making sense of the semantic web

a beautiful video explaining/investigating semantic web, by twine’s Nova Spivak.

web 2.0 is a fig leaf, according to FT

FT covers web 2.0for enterprise solutions, seeing it as yet another silly trends “Web 2.0 is an industry fig leaf covering the naked emperor of computers’ inability to understand meaning and purpose. That said, in many situations if you are naked, even a fig leaf can be useful”, viewing community as  “I like Britney too… cool!”. that is to me very sad and unfortunate that someone as sophisticated and knowledgeable as an FT writer cannot see beyond  “I like Britney too… cool!”.

The writer is assuming web 2.0 is about handing the stirring wheel of your car to an out of control 3 year old. that is how he views - maybe not in these words, but under that assumption - the social element of web 2.0. He is all good with using these elements internally, but deems company’s choosing to implement them as putting themselves at incredible risk. ho, yet another person that doesn’t really gets what social web is about and what a one off opportunity it provides the company to REALLY check with the user WHAT THEY WANT.

Pointing out folksonomies as an example for the inconsistency of the masses, seeing web 2.0 as shifting all control to the user, the writer fails to understand the collaborative nature and two way dialogue web 2.0 offers, which offers many more benefits than pretending than operating as a company which does not engage in a dialogue with their users. Giving room for the user to contribute allows a product that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

web 2.0 is about harnessing the many social elements of the web to WISELY use on your site. what a company needs to do is understand how the various social tools might channel the communication with their audience, and make an informative, smart decision about how to use them to maximise dialogue with audience. those that ‘copy and paste’ wikis, blogs and recommendations into their sites without understanding what they serve, are setting themselves for a huge failure and injury.

you gotta fight for your right to auuuuuuuuuction!

Last week Businessweek published a piece about the new winds blowing under eBay’s wings - a set-price-retailer wind.

The changing market and advanced technology have unfortunately given too many tools for a specific type of user to be able to ruin the auctioning user experience for the majority of other users. it is no fun to auction and follow your item for days just to get outbid in the last minute by someone that doesn’t really care about the item or that has entered the bid in the last 30 sec. that’s not fair play. and so many users say ‘what the heck, i’ll just go to the retailer site and pay more, but at least my time wont go to waste’. so instead of tackling the problem that compromises the auctioning experience - the exact same experience  which makes eBay such a unique space - eBay are opting for the easy way and saying ‘well, if you can’t (i.e. dont have the time/resource/whatever to) beat them, join them!’. Unfortunately this rubbish step will not only remove any sort of personality from the site but will literally turn it into one more amazon. and as we already have (a quite successful, so i have heard…) Amazon, we don’t really need another one.

this is an example of a site that is opting to go for the easy way, not listen and react to the user needs, and will have to face the results of users voting with their mouses and going to other new auction sites that will fight for the right to auction.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_26/b4090052447314.htm?chan=search

Guitar Heros are accessibile!

Wired have an interesting piece about guitar hero designed for the blind: “It’s a guitar-based music game that can be played without looking at the screen. Folmer’s group developed a glove that vibrates your fingers a split-second before you’re supposed to play each note in the game. It’s difficult to play, but with enough practice you can experience the sensation of playing guitar without the onscreen commands”.

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/06/gamelife-the–2.html

emotional branding

Last week BusinessWeek mentioned Emotional Branding book as a useful tool for innovation. I searched for the Emotional Branding blog and couldnt find it, but accidentaly ran into this useful list of 10 commandments of emotional branding. I found it very useful, especially in light of the last post which was about the basic rules of creating a solid UX.

FF3 and IE8 - different strokes

As Firefox launched Firefox 3 (aiming to break a Guinness world record with most downloads done in 23 hours) it was fascinating reading this not too long piece about the different philosophies leading the new FF browser vs the new and upcoming IE.

MySpace wants to be Yahoo/Google

In light of MySpace redesign to be deployed this week, I recommend reading an interesting interview for AdAge, where MySpace founder is expressing his new vision : MySpace as the strongest web portal. worth a read.

more info on:

* splash pages, new navigation, new profile editor, new search, tv player - read more info.

* more info

UGC vs Expert content

Want your video to show on Paulo Coelho’s new film? All you need is to contribute to his MySpace page.

