Time Magazine lists the 50 best websites of 2007. The top 10:
1. Mozy.com
2. StumbleUpon.com
3. Last.FM
4. Weebly.com
5. Etsy.com
6. Wotartist.com
7. Fatsecret.com
8. Netvibes.com
9. Chow.com
10. OhDontForget.com
Ever browsed the web and stumbled upon a picture of yourself that you had no part in publishing? WashingtonPost.com reports this exact scenario in a story on Web pictures & their commercial usage. This means your most prized Flickr images could find themselves endorsing a random product or idea, with no attribution. One would argue that there should be no reasonable expectation of privacy on the web. In other words, don’t post your personal images. What do you think?
piracyWeb site redesigns, as well as new site build outs, are process-heavy events full of cycles and iterations. Before development can begin, a flurry of activities from web strategy to UI design and user research are bound to happen. With content being the common denominator (after all, there would be no Web site without content), it’s no wonder many project manager are unsure where to fit content activities into their project plans. The most successfully executed projects are those that anticipate and begin to address the strategic content touch points early on.
Project Planning Phase
Content Strategists must participate in requirements-gathering meetings to begin to understand the internal processes and organizational structure that will support the development and management of site content. Depending on the size and scope of the project, preliminary meetings with key content stakeholders can be held to alleviate and allow subject-matter expert designees to plan for their upcoming content development obligations.
Bottom Line: Project Managers will need to plan for and allocate appropriate budget to allow for content strategists to engage early on.
Information Architecture Phase
Content Strategists will collaborate with the information architect to identify and develop the necessary content inputs for the presentation of IA deliverables. This collaborative phase establishes the validity of sitemaps, wireframes and prototyping mechanisms based on the content requirements.
Bottom Line: Information Architects and Content Strategists should collaborate on an on-going basis to ensure that the user interface and content work together to fully optimize the user experience. Project Managers should fully support this type of collaboration by allocating necessary hours.
Content Strategy and Development
Though much of what I’ve said up until now suggests the content strategy phase as one that runs parallel to all site build out phases, content strategy does have a phase of its own. The biggest mistake I’ve seen in project plans is the lack of budget for the content strategy. Odd because, if this portion of the project fails one of two things will happen: 1) The project will be launch-ready thought grossly over budget or 2) The project will hits its budget and not be ready to launch due to content not being ready. Without going into all of the many tasks and details in this phase, I want to establish the criticality of the right resources, necessary knowledge of organizational idiosyncrasies, and complete understanding of technology and any constraints thereof and senior management buy-in.
Bottom Line: Content Strategy is purely strategic in nature therefore means different things to different organizations. It should not just be reduced a mere CMS implementation or online editorial style process. Project plans should be flexible and allow for a discovery process to uncover business requirements and therefore recommend a win-win solution.
UI Design Phase
Content Strategists and designers will spend a bit of time together coordinating necessary page enhancements for content as it relates to UI Design (images, visual styles, etc.). It’s important that content strategists keep the design team abreast of content requirements as they relate to design activities (copy fitting, establish ideal character count, header/sub header styles, style guide development, etc.).
Bottom Line: The collaboration between designers and content strategists can be the most efficient of all the needed collaborations. This collaboration typically handles naturally as client design presentations are more effective with actual copyfitted text and not lorem ipsum. Project managers should simply encourage this work via nominal hour’s allocation.
Web Site Development
I like to think of content strategists as mini front-end development resources in this phase of the project. By this time, a CMS tool has been implemented therefore allowing content strategists to actually assist developers with the site build out, as needed.
Bottom Line: Content Strategists are not just great copy writers and will therefore need to put on their more technical hats and provide support to get the site launched! Project Managers beware of blown hours here as a good content strategist will just jump in and begin helping where needed to meet the deadline.
Students at Cornell, USC, Princeton and a few other US colleges can now bring their study sessions to the web. Online forum TheCollegeFreeWay is a network for sharing notes, outlines, essays, problem sets, study guides and more. Users can search by university, course or type of document needed. Anyone can view the notes, however students must register to upload or download documents, rate them or make comments. Students can register directly through the site or can sign in via their Facebook accounts. Sweet!
facebook web 2.0 web trendsJust in time for the holiday season, Apple has launched its ‘Get a Mac’ ad campaign posting all ads on their Web site. One particular ad plays out a skit between a “PR Lady” and her client, the PC. During the skit the “PR Lady” tries to put a positive spin on the PC’s observations about Vista users having problems and downgrading back to Windows XP.
I am always happy to see content jump across platforms and onto the Web. Even better is slick packaging that rivals the way one consumes TV media (where else can you watch them all in one sitting).
Ads Mac PCs