Wednesday, December 20, 2006

King of the castle - the web in 2007

The world of web is moving at an astonishing rate. In China, websites such as www.teambuy.com.cn provide a forum for consumers to meet online and organise group excursions to virtual retail shops where they can actually haggle for cheaper prices. Genius! Next year, according the the Economist Intelligence Unit, much of the growth in ecommerce sales will come from populous countries such as India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia and China where the broadband market is expected to reach 79 million subscribers in 2007.

According to Research Company, Forrester, British web spenders will outspend even their american counterparts with an average yearly spend of €1500 (up by 50% from 2006). Travel, clothes, groceries and consumer electronics will lead the way.

So with all these online shops popping up, how will e-tailers retain their market share? The answer lies in loyalty schemes, competitive prices and good search engine marketing. It is predicted that by 2010 Eurpoean marketers will spend almost €3.8bn on search engine marketing up from €856 in 2004. According to ZenithOptimedia, spending on internet ads will overtake billboards and other outdoor advertising in 2007.

What else? Well it looks as though some of the technology giants such as Microsoft, Dell and Intel might be getting a bit worried as free open-source software appears on the net - products such as Microsoft's Vista will emerge in an effort to keep hold of the industry crown. And it's not only the tech-heads who are worried - tv is beginning to lose its audience to the web through video-hosting services such as YouTube which streams more than 100 million videos a day! And they offer no advertising at all, so you can bet your bottom dollar that advertisers are going to be after a piece of that pie.

One thing is for sure, the web is now fully ingrained into our lives; as online communities continue to thrive and grow, and web access via mobile phones becomes the norm, it is plainly obvious that no-one in the business world can afford to turn a blind eye to the monster of the internet.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Who can you trust to tell the truth? Skype's got the answer!

A long while ago I downloaded Skype, the free online communication software owned by Ebay. I use it mostly as an Instant Messaging service although in the past I have used it for free conference calls with clients based abroad. I was planning on using it to talk to my cousin in Australia but he's never online at the same time as me the slacker. Anyway it's a pretty cool piece of kit, and it's just got better!

I've just read about this great add-on called the kish-kash lie detector which analyses audio stream over a Skype call in real time and illustrates the stress levels of the other person - wowsers! As well as operating in real time the KishKish device can also record calls for analysis later.

Researchers found that frequencies in the human voice are sensitive to honesty. When a person is being honest the average sound in that range is generally in the lower frequencies, but is usually higher in dishonest situations. Although unfortunately I think you can only download a free trial version at the moment. It's definitely one to watch out for though - and if you're on a skype call any time in the near future, be careful what you say and make sure you say it in a really deep voice!

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Windows Vista - Rate it, Slate it, There's no escaping it

On 30 November 2006, Microsoft officially launched Windows Vista, Microsoft Exchange 2007 and the Office 2007, it's new operating system to replace Windows XP. Although it is 2 years late and its consumer launch misses Christmas, analysts agree the new version should be a big success. Windows currently runs on 9 out of 10 of the world's PCs so it is likely to be scrutinised to death in the coming months.

Some of the features to look out for in Vista are:

  1. Increased reliability and security
  2. Integration of Microsoft's media centre into the main operating system
  3. Integration of desktop search, which will make it much easier for users to find both applications and files
  4. Communications feature - VoIP (voice-over IP_, email, video-conferencing and IM (instant messaging) will be consolidated into a single communications facility....I think - please correct me if I'm wrong!

On the down-side, Windows 2000 cannot be upgraded to Vista. Windows Vista must be "clean installed," which means users will need to back up their files and data manually and then copy everything into place. Applications will also need to be re-installed. Microsoft is providing a beta of its Upgrade Advisor tool that will evaluate whether a PC is ready to run Windows Vista.

Technology analysts and consultants, Gartner believe Vista will be the last major release of Windows in its current form. 'User demands, Microsoft's business needs and technology changes will move future versions toward a more modular architecture. The trend of bundling even more functionality is set to reverse.'

Like it or not (and from reading other peoples blogs, it seems that 'not' is the preferred route) Vista is not something that can be ignored, and every organization is going to have to come up with a policy for Vista deployments pretty soon. If you ask me, it'll definitely be worth browsing some geeky blogs for Vista opinions in the coming months.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Meta tags - What are they and should you care?

