I've been studying and participating in Web 2.0 social activities for the past 3 years or so to some degree. Most of the time I see the benefits of this movement, but I have to say, Who gives a shit what people are doing in micro-snippets of information. Why are trivial activities interesting? Is it voyeuristic? Do people rank their coolness by what others, whom they admire or emulate, are up to? Twitter is ridiculous and to me signifies virtual, social activities have jumped the shark.

Top 50 Web Sites of 2006 as chosen by Rob Ford of the Favorite Website Awards.

What’s the best way to show design comps? Do you use FPO images and Latin text? Do you try to make the comp look as close to the final web page as possible?
 
Using FPO images and placeholder text can eliminate the need to have real content prepared for an initial design review, but the question here is, can your design be effectively communicated missing content? And does FPO content mislead or prohibit the client from seeing the final results?

There are times when FPO content is better (at least for the designer) than final content. A designer can pick an image that looks a certain way to strengthen the design or insert just the right amount of text to fill a space. When real content becomes available it may not fit in an allotted space or clash when juxtaposed with other content or the design itself. When this happens a seemingly solid design becomes useless.

Real content gives the client something to recognize, relate to, and judge. A design can be approved because of good content or tarnished in an instant by a typo. People know how to read words and most know how to interpret a photograph, but graphic design is a language few understand and content helps bridge the gap.

I like to have real content. It doesn’t have to be final, but it does have to represent the intended message in the amount of text and types images used. If you put in anything that can be interpreted as real content is must be error free. This is not my rule; it’s reality. No one ever found a typo in Latin, but clients love to point them out in real copy and they’ll dwell on these errors while the design suffers.

Sometimes FPO content is the only option available and other times real content is essential to validate a design and get it approved. Each client and project is different. However, it seems to work best when real content is present in layouts. Regardless of the situation, one needs to assess the client’s ability to visualize and present the design accordingly – easier said than done.

I am pleased to announce my employment with a newly formed interactive marketing firm, BIG WHEEL, located in St. Louis, Missouri. 

As Project Manager, I manage our portfolio of projects, traffic, operations and provide technical direction. Because we're a small shop, we all wear many hats - just the way I like it.

Need a good web partner? Call us. We deliver projects with the discipline of a hard-core IT company blended with the innovative strategy of a "now" media advertising agency.

Need to create image maps (hotspots) on images uploaded via a web-beased content management system? 

CuteSoft.net  Classic ASP and ASP.NET

Free ASP Upload is an ASP class that allows file uploading without the need to install a binary component. Great for shared hosting environments.

Managing emails are a problem. In the outside world, the volume of spam is taxing the system and spam filters have become a major hassle. In a corporate environment, unsolicited emails may not get in, but spam created by co-workers and business associates carbon copying a half-a-dozen people for each intended recipient creates internal spam.

Is has become common practice to abuse using Cc. People use Cc for CYA, I did my job, or look what he/she wrote. Granted, an email is hard evidence an effort to communicate was attempted, but how did we survive before this ability to be so transparent existed? It blows my mind who gets Cc’d on some emails I receive. Most of these sub-recipients couldn’t care less. So people, have some self-control and take responsibility for your communiqués. If you need to share your email, fine, but if it isn’t necessary to inform someone of your actions, don’t.

Another peeve of mine is attachments. I recently set up mailboxes for a client and within a week someone was complaining that a 10Mb limit was too low. When I asked why, they said they needed to send large attachments in excess of 20Mb.

Email is not, nor ever was, intended as a file transport system; File Transport Protocol (FTP) was. Everyone who moves files should know how to use FTP and if 10Mb of mailbox space isn’t enough, you’re not using the system correctly. Use Gmail they give you a whopping 2418 Mb. Party!

Please don’t email anything over 2Mb. Use FTP or another web service. There are dozens of services available today that allow you to move large files using your browser. Some are free for occasional use and others charge a reasonable fee.

Here’s the rub: People Cc too many people with too large of attachments. This creates an enormous amount of unnecessary traffic. Stop the madness. The administrators, mail servers and network will thank you.

