Results

Competition in the online marketplace is stiff: your customers have shrinking attention spans, demand instant gratification, and your competitors are just a click away. Websites must find ever more unique ways to attract and retain visitors. The newest trend in attention-grabbing technology is to use avatars or digital personalities to engage your site’s visitors in face-to-face interaction. Retailers and service companies are using these “3-D” hosts to make the online shopping and commerce experience more familiar and engaging. Rovion’s model InPerson, Oddcast’s SitePal, and Innovate Ads’ Video Spokesperson are great applications that allow you to incorporate an interactive personality on your webpage.

SitePal uses an avatar model, providing personalized spokespeople to their clients. Animated characters are customized in various configurations, and SitePal allows you to choose skin, hair, and eye color, clothing options, voices, and backdrops for their animated characters (their demo lounge even has a Benjamin Franklin model). Clients can choose to submit a digital photo to SitePal from which a 3-D character can be generated. Personalities can be programmed to speak in 14 different languages, and clients can record their own audio content for upload or hire a voice actor. Many companies, including Swedish furniture giant IKEA, are using these avatars as an interactive“FAQ” bank. IKEA’s “Ask Anna” avatar answers typed questions with a smile, responding to insults saying, “You are entitled to your own opinion, of course. Now, please ask me something about IKEA.” And she even gives a little smirk.

InPerson works on a similar principle, but this application uses video of real people to grab the attention of site visitors. These video clips can walk across the screen, point out site features, and deliver audio messages about promotions or special events. 1-800-FLOWERS utilized InPerson to make customers aware of a special offer; spokesmodel “Megan” encourages visitors to use her name as a promotional discount code at checkout. Site owners can choose from a bank of spokespeople or use their own actors or employees as characters. These real-life streaming videos can arrest the attention of site visitors and add interest to an otherwise average-looking page.

Innovate Ads offers three different products to incorporate video into your site. They can create a video spokesperson, similar to InPerson, but they have the added services of online video ads and “video snacks,” short pieces to grab attention and provide information on each page throughout the site.

But how do users respond to face-to-face interaction on the web? Rovion’s metrics indicate engagement rates of 30 to 70 percent, meaning visitors either watched more than half of the video message or clicked on the character. Sounds like mixed results. Many web surfers are simply annoyed by intrusive video or audio applications, especially when they come in the form of pop-up advertising. However, if you use a digital character that is well-integrated, easy to engage or disable, and informative, they can be a very effective way to grab a visitor’s attention. Digital personalities can lead to higher response rates, name recognition, visitor retention, and, the ultimate goal, increased revenues. We suggest designing a character that represents your target persona and reflects your branding: think about the tone, appearance, and interactive opportunities of any personality you display on your sites. If you are thoughtful and calculated, your visitors will feel like they’re interacting with one of their own, and they will recognize themselves as a part of your company’s culture. Best of all, you have a chance to show your sense of good old-fashioned customer service by greeting even your online customers with a smiling face.

The popularity of social bookmarking applications and sites is leaking through corporate firewalls in the form of “enterprise bookmarking” systems. Traditional bookmarking sites, like Digg, del.icio.us, or StumbleUpon, allow users to bookmark sites that are of interest or of use to the larger web community. StumbleUpon, for example, installs a plug-in which visitors can use to rate their favorite sites, apply tags or keywords, and share their discoveries with other “stumblers”. Companies are now making use of this technology to start their own enterprise bookmarking cooperatives, which would give employees access to tagging and bookmarking tools for the purpose of knowledge collection and sharing. They are realizing that a search which results in thousands of returns is useless when it comes to information gathering. Enterprise bookmarking offers businesses a way to find what they want, when they want it.

Larger social bookmarking forums like del.icio.us display users’ favorite sites based on the number of people who bookmarked. You can browse popular bookmarks or search for specific keywords based on tags users have applied. Some of the most popular displayed on their homepage include an instructional video on how to tie a double Windsor knot, a recipe for chai ice cream, and a guide to conflict resolution in the workplace. Tags attached to these sites include “knot”, “Windsor”, “dessert”, “chai”, “relationships”, and “conflict”. Users completely control the content on these sites, including the tags. It’s another example of the Web 2.0 trend towards user-generated content on a large scale, and it’s being emulated by businesses searching for information sharing solutions within their network.

Many software companies are offering bookmarking platforms for business users. IBM Lotus has released an application called Connections 1.0 which gives users blogging, social networking, tagging, and bookmarking capabilities for the low price of $110 per user per year. BEA Systems has a similar product called Aqualogic Pathways which is offered for $40,000 per CPU. The goal behind these types of applications is to create a forum for employees to share knowledge, useful information, and connect on a personal level. Companies are aiming to create web-based corporate cultures; more and more are allowing corporate blogging, establishing presences on LinkedIn and Facebook, and encouraging employees to do the same. IBM and BEA are just two examples of software providers who are quick to meet these needs. We predict a future initiative which combines social bookmarking with Universal Search capabilities for diversified, relevant results in any medium.

Corporate networks or shared drives are often confused, tangled messes where documents and solutions are buried under mounds of out-of-date information and hidden by bad naming conventions. Technology like this empowers users to create an ecosystem of useful information that is a click away. Those working on the front lines of customer service (telephone and email support roles) will benefit most from this type of bookmarking because it will enable them to access a world of knowledge in just a few clicks. Social and enterprise bookmarking can have downsides, though. For example, allowing users to completely control the content could lead to disorganized, chaotic information management. Tagging is not always fully effective or accurate. A website or page might be labeled as both “wine” and “Sauvignon blanc”, but there is no way to note that one tag is a subset of another. Other concerns about security have been raised regarding classified documents or sensitive material being available for wide distribution. There will come a time when the technology will catch up with possible pitfalls, and businesses will have to decide how much freedom to grant employees in the meantime. For the present, those of us employed by companies open-minded enough to allow us access to enterprise bookmarking systems can consider ourselves lucky to have access to the virtual library of knowledge that is the web.

Who said computer games can’t be educational? In a surprising move, game maker EA will collaborate with British Petroleum to provide alternative low-emission energy sources in the upcoming release SimCity Societies. Due to be released to gamers in North America and Europe on November 15, players will have the option of powering their creations with either traditional carbon-based sources or with alternative green technologies. True to real life, SimCity players who elect the cheaper CO₂ emitting sources will experience a rise in temperatures and natural disasters like floods, severe storms, droughts, and heat waves. Those who use more expensive, less powerful green sources will take a hit in the wallet, but experience higher property values and less dramatic weather.

Environmentally-minded players get to choose from a variety of BP Alternative Energy products, like hydrogen, natural gas, wind farms, and solar power. In-game snippets of information will also help inform players about the advantages of alternative power sources, providing an entertaining forum for environmental education. Considering the fact that computer games are a pervasive entertainment medium across all levels of society, this could turn out to be a very effective forum for teaching the necessity of reducing carbon dioxide emissions to children.

This kind of issue has been reflected before in the gaming world, notably in Sid Meier’s Civilization series, where based on the levels of pollution, prairies might turn to desert, the health of your citizens would decline, etc. It is especially notable in this case, however, because of the partnership with one of the world’s largest energy companies. BP has marketed itself recently as the first oil company to recognize the need for carbon-free energy sources, adopting the slogan “Beyond Petroleum” in 2005 with the formation of BP Alternative Energy. This division of the energy giant heads up solar, wind, natural gas, and hydrogen projects, even expanding so far as methane recapture ventures. While BP is to be commended for its efforts in this area (especially compared to other energy companies), one has to ask to what extent the partnership with SimCity is a viral marketing effort and a brilliant PR campaign.

It certainly is good press for both companies to include a global warming variable in the game; it’s a hot issue and its gaining support and credibility the world over, despite the many doubters of the effects of carbon dioxide on our atmosphere. However, just because CO₂ reduction is a popular issue doesn’t mean that the efforts of BP and SimCity are disingenuous. This joint venture clever way to shine light on an important issue through an extremely well-known medium. In fact, SimCity is one of the most popular gaming franchises in history, having sold more than 18 million games worldwide to date since 1989. For this reason, it doesn’t matter much to me if the motives behind the collaboration of SimCity and BP are pure: it’s a brilliant, responsible idea that will undoubtedly be effective.

Let’s hope other entertainment and energy companies follow in the footsteps of these two pioneers.

Earlier this month Microsoft announced the launch of HealthVault, a website designed to store medical records and health information which can be accessed by health care providers and patients alike. The goal of the site, according to Microsoft VP Peter Neupert, is “to empower people to lead healthy lives. The launch of HealthVault makes it possible for people to collect their private health information on their terms and for companies across the health industry to deliver compatible tools and services built on the HealthVault platform.” It’s undoubtedly a lofty goal, since some 94% of consumers polled currently use a paper-based method to track their health information. However, the advantages of having instant, online access to medical records is a no brainer. Wouldn’t it be nice if your primary care physician and a specialist were able to communicate with each other through your online records? Wouldn’t it be convenient to track your blood pressure/cholesterol/glucose levels online? Or if you switched physicians, you wouldn’t have to move your records from a previous doctor’s office? The idea is appealing, but there are as many obvious benefits as there are obvious pitfalls.

