Funny, prior to reading "In the plex", a book about the breif history of Google, I really didn't "get" the concept of the cloud. It wasn't a technical thing...that part I understand. In fact, my argument was that the cloud didn't really exist as a separate entity from the internet itself. After all, Hotmail is a premium example of cloud computing and its been around since the internet was powered by kerosene.
But the eureka moment I got from In the plex was that because Google's revenue is based on ads, everything they do must get people both online (point #1), more on line (point #2) and get them to process stuff faster (point #3).
Point #1
Here's where I see Google taking down pure play communication providers. What is to stop Google from offering WiMax? Money and political clout (to get Governments to sell them spectrum). So, like done and done. Well, perhaps it will take time, but its a given Google will get there. With no obstacle to getting online (in Canada the obstacle is huge - minimum of $50/month for internet alone. They just rules out a huge swath of people.) people will get online.
Point #2
Building on point #1 (i.e. my laptop goes online the second WiMax is introduced, but my other devices follow in about a nanosecond), there is a need to move more business processing to the cloud. The reality is that an office worker will spend more time on line than a truck driver. Can we get that truck driver to work out of an office somehow? And for those already online, can more of what they do be done via the cloud? Google has its equivalent of Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Those are a good start, but what about everything else? Can you do CAD/CAM? HMI? ATMs? Where is the line drawn where one could realistically say that everything is now on the cloud?
Point #3
I used Google spreadsheets back in ye olden days and it was slow. And honestly, it still kinda sucks relative to Excel (my opinion). Google's spreadsheet application can't just be as fast as Excel. It has to beat Excel in every category. Moving your cursor needs to be faster. Copy/paste - faster. Creating formulas, way faster. In fact, if there were simply technology limits of cloud computing relative to cursor movement and copy/paste, then the creating formulas thing becomes 'the key' - what can Google do to make creating formulas either more intuitive, or a thing of the past. Can I enter a value in a cell and instantly get suggested spreadsheets I might otherwise want to create? I know everyone thinks they have a highly specific need they are trying to fulfill, but the reality is that's not true. An office worker in Stockholm who needs to manage training rooms has the exact problem that an office worker in New York has. Why do both have to go through the same pains? Why can't Google interject and see that the second guy is trying to do what the first guy did and say - "Are you trying to do this?". Bingo...I just typed a few pieces of info into my spreadsheet, and its already done. We have something like that today with the concept of templates, but that is part of a dinosaur era. Templates are a human's interpretation of how to get tasks accomplished. We need a machine interpreted way of doing it. When Google asks "Are you trying to do this" it is not necessarily taking the existing spreadsheet and letting the second guy edit it. Instead, Google is interpreting the original spreadsheet and determining the best way to implement it for the second guy, knowing what Google knows about the second guy. Maybe Google can't figure out 100% of the business processes of the second guy, but Google can surely format the header and footer to look exactly as the second guy would make them. Not necessarily a big deal, but time saved nonetheless. And what if Google could figure out how to follow the second guy's business practices. Maybe that's not possible in the first spreadsheet, but after a while, when the second guy always shows a subtotal then a final total multiplied by 14%, Google could do that automatically.
And that's the trivial part. The tough part is getting all the other forms of computer software on the cloud. Music. Videos (well, done I guess), Games, Chat, etc. Of all of those, Games deserve special mention. They are addicitive and require huge system resources. The top-of-the-heap problem. There is a belief that HTML5 will save the day. I'm none-too-sure about that. I think this is a bigger problem than people think. But it is being done, so...hopefully. And when I say "game" I mean the real stuff, like Call of Duty, not Angry Birds. Angry Birds is a pacman moment in our history. A game where we'll look back and say remember when it was so easy to make games for computers? Them days are going away.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Monday, January 11, 2010
21 Ways to make a successful web (site/presence/project) (aka. the Web 2.0 contract)
I starting to think the idea really doesn't matter. I'm seeing "big" looking sites for time tracking and project management. These aren't new ideas. What is new-ish is the formula used to build the site.
1. A title/entry page. Google kinda started this, but Facebook and Linkedin were the ones I thought really did this big time. Facebook let you do exactly nothing before logging in. Surprisingly, this is true today for Twitter, but even more surprisingly for Brizzly, the twitter client. I say surprisingly, because Brizzly must lose a ton of traffic due to the requirement to sign up first. I could be wrong (hence this list of observations).
