Search results (tags) for: "sean flannagan"

About Us: Sean a.k.a. sean11

2009-06-12T13:22:00-05:00

Sean works on the Product Team, developing new site features. Right now he's focusing on the shopping experience. As many of his colleagues point out, Sean has an absolute passion for user experience, product management and design. Perhaps even more impressively, he can clearly explain dry computer-y stuff and make it really interesting.

Fun Facts:

He consumes vast quantities of mints.
He's a foodie, but Lauren notes that he doesn't know how to cook.
He didn't like his lab coat photo so we combined it with his avatar photo!
Sean's obsessed with Rhode Island history and hosts RI birthday parties (evidence!). Sean and Vanessa are the two Admin who share Rhode Island roots.
Played for a straight-edge hardcore band and published a straight-edge hardcore fanzine in high school. No longer straight-edge; now really interested in Belgian beer. KC confirms Sean's love for witbiers.
He's a former wannabe graffiti artist and claims to have skateboarded with Shepard Fairey in his youth. Anda comments that he practices graffiti all over his notebooks, though she can't vouch for his skater skillz because she's never seen him skate.
First concert: Verbal Assault (a Newport, RI hardcore band), afternoon matinee, age 13. Sean sang for a hardcore punk band called Non-Conformity in the eighth grade.
His favorite TV series is The Sandbaggers.
He thinks public data should be put to good use.
KC notes that he refuses to use iTunes to listen to his music.
Sean is big into old-time comics and spent formative years in cartooning classes at RISD. He vaguely looks like a Chris Ware character, according to Alison.
He loves books and notebooks (evidence!).
His father has the largest handlebar moustache in Rhode Island and possibly the East Coast.
He's been a vegetarian (or rather pescetarian) since age 13.
His Etsy username is sean11 because 11 is his "life path number" in numerology.
He's seen almost every movie shot in New York City in the 1970s and thinks all the best music was made in that decade.
Jen points out his Nike sneaker fetish. Pete says, "He started wearing Nikes on Fridays and then extended it to other days of the week as he became more 'casual.'"
Before Etsy, he worked for the 92nd Street Y.
He has an endearing habit of rubbing his hands together.
Sean is on a mission to visit and document every island in Narragansett Bay (there are 30).
Lauren found a college class that uses his blog as a reference for how to create good wireframes.
Self-proclaimed Big Nerd!

Sean submitted this as an awkward photo, but we think it's pretty rad:

Sean used to compete in breakdancing competitions in the '80s. Again, pretty rad:

Baby Sean sees his first wireframe:

And one more cute one, for good measure:

Etsy has had quite a growth spurt recently and we have the awkward pictures to prove it. We've been posting a series of About Us pieces to help you get to know the Etsy admin (and since many of us work remotely, for the admin to get to know each other!). You've seen the admin badge, and maybe you're a bit curious about the person behind it! For more on Etsy's mission and about the company, please see our About page (the link is in the little blue footer of every Etsy page).

Some favorite shops below...

Tech Update: Bookmark and Share

2008-12-30T17:00:00-05:00

UPDATE 11/5/09: Sharing is back! Look for our better, stronger, faster share module on item listing pages, shop pages and public favorites pages. With it you can easily share Etsy pages on Facebook, Twitter, Kaboodle, Tumblr or StumbleUpon.

UPDATE 10/27/09: This feature has been disabled temporarily. Learn more here.

Now on every item listing page, shop page and Etsy blog post, you can use pre-installed social bookmarking options to share and spread the cool stuff you find on Etsy. Whether you're into Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook, MySpace, Google Bookmarks, Kaboodle, Stylehive, Delicious, ThisNext or Digg, we've got you covered.

Look for the link that says "Bookmark and share" at the bottom of blog posts like this one or under Page Tools on item listing pages and shop pages:

Click it to pop open a box with options and start sharing!

Social bookmarking and social shopping sites are web tools people use to keep track of items—be it news headlines or things they want to buy or just point out to their friends. Which one of these social bookmarking sites is right for you? It's your call. They're all a little bit different, and you can always use different accounts to suit your different purposes. We've done some posts on these tools here on the Etsy blog, which might help you get started.

If you're in the know, post in the comments below with your tips!