With the motto “Be well. Protected.” splashed atop HealthVault’s home page, Microsoft is clearly reaching out to users who have concerns about the privacy of these records. Industry watchdogs and bloggers alike have pounced on HealthVault, attacking the idea for the security and privacy nightmare that it is. One blogger amusingly offers five reasons why HealthVault is unappealing: “One, because it is a Microsoft offering… Two, because it is a Microsoft offering… Three, because it is a Microsoft offering… Four, because it is a Microsoft offering… Five, because it is a Microsoft offering.” A common refrain is, “If I can’t even trust Microsoft with Windows updates, why should I trust them with my health care information?” It’s a valid point.

The criticisms usually focus on Microsoft’s tendency to absolve themselves of lost/misplaced data, reliance on users to add privacy and security upgrades to systems, and the legal ambiguity about how HIPAA applies to online records. In spite of all the criticism, Microsoft is determined to make HealthVault a success. They have hired hacker organizations to test the security of the site, and the very branding is meant to reassure users (what do you think when you hear “vault”?). They are going about this by trying to convince health care industry companies to offer web services and devices which are compatible with HealthVault. Some 40 organizations have signed on, including the American Heart Association, LifeScan (a glucometer manufacturer), and the American Diabetes Association. The website will generate income through a web search tool which features sponsored links. The potential for success is huge, but unfortunately, so is the potential for disaster.

Other high tech and health care companies, including Aetna, WellPoint, and Google, are working on similar systems. The key for any of these initiatives to take off is gaining the trust of consumers. Privacy and security are increasingly important in the Web 2.0 atmosphere of identity theft, and Microsoft presents too juicy a target for hackers to ignore. They have not cultivated a brand of trust, and they may pay the price for it with the failure of HealthVault. Let’s not forget, also, that the main target group for a website like HealthVault is baby boomers, and people of that demographic are far less likely to share personal information online.

HealthVault is still in beta, and hopefully this will allow Microsoft plenty of time to make tweaks as users find holes in the system. The buzz surrounding this initiative is not likely to die down soon, and if it’s true that there’s no such thing as bad exposure, Microsoft may have the leg up on competitors in the health information field.

I first heard about carbon offsetting from a friend when planning my wedding. She had heard a news story about having a “green wedding,” where guests buy offsets in lieu of gifts to atone for the carbon emissions created by their air/car travel, hotel stays, and even cocktail napkins. The idea struck me as interesting, but inherently fishy. It seemed somehow dishonest, like indulgences in the Middle Ages, to pay for a clear conscience. However, the idea of carbon offsetting is becoming ever more popular in spite of its controversial nature. Businesses are now buying carbon offsets to supplement their energy saving efforts.

The practice of carbon offsetting is a means by which individuals or businesses can reduce their CO₂ footprint by donating to an organization that promises to spend the money on renewable energy projects, tree planting initiatives, methane recapture, or other means of reducing carbon emissions. The theory is that because global warming is in fact a global problem, it doesn’t matter where in the world or by what means carbon emissions are extracted from the atmosphere. In addition to (or sometimes instead of) reducing one’s own energy use at home, an individual or business can make an impact on the problem by financing a reforestation project in the Amazon, or a methane recapture facility in Oklahoma.

Carbonfund.org, a non-profit vendor of carbon offsets, argues “it is more cost effective and better for our environment to build a 100 MW [megawatt] wind energy farm in Minnesota than a 5 kW [kilowatt] windmill in your own backyard. Carbon dioxide emissions are a global problem, so reducing a ton of CO₂ in Brazil or North Dakota has the same climate change benefit as doing so in your backyard” (see www.carbonfund.org for more details). Their website also points out that since some 60% of a household’s carbon output comes from the products we buy (packaging, shipping, and manufacturing costs), we cannot rely on reducing our energy usage alone. Offsets allow people to make up for the emissions they cannot control. Carbonfund.org allows donors to choose whether they want their money to be used for renewable energy, energy efficiency, or reforestation projects.

Rainforest2Reef, another non-profit which manages carbon offset donations, promises “for each ton (2000 lbs) of CO₂ that you or your household produces, Rainforest2Reef will plant one tree, at the cost of only $1 per tree. This tree will absorb roughly 1 ton of carbon over its 40 year lifecycle” (www.rainforest2reef.org). Both Carbonfund.org and Rainforest2Reef have “carbon calculators” on their sites to help donors decide how much they should give. These two organizations are just examples of the many who promote carbon offsetting as a valid way for the public to reduce their impact on the environment.

Opponents of the practice point to the short-sighted nature of this solution. They point out that if one can simply pay a fee to feel better about global warming, then less of us will take the initiative to drive fuel efficient vehicles, recycle, and reduce our demand for electricity. Environmentalists have criticized tree planting initiatives, suggesting that some have used non-native trees in areas where they impact local species and reduce soil quality. Also, tree planting is only truly effective in temperate zones, where trees absorb CO₂ more readily. One of the most suspicious aspects of the trend is apparent when businesses make claims of “zero emissions” or having a “neutral carbon footprint”. This is often a selling point for consumers who don’t realize that this claim may come from offsetting donations rather than from true implementation of energy saving practices. This seems to be the case with Icelandic Glacial water, which boasts to buying offsets equaling 552 tons of emissions. That figure, however, does not include any shipping impacts after the bottled water arrives in the ports of destination countries (see http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_33/b4046073.htm?chan=search for the full story).

Some businesses are taking a more hands-on approach to reduce their carbon footprint. One trend with high technology firms is to reduce their energy use by replacing old, inefficient server farms. This practice, called virtualization, is not only beneficial to our environment but can also save money. Switching to energy efficient power distribution units, air conditioners, and cooling pumps can make a huge impact on your consumption and expenses. Though the initial payout is daunting (as much as $400,000 per server) these new units replace dozens of old servers and will pay for themselves in electricity savings. If businesses were to take a comprehensive approach to reducing their CO₂ emissions which combined initiatives like virtualization and carbon offset purchases, the impact would be enormously beneficial.

So how do you know if the offset you purchased was impactful and honest? Did they really plant trees with your donation? You don’t know. While some non-profits undergo certification to ensure their offsets are measured accurately, the industry as a whole is unregulated at present. The old saying, “If you want something done right, do it yourself” seems to apply here: to ensure that you are actually doing your part to reduce carbon emissions, you should probably do it yourself. Recycle, use energy-efficient appliances, drive a fuel-efficient car, insulate your home to reduce heating costs, and buy locally whenever possible. Perhaps the best approach is a hybrid one: if businesses and individuals combine carbon offsets with measurable energy savings, we will have the maximum possible effect on the global climate crisis.

European and Asian cities have long been home to tiny, compact cars such as Mercedes-Benz’s Smart fortwo or Ford’s Ka model. Overseas cities without the suburban sprawl of U.S. cities long ago learned to love these miniature vehicles. It seems, however, that the American market is ready for a small fuel-efficient car which can maneuver quickly and easily through our worst traffic and parking nightmares. Urban dwellers may soon be introduced to “CityCars”, the product of a research initiative at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab. CityCars are battery-powered electric vehicles with a remarkable wheel design that allows them to be stacked like shopping carts at major transportation crossroads, such as subway stops and train stations.

These remarkable little cars are cleaner than any gas-powered vehicle, even if charged from electricity produced by burning coal. They are recharged when stacked, and can travel for approximately 10 miles on a full battery. All four wheels rotate, allowing the CityCar to be parked almost anywhere. Instead of a traditional drive train, each wheel on the CityCar is equipped with a “wheel robot”, which is an all-inclusive motor, suspension, steering, and brake system. The stripped-down chassis can then fold up and allow the CityCars to be stacked. According to designers, up to six CityCars can fit in one traditional parking space!

The proposed business model for CityCars is delightfully simple: to use one, you would swipe a pre-authorized payment card, remove one from the stack, and drive off. You would be able to return them to any stack in the city, and they would come with digital locks and GPS units to prevent theft. The car will also host a high-tech computer system to help the driver find available parking spaces and avoid potholes. Developers stress that CityCar is not meant as a replacement for a traditional vehicle, but simply a supplement for use in congested city centers. GM is rumored to be following the CityCar’s development closely, and MIT researchers are hoping the auto maker may adapt their prototype to display at concept car shows in 2008.

While vehicle-sharing businesses have been around for awhile (think zipcar), this new initiative is a step towards making the proverbial community bike as environmentally friendly as, well, a bike. But is it just a glorified bicycle for those too lazy or busy to pedal around the city? The CityCar’s size certainly doesn’t make it useful for more than getting from point A to point B (without carrying much of anything with you). Many of my urban-dwelling friends don’t own cars, but do subscribe to a car-sharing service like zipcar for large grocery runs, weekend trips, or buying furniture. The CityCar would be less than ideal for any of these activities. There is also the question of safety. CityCar designers are working towards meeting government safety and speed regulations, but will the miniature car’s compliance be enough to convince SUV-driving Americans of its viability? Time (and oil prices) will tell if we can eschew our gas-guzzling ways, but CityCar is definitely a step in the right direction.

Many technology visionaries predict the future of computing is a fully-integrated interface that will hide the hardware and enable us to use the software as naturally as we walk and talk. The ideal interface is one where the machine will be a part of our daily routine, not a bulky, heavy device that requires our patience and attention. We are ripe as a society for taking our computers off our desks and incorporating them into our outfits and bodies. Many researchers are taking this imperative to the next level by developing wearable computers. If our computers are a stylish part of our everyday outfits, they would be the ultimate user-friendly way to attain the goal of function and form in technology.

Many of these wearable devices are taking the form of headgear, i.e. eyeglasses or visors of some sort. Just think if your sunglasses, upon your arrival in Paris, could direct you to the Métro stop nearest your hotel, point out restaurants in the area, and supply you with handy French phrases and pronunciation help. Researchers are also working to utilize voice-recognition technology in these types of wearable computers, making the device completely hands-free. One such organization, the Colorado School of Mines, is working on embedding remote controls into a pair of gloves, allowing skiers, bikers, or runners to adjust their MP3 players with the flick of a finger. The idea is to make your hand your remote control.

The most common wearable computer at present is, of course, the cell phone. These devices are becoming more and more integrated into our lifestyle, with Bluetooth technology and the proliferation of wireless internet applications. The eventual wearable computer, though, will have many more uses besides communication and entertainment. Expect to see these devices being applied to military technology, health care and surgery, education, and emergency services (like Search and Rescue). The hardware is currently the huge drawback of these devices; many prototypes are far too heavy and obtrusive to be in widespread use.

And then there’s the recent scare at Boston’s Logan airport, where an MIT student wearing an electronic sweatshirt (complete with circuit board, wiring, and Play-Doh) was surrounded by armed police officers and arrested for carrying a hoax device. This incident was followed shortly afterwards by the annual International Symposium on Wearable Computers in Boston, and I imagine many of the participants refrained from wearing their innovative designs through airport security. Perhaps it will be a few more years before air travel can be safely combined with small, unfamiliar electronic devices.

Despite the controversies and setbacks, wearable computers are the wave of the future. The iPhone and the much anticipated Google phone are steps in this general direction, but we can expect to see much more practical, integrated technology that we use as nonchalantly as we put on our shoes.

What are your customers really doing?

Reviewing website metrics is the easiest and most efficient way to see how your customers use your website. In examining this information, website owners can gain a sense of how many people are visiting their website, where the visitors are coming from, where they are entering and exiting, the average number of pages viewed per visit, and other facts that will educate the website owner. These statistics will allow you to better analyze how your customers are using your website including the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

The goal of website traffic analysis is to assess how well or how poorly your website is working for your visitors. From these statistics you can gain valuable insight around how your customers are using your web applications, and if necessary, make enhancements to improve the overall customer experience.

The following terms are commonly found in most analytic tools:

Hits: There seems to be some confusion regarding the terms used to describe website visitor traffic. We usually hear website owners speak in terms of “hits” to their website. Hits don’t accurately describe the number of visitors viewing the website – they are actually just any sort of HTTP request made to your server. Not only are requests made for website pages, but also for all the images and other files associated with viewing a single page. Therefore, one page view could actually result in dozens of hits. If a single user visits many pages on your website, this visit could generate hundreds or even thousands of hits. This can excite some website owners, but this number is not a reliable indicator of how many people have actually visited the website.

Number of Unique Visitors: The term that website owners want to focus on is the amount of unique impressions that are generated by their website. A unique impression will measure the number of actual people visiting the website based on their IP address, browser, and operating system. No matter how many “hits” a visitor registers on your website, the server will record the session as one unique visit. Thus, the number of unique visits gives us a much better idea of the amount of traffic the website generates. What we want to look for is a trend in the average number of unique visitors. On a day to day basis, there may be a good amount of volatility in the number of unique visitors, but we want to pay attention to the trend of the average number of visitors per month. Optimally, we’d like to have the number increase on a monthly basis.

Entry Page Statistics: From these statistics we can learn which page people are using to enter your website. Most visitors will enter from your home page, but you may notice that up to 50% of your website traffic originates from a page other than your home page. It’s important that your website has an easy-to-use navigation structure to ensure that visitors can find the information they are looking for, even if they don’t enter through your website’s main page.

Bounce Rate: The bounce rate can be defined as the percentage of people who visit your website and immediately leave. Don’t get worried if your bounce rate is high – most websites have a bounce rate of about 50% or so. If the bounce rate is unusually high, you can experiment with your website to try and retain more visitors. Maybe you need more enticing graphics, less text, faster loading pages, or a more engaging design.

Exit Page Statistics: These statistics will show you where people are leaving your website. When you know which page is losing the bulk of your website’s visitors you can experiment with some changes in an attempt to retain more visitors.

Average Time & Page Views Per Visit: Website visitors are very goal-oriented and task-driven. Upon visiting your website, most visitors will merely scan the page to quickly determine whether or not it contains the information they are searching for. By analyzing the average amount of time spent on your website and the average number of page views per visit, you can determine how engaging your website’s content is. The key to retaining visitors and increasing the number of page views is to have relevant and interesting information on your website. Remember – content is key!

Top Referring URLs: This statistic lets you know where the bulk of your website’s traffic is coming from. This is important if you’re pursuing a website marketing campaign or search engine optimization campaign because you can easily judge the campaign’s effectiveness by looking to see how many visitors each marketing method is generating.

Top Search Words & Phrases: This information will let you know which keywords and phrases visitors are searching for in Google and the other search engines in order to find your website. With this information you can gauge the effectiveness of a search engine optimization campaign, or get an idea of how your website’s keyword density should be altered to position it for the keywords and phrases that you’re targeting.

Country of Origin: If your product or service has global appeal then knowing where your customer comes from globally is important to you. For instance, if you own a retail store that caters to the European Union and you notice that 90% of your website traffic is coming from the U.S., then it can easily be determined that you need to rethink your online marketing strategy.

Companies who do not measure the customer experience of their website or applications are at a disadvantage because there are so many businesses out there that do and those companies are capitalizing on what they have learned. There are several free and easy-to-use applications such as Google Analytics, which allows businesses to measure their success in metrics. For more advanced applications or richer measurements Gomez is a better choice.

Paying attention to user needs and analyzing how your customers are using your website will ensure that your web applications are easy to use and will increase the chances that your customers will want to come back again and again.

Most of us are familiar with the provisions businesses make to accommodate employees and customers with disabilities; wheelchair ramps, accessible restrooms, and Braille products are just a few examples. However, many of us have never considered how someone with a visual disability would be able check their email, conduct a Google search, or find directions on Mapquest. Freedom Scientific offers a solution with JAWS (Job Access With Speech) screen reader, which allows users with blindness or low-vision to output the content of the web page to a speech synthesizer. JAWS can read content in a variety of languages, and it will also output refreshable Braille displays, making it one of the most popular accessibility tools. Other leading applications include Window-Eyes, compatible with all Windows 9x and ME versions, and Hal from Dolphin Computer Access.

More and more businesses and web designers are taking accessibility into account due to the recent guidelines requiring all U.S. federal web sites to be accessible to the disabled. Careful web design can maximize the accessibility of your web page and allow screen readers to function at their peak. Some usability checkpoints to consider include:

• keyboard equivalents for mouse-driven commands
• captioned audio portions of multimedia files
• clear and simple language and images
• synchronization of visual, speech, and Braille display
• user control of style sheets (i.e., for color-blindness)

The U.S. government’s Access Board guidelines for web accessibility can be found by visiting http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/guide/1194.22.htm.

Even users without visual impairments or other disabilities may soon benefit from screen reading applications. Think about the commuter who wants to check email while driving, for example. A program like JAWS would enable a user to access the web without the distraction of handling a PDA or physically reading a computer screen. Voice recognition software could be integrated into car computer systems, allowing a user to “search” Google maps for a nearby restaurant while keep their hands and focus on the wheel. While traveling to a meeting, the organizer could review his/her PowerPoint presentation one last time, and hearing it spoken, may find ways to improve it. The possibilities are exciting, and they are closer to implementation than you might think.

