So in buying Omniture, Adobe is expanding the scope of what its design software will help you do, deciding that to give you/your client the ability to make money easily from what you create with their software is important.
Via Bloomberg:

Adobe plans to combine its programs that create media and Web sites with Omniture’s technology, Narayen said on the call.
“The inability to monetize media on the Web is a pain point we hear, especially from customers in advertising, media and entertainment industries,” he said.

Fair enough. I think another thing is happening here, though. Makers of design tools see that they are hitting diminishing returns in the quality of new iterations of their design software. I’m not just referring to graphic design. I’ve been a contract designer using large CAD packages like CATIA V3/V4/V5 and Pro/E off and on for 20 years, and I’ve long thought that new versions of their software “suites” added very little significant value. In fact, in many cases new functionality serves to obscure the tools that designers actually use 90% of the time.

It’s clear that these companies need to keep revenue coming in, but their success in making tools that do what they are supposed to do has ironically left many of their customers feeling disinclined to upgrade. It’s not surprising that Adobe is making this purchase in an economic downturn.

Chief Executive Officer Shantanu Narayen is pushing Adobe into new businesses at a time when customers are pulling back on design software purchases. Omniture gives Adobe a steady source of revenue and may mean investors will focus less on periodic upgrades to products such as Adobe Creative Suite, said Michael Olson, a Minneapolis-based analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co.

An addition like this to Adobe’s offerings really is an attempt at qualitative expansion, and despite the stock tanking on the announcement, it seems ambitious and innovative.

From Tim Ferriss, here’s an excellent article on using Google Website Optimizer improve your homepage conversions.

Once reading this, you will know more about split-testing than 90%+ of the consultants who get paid to do it…

OK Tim, you’re on. Using a detailed case study, and including instructions for interpreting the data, this article is really excellent.

A designer friend is producing an iPhone app, his first, and he found this wiki on tips for ISVs, derived from The Business of Software Forum on the Joel On Software site. Very detailed and helpful on product promotion, pricing, Google Adwords Q & A, product SEO, product ideas, and lots more.
We’ve referenced the excellent Joel On Software several times before; man I remember reading Joel 10 years ago!

Think you’ve got a great idea for an application and the coding chops to realize your vision? Some developers are missing one piece in the puzzle, namely a marketing strategy, or even place to start for marketing help. I’ll bet it keeps some people from pushing forward with an idea they might otherwise attempt. Check out the comments in this Slashdot thread– just a day old but it’s loaded with excellent tips/links.

This weekend I got drawn right into a pretty cool little tool for comparing billing rates for a wide variety of tech skills, over at Hotgigs.com. The data is supposedly derived from thousands of consultant profiles. Just type a programming language or skill in and it returns a little chart with hourly rates for low, medium and high experience levels. From there, look at the lists of ’similar jobs’ and ‘top skills’ and you might find yourself mis-spending an hour that you might have spent upgrading those very skills!
Grain of salt, right? Still, this sort of thing might be good for lighting a fire under you if you’ve been putting off a skills upgrade, or even a job switch.

I am a programmer, developer and designer.  I’ve been doing this for quite a few years now, but until recently I have not had much project management experience.  Now that I am running my own consultancy, acquiring these skills are essential.  Effective Project Management for Web Geeks is a great article that I found useful.  It will introduce you to the basics of the project lifecycle, and provide you with tools to make your projects run smoother, faster, and easier.

Chris Pirillo shares his thoughts on  Internet Strategies for New Businesses.  There are some great ideas on how a businesses should use the Internet to engage their customers through the power of conversation.

The Blog is the New Resume – I’ve seen a few posts like this one lately, and I couldn’t agree more!  Resumes are usually simple one or two page summaries of your life experience, where a blog shows your ability to communicate, engage and reveal your passion.

In fact my last three opportunities have come directly from this blog and I was amazed at how much the potential employer/client knew about me from my blog.  If you’re looking for work or for new and exciting opportunities, I would highly recommend blogging – even if it doesn’t help you land a job, it will certainly help you build a great network and you’ll have fun doing it!

Feeling inspired to begin your own freelance career?  Check out this article titled – A Comprehensive Guide to Starting your Freelance Career – that covers a whole range of subjects from branding yourself to suggestions on where to look for work.  The source of this article is Freelance Switch – a site that has become a must read for me as I begin my freelance journey.  It a very new blog but it already has tonnes of great content.

Meri Williams has a relatively new blog called Geek|Manager that is full of great information about project management for geeks. One of her first posts – Starting Out in Project Management – is particularly relevant to me as I start my new web consultancy. Project management has always been an area of weakness. It’s not that I cannot do it, it is more that I love solving technical challenges more! The article explains quite nicely how people end up in a project management roll and then discusses how to make that transition from production guru to a PM.