WEB DEVELOPMENT BLOG

Introduction to WebDAV

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:22:31 EST

Using WebDAV, I can view the files here on the Web Development Blog. Note: It's not a good idea to use this to edit actual entries, but you can use this to add static .html files such as your "About Us" page.

Here at Case Western Reserve University, we're about to upgrade our primary Web server. Part of this upgrade involves changing the way we upload content to the server. Where in the past we've been using FTP, beginning Monday, May 19, 2008, we'll be using WebDAV. WebDAV has been growing in popularity over the last few years and is now provided as an option by many Web hosting providers. Those of you using FTP on Case or other Web servers may wish to check with your network administrator or Web hosting provider to see if other protocols such as WebDAV are available.

What is WebDAV?

According to WebDAV Resources, "WebDAV stands for "Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning". It is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol which allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers."

This sounds complicated, but for the typical user WebDAV simply provides a more efficient way of writing your content to a Web server. WebDAV is more secure than FTP, allows one to transfer multiple files in one connection, can lock files so that they can only be accessed by one person at a time and let's you view and access your files on your computer the way you would any regular drive.

If you've been using FTP, you've been editing local copies of your files on your computer then putting/uploading them to the server. If multiple users work on the site, you will get/download the latest version from the server before making additional edits and hope that you're not all editing the files at the same time. When you connect to your server using WebDAV you can look at your files the way you would look at any file directory. You can write to the server by dragging/copying from your local directory to the server directory, or you can edit the files on the server directly—just remember that you are editing live files; you may find it prudent to keep a prior version on your local computer in case you need to revert back to it.

How do I connect to a site using WebDAV?

Those of you using Macintosh or Linux computers have it easy. WebDAV is built into the operating system. To connect on a Macintosh simply:

Go to the "Go" menu in the Finder
Select "Connect to Server"
Type or paste the address of your server. On the new Case server that will be: https://www.case.edu:8000//. (Don't type the angle brackets, you want an address that looks something like https://www.case.edu:8000/xyz67/departmentx)
Login at the prompt and save the password in your keychain

At this point your server directory will open up as a folder on your computer and you can work with it as you would any other directory. The video below shows the process in action.

Case users with accounts on http://filer.case.edu or http://blog.case.edu can also use WebDAV. To connect to filer using WebDAV use: https://filer.case.edu/dav//. To connect to the Blog server use: https://blog.case.edu//.

View at full size on Vimeo.

Connecting via WebDAV on older Macintosh machines running OS 8 or 9

If you've got an older Macintosh that you are still using in your Web development work, you can still connect via WebDAV using Goliath. Visit the Goliath Web site to download the software and read the FAQs and help files. Versions for OS X are also available.

Connecting with WebDrive or Dreamweaver on Macintosh and Windows

I will be adding additional information on using WebDAV throughout this week. The ITS Web group has also provided detailed instructions on the Case Wiki.

WebDAV resources for those who want more technical details

The Web server upgrade happens May 19, 2008. Are you ready?

Tue, 13 May 2008 17:57:45 EST

The main Case Web server, Aurora, will be upgraded on May 19th. If you're an end user you shouldn't notice a thing, but if you maintain a Web site on this server there are a few things you should prepare for. If you maintain a Case site and have not read about the upgrade in Case Daily and received email notifications from the Aurora managers, please read the following.

Who should prepare for the server upgrade?

Only people who maintain sites on the main Case Web server will be affected by the upgrade. If you maintain a Web site on http://blog.case.edu, http://filer.case.edu, a departmental server or through a Web hosting service this upgrade won't affect you.

I'm not sure which server I use. How can I tell?

Sites on the main server have urls similar to http://www.case.edu/division/department/sitename/. If your site has an address such as http://sitename.case.edu it is probably not on the main server. Another way to check which server you are using is to check the host to which you upload your files. If you upload files to your site by FTP'ing to wwwftp.case.edu, your site is on the main server.

Check to see that you are registered as the maintainer of record

Authentication to the new server will be done using the Central Authentication Service instead of account specific usernames and passwords. To access your account you will need to ensure that you are listed as the primary maintainer so that your Case user ID will be attached to the account.

Visit the Aurora Maintainer Contact List to verify that you are listed as the primary maintainer of your account(s). If you are not listed as the maintainer, you should fill out an Aurora Project Inclusion Request form and Fax it to 216.368.3165.

Uploading files to the new server.

The new server will use WebDAV rather than FTP to upload files. If you are currently using Dreamweaver to upload files this will require only minor modifications to your current settings. I'll provide further information about WebDAV later this week. Upload instructions are also available on the Case Wiki.

Including server side includes (ssi) files

Due to tightened security, users who include .ssi files using code such as <#include file="../filename.ssi"> will need to change "file" to "virtual" as illustrated here: <#include virtual="../filename.ssi"> . If you don't make this change users will see [an error occurred while processing this directive] instead of your included content. Note, this only applies to paths beginning with ../ paths such as will continue to work as usual. SSI instructions are also available on the Case Wiki.

Controlling Access to Your Site's Content (Password protecting files and directories)

If you have been using A.P.A.S. utilities to configure access control for your site, you shouldn't need to change anything now. Your current restrictions will be transferred over to the new server. When adding or modifying such restrictions in the future you will use access rules defined within .htaccess, .htpasswd and .htgroup files as appropriate. This will provide more flexibility and is in keeping with common Web practices. I will blog more about access rules in the coming weeks. Access instructions are also available on the Case Wiki.

Conclusion

If you have read the above, ensured that you are registered as your site's maintainer, and checked your server side includes files you should be in good shape for the change. If you would like to see a preview of your site on the new server you may do so by changing www to w07 in the url for your site. For instance the home page can be viewed at http://w07.case.edu/. Additional information is available on the www.case.edu page on the Case Wiki.

Web Server Upgrade Resources

5 reasons your blog should have an editorial policy

Sun, 04 May 2008 16:00:02 EST

Yorkshire pudding, fresh from the oven, is yummy,
but does it have a place on your Baking Blog? Let
your editorial policy be your guide.

While the medium is different, blogs have much in common with magazines. They're published periodically, can accept subscriptions (via RSS feeds), may (or may not) accept advertising and typically focus on a particular topic or niche. If you blog, you have some notion of your topical area in your head, but have you defined it for your readers? If not, it may be time to take a page from the magazines and define a clear editorial policy for your blog. Just as setting clear goals aids in the development of a regular Web page, defining a clear editorial policy for your blog will aid you in authoring future articles and attracting new readers.

What is an editorial policy?

An editorial policy is simply a short document that defines what subjects will (or will not be) covered in your blog. It may also include information on why you are covering X and not Y as well as some background information on the authors. Magazines typically publish their policies in their advertising media kits and/or their guidelines for writers. For a blog you may wish to include your policy on the "About Us" page and also provide a quick summary in the meta description element in the head of your pages. If you edit a multi-author blog, you may also find it helpful to maintain a more detailed policy for your writers that you do not publish online. This could include style guidelines and other rules that are useful to your staff but not of particular interest to the public.

Here are my top 5 reasons to define your editorial policy.