2. The title page contains an embedded video explaining how to use the site. If a picture speaks a thousand words, then it gets tricky to count how many words a thousand pictures speak (I guess 1000x1000).
3. The video is slick. There are no "ums" or "ahs" in the spoken text. And the video is invariably a screencast of the site in use. These is often background music looping at a much lower volume than the speaker.
4. Fun colors: by this I mean people are not using harsh green and purple combo's anymore. Sites now look like either a "colorist" helped out, or they picked a color then went to a site like Color Scheme Designer 3to find complimentary colors.
5. Rounded corners - they still exist, and they are not going anywhere. This appears to be a standard.
6. Signin/support of OAuth, OpenID, etc. Its an effective (and free) way to communicate that the site is on the up and up. Being an OAuth provider is also a service a site provides to its users (albeit a pretty minor one).
7. An API - Flickr is a great example of this. An API for a site that hosts pictures. Seriously. If they can add an API, anyone can. Twitter's API is fantastically intricate for 140 char messages.
8. Takes an existing simple idea and adds a new whistle. Brizzly is a great example. Its not much of a site to be honest. But the naysayers will have a difficult time bringing it down given it does so much of the items on this list well. Praized is a great example as well.
9. The title page makes three key points. I've seen this pattern a few times. The point of the "points" is less standard than the fact they exist. Photobucket, 88miles, etc.
10. There is a noticable lack of advertising. On the title page, ads are not shown. Within the site, ads are usually not shown. I have still no idea how these sites pay for themselves.
11. There is precious little time devoted to the kind of SEO stuff I've seen work in the past. Not sure if that is a path to success or an oversite, but you rarely see things like keywords in a site's title, or a meta-description used as the alt tag of a prominent image in the site.
12. Cute graphics. See Twitter, Brizzly, Fire eagle...all oh so cute. The point is that the cuteness is an icebreaker. Spend a couple days on "friendly-ing-up" the site, and people will respond.
13. It doesn't hurt to have visitors see that there are already people using the API via an applications gallery. In other words "See? We're so successful, look at how many people are using our service!" Of course, the "gallery" contains apps that were either developed internally, or by very close friends. Again, I cite Twitter and Brizzly. Do a reference check on those respective site owners and see how far back their relationship extends.
14. Full width title area and footer, and two columns centered for the content. This is very consistent. Occassionally the center is three mini-columns to show the "three points".
15. The footer mini-sitemap. This is still very common. You see this on big sites like Youtube.com and Digg.com. Its also on Meetup.com.
16. Still with Meetup, the point of the site should make people look and say, "well this is an obvious idea". Because if it is obvious, then you should obviously use it.
17. Testamonials don't hurt. This isn't consistent across the board, but often sites will refer to popsitive press they've received from majors news orgs like Wall St. Journal, CNN, etc. I guarantee you could reproduce this effect either by managing 3 websites yourself (and providing cross-testamonials) or getting three friends to "testify" to the greatness of your site.
18. Gradients are still everywhere. As are drop shadows. Agree2 is a good example. Subtle, but shadows and graidents are there. Actually, Agree2 fails on a couple of other fronts: they show 4 points instead of 3, and they have a link to their video instead of embedding it in the title page. Huge flaws....
19. Web 1.0 carry-overs still exist. Sites still have the privacy and terms pages. There is still about, contact us, we're hiring.
20. Somebody with skills made the logo. This is fairly consistent. The logo would be good on a business card or hat. Only Smugmug really, really deviates from this idea.
21. Many (if not all) have a search facility on the main site. Quite a few are not powered by Google, which I find odd.
1. A title/entry page. Google kinda started this, but Facebook and Linkedin were the ones I thought really did this big time. Facebook let you do exactly nothing before logging in. Surprisingly, this is true today for Twitter, but even more surprisingly for Brizzly, the twitter client. I say surprisingly, because Brizzly must lose a ton of traffic due to the requirement to sign up first. I could be wrong (hence this list of observations).
2. The title page contains an embedded video explaining how to use the site. If a picture speaks a thousand words, then it gets tricky to count how many words a thousand pictures speak (I guess 1000x1000).
3. The video is slick. There are no "ums" or "ahs" in the spoken text. And the video is invariably a screencast of the site in use. These is often background music looping at a much lower volume than the speaker.