Google’s loyal users may have noticed a recent change in the results of their queries: the powerhouse search engine now returns videos, music and other media types in addition to the typical website results that they provide. Case in point: when I typed in a search for “Jorge Vistel” an emerging Cuban jazz trumpeter, Google spit back to me not only individual web pages, but also a YouTube video featuring a performance and newspaper articles about Vistel. The video can even be played directly in the search results without leaving Google to visit YouTube! This change in how results are grouped is called “Universal Search,” and it is the heart of Google’s next generation of information processing. It is the integration of multiple types of media into search results, and combines all of the various vertical databases into one index to provide users a single, more relevant set of results. The search results will be blended together, incorporating local sources, news stories, videos and images, and blogs as well as web pages. This tool automatically interweaves the information across categories to provide the user with the best results, no matter the format.

Google is the first of the search engines to implement Universal Search and incorporate diverse media in their rankings, but others have announced plans to follow suit. It’s an acknowledgement that many kinds of data, including video, photos, maps, and news feeds, can be of use to searchers. Universal Search will delight users with the most pertinent information in any form, and SEO companies are scrambling to keep up with the change. This change can work to your advantage, though, as you learn to adapt your website’s content to the new system. Though Universal Search may initially seem to be detrimental to your current SEO efforts, this new technology can actually increase your visibility in search results by providing users with the most appropriate and useful information.

Some categories of Universal Search results that you need to consider in your SEO efforts are:

• Image search: allow your potential customers to find you through carefully tagged, attention-grabbing images that utilize popular keywords. Images always catch the eye more easily than text, so include photos that fish for web traffic.
• News search: Think of Universal Search results as a new forum for your press releases. Keep your content newsworthy and interesting so it will be indexed as news.
• Video search: If you decide to include video in your marketing efforts, maximize your reach on the web by using file names and tags that function as keywords. Create captions, transcriptions, and other commentary that will draw hits. Post your videos on YouTube, Google Video, and other file-sharing sites for greater exposure.
• Map search: My favorite way to find everything from quickie lube joints to new restaurants is Google Maps. List your business with Google’s Local Business Center to increase your presence in your home community and your chances of moving up in the search results when a user searches in your area.
• Blog search: Adding a blog to your site creates continuous new content, and search engines crave new content. Keep your blogs simple and easy to read, but plug in the keywords you want users to find when they conduct a search.

Universal Search is a huge win for the consumer because it makes it a lot easier to find information across multiple information points. This approach can really take off when applied locally within a company. It increases your ability to find information by topic instead of by where it is stored. Internal users no longer have to slog through files on the company intranet or shared network drive, instead using Universal Search principles to quickly and efficiently locate the information they need.

Users will never want to go back to the old search results once Universal Search takes hold. The presentation of this information, and how you implement it, will also help you with your SEO strategies. Whether you’re the one providing the information, or whether you’re the consumer, you want to pay close attention to the maturation of Universal Search.

Psychologists and human behavior specialists are the envy of the web design world: they have the knowledge and tools to determine what people look at, do, and like about almost anything. As early as the 1870s, behavioral psychologists were tracking eye movements when reading, discovering on which words the eye stops and why. They discovered that eye movements directly correspond to thought process, meaning that we look at things which interest or engage us. It is the mystery of what stops our eyes that web designers are trying to solve, and how this relates to where we click. Many businesses are turning to tracking hardware and software packages to help reveal the motivation behind their website’s visitors.

One such company, Seeing Machines offers faceLAB 4, an integrated hardware system complete with analytical tool Gazetracker, which helps interpret the data you collect. Gazetracker comes with a webpage analysis mode for clients focused especially on usability. faceLAB 4 operates on many different levels, tracking not only eye movements, but also mouse and keystrokes, scrolling, and even pupil dilation.

Recent web-focused reading studies have shown that eye movement differs when reading web pages compared to printed materials. We read more quickly, scanning the page instead of reading word for word, and our eyes gravitate towards color, lists, and we take in content in an F-shaped pattern (see http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html for more details). Because so few web surfers actually read websites, other eye-tracking software packages focus on clicks and navigation rather than physical eye movements.

Clickdensity provides users with heat maps of their web activity, literally showing hot spots that were of greatest interest to visitors. Crazy Egg also uses heat maps to record clicks, but offers a more comprehensive product called Confetti, which can provide data on the types of users who visit certain areas of your site. Clicktale actually records visitor’s actions like movie and allows you to replay their every move. Most of these packages are priced by subscription, costing less than $100 per month.

While everyday eye tracking is not necessary in every situation, it is invaluable to gain an understanding of how your user is viewing and consuming your website. You will be amazed at how the color of a box or the density of a paragraph can change the way your user interacts with your site. Is one particular graphic or Flash animation clicked on more than another because it’s colorful, informative, in the top corner of the page? These seemingly insignificant details can throw off the balance of your page, causing users to overlook important features. Some form of eye/click tracking can highlight and help you solve these problems.

This process also helps reach that magical combination of social science research and web usability. Social scientists ask the “why” questions of human behavior, not just the “what” questions. In using eye tracking technology, web designers are prompted to do the same; heat maps and movies answer the “what” questions for us, and we are one step closer to determining why one particular part of the site is stickier than another. These are the questions that eye tracking software pushes us to answer, and if we take that extra step, our web designs to become truly user-centered.

The web world is eagerly anticipating Google’s new cellular phone, but no one can quite agree on what exactly the internet juggernaut has in the works. Many of the articles written on the subject are full of wild speculation, unsubstantiated rumors, and hopeful daydreaming. Indeed, the positivity of bloggers will likely turn any potential Google phone into an instant success even greater than the iPhone. I will attempt to lasso all the rumors that are true, while still giving air to some of the anticipated feats of which Google is fully capable.

First, it appears that Google may cross over into the hardware industry. Several credible sources have reported that there will be a proprietary Google handset which will work with any wireless provider (unlike Apple’s iPhone, which was designed to be used exclusively on AT&T’s network). Google has a partnership with Samsung, and they have bundled phones with Google’s applications in the past. BusinessWeek reports that Google has been secretly showing off prototype phones to consultants for a few months, and leaked photos (possibly fake) show a touchscreen interface.

Google will also likely use wireless tracking technology to improve your search results when using Google’s applications. For example, if you were traveling to Boston and did a search for “duck”, your phone would spit back local results for the famous duck tours, rather than, say, a Wikipedia entry on aquatic birds. The application will likely include Google Maps, Docs, News, Gmail, etc.

Something that seems very likely is that Google’s services will have ad-based revenue and be offered at a fraction of current wireless plans rates from major carriers. Google recently announced the release of AdSense for Mobile, which displays ads relevant to the mobile users. The same technology that is used to improve search results will likely also track demographics and user locations and display ads accordingly. Major carriers are not likely to give up their draconian service fees, so Google stands a good chance of competing, even though advertising is fairly new on mobile networks.

The last piece of the puzzle is an auction to sell the old analog UHF spectrum, which will be taking place in January 2008. Google has reportedly offered to meet the $4.6 billion dollar minimum bid, and if they win the auction they could decide to become a wireless carrier in their own right. Using an ad-based revenue system with free monthly service could potentially put the current carriers out of business, as they have all spent billions building their networks. Though no one likes the idea of watching an ad before logging on to a wireless device, offering free service in exchange creates a huge incentive. At least the ads will be carefully selected to appeal to your profile. Google has also recently expanded its ad services to the television market, “running a trial to deliver better ads to viewers and help advertisers, operators and programmers more efficiently buy, schedule, deliver and measure ads on television.” (Google Press Center). Ads could be selected based on the programming you watch. Experts expect that Google’s powerful search capabilities will soon be available on your TV as well. For example, you might see a commercial for Dunkin Donuts, click a button on your remote, and see a Google map of all the locations near you. The speculation suggests that rather than creating programming of their own, Google is more likely to enter the TV market by doing what they do best: selling relevant ads.

It’s all a part of Google’s larger goal of bringing a seamless internet experience to users no matter what device they’re using to go online. It will be fascinating to see how this all plays out. In the meantime, we’ll keep watching the rumor mill turn around and around.

The term “web accessibility” means simply to make more of the Internet accessible to more people. Usually the term implies greater access for people with disabilities. These impairments may include visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities. Initiatives to improve web access in this way can include speaking guides that render web pages in an audio format for the blind.

However, web accessibility is not limited to any single population but is a principle of web design that makes sites and software more flexible in order to meet vastly different user needs, preferences, and situations. From a grandmother in Boise managing her grandchildren’s photos online, to the PDA belonging to a plumber in New York that gets an alert from an email program, to a paraplegic athlete in Quebec who uses special tools to access the web; the ideals of web accessibility seek to accommodate all, as if serving a single individual, website or piece of communications technology.

Why Is Web Accessibility Important?

Because the Internet has become such an important resource when it comes to education, employment, government and health care, it is essential that it be made more accessible to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with disabilities. Additionally, providing greater access to the web can help people with disabilities play a greater role in and achieve more fulfillment from society.

The possibility of unprecedented access to information and interaction for all people, via the Internet, has become even more real with the advent of usability and accessibility. Web technologies are easily overtaking the accessibility barriers to print, audio, and visual media, for the benefit of us all.

One of the hidden advantages of web accessibility is that it also makes the quality of the code that programs websites better. Many of the practices that are used to make a site more accessible are the same guidelines that developers should follow as part of good coding practices and is also what a good designer does to make a site more usable.

Making the Web Accessible

While it is web developers and the software that they use that are the infrastructure that pave the way for web accessibility, it is really the responsibility of CIOS and managers to value the benefits of making their websites accessible to a greater audience. The organizational decision-making needs to favor software that helps developers produce and evaluate accessible Web sites, and be usable by people with disabilities.

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) develops guidelines and techniques that describe accessibility solutions for web software and web developers, among other roles. The WAI guidelines are considered the international standard for web accessibility.

To learn more, read: Essential Components of Web Accessibility.

In terms of your company’s presence on the Internet, your website is everything that your customers, your employees, and your support staff are able to see. Despite being a two-dimensional world, you can do a great deal more with your website than you can with your office, and you can do it faster, cheaper and with greater room for creativity.

Of course, the same rules of common sense and decorum apply to the Internet as much as anywhere else, even if sometimes that evidence is in short supply. Try to approach the design and functionality of your website from the perspective of those who will actually be using it, the golden rule being: Do unto others as they would find easiest done. Find ways to get feedback and act on the information you’ve been given to move in a more constructive direction. At the heart of user-centered design is the notion that users gravitate towards what suits them best. The more users you have, the more robust your business will be.

1.) Usability Basics

You want to make sure you have a simple, easy-to-use website…but likewise, simple should not be misunderstood as boring. There’s a happy medium to be struck where your surfers’ attention can be gained and maintained easily. To each user, a website should feel intuitive, as if it were designed expressly with that individual in mind.

2.) Organization

Think of a website like a crime syndicate: the better organized it is, the more successful it will be. The fewer loose ends your website has, the less you have to worry about. The more half-naked girls you put out there, the more hits on your site…okay, forget about that last one.

Rather, remember: every aspect of your website should have a place and a purpose.

3.) Simplicity

Simplicity means more than just functionality of design or what widget goes where on a page. It’s a sense of a streamlined form in your website, and it has to do with everything from click-through to readability (a feature that too many errors, for example, can significantly hamper). Simplicity is both what makes a site elegant and functional. Consider this saying from the Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu (translation by Stephen Mitchell):

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

This is more than some inscrutable Eastern philosophy. When you fill a website with every clanging color and jangling array of options, there is no emptiness to use, to lead a user where he needs to be. A path is filled with emptiness, but it is exactly what is required to convey someone from point A to point B.

4.) Color

We are visual creatures and we like the shiny. It is, perhaps, how a website called “hampsterdance” once became ubiquitous. Even better, it’s the effective use of color that can make the difference between professional and deplorable.

5.) Content

Well written content is just as important as any other design element on the page. Keywords (the terms that are used to find information on search engines like Google) that are skillfully embedded into the text but do not overwhelm it will draw users to your site, and, once they are there, will be integrated seamlessly to the overall feel of the content. This is how to implement search engine optimization without sacrificing syntax or usability. Well written content will complement the design and will provide a warm welcome to the users who use your site.

A final tip? Seek professional help.

No, not a psychiatrist—although if the thought of building and maintaining a professional-looking website is giving you thoughts of the couch, it’s definitely time to consider handing the reins to a professional web design firm.

There you have it: add a splash of chartreuse and this article would have followed the rules of website design itself. How meta-meta functional!

What is Usability?

“Usability” is often used to describe two related, but distinct, concepts. Usability can define the quality of a system, or it can refer to a process or set of techniques implemented during a design and development project. This second aspect is sometimes described as usability engineering, and is more accurately called user-centered design.

As usability refers to the quality of a system and the process of designing a usable system is “the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use (from the ISO 9241-11).”

Broken down and simplified, ISO 9241-11 outlines that:

1. There are specified users of the system.
2. Those users have a set of specific goals.
3. The system should allow user goals to be met effectively, efficiently and with an outcome that at least meet the goals of the user.
4. The system will be used in a particular context (within a physical location or business process).

A system that is designed to consider all of these aspects is one that is user-centered.

Why is Usability Important?

When a system is highly functional for users, it is extremely beneficial to business.

As users achieve their tasks more easily and efficiently, not only is a feeling of achievement that people get when they use a computer system without frustration fostered that should not be underestimated, but time is saved and productivity is increased. On the other hand, when systems are difficult to use, an individual user cost may be small. Yet taken incrementally in terms of lost sales, customer satisfaction, staff productivity, manufacturing downtime and support requirements, the cumulative price tag may be cripplingly vast. When people are confronted with a difficult-to-use system, they tend to avoid it as much as possible, if not altogether.

How is Usability Attained?

The only way to determine whether a system is usable is to get end users to use it for real tasks.

The main way this is done is through usability testing. In a usability test, users of the system attempt tasks while being observed. The observers don’t tell the usability test participant how to use the system and they don’t answer questions - it is as if the participant were doing the tasks by themselves in real life.

The usability test identifies primary usability problems with a system (enabling them to be fixed); and collects quantitative measures of effectiveness and satisfaction before release.

The key aspects of a usability test are:

1. Participants involved are examples of existing or future users of the system (not managers or business owners).
2. Participants perform realistic tasks on the system.
3. The usability test is set up in a way that is as close to the normal context as possible, with the observers being integrated seamlessly or removed entirely from participant interaction.

What type of usability testing you do depends on the depth of usability issues you want to root out. If you are primarily concerned with major issues, a small and fast team will be able to handle it. A more professional lab setting with a greater number of usability testers will be required for more refinement. It doesn’t take a whole lot of thought to realize that the conclusions reached by some major studies make perfect sense, but it does take a great deal of effort to step out of one’s field of expertise even for great rewards.

Usability testing is not a cure-all. Fixing problems in a design is never as effective or as efficient as preventing design flaws in the first place. Of course, a perfect user-centered design is more of an ideal to aspire to than an achievable reality—but the two, each in concert, may help your business attain user harmony.

All businesses have areas of inefficiency, and could profit from improvement and structural change, from the disgruntled mailroom guy, to manufacturing waste, to accounting error. The Japanese, as especially personified by the management and employees of Mitsubishi, have a philosophy of kaizen: continuous small improvement of anything that can be improved in a business: from cleaning a workspace to converting a paper system to an electronic one.

It is a good philosophy, and it works. Mitsubishi is one of the world’s most successful companies, and other companies have begun to take notice. Hundreds of other businesses sit in on management training sessions at Mitsubishi, in order to get a taste of the kaizen dynamic.

In order for kaizen to work well, however, “improvement” must be quantified. A company of any size can very easily get so caught up in small details that important ones get overlooked, especially when management egos are involved. It was said in the 1990s that Bill Gates’ net worth was so immense, that he could drop a wad of bills totaling $500.00 and it would not be worth his time to bend down and pick it up.

If you see a hundred dollar bill on the ground, of course your first instinct is to pick it up. But what if it costs five hundred dollars to do so? Or five-thousand? The small problems that you want to solve are the ones that are cheap and easy to solve, not the ones that will consume vast amounts of your company’s resources in the process.

To prevent this from happening, it is important to have clear business goals and clear project goals to help ensure everyone knows what sort of expenditure (talent, time, technology) to apply to what specific issues. Identify clear metrics so it is obvious what the Return on Investment (ROI) will be before you start. This will prevent waste and keep your business focused on what it does best.

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an OASISstandard for topic-based authoring that creates organization for the processing of company information. In a nutshell, DITA is the newly incorporated standard that is making it easier to organize, manage, and publish data content.

Today, many of the tools businesses use to manage data content does not sufficiently communicate the specified information between companies; creating pockets of data farms throughout numerous businesses. Previously, there was no standard for reusing data content, and many businesses found it easier to create new content instead of re-using that which already existed. Compare the typical content-management of companies to that of a messy garage. Sometimes it is easier to go buy a new tool than to find it amongst all the buildup and chaos. Storing this information (tools) in a DITA compliant manner ensures that, at the very least, businesses can utilize the same data repository, making it easier to find and reuse content they had previously produced.

With regulations affecting just about every industry, and, in certain cases, requiring businesses to store data content for up to 7 years, it became a necessity that a standard such as DITA be created to ensure the time management of composing these regulations be kept to a minimum. Now organizations are achieving significant savings in time spent in such phases as: authoring and editing, document and globalization management, translation and review, and composition and production. DITA is a centralized system for gathering, storing, and sharing information through the most efficient means, and reduction of the Globalization Gap. A sound methodology, combined with DITA for managing data content from conception to delivery, will help organize and eliminate data farms at your company.

