It's hard to get customers to pay any attention to an email newsletter. People are busy and their intrays are overflowing. But here's an opening line that grabbed my attention very effectively:

Letter from the Editor: Calling all usability participants

We're not interested in building software that you simply tolerate...or even kinda like. We want to flat-out delight you with tools that help you be awesome at what you do.

That was at the top of an email from TechSmith, a company whose software I've been trying out to capture screen shots when I'm doing reviews of Web sites.

What made me read on? ... Was it the bold, punchy promise? No. My intray is full of bold promises to make me rich, successful, and attractive. I am pretty cynical about such promises. (Besides, I am all those things already .... ahem).

I think I read on because the email got several things right:

[Posted by Diane Clarkson]

I was speaking with a friend today about the state of the economy and its impact on travel. This friend is a survivor of the travel industry’s catalog of crisis over recent years: 9/11, SARS, airline bankruptcies, soaring fuel costs. His view was that the travel industry has become complacent in its approach to crisis.

[Posted by Shar VanBoskirk]

My recently released piece "Search Loyalty Is Still Hard To Find" has gotten a lot of press.  Some of it for a faulty conclusion.  I've corrected the notion that I was trying to introduce a "Google Killer" with this research on a few blogs.  Glad to see the right interpretation of our our data popping up as well!  I thought it might be worth setting the record straight from our own blog.

By Ian Fogg (bio, recent research)

At MWC, multiple companies have launched mobile application stores that seek to build upon Apple's iPhone success (Microsoft, Nokia, Orange, mPortico, Surfkitchen, Adtonic, PocketGear and others). These join existing announced app stores (including RIM, Google Android, Palm).

These are more than simple me-too initiatives.

Mobile app stores are not new. Palm, Handango and even Nokia with their Download! service pre-date Apple. Like the iPod, Apple was a follower -- rather than first mover -- that succeeded due to terrific execution and a clear strategy and market position. Apple benefits from the ease of commercial iPhone application distribution. Developers now prosper in a virtuous circle: