John Romano, Sr. Web Developer
Bio
John is an Internet generalist who keeps an unwavering eye on design and strategy. After ten years of creating Web sites and interactive media, John has realized that great interactive communications starts with great strategy and comes to life through the integration of insightful user experience, stunning visual design, and well-executed development.Articles
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"You can't use that font. It's not Web safe!"
Web safe? Web safe!? Curse the Web and it's lack of typographic variety!
Imagine a Web where beautiful typography is unlimited (with out the use of Flash). Imagine how it would differentiate a design or a company.
But every Web designer has had it beaten into their skull that they should limit the fonts in their design to Verdana, Times, and a few others. While most hate it, many have embraced the limitation and relish the challenge. Others like the continuity it provides. Either way, the reason we do this is because nothing else works.But the answer is not so simple, or nearly as boring.
There is a CSS property called @font-face that allows you to use any font you wish. It's not universally supported in current browsers. There are also different font formats for Internet Explorer (imagine that). Harder to solve is the issue that you can't take any commercial font and put it on the Web for everyone to have.
So technical and legal limitations killed Web Typography from taking root. But things are changing. CSS3 is on the way. The ranks of good, free, unlicensed Web safe fonts are growing. New license schemas and services like TypeKit and Typotheque for font usage are emerging. Now Firefox has released a new cross platform font format.
Keep an eye on this. I sense a growing trend.
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New Tablets and Ultraportable Platforms. Where is this all going?
Take a look around and you see that the Apple iPad isn't the only tablet/ultraportable game in town. There is Jolicloud, the JooJoo, and the 500 pound gorilla, the forthcoming Google tablet using Chromium OS.
But when you see these all lined up side by side, you begin to see the forest for the trees. This is NOT just a change in form factor. In fact, size is the least radical change.
The new paradigm: the Web as a platform. Ultra-portable, constant connection to the Web, little or no local file storage, third party control over your installable apps, and the cloud as your storage.
Imagine having NO local files. No music, Word, Excel or photos on your machine. All of that is in the cloud. Heck, in Google's paradigm, you don't even install software. No apps. Nothing. You connect to the Web because the Web it is all you need.
Are we comfortable with this? Are we ready to give up control?
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News from the Front: Anecdotal Android and iPod Analytics
Android is coming on fast. Is it a flash in the pan or is it the first real contender to iPhone in the next-gen mobile market? I am hoping it's a real threat to Apple since nothing drives innovation quite like competition. (except maybe Steve Jobs)
ChangeWave's December survey showed that "21% of those planning to buy a smart phone in the next 90 days say they'd prefer to have the Android OS on their new phone – a monstrous 15-pt jump in just three months." It also showed that most of their gain was Apple's loss.
So, the jury is still out but here is some acedotal evidence from mobile traffic to our Web site. Notice the HUGE jump in Android traffic in just four months.
First graph is October 2009. The second is January 2010.
Want harder evidence?
Android OS Jumps to 27% Market Share, iPhone OS Remains Unchanged at 55%
IDC: Android to be No. 2 mobile OS by 2013
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Adobe aims at mobile with Flash 10.1
It doesn't take much to read between the lines of Adobe's release of Flash player 10.1. Just one word sums it up - mobile. Adobe is working it's tail off to get the newest version of Flash onto devices.
Adobe realizes that if the Flash platform is going to survive, it needs to get off of the desktop and go mobile. Enter Adobe Flash 10.1 with new features to program in the mobile environment. The highlights include support for:
- Multi-touch
- Accelerometers (used to detect motion of the physical device)
- Screen orientation
- and power consumption throttles
The other thing Adobe needs is to get the Flash player onto as many next-gen platforms as possible. So far the list includes Android, MS Mobile, Palm WebOS, and Simbian. Not bad, but the the iPhone and the Blackberry are still holding Flash at arms length. Those manufacturers have cited Flash's power consumption as the reason to not allow Flash. We'll see if Adobe's latest efforts is enough to woo them.
More info at adobe.com.
Author: John Romano
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SEO Bomb: the new Google algorithm
Get ready. Google is going to change the way that it ranks sites.
Try it
- open a tab, go to Google and search for "raleigh pr agencies".
- open a new tab and go http://www2.sandbox.google.com and search for the same thing
- now compare.
Using the current Google search , Capstrat is 9th. In the new one , we are 5th. While this may not seem like a big deal at first, consider the fact that slipping 11 places can put you on the third page instead of the first. A huge deal for online marketers.
Read more on Google's Webmaster blog.
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So you are going to give a core conversation at SXSW
I recently presented (and really enjoyed) a core conversation at the 2009 SXSW interactive festival and want to share some thoughts for future conversation facilitators. There is an official core conversation FAQ to read, but I wanted to add some additional flavor to this.
