Before the ActiveX patch came out that changed how IE displays Flash and other objects, Microsoft wrote how the browser would behave differently. When I installed the fix, my browser does not display the prompt.

Instead it outlines the object when moused over and displays a tool tip that states "Click to activate control." This is far less annoying and, as far as I'm concerned, acceptable. I'm glad it's not the other way, but why wouldn't they describe the effect correctly?

ADDED 5/18/2006:
I experienced this pop-up today for the first time on a page with a Shockwave object and a page with QuickTime.

I just took a look at the newly designed Yahoo! homepage. While there are a few glitches and the design is not site wide, one can see what they are trying to achieve.  An opinion is worth want it costs and everybody has one, but I’ll offer a few anyway.

Goodbye 800x600 - The new design has been widened to fit in a 1024 pixel wide screen. Last I heard, web user’s monitor resolutions were about 50/50, 800x600/1024x768. I guess they are trying to appeal to those who have the latter – the cool people. One would think they would stick with the lowest common denominator for a site that is trying to appeal to everyone. At least they are providing an option to view the old design at the 800 pixel width. MSN and Google have the narrower format.

Web 2.0 Look - They’ve adopted some of the trendy web 2.0 design elements like gradients, 3-D icons and modular page architecture, but they didn’t go all the way by using nice font selection – not a serif on the page. This could have been pushed a bit farther.

DHTML – I like the DHTML used in the upper right box containing mail, weather, messenger…, but the tabs in the new areas are pretty weak.

Navigation – I question the order of the primary nav menu. Alphabetical is logical, but is it usable? They should have ordered items by traffic with the highest at the top. The small links at the very top of the page are useless. Most people won’t see them. The Small Business menu looks neglected. Business users need love too. I think more attention should have been put into that menu.

Image Use – The thumbnails are too small.

Advertising – I like the limited ad space, but I’m sure that will change.

Standards and Validation – Here’s the biggest question. If you are going to redesign a site like this, why is it not compliant to today’s web standards and have valid mark-up? Most of the layout is done using CSS and DIVs, but the architecture is not remotely semantic. I validated the old design using the W3C HTML validator. It had 158 errors, while the new design had only 114. I guess you can call this an improvement. (MSN had 24 validation errors) A portal for the masses that needs maximum accessibility should validate and have semantic mark-up. I’m sure they have tested the new design in a wide variety of devices, so it must display properly, or acceptably, but this is certainly not a case study for web standards. It would be interesting to learn the details on how they arrived here.

Overall, it’s a big improvement from the days when they didn’t have any design, just a logo, form and text links. They have a balance and it’s a much better site than MSN.

Nice post about the rash of similarly designed standards compliant sites from Some Random Dude.

I couldn't have said it better.

Here's a ton of information from the development team at Macromedia Adobe.

Really nice expriential site from Hollister Clothing.  The watercolor/collage look works well to set the style. The variety and presentation of the content keeps it interesting and the attention to detail sets it apart. Check out the video too.

A Perfect Day - Oh Yeah.

This cracks me up – Web 2.0. It’s interesting how a catch phrase gets started. If anything, the burst of the dotcom bubble should signify the change of version, but it wasn’t until recently this term has become so ubiquitous. There are many things that folks equate to Web 2.0: Web Standards, blogs, broadband, and AJAX, but these have all been around for a while. I don’t like the distinction of versioning. The web wasn’t re-installed with upgrades overnight, but I digress. Let’s focus on web advertising, or better yet, the evolution of web advertising and I’ll use the 1.0, 2.0 vernacular.

Web 1.0 Ad Types

In the beginning there was the banner ad, one size, 468px by 60px, dictated by Yahoo!. Now there are a zillion sizes and little standardization. This really needs to be cleaned up a bit.  The banner ad is annoying, yet rather passive and easily ignored, but here to stay. Also in this category are interstitials, which are ads place in line with actual content rather in the header, footer, or margins of a page as banners usually are.

