BIG in 2007: How the Web Will Continue to Change How We Do Business
Originally published January 15, 2007, on LLRX.
Two years ago I wrote about what was going to be BIG in 2005. It was a fun take off on the VH1 BIG in 2004. With technology and the Web changing at an ever-quickening pace, I thought it would be good to predict what I think is going to be BIG in 2007. So let’s get started.
Content Syndication – My News, My Way
Two years ago I predicted that RSS was going to take off. It did, but not in the way that it should have. Many factors contributed to the lack of wider adoption of RSS, but now the playing field has changed. Publishing companies are seeing the value in RSS and how content can be syndicated to other Websites, and more importantly, delivered directly to readers. The software companies have also caught-on to the power of RSS and are integrating the RSS format directly into their applications. Much of this can be attributed to the explosion in the number of blogs over the last five years. Microsoft will help expand RSS adoption with the introduction of their new operating system Vista, and with user migration to Internet Explorer 7, released several months ago. Both have integrated features to facilitate the use of RSS.
RSS will be the vehicle for syndicating content, but it won’t just be text and images anymore. The popularity of content such as video and podcasts will continue to grow this year. OPML will also start to gain some traction as well.
OPML stands for Outline Processor Markup Language. It will have many useful application as a content syndication vehicle as it continues to develop. The most common use at the moment is to bundle a number of RSS feeds into one file, which you can then in turn import into another aggregator. So if I wanted to share my Legal Blogs folder from my news aggregator with you, I would export the folder as an OPML, allowing you to import that file and use all the feeds to which I am subscribed, via your own aggregator. This saves both of us time because I monitor about 50 legal blogs, and it would cumbersome to copy and paste each feed URL into a document to email to you.
The Social Web Becomes the Regular Web
Last year was all about the "social Web." In 2007, we will see how the social Web will be absorbed into the "regular" Web. Blogs and Websites will for the most part become one and the same. We won’t differentiate them as much because blogs will continue to be integrated into mainstream Websites and their core features, such as blog comments and RSS, will become an accepted part of all Websites. This integration has already started with the re-launch of Time.com, along with use of these applications in mainstream media sites such as the WashingtonPost.com and NewYorkTimes.com sites, to name just a few. These publishing giants have taken social Web concepts and placed them directly into their respective Websites. These features include a blog aggregator which is summary content from many sources (Time.com), columnist blogs with comments enabled, podcasts, and a "save and share" feature on all their articles which allow you to bookmark or share links to articles via social communities like Sphere, Newsvine, Digg, and Del.icio.us.
The next generation of the Web will continue to prominently include online community building features. Websites like Second Life will continue to change the way we interact with each other. Companies will no longer just be on the Web, they will interact on the Web. The legal community will, to a certain degree, follow suit. Advertising rules and regulations will continue to evolve regarding how blogs and Websites are treated by the state bar associations [Link].
Planning Your 2007 Web Strategy
Originally published December 17, 2006 at LLRX.com
The end of the year is closing in fast and you will undoubtedly ready many "year in review" articles this month. Rather than writing a column referring to what we covered this past year, I want to get you thinking about next year, so you can start the year off right – with a strategic plan for your website that is integrated into other firm goals for 2007.
Reviewing Your Current Website
Hindsight is always 20/20, so – what didn’t you accomplish with your website last year? Do those unaccomplished goals still hold value within the scope of your overall marketing strategy? If so, do you want to make sure these goals figure prominently in your plans for next year?
In following with what website plans were not implemented, did you perhaps add a new feature or features that failed to generate the response you anticipated or simply did not work? To what can you attribute this lack of success?
Looking at what you have done and how your website has contributed to your overall goals and marketing efforts will help you to focus your plans for improvements and enhancements for 2007. Review all aspects of your website, from design to content to traffic statistics to clients who engaged your services through the site. Having a complete picture of what happened over the course of the last twelve months will provide you with valuable data.
The next step in this evaluation process is to draw up a short list of ideas and changes that you want to make to your website in the next year and put it aside. Then take a look at the competitive landscape that surrounds you.
Competitive Analysis
Knowing what you have worked on over the last twelve months is a good starting point, but information about what your competitors have accomplished is an essential component of your future planning process. Has your competition taken specific business away from you? Is another firm or practice providing a service that is within your field of expertise? Do other firms have value-added services that you offer but have not properly communicated or marketed, or that you can enhance to extend the range of your services to clients? Remember, you do not have to be the first to offer a online service or implement a technology application (such as a blog, wiki or an extranet). The objective is to determine how to implement one or more of these applications in a manner which keeps you competitive and expands your services.
