Born On The Web

Most of us web developers/marketeers know the saying “content is king” and nothing is more true. But in the current web 2.0 situation content will get even more important. If you look at the number of visits of some high profile blogs, you know that a lot of companies would do everything to get some positive comments and a link on those blogs. So I think in the future the web is going to be misleading, it’s going to be difficult to see which bloggers blog honestly and which bloggers just do it for the easy money. With blogs being so popular, there’s a huge pressure of the advertisers on the bloggers. They want to give a lot of money to get their name and link in a blog post, not in a banner on top of the page.

So for me a blog gets more credibile if there is a vivid community around it. If you’ve got people responding on blog posts in their own blogs. If blogs group themselves in a blog community (for example web 2.0 workgroup), they’re even more trustfull. That kind of blog communities aren’t only good for the readers of that blogs but also for the bloggers. Everything they write is kind of moderated by the blog community. For example if one blog in the web 2.0 workgroup reviews a new web app. The other bloggers will read that blog and agree or disagree with the review. But the other bloggers in the blog community will be very critical towards eachother because they are part of the same community, same “brand” of content.

So the value of online content will only increase, we have to be aware of that. But as your blogs lives in a good blogging community it will be punished for that. A community (also in real live) keeps you with your both feets on the ground.

But as my blog is still an extremely low-profile blog, sponsors be welcome to mail me your deals! :-)
My content is also open source, copy paste away !

An example of high-profile blogging problems

I’m one of those users that’s constantly using outlook. It’s often the first icon I click on after my pc booted, and most of the time it sits there in my systray, making me aware of the fact when I have a new mail. So how great will it be, if it can check your rss feeds too… You will be able to drag and drop the interesting articles in your maps in outlook.

If outlook makes the RSS integration good, I think even my dad (who, at this time, doesn’t know what an RSS feed is) will start using rss. So more users will be using RSS.

I do hope that it can import my feeds from BlogBridge, don’t want to do it manually :p

Check the announcement !

Are you going to use it ?

I’ve found some great articles from RyanC the founder of tech training company Carson Systems and email large file service dropsend, he gives you simple advice how to start a small web company :

Great read … and more to come.

Thanks Ryan !

Here in Belgium we have a complicated IDTV landscape. We have 2 providers : Belgacom and Telenet. Belgacom is Belgium biggest telecom provider and also has an adsl and cellular network, Telenet owns the cable infrastructure and provides telephony, cable tv and cable internet. They both have their own distibuting system, telenet trough cable and belgacom trough telephone lines. Well you will say, what’s wrong with that? Well nothing, BUT they decided they will both use a different IDTV platform. So this means that an application you made for telenet digital tv will not work if you are a belgacom subscriber. Great news for the designers and developers hu? … NOT !

This really bothers me, didn’t they learned anything from the internet story over the last 10 years? After the whole XHTML and CSS story and Internet Explorer not respecting the W3C standards … really f*ck it ! I don’t want anything more to do with the current format of IDTV. And what’s that sh*t about being interactive? I can’t image anything more than maybe some video-on-demand or voting applications.

But ok, two different platforms, we developers are used of that, but it gets worst!? Why did they both adapted a new technology, if we already have a great network and technology for interactivity, the internet!

The IDTV providers act like they invented something new and it is a step forward in technology. Well it’s not! Everything that they are trying to make, is another world wide spread network but then specifically for television. And the stupid thing is we already have a world wide network, yes … the internet. So why are both the Belgian providers (who both provide internet access) so stupid to ignore this? Why are they investing money in creating a new network if there already exists one for more then 10 years and is widely adapted? Well my guess is, just for the money. They just want to find a new way to get more money from the people.

If the providers want to bring interactivity to the television screen, why not make use of the internet. Not in it’s current form, but in a television friendly way(f.e. windows media center). And if they’re so desperate to earn money, they’ll still be able let the users pay for the content they get. Stream the television programs over the internet, make them as interactive as you want with an existing technology like for example Macromedia *kuch* Adobe Flash. Let users, chat, email, like it’s nothing. Because your tv is connected to the internet. One of the advantages is that I’ll be able to access the same TV programs on my laptop. I’m not in need of a television to watch the IDTV programs. Because internet access is enough. On a mobile phone it’s just the same, you just need an internet connection to have access to the same information you can get on your tv of pc. Content stays the same, layout just depends on the functionalities of your device.

I can’t understand why they decided to use a whole new technology for this medium, as developers we are struggling to get everything on the same standard (example: different css styles for a different devices). They just completely ignored that. Well maybe I’m overreacting but I just can’t see what they are trying to achieve with this.

IPTV by microsoft

What are your taughts ? comment…

There are some good resources out there… :

You know more ? comment away …

After yahoo acquired flickr and upcoming.org this year, del.icou.us just became member of the yahoo group. Sjé, yahoo has a lot of my favourite online tools right now.

Yahoo is investing big time !!

Yesterday Microsoft’s variant on google maps relaunched, it looks impressing, especially the bird eye function is really cool. It’s scary how much you can see on the images.
I think it’s definatelly as good as google maps, maybe even better.

Some examples (double click to zoom deeper):
- Las Vegas
- New York
- Washington DC

Amazing isn’t it ?

Play around…

It’s cool to see how an online shop can differentiate itself just by its look’n feel. Just like his offline variant the mark and spencer online store stands for style and carefully selected products. If you only compare m&s design grid to that of amazon, you’ll notice the difference. While shopping the site succeeds in giving you the same feeling like a luxureous offline shop.

It’s great that e-commerce sites are putting the focus more on the shopping experience of the users then on the actual selling of products trough a site. I think that’s the reason transactions on the internet increase. If you make the experience of the online shopping better you’ll satisfy your customers. Shopping not only exists because of the need for products but also because people like to shop. Future shops with a good shopping experience will get more customers.

Every new technology that can make the shopping more usable and fun, can be very important for an e-commerce site. With the adaptation of AJAX, flash, … the possibilities are wide open. But I never saw an online shop that extensively made use of those technologies (except this limited example of macromedia ). To give you a simple example, a google suggest like search on the amazon homepage would be a great feature.

I’m looking forward to see some rich features in online shops, according to me, it will be a win-win.

Message to my mom:
While browsing I found myself something to put on my christmas wishlist, forget the socks and shorts I want a sumo suit :p !

Ow … theme parties … always fun
mental note: don’t drink champagne a bottle when you go out. My head … awtch!

I was rather dissapointed by the plugins that were available for video conferencing in skype. Native support works much better.

Get it now…