4. Fun colors: by this I mean people are not using harsh green and purple combo's anymore. Sites now look like either a "colorist" helped out, or they picked a color then went to a site like Color Scheme Designer 3to find complimentary colors.
5. Rounded corners - they still exist, and they are not going anywhere. This appears to be a standard.
6. Signin/support of OAuth, OpenID, etc. Its an effective (and free) way to communicate that the site is on the up and up. Being an OAuth provider is also a service a site provides to its users (albeit a pretty minor one).
7. An API - Flickr is a great example of this. An API for a site that hosts pictures. Seriously. If they can add an API, anyone can. Twitter's API is fantastically intricate for 140 char messages.
8. Takes an existing simple idea and adds a new whistle. Brizzly is a great example. Its not much of a site to be honest. But the naysayers will have a difficult time bringing it down given it does so much of the items on this list well. Praized is a great example as well.
9. The title page makes three key points. I've seen this pattern a few times. The point of the "points" is less standard than the fact they exist. Photobucket, 88miles, etc.
10. There is a noticable lack of advertising. On the title page, ads are not shown. Within the site, ads are usually not shown. I have still no idea how these sites pay for themselves.
11. There is precious little time devoted to the kind of SEO stuff I've seen work in the past. Not sure if that is a path to success or an oversite, but you rarely see things like keywords in a site's title, or a meta-description used as the alt tag of a prominent image in the site.
12. Cute graphics. See Twitter, Brizzly, Fire eagle...all oh so cute. The point is that the cuteness is an icebreaker. Spend a couple days on "friendly-ing-up" the site, and people will respond.
13. It doesn't hurt to have visitors see that there are already people using the API via an applications gallery. In other words "See? We're so successful, look at how many people are using our service!" Of course, the "gallery" contains apps that were either developed internally, or by very close friends. Again, I cite Twitter and Brizzly. Do a reference check on those respective site owners and see how far back their relationship extends.
14. Full width title area and footer, and two columns centered for the content. This is very consistent. Occassionally the center is three mini-columns to show the "three points".
15. The footer mini-sitemap. This is still very common. You see this on big sites like Youtube.com and Digg.com. Its also on Meetup.com.
16. Still with Meetup, the point of the site should make people look and say, "well this is an obvious idea". Because if it is obvious, then you should obviously use it.
17. Testamonials don't hurt. This isn't consistent across the board, but often sites will refer to popsitive press they've received from majors news orgs like Wall St. Journal, CNN, etc. I guarantee you could reproduce this effect either by managing 3 websites yourself (and providing cross-testamonials) or getting three friends to "testify" to the greatness of your site.
18. Gradients are still everywhere. As are drop shadows. Agree2 is a good example. Subtle, but shadows and graidents are there. Actually, Agree2 fails on a couple of other fronts: they show 4 points instead of 3, and they have a link to their video instead of embedding it in the title page. Huge flaws....
19. Web 1.0 carry-overs still exist. Sites still have the privacy and terms pages. There is still about, contact us, we're hiring.
20. Somebody with skills made the logo. This is fairly consistent. The logo would be good on a business card or hat. Only Smugmug really, really deviates from this idea.
21. Many (if not all) have a search facility on the main site. Quite a few are not powered by Google, which I find odd.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Suitener
Time to shift gears.
Suitener is a project I've been working on for a few weeks. The idea is pretty simple: you have an audience of people trying to build backlinks to their articles to increase exposure. Suitener helps the community do just that, and build momentum via search engines as well. Its an SEO no-brainer.
As well, it ties in nicely with Boostpost. Suitener has an EVB, which allows site owners to link to their Suite101.com articles with a "resweet" button. Tres cool.
Suitener
Suitener is a project I've been working on for a few weeks. The idea is pretty simple: you have an audience of people trying to build backlinks to their articles to increase exposure. Suitener helps the community do just that, and build momentum via search engines as well. Its an SEO no-brainer.
As well, it ties in nicely with Boostpost. Suitener has an EVB, which allows site owners to link to their Suite101.com articles with a "resweet" button. Tres cool.
Suitener
Sunday, November 22, 2009
I'm becoming a huge Pligg Fan
(And in an unrelated note, a huge NOT fan of IE8 and Windows7...but that can be for another post)
Pligg.com is an open source Digg clone software package that is super easy to set up, and lets you get a Digg clone running quickly. About the only real challenge is working on your own template, which is something I have to do yet myself.