The meta tag is used by search engines to allow them to more accurately list your site in their indexes. It is embedded into the html so you wouldn't be able to tell a site which uses meta tags apart from one that doesn't. But there's much dispute over whether search engines recognise them at all. The truth is that good content is more likely to help you with your search engine visibility than fancy tags.

A meta tag looks something like this:
meta name="description" content="a description of your page" OR
meta name="keywords" content="a, list, of, keywords"
and it does not need a closing tag. The use of the tag has in the past resulted in some web site owners abusing it in the hope of tricking the search engines into driving traffic to their site. However, that was about 10 years ago and since then search engines have become a lot more sophisticated in their crawling mechanisms.

It is true that, for certain search engines, you may be able to exert a certain amount of control over how your site is indexed by the use of the meta tag. Correct meta tags won't help you in optimizing for Google, but misleading meta tags could cause your site to be penalized.

From reading other peoples opinions, it seems that although meta tags are not given much importance by search engines, title tags and meta description tags are still considered to be very effective tools for increasing clickthrough rate. It appears as though no-one's really certain about meta tags but generally people are still of the opinion that, providing the content and keywords are relevant, it is still worth doing. In short, meta tags aren't quite dead yet.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Choosing your screen resolution

One of the last questions we ask our clients during a design consultion is which screen resolution they'd prefer and if they'd favour a fixed-width or percentage-based (stretchable) website . The term screen resolution is actually a bit of a misnomer because almost all computer screens display at the equivalent of 72-96 ppi (pixels per inch). What we are actually referring to is screen size or how big a website will appear on the screen.

The current trend is that more and more computers are using a screen size of 1024 x 768 pixels or more, currently accounting for 77% of users. Latest statistics state that only 17% use a screen resolution of 800 x 600. This is all very well but you can't rely on statistics alone to determine which screen resolution is best for your site. Thought has to be put into the intended audience, navigational structure and client expectations.

Here are some examples of the different screen resolutions available:

www.mourant.com - Simply change the size of the browser to see how the content stretches to conform to it. Notice how the left and top navigation remain fixed while the content area stretches.
www.cooper.co.je - This site uses a fixed width of 800 x 600 which is appropriate for their target market and works well with the design.
www.day2dayshop.com - They chose 1024 x 768 due to the quantity of content required, their navigational structure and their client base.
www.vistra.com - Vistra went for the 'less is more' philosophy choosing powerful imagery over a large screen resolution. Many design agencies use this approach often incorporating flash elements into their design.

So choosing the most appropriate screen resolution for your website is more than just a matter of statistics, it depends on the situation and the market, and also personal preferences.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Which browser has the best-looking buttons?

It seems that almost every day at the moment I'm having to justify to someone why it is that I'm still using IE6. Whenever I admit to it I get this pitiful look from my work-mates as if to say 'don't worry Gilly, you'll catch up one day'. Well maybe I don't want to catch up. Maybe I quite enjoy having lots of browser windows open at the same time. Who needs tabs anyway? If it aint broke, why fix it?

PJB thinks I should be using Firefox 2 produced by Mozilla. Mozilla user experience lead Mike Beltzner says Firefox's "less is more" philosophy is what makes the browser so popular. It looks pretty slick and funky, has its very own spellchecker and all sorts. It also gives you control over web feeds (RSS) and claims to deliver good accessibility. I like the tabs and the funky little icons but I must admit, not everything I use works on it. But you can't blame the browser for that as it just means that the web-page has not been cross-browser tested yet.

Microsoft's IE7 has pretty similar features to Firefox 2.0 although with a much beefier download package of 14.8MB (more than 2.5 times the size of Firefox). Searching a webpage is more elegant in Firefox 2.0 than IE7, as is subscribing to RSS feeds. Microsoft hasn't launched a new web browser since 2001 whereas Firefox has constantly been releasing new versions which means that IE7 has a lot to live up to and is being heavily scrutinised.

In my opinion a browser's a browser, use what you like. You might get judged by your work colleagues but as long as you have one good argument you can usually get away with it. The fact of the matter is, Google's bound to release some amazing browser sooner or later anyway.

Here's one of my favourite arguments from the well-known IT genius, PC_Tool: 'IE6 is still ruler of the roost, my friend. Being gung-ho about Firefox is great and all, but don't let that get in the way of reality, mmmkay?'