Ideas that you will want to consider include the following?
- coordinated offline and online branding
- e-mail updates on topical subject matters
- client portals
- web-based client intake forms
After taking a quick look at your competitors within the context of the "marketplace" (location, industry, etc.), you can add more context and content to your wish list of ideas to implement over the next year.
Test your Web 2.0 Logo Knowledge
Think you know these companies well? See if you can pick which is their correct logo.
http://www.guessthelogo.com/
del.icio.us Improves their Homepage, Google opens up Analytics, Writely Taking New Registrations!
Lots of stuff happening in the Web world lately, but two to note on is that del.icio.us updated their homepage today to include more search options and added thumbnails of the “Hot Now” bookmarks. Pretty cool stuff. Their homepage was updated not too long ago to a much improvement in design and layout. This just continues the trend of great things from del.icio.us with Yahoo! funding. Oh, and a side note is that del.icio.us also has contextual ads now too.
Google opened up the doors on Google Analytics yesterday. I’ve had a Google Analytics account for a while and found it very useful. I’ve debated using other types of sources, but my Web host doesn’t provide the greatest package out of the box, and I’m not willing to spend the money yet to get something more robust. GA seems to fill the bill for now. Of course I want other features to be added that can help me determine key information about my visitors, but what do you expect from something that is free. Still worth having, so go get your account today.
Recently Google acquired Writely also opened up its doors today for new registrations. The online collaboration tool that allows multiple users to write on a singe document and then export out to RTF or DOC for free is an indispensable tool for those who are not in the same organization who are working on the same document, let alone hate the problems of swapping files in email. This centrally located tool was indispensable for me when working on a recent article with multiple contributors. If you haven’t checked it out, you should.
Via: Lifehacker
Google Opens up Spreadsheets Beta?
Just logged into Gmail and noticed my options in the upper left hand corner is a little bigger with the addition of a link to Google Spreadsheets in it. Did Google just open up their “beta” of Spreasheets? I wonder how long it will be before I see a Writely or “Write” link up there. Does anyone else see the link in their account?
Are New Media Companies the Only Ones who “Get It?”
The word on the street today is that Niall Kennedy is leaving Microsoft, not long after Robert Scoble left. This is yet another in “A” list or high-profile bloggers leaving their company’s to do either start their own business or leave for a new-media company. Kevin O’Keefe asks the obvious question “Can large corps retain the visionaries?” I say no. Here is my short list why:
1. Let’s face it, old school companies, ones who are older than the Internet, don’t “get it” (bold statement, but more true than false)
2. New media companies like Feedburner, LexBlog, Google, and even Userland have started because those who founded them believed in changing the Internet via the Internet. Old media still believes in traditional ways that are proven. They are less likely to take, or set aside monies for risk that will not make a profit for shareholders. Which leads me to no. 3…
3. Funding is different. Either it is via bootstrapping or VC funding, new media is exactly that…new and thus has to find funding in new ways. Old media have shareholders to answer to and thus cannot or are willing to take chances on new technologies
So can companies keep visionaries…I say it is no because those companies who have visionaries are either too political, have to answer to shareholders, or are too slow to adopt to changing times that the visioinaries get bored and need to feed the need to make a difference. So I ask you…do you have a visionary you need to worry about leaving? Are you sure?
My Top 5 Reasons Why Your Web Site Will Be Unsuccessful
The following are my top five reasons why your Web site will ultimately be unsucessful and be useless stagnant bits and bytes on the Internet.
5. The IS department is in charge of design and content creation/publishing.
The IS department does not know your content better than you, the content contributor. Unless you have a very specific workflow that facilitates the content creation process and how it interacts with your IS dept. for publishing, it will never work.
4. Your content is “brochure-ware”, static and stale.
Have you ever heard this in your office?
“Hey Bob, let’s just put our brochure up as content on our web site. It is the same marketing copy we would use anyway, so why re-invent the wheel.”
This conversation should never happen. If it does, please..PLEASE say “no” and make sure your content for your web site is written for the Web (yes, there is a difference) and it is reviewed on a regular basis if not changes on a regular basis.
3. The majority of your senior managers and middle managers don’t “get it” when it comes to the web.
Your management sees the Web site as a something that you “had” to do to keep up with the Jones’, but never saw the value in it and will not put more resources to improving it.
