The Web 2.0 Blog

2007 - The Web 2.0 Year

Rather predictably, 2007 was a big year for the second generation of the web. Many saw it coming, and no doubt it will continue to grow with startups popping up all over the place. But what stands out from the past year? What made us stand up and take notice?

To help answer that question, we’ve come up with a set of awards. These aren’t your usual “Best in class” awards, because we get enough of those around this time of year. No, these awards recognise real achievements. I know you can’t wait any longer, so let’s get on with it.

The “Where Did That Come From” Award

Yes, it had to be really. Twitter really sprang out of no where right at the beginning of the year to become one of the most used, and most talked about Web 2.0 services out there. It’s such a simple concept, I don’t think anyone really predicted such success when it first launched. Fortunately for Twitter, they had some noteable names sign up early on. Like they say, it’s who you know, not what you know.

The “Oh My, It’s So … Big” Award

Looking around these internets, there are few sites that command the audience FaceBook does. While it is (debatable) still behind MySpace, 2007 has certainly been FaceBook’s year. From a fairly niche site, really not that long ago, to the all encompassing community we have today, it’s been a dramatic rise. It’s not all been plain sailing though, FaceBook has seen it’s problems increase along with it’s popularity. Mid-way through the year there were numerous stories reporting that many companies, schools, colleges and filtering companies were blocking FaceBook and later in the year there was a raucous surrounding the perceived invasion of privacy the new FaceBook ads brought.

The “Oh, Shiny” Award

Design in the Web 2.0 world is a bot of a touchy subject. People are still slightly fearfull when talking about it due to the early suggestions that the Web 2.0 was style over substance. So when looking at services that I deemed eligible for this award, I was really looking at not just the design but the ease of use. And as someone who deals with interface design on a daily basis, I have to appreciate interface design that simplifies complicated processes. And for me, the clear winner was Picnik. Their tagline is “Photo Editing Made Fun”, and while it may not be fun, it’s certainly easy and frustration free.

For those of you wondering, I also considered Google in this category for their Google Docs application. The reason it didn’t win is down to the fact that they did a great job of converting a desktop application into a web application, but didn’t really bring anything new to the table. It’s also lacking the intrinsic Web 2.0 “style” of Picnik.

The “All That And A Bag Of Potato Chips” Award

This is the category for the people that do everything. So we better fess up, there’s only one company that does blogging, documents, email, chat, search, advertising, maps, calendering, web hosting, online payments, analytics, news reading, feed reading, photo hosting, translation, video…

Yes, it’s Google. The remarkable thing, really, is that Google tend to implement all of these things really rather well. Yes, there are blips, but over all, they’ve got a group of market leaders.

I have a feeling there’s some more awards to come…

Permalink Comments (3 Responses) TrackBack

Usability Questionnaire

I came across this questionnaire today that covers some common aspects relating to usability. I’d encourage you to fill it out, if only because you get to see the in progress results at the end. Some of the results are eye opening, and I found myself voting against the vast majority in at least one case (although I would put this down to me being a Mac user, and therefore used to the close/expand buttons appearing in the top left, not top right).

Some of the other questions are literally split 50/50, like where to place the submit button, bottom left or bottom right. On that one at least, I would argue that for the vast majority of forms you wouldn’t want the “Reset” button, a view shared by usability Guru Jakob Nielsen.

Take the Survey now. Any results surprise you?

Permalink Comments (No Responses Yet) TrackBack

Design Considerations for the Web 2.0

For a long time, web design was handled by those with the necessary technical skills to build websites. It was often the same person doing both the front, and back end of a website. These are two very different skills and really, one should lead on to the other. The more you look at Web 2.0 services, it becomes obvious which ones have spent time, money and expertise on their interfaces, and those that have not. But of course the Web 2.0 isn’t all about the big sites, this applies as much to those going through Blog designs as anyone else. To emphasize the areas where you can succeed and fail in designing a Web 2.0 site, I’ve picked out a handfull of aspects that you need to consider, and what you should consider for each. So let’s get started.

(more…)

Permalink Comments (2 Responses) TrackBack

Web 2.0 Basics - RSS & Feeds, a Template for Increasing Subscribers

A more appropriate name for this post, if used correctly, might be “A template for boosting subscribers through education“.

Most bloggers are aware of the opportunity feeds offer them. It’s a guaranteed way to get your content in front of readers, readers who have asked to see it in advance. It’s very powerful, and the sort of thing money can’t buy. Unfortunately, the majority of Web users are still largely oblivious to feeds and the advantages they offer to them. Therefore, it’s important to come up with a way to describe feeds, which is actually a fairly technical solution, using words they can relate to, and understand. This is my attempt to do just that. Dare I suggest that you put words to this effect somewhere on your blog, just to ease the non-technical readers into the concepts involved in subscribing to a blogs content. Unfortunately, I think there’s this assumption amongst bloggers that putting subscribe links up all over your blog is enough to get subscribers. But, this will have no impact at all if you happen to cater for a niche where the audience is not particularly tech savvy. They need to know what a subscription is, how it works, what the benefits are and how they do it.