1. Establishing clear parameters for the scope of your topic helps you determine what to write and lets readers (and search engines) know what to expect.

How much or how little you write about makes a great difference. If your topic is too broad, you may confuse readers who don't know what to expect. If it is too narrow you may run out of things to say. In For ‘bloggers, diversification avoids stagnation, Wayne Smallman addresses how the breadth of your subject area can keep your blog interesting while also supporting your Internet marketing efforts.

For example, imagine you are blogging about baking. This is a huge subject. If your expertise lies more towards bread than pastries you may limit it to that. But what if you don't discuss quick breads but do cover beignets? Perhaps your focus is yeast-leavened baking and not merely bread. Somewhere between recipes for oatmeal bread and anything cooked in an oven you will find, and define, the scope of your subject.

If your scope includes puff pastries and you have a yen to write about Beef Wellington, then feel free. Both you and your readers will know that it fits within your policy and you won't have spent hours wondering whether or not it's on topic.

2. Defining your scope reduces off-topic submissions

Some blogs accept suggestions and/or articles from readers and other writers. While this can be a great way to get new ideas and material, you probably don't have the time to sort through ideas that aren't relevant to the topic. In terms of our baking blog, it may be that our policy includes some desserts but does not include pies and tarts.

If we make this clear up front we can spend more time writing articles and less time writing rejection letters. Doing so also provides a service to your submitters. If Peter Piemaker knows your policy, he'll be able to focus his time more appropriately and find a different blog—one whose editors and readers would love to know more about making a kiwi tart with tamarind crème anglaise.

3. A clear editorial focus matches advertisers with your audience

This blog doesn't accept advertising, but yours might. When magazines sell advertising they create a media kit with information about the topic of the magazine and the demographics of their readership. Advertisers use this information in order to target readers who are most likely to buy their products. If your blog accepts advertising, you also want your ads to be appropriate to your subject matter and audience. Readers of your baking blog will be more likely to click on ads related to bread pans and mixers, than on fishing lures or hair-care products, and will thus generate more revenue for you and your advertisers. Having a clearly defined editorial policy helps advertisers choose between your blog and someone else's.

4. Publishing your editorial policy supports your Search Engine Optimization strategies

As we know from An Introduction to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), including topically relevant keywords within your content helps search engines to identify the topics discussed on your site. While individual entries will feature keywords appropriate to those entries, where should you put the keywords that describe the the blog as a whole? Your editorial policy is the perfect place to include these because it defines the topics included in your site overall.

By publishing your policy on an "About Us" or other page, you can draw readers searching for the overall themes of your blog in addition to those searching topics covered in more specific entries.

If you already have an "About Us" page this is a good time to review it to determine if your editorial policy is clearly defined and if that policy includes the appropriate keywords. As your blog evolves, it is also a good idea to review this once a year. I just re-read mine and found it unsuitably vague so I've now rewritten it to be more specific.

5. Including an editorial policy or content description promotes a professional image and can demonstrate your expertise.

One of the first things I do after discovering a new blog is to look for the "About" page. I want to know more about the blog's overall theme and its author(s). If that information isn't available I'll have to skim through the entries to see if an identifiable theme emerges and if I can learn anything about the writer's expertise. If I've found an interesting entry—and I'm thinking of subscribing to the blog—I need this information to decide if I'll be interested in future entries and if the author should be considered a reliable source. If I don't have time to do this research myself I probably won't subscribe. I'm already subscribed to more blogs than I can keep up with, so if I can't quickly determine a blog's relevance to my life, I probably won't bother.

If you want repeat readers, especially subscribers, take a few minutes to provide this information. They'll respect you for it.

Conclusion: Establishing an editorial policy helps you set the tone of your blog

Whether you want a better way to determine what to write, wish to increase readership or want to fine-tune your advertising, a clearly defined editorial policy can guide the way. Whether you call it "Editorial Policy," "About Us" or something else doesn't matter. If the policy is clear to you and your readers it will enhance the blogging experience for all involved.

Examples of Editorial and Advertising Policies in Magazines and Blogs

The following policies vary from short descriptions to more in-depth policy statements. If your blog accepts advertising you may be interested in The Nation's advertising policy which is very detailed and says, among others things, "Although the relationship of the First Amendment to commercial advertising is complex, we start with strong presumption against banning advertisers because we disapprove of, or even abhor, their political or social views. But we reserve (and exercise) the right to attack them in our editorial columns." I thought that was rather thought-provoking, though such a statement is obviously more necessary to "The Nation" than it would be to many blogs.

Embedding YouTube Videos the Standards Compliant Way—SFWobject 2.0

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:24:50 EST

As video becomes easier to produce, more and more people are creating and sharing videos online. Whether you are a professor demonstrating your research, a student working on a film project, or me creating how-to instructions, you've realized that there are times when video can enhance your Web content.

The resolution on YouTube is not as crisp as the original.
You can also view the video in higher resolution .mov format.

Back at the turn of the century, embedding video was complicated. Streaming required a special server, you had to decide what format(s) you wanted to stream, then you had to provide links to whatever software users might need to view your video—in case it wasn't already installed on their computers.

With YouTube, that's all changed. Now you can just go to the YouTube page for the video you wish to embed, copy the coding they provide, paste it into your html file or blog entry and publish the page.

It's just that easy—unless, like me, you care about adhering to Web standards. In that case, it requires a few more steps, but don't worry, they're not that complicated. YouTube videos can be embedded on the Web using swfobject.js—in a manner similar to the method I described last year in "Embedding Flash Objects for Internet Explorer." You can also use this method for embedding regular Flash .swf files. Just substitute the path to your .swf for the YouTube link in the instructions below.

Downloading swfobject 2.0

SWFObject 2.0 provides a significant upgrade to SWFObject 1.5—what we'd previously been using to embed Flash .swf files. To begin you will want to download the new script from the SWFobject project page. After downloading the script, you can upload it to your site, in whichever directory you prefer. Note: SWFobject 2.0 is not backwards compatible with 1.5, but the script has the same file name, swfobject.js. If you are already using 1.5 on your site—and don't plan to immediately edit all the pages that use it—you should rename the file to something like swfobject2.js or store it in a different directory so that you don't write over the prior version.

Generate the embed code for your page

While you could do this manually by following the instructions in the documentation, the SWFobject team has provided a rather handy Web-based code generator that we'll use in this example.

Go the the YouTube page for the video you wish to embed and copy the embed code provided.
Paste this into a blank file in Dreamweaver or your preferred editor. We won't be using this code in our page, but we'll want it for reference.
Within this code you will see a link to the video after value=". Within this link there may be an ampersand. Escape the & by typing amp; after it.
Copy this link,http://www.youtube.com/v/b-tYxJcFj9I&hl=en, then go to the SWFObject 2.0 HTML and JavaScript generator v1.1.
Paste the link in the box to the right of "Flash (.swf):."
Near the top of the generator, choose between static and dynamic. I will be using static in this example as dynamic would require me to put additional code--specific to this video--in my header. Here on the blog my headers are part of my templates so I can't use anything that would be specific to only one entry. (The documentation offers additional information on the static and dynamic methods.)
Copy the width and height values from the YouTube embed code and paste them into the dimensions boxes in the generator.
Click on "more" in the SWF definition box if you like to edit additional attributes.
In the HTML definition box choose the version of XHTML or HTML and character encoding you use on your Web site.
Click the "Generate Code" button.