Having just learned of the SQL Server Management Studio Express, I'm enjoying the "new" Microsoft with their free development tools. I also find it amusing how they decide to not include some of the most useful tools, but hey, it's better than having to purchase SQL Server or Visual Studio 2005.

It’s what “now” marketing is all about: consumers talking to consumers about products and services. The web is the medium to facilitate this conversation and the importance of C2C, as the last un-abused channel, has never been more prominent.

C2C has always been a bonus or by-product of good B2B or B2C advertising, but it wasn’t the message’s vehicle. C2C has been known to be a powerful form of persuasion and now that advertising is rarely trusted, C2C has gained strength.

The web offers two-way, immediate communication with varying degrees of control. How online conversation is conducted and managed shapes its effectiveness. In its purest form, an unsolicited blog post or comment in a forum, the message seems real and honest. As control is exerted, the message gets tainted and meaning is lost or altered. Moderating comments or posts seems suspect and seeding topics is deemed unacceptable. Controlling or contriving communication is powerful and can have drastic affects. The previous example of a blog post is at one end of the spectrum and a flat out lie is at the other – no matter how it’s disguised.

Advertising has always been known to be adverting. It almost has a built-in disclaimer – “Beware, I’m an ad. I am carefully crafted to fool you.” But C2C does not have this wrapper, thus intensifying the reason for immediate reaction when the implied rules of conversation are broken. We’re seeing this in many instances with fake blogs, contrived viral videos and deceitful emails.

Can this abuse of C2C ruin it forever and bring the level of un-trust to that of the to-good-to-be-true ad? I think so. So agencies take note. Don’t go down the same road as you have with other media. The web is a young and vulnerable medium, but has more power than any other. Work to harness it, not abuse it. C2C is best nurtured and supported. Be the conduit or catalyst not the creator or the manipulator. If treated with respect and allowed to occur unimpeded C2C is the form of communication that will build a brand the most.

Recently, I implementated the Serendipity blog for a client. Seems like a robust, versatile piece of software: easy to install, easy to skin and lots of add-ons.

Almost every client I talk to wants the ability to make edits to their site without having to pay a developer. This sounds great and with all the content management products, blog software, portal frameworks advertised the technology is cheaper, more available and simpler to use than ever before.

Just like building a house, creating a web site takes craft. It takes more than tools. There are a lot of lay people that have tools, but can’t build a house and there are a lot of companies with content management systems (CMS) that can’t manage a web site.

Too many times I have seen a group of talented folks build a beautiful site and within a year it is an embarrassment because of CMS abuse. Wacky type, garish colors, poor formatting destroy the integrity of the design. This is a loose-loose situation: the client looses the value of good information architecture and design for which they paid, the visitor doesn’t get the experience they deserve and the shop that put their soul into the site doesn’t get to see the benefits of their hard work realized.

Many shops use the manta “Just give the client what they want.” Those shops are only in it for money and have the wrong approach. It is our job as web professionals to guide and educate clients through the process of planning and developing a web site. By conducting diligent analysis of business needs, stakeholders, and resources the best solution is revealed. Sometimes it involves a CMS and sometimes not.

When deciding on a CMS, here are some important considerations:

• How often will the content actually be updated? And will the cost of the CMS outweigh the cost of hiring a developer to make updates.
  
• What future considerations are there for site additions and how can the CMS be modified to include new content and new functionality?
  
• Does the client need to change the navigation structure of the site or just edit specific sections?
  
• Who will be managing the site and what is their time constraints, and skill level in copywriting, and graphic design. Yes, graphic design is not only graphics; it is text formatting and typography.
  
• What is the client’s workflow regarding publishing content? Is there proofing? Is there an approval process? How is this communicated?
  
• What types of content will need to need to be managed: news releases, images, charts, downloadable documents and user permissions?
  
• What format is the above material in before it gets published to the web? How does the conversion to web ready files, data or info handled?
  
• Are there any other technologies or systems which the CMS must interact?

Obviously, these are just a few concerns, but the idea is - get the big picture. Having control is appealing, but can the client handle it? Help them realize the work and effort involved. They will be happier in the long run and you will be too.