Choose Your Bicycle!

There  is a lot of noise these days about Web 2.0. Initially, it sounds a little scary, is this some kind of evolution? What’s happening to the current Web?

It is a kind of evolution, quite market-driven. Web 2.0 apps proliferate now, with companies falling over each other to provide users with better ways to collaborate and interact, but more than that, Web 2.0 apps give people more power to place their lives online.

Google is your quintessential Web 2.0 company: it’s all about using the power of Internet technologies to make the online experience more customised and tailored to the individual user. More relevant to their online self, their habits and their interests. Google has incredible banks of information with which to create these customising applications, and of course it is all a part of the business model: targeted advertising.

You’ll see this trend all over the place: Facebook, iGoogle, eBay. So that’s the first characteristic of Web 2.0: offering powerful customisations of experience in exchange for data about preferences (to be used in determining which ads are most likely to elicit a click from you and thus cash for them).

Another major step in the Web 2.0 evolution is the emergence of Rich Internet Applications. These are usually created using AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) or Flash/Flex and allow users to obtain a similar experience within their browser to  using a desktop application. My favourite examples are Google Docs and MindMeister, a mind mapping tool. A great advantage of these applications is that they allow collaboration and portability: one may invite people anywhere around the world to view or edit documents. These often operate on a subscription basis: providing a basic service for free, but charging fees in exchange for really useful features.

Thirdly, Web 2.0 applications are characterised by user control. Users are given unprecedented power to manage their own data and choose how applications work for them. So, Web 2.0 apps - I like IWantSandy.com - are responsive.

Fourthly, Web 2.0 is about interactivity. Largely due to the popularity of social networking, Web 2.0 apps work with each other to deliver content and experiences that are appealing to users. For example, Google has built OpenSocial, an Application Programmer’s Interface (API) for social networking sites. OpenSocial allows developers to write applications or widgets that work across all social networking sites that implement the API. This opens up wonderful possibilities for applications to operate across these normally-closed social networking platforms. A similar idea (although with different implementation - long story) is Widgetbox, which allows you to create a widget(s) that operate almost anywhere on the Net.

Not that Web 2.0 is a utopia: read this blog post about what occurs when there is trouble in interactivity-paradise.

So, Web 2.0 is characterised by:

• customised online experiences;
• rich internet applications;
• unprecedented user control; and
• application interactivity.

Good Resources:

Web 2.0 Apps…

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Don’t Fight The Internet

Web 2.0 Domain Name Generator

As mentioned, I created my web page for module 3 by editing a file directly on the server via SSH. To complete this task, I uploaded my Concepts Project Coversheet to my server instead.

You can find the file here.

Nice and easy.

It’s an interesting fact, but it took me a very long time to even look at blogs because I dislike the word “blog”. There’s something about it that repulses me, I think because I am reminded of bogs, yuck. Nevertheless, I feel that I am over my prejudice against the name, which I now largely ignore.

I remember first hearing about blogs during the Iraq war. The ABC’s AM program ran a story about a blogger in Iraq who developed a large following by reporting on developments as he saw them. Clearly, this blogging thing has the potential to be powerful, thought I.

I didn’t have direct experience with blogs until much later when I started my freelance business. Having just had a baby, and knowing little about the Internet, I started my freelance career at the bottom, writing articles and doing bits and pieces development work through GetAFreelancer.com. Here, I encountered blogging as a means for making pennies through Google Adsense. While some of the blogs I saw were legitimate businesses, providing decent content to an audience (see Consejos de Salud for an example), I also encountered some very seedy practices (Blue Hat SEO, Black Hat SEO (”let your greed meet your imagination”) that scared me considerably until I realised that the Internet is just a microcosm of society. No one forces me to go to Kings Cross, and the same principle applies here: just stay away from bad neighbourhoods.

So, onto more savoury uses of blogs. In my travels, I see them used mainly for business: as means of building a brand, keeping search engines interested, attracting links from other websites and for providing information to customers. None of that is particularly exciting, unless you actually run a business.

I personally enjoy blogs that are written by people who know what they are talking about and who enjoy it themselves. Food blogs are usually good for this reason, I like Have Cake Will Travel and Anthony Bourdain’s Blog.

Last year, when the Haneef business was playing out in the media, I discovered that blogs can give you a voice. I had some things I wanted to say, and found that plenty of other people did, too. By reading and commenting on other people’s blogs, I was able to develop my perspective on the matter and make more informed commentary myself. And checking my logs, it appears the government was keeping an eye on the blogosphere. Andrew Bartlett, who actually has a real blog and not just a Facebook profile, had very many interesting things to say on the Haneef matter.