There is a growing need for unhindered communication—the type that is most efficient, while simultaneously the least time consuming, and maintaining the most resourceful amount of communicated data. DITA compliant tools, coupled with a sound content management process, will ensure that your data is manageable, and will keep your content fresh; saving thousands, if not millions of dollars in lost productivity and content mishaps. In the business world it is imperative to share and receive information, preserving a minimum time loss, while maintaining organization of the compiled data—and for this there is DITA.

As a means of corporate communication, Web video is relatively new. Although YouTube has been in existence for more than two years, it has been primarily used as a form of entertainment for young, Web-savvy video sharing enthusiasts. However, because of the site’s usability and popularity, it was only a matter of time before YouTube, and others like it, would add commercial use to the list of possibilities created by video sharing.

As a nascent brand positioning tool, the full potential of Web video remains to be realized. It is possible to capitalize on this potential by learning how to use this tool. Keeping in mind the following points will help you navigate the difference between the old and the new.

1. Web video is not a commercial.
If you market your company in a Web video the same way you would for a television commercial, you will not be maximizing the low-cost, do-it-yourself atmosphere of the Web. With Web video, a good idea will trump a slick advertising budget any day of the week. By no means does this imply that you should forsake quality—merely that you can accomplish a whole lot more for a great deal less with Web video.

2. Web video tends toward a viral, rather than a blanket effect.
Instead of advertising from a single distribution point, Web video is all about distribution and re-distribution…and then more re-distribution. The number of viewers a Web video generates is proportional to how interesting it is.

3. Creativity is the key to successful Web video.

Whether people are inspired to watch your video with music, or humor, or an emotionally compelling story, the videos that get passed around and re-watched are the ones that depict something no one has seen before. Want to stand out from your competitors? Use a forum that is new to say something about yourself in a way that no one else can. It may not be as easy as it sounds, but if you can do it, it is worth the effort.

Web video, if produced with an eye toward its potential, can be a very powerful marketing tool, and can communicate your brand in a way that simple text or two-dimensional ads never could. If Web video is part of your overall search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, it can also help boost your search engine rankings and make your entire Web site more visible.

On April 26, 2007, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced plans to release source code for Adobe Flex as open source. This development means that both open source and commercial developers will be empowered to extend and enhance the Flex framework to suit desired needs, while simultaneously contributing to the evolution of Flex software.

So, what are the components being released in the newly open sourced design of Flex? Adobe hasn’t held back much; offering all components of the Flex SDK applications: source code for ActionScript, MXML compilers, ActionScript debugger, ActionScript libraries that make up the core Flex framework, and more. Also, the expectations to complete the transition to a fully open sourced project—one that will include Adobe Flex Builder along with all the other components—are expected for release fourth quarter 07.

For the sharing and contributing of Flex as open source, Adobe will use the Mozilla Public License. By licensing Flex under the MPL, Adobe is showing that they are understanding of many open source projects that need to balance the necessities of open source community and commercial software vendors. With the MPL, Flex can now be extended, contributed to, or incorporated into desired projects (barring a developer does not follow the Flex terms of use agreement). Also, MPL is already being used by many other well known open source projects (ICEFaces Ajax Development Platform, ECLiPSe) with both thriving communities and significant commercial users; demonstrating Adobe’s confidence in the open sourcing of Flex.

Adobe is banking on Flex, and by doing so they are demonstrating tremendous commitment to the recently open sourced application. With continuous developments and improvements being supplicated into the ongoing framework and language evolution of Flex, companies around the world are taking notice, and using the Flex capabilities to progress their needs and interests.

Let’s jump right to the point—not only is Web 2.0 real, it is the future of internet interaction, and business. As defined by Wikipedia, Web 2.0 is as follows – “A term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes”. So what is the ongoing transition? What is meant by a full fledged computing platform? How will desktop appliances ever be replaced? This blog entry has the answers to these questions along with an in depth look at what is Web 2.0, and will give insight into the proper way to harness and make the most of this new internet movement.

The promise of Web 2.0 is delivered in the form of richer and more open technology. The application of this technology, with a focus on user experience and customer service, is helping companies achieve their desired expectations in regards to what the first dot-com-explosion could not deliver. These technologies, coupled with open source and collaborative development, are driving companies in all industries to take a closer look at how they are best using this technology to meet the needs of their business and provide the best user experience possible for their customers.

Web 2.0 is about customer service. If you find ways to make your products and services friendlier, easier to use, and, in some cases, impossible to live without, then embracing the new applications that are Web 2.0 will have a broadening effect throughout your entire organization. Many Web 2.0 technologies help businesses ensure that enhanced efficiency, combined with customer ease of use, can be achieved immediately.

Technologies such as weblogs, social networking, wikis, and podcasts (among numerous others) are becoming the technical norm, and imply significant change in web usage; change that will lead to the rise in economic value of the Web—surpassing the impact of the dot com boom of the late 1990’s.

So what are the applied characteristics of the most internet savvy and efficient (most “Web 2.0-ness”)? One must recognize, and harness data as a driving force. Open source development is providing innovation for the assembly of systems and sites by synergizing features from distributed and independent developers. Web 2.0 will allow for an open architecture, a virtual democracy if you will, that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it, all the while maintaining the ease-of-picking-up by early adopters. Social-networking, enhanced graphical interfaces, and delivery of applications entirely through a browser are a few of the necessary mediums for harnessing the internet shift that is Web 2.0.

The most influential sites (i.e. EBay, Craig’s List, Wikipedia, MySpace, Amazon.com, Google, Apple, and Yahoo) grasp the characteristics of Web 2.0 by employing the philosophy that e-businesses will grow in effectiveness the more people interact with them on a personal level. The unique features of e-business revolve around building applications and services—both which must be taken advantage of—that derive their power from the human connections and network effects that Web 2.0 will make possible.

So it is imperative, that companies of all shapes and sizes take a closer look at how Web 2.0 can help them. This starts by aligning business goals with the tools you have in place for accomplishing necessary objectives. If you are starting from ground zero, then you will want to have an audit done to help expose Web 2.0 opportunities and possibilities of new profit centers.

Whether or not you’re a beginner to internet businessing, or a veteran web provider, the concepts, applications, and techniques that make up the basis for Web 2.0 is something you must adhere to, in order to maintain and offer the most successful internet experiences to your consumers.

With big name partners like Harrah’s Entertainment, Sheraton Hotels, and T-Mobile backing Microsoft Surface, this is one piece of technology that is sure to transcend the way we are used to viewing digital technology, and sure to revolutionize the way we learn, share, create, buy, and much more within our homes, businesses, schools, and endless other mediums. Microsoft Surface is the future of digital interaction.

At Talkibie we’ve been preparing for a world where there is no software, no keyboard, no mouse, no wiring, but instead a collection of live tools for people to use, anywhere, and at anytime—this is the essence of Microsoft Surface. Take away your standard monitor, and replace it with a countertop, a table, maybe a wall or even the floor. Don’t use the mouse to move things on screen, use your finger tips. Forget wiring your MP3 player to the CPU, just place it on Surface, and then drag whatever content you want to where your MP3 actually appears. The intuitive user interface works without a traditional mouse or keyboard, allowing people to interact with content and information by using their hands and natural movements. Microsoft Surface also recognizes physical objects placed on it, so, you can organize your Palm Pilot without having to connect wire ports. This represents a fundamental change in the way we interact with digital content.

Unlike a standard touch screen, Microsoft Surface recognizes dozens upon dozens of points of contact, making collaborative work not only ideal, but quintessential for harnessing the productivity rate that the standard point-and-click mouse could never provide. The standard tabletop will forever be transformed into a vibrant, radiant, interactive surface.

The power of this technology will easily be seen evolving in corporate America. Surface will provide customer reps the ability to provide a real service – from Financial Advisors to Real Estate agents; customer service just became more personal.

The first version of Microsoft Surface will be 22 inches high, 21 inches deep, and 42 inches wide, on an acrylic tabletop with an interior frame that is powder-coated steel. Surface could become the standard for customer interaction in hotels, restaurants, retail, and public entertainment venues later this year. Be assured that Surface will find its way into the design of web applications, most importantly, those that interact with customers.

Learn more at http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Communication is key and a WIKI is one way for a company to enhance and extend team collaboration from within. A WIKI is a website where content is contributed, edited and organized by its users. Contributing users can quickly create pages and add valuable content and links between them. This type of sharing was available with previous generations of collaborative technology although it did not have the ease of use and creative freedom that WIKIs provide. Groupware, document management and knowledge management systems typically impose more structure and administrative control; whereas WIKIs have more freedom yet still offer the necessary controls to ensure structure.