First it was J.J. Abrahams with Cloverfield, a movie which I personally didn’t enjoy at all, but was a brilliant studio move in response to the UGC (User Generated Content) threat - a movie which is in its entirety ‘user-generated’.

Coelho is looking for user generated videos and songs to combine into his new film, ‘the experimental witch’, quoting MySpace’s ”ability to connect people - artists, musicians and filmmakers - around the world is unmatched. I am excited to see how this truly unique and innovative project develops.” as the key driver behind his initiative.

I am all for UGC, however, this surfaces up the question of quality, and how much does the audience want to see what has been studio produced, professionally polished vs. independent, ‘real-life’ content? Do you go to the cinema to elope into a CGI fantasy that hosts mighty celebrities or do are you after a real piece of life you can never catch anywhere else? I don’t believe there is an answer but I am curious to see where and when - if at all - will UGC power stop.

power of online communities

It was 8 years ago when I learned first hand the power of online communities. I was working as an Editor of some of IOL (Israel On Line) Communities, an advanced space that gave people the platform and power to connect, develop - and sometimes learn to let go (of problems haunting them) through communities. Each community had a community manager - an expert in their field, a thought leader - that provided daily information, links and topics for discussion. I have gone through many jobs since the community days and still see this job - one of my first jobs in ‘the real world’ - as one of the most enjoyable ones.

The benefits of an online community can be summarized under 4 main categories:

1. Build relationship with your audience - listen, respond, develop your offering based on feedback

2. Provide a discussion platform- one place which not time nor location dependent, that allows people from all over the world to talk about what they are passionate - or just curious - about.

3. Build Knowledge capital - your space hosting a wealth of knowledge around a specific topic.

4. Give your audience what they cannot find anywhere else - a shoulder, a friend, an anonymous advice. I have seen different types of support that were helping any issue from loss and grief through midlife crisis and to food disorders.

Above all, online communities express what Rheingold so beautifully expresses in his book which became the flagship of online communities products, unsurprisingly called ‘the virtual community‘. This is one of the books I strongly recommend anyone with slight curiousity about the web, and who questions why people are getting so hooked up about places such as ‘facebook’ should read.

 

seven golden rules for a solid UX. actually - make that 16.

It was really interesting to come across this list of 7 aspects of great User Experience, given by Andy Budd, a designer and developer at Clearleft in the User Experience (UX) Melbourne conference. Andy’s 7 aspects are:

1. First Impressions Count

2. Attentive Service

3. Personalisation and Customisation

4. Attention to Detail

5. Feedback

6. Make it fun

7. Create the perfect environment

That reminded me of a book I read recently, one of the old stepping stones of Usability - ‘Built for use’, by Karen Donoghue. I was interested to compare these to the ‘9 things you need to know about User Experience strategy’ Karen has come up with. Karen mentions the following as key to a solid UX strategy:

1. Capture What Customers Expect in the User Experience (Attentive Service)

2. Link Usability and Profitability

3. Good Bones Are More Important Than Good Skin: Architect for Navigability and Scalability

4. Make the First-Use Case Frictionless (First Impressions Count)

5. Thread Ease of Use Throughout the Experience (Make it fun)

6. Execution: To Outsource or Not

7. When Things Go Wrong: Fixing Broken User Experiences

8. Channel Integration: Harmonize the Brand Experience Across Channels and Environments (Create the perfect environment)

9. Next-Generation User Experiences: Invisible Ubiquity and Transactional Intelligence

6 years are separating the two sources. Interestingly enough the two have a few overlapping ‘rules’ and a few which are not at all mentioned in the other list. Let’s go through the common elements:

1. Listen to the user, understand their needs

2. First impressions are crucial to establishing a solid relationship

3. Experience should be easy and enjoyable

4. Experience is holistic and should encompass every single interaction of the user with the brand

I will not go through the elements that were not overlapping as I deem all of them crucial to a successful UX. However, by focusing the common elements, it’s easy to see what are the absolute musts are for a solid UX. To me the one that is missing from this ‘basic lists’ that Andy touched upon and that Karen may have neglected because of the different times is

5. Personalisation and Customisation

what’s yours?