This poses an interesting question about “democratization” of Web content and the influence that the blogosphere can exert on public events. According to Andrew Bartlett, Australia lags behind the US in accepting citizen journalism through blogs, and frankly, I think there is some basis to this slowness. As Andrew mentions, the crux of the matter is the quality of content: Australians tend towards apathy (at least, we don’t get quite as excited as our U.S. counterparts) when it comes to politics, and perhaps we don’t have a sufficient number of quality political commentators in the blogosphere. It is likely, however, that journalists do consume political blogs to some extent.

For an interesting analysis of how the blogosphere exerts influence on the political domain, I recommend reading The Power and Politics of Blogs, by Drezner and Farrell (2004).

Overall, I’ve enjoyed writing my blog for this subject, although I’ve found it very time consuming and I’ve not participated in other students’ blogs as much as I would have liked. It’s been a great learning tool, to be frank, and I’ve spent many hours consuming material to help me develop and present my ideas. As such, I’ve found the blog format for the learning journal actually far more rewarding that simply writing in a book.

A client of mine was asking me only last week to advise him on how copyright law affects his new website. I pointed him to IP Australia’s web page on copyright as a starting point.

Copyright is free. It protects the original expression of ideas: it does not protect the ideas themselves. Copyright operates automatically from the time it is created and protects works from unauthorised reproduction, publication and communication.

The Copyright Council of Australia (CCA) has published a handy information sheet on creating and publishing on the Internet. The key point is that websites in their entirety are not covered by copyright, but constituent works - graphics, text, and so on - may be. Interestingly, the copyright in these component parts may be owned by different people, and not necessarily by the website owner.

Both the  CCA and IP Australia recommend using a copyright notice to indicate the owner of copyrights within Web content. Within my own websites, I use public domain or attribution (such as GPL or Creative Commons Attribution) licenced images and content.

Using a logo from the Curtin website would constitute a breach of copyright unless permission was expressly granted and attribution was made. Some question surrounds the following statement in Curtin’s Copyright Statement:

Under the “fair dealing” provisions of the Commonwealth of Australia Copyright Act 1968 an individual may make a single copy of a “reasonable portion” of the material on this site without prior permission or payment, provided it is for the purposes of research or study, criticism or review.

The question is whether or not using a logo on an assignment webpage constitutes use for the purpose of research or study, criticism or review. For this assignment, it is unlikely, so using the logo would be ill-advised.

Do you feel that HTML standards are a bit of a pain? A bit like the NSW Foundation Cursive Handwriting style we were forced to emulate in primary school? Perhaps it is an inconvenience, but it can be good for you, too.

Firstly, valid HTML helps to make sure you are understood. Yes, it means that your page is more likely to display properly across a variety of browsers, so your visitors see things the way you wish them to. This is clearly important for conveying your message.

Secondly,  search engine robots (Google, Yahoo and so on) prefer clean code. To be quite frank, it’s best just to give these guys what they want. They’re like the mafia: do things their way and all is well, they’ll look after you. Ignore them, they’ll ignore you (this is actually not so good if you have any desire that people find you). Do you really want to know what happens if you double cross them?

Let’s go a little deeper, though, shall we? The  World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed these standards for certain reasons. The most fundamental of these is “interoperability”, which is the ideal that Web technologies be compatible and that any hardware/software combination will be able to access the Web to work together.

That all sounds quite lovely, but what does it mean? The  W3C is endeavouring to keep the Web safe from being dominated by “proprietary” communication protocols and languages. By publishing “open” standards as it does, the W3C is providing everyone the opportunity to develop or use tools they choose to use on the Web.

It’s my opinion that this is a good thing. The alternative is fragmentation, similar to what is experienced in the software market across the various operating systems. No one wants Microsoft to become the defacto standard on the Web as they have become in the productivity software domain with Office.

So, if you agree that keeping the Web free and open is a good thing, do your bit and keep your code valid.

Below is a screenshot of my first attempt to validate my page.

The missing “alt” tag is a usability problem: the alt tag is meant to provide a description for when the image cannot be loaded by a user’s browser (you see this attribute displayed while an image is loading, too).

The other mistake was that I’d forgotten to close the html tag at the end of the document. Most browsers would just handle this error, but there may be accessibility issues.

I’ve now corrected these errors.

1. Write for a reason

Be clear about your reason for writing before you start. This will help you to actually convey your points to the reader.

Jonathan Cohen, freelance writer, says that  writing must fulfill its purpose, whether that is to inform, entertain or sell.

2. Be concise

Jakob Nielsen is still correct: Web readers DO scan pages rather than read them. Omit unnecessary words and structure your article or post to make it easy for readers to find what they are after.

