We’ve just launched our brand spanking new, responsive website at sayyeah.com. Previously, we were fully reliant on Tumblr, with a single desktop template, and Tumblr’s default mobile template, which had about as much personality as you’d expect from grey text on a white background.

Now with the new sayyeah.com, we’ve accounted for high resolution 20″ wide browser windows with some generally off-screen easter eggs, and addressed layout considerations across everything from 1024 pixel wide browser windows to landscape or portrait tablets, all the way down to smartphones. And we’ve designed different custom layouts for both the marketing site and our new Tumblr theme for the blog, including on mobile.

We’re excited to see how this move to responsive design captures the interest of visitors across the myriad devices that are out there.

In the meantime, Luke Wroblewski’s pulled together a handful of statistics based on responsive redesigns for Time Inc, O’Neill Clothing, and Skinny Ties.

Highlights

Time Inc has seen mobile views increase 26% while the mobile bounce rate has decreased by 26%. Together, that’s fantastic.

O’Neill has seen a 65.7% conversion rate increase on iPhone/iPod, accounting for 101.2% revenue growth.

And Skinny Ties has seen a 71.9% conversion rate increase on the iPhone, accounting for 377.6% revenue growth.

More details, including Android and non-mobile stats on Luke’s article.

This all looks promising, but Luke is quick to note that it’s only three sites:

If you’ve had success with a responsive design, my plea to you is to please share what you’ve learned. The more we can learn from each other, the better we can all get.

If you’ve got any numbers to share about your recent move to responsive site design, we’d love to hear from you at hello@sayyeah.com.

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If you’re sketching iPhone apps on graph paper, a good aspect ratio for the iPhone 4 is 8×12 squares, and the iPhone 5 is 8×14.

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If you haven’t downloaded the app yet, you’re missing out on the best insider’s guide to Toronto spots, shops, and news. Grab it from the app store! (Or sign up here to be notified when the Android version is released.)

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Khoi shares some particular insight into the market, in comparing the initial iPad app, which was highly immersive, but much less viral than needed to drive success.

Users of Mixel for iPad spent a lot of time in the app, and those numbers were consistently outperforming our benchmark category in the App Store.

But over time it became apparent that the usage patterns for the iPad are very different than for iPhone, at least at this stage of the device’s evolution. By and large, people leave their iPads at home — they don’t take them to work — so it’s really difficult to get someone to engage with the network during the course of the day. You lose tons of opportunities to get him or her to interact with their graph, and that’s basically like starvation for a new social network.

And on the subject of users spending time with their device to craft something, and how this relates to building a mainstream audience:

Mixel for iPad tended to be pretty involved and, to our regret, required you to really work at it. It also became much more about creating art than we intended, and that resulted in a somewhat self-selecting user base. Mixel for iPhone, on the other hand, is so simple anyone can make a collage as you walk down the street. Anyone. The app does the hard work of making you look great.

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Shared Memories

I’m really excited about seeing apps where multiple users can stitch together shared memories. Mixel talks about combining collages with friends (“Your friends can add on to your collage!”), but it’s really just adding a comment to an existing collage in the form of a collage of your own, not making group collages.

I’d love to see Mixel go the Vyclone route, where you can see your friend’s photos taken in the same time and place as you and stitch together a view of the event from everyone’s perspective. In Vyclone’s case, they use video’s from multiple sources to automatically edit together one minute scenes.

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Also a great way for the ladies to participate without gluing fur on their face!

Here’s how our Movember wallpaper looks in action:

Download the full sized wallpaper from flickr here or by clicking on the images above.

UPDATE: If you don’t have an iPhone, here’s a version without the black bars which will hopefully be more suited to your phone.

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When I walked into Startup Weekend Toronto on Friday evening, I had a simple goal – team up with some old & new friends, deny myself sleep, and build something cool. And that’s exactly what happened.

In 30 hours, Satish Kanwar, Nate Garvie, Brian Gilham, Tony Wallace, Darren Butcher & myself put together the foundation for Task Ave, an iPhone application that reminds you what you need to do when you’re in the area that you need to do it.

The idea sprouted Friday night over dinner. Satish and myself were chatting about ideas. I mentioned that I would love to build something that would remind me to get batteries when I’m at Canadian Tire, because I’m always forgetting to pick up things while I’m out.

Satish was immediately on-board, and within minutes he had come up with great ideas for our name and tagline.

I pitched the idea to the Startup Weekend crowd and we got some interest and great feedback. We assembled the beginnings of our team, two designers, a developer, a business specialist and an enthusiastic student. At this point we lacked the key ingredient of an iPhone developer, but undeterred, we went home to rest up for the big weekend of planning and building that lay ahead.

Saturday morning we hit the Ryerson POD building, still unsure how we were going to build an iPhone app without an iPhone developer. Not 10 minutes into the day, we were approached by Tony. The conversation went something like this.

Tony: I’m Tony, I wasn’t here last night, but I’m a developer, do you need any help on your team?

Us: Hi Tony, we would love an iPhone developer.

Tony: That’s my specialty.

Us: We love you.

In the hours that followed, we focused on building the minimum viable product for Task Ave.

We sketched out the workflows & wireframes, researched geo-location & mapping and created business & marketing models.

After working hard all day at Ryerson, we took off to the Jet Cooper office and settled into a full night of caffeine & pizza fueled work. By morning we had accomplished quite a bit, including,

• A complete application UI, logo, website, and marketing materials;
• A prototype of the iPhone app, connected to a fully featured REST API (that Brian is very proud of);
• A business model, slide deck and testimonials.

We spent Sunday morning perfecting our pitch and trying to stay awake. The day flew by and suddenly it was time to present. We were last up to the stage, and the competition was stiff.

Some of the great pitches included,

• N20: Need Second Opinion, an iPhone app that connects doctors who need second opinions on patient care to other doctors who can offer them their expertise.
• RateHub, a virtual mortgage broker that helps people find and negotiate the best mortgage rate possible.
• Schedify, a scheduling Web app that takes the hassle out of creating and managing restaurant (and other retail) employee scheduling.
• Vuru, a Web application for value investing that saves people time and makes them money.
• Styllist, a website that allows people to hunt for stylish clothing online, and connects them to the local boutiques that sell the clothing.

Most likely to change the world: N20: Need Second Opinion

• Congrats to Sean, Mark and the whole team!

Honorable Mention: Styllist

• Congrats to Miki & Sunir!

Third Place: RateHub

• Congrats to Alyssa the RateHub team!

Second Place: Schedify

• Congrats to Gabriel and the Schedify team!

Winner: Task Ave

• Hooray!

The whole team is ecstatic that we won. We put in a ton of hard work in 30 hours, and loved every minute of it.

We hit up the after party at Black Moon Bar with the other teams to celebrate the huge success that was Startup Weekend.

In the past 24 hours, Task Ave has received a ton of great support and feedback from the community. You guys are seriously awesome. We’re going to push hard to get Task Ave finished and out to you. The weekend may be over, but the fun has just begun.

I want to thank the organizers, Chris Eben, Karthik Soravanahalli & Ahmed Badruddin for doing a great job on the event. These guys put in a ton of work with the Ryerson voulenteers to ensure that Startup Weekend was a huge success. Thanks again!

If you’re interested in learning more about Task Ave, checkout our slide deck over at SlideShare. You can also contact any of us on Twitter, we’d love to talk!

One last shout out to the Task Ave team, Satish Kanwar, Nate Garvie, Brian Gilham, Tony Wallace & Darren Butcher. You guys are awesome!

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