Only in the perverted world of the web can something as simple and fundamental as making money be in need of a fancy word like “monetize”. The most basic principle of business doesn’t need an exotic dress and an academic hat. Just a pair of working gloves.

It’s no longer either: “How can we make money?” vs “How can we monetize this?”. And the former even benefits from not having “I’m such an ass” sound to it.

Price it low

“If you’re not worried that you’re pricing it too cheap, you’re not pricing it cheap enough. That’s the best advice I can give you about Pricing in a single sentence. Never ask, ‘How much might someone be willing to pay for this?’ Ask instead, ‘At what price could I sell a huge number of these?’ Read the biographies of Henry Ford and Sam Walton and you’ll learn that this was the one question asked by both men throughout their lives.”

NPR interview with author of 'Gotcha Capitalism'

“Bob Sullivan’s latest book is about the hidden fees found in many phone, cable, credit card and other bills. All told, he says, corporations are nickel-and-diming their customers to death — or at least to the tune of $1,000 or more a year.”

Gapingvoid offers advice to tech businessmen

“To all you corporate MBAs out there, here’s a little tip. When you planning on how to embrace the brave new world of Web 2.0, the first question you ask yourself should not be ‘What tools do I use?’ Blogs, RSS, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook- it doesn’t matter. The first question you should REALLY ask yourself is: ‘How do I want to change the way I talk to people?’”

Steven Pressfield’s “The War of Art”

“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t and the secret is this: it’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.”

Yesterday I got an email from a biz dev guy at a company that syncs data between different applications from different companies.

This was the first line of the email:

I work for an enterprise level integration company that is looking to attack the long tail of the market for point to point integration solutions.

Delete.

Over lunch we were discussing how embarrassing it must be for people to document their college years in such detail in on Youtube, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, etc. What looks fun today likely won’t be tomorrow — especially when looking for work.

So we wondered… Wouldn’t it be cool if you could attach expiration dates to images, blog entries, or anything you put on the web? You could say “in 18 months this picture should be deleted” or “3 years from now delete this blog post.”

I know the Wayback Machine keeps archives of just about everything online, but what if expiration dates were a universal truth? So Wayback, or anything else that records the net, would also obey the expiration date rules. It’s your content—why do we assume it has to live forever?

Anyway, just an idea. We liked it at lunch so I figured we’d put it out there on the blog.

OpenTable
Tony writes:

I was searching around OpenTable and stumbled across their page for prospective restaurateurs. They provide a quick summary and demo of what open table is and how it can benefit your restaurant. I thought this screen/graphic on their pricing page was a great way to communicate the value of their product without naming a price up front.

St. Louis Cardinals seating
Matt Galligan writes:

I was looking at getting my dad St. Louis Cardinal’s tickets for Christmas and happened upon their Seating Chart. It’s really cool, you pick where you are wanting to potentially sit, then click on the actual seat and it shows you a picture of what it will look like from that seat!

Apple survey
Brandon Kelly writes:

I was just at Apple’s support site, and a couple pages in I was invited to take a survey. I clicked ‘Yes’, but rather than being redirected or getting a big pop-up covering the active browser window, the type simply changed to what you see here (“The survey is available under your current browser window. Please wait until after you have completed your visit to take the survey.”). Talk about nonintrusive.

Have an interesting link, story, or screenshot for Signal vs. Noise? Contact svn [at] 37signals [dot] com.

American Idol’s back. That means it’s melisma season again. Melisma is when singers like Mariah Carey (and her wannabes) take one syllable and stretch it out into a run of many notes.

Here’s what Anthony Heilbut, music producer and author of “The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times,” says about the way melisma is used in pop music these days:

Often, there isn’t any musical justification of what they are doing. [Their runs] interfere with the flow of the melody, of the lyric, of the harmonies, sometimes of the rhythm itself. It’s frequently a very vulgar and ugly display. [That’s] the style of American Idol singers, most of whom are amateurs.

Sounds a lot like writers who think that big words will make up for a lack of ideas (or designers who think fancy images are an adequate substitute for meaningful content).

What’s the right way to get a song across? Check out this video of a master class [via MF] conducted by Broadway legend Barbara Cook (her bio).

It’s fascinating for a few reasons. For one thing, the amount of growth she gets from students in just a few minutes is really amazing. (It’s about 20 minutes per student, just watch the first girl if you only want a taste.)

There’s also insight here for writers, presenters, or anyone else who has to communicate with an audience. Some pointers from the class:

1. Communicate directly, be human, and make a real connection with your audience.
2. Merely regurgitating your training is boring and lifeless.
3. Truly be yourself — if you do that, there is no competition.
4. Speak plainly, say it the way you would say it “at the poker table.”
5. Know when to be “faithful to the page” and when to forge your own path.

My favorite part of the Cook video: Around 44:30 in, she whispers in the ear of a student what Irving Berlin really means when he uses the word “kissing” in the lyrics to “What’ll I Do.”

Put Buyers First? What a Concept describes the way Amazon bailed out a reporter after he realized his son’s PlayStation gift had been stolen after being signed for.