Tech Updates: Etsy Shopper Survey Results & Payment Enhancements

2008-12-18T17:45:00-05:00

A big thank-you to everyone who took our brief Shopper Survey! We've been working on a number of important payments-related enhancements and your feedback is critical. These surveys are a fast and efficient way to get structured feedback from many of you; they complement our usability testing, traffic analyses and financial metrics.

We wanted to share some of the results of this survey with you:

In the five days that the survey was offered, we received close to 3,000 responses from shoppers throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom, Australia, Argentina, Aruba, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Thailand! Clearly, the Etsy community is global, and one of our follow-up surveys in the New Year will focus more on international buyers and sellers.

PayPal was the overwhelming current preferred method of payment, with 90% of respondents preferring to log in directly to PayPal to make purchases, rather than to not log in and use a credit card processed by PayPal (PayPal calls this 'Guest Checkout').

In response to our question about future methods of payment, PayPal was also the winner by a 40% margin over the other possibilities presented: credit cards processed by Etsy, credit cards processed by PayPal, Direct Debit, Google Checkout and Amazon Payments.

Etsy's site search was the number-one way respondents said they find items on Etsy. As noted recently by VP of Product Management Sara Hicks, we're working hard to make improvements so stay tuned. Browsing categories and Favorites were the next most popular ways to find items on Etsy.

Speaking of Favorites, 95% of respondents said they actively add items to their Favorites and 50% said they add items to their Favorites almost every time they visit Etsy. 75% of respondents said they regularly purchase items they've added to their Favorites. We knew Favorites were important and this was a welcome confirmation.

We also received many thoughtful responses to the open-ended survey questions about Etsy's current checkout process and overall shopping experience. The responses ran the gamut from "Everything is amazing!" to "It's terrible! Fix it!" Many respondents said they found the jump to PayPal during checkout confusing at first. We're going to be incorporating Etsy branding into the PayPal checkout pages linked from Etsy to lessen the confusion experienced by some new buyers.

And as noted last month by CEO Maria Thomas, we're going to be offering sellers the option to pay their Etsy bill using PayPal in the coming weeks. These enhancements are a small part of a comprehensive look at all payments processes on Etsy. Improving the checkout process and shopping experience on Etsy is one of our major focus projects for 2009.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the survey. We're reading and listening and putting your constructive feedback to work.

ps
If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

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Etsy Shopper Survey

2008-11-25T19:01:00-05:00

Attention Shoppers!

We want to make the shopping experience better on Etsy and we need your help. We value your input and would love to gain some insight into your experience of Etsy's current checkout process, how you find what you want to buy, and how you prefer to pay for your purchases.

If you've ever purchased on Etsy, please take our brief Shopper Survey. It'll take three minutes! This survey will only be live until Sunday night, November 30, 2008, so please don't delay!

UPDATE: The survey is now closed. Thanks for participating!

Tech Updates: Freshening Up the Front Page

2008-11-19T11:00:00-05:00

We're excited to announce that enhancements to the front page are now live! We've freshened things up a bit and rearranged some things but no major functionality has changed. The enhancements were mentioned recently in CEO Maria Thomas's article.

What's new?

Categories are now higher up on the left side of the page to help buyers find what they're looking for. You asked for this and we listened.
Items from Gift Guides are now highlighted on the upper left, and you can scroll through listings by clicking the arrows to the left and right. We expect over time to use this space as a promotional area for a variety of things, not just Gift Guides—so stay tuned.
Colors, Treasury, Pounce, Time Machine 2 and Editors' Picks from our blog are now listed under 'Explore' on the left side of the page. You can click 'Explore' for more ways to shop. Geolocator and Time Machine haven't gone away—all the ways to shop Etsy can be found fully functioning through our Buy page.
And our front-page promotional banners, including those for the Main Showcase and this week's Gift Ideas Showcase, have a fresh new look.

We're constantly working to improve based on your feedback, so let us know what you think in this forum thread! We'll close commenting on this post so we can keep feedback in one place.

