iPad Apple Computers Swiping Into The Future

Swiping Into The Future

Comments | 05/13/10 | Kris Smith

Touch has arrived. Sure, it has been kicking around for years and gained a foothold on smart phones but with the launch of the iPad (on which I'm banging out this post) the days of the mouse are coming to an end.

I've been harsh on the iPad in the past before it launched and after . . . For about 5 minutes. This device is like training wheels for what it to come in new hardware and most importantly the way that we interact with computers.

Devices without touch screens seem arcane.

If you are in doubt, you just haven't spent enough time with one yet.

To be at the beginning of a user input and interaction evolution is a very exciting time. It means that the landscape for opportunities is changing. Some of the old ones will fade away and some new ones will appear. We are at this beginning.

The most exciting is touch and new methods to create user interaction with content. It feels much like the days when Flash was opening new doors to designers to create interactive experiences without having to write in hefty programming languages like C or Java.

My recommendation is that you hop on this wagon as soon as possible if you are looking to make a mark in digital endeavors. Be it with your web design, application development or user interaction principles, make some moves now while there is room create a standard and the rest of the crowd is telling you that they 'just don't get it.'

Update: Touch Gesture Reference Guide via Zeldman. A killer chart for touch screen devices and what action the gestures perform. sent from poorly named apple slate

Tags: iPad Apple Computers touch screen tablet computers tablet computing

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Authentic Vs. Advertorial

Comments | 05/12/10 | Kris Smith

Let's just put this right out there: authenticity and advertorial are adversaries online.

They tug and push each other with changes in popular culture and media consumption styles.

Publishers and readers typically fall into one of these camps to become a staunch advocate for why they are right. The fact is, that when all things are considered, there isn't a right way.

There is, however, an appropriate time to use either.

Yes, you could have an authentic advertorial but that Liger rarely bursts forth from its cage.

When To Be Authentic

The simply answer is always. Always be authentic. It is the one way to convey your message to people in a way that is meaningful to them. Authenticity is the easiest way to prove your earnestness (see: passion, for popular nomenclature on this) regarding the topic at hand.

When To Use Advertorial

When all else has failed it is time for advertorials. Yes, they may be one of the best ways to convey large amounts of information and to begin shaping a dialogue, but they are often wry corporate interpretations of what the consumer wants. And guess, what? The consumer knows it.

Regardless, when this is the tool at hand after an online conversation has moved into territory that is hurting the bottom line or negative sentiment toward a brand, a blend of authenticity and the human element go a long way.

By humanizing the brand, corporation and conversations it is easier to gain a foothold early with authenticity without having to resort to an advertorial akin to terms of service document.

Tags: authentic advertorial brand management conversations

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Structured Data: Follow-Up to Palegroove Blog Post

Comments | 05/10/10 | Kris Smith

In the my previous post at Palegroove, "Improving your SEO with RSS in 3 easy steps," I shared some insight about how to setup your RSS feed URL's so that they are search engine friendly. After reading the post again, well, I missed explaining why search spiders like feeds so much.

The answer: structured data.

PC Magazine defines structured data as, "Data that resides in fixed fields within a record or file. Relational databases and spreadsheets are examples of structured data. Contrast with unstructured data." I'm sure a future revised version will include XML or RSS ;-).

When your content is placed into feeds it has the benefit of being described by a template - structured data. It is described by elements in the feed the same as mine, CNN.com, Apple, Microsoft or anyone else with a RSS feed. RSS is the ubiquitous, defacto standard for syndication. The simplicity of RSS as a standard to describe your content's title, description, dates, content, enclosures, etc makes it a magic API for search engines, developers and database administrators. Your website doesn't do this. It is full of unstructured data.

On your site the post titles could be in a h1-6 tag, div or a legacy table cell with a style applied to it. This makes it harder for search engines to understand your content. Sure, there are insanely engineered algorithms that are in place to create associations between the content on your site and the code that is used to display it, but RSS makes it uniform and much easier for search companies to cache, categorize, rank and re-syndicate your ideas. The primary reason is that the feed describes the data types instead ot telling a browser how to display it.