“Readers expect relevant content online. If they don’t find it quickly, they’ll leave.”  - Kathy Henning

3. Consider your audience

Talk to you readers, not at them. Jakob Neilsen’s maxim that readers hate marketese is certainly still relevant today, yet marketese is rife.

In any article or web page, you are selling something: it may be an idea, a product or a service. You need to pitch whatever it is in words that are meaningful to your audience. Think clearly about the key selling points and present them simply. It’s always important to assume the visitor doesn’t have any prior knowledge, but don’t ever talk down to your readers. Be truthful.

I know how hard this is. We had some issues with our copywriting for CybaSumo.com, and I ended up having to revise the main bullet points in preparation for the alpha launch. I had limited space as a result of the design: each bullet point needed to be a maximum of 35 - 41 characters (depending on the characters used). I can’t tell you how many hours I spent trying to summarise our offering in a meaningful and convincing way. To be frank, it’s very important to know all about your business or ideas before you start (that’s a bit of a business tip first - build your website around your unique selling proposition, it makes your copywriting a lot easier, hahaha).

In my experience it is definitely true that readers do not tolerate unclear text.

My friend Jonathan Cohen, was telling me this week about the importance of “knifing the baby” (ouch, and he did warn me I wouldn’t enjoy the phrase!) when it comes to your online writing. Be your own worst critic.

4. Stay alive - write often.

These days, the Web is alive with sites that are regularly updated. A List Apart’s Mark Bernstein quotes Dan Chan as calling this the Living Web. To be part of it, you should write often. Remember that a living site is only as good as today’s update.

Your writing does not need to be long - write little, but write often. And consistency is the key: once you have a pattern, your readers will appreciate you sticking to it.

5. Be accurate

Before finalising your work, check its accuracy. Readers are looking for credible information, so feed them that and you will find you become authoritative in your field.

References
The Seven Qualities of Highly Successful Web Writing

10 Tips on Writing the Living Web

Five Keys to good web writing

I’ve known how to use the Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) for some years now. I don’t mind it, it’s quite fun to see your thoughts materialise into a graphical representation through the keyboard. I wouldn’t say writing web pages is one of my favourite activities, though, and this is because I care rather more for function than I do for form. This needs a little explaining…

photo © Lukasz Jernas for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike

The purpose of HTML is to describe the structure of a document, and it has some capabilities for controlling the form or presentation of that structure. In this way, HTML shares it’s pedigree with other markup languages such PDF, XML implementations, TeX in the marking up of manuscripts with printers’ instructions.

The formal standard for HTML is now based on XML (eXtensible Markup Language), which is the more rigorous document form. This standard, XHTML, requires that documents be well-formed, with tags correctly nested and closed. This means that XHTML documents can be processed using XML tools rather than a custom HTML parser.

As I mentioned above, HTML has the functionality to influence both document structure and presentation. This can get pretty messy and hard to maintain. Programmers generally like modularity - the separation of concerns - to improve maintainability and reduce duplication of effort. In the case of web applications, it is considered good design practice to separate the data and business rules from the presentation of the data and from the handling of user input (see Model-View-Controller from Wikipedia).

For simple (static) web pages, using Cascading Style Sheets is the best way to separate presentation code from business code, and this is quite sufficient. For more complicated applications using scripting languages such as PHP, template systems (engines) and development frameworks provide a means to separate application code from presentation code. Some examples are Smarty and Zend.

During the last week, I updated my business website, web-ready.com.au. Because I’m not such a fan of design, I found a free CSS based HTML template from Free-CSS.com and ported it to WordPress so I could use it as a WordPress theme.

For the first task for module 3, I took the basic design of my new website and extracted the HTML code from the top part of the page. I then added my business logo into a new div and surrounded it with a link back to my website. The page still uses the style sheet I created for my main site. I used the Linux nano editor on my Debian server to create and edit the HTML file.

I did go through Joe’s tutorial, but thought I might look for some other resources that use the more recent HTML standards and provide a good introduction to CSS as well. I like W3Schools, and tend to use it as my main resource, but I found Dave Raggett’s Guide to be a great introduction to HTML, and it provides links to an advanced tutorial and a CSS tutorial as well.

Generally, I would say that I prefer blogging to writing a page in HTML simply because it is more efficient. The WordPress platform has a decent WYSIWYG editor which saves a good deal of time, although I do regularly use the HTML editor as well. I actually prefer programming websites using PHP and MySQL over both blogging and using HTML: I love the sense of achievement when programming logic proves correct: that’s a buzz for me and will probably always be so.