In this issue

Review of the year

Ajax

In Febuary Jesse James Garrett introduced the world to a new term – Ajax.  The technology is not really new, but Jesse spotted that some existing software was being used in new and exciting ways by Google and others to make web site pages much more dynamic.   I will write a future newsletter about this important technology.

Firefox

Over the year Firefox established itself as a major player in the browser market.  (Not really a market because browsers are free.)  It’s a great browser and Microsoft have had to lift off the dustcovers from their IE development people and get them working again. 

TVOIP

TV over the Internet is being hailed as the next big thing. 

Next year AOL will be launching free online television.  This will be funded by advertising.  It is a logical step given the amount of content owned by the group, but will the quality be good enough?  And will I want to dig out my laptop or repair to the study to watch TV?  I am not convinced but will be watching this one with interest.

e-conveyancing

When I wrote a newsletter about  the electronic conveyancing revolution (e-conveyancing)  I decided to make it an exercise in simple search engine optimisation.  It seems to have worked – search Google for e-conveyancing. 

This generates the odd correspondence and someone just pointed out that many estate agents are trying to develop conveyancing as a business.  Would you let an estate agent who can barely measure up your kitchen, sign documents on a transaction worth (in Chiswick) around a million, on your behalf?  The mind boggles. In any event, the project is under way and the first tranche of taxpayer's money was thrown at it earlier this year.  Watch this space.

The peaks and troughs of new technology

New technology often goes through a period of wild enthusiasm, followed by disillusionment, followed by the long term trend line it would follow if humans behaved rationally.  The last few years have given us a few examples.

Internet advertising shot through the roof, crashed like a falling roof tile, and then settled into a long term steadily increasing trend. The level of internet advertising is now higher than the peak in the dot com boom and the trend is steadily upwards.  Internet shopping went through the same pattern.

XML – a set of standards for computers to talk to each other has followed the same pattern.  First it would solve everyone’s problems, then the realisation that it is not the answer to everything.  But I am confident the long term trend when it settles down will be towards wide acceptance.  I will write a newsletter next year on this to explain why I think XML is so important and try and de-mystify some of the jargon.

However the long-term trend is not always upwards.  And the degree of enthusiasm in the initial phase is no predictor of success.

Take the concept of the digital living room – the idea of connecting your PC, TV, PVR and so on into some sort of inter-connected super gadget.  In this case the long-term trend is for it to get resurrected from time to time and then sink back into oblivion. 

In the mobile phone world, TV via your telephone is entering the upward phase of this pattern.  Do you really want to watch your favourite TV show on a tiny screen and pay through the nose for the privilege?  I personally doubt it.  Expect it to go the way of WAP – another bad idea.

Transform your iPod

In the silly season department – and in this month of religious devotion, why not transform your iPod into a crucifix.  You couldn’t make it up.
http://www.devoted1.com/ 

Planning with wireframes

I want to introduce the idea of wire-frame web site planning for those who are not familiar with it. 

The problem is this.  You produce a design for a web site – or maybe two or three designs.  The customer looks at it and reacts to the graphical elements, choosing and signing off the design based on colour preference or a preference of one graphical element over another. 

It is only when the site starts getting populated with data that you realise that you have made some horrendous blunder with the page layout or the navigation.  No-one spotted it earlier on because they were judging the design by how it looked not by how it works.

The solution to this problem is a pre-design phase of wireframing.  A wireframe diagram is a line drawing with no graphical elements at all, but just showing the layout of the page and the placement of the content.  This is signed off by the client before any graphical ideas are developed. 

We have seen this used on a few projects and it has been very successful. If you would like to see an example of a wireframe diagram, please email me and I will send you something.  Or search on Google for ‘wireframe website design’.

So there are real solid benefits to wireframe design.  The web site will work better, and the need for reworking is reduced.  But the most important benefit is that the client is forced to focus on the way the site will work without other distractions.  

As the work progresses, the wireframe can be used to document the exact pixel dimensions to be used within the page and will be a valuable planning tool for the HTML creator.

The process can be quick, and changes are easy to make.  Over the life of the project this extra step will save time rather than extend the project.  Of course both your designers and the customers can’t wait to see graphical design concepts, and you are asking the designer to develop and the customer to focus on something rather dry and unexciting.  It can take a bit of selling.  But that is what you are good at – right?

News from the web

News from the web
The Stonebridge Bank in the US is using a one-time password gadget to provide access to accounts.  Account holders have a gadget that creates a new password every minute.   Corporates have used this type of security device for decades and is perhaps the most secure type of access.  But is has to be combined with the old fashioned PIN (otherwise someone who finds one of the gadgets can get at your account.  It is something more for people to get wrong and cause confusion.  So banks are looking at this type of exercise with interest. 

Amazon is planning to sell on-line access to books.  Its an interesting possibility – especially for business books where the ability to search an electronic version could be a winner. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft is to digitise 100,000 books from the British Library.  But it is not an exclusive deal.

This month is was announced that Microsoft could buy a stake in AOL,  and Yahoo has pulled out  leaving Microsoft and Google as the main suitors.

The next generation of notebooks could have WiFi built in.  This means you could connect to a wireless broadband service directly without needing a card or modem.

An alliance of investors is pledging to monitor companies that do business in countries with shaky human rights reputations. I am not sure what major corporations will be left to invest in, but the group controls $21 billion in assets.  We all have to applaud this initiative.

Firefox is making significant inroads.  They are claiming 10% market share.

Paid content or free – or a mix.  This is always an issue for the web publisher, and one difficult to resolve.  The New York Times decided to make a relatively miniscule amount of their content chargeable – and have 135,000 subscribers. 

A study has revealed a digital divide in European society.  Use of the internet is concentrated in students, graduates and people in employment.  (i.e. those for which access is free or they can afford it anyway – such a surprise!).  Well there is some semi-useful data here.

Google is to offer urchin web log analysis for free (it used to cost $199 per month.  What is the catch?  I will be checking it out for sure.  To use it http://www.google.com/analytics/  but the demand is such they are not currently accepting applications. 

A study has shown that giving schools access to the Internet has had no effect on academic performance.  But it must have made the kids more computer-literate, so I still think it is worthwhile. 

Skype is adding video calling to its offering. 

The singing turkey has been downloaded 30 million times.  No wonder – it is a hoot.