Until very recently, I had no idea what a favicon was. But, upon the recommendation of new media consultant Marshall Kirpatrick (who’s been meeting with the roster of Nemo bloggers as of late), I was told to get one.

A favicon (short for favorites icon) is a 16×16 pixel icon that is associated with a particular webpage. If your browser supports a favicon, it appears in the upper left corner of the URL bar next to the site’s address. The favicon originally got its name from the file favicon.ico that was placed in the root directory of a web server. This would then show up in your display of favorites (bookmarks).

WHY SHOULD YOU GET A FAVICON?

Usability: Favicons help a user quickly find a webpage among multiple browser tabs without having to read the page titles. Also, they make scanning a big list of bookmarks much faster.

Branding Awareness: Favicons assist in making a visual representation of your site to visitors. They also make your site look more professional.

MAKING AND SOURCING FAVICONS

I won’t bore you with the details on how to make and install a favicon. There are tons of really solid tutorials floating around the web including those by Photoshop Support and The Site Wizard.

If you want a fantastic favicon in a hurry or can’t decide on an image to use, don’t fret! There are many great favicon resources:

a. Free Favicon has a nice selection of favicons with great depth and web 2.0 detailing.

b. Genfavicon is a favicon generator that allows you to upload an image to the site, crop it and immediately view the results. Chami offers a similar solution.

d. Faviconize shows off the best favicons from around the internet. The inspiration is endless!

e. Bluejar.com is offering 20 free themed favicon sets.

IN CLOSING

Favicons are one more tool in your branding arsenal with the power to distinguish your website. While favicons alone won’t make your site a force to be reckoned with, they are free and easy to make. Every little bit of branding helps, even if it’s only 16 x 16 pixels of visibility.

It’s not often I come across a major musical artists’ web site and find that I can say to myself - “these guys got it right.” Today I visited John Mayers site and although I’m not a fan of his music the site is a great example of how to get the message across simply and elegantly while giving his fans the ability to interact on many levels. The tie-in with Blackberry is genius too. The Blackberry micro-site just spreads the Meyer messaging and interactivity far and wide by offering exclusive Meyer content - audio, video, pictures and more.

John says “hi.”

John Meyer has a blog and he seems to use it, at least I hope it’s him because the most egregious offense is having someone else blog for you. I’m going to keep checking back on this one. In fact there are multiple blog links on the home page. This one is written by “Scotty” who may be in the band or may be the T-shirt vendor, it’s hard to tell. The blog focuses on the new T-shirts - “A collaboration with Loomstate - a completely organic, sustainable tee. Very limited… We only made 587 of the shirts, each hangtag is hand-numbered.”

And there’s even a place to send in your encore requests for the shows you’ll attend. Customer happy time I reckon. And client happy too, Blackberry made a wise choice sponsoring this musician.

Credit: Mayer web link found on the Mediapost blogs.

First the email in my inbox.

Introducing Keeping Score with Audrey!

Starting this week, TrueCredit’s Newsletter Editor-in-Chief, Audrey O’Dell, brings you a new blog in the Learning Center. Inspired by readers’ questions, Audrey will offer you the scoop on how to get the most out of credit card reward programs and uncover new and different ways to pay off credit cards (debt snowball, anyone?) and that’s only the beginning! Ever wonder how the credit crunch is going to impact you personally? (Maybe it already has!) Whether your mortgage rates will go up or your credit card rate will come down? Ever transfer a credit card balance to another card offering a lower rate—and then been sorry? Or was it a good idea? Read about these credit issues—and more—in Keeping Score with Audrey. It’s just one of the great features TrueCredit brings you to help you manage your credit. Make the TrueCredit Learning Center a regular pitstop on your road to credit health.

Ok I’m interested - I visit Keeping Score With Audrey.

The first thing I notice is the text on the page is left justified so tightly it almost escapes the page but the instant giveaway that this “blog” is not actually a real blog is the simple fact that no one is home. You cannot comment, all you can do is read what is basically an ad for True Credit’s services. You cannot contact anyone, there is no ‘about’ page - who is ‘Audrey,’ does she even exist?

Wait, there’s more - if you attempt to navigate away from this “blog” you receive the following message:

True Credit’s management have made a poor decision here. They clearly do not understand how important authenticity is in the blog world. If they had really done their homework this area of their site would not exist as it stands today. They have broken all the rules of how to reach their customers online.