So, like I said in the last post, "Treat your feeds with the same care that you do your pages," with the caveat that maybe you need to treat them better because the next iteration of the web is being built on structured data.

Tags: semantic web structured data RSS SEO rss feeds seo

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Make better RSS feeds by not making them

Comments | 05/08/10 | Kris Smith

Did you pick the content of the RSS feeds that you are syndicating from your site right now? Or did you let your readers pick?

Within reason my guess would be that most of you answered, yes then no. I know on my sites, even this site, I would have answered the same.

The solution isn't to create more feeds. The best solution is for publishers to create no feeds at all. Let your readers make their own.

Here are a couple examples why this is a better method for content syndication than relying on your own editorial skills.

Example 1: How not to do it.

Don't get me wrong on this, CNET is offering nearly all of its content up for syndication. This is an excellent strategy to create value from older content. However, do readers really need the option of subscribing to 100 plus predefined RSS feeds? Simply, no.

Finding feeds for the topics you are interested in is difficult. The worst of it is that you can only access them individually, i.e.; you want 10 of feeds, copy and paste them one by one into your feed reader. Sounds like a party to me. If you have more skills you might use a service that rolls all of them up into one feed for you. I would guess that about three people have done this.

Why overwhelm your readers like this? And besides, it is pretty intimidating for someone new to the RSS game. Shouldn't they be able to access your content in a way that makes it relevant to them?

Example 2: How to do RSS right.

What you see above is one of two flavors of how to let your readers pick what they receive in RSS feeds. It's a simple and easy to use text input that allows readers to enter keywords and phrases that they want in their feed. There's nothing fancy, easy access to old content in the straight-forward way that RSS is delivered; updates of the newest items first and set number items in the feed, usually twenty-five.

What the second screen shot shows is the magic of thinking differently about RSS feeds. This image demonstrates what happens when someone clicks on the 'advanced' link. The reader is then given control over every aspect of the RSS feed. They choose the content, when it is delivered, how much content, in what order (none of this newest stuff first mumbo jumbo - great use for episodic content) and how many updates to get at a time.

Who is better to choose than the person doing the consuming? RSS needs to be like Burger King where a customer can have it their way.

When this concept is applied to large volumes of content the value of it increases with each new article or podcast. Imagine if you could have this type of access at the NY Times or with your local paper. Even the obits from 30 years ago are now of value again. Value to the reader and value to the publisher with ad inventory.

The future of content syndication isn't in prescriptive channels created by publishers. The future is in the subjective choices of the consumer. They neither need or want every product that you have to offer.

We need to be smarter about our syndicated content via RSS and take into consideration how to make that user experience more satisfying. Whether it is by allowing users to pick topics or order of updates, something needs to change. Why? Because it is all about attention; the premium of which is measured in subscribers, influence and the influence of those subscribers.

Tags: RSS CNET readers consumers interaction

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RSS is the magic api

Comments | 05/03/10 | Kris Smith

RSS is many things to many people: a quick way to syndicate content with ease, ability to receive automatic news updates or automated submission to catalogs and search engines.

But there is one thing that RSS is amazing at that is often overlooked . . . it is a low-threshold API.

The data that can and is loaded into RSS feeds can be easily parsed and used in other applications. A good example of this would be two feeds from Flickr - the main user feed and the comment feed.

By default the main user feed comes packed with ninety-five percent of the data that is available for an uploaded photo like date, time, size, username, title, etc. The main user feed combined with the comment feed gives you nearly open access to the data and activity around your photos.

To get the same data from their formally structured API you need to make roughly 5 API calls, have a 'token' and be able to locate an uploaded photo's internal GUID. Uh, yeah. No thanks Flickr.

When you are looking to a service provider's API to supply you with data, you might want to first take a look to see if they are offering RSS feeds also. This could cut down on your development time by not having to learn their entire schema and idiosyncratic jargon. Feeds are simple . . . view source to get the namespaces and parse as needed.

This post, Think differently about RSS and its uses, explains this flickr example even further.

Tags: flickr RSS magic api photo blogging