Then, in a moment of inspiration the pop-up ad was born - I believe from use in porn sites. This has spread like an STD and plagued the web for years, but I haven’t seen one in at least 2 years due to the ingenious pop-up blocker. I use the Google variety. It’s fun seeing how many ads you didn’t see. This form of advertisement is almost completely ineffective and very obtrusive.

The next generation of pop-ups was floating, or overlay ads. These monsters are contained in the same browser window as the page being viewed, but display on top of the content. To this day I cannot believe this is acceptable. It's bad web. 

2.0 Ad Types

The most interesting form of web 2.0 advertising is viral marketing. This wasn’t created; it just happened and was adopted by ad agencies. In its natural form it’s peer-to-peer, honest sharing of information, but what has happened companies create fake interest in a product or brand by using email, portals, ezines and blogs. Many times the advertiser’s efforts are wasted because they are exposed, or cannot emulate true interest that is generated by real people.

Advertisers are creating video and audio commercials specifically for the web or at least with the web in mind as a secondary medium. This is a recent phenomenon because of the effectiveness of viral marketing. These messages can reach a target audience for a fraction of the cost of conventional broadcast media. It also allows companies to produce outrageous ads that could never exist anywhere but the web. Sites like YouTube and Kontraband provide the forum to display this content.

Blogs and the blogsphere have become the fertile ground of viral marketing. Usually containing text, blogs can also include images, audio and video content. Bloggers publish to their sites daily supplying the web with a constant stream of collective consciousness. I call it reality web. People tend to believe what they read on blogs, although there’s no guarantee of authenticity on the web.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention podcasts. Podcasts are audio and sometimes video downloadable files that can be played on one’s computer, or portable mp3/video player like the iPod, from which they get their name. This content can be audio books, recorded presentations, or carefully produced pieces and each could have ads placed within the content.

It's hard to predict what ad types the Web 3.0 will bring us. I hope they will be clever and interesting. Maybe if we're lucky we'll stop getting spammed, but I’ll save email for another post.

Although the web is still an infant, it provides more possibilities and more potential than other any medium. With what other channel can you control when, what and how you are presented information? Interactivity, personalization & on-demand content are the web’s strengths.

Interactivity is a powerful attribute. Joseph Jaffe calls it the fourth dimension. I like that. TV is highly entertaining, but one call yell at the TV till hoarse and it doesn’t do any good. On the other end of the spectrum are video games are the ultimate interactive experience where one controls almost every aspect of their environment. However, a game doesn’t have a goal of communication.

Good web sites are somewhere in the middle and capitalize on interactivity by collecting information, and presenting content to users based on events, or preferences. Interactivity leads to personalization. This is how a site “remembers” one’s name, what happened on the last visit, or what content to display. Broadcast media cannot do this; it shotguns content at the world in hopes of its message is understood. Every time one watches a movie, it is the same sequence of events, but each time one visits a web site, the experience can be totally different - powerful stuff.

Another huge property of the web is on-demand content. Broadcast media air content on a schedule - the show starts at 8:00 o’clock. One the web, the show starts at the click of a button. Tivo has given us some control over TV and its popularity proves we live in an on-demand world.

When I plan a site, especially as part of a cross-media campaign, I try to think how the site can use these traits to effectively communicate. This in turn leads to how the message is formatted and delivered. The message needs to be “Webified.” If not properly conceived, too often a site ends up being an on-line TV commercial, or just a digital brochure. It does not gain strength from interactivity and fails to provide the positive experience to make it successful.

This site is unbelievable.

Archive.org - The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

They have a Live Music Archive with over 34,000 live shows by over 1900 artists. Awesome!

There’s a new breed of site that fulfills most of what the web has to offer, at least today’s web.  They have video and sound, collect user information, display data based on run-time events and provide a rich experience. We have the folks at Macromedia Adobe to thank. But it’s not just the technology. It’s applying good old fashion advertising creativity to the “new” medium that makes it work: clever concept development, good writing, slick art direction, all powered by technology - a multi-dimensional effort.