WIKIs really begin to shine when information needs to be shared in a team atmosphere. A good example of this is a corporate call center or help desk. The ability for phone representatives to build a powerful and fluid knowledge base provides a place where knowledge can be transferred and shared. By nature, WIKIs allow the community of users to keep information up to date, even if they lack technical website knowledge.

A company can take WIKIs to the next level by harnessing this organic knowledge base and syndicating it through RSS feeds, offering information in and out of the company. Imagine your customers accessing the same content through the real time web applications that your help desk or other support team use. RSS and WIKI technology are pretty straight forward. Together, they capture your company’s knowledge and create a distribution model covering other corners of your business where this information is needed.

Why WIKI? It can help your company organize and share information, particularly in areas where information is changing quickly or there is a rapid turnover resulting in a loss of critical knowledge. Add a touch of social networking to the mix and you now have a breeding ground for new ideas that could propel creativity in your company. There is no limit to how you can utilize this type of technology.

Where do you begin? To start, look at open-source options including MediaWiki (the software behind Wikipedia) or Confluence. Established products, such as Microsoft’s SharePoint Sever 2007, are bundling support for WIKIs into their products and are good options if you are using them in your environment today. Having a good understanding of who will use your WIKI, how users might consume the information, and what their challenges are will provide the blueprint for you to start building your own WIKI style knowledge-based system.

Many people who have been in the workforce for a few years have horror stories about their on-the-job training, or lack thereof. I am reminded of a recent visit to the post office, where I pointed out a mistake made by the counter clerk. She apologized, explaining that postal regulations had recently been changed by Congress, and all the retraining the post office employees had received was a typed sheet of 8 ½ x 11 paper. While we might expect a sub-par training program from our federal bureaucracy, it is a surprisingly common failing of businesses big and small. Many are attempting to address the issue by implementing e-learning and online training programs. These flexible programs give more freedom to workers to learn at their own pace and in their own methods. They can also save time, cut down on costs, and allow for more frequent training.

Though print materials are still the most common way that companies prepare their employees to perform essential tasks, e-learning is quickly becoming very popular. Synchronous programs provide lessons to groups of employees simultaneously, and everyone learns together. This can be beneficial if you want to provide training to people at different locations at the same time through e-conferencing technology. I participated in two training sessions this way, logging into a website to watch the instructor’s presentation and feeding audio through a telephone. However, asynchronous courses are more common, allowing each individual to log on and complete tasks at their leisure. Some common tools used in both types of programs include online discussion boards, text chats, screen/podcasts, games, and wikis. These types of interactive technologies can give employees a sense of freedom and participation in their training, encouraging them to dedicate themselves to the tasks they will learn and fully invest themselves in the program.

Some businesses are seeking professional help to implement online training programs. One company which specializes in the market is ej4, which provides pre-packaged or custom sales, compliance, or technology training programs. ej4 also offers testing, video production, guide materials, or will distribute customized sales materials to your e-learners. Their boast is that they can reduce your training costs and increase revenues. Software developers are also jumping on the online training bandwagon. HP’s learning center provides free online classes, how-to guides, business templates, and software seminars. In addition to resources on using their own products, HP has even expanded training offerings to Microsoft Publisher and Access, Adobe products, and CorelDraw. Small business owners can even access free courses on general topics like guerilla marketing, driving online sales, and time management at www.officeliveseminars.com.

The trend towards online and e-learning training is catching on for large and small businesses alike. Companies are finding that participation rates are higher than in traditional face-to-face training, and employees have their pick of larger course offerings to encourage self-improvement. Critics of e-learning point to the lack of face-to-face contact that is the essence of an educational experience; proponents of the system argue that “face-to-face” has a different meaning in our Web 2.0 culture. More and more of our daily “human” interactions actually take place through the conduit of the web. Is there something lost from taking the live person out the training process? Perhaps, but there is also something gained. When the responsibility of training is put in the hands of the employee, making it an opportunity instead of a chore, they gain the desire and drive to make the most of it.

Do you use Six Sigma or use some type of innovative/creative process instead? Both have their proper places, and both bring a sense of quality and creativity to the workplace, but you have to know when and how to use each of them. Six Sigma is designed to identify problems or defects, then use rigorous measurement standards to reduce variation and eliminate defects. Without quality programs like Six Sigma, the new Apple iPhone would have cost closer to $5000 if the efficiencies in mass production and defect reduction were not managed. On the other hand, excessively rigid Six Sigma standards would squash the very creativity needed at a large company to dream up an innovative product like the iPhone.

When these types of initiatives become ingrained in a company’s culture, creativity is usually the first casualty; an inventive and imaginative atmosphere is squelched. However, the value of Six Sigma-type programs is to help cut costs and improve quality while cutting down the time it takes to launch a product.

While process excellence demands precision, consistency, and repetition, innovation calls for variation, failure, and a bit of anarchy. Six Sigma is a great process but the right balance of creativity has to survive in the organization as well; otherwise new inventions will never see the light of day. By its very nature Six Sigma fosters a very low tolerance for risk. This is because risk increases variation. Can you imagine the iPhone coming out of a company which focuses primarily on repetition and removal of defects instead of celebrating innovation and creativity? Out-of-box thinking and new ideas cannot prosper in environments where the primary goal is to count defects.

A combination of the two cultures would be ideal for any company’s success. Take design and development. A strong design team needs to innovate and try different things, but a development team could meet disaster if the same approach was taken. A great design can be constructed by taking risks and iterating concepts in the form of live brainstorm. Development, however, needs to be a more repetitive process; it can only be effective if certain methods or concepts can be componentized and streamlined. The beauty of a mixed methodology is clear when you bring both of these worlds together as an innovative, quality product that can be constructed and distributed efficiently.

Process vs. creativity? Maybe you don’t have to make that choice. I would rather think of it as the process of creativity.

Found on Technorati:

An article seemingly aimed primarily at larger, Fortune 500 companies, but whose main points could benefit almost any business thinking of using a blog as a marketing tool:

Do’s and don’ts of corporate blogging

1.) Be open to blogging and don’t punish authors.

The primary reason that blogs are attractive to readers is because the messages within are perceived as genuine. Your employees work for and believe in you, and if you reward them with your trust, they will reward you with an authentic voice that communicates positively about your business. The buzz this generates can’t be purchased.

2.) Find a way to make your topics interesting.

If you are a manufacturer of industrial lawn mowing equipment, you might have to stretch to feature the minutiae of your product in some interesting way. But if you follow the Association of Landscapers in your blog, or if you can find a sensitive way to discuss the ups and downs of immigration law reform, you will probably find a much more impassioned audience.

3.) Encourage feedback.

Many companies are hesitant to allow comments on their blog, but it is both in the open spirit of the medium and of immeasurable benefit to an organization. How much money would be spent on consultants’ fees and surveys to painfully extract customers’ thoughts, here so openly offered? It is always possible to filter spam and profanity, leaving customers feeling free to say what they think.

4.) Create new content and provide links.

Creating new content is a basic building block of any website, and of blogging. Content gives readers something to keep coming back for, and helps the site get noticed by search engines.

5.) Think ahead, but don’t be a phony.

Blogging is still relatively new to most companies. As a new form of communication, it offers a great deal of potential. Because a blog is much harder to control than other forms of media, it can be scary to organizations that are used to holding the reins of their image very tightly. Yet it is the very fact that individuals, not corporations, are writing blogs that makes their message believable–and any attempt to tamper with that will destroy all the hard work and trust invested in it. Don’t be a phony. Establish a few guidelines to protect your organization, stand back, and let your blog, and bloggers, do their job.

You’ll be glad you did.

Second Life (also known as SL) is a social networking site that has gone a step beyond other popular social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. This 3-D virtual world is managed by the citizens of Second Life, which according to the creators of the website, has grown to 5 million users.

In SL, people are able to create a new identity through their virtual characters and interact with other avatars from around the globe. They are able to build islands, homes and anything else they can dream up, attend events, fly to another country or do business with fellow users. Business transactions take place through dealing with Linden dollars that can then be translated into real money for “first life” spending.

Confused yet? Well, so are many other first time second lifers. There is definitely a learning curve involved with SL, that many critics are pointing out as a drawback of the site, saying this difficulty in getting started results in a low number of participants who could possibly be targeted by marketers. Yet, despite the critics many advertisers and marketing departments are taking interest in this latest online trend and looking at Second Life as a new place to reach potential customers.

Toyota is one example of a company who has taken the leap into SL in hopes that its “in world” marketing campaign will pay off. They have created a virtual dealership where they sell all three models of the (computer generated) Scion XB. Buyers can customize their cars any way they would like, a feature which Toyota hopes will keep residents coming back for more.

While Toyota charges for its vehicles, Nissan opened a dealership in which they dispense Sentras like bubblegum, free to residents via an enormous vending machine.