This site offers the ability for you to subscribe to our new content. What this means is that when we write something new and brilliant, it will be delivered to you. What this really means is, you can now get the latest from your favourite websites in the same way you get your mail. Imagine RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication) is the mail man. When you wake up every morning, you don’t go to all your friends to ask whether or not they’ve sent you any mail, you wait for the mail man to deliver the mail to you. Now you can do the same with websites, just sit back and wait for the content to come to you. Subscribing in this way is free and you can unsubscribe any time you like. You also get to chose how you receive the content. If you like, it can be delivered to you through email or you can use one of the many News Readers out there, such as the excellent, and completely free, Google Reader. Regardless of what News Reader you decide to use, simply copy the subscription address from the site and paste it into the “Add Subscription” field in your reader. It may not be worded exactly like that, but these things are really easy. We hope you enjoy our future content, and hope you contribute to our blog.

I think the above uses a nice analogy to explain how subscriptions to users who may not be familiar with them. By introducing Google Reader, and explaining in simple terms that once you subscribe, you can unsubscribe at any time, you will encourage new readers to take the plunge. Of course, you will want to tailor it to your content, especially if it’s not for a blog. It’s also written in (hopefully) English-English, as opposed to American-English, see the “u” in favourite?

If you have any feedback, please drop it in the comments. I’m going to be adding text to this effect on all my sites that offer subscriptions over the next few weeks to see if it has any impact on subscriber numbers. Let me know if you do the same.

Permalink Comments (3 Responses) TrackBack

A.D 2007, What’s next?

There have been some rumblings recently about the Web 2.0 and specifically, where it’s heading. So, now we’re half way through the year A.D 2007, what more can we expect this year from the Web 2.0? I think the obvious, and easy answer is, more of the same.

Of all the launches, private Beta’s and development intentions we keep on seeing, very few offer anything unique. Two of the hottest Web 2.0 apps coming up for public release this year, Mr Wong and Pownce, are variations on a theme. Social Bookmarking and Web based chat clients. Neither offer anything particularly new, or anything particularly different yet both are set to be wildly popular. So what does this tell us? Certainly, the main point to take away from this is, we haven’t quite reached perfection yet. Yes, I know that’s stating the obvious but it bares thinking about. Moving from one web application to another represents a fairly substantial amount of effort on the part of the user. So obviously people are unhappy with their current selection of web apps to the point of feeling comfortable switching. I know that personally, I’ve switched RSS reader alone 3 times in the last six months, let alone my note taking app and calendar. And I’m still not entirely happy with my choices.

Now we’ve established this fairly fundamental point, we can use it as a basis for some potential trends that you can expect to see in the next few months.

Tighter desktop integration - We are already starting to see some of this. Pownce, for example, is offering a desktop client and Adobe have been pushing their web-desktop crossover platform heavily. At the moment, it all feels very “first go”, I’ll wait till I can get a desktop, web and mobile integrated platform before I even think about it, thankyouverymuch.
More specialisation - With the saturated nature of the current web app market, the only way to go is insular. So expect to see sites that offer the same feature set as other sites, but cater to a much more specific audience. Think del.icio.us but only with cooking bookmarks, or You Tube with only horse riding videos. The simple fact is, for the really popular activities, the big players already have it covered.
Differentiation - With such a saturated market, especially with such similar services, companies are going to to try more and more absurd ways to differentiate themselves from the pack. No doubt the two most obvious ways of doing this is through branding and interface design. Stikkit went down the interface route and have made a fair go of it. So long as it drives innovation, I’m ok with it.
More ownership consolidation - If you want a microcosm of the world’s economy, take a look at web apps. The best are being snapped up by bigger companies at a startling rate. Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are all buying in instead of developing and expect to see alot more of this.
There will be a few surprises - There are still some good ideas out there and someone, somewhere is currently sitting on one. Despite the fact that the trends point to more of the same, there will still be some young upstart that breaks the mold and lands the next big thing.

I think that list really covers the things I expect to see in the near future. It’s all just evolution not revolution at the moment. One thing I am hoping for is a tail off of product launches. It stinks of the period leading up to the Web 1.0 bubble bursting. We get a highly publicised launch regularly and some startling evaluations. I’d like to see fewer, but better judged launches with some web apps that really enhance the space, and don’t just fill it.

What are your views on the immediate future of the Web 2.0?