Prime examples: www.thebar.com, www.shaveeverywhere.com

One of my biggest gripes about many web projects is they are done too cheaply to be successful. Maybe not cheap on funds, but cheap on resources. The web guy can't do it all. Good work requires the proper people with the proper skills doing what they do best. Everyone has their role in a team effort.

I'm a student of advertising and design and like to keep up on trends, movers & shakers and other noteworthy goings on. I've recently been seeing Stephen Sagmeister's name here and there so I thought I'd learn more about his work.

I don't get it. Why is this guy so acclaimed? After reading a few interviews and some facts about his work and business, he seems to have an intellegent approach to his craft, but his work is not that provacative or compelling. His scribled text isn't really visually appealing and he isn't the first designer to do that. Although having text scratched into one's skins does show passion. Is it the fact his work is more personal expression than good design? Does he manage to bridge the gap between art and commercial communication?

I’ve always followed a traditional project management methodology, the Plan – Do. It fits my personality and it's how I’ve learned, but it rarely works well for clients or team members I work with and after years of trying to get other folks to follow this controlling project management style I have began to look for a better way. Agile methodologies may be that “better way”.

Let’s look at three basic types of project management. First there’s chaos and unfortunately this is how most firms I have worked with manage their projects. They jump right in and do things without proper planning, much control and little process. This is expensive and the main reason many web projects fail to be profitable and successful for the client. Secondly there’s Plan – Do. This is what most IT companies use. The idea is to plan everything out before development begins and hope to get it right and things don’t change too much. If things do, have a plan for making the changes then charge the client for the changes. Plan – Do is idealistic, resistant to change, not client friendly and difficult to manage. Thirdly there’s Agile which is an adaptive and flexible approach. Sounds good.

Agile differs in documentation, team participation and the project lifecycle. Jim Highsmith, of the Cutter Consortium and one of the founders of Agile, says planning and documentation should be barely sufficient. A lot of time is spent on planning and documentation. Perhaps this can be minimized.

Agile is based on short work cycles or iterations that deliver completed features all the while communicating with end users. When that set of features is accepted, on to the next iteration with the next set of features. The project is done in increments with approvals along the way. Plan – Do basically gets requirements in the beginning then builds the application and gets feedback at the end of a much longer cycle. Agile claims to eliminate a lot of the risk of acceptance because of the frequent end user feedback. Because of the feature based iterations, change is easier to incorporate into the project or at least change can be less expensive.

One key aspect of Agile is team participation. Team participation in planning and managing the details spreads the responsibility of the project across team members and gives them more ownership. That allows the project manager to focus on leading and communicating, the two areas he/she should be spending most of his/her time. Another example they suggest is allowing team members to choose what they would like to do rather than being assigned tasks and let people decide how they are going to handle those tasks rather than micro-managing development.

I recently became a certified Project Management Professional and learning that material seemed to solidify my conviction for the ol’ Plan – Do. The Project Management Institute’s guide to project management’s approach is very traditional, but can be adapted to Agile methodologies. The terminology is different, but the goals are the same: process and control. I have reservations about some things Agile advocates, but it all depends on the team and the project. The most import thing I will be exploring is to have a project management plan that fits the project and incorporates Agile methods where they might work better and get away from the mindset of only doing things one way and that is the PMI way.

A good interview of Todd Purgason from Juxt Interactive on Lounge72 re-published from Encore magazine.

I was browsing a site this morning and wanted to see the source code, which I often do, and quickly found out I could not access it, nor could I save the page. Wierd. There are ways to control, by script, the right click menu, but this was different and prompted some Google research. I came across HTML Protector. It looks like a neat little utility. One of the best features -- it prevents email grabbers from lifting email addresses from web pages. Nice.

All JavaScript Rich Text Editor.

http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/