Tech Updates: Tell a Friend

2008-11-17T15:45:00-05:00

Now it's easier than ever to spread the word about cool items you find on Etsy. When you find an item that you can't resist sharing with friends, make sure you're signed in to Etsy and then click the 'Tell a friend' link under 'page tools' on the right of any listing page. You'll be taken to a form that looks like this:

Enter the email addresses of up to 10 friends separated by commas, customize the subject line, personalize your message and click 'Send.' Your friends will receive an email that looks like this:

If they use a web-based email service like Gmail that displays HTML, they'll see a thumbnail image of the item and a summary of the item description along with your personalized message. If their email client doesn't display images, they'll see a plain-text version with a link to the item page. The email your friends receive will come directly from the email address you have saved on file in your Etsy account info. Your friends will be able to reply to the email and continue discussing the item directly with you.

We will only use the email addresses you provide for Tell a Friend for the Tell a Friend service. See our Privacy Policy for details on how we protect your personal information and feel free to contact us with any questions. Recipients of Tell a Friend emails will always have the option to opt out of receiving future Tell a Friend emails.

Try it out with these great items below or items in your Favorites!

We closed commenting on this post so we can consolidate responses in this forum thread.

Tech Updates: Favorites in Your Shopping Cart

2008-11-14T10:05:00-05:00

Attention shoppers!

We heart hearts, so as mentioned in CEO Maria Thomas's article last week, we've decided to share the love in a very important corner of the site: checkout. Now, as you begin the checkout process, you can dip into your Favorites and add them to your Cart.

After signing in, look right below your Cart under the checkout button for the last three available items you added to your Favorites:

Click the 'Add to Cart' button on the items in your Favorites to add them to your Cart right away! Want another look before you buy? Click the item images to peruse the listing pages again.

Or, if you decide you can't buy an item then and there, you can move items from your Cart to your Favorites, rather than removing them and forever losing track of the cool stuff you've found—just click the 'Move to Favorites' link next to the items in your Cart. Later, you can come back to your Favorites and purchase when the time is right. But be warned: we all know the sadness of passing on that one-of-a-kind item when we had the chance and finding it sold when we return!

More improvements to the checkout process are in the works—stay tuned.

Thank you for supporting indie artists and crafters this holiday season and beyond. We hope this makes your Etsy shopping experience more convenient!

See more Tech Updates about site features.

Tech Updates: Bringing Favorites to the Forefront

2008-11-04T17:04:00-05:00

You may have noticed some small changes to Etsy's header (also known as the global navigation) at the top of every page. As mentioned in CEO Maria Thomas's article yesterday, we've been making some adjustments:

The link for Alchemy, the space on Etsy where buyers can post requests for custom items, has been changed to 'Custom' to make it clearer to potential buyers that they can request custom items. The feature is still named Alchemy; we've just changed the word on the navigation link to more clearly describe the function of the feature.
Links for 'Login' and 'Logout' have been changed to 'Sign In' and 'Sign Out.'
The link for Invite a Friend, formerly on the upper right, has been removed. You can still get there through the Referrals page inside Your Etsy.
And most importantly, when you're signed in to Etsy, a link to your Favorites appears next to your Cart on the upper left.

The Favorites function on Etsy is an important one. It enables buyers and sellers to keep track of the stuff they like and discover what others like, too. By keeping track of your friends' Favorites or your favorite sellers' Favorites (look for the RSS feed on your friend's Favorite Sellers page), you can make some amazing discoveries. We're working on new ways to harness the power of members' Favorites and all the hearting and curating that takes place across the Etsy community every day. In the meantime, we wanted to make it easier for you to get to your Favorites.

Happy hunting!

-Sean, aka sean11, Etsy admin on the Product Team

Etsy Find that features Favorites of Favorites | TechUpdates

Commenting has been closed on this post because we'd like to follow your comments and feedback in this forum thread.

Etsy Finds: Mini-Comics!

2008-08-30T10:00:00-05:00

Sean Flannagan, aka sean11, is a new hire to the Etsy product team. Welcome, Sean!

I've had a love affair with independent comics since grade school, when my mother took away my prized collection of Robert Crumb books and consequently made weird comic art even more desirable. These days I enjoy hunting for the next comics genius on Etsy. cartooncarolyn of Curls Studio has some great mini-comics for sale, including this one about something a lot of us wish we had: a Printable Brain.

Need a daily fix of Etsy Finds? Sign up for the Etsy Finds e-mail! Conveniently delivered to your inbox on the daily!