Embedding the video in your page

Copy the script code found with the head of the generated output.
Paste this into the head of your HTML file or blog templates. Note: Because I have already been using the previous version of SWFobject on this blog, I named my script swfobject2.js before uploading it to the server. Therefore I must also change the name in this code then add it to the code that is already in my templates. Thus my files will include:
Copy the object code found within the body of the generated output.
Paste this into the place in your file where you would like the video to appear.
Upload the file to your server and watch the video!

SWFObject Resources

SWFObject devblog
Active Content Developer Center
IE Automatic Component Activation Now Available (Internet Explorer users will no longer have to click to activate videos embedded using the static method.)
SWFObject discussion group
SWFObject 2.0 Documentation
YouTube JavaScript Player API Reference

About the Embedding YouTube Videos the Standards Compliant Way video

The video screen captures were recorded using iShowU, a program I discovered yesterday afternoon. The scenes were pieced together, and audio was recorded and added in iMovie. As this was my first time experimenting with iShowU some portions of the video are a bit wobbly, but overall I found it very easy to use. I expect my skills will improve with time.

I'll post more about the process as I become more familiar with the software. Members of the Case Western Reserve University community interested in producing similar instructional videos may also wish to visit the Freedman Center which offers tools and instructions on this and related topics.

Maximize your marketing through blog networks and aggregator sites

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:27:57 EST

"Machines Like Us is dedicated to keeping you informed about the latest research in the areas of evolution, cognition, artificial life and artificial intelligence." While not a typical aggregator, this site includes a variety of resources including articles by Case blogger, Mano Singham.

"Tech Dispenser is Computerworld's human powered technology blog network and news aggregator." Frequent commenter and fellow blogger Wayne Smallman is a contributor.

ScienceBlogs aggregates over 60 bloggers writing about science, education and related fields.

"Createxchange is a beta project, syndicating the best design blogs the world has to offer."

Lately I've noticed that I've been subscribing to more and more blog networks/aggregators. As a reader I like these because they help me discover blogs I might not have heard of otherwise. As a blogger and marketer I like the aggregators of which I'm a part or a similar reason; they put my blog in front of new readers—readers who already have shown an interest in my topic.

What is a blog network or blog aggregator?

The term "aggregator" is usually used to refer to tools or software, such as Google Reader, that aggregate RSS feeds to which you subscribe. For today's discussion, I'm instead referring to topically aggregated sites. Using this definition, a blog network or aggregator is a Web site that aggregates posts from multiple blogs into one central location. Simple aggregators can be made using tools such as Yahoo pipes to combine the RSS feeds from multiple blogs. More full-featured aggregators can be programmed to not only pull in the feeds from multiple sources but to also organize and archive them in a way that allows users to search or explore by keyword tags, author, blog name, date, etc.

Blog network and aggregator are often used interchangeably, but there can be some differences. Networks are usually composed of member bloggers who have joined the network to share their posts. Some networks, such as REALNEO, provide multi-authored group blogging within their own interface—rather than by aggregating individual blogs—while some aggregators simply pull in feeds from related blogs without active participation from the original writers. There are also networks that post only selected articles from their participating authors in order to focus on very particular topics.

As is true with any site, an aggregator is only as good as the content it presents. Ideally a good aggregator will pool together high-quality content from blogs that are topically or otherwise related. Well produced aggregators are like specialty stores offering a fine selection of a certain type of product. Just as one might go to a bakery, such as Lucy's Sweet Surrender, for a selection of desserts, one might go to Food Candy for a selection of posts from food blogs.

Finding good aggregators and blog networks

As aggregators have become more common, they're relatively easy to find via Google or your preferred search engine. If you search on the term "aggregator" plus a topically relevant word or phrase you are likely to find a relevant site. If nothing comes up, try combining your search term with "blog network." If you are already reading a number of blogs in your area of interest, you may find that some are already participating in an aggregating network/site. Try looking in their sidebars or links pages to see if they are participating in such a site. Professional associations, both academic and otherwise, may also aggregate content from their members. If you belong to such organizations, peruse their Web sites to see if they offer such a service.

Joining a blog network

If you have a well-established blog with a clear editorial theme you may well be ready to join a network. First find a few blog networks that fit your subject area. Read a number of the entries to get a sense of the writing styles and the breadth and depth of the subjects covered. If you think that your blog would be a good fit, contact the maintainers. Many networks will provide a submission form for prospective members. Some networks are highly selective, only selecting blogs that meet certain quality or topical requirements, while others may accept any blog pertinent to the subject area. When submitting your blog, take care to provide the required information and provide a good description of your content. Before submitting your blog, re-read your entries, checking your spelling, grammar and content just as you might if submitting an article for a professional journal or magazine.

Help! I didn't join this network, but they're aggregating my content! Is that legal? Ethical?

The first time I saw one of my blog entries republished on someone else's blog—without the proper attribution—I got a bit miffed. I ranted and raved at my friends about intellectual property, ethics and so forth. I composed angry letters in my head. I imagined my lawyer friends composing angry letters for me. Since then this has happened a few times, but I've mellowed out about it. Typically this happens with sites that are trying to make money by repurposing other people's content and selling advertising. Also typically the sites are a design nightmare, the content is mangled and mutilated, and they have very low rankings in Google, Technorati, etc. Most of these sites don't last because they don't provide anything useful to their readers. Their content seems to include a bit of everything and entries are truncated. So if any reader happens to stumble upon them, they'll probably have to click on the header to read the full article. In most cases that will bring them back to my blog, because I've included the link in my entry headers.

Legally and ethically this sort of thing gets a bit murky. I expect I could do a whole series of entries on this issue alone. But as a blogger who has produced an RSS feed—designed to be read through RSS readers, shared via Google Reader Share pages, republished via Facebook, Tumblr and the networks to which I belong—I think the question is more about usage. Obviously I expect my content to be shared, I just have certain expectations of how this should be done.

When I share other people's entries via my Google Share page, I'm promoting them as something worth reading, just as I would be if I were simply linking to their content. Google takes the content directly from the author feeds and clearly displays the original source and author. I think that attribution makes the difference. If someone aggregates my content in a manner that makes authorship and source clear, with a link to the original article, then readers will clearly understand the source was me. If they like the content they may visit and/or subscribe to my blog directly and I'll have gained a new reader. So from a marketing standpoint, being aggregated—whether I did it on purpose or not—serves my own goals as well as the goals of the aggregator. (This issue gets murky again if the aggregating site generates ad revenue, but let's leave that discussion for another day.)

Aggregation matches bloggers with their target audience.

As often as we talk about search engine optimization, social media marketing and so forth, our primary marketing goal is to put our content in front of readers who care about our subject matter. Having your blog included in an aggregated site on your topic does just that. Readers who subscribe or visit that site have already shown an interest in your area. They are far more likely to become long-term readers than will the teenager who found your site on Google after you mentioned Britney Spears three times in your entry on hadron super colliders.

