Gift Giving Guy

I’m overdue on my annual bookkeeping for this blog. In 2009, I made five resolutions for Gift Giving Guy. Let’s check the ledger and see whether I was on time, within grace or past due.

Resolution #1: Publish 100 posts in 2009.
Past Due. I posted 75 times in 2009, three quarters toward the goal.

Resolution #2: Introduce six new gadgets, design revisions or other blog improvements.
On Time. I started using Twitter on March 22, adding a follow link and the latest tweet to the right column. I embedded a ShareThis link on each post. Two new hub pages, Guy Gift Ideas and Gifts by Occasion, made their debut. And I included two new Blogger gadgets: recent comments and a poll.

Resolutions #3 and #4: Create an online quiz. Offer a guide on gift giving by personality traits.
Within Grace. I’m counting my post, “Selecting Gifts by Personality Quiz,” toward both of these resolutions.

Resolution #5: Blog about gift giving and e-commerce insights discovered in my MBA classes.
On Time. I matched my graduate school experience with gift giving six times in 2009:

• A Gift Deferred: The Wii for Christmas
• Brand-name Gifts
• A Perfect Gift from Buckle
• Irreverent References: Gifts for MBA, Law and Medical Students
• When Gift Retailers Fail
• Keeping Workplace Gifts Respectful

Note: This post refers to a past blog design.

“Simple design, intense content.” That’s how renowned information designer Edward Tufte summarized the goal of his work. Inspired (and humbled) by Tufte, I’ve made some minor design changes to this blog over the weekend. First, I’ve added three major category links to organize my posts, found under the knight-and-rose masthead:

• Gift Ideas & Advice
  Gift brainstorming with links to purchase, gift theme and presentation ideas, links to other recommended gift guides, and gift guidelines and etiquette.

• Giftology
  What is gift giving? What can we learn from current giving research in sociology, economics, psychology and other disciplines?

• Shopping Topics
  Consumer surveys, top retailers, shopping innovations and notable gift e-commerce web sites.

Then I promoted two features to the top right column: the blog search engine box and the link to subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed. I also added a link for the Five Most Popular Posts, drawn from Google Analytics web metrics. To simplify the right column, I switched the lengthy label list (72 labels!) to a tag cloud. Tag clouds rely on font size and color to emphasize the most frequent topics covered at Gift Giving Guy.

Next, I customized two kinds of bookmark images. I posted a new favorite icon for those readers who kindly bookmark this site. And for Apple iPhone/iPod Touch users, I’ve created a WebClip bookmark image that appears when using the “Add to Home Screen” feature.

Finally, I closed the design with a footer, offering links to the top of the blog, “Why Gift Giving Guy?,” “Subscribe to RSS feed,” “Five Most Popular Posts,” and “Disclosures.” I hope these tweaks improve your visit to Gift Giving Guy.