Permalink Comments (No Responses Yet) TrackBack

5 Usability Problems that Web Apps Need to Overcome

Looking through the hundreds of popular web apps that are out there, it seems as if the same few UI problems keep cropping up. Some have been solved to some extent where some have simply been ignored. So, I think its time to “out” those little problems so they can be beaten back with good interface design.

(more…)

Permalink Comments (No Responses Yet) TrackBack

Usability Watch - Why can’t I do what I want to do!?!

I’ve been shopping round for a new car recently and that means I inevitably have to get some (outrageous) insurance quotes. In the UK there’s a website called confused.com which is basically a screen scraper service that goes around multiple companies and is meant to get you the cheapest quote. Strangely, the cheapest quote I got from them was about the same as the most expensive quote I got when I went through the process manually, but that’s for another day.

On the the point! I’ve used the site before to get quotes, last time I was looking for a car in fact, so I duly signed in using my details. Upon sign in, I was presented with the following screen you can see to the right. So why is this such a poor screen? Well, put yourself in my shoes, I hadn’t visited the site in a while and was coming back to get a new quote. With that in mind, what’s missing from that screen? Thats right, it seems as though all I can do is visit and view existing quotes. So where do we go from here? I assumed this was just because I was revisiting and I had outstanding quotes, so I hit “Previous” in search of a more usefull opening screen, but no, nothing, nada. Turns out, that if you want to create a new quote, you have to go and visit one of your existing quotes. Why? This is the sort of interface and usability madness that drives me mad, excuse the pun. To put it simply, I’m just as likely to want to create a new quote as revisit an old one, so those options should be on par. The other option that should clearly be available is to update my details. Hell, I want to input my details once and then just reuse them over and over. At the moment, while it pre-populates the fields with your pre-entered details, theres no way to just choose a car and hit submit. With the amount of information some insurers ask for, it would save some serious time, and just seems like common sense.

Permalink Comments (No Responses Yet) TrackBack

Stikkit Quicksilver Plugin

I think my life has just changed. My personal data manager of choice, Stikkit, has had a plugin released so that it works with the best task launcher ever conceived, Quicksilver. If you head into your Quicksilver preference pane, you can now add a Stikkit plugin which allows you to add and amend Stikkits as well as accessing your current Stikkits. Have a look at this post over a The Unofficial Apple Weblog which will run you through the setup process. This is really how things should work, the integration between Stikkit and Quicksilver is pretty seemless and having access to all my Stikkits right there on my desktop, and then being able to use them in the ways Quicksilver allows, is a revelation.

I’ve posted about Stikkit before and praised the way in which it uses natural text as an input mechanism. This remains extant when using Quicksilver. I’m convinced this is the future. So long as there are great desktop applications out there, Quicksilver being one of them, many people will find it hard give them up. Likewise, which web apps are as easy to use as Stikkit, many people will want to start using it. This is the perfect balance. One of the things I like about Stikkit is that I can just type information in there and Stikkit sorts it all out for me, tagging it and setting up reminders and generally acting like my mother (i.e. picking my socks up, doing my laundry etc.). With the amount of time it takes for me to create a Stikkit greatly reduced, its become my go to app for pretty much everything. A word of warning though, occasionally you will need something a bot more structured. For me, Stikkit works great as a place to hold to-dos, meeting minutes, general notes and such like. I back it up with a more formal and structured application for when its required. My personal choice for this is Active Collab, which you’ll need to host yourself, but provides a very usable solution. That may come as a shock to many of you as I was a long time proponent of the 37 signals application Basecamp. unfortunately, it just doens’t seem to be moving in the same direction as me, which is a shame. I’ll cover this at a later date, as it seems to be happening with a few of my old favourite we applications.

Permalink Comments (One Response) TrackBack

How to get through today with Google Reader

So, we all know what today is. And, unfortunately, many tech and web 2.0 sites like to take full advantage. So, I bring to you a technique for avoiding all this silliness using Google Reader. Its quite complicated, sorting the wheat from the chaff isn’t easy at the best of times, let alone today, so bear with me.

Ok, first, bring up Google Reader in your browser.

Then, click this button Google Reader View All . This ensures that whatever you do next will be applied to all posts.

Next, click this button Google Reader Mark All As Read Button .

And that should be it, all done. You will, however, have to apply the same “fix” every so often for the next 24 hours.

Enjoy a peacefull Sunday.

Permalink Comments (One Response) TrackBack

Icons of Web 2.0

There are many Web 2.0 services out there yet only a few have become iconic. In this post, I’ll run through some of the iconic images associated with the Web 2.0 and just why they have gained this status.

(more…)

Permalink Comments (2 Responses) TrackBack

« Older Posts