Blog Network and Aggregator Resources

The Web Development Blog is aggregated in Planet Case, The Cleveland Web Standards Association, Blog High Ed, and other sites of which I may not be aware.

How did I get by before Firefox Add-Ons?

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:16:59 EST

Last night, whilst catching up on my RSS feeds, I discovered Paul Fenwick's video, "How to Fix the Web with Greasemonkey in 3 minutes." The video offers some clever tips on how one can use the Firefox add-on, Greasemonkey, to make Web sites (not just yours) behave the way you wish. I was particularly amused by the way he made MySpace content disappear. But it also reminded me of just how dependent I am on Firefox add-on's.

What are Firefox add-ons?

According to Firefox Support:

"Firefox add-ons are small pieces of software that add new features or functionality to your installation of Firefox. Add-ons can augment Firefox with new search engines, foreign-language dictionaries, or change the visual appearance of Firefox. Through add-ons, you can customize Firefox to meet your needs and tastes."

There are countless add-ons available that will let you do anything from tracking your trades on Ebay to validating the code on your Web site. Add-ons are categorized by type or function and offer tools for both casual Web browsing and development.

A sampling of my Firefox add-ons

I just counted, and apparently I have 35 add-ons installed on Firefox. Some I rarely use, some I actively use and others work passively in the background to add value to my browsing experience. I think I take the latter for granted, but they offer some interesting insights. While I'm not going to discuss all 35, here are a few (in addition to those mentioned in the video) that you may find interesting:

Web Developer: Chris Pederick's Web Developer is the work horse of my add-ons. I use it to validate my HTML and CSS, measure things onscreen, outline elements, display line guides, view javascript, disable styles, and view or analyze details of a page in order to troubleshoot problems or fine tune my CSS. It's incredibly useful and a tremendous timesaver.
Delicious Bookmarks 1.5.44: Adding bookmarks to del.icio.us is pretty easy to begin with, but sometimes I forget. With this installed I don't have to think about it. When I add a bookmark to Firefox a box pops up asking if I would like to add it to del.icio.us as well. It then lets me add the bookmark and relevant tags in the same box and continue on my merry way. Now I don't have to worry that I can't access the bookmark on computer A because I only saved it on computer B.
StumbleUpon 3.18: The StumbleUpon toolbar is inherent to the StumbleUpon experience. If it's 2:00 a.m. and I can't sleep I can hit the Stumble button to be shown sites in areas that interest me. If I come across a cool page, that I think others should know about, I can hit the thumbs up, either to promote it or to be the first to write a review. If I want to know if a blog entry or news release has been stumbled, I can click on the reviews button to see who (if anyone) said what. And if I find a nifty new recipe that I want to share with my friend Josh (an avid Stumbler) I don't need to bother with e-mail, I just click "send-to," select his username and it will be shown to him next time he goes Stumbling.
SEO for Firefox: This is an interesting tool for Web marketers. When you do a search with this turned on you'll find data ranging from Google page rank to the age of the site underneath each result description.
Social Media for Firefox: When you install Social Media for Firefox, icons appear in the bottom status bar of Firefox to indicate how many users have bookmarked or reviewed the page you are viewing on Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Delicious.
KGen: KGen lets you scan a page to see which key words are strongest on a page—handy for search engine optimization.

This sampling should give you a good idea of the power of Firefox add-ons, needless to say there are hundreds (perhaps thousands) more to choose from. To learn more, visit the resources listed below.

Are you already an add-on fan? If so, leave a comment listing some of your favorites. I'd be interested to see how readers are using these handy tools and which great add-ons I may have missed.

More Firefox add-ons resources

Reflections on social media networking and marketing

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:01:14 EST

With Bitstrips you don't need to be able to draw to create your own comics. Alas, that's still no guarantee that you'll write something clever.

These days everyone seems to be talking about social networking and/or social media marketing. Until fairly recently these were topics for tech nerds and Web marketers, but now more and more people are wondering how they can use Facebook to market their programs or products, or how Twitter can be leveraged as a tool for campus communication. I don't have an immediate answer to such questions, but I thought this would be a good time to reflect a bit on what I've learned about social media.

Online social media marketing and networking aren't really that new. People have been connecting via blogs for several years now, and even before the World Wide Web, people were connecting on Usenet News, listservs or other services. What's new is the array of social/Web 2.0 tools now available to us. Today we have services available that will allow us to make "friends" online with whom we can:

share and organize our bookmarks via services such as de.licio.us or ma.gnolia,
send short messages via Twitter or generate discussions and share files and links via Pownce,
recommend articles and sites on Digg, StumbleUpon or reddit,
network with like-minded souls and share best practices through topically centered networks, such as University Web Developers on Ning,
compare music tastes on last.fm or book suggestions on goodreads,
archive, share and discuss photos on Flickr and Zooomr,
share personal information, promote bands, products or services on MySpace, publish status updates, join groups and become zombies on Facebook,
ponder intellectually meaty issues on Big Think,
connect with fellow bloggers on MyBlogLog and find out which bloggers are linking to your blog on Technorati, and even
create cartoons on Bitstrips.

These are but a fraction of the options available in the social media world of Web 2.0. From the descriptions alone, it is easy to see how many of these could play into our marketing strategies. After all, what organization wouldn't want its public sites being shared online?

Social media marketing: online word-of-mouth

Whether people are buying a new shampoo or deciding on a doctoral program in biomedical engineering, they will weigh the opinions of friends and colleagues more heavily than the brochure they received in the mail. This doesn't mean that we no longer need brochures, just that online word-of-mouth and viral marketing can often serve to enhance our other marketing strategies.

Of course the trick with this is the same as it always has been; word-of-mouth referrals are driven by satisfied customers, not marketers. We can pave the way and create opportunities to make this happen more easily, but we can't put words in people's mouths or on their social networks.

For example, I can't just go digging cool news stories from Case Western Reserve and expect everyone to follow suit unless I develop a reputation for digging worthwhile reading material. To do that I have to become a more active member of the digg community where I make connections, digg the recommendations of others and recommend pages that I think my followers will like. That sort of activity takes more time than most of us have (including me—one does need to sleep after all) and for many organizations spending time on such activities is just not cost effective.

If marketing is the only reason you are considering social media, then it may not work out unless you've got the resources to implement it and a product or service that people like to talk about. But if networking is your goal, then you may get some marketing benefits as a by-product of your other activities. If you're a faculty member making connections with peers in your field via Facebook, sharing sites on de.licio.us or Stumbling your colleague's research articles you could find your peers reciprocate by sharing links to your articles, blogs or Web sites as well. This isn't a matter of quid pro quo, it's more like link karma. Those who respect your work will link to you as you do for them. It happens on social networks just as it does via phone calls or e-mails.

As a result you could soon discover that your sites are getting more traffic, your articles are reaching a wider audience and you're meeting more peers with whom you can share best practices on polymer research, collaborate on a cognitive science study, discuss new insights into Proust, or whatever else may be of interest.