But here's why I'm such a fan:
Remember radio? It was cool and you could listen to all kinds of things on it, from news, to music, to live hockey games, etc. What made it so accepted was the range of options you had. You could listen to a station you liked, and if it was playing something you didn't like, you could change the station.
Well, Digg.com is a kind of radio. Or more accurately, its a radio station. The concept Digg introduced is the radio. But the problem that Pligg fixes is that a radio is kinda useless if there's only one radio station. What Pligg enables is a world of opportunities where Digg clone sites can sprout up for specific niches. For example, Squidoo.com is a place where people write how-to articles. SquidUp.org is the Pligg-based site which allows Squidoo readers to know more about which articles are popular, and to participate in determining that popularity. I see this type of model applied to things like geographic locale, newspapers, and even smaller groups like band fans, or - my classic example - zombie fans. Digg for zombie fans...its such a natural fit. I'm kind-of joking, but the point is, there are many ways to interpret an internet posting. Digg asks readers "Do you like (dig) this?". The Zombie site might ask "How appealing would this post be for a dead person who has risen from the grave?" Niche sites could ask:
"How cold is this?"
"How hot is this?"
"How picturesque is this?"
"How does this sound?"
"Do you think the article accurately supports the xzy political agenda?"
And on and on.
Already, Pligg sites have surfaced which have begun this process of reaching out to serve a niche audience. SquidUp is a great example of this. But so too is BizSugar, a site devoted to small and mid-sized businesses. And there are many, many more.
At Boostpost, the aim is to help publishers increase the readership of their work by giving audiences a chance to spread the post across those vertical lines - or radio stations. The benefit of an extra Digg vote may pale in comparsion to being added to BlogEngage. And for Pligg site owners, Boostpost offers a tremendous opportunity to expand their audiences. You never know how many zombie fans there are out there!
Reference Material:
http://www.boostpost.com/createaservice.php
http://www.pligg.com/gallery/
http://pligg2u.com/
http://digg.com/
http://www.squidoo.com/
http://squidup.org/
http://blogengage.com/
http://www.bizsugar.com
Pligg.com is an open source Digg clone software package that is super easy to set up, and lets you get a Digg clone running quickly. About the only real challenge is working on your own template, which is something I have to do yet myself.
But here's why I'm such a fan:
Remember radio? It was cool and you could listen to all kinds of things on it, from news, to music, to live hockey games, etc. What made it so accepted was the range of options you had. You could listen to a station you liked, and if it was playing something you didn't like, you could change the station.
Well, Digg.com is a kind of radio. Or more accurately, its a radio station. The concept Digg introduced is the radio. But the problem that Pligg fixes is that a radio is kinda useless if there's only one radio station. What Pligg enables is a world of opportunities where Digg clone sites can sprout up for specific niches. For example, Squidoo.com is a place where people write how-to articles. SquidUp.org is the Pligg-based site which allows Squidoo readers to know more about which articles are popular, and to participate in determining that popularity. I see this type of model applied to things like geographic locale, newspapers, and even smaller groups like band fans, or - my classic example - zombie fans. Digg for zombie fans...its such a natural fit. I'm kind-of joking, but the point is, there are many ways to interpret an internet posting. Digg asks readers "Do you like (dig) this?". The Zombie site might ask "How appealing would this post be for a dead person who has risen from the grave?" Niche sites could ask:
"How cold is this?"
"How hot is this?"
"How picturesque is this?"
"How does this sound?"
"Do you think the article accurately supports the xzy political agenda?"
And on and on.
Already, Pligg sites have surfaced which have begun this process of reaching out to serve a niche audience. SquidUp is a great example of this. But so too is BizSugar, a site devoted to small and mid-sized businesses. And there are many, many more.
At Boostpost, the aim is to help publishers increase the readership of their work by giving audiences a chance to spread the post across those vertical lines - or radio stations. The benefit of an extra Digg vote may pale in comparsion to being added to BlogEngage. And for Pligg site owners, Boostpost offers a tremendous opportunity to expand their audiences. You never know how many zombie fans there are out there!
Reference Material:
http://www.boostpost.com/createaservice.php
http://www.pligg.com/gallery/
http://pligg2u.com/
http://digg.com/
http://www.squidoo.com/
http://squidup.org/
http://blogengage.com/
http://www.bizsugar.com
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Defects and growth
So far the site has grown (incrementally) every day. About 280 people viewed Boostpost today, which is up from 200 yesterday. I'm looking at it as a good sign...it is not being totally ignored.