The Amazon customer service guy didn’t blink. After assuring himself that I had never actually touched or seen the PlayStation, he had a replacement on the way before the day was out. It arrived on Christmas Eve. Amazon didn’t even charge me for the shipping. My son was very happy. So, of course, was I.

The article goes on to discuss how taking care of customers can be the best way to build a lasting business, even if it comes at the expense of short-term results.

But I couldn’t help wondering if maybe there wasn’t something else at play here, something Wall Street never seems to take very seriously. Maybe, just maybe, taking care of customers is something worth doing when you are trying to create a lasting company. Maybe, in fact, it’s the best way to build a real business — even if it comes at the expense of short-term results.

It is almost impossible to read or see an interview with Mr. Bezos in which he doesn’t, at some point, begin to wax on about what he likes to call “the customer experience.” Just a few months ago, for instance, he appeared on Charlie Rose’s talk show to tout Amazon’s new e-book device, the Kindle. Toward the end of the program, Mr. Rose asked the chief executive an open-ended question about how he spent his time, and Mr. Bezos responded with a soliloquy about his “obsession” with customers.

“They care about having the lowest prices, having vast selection, so they have choice, and getting the products to customers fast,” he said. “And the reason I’m so obsessed with these drivers of the customer experience is that I believe that the success we have had over the past 12 years has been driven exclusively by that customer experience. We are not great advertisers. So we start with customers, figure out what they want, and figure out how to get it to them.”

Anybody who has spent any time around Mr. Bezos knows that this is not just some line he throws out for public consumption. It has been the guiding principle behind Amazon since it began. “Jeff has been focused on the customer since Day 1,” said Suresh Kotha, a management professor at the University of Washington business school who has written several case studies about Amazon. Mr. Miller noted that Amazon has really had only one stated goal since it began: to be the most customer-centric company in the world.

Today I noticed that Ask ET (Edward Tufte’s forum) displays related articles in a very unique way.

People normally use tags to link related posts. If Ask ET used tags in a typical way, a post would look like this:

When you clicked on a tag, you might see a page like this:

This conventional method technically gives you access to the related articles. However there is a problem. You have to click the tag to discover what’s behind it. The Interface design tag in the first screenshot leaves a lot to the imagination. How do you know it’s worth clicking through to a whole ‘nother screen based on that two-word link? Most people wouldn’t bother, and they’d be missing out on good content.

Ask ET uses a totally different approach. Instead of linking to pages for each tag, it simply shows the tagged articles inline. No separate screens. No navigation. It’s a beautifully simple solution.

Click the image to see the actual design full-size:

I love how this layout removes a navigation step and puts the focus on the content. The list of related articles encourages you to wander through the site, like getting lost in Wikipedia. Individual article titles catch your eye. Just by passing over the list on your way to the article you might discover the Interface Hall of Fame/Shame or an article about email communication in the White House.

Sometimes we think we’ve got it all figured out as our websites settle into repeating the same patterns again and again. It’s great to see a fresh takes on a supposedly “solved” problem like how to link related articles.

American Express Publishing is looking for a Web Developer in New York, NY.

Facebook is looking for a Web/Graphic Designer and a User Experience Researcher in Palo Alto, CA.

Netflix is looking for a Senior Interactive Designer in Los Gatos, CA.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky is looking for an Interaction Designer in Boulder, CO.

Alpinist Magazine is looking for an Art Director in Chicago, IL.

Fyreball is looking for an Interaction designer in Seattle, WA.

Hargray Communication is looking for a Web Designer in Hilton Head, SC.

PixelMEDIA is looking for a Senior Front-End Ninja in Portsmouth, NH.

LECTRIC Internetoplossingen is looking for a Front-end Developer in Zaltbommel, The Netherlands.

Threespot Media is looking for a Senior Software Engineer in Washington DC.

You’ll find more jobs at the 37signals Job Board. And don’t forget the Gig Board for projects or temp gigs.

Explaining Highrise can be a challenge since it’s a contact manager, address book, simple CRM, and task manager all rolled together. You really need to see it in action to get it. To that end, we’ve been busy cranking out some videos that show the power and ease of use of Highrise. Check ‘em out:

Highrise introduction video
The HighriseHQ.com home page now features a 1-minute introduction video (upper right of screen). It’s a quick, “aha” clip showing how to use the product. (It also features some nifty zooming and panning courtesy of Camtasia.)

Click to go to HighriseHQ.com and watch intro video.

Highrise Tasks video
We also posted a brief video tour of Highrise Tasks. This video, which is linked from the Tasks blank slate page, focuses on how you can use tasks to get things done.

Click to watch Tasks video.

Highrise Cases video
Lastly, we’ve also added a tour of Highrise Cases. Cases help you keep related notes, files, images, and people together on one screen. This video also doubles as a blank-slate introduction.

Click to watch Cases video.

More videos coming soon. Stay tuned.

Save $10 when you sign up for Highrise

If you haven’t signed up for Highrise yet, here’s an extra incentive: Pick a pay plan and enter HRSVN in the coupon code field on checkout and you’ll save $10 on your first month.