Marketing impact of my social media activity

Last July when I wrote Web 2.0 & Social Networking can enhance "findability", I was just beginning to experiment more actively with social media. I was already blogging, commenting on other blogs, sharing photos on Flickr and tracking blog reactions on Technorati. I just wasn't doing it proactively. Since then I've joined more networks and spent many a night online connecting with Web developers, designers, bloggers, marketers and other like-minded souls all over the world. I started this primarily to learn more about social media. I kept with it because I made some great friends who shared some great ideas and sites. And somehow, in the process, readership of this blog increased substantially.

Between July and December of 2007 subscribers to the blog (those reading via RSS feed) increased by 55%. Unique visitors to the site, # of visits and page views each increased by more than 200%. While readership has risen steadily since I started the blog in 2005, this was a noticeable upturn.

If I'd set out on my experiment with only a marketing goal in mind, I don't know that it would have worked out so well. As I've since discovered the key is in making connections—which can only be done by becoming a participating member of whatever community you join. But if you find a community of interest, whether pertaining to your research, work or hobbies, there are many benefits to be had.

Social Media Resources

The following articles related to this topic weren't found through Google; they were either written or recommended by people I've met through social networking.

Postscript

As another result of social media networking, the Web Development Blog is now a member of BlogHighEd, a blogger network covering a vast array of topics pertaining to higher education and related fields.

Wayfinding within your Web site

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:30:06 EST

Door for a store in Cork, Ireland

In Your home page is NOT your index; it's your store front, I discussed some of the goals of homepage design and navigation. Today we'll consider how users navigate within the site. As my friend and fellow developer Wayne Smallman correctly surmised—when commenting and following up on that entry, the pages inside your site are like the aisles or departments within a store. Each page needs to be identified so that users know both where they are and where they can go.

Port of Entry: Not everyone uses the front door.

In a real world store, visitors typically enter through one or two main doors then follow the signs or clues to the department they need. But in the online world, they may enter through the front door, crawl in a side window, shimmy down the chimney or teleport in via Google. Each page on your site is a potential entrance. In some cases, you may get less traffic through the front door than through other pages. For example, last month 58% of those who visited http://www.case.edu/visit/ entered through the main page. The other 42% entered the site through one of 44 other pages. Here on the Web Development Blog, visitors entered through 152 different pages—only 8.6% came in through the main page.

To serve these users we need not replicate the experience of the home page, but we can offer wayfinding tools that will help them and other users browse the site.

Where am I? Wayfinding signage and landmarks.

If you've ever wandered around a department store, mall or national park, you've probably encountered the ubiquitous "You are here" sign. Whether you've walked past the same pond 5 times or just can't find your way out of "men's shoes," the "you are here" sign indicates where you are in relation to other areas. A Web site doesn't need something this obvious, but users do expect to find clues that will let them immediately determine where they are, whether they are in the right place and—if not—guidance to direct them towards their proper destination.

To determine location, users will rely on site "landmarks" and "signs" such as logos, images and headers. On sites here at Case Western Reserve University we include:

This screen shot from the
Provost's site shows you some of
our common wayfinding tools.
View enlarged image.

The university logo in the upper left corner—to let users know they are on one of a collection of Case sites. (On sites using the newer templates, users may click on this image to return to the Case home page).
The site title on the right side of the the banner indicates the name of the specific site. (On sites using the newer templates, users may click on this title to return to the home page of the site.)
Section headers appear at the top of the side navigation menu (on the advanced templates) to let users know which section of the site they are in.
Descriptive page headers at the top of the main content area let users know which page they are on and what the content will include.
A detailed footer includes the department or organization name, addresses and other contact information.

How do I get there from here? Navigational tools within the site.

If the user has determined that he/she isn't in the right place, menus and other navigational aids should be readily available to guide the user to a more relevant page within the site or to a different site with related material.

Here at Case our pages include menus and other aids such as:

Top navigation on the upper right of the page offers links to the Case home page, university directory pages and a university search page so that users may easily seek out other Case sites.
A primary menu appears on each page to let users navigate between sections (on large sites using the advanced templates) or between all pages (on smaller sites using the basic templates.)
A secondary menu appears on each page of large sites (using the advanced templates) to provide navigation to all pages within a section.*
Sites that have sections within sections may also incorporate tertiary menus near the top of the content area of pages within subsections.
A search box below the left hand menu allows users to search within the site for a particular topic or page.
The related sites box guides users to other sites (Case or external) that provide related content.

*Blogs, such as this site, will typically use topical categories/tags and date archives rather than the usual sectional navigation.

Wayfinding and navigation conclusions

Navigational and menuing systems vary. If you're the XYZ corporation your site may rely on searchable databases to display your enormous inventory of widgets. If you're a small non-profit with a lot of data you may have a site that is many levels deep and requires breadcrumbs in addition to, or instead of secondary or tertiary menus. The navigational tools you employ will often be determined by your content. As long as it works effectively, it doesn't matter which system you use. If you include some basic wayfinding tools to let users know where they are and how to proceed, you will improve the user experience increase the odds that they'll stay on the site now and/or come back in the future.

Navigation and Wayfinding Resources

A List Apart: Where Am I? by Derek Powazek
Common mistakes of site structure (Boagworld)
Interface Design: Trunk Testing
Navigation Accessibility 1: Menus and Links (Web Usability)
Seven Steps To Easier Web Navigation by Constance J. Petersen
Web Pages That Suck - Horrible Navigation Example (Video by Vincent Flanders) Unbelievable example of how to bewilder your site visitors.

Common Craft's Plain English Video Series

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:45:30 EST

Alas, I've not yet finished the article I had planned for this week. In the meantime I highly recommend the amusing and informative videos produced by commoncraft. These easy-to-follow videos cover a variety of Internet related topics and provide a great introduction to everything from RSS to photo sharing.

For those of you who are already in the know, try sharing these with your less tech-savvy friends. Teaching them the basics of your world may (or may not) stop them from giving you funny looks the next time you start Twittering about your Facebook status and how you're aggregating your Pownce, del.icio.us and blog feeds on Tumblr.

Here's two to get you started:

Social Networking in Plain English

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

Social media opportunities for Web Developers at Case

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:48:44 EST

University Web Developers site

Do you ever wish you could network more easily with your fellow Web developers at Case, and beyond?

If so, how would you would you want this to work? Would you want to communicate by listserv as the writers do with wordnerds@case.edu? Would you follow discussions on the Case Forums? Or would you want something more robust?

Gretchen Denaro—from the Annual Fund Office—and I have been discussing this lately and think it may be useful to create our own social media network where anyone interested in Web development or online communications at Case could go to share ideas and ask questions. Here on the Web Development Blog it's easy to get a good discussion going in the comments, but I'm still driving the topic. In the space we're envisioning, you could take the lead, starting topics on anything of interest, from writing and content development to search engine optimization and Web marketing strategies.