2. You have decentralized content creation without standards and rules.
Can you say Silence of the Lambs? Wild, rabid kids without any supervision will fend for themselves which gives you a fractured, inconsistent mess for your visitors to wade through to find the content they are really looking for. Without explicit standards and business rules, decentralized content control and creation can become unruley and very difficult to manage globally.
1. You don’t understand your audience and how they interact wit your brand and company.
Rule number 1: Know thy audience and thy will strive. If you don’t know who you are providing content/services to how can you build something they will use or come to?
Tim Berners Lee Speaks Out on Net Neutrality
The grandfather of the Web speaks out about Net Neutrality. I’ve been hearing some bits and pieces of this topic over the last few months, but Tim makes it pretty clear on what Net Neutrality is and what it is not. His last comment is what hits home for me:
I hope that Congress can protect net neutrality, so I can continue to innovate in the internet space. I want to see the explosion of innovations happening out there on the Web, so diverse and so exciting, continue unabated.
Other Net Neutrality Content:
* Definition from Wikipedia
* “No Tolls on the Internet” article from The Washington Post 6/8/06 (may require registration with the paper)
* “Getting a Fix on Network Neutrality” from Knowledge at Wharton
* Net neutrality fans “crying wolf”? – c|net
Vitamin Reviews Microsoft's Expression Web Designer
Rachel Andrew reviews a first look at Microsoft’s upcoming FrontPage replacement Expression Web Designer over at Vitamin. The review compares EWD to DW8. Interesting review if you are not a hard-core hand-coder.
Setting Up Shop: Choosing a Web Host and Registering Your Domain
This article was originally published in the May 20 issue of LLRX.
This is the first in a series of articles where I will cover how to create and manage a firm Web site yourself.
Introduction
When choosing to start a Web site there are two roads you can go down. One is to hire a Web design firm who will take care of all the back-end set-up, which includes hosting and domain registration. The other road is to do-it-yourself. First step in getting your Web presence up and running is to select a Web host and to choose your domain name and get it registered.
Pricing
Let’s start off with what is on everyone’s mind: How much is this going to cost me? Hosting plans can range from free to hundreds of dollars a month, depending on what your requirements are and what you are willing to pay for. Often you will find that you get what you pay for when it is free, and other times you may be over charged for high-end service. For most solo and small firms who are looking to start a Web presence, you can find Web hosting for as reasonable as $10 per month. I believe it is better to start with what you need at the time, knowing that you can always upgrade your plan if you require additional features.
Where to Find Hosts
There are hosting companies all around the world. If you don’t know where to start looking for a Web host, here are a couple of suggestions. First, ask your colleagues in the community or look at their Web sites. Sometimes Web sites have a link back to their Web hosts in the footer. Using this method, you may find a common set of hosts that tailor services to law firms needs. For instance, when I look at other sites in the Web development and design community, I often see two common hosts, Media Temple and Dreamhost. Both have services that are exactly what this community seeks and their reputation is good with community leaders. You may find the same with the legal community.
Second, you can always do a Google or Yahoo! search on Web hosts. Of course, doing a Web search may be overwhelming because there are many Web hosts from which to choose.
Third, you can seek out Web host lists on Web sites like c|net. Finding a host will not be a problem. Finding a host that meets your business needs and criteria is where you will want to focus your time.
Criteria for Selecting a Host
Choosing a host should not be taken lightly. Moving hosts often is not an easy experience. This is mostly due to porting your content from one server to another, not the fact of choosing a new host to move to. Like choosing software to use for your firm, a Web host should meet certain criteria. While your criteria may vary, here are some basic questions that you may ask yourself when looking for a host.
Do you have an existing environment you want to leverage? An existing environment could be with your current client database or file management system that you want to leverage through an extranet or client portal.
Where is the host physically located? Do you care if the host is local or anywhere in the world? For instance, I live in Chicago and my host in California. To me this was not a big deal because I was looking for features and service, not necessarily a local company.
Does the host perform regular back-ups or have redundant servers? You will want to make sure your data is safe, even if the host servers’ crash. I remember when the power outage hit Los Angeles about a year ago. My host went down because their power back-ups went down too. They had issues with about three of their servers which meant that they did not come back up online correctly. My data was on one of those servers. The good news was that they backed up their systems on a regular basis and all my data was restored without any problems.
What is the host’s privacy policy and terms of use regarding your data? Depending on what you actually put on your Web site, you will want to make sure your data is private. Read the company’s privacy policy regarding how they deal with your data. If you leave and move to a new host, do they delete it? Do they "own" it because it sits on their servers? Understanding their terms of use also is important before signing up with a host.
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