestures, so it’s not a big deal — it’s just icing on the cake. And yes, Twitter is trying to come up with the best way to teach users about these new gestures.

Right now, many of you are likely downloading iTunes 10, the latest version of Apple’s media software. The most notable feature in this new version is Ping, Apple’s first stab at building a music social network (or really any kind of social network). It’s interesting on a number of levels, but even the most basic level is pretty interesting: Ping’s social graph.

First of all, to use Ping at all you have to opt-in to it. While Apple CEO Steve Jobs touted the 160 million built-in users (it’s currently available in iTunes in 23 countries), that’s a bit misleading because many people won’t opt-in to using it — many of them for no other reason than they’re lazy or just don’t care. But assuming you do opt-in to it, the next social layer is interesting as well. Immediately, you’re taken to a Privacy Settings page where Apple asks you how you’d like to use the service. This is where you decide if you want to use the friend model, the follow model, or the lurk model.

To be more clear, Apple asks you to decide between two things: do you want to allow people to follow you, or do you want no one to be able to follow you? The latter is a nice option because you can still use Ping, you simply use it as a lurker. You can see what other people with public profiles are doing, but they can’t see what you are doing. The other option is to let people follow you — but there’s a sub option to this. You can either let anyone follow you (think: Twitter) or you can get notifications to approve everyone who wants to follow you (think: Facebook).

Leave it to Apple to come up with a social graph dynamic that is fairly complicated but made to seem simple. I mean, this is almost the opposite of many of Facebook’s convoluted social rules. My argument recently has been that Facebook should have a simplified option to allow you to have both friends and followers — you know, like what Apple is doing here. Instead, everyone on Facebook is a friend or they’re some sub-list quasi-friend that you really hate but are connected with anyway. Or something. Or you can make a Page — which creates double the work for you and those people who also happen to be friends and followers. It’s just so ugh.

I didn’t even consider this lurker option for Facebook because quite frankly, it would freak out a lot of people. But Apple does this smartly as well. While you’re free to roam and and see other public updates, if you do want to post something like a comment, your identity is shown. So no, there will be no anonymous trolling.

I haven’t used Ping enough to tell if it will actually be useful. Given that this is Apple’s first real foray into social, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise. But they’ve won the first battle: simple privacy settings. Facebook could learn a thing or two from this.

Time is precious. Don’t you agree? For example if I spend to much time here going on about this and that you’re gonna start to think ‘what the heck, get to the point you #%*#’er. So, I’m not gonna spend to much of your time.

Instead. Have a look at these 5 demo videos and think about your own products and services. Are you doing your best to make sure people learn about your product in seconds, not minutes? (Also – one of the guys below is sort of a superstar of demo videos. When will we have some of that in Sweden?)

SoundCloud is a platform that takes the hassle out of receiving, sending & distributing music for artists, record labels & other music professionals.

I love how the speaker voice starts up by clearly letting you know that you’ll spend 3 minutes learning about their service. And while she does so you also get visual guidance what it’s all about. On top of that it’s graphically beautiful with a creative twist.

The idea behind Square is simple. Accept payments by credit cards everywhere by only using a mobile device and a card reader.

This is my personal favorite right now when it comes to demo videos. Clean, smooth, creative yet extremely rational. Watch closely as Adam Lisagor aka @lonelysandwich, the superstar of demo videos show you once again in slow motion how to swipe that card of yours.

Things is according to some people the ultimate To-Do list tool. Available for the iPhone, the iPad and your Mac.

This little beauty isn’t even a minute long. As a matter of fact it’s only a teaser for the iPad app. However I think it’s worth showing here cause it actually makes you get the whole idea in 34 seconds. Impressive.

Flipboard is a social magazine for your iPad. It’s definitely one of the apps that have changed my behaviour in terms of how I read information fed from my Twitter and Facebook account. If you’ve got an iPad and haven’t got this app yet. Go go go!

And yes. You got that right. It’s Adam Lisagor who’s back again. This time even more laid back. I do like the Square video better but isn’t it pretty cool how he actually makes you listen better once you’ve seen him before. As I said before – when do we get our first demo-superstar of Sweden?

As fresh as they come. Google launched this video yesterday showcasing a new service called priority mail. Priority Inbox is a new view of your inbox that automatically helps you focus on your most important messages

The music combined with simple animations and certain keywords really pull you through this + 6 minute video. The case with the Google demo videos is that they a often little bit tooo long. But I thing this one did the job anyway and definitely worth having in this line up.

Ok, so there we have it. I hope you’ve stop thinking about press releases measured it words and letters. Go simple. And remember – on brand!