And it’s not just cars that are being sold and dispensed in SL. Residents can purchase anything from a Starbucks latte or Heineken beer to a Nike sneaker. Vogue, a publication of Conde Nast, has creatively marketed their brand by dropping virtual magazines throughout SL. This feature, when clicked on by a resident, brings them immediately to the Vogue Web site.

Sunbelt Technology has created an island where residents can meet to discuss computer related issues. There are several areas of the island ranging from a pavilion for product awareness to an auditorium for lectures and conferences to an underwater world for beginners of Second Life.

Even charities and nonprofit organizations are looking at SL to get their message across. Adventure Ecology, a UK based charity, in an effort to spread the word on global warming, submerged under water, low lying areas in the world such as the Netherlands and Tokyo.

Second Life, like many other social networking sites, provides companies with the means to tap into new markets, test products and ideas and interact with customers in new and innovating ways. Today, Second Life has about 5 million users who interact with this site. As this market grows, you can be sure that the number of companies who want to interact in this virtual world will grow as well.

To learn more about Second Life please visit www.secondlife.com

You have a new idea, product or service. What’s the first thing you want to do? Share it with someone! In business terms, you want to share it with the world and hopefully make a profit. When it comes to marketing your product or service you have several options on how to go about it. You can stick to traditional, cut and dry advertising efforts, such as print, television and radio - or you can take a more creative approach and use some more modern agile approaches to marketing.

In 1983, Jay Conrad Leninson was considered the pioneer of guerrilla marketing with his take-no-prisoners approach to marketing for small and medium size businesses. Individuals make guerrilla marketing more complicated than it really is far too often. Guerrilla marketing is simply a more effective way to stimulate an idea, using both traditional and non-traditional methods. Being able to combine both traditional and non-traditional marketing efforts is what makes guerrilla marketing so unique. In doing this, you fast track your message to the public.

Standards still exist in guerrilla marketing even as a low-cost alternative, more so than in traditional marketing. The planning, insight and execution involved in guerrilla marketing often takes more attention to detail than traditional marketing.

Through the evolution of guerrilla marketing, agile marketing has aroused. One could even draw a parallelism to agile development, a process of sending web applications to the market faster. Agile marketing is focused around using preexisting relationships along with flexible ideas and tactics through the internet to deliver significant information to potential and current clients. Social networking, business blogging, wikis, forums, email branding, web site communication and newsletter campaign management are all outlets in which agile marketing is made possible.

One big mistake people have when using this approach is that fundamentals go out the door. Whether it’s a newspaper ad or a social networking event planned within Second Life (see Second Life blog) it is important that you still have a clear understanding of your customer, the market(s) you’re in and what you want to accomplish.

Whether it is guerrilla or agile marketing you chose to pursue to penetrate your idea or service to the public, it is important to have clear business goals and measurements. Having these defined will help you decide on which traditional and non-traditional marketing options to select. Clearly defined goals and measurements coupled with an open mind and researching will allow you to have more options and uncover greater possibilities in your marketing direction.

We’ve all heard amusing horror stories about companies whose marketing campaigns went terribly wrong due to bad translations. For instance, Pepsi’s slogan “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” was interpreted in Taiwan as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead”. Another prime example is American Airline’s “Fly in leather” tagline, which, when translated literally for the Mexican market, invited passengers to fly in the nude. These tremendous oversights, while entertaining, have the effect increasing the cultural awareness in businesses around the world. Errors such as these, coupled with increasing numbers of non-English speaking web users, have led many companies to adopt a strategy of “localization” when it comes to presenting themselves in the global marketplace through the web. More than simply careful, appropriate translations, localization refers to an adaptation of language, content and design to reflect local cultural sensitivities as a whole.

Since web sites are increasingly the lens through which a company is viewed, web designers are considering more than just literal translations in order to increase their positive image and presence in overseas markets. More and more, the trend is to consider numerous factors of cultural significance when creating a web site. Consider funneling customers to tailored sites based on their cultural identifications; you can ask users to select their home country before entering the site, for example. Formatting for date and time, representations of numbers, currency symbols, the tone of content, and even color is important to putting the best foot forward. For example, during a 1994 campaign, the telecom company Orange changed its approach when running ads in Northern Ireland. Their slogan, “The future’s bright…the future’s Orange,” was inappropriate because the color orange, associated with the Orange Order, a Protestant militant group, would alienate a large group in the target market. Similarly, an overly casual message, anglicized numerical values, even non-metric specs to describe a product, can be a turn-off to a potential customer with different cultural expectations.

Localization can be accomplished by careful research in your design. Many companies are using anthropological consultants to give them the edge over their competitors. Experts with vast bases of knowledge can interpret cultural symbols and push you in the right direction. When crafting your message, be sure to use translators and writers who are sensitive to the cultural complexities of the target audience. Not all Spanish dialects are created equal: a perfectly inane term in Argentina could have a foul meaning in Puerto Rico. Local literacy levels in Spain may be quite different from those in Ecuador, and different terminology should be considered. Use a translator who speaks the local dialect of your audience.

Many times, companies try to bypass errors in translation by using non-textual means of communication, but local trends must be considered in this circumstance as well. Tide detergent created a word-free billboard with three drawings. The leftmost showed a woman frowning and examining a dirty shirt. The second showed her loading the shirt into a washing machine and adding Tide. The furthest right frame showed her happily holding up the now-clean shirt. Many of you have spotted the problem with this ad: some languages, including Arabic and Hebrew, are read from right to left, which makes Tide a very unattractive product indeed. Carefully researching your intended audience’s habits and needs can prevent your customer from misunderstanding your message.

Just as you would consider keywords for optimizing your search engine results in English, this must also be a priority when developing a localization strategy. Your translator should use the correct language encoding to ensure that text in other alphabets and configurations will display properly. This is essential for languages using non-Roman alphabets, where the text will need to be reorganized for ease of reading. If the language is encoded incorrectly, users will have difficulty viewing your site and search engines may not be able to categorize it. For example, if your site is encoded correctly in Korean, a search engine might deem it more relevant to a user who performed a search in Korean than a similar site encoded in English. However, if the encoding is incorrect, you have lost this basic advantage over your competition. And, as always, use the most accurate local term for your product and services, not an exact translation.

Businesses are increasingly competing on a global level, and the internet is the staging ground for launching a product to an international market. Considering local customs, culture, and needs is the key to reaching a global audience without looking foolish. Steer away from literal translations, and don’t make assumptions about your audience without first doing the proper research. If successfully done, your web site will positively reflect the image of your company abroad. One last example: Coca-Cola, after careful research of over 40,000 Chinese characters phonetically similar to their product name, hit upon a winner. The characters they chose roughly translate as “happiness in the mouth”.

Imagine my surprise to be welcomed to work first thing Monday morning by an email subject line reading, “OK…you are now leaving your comfort zone.” My boss had the great idea of testing and reviewing Google’s stripped-down answer to Microsoft Office, and I was the chosen candidate for this assignment. His email went on to say, “By the way, I am not going to train you either. You need to figure this out on your own.” Wonderful, I thought, rolling my eyes. Me, the only non-techie in our office, nominated as the sacrificial lamb.

Seriously, though, I am an ideal candidate for this kind of experiment. I know how to navigate the web decently, I’m comfortable with MS Office, etc., but I’m far from ingenious when it comes to learning new applications. If I could gracefully make the switch to Google Apps, then our growing company would potentially follow suit. I obediently logged on and begun my explorations.

Google Apps is a series of programs which mimic Office Suite, including email, calendaring, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and messaging. Initially conceived in 2005, Apps matured in early 2007 with a Premier Edition marketed to small businesses that added more features and functionality. The whole package is priced reasonably at $50 per user per year, much less than your typical costs for licensing Office. Standard and Education editions of Apps are offered free of charge.

Though I experienced the initial bumps that are expected when learning new software (where on earth is the spell check function?), I’ve become acculturated quickly. I’ve been using Google Docs for all of my blog compositions for a little over a week, and I love that I can have my boss review and make changes without creating different drafts. I find it easier to use the formatting and stylistic options without searching through obscurely-named drop-down menus, though Docs is considerably (and purposefully) less sophisticated than Word. My biggest pet peeves so far are the lack of a thesaurus and the limited number of special symbols (looking up Unicodes is no fun). I suspect, however, that functionality will increase as more and more businesses begin using Docs as a replacement for Word.

One of the biggest shortcomings of Apps is the fact that it is entirely web-based. Your work is archived online much like your email, and you can only access it if you’re connected to the internet. This is especially problematic when traveling, and Google is rumored to be working on a “work offline” open source option similar to that which is already in place for Reader. This would allow users to access their archives on long airplane flights, for example.

Apps has a long way to go before it gives Microsoft a serious run for its money, but I’m of the opinion that its a viable alternative for low-needs users like myself. It perfectly reflects Google’s grassroots culture aimed at changing our expectations of int