The SXSW core conversation is basically a formalized conversation with moderators. Our experience tells us that you should expect 20-70 people to show up. The rooms have their chairs in either rows or in a circle. The moderators give an intro, then open the conversation up to the audience.
The first thing to know is that a conversation is not a presentation or a panel. Don't try to make it one. Embrace the format; don't fight it. There won't be slides or long presentations. This won't be a question answer session, and you shouldn't be the center of attention.
That's not to say that you can't have other experts in the room. On the contrary. Having knowledgeable people makes the conversation better. Just realize that all the SXSW goers will be there to discuss, not just listen.
Your intro should be short. The life of a good conversation comes in the discussion, not your intro. Use the intro to set the stage and introduce your topic. Say what you want to (and don't want to) talk about, and then try to pull people in. Get them talking.
Beyond that, my co-moderator and I decided on a list of topics, each with a list of questions or thoughts to talk about. But this was only a guide. Really we answered any questions directly asked of us, kept order, and moved the conversation through the topics that we wanted to cover.
Good luck with your conversation! -
Facebook Share Thumbnail Image
When users share a link on their wall, Facebook automatically tries to grab a thumbnail image to include with the link. This image can really help get the item attention when it is viewed on other people's news feed.
Facebook scans the page and gives you a choice of a few different images. Which images it picks can seem a bit random. Our experience is that it Facebook looks for small squarish images starting at the top of the page.
Specify Your Facebook Share Thumbnail Image
You can specify exactly which image Facebook uses for the thumbnail using a link tag in the head of your page.
<link rel="image_src" type="image/jpeg" href="http://www.domain.com/path/icon-facebook.gif" />
The name is unimportant (as long as it's correct). Use a global URL to avoid confusion.
Other Meta
Make sure the page has a title and description meta tag. Facebook will use these elements when it pre-populates the link description and title.
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Austin (and SXSW), wired not weird.
Austin may be known for being weird, but the South By Southwest Interactive conference filled the city with thousands of the most connected, iPhone wielding, Twittering, Mac using early adopters on Earth.
The producers of the conference tried to stock the schedule with a wide array of topics, but Twitter and social media were the topics du jour. In the middle of the day tweets with the #sxsw hash tag are being posted so fast that it would be easier to drink from a fire hose.Apparently wired is the new weird, in case you missed the memo.
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Lowering the Bar for Design
When testing Web designs with users, it would be interesting to add in a control design. An option that represents the baseline, the lowest acceptable bar for Web design. It may even purposefully ignore the wireframes and not fulfill the strategy.
But who is going to take the time to design a "standard" design that doesn't work?
Look no furter than the open design community.
http://www.opendesigns.org/
These folks publish generic, themed, downloadable, Web design templates - for free. They are out there "making the Internet a prettier place." Now I know that this is not their intention, but could we use this as a resource?
Is there a lot of low quality stuff? Sure. But you could always look to Smashing Magazine for a control design of higher quality.
Grab one of these, shift the hue to match the corproate palette, slap a logo/image/tag line in there and voila, you have a base-line design.
Would this work? Would it help the test or ruin it? -
Microsoft Takes the Limelight as Adobe blows it with Netflix
Adobe's Flash has lost a key battle in the plug-in wars to Microsoft's Silverlight. Netflix has chosen Microsoft's Silverlight, a Flash competitor because it includes DRM software.
Netflix, the mail order movie-rental giant knows that in the future, movies will stream over the internet, right into your home and won't come via US mail on DVD. The problem is that movie companies won't let their movies be streamed unless they are protected. The solution is DRM (digital rights managed) technology - a technique that encrypts the data so it can't be ripped off (well, that's the theory at least).
Adobe's Flash plug-in is the most popular video technology on the Web. YouTube single-handedly vaulted them over Windows Media and Apple Quicktime. So you would think that Netflix would naturally look to Adobe to solve its video needs. But that's not what happened. They went to Microsoft.
I'm still trying to figure out how this happened? Can it be that Microsoft is giving away the software now to gain adoption? Is it possible that Adobe has become difficult to work with since it maintains such plug-in market dominance? Or is it that Adobe is limiting its DRM solutions only to people willing to buy into its more expensive and limited server products? Is it possible that it's easier to use a Microsoft product to release a Web-based service to multiple platforms and browsers?My guess: Netflix is hoping that Microsoft can help them bridge the chasm between computer and living room. Their survival depends on being where people watch movies, and Netflix thinks that Xbox support (that they are planning) is the easiest way finally get into people's living rooms (internet enabled Silverlight support is planned on the next generation of XBoxes).
Regardless, I think that this loss is more severe that Adobe cares to admit.
More info:
The Netflix Blog
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