A couple of things changed today: now the link to See a Boostpage takes you to an entry screen where you can type any URL (or choose one of the 2 pre-fill urls) to see the boostpage.
And a minor defect in the Contact form prevented the form input from being saved properly. Fortunately, in reviewing the page stats, there has not been any activity in the contact form so far.
Another minor development was that I submitted Boostpost to DMOZ.org. Hirtorically, DMOZ has been good for a few (~50) visitors a day. The category was link popularity. I have this sneaking suspicion there will be a reluctance to include Boostpost...but if you think about it, link popularity is exactly what Boostpost shows. Its the perfect category for Boostpost. I only make this suggestion because there are no other services like addthis, sharethis, or addtoany in DMOZ. Maybe they never tried to get added, but I doubt it. DMOZ is fantastic...virtually every SEO reference on the web recommends you at least try to get listed there. And from my experience, I can definitely vouch for it.
Next project for Boostpost is a firefox addon. No promises on when (if?) it will be complete. But without question, that's another gimme in terms of perfect fit. And you know, the overwhelming traffic I'm seeing is from firefox browsers....maybe I'm out of the loop, but that is very different from any other work I've done in the past. Maybe Boostpost has some horrible defect with IE? Geez, I hope not...
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Squidoo and a brave new world
(Well, for me anyways...)
Its funny how when you don't pay close attention to the world unfolding in the internet, you quickly lose track of things. For example, Squidoo is a site that never made it onto my radar. But I have now used Squidoo, and I tend to think its a pretty decent site. I like it both for the fact that it can be a useful respoitory for how-to documentation, but also for its promotional capabilities. Ig uess that's basically the point of it.
Another juggernaut is twitter. I tend to resist new ideas as being crap, and long felt twitter fell into this category. But I've tried twitter, and although I'll never be a wild and crazy twitterer, I can see how it is beneficial to those who use it. To a lot of people, that will mean things like keeping in touch with loved ones, or friends...but the real thrust of the site is that it is a quick and painless way in which to build backlinks. Really, the internet tends to boil down to that. Offer an ability to build backlinks, and people will use your service. Just ask Digg. Or Delicious.
Its funny how when you don't pay close attention to the world unfolding in the internet, you quickly lose track of things. For example, Squidoo is a site that never made it onto my radar. But I have now used Squidoo, and I tend to think its a pretty decent site. I like it both for the fact that it can be a useful respoitory for how-to documentation, but also for its promotional capabilities. Ig uess that's basically the point of it.
Another juggernaut is twitter. I tend to resist new ideas as being crap, and long felt twitter fell into this category. But I've tried twitter, and although I'll never be a wild and crazy twitterer, I can see how it is beneficial to those who use it. To a lot of people, that will mean things like keeping in touch with loved ones, or friends...but the real thrust of the site is that it is a quick and painless way in which to build backlinks. Really, the internet tends to boil down to that. Offer an ability to build backlinks, and people will use your service. Just ask Digg. Or Delicious.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Back in the Saddle
And I can't figure out why I ever got off the horse in the first place!!! Look, the internet is fun! And since I don't play golf - or at least not well, and also I don't enjoy it - creating sites is my hobby... my golf.
SoarPort sadly died a lonely death. It is sad, because it wasn't that bad an idea. At least it did have some good technical content. And it also worked. But I do now see how more slick developers have introduced ways to out-soar Soarport. And I suppose there is also the reality that the idea was never equal to its inspiration: Mapquest and Google Maps.
In any event, I plan to return to the fold for more fun and excitement. I've learned and fermented my ideas and I believe there are some improvements I can make this time around. Also, time off has provided some much needed room to save up some $$ to pay for the initial startup costs.
So look out world!
SoarPort sadly died a lonely death. It is sad, because it wasn't that bad an idea. At least it did have some good technical content. And it also worked. But I do now see how more slick developers have introduced ways to out-soar Soarport. And I suppose there is also the reality that the idea was never equal to its inspiration: Mapquest and Google Maps.
In any event, I plan to return to the fold for more fun and excitement. I've learned and fermented my ideas and I believe there are some improvements I can make this time around. Also, time off has provided some much needed room to save up some $$ to pay for the initial startup costs.
So look out world!
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