Example: University Web Developers Network

I've recently joined this relatively new network (which grew out of a popular listserv) where Web developers from a variety of colleges and universities come together to ask questions and discuss Web development issues. The site currently has 353 members who converse in a central forum, join topical discussion groups and post videos and photos. Each member gets his/her own page on which he/she can provide personal/business information, include an RSS feed or even start a blog. From what I've experienced so far it seems like a great way to share ideas and discover best practices with one's peers. Whether you're running a large school or department Web site or just dabbling in the Web part time, you may find this a very useful community to join.

University Web Developers was established using the popular Ning social network service developed in 2004 by Marc Andreessen (co-founder of Mosaic) and Gina Bianchini. Ning allows anyone to easily create a social network serving a specific area of interest. As such we could have one just for Web developers at Case Western Reserve University.

If I build it would you come? Creating such a place is fairly simple, but will you use it? If so should I make it invitation only—to restrict it to members of the campus community—or should we make it more open so that any friends of Case can join? Think about it and let me know.

In the meantime: Web Development at Case is now on Facebook

I've recently set up a Facebook page for Web development at Case. I've pulled in the feed from this blog and asked one discussion question, so there isn't much in the way of new content, but you are all encouraged to become a fan and help get things started. It's not as robust as a Ning network, but it's a place to begin. We may find that this page is sufficient to the task, we may find we want more. It's up to you, so try it out and give me your feedback. If you think a Facebook group would be more helpful, I could create that too.

Coming soon:

In upcoming posts I'll review my experiments in social media and continue our discussion regarding site navigation. In the meantime, you may be interested in Wayne Smallman's article, The Ideal Homepage design, his follow-up to my previous post on home page navigation.

Your home page is NOT your index; it's your store front

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:45:36 EST

You don't need to speak German to know this store sells hosiery

In preparing this article I asked some friends, designers and users, for some of their recommendations or pet peeves regarding home page design. Here are some of their Do's and Dont's. (Thanks to Dan, Nicole and Zeke.)

Do Include:

Clean easy to follow layout.
Navigation that is apparent and doesn't require precise mouse movements to get to sub items.
Tailor your navigation to your target audience and their primary goals
A page that says, "This is who we are, and this is what you can do here... have at it!"
Easy access to contact information

Simple and uncluttered

Don't Include:

Audio or video that plays automatically
Splash screens, or "specials" that appear as popup layers
Advertisements on home pages
Businesses / Corporations that use Adsense
Products or services ... WITH NO PRICES
Self Praise "The number one site for ...." as if you'd tell us if you were number 2
Improperly used navigation that follows scrolling
Long-winded welcome statements
Company history
Instructions on how to use the site
Big useless images of smiling hip people

Intriguing, but what does it mean?

Space. Designers want to preserve it and clients want to fill it up. It's not that the copywriters, marketers and others don't like space. It's just that they have some important points they want to make, and there is only so much room in that quarter page magazine ad, 2 page-spread, catalog, or Web page. But wait, Web pages aren't restricted the way print is. We can make it wider—everyone has larger monitors these days. Or we can make it longer—people can scroll. No wait, we read somewhere that people don't like to scroll. Put it all above the fold. Or put it above the place where I'd have to scroll on a 17" monitor using a browser that has 5 toolbars. (In other words, the space we'd have in that quarter page print ad.)

Whether you're a designer, a writer or a client you've all participated in this debate. What goes on the home page and what does not? At one point you may have even thought the matter settled. But then Joe in operations suggested that it would be imperative for people to get to the transportation section in one-click. If that's on the home page, then Sally feels it is equally important to include the section on ergonomics, Brad wants to include the President's Day sales specials, and Sonia in Plumbing Supplies has just offered up the latest kitchen sink—in scratch resistant stainless steel.

Everyone's ideas are important. Any of these could be compelling to your reader, and supportive of your goal of selling widgets, clarifying the calculus, promoting an event or what have you. So how do you decide what goes on the home page?

Establish your home page priorities

Your Web site has one or more goals, educational, commercial or otherwise. The Web site project team has additional specific goals. They may want to sell out the stainless steel sinks to make room in the warehouse for next year's ceramic models. They may want to promote their research to help pave the way for the grant application due in March. These are all worthwhile, but when it comes to the home page I find there are three things we should make clear to our users.

Tell them where they are.: Your home page should make clear the name of the organization and the nature of your business.
Encourage them to come in and look around.: Give them a taste (but just a taste) of what you offer, so they want to learn more.
Provide clear directions to the entrance.: Show them how to enter and navigate your space.

That's it. If you can achieve these three steps, the rest will follow and Sonia will be able to unload those stainless steel sinks. O. K., I admit that is easier said than done. But let's compare our site to something more tangible, with which we're all familiar.

Your home page is like a storefront

In America, particularly in areas of urban sprawl, the well-designed storefront is rare. But if you've spent any time in Europe, large American cities, or small towns whose retail districts have not yet been replaced by box stores and strip malls, I think you'll know what I mean. A store front usually has a large sign over the door (like our Web banner) proclaiming the name (and often the nature of) the business. If you are walking down the street in the hopes of buying hiking boots, the sign over Larry's Leather Shoe Emporium will make you stop. You'll look in the window.

If you see patent leather heels surrounded by shiny fabric, you'll continue walking. That wasn't the right place. If you see products by Merrell and Columbia sitting next to backpacks and logs on a field of crushed leaves, you'll recognize that they may very well have what you need.

Next you will look for the door. Ideally it will be obvious. If there are two doors, you want one to be clearly marked as the entrance. You don't want to walk up to a door and find a 3 x 5 inch sign with an arrow saying, "enter next door." If you can't find the entrance you may keep walking. But if the door is clearly marked, you will come inside and look for the hiking boot section. Ideally the store will have clear signage and displays, so you can pick out your boots and make your purchase. (Inside navigation will be the subject of a later article.)

Don't clutter up the window

I use the store metaphor because it's easy to visualize. An appealing display of items we want or need will entice us to enter. A cluttered display (with some exceptions) will not.

Imagine Larry's store window with the boots and the leaves. Now lets add a stuffed deer, BB gun, hunting knife, camouflage vest, pup tent, Coleman Lantern, fake trees, a plastic owl, binoculars and a canoe. Is this a wilderness supply store or a shoe store? No matter, they have boots, so you'll enter anyway. Now add sleeping bags, parkas, stuffed bunnies, a grizzly bear, a basket of easter eggs, and a mannequin of Little Red Riding Hood carrying an open basket overflowing with jam, cheese, sausages, wine and two crystal goblets. It's an intriguing scene. You may stop and stare at the window for a moment. You may wonder what the display is about and you may wonder what they really sell here but you might not notice that pair of hiking boots sitting behind the bunny rabbits. Thus, you may keep walking.

Larry's window, crowded as it may be, may still create an attractive display. But it's also confusing. When presented with too many choices, it is easy to get confused. At that point the easier choice is to continue walking. The same applies to our Web site. If we don't present simple and obvious choices, it is easier for the user to hit the back button and look elsewhere than to enter our site—even if we have the information or products they want. (View psychologist Barry Schwartz's video below to learn more about the problems humans face when confronting choices.)

So what should we put on the front page?

