Been lookin’ at podcast directories

Decided to find a good web design podcast. Many of the web design podcasts were way too chatty for my taste— too much personality, and not enough content. I also found that you can find many of the same podcasts on different directory sites.

Discovered that some podcast directories had better browse categories than others. ODEO was pretty good, but to find the web design content in ODEO I had to choose Arts, and then Design to find the web design stuff.

Found the web design stuff at ITunes by gong to Arts, and then to Design. ITunes has a great sorting feature. You can sort the podcasts by Name, Time, Artist, Album and Genre.

Podcast.com has a web design channel. From there I sampled podcasts from CreativeExpert who does design interviews. I also sampled WebDesignTV. If you are interested in CSS3, I've included a link to a video interview with Hakon Wium Lie. He discusses many of the new features and font options available in CSS3.

Aggressive Advertising on You Tube

Until I started searching You Tube for an interesting video to blog about, I didn't realize how annoying and aggressive the advertising is on a large percentage of the videos. They remind me of those old car lot TV commercials where the salesman was barking at you like a sideshow carnie at the county fair.

After a while I became so annoyed by the “commercials” I was being bombarded with at the beginning of the videos that I refused to watch the videos that had up-front, aggressive ads. Some of the self-promotion was less aggressive, and many appeared at the end of the video. Those are much less objectionable.

Don't you think that a simple statement of who produced the video, and a short description of what you are about to see is more effective than yelling the company advertising slogan at you?

I really enjoy the county fair; Including the barking sideshow carnies. I think we should leave the barking to the pros in the traveling carnivals, and keep it out of social media.

I've been exploring online word processing

I've been exploring online word processing tools. I created an account at Zoho Writer first. I soon discovered that the application wouldn't launch on my Macintosh. That brought my interest in Zoho Writer to a screeching halt! I didn't even bother to check out their support documents to see if my assumption was correct. I moved on to Google Docs. So far, it seems very intuitive. I like it when I don't have to read tons of documentation to use an application. The application is robust (i.e. it has most of the editing and styling tools I'm used to, and the standard keyboard shortcuts work).

I finally broke down and explored the Help section. It looks like the Google Documents, Google Spreadsheets, and Google Presentations are all going to be easy to use. I think that the most interesting feature is the ability to collaborate with others on a document. According to the Help topics, if you and another collaborator are editing the same document at the same time, a box at the bottom left of the screen will appear, telling you the name of the collaborators you're working with.

I'm really interested now to see how well it exports my document for use in my blog. I'm about to find out.

It wasn't perfect. It threw in a few html tags I didn't expect, but It worked! I was able to publish this article directly from Google Docs.

wikiHow and How to Deskunk Your Dog

According to their introductory tour, “wikiHow is a collaborative writing project aiming to build the world's largest and highest-quality how-to manual. As of this minute, wikiHow contains 56,674 articles. We are read by tens of millions of people from multiple countries every month making us the most popular wiki after Wikipedia..” I can believe it. It is populated with practical, as well as entertaining, how-to wiki articles. After browsing several categories I recognized an article that I felt qualified to edit.

One of my dogs had a short encounter with a skunk at 2 AM Saturday morning. This is not my first experience with the skunk versus dog aftermath. Tomato juice and those commercial remedies from the pet store don't work! The deskunking method I found on the internet at 2 AM is so much better! The wikiHow site had a How to Deskunk your dog article which also included the same deskunking solution. I felt confident in adding a little more information to the article because of my recent experience. The editing feature at wikiHow was easy to use.


How to Deskunk Your Dog

Wiki Wiki What’s the Hurry

I've been browsing in Web 2.0 Wikiland. Of all the communication formats I've encountered on the Web, wikis are the most difficult to navigate. I have found that most, but not all, wikis are very poorly organized; with what appears to be little attention given to design and screen layout. It’s like the the person who designs the wiki site is just following their personal stream of consciousness to organize. You know . . . they put in one category, their cell phone rings, and by the time they get back to the wiki, they forgot where they were. Then they remember something else that needs to be added; and wherever it's convenient to place it on the screen is where it stays. Oh my gosh! Some wikis don’t even have a content list, or primary tool bar at the top of the screen. What's the hurry? They need to slow down long enough to organize the site! What are they thinking!?

I could give you some examples, but I'd rather provide examples of well-designed wiki sites. I think that the State of California Best Practices wiki does a good job of organizing their site. All the navigation and resource page links are to the left, and their main seven subject areas sections are prominently displayed on the main content area of the main page. Then once you are on the secondary pages there are bread crumbs to help you find your way back through the levels to the main page.

My second example of a well designed wiki is wikiHow. In addition to having a nicely organized and clean look, it is also very entertaining. It is worth a look.

I spent a very long time looking for other good examples, but this is all I could come up with. Help me, have you seen any well designed public wikis? I'm not talking about popular wikis, I'm talking about good visual design and well thought out organization.

Technorati Blogosphere

I'm exploring the ways that tagging effects traffic to blogs and websites. I understand that Technorati is a huge community of users who share tags and streamline the process of searching blogs through special tagging tools. I'll let you know what I find out. I'm in the process of claiming my blog at Technorati and becoming a apart of the Technorati blogosphere. I've already tried out their blog search feature, and I like it better than Bloglines so far.

Technorati Tag: 87u95xck3s
87u95xck3s

Online Community Building

I just read an old (2002) article at oreillynet.com. The article made several main points that I believe are true for science and research sites, or for any other site for that matter. Since the science information organization where I work is just now exploring the addition of social media to it's Web products, I think that the nuggets from the article will be good to keep in mind.

You must know why your site exists
If you can't clearly describe the purpose and content of your site, how will you know if you are succeeding? Worse yet, how will visitors know if they want to join the community? When stating the site purpose, keep the description as simple and as direct as possible.

Users draw other users
As the community leader, or evangelist, it is your job to attract users. Being search engine friendly, submitting links to other sites, and word of mouth are just the beginning. “As a group, your most active users will draw more users than you will. An active user group exudes a sense of community. This attracts people who enjoy the company of like-minded individuals and seek the social rewards of participating in a healthy peer group. People like to fit in, and it takes making several new relationships to produce this impression.”

Users will surprise you
“Community members will continually surprise you, especially if you've never really analyzed an online community before. The issues and themes you find important may never really resonate with your users. They'll latch onto and chase down ideas you've never found important or even knew existed.” You know you've been successful when users start to express a sense of ownership. Eventually their contributions will begin to out weigh your own. As with any other group, or workplace I've ever participated in, you will never be able to please everyone. When you have a critic among your midst, take it with a grain of salt. Just keep in mind that “Some of the best contributors listen and think far more than they speak or type.”

I'd like to add a personal observation here. The science community is loaded with introverts (including me). We are not as prone to comment as would the more social extroverts that you might find gabbing away on Facebook and MySpace; but once we feel at home, you might be surprised at how much we have to say. That is what online communities are about; feeling comfortable enough to let others know what you really think.