Check out Joseph Carrabis’ articles on marketing and online behavior. Here’s a sample paragraph I particularly appreciated:  

“Males will participate in social networks where their self-image — real or imagined — is demonstrated and reinforced for them. Basically, the social site’s design, layout, and features, must all communicate that the young professional visitor is an up-and-coming executive, the sports player is a potential all-star, the car enthusiast will race at Daytona, and so on.”

See full article here.

Kathy Sierra‘s presentation at SXSW rocked. She used humor, simplicity and sexual innuendo to demonstrate how to enchant users on a website. I left the session with the following take always:

·         Testimonials should be about your customer, not your company. They should inspire first person language. 

 ·         Online communities should help their members kick ass at something. What are you helping your users become better at doing?

·         Give users things to do.

·         The difference between great and fantastic isn’t a natural talent but a talent for practice.

·         Which do you want to be remembered for your product or your company?

·         Kathy brought edgy new media wine expert Gary Vaynerchuk on stage as an example of an expert using these principles well.  

For more info check out:

·         YouTube short

·        Live blog summary