As you are planning the page, think of the storefront and keep it simple. Include your name and a brief description that let's people know they're in the right place. Highlight 1-6 products, news items, special offers or announcements (not 1-6 of each). Include a simple menu with less than a dozen (6 would be good) choices that will take them to obviously distinct sections of your site. You may also include a search box, footer, related sites and other simple navigational aids, so long as they offer intuitive guidance rather than clutter. (If your site is a blog it is fine to include your primary content, i.e. your entries, on the first page, as this is standard blogging practice. I'll address blogs another time.)

These numbers aren't written in stone. Perhaps you really need 7 menu items rather than 6. It depends on the content. But when you justify 7 it's easy to think that one more won't hurt, and what about this bit, then suddenly you are up to 31 and your visitor doesn't know where to look. Just keep thinking of that store front. While you are doing that, pretend you are the visitor, a person far less familiar with your content than you. Look at your site plan or design draft through their eyes. Does it allow you to make simple choices? Or do you have to think about where to go?

Test your content

It's sometimes hard to tell how much is too much. Or your team may have marketing research that shows your target market wants to see 50 things on the front page. What they think they want may not be what they can really use, so test it. Create 2 front pages, one with the clutter and one with 6 menu choices. Get some volunteers (unfamiliar with your product or subject area) and ask them to answer 12 questions, the answers to which they will find in your site. Have them time how long it takes to find the the answers. For each question ask how easy or difficult it was to find the answer (on a scale of 1-6). There are many ways to test usability (I'll write more about that later), but this one is fairly easy to implement, even on a shoestring budget, and it can give you some quick insight between what you think will work and what really does.

Homepage Design and Decision Making Resources

My friend Shirley, from Pownce, gave me the link to the Home Page Design article which offers a number of interesting insights into the role of your homepage. Other than that I thought I'd focus more on the psychology of decision making that really drives our need to make sites simple. To that end I've included Mano Singham's articles on snap judgments and the Barry Schwartz video. These aren't directly related to Web page design, but they underscore why our design choices are so important.

UX Matters: Home Page Design
Snap judgments (1): Mano Singham examines decision making in relation to Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink
Snap judgments and prejudices (2)
Improving the quality of our snap judgments (3)

Ted Talks: Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

In this video, presented by TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Barry Schwartz explains how freedom of choice can be stressful and make us less happy, a notion counter-intuitive to those of us raised to think that freedom choice is better. I think it's an idea we can apply to the content choices we present to our site visitors.

Tips for Nonprofits Meme

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:28:11 EST

Snowcrystals.com shares a wealth of knowledge

Elizabeth Able, of Able Reach Arts and Web Development, recently started a blog meme in support of nonprofits that have an online presence. She asks that we write one tip on ways nonprofits can benefit from having an online presence and have others do the same. Tips can have similarities so long as each offers new insight into the topic.

This meme comes with four guidelines:

Offer one tip
Tag three people. Bonus points for including blogs that support or represent nonprofits.
Please link back to the original entry page. If you link, Elizabeth will contact you about including your tip in a compilation of tips generated by this meme.
Remember to pass on the guidelines

Now that we know the rules, here is my tip.

Share your knowledge and expertise in the form of educational resources

Nonprofits come in many shapes and sizes. Whether they are confronting issues relating to poverty, arts & culture, health care, education or public policy, each is likely to have specific and in-depth knowledge relating to their mission. While their Web sites will often focus on their core mission, volunteerism, fund-raising and related issues, much can be gained from sharing their broader knowledge base as well.

In this case, when I speak of knowledge, I'm not referring to the facts and figures used in support of the cause, but the more in-depth knowledge or data related to the topic. Thus a public art organization, that uses its site to announce projects and explain how art benefits society, may also want to publish related resources such as:

A walking tour of public art in the region served by the organization.
Interviews with artists explaining how they came to the field, what education this required and where they seek their inspiration.
A history of the role of public art from ancient times to the present with images and links to more specific resources.
Pages explaining how sculptures are made, from the design process to the casting of metal and other techniques.

Benefits of knowledge sharing

Sharing such knowledge can support an organization in many ways. In most cases the expertise and knowledge is already in the minds of the staff—who draw on this information in their own work. Sharing it with others benefits society by providing information resources, but also supports marketing and fundraising.

Educational resources geared to K-12 students and/or the general public help the organization to reach a wider audience geographically and demographically. This builds name recognition and supports the organizations brand, enhancing the reputation of both the organization and its staff through the quality of its content.
Sites providing educational outreach may be eligible for additional funding from foundations and government agencies that support such programming.
Informative, and fun, resources help to stimulate interest in the topic thus cultivating readers towards becoming future donors, volunteers and champions to the cause.

Bastions of Knowledge: Examples

Many faculty and staff here at Case have heard me discuss sites I call "Bastions of Knowledge," places where faculty and staff can share their expertise with the public. As mentioned above, such sites provide educational outreach and support marketing. A site that becomes known as one of the leading resources in a given field bolsters the organizations reputation, but can also draw additional traffic to the rest of the organization's site. Two of my favorite examples are:

Snowcrystals.com, produced by Kenneth G. Libbrecht, chairman of the Physics Department at Caltech: This site has anything you could possibly want to know about snowflakes, from the physics of how they develop and the impact of temperature on crystal formation, to some stunning photographs of individual snow crystals. If you Google the term "snowflake," this site shows up as the number 2 result—out of 9,050,000. A search on "snow crystal" puts them 1st out of 366,000 results. When you consider the number of children studying snow in school, the adults who are curious to learn more and scientists interested in crystal formation and/or considerations of temperature, you have to imagine that this site gets a lot of traffic. Professor Libbrecht didn't have to share his research with all of us, but in doing so he has provided a fascinating resource and made more people familiar with his department and Caltech.
The eSkeletons Project, University of Texas at Austin: The e-Skeletons project doesn't rank quite as high in Google, it comes in 8th out of 6,760,000 on a search of the word "skeleton." but that's still very impressive. So is the content. This site provides images of individual bones, from all orientations, from 12 primate species including humans. Animations, FAQ's and other information make this a terrific resource for teachers and students alike. As a K-12 educational resource, the site also receives both corporate and government support.

In Conclusion

If you're working for a non-profit or similar organization, go ahead and share the information in your head. You'll provide a service to others as well as yourself.

As per the instructions of the meme guidelines, I'll tag Mano Singham, Jeremy Smith, Lev Gonick and Gina Prodan, as I'm curious to hear what they have to say on the matter.

Our new addition

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:19:07 EST

The Office of Marketing and Communications is pleased to welcome Gina Prodan, to our Web development team. Gina comes to us from Kent State University where, in her capacity as Senior Web/Editorial Specialist, she worked on—among other things—the award winning Kent State Magazine Web site.

Gina is just settling in right now, getting her computers configured and such, but we'll soon have her busy building sites, answering questions, and sharing her insights here on the Web Development blog. (In fact I'll be tagging her to follow up on a blog meme later today.)

CaseLearns: 2008 Spring Semester Classes

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:04:23 EST

Classes take place in Kelvin Smith Library

Registration is now open for spring classes at CaseLearns. Whether you're building your first Web site, adding a podcast to your blog or just want to learn something fun, CaseLearns has a number of options available.

