Google announced today that it has acquired JotSpot.

Guess it wasn’t just me that thought JotSpot was a great app. I used JotSpot Live as an example of good instructive design in the book.

Designing the Obvious was released exactly 7 days ago. Here’s what has happened since then.

- The book became an Amazon bestseller. At one point, it was #18, which put it on the same page as Don’t Make Me Think, the first book I ever read on web usability. I am absolutely thrilled that so many people are recognizing the importance of good experiences and are doing something about it.
- I had my first book signing at MAX 2006, which was a lot of fun. Thanks to all that came out. (Afterwards, the MAX bookstore sold out of the book.)
- I presented a session on user interface design in Flash, which earned a big enough crowd that conference organizers had to do crowd control (the crowd filled the hallway and spilled out into the main room while waiting to get in). Truly surprising.
- Had a second full session this morning.
- Met my amazing editor, Wendy Sharp, and had a great time at dinner with her and my wife, which led to visit to a MySpace.com-hosted party and another bar for a long night of talking and having fun. Who would have figured she and my wife would be instant friends?
- The book was blogged by Seth Godin and Josh Williams, and mentioned by Ryan Carson in the news section of ThinkVitamin. I may be writing an article for them soon.

Best of all, I got to catch up with friends and have yet another fantastic MAX experience. I won’t be forgetting about this week any time soon.

The book is technically about web application design, but if you’re designing something else, Seth Godin, one of my personal heroes, thinks you can read it anyway.

Thanks for the kind words, Seth!

Have you ever noticed that the things with the most hype usually have the least substance? Jurassic Park was like this for me. I know, I know - tons of people love that movie - but for me, it wasn’t nearly worth the hype. Lackluster acting, drama for drama’s sake, weak character development - the list goes on. But this isn’t about Jurassic Park, it’s about Jurassic Park Syndrome.

Hype doesn’t last. It’s good for some key initial sales, but if the product being hyped doesn’t back up the buzz with some serious substance, the hype dies down, people start seeing the truth (and talking about it), and then you’re cooked. Done. Finito.

The problem is that nothing is popular until your friends tell you its popular. So, nothing gets popular until it’s popular enough to get your friends’ attention. How the heck do you get around that?

Tell your story - a good, honest story. Let your popularity grow organically. You’ll get less of those “key initial sales”, but you’ll get a lot more of those “key long-term sales”. You know, the ones that keep you in business.

To promote the new book, Peachpit is now running a contest where you can win a free onesheet review.

onesheet is my new expert review service, where I review a single screen or task in your site or application, in one week, for $1k. The idea is that you can get a fresh perspective and gather some ideas you can use throughout the site or app, not just on the one screen (or task).
This time, it’s free. You just need to write in 200 words or less why you think your site should win.

So head on over to www.peachpit.com/onesheet and enter!