The classes listed below may be of particular interest to those developing or maintaining Web sites.

If you are new to Web design and want to learn Dreamweaver, I recommend reading I'm not going to teach you XHTML/HTML, but you should learn it anyway and doing the homework assignment before taking your first Dreamweaver class.

All CaseLearns classes are open to current Case faculty, students and staff, emeriti faculty, alumni, and Senior Scholars. Case affiliates may register if openings are available. Class schedules are subject to change. Please visit the CaseLearns Web site for the most current information.

Audio Recording and Editing: Feb 13, 3:00 p.m.
Feb 13, 6:00 p.m.
Mar 20, 3:00 p.m.
Apr 9, 3:00 p.m.
Digital Images I: Introduction & Basic Photoshop: January 16, 3:00 p.m.
Jan 27, 1:00 p.m.
Feb 7, 3:00 p.m.
Mar 5, 3:00 p.m.
Digital Images II: Advanced Photoshop: Jan 30, 3:00 p.m.
Jan 30, 6:00 p.m.
Feb 3, 1:00 p.m.
Feb 14, 3:00 p.m.
Mar 26, 3:00 p.m.
Apr 17, 3:00 p.m.
Digital Images III: Even MORE Advanced Photoshop: Feb 20, 3:00 p.m.
Feb 20, 6:00 p.m.
Apr 24, 3:00 p.m.
Dreamweaver CS3: Introduction: Feb 12, 1:00 p.m.
Feb 12, 4:00 p.m.
Dreamweaver CS3: Intermediate: Feb 29, 9:00 a.m.
Feb 29, 12:00 p.m.
Mon, Apr 7, 1:00 p.m.
Dreamweaver CS3: Advanced: Apr 22, 9:00 a.m.
Apr 22, 12:00 p.m.
Dreamweaver CS3: New Features: Jan 22, 10:00 a.m.
Jan 22, 12:00 p.m.
Mar 17, 1:00 p.m.
Macromedia Flash: Introduction: Jan 31, 9:00 a.m.
Jan 31, 12:00 p.m.
Photoshop CS3: New Features: Feb 28, 3:00 p.m.
Feb 28, 5:00 p.m.
Video Workshop I: Introduction to Digital Video: Jan 17, 3:00 p.m.
Jan 17, 6:00 p.m.
Feb 6, 3:00 p.m.
Feb 24, 1:00 p.m.
Mar 6, 3:00 p.m.
Apr 2, 3:00 p.m.
Video Workshop II: Advanced Digital Video: Jan 31, 3:00 p.m.
Jan 31, 6:00 p.m.
Feb 27, 3:00 p.m.
Mar 2, 1:00 p.m.
Mar 27, 3:00 p.m.
Apr 23, 3:00 p.m.
Understanding RSS Feeds: Apr 9, 1:00 p.m.
Apr 9, 3:00 p.m.

Web Content: Not just YOUR words and pictures

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 16:45:23 EST

My Google Reader Shared Items

If they read what you write, they may also want to read what you read. Webmasters and bloggers know this. That's why we'll embed links within our text, build pages with links to recommended sites and/or add linkblogs to our side bars. In a world where most of us don't have the time to research and write everything we'd like to share, such resources add value to our existing content and give readers guidance on where to look for additional information.

Recently I've come across some other good ways to share what you read, so I thought I'd share those with you today.

Publish your OPML file to share your blog subscriptions

A few weeks back I was reading an entry on David Bradley's blog, Sciencebase, when I noticed something interesting in his footer. There, at the bottom, he has a section called "Geeky Fun Stuff" in which he shares, among other things, a link to his OPML file. That, I thought, is a really good idea. For those of you who don't know what this is, an OPML file is basically a type of XML file that includes the links to the RSS feeds of the various blogs one reads through RSS Readers such as Google Reader, Bloglines, etc. Such services allow you to import and export these files so that you can easily switch services or add a batch of feeds to your existing service. Thus, if I wanted to subscribe to all of David's feeds I could just save that file and import it into Google Reader myself. Or if I wanted to subscribe to only a few I could edit the file (in Dreamweaver or any plain text editor) to delete any I didn't want.

If you are already using an RSS reader, sharing such a file is fairly easy. Just export your file from your reader and save it to your computer. If you don't want to share everything, just open the file in a text reader, and delete the extraneous feeds—lolcats, curling news from In the Hack and anything else that may not be of interest to your readership. Once the file is ready, just upload it to your site and link to it as you would any other page.

Using Google Reader to share specific stories

Google Reader recently added some enhancements to its sharing features. I first noticed this when Robert Scoble posted a note on Pownce with a link to his Google Reader shared items page. When I went to view the page I realized that this could be a useful feature, one that made me want to revisit Google Reader.

When you visit a shared items page you will see a site that looks pretty much like a typical blog. Stories are posted on the left, information about the page owner is on the right—along with links to other resources, a feed, etc. The main difference is that the stories are things the page owner has read rather than written (though, if you subscribe to your own feed, you can share your own entries as well). Each story also includes a link to the original entry and the original source—so the material is not mistakenly attributed to you.

After viewing Scoble's page, I immediately thought of my friend X, who says she wants to establish an online presence, but isn't quite yet ready to blog. Sharing stories on a page she can link to might be a good way to get her feet wet and let people know what she is thinking about.. For those of us who already have one or more blogs and Web sites, the shared items page adds to our online mix and provides an easy way to share stories with our readership.

Getting started with Google Reader

Getting started with this is pretty easy. Just go to the Google Reader site and sign-in. If you don't already have a Google account for Gmail, analytics, etc. you can create one there. Once your account is set up, just subscribe to some of your favorite blogs and start reading. A menu at the bottom of each story gives you the option to share the story so it will appear on your public shared items page. (There is some controversy about this, but you just have to understand that it's a public page that can be seen by anyone who has, or discovers, the address. For us, that is what we want, so it's not a big concern.) If you change your mind later, you can unshare the story the same way. You can also organize your subscriptions into topic folders and share topics rather than individual items. To learn more about using Google Reader visit the Reader Help Center.

If you don't want to send readers to your Google page, but still want to share stories, you can also share a clip from the feed on your own site, as I have done on my "What I've Been Reading in the Blogosphere" page.

More sharing options

My Streamy Subscriptions

Google isn't the only service that allows sharing, but aside from the hubbub regarding privacy settings (pertaining to how and with whom one is sharing—see links below) it's very easy to use and will be familiar to a large audience. I've been sharing blog stories with groups on Streamy since last summer, but my Streamy shares aren't fully public. Another friend has recently recommended Feed Each Other which looks promising and also produces a public page. StumbleUpon, while not a reader, is also a great way to share blog stories and other Web sites. (Stumbling is quite popular with insomniacs and is a great way to learn about other sites.)

These are all useful services, but how you share is less important than what you share. If you can find articles and sites that offer additional information on the topics you discuss, or even stories that add insight to your personality or world view, you'll be providing a helpful resource to your readers.