Almost immediately after I’ve finished watching a film from this favoured era I’ll bound excitedly over to its entry on IMDB.com or Wikipedia to take a retrospective look at it. What I find are all the answers to my immediate questions: what impact (if any) did it make, how much did it cost/make, what became of the director and the cast, what was the production process like, and how is it remembered today? Oh, and what the hell was that ending all about?

I find myself constantly making previously unrecognised connections between the cast and their future roles (oh, that’s where I’ve seen them before) and finally ‘getting’ references to certain scenes or phrases in popular culture (I’ve found there’s around 56.5% chance of it being referenced in a Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker film). I find all this a great workout and stimulant for the brain.

I believe this same retrospective approach should also be taken with your archived web content. Somebody, somewhere (you perhaps?) took the ultimate decision to remove that flash element or replace that call to action. Why? Maybe you saw it as no longer relevant or useful for your audience? Maybe it was always meant for limited exposure? Or perhaps it was just your PHP developer’s ugly die() function error message that was removed with little mercy?

Whatever the reason(s) behind its removal, start to ask yourself, and others who were involved in its creation and upkeep, some questions: what impact (if any) did it make, what did it contribute to the overall business goals, what did it help you achieve, how was it used by your audience, was it the catalyst for more of this type of content, and was it ultimately a success or failure?

We, quite rightly, focus on the ‘now’ when we’re compiling or tending to our content audits, but I think there’s a lot to be learnt from digging into your archives from time-to-time – especially if that content pre-dates your direct involvement. Learning from past experiences will often help you work out where to focus your skills and budget on next.

A single website will typically experience several new incarnations during its lifespan. Some organisations will choose to surprise their audience with a completely new version upon their next visit while others will opt to stagger smaller incremental updates over a longer period of time.

Several factors can instigate such changes. Our own personal tastes, advertised services, and collective skills will likely fluctuate over time, and with it dictate future direction. Technological advances can also help realise our long-standing visions and ambitions. On the other hand, we may find it’s our audience telling us we need to improve in some areas or we’re simply waiting for the right economic conditions which will allow us to safely budget for change.

But what about a website that, largely due to external factors, has abruptly reached the end of its lifespan? What now for the website of a publicly funded body that’s just been told it’s contract won’t be extended beyond this year? Or for a company that’s about to be assimilated into a industry rival following a recent merger? Sure, you could leave it in an idle state for an extended period of time before tearing it down in one fell swoop – I dare say such an execution would be both quick and cheap – but having considered, consulted, and designed for your audience throughout the website’s lifespan up until this point doesn’t it make sense to continue this approach even at this seemingly desperate stage?

Nuclear decommissioning – what can it teach us?

At the end of its own operational life, usually spanning several decades, a nuclear power plant will begin an equally lengthy process of decontamination, dismantling, and waste management.

Such are the dangers of handling and removing radioactive waste this procedure, called decommissioning, aims to minimise the risks by following a set of strict regulations that ensures public health and safety as well as the protection of the environment. Only when all traces of radioactive material have been removed will the public restrictions placed upon the facility and its surrounding area be lifted.

Though not a physical structure – and with a slightly less chance of damaging your long-term health – I believe that by following a rough set of stages a website can also be shut down effectively and with the user in mind throughout.

Website decommissioning stages

Stage 1: Announcement

As soon as your audience need to know about the immediate future of the website and organisation I would place a short notice in a prominent position, together with an estimated date when operations are likely to cease.

I also believe that at this early stage it’s best not to deviate too far from the current content governance strategy. If possible I’d continue to schedule planned reviews of each piece of content for accuracy, consistency, and relevance to the audience – paying particular attention to and flagging key content that could form part of a reduced site later down the line.

Stage 2: Downsize

Diminishing budgets and a general lack of motivation amongst the remaining personnel could cause you to start losing the battle against maintaining the content’s validity or accuracy. It would be at this point that I’d consider scaling the website down to a more manageable size where small updates and edits can still be made – concentrating your efforts on content that will answer your audience’s immediate questions. A combination of prior experience, audience research, and site analytics will point you in the right direction.

Wherever possible I’d also look to offer your audience an alternative path or solution – even if that means linking to, and in effect recommending the services of, a respected industry competitor.

Stage 3: Single page

Further time and budgetary restrictions will indicate when the website should be reduced to a single frozen page – with the user pointed to appropriate alternative sources. No more significant updates to the content will be made after this point so the page should be clearly dated. Offer a contact channel, but only if you can guarantee that someone will be there to receive and respond to enquiries.

Stage 4: Close or redirect

Finally, once site analytics and requests for information indicate a significant drop-off in visitors, the final remnants of the website can be removed. Depending on the nature of the website or the fate of the company the domain could be used to forward onto a new website or be left to its own expiry date.

Sources

• Decommissioning in short
• Nuclear decommissioning – Wikipedia
• Managing Enterprise Content, Ann Rockley, New Riders 2003
• Content Strategy for the Web, Kristina Halvorson, New Riders 2010

So by uploading a publicly licenced video from the Internet Archive, which demonstrates how to download, print, and make a book, I was able to compare my own captions created using the free caption- and audio-description authoring tool MAGpie with those that YouTube had extracted.

The result? Oh dear. Even on a video with a clear audio track YouTube’s machine captions bore little relation to my own. According to their interpretation we were making money instead of a book, ‘downloading’ from the war in Iraq, and killing ‘players’ from the other side of a pond. Ideal fodder for weak puns perhaps, but I was hoping for a little more accuracy.

Captions that are timely and accurate can play an important role for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. YouTube can only claim to provide the former; the latter will always require significant human intervention.

Note: If you’re reading via RSS, you’ll need to visit the blog to access this video content. Transcripts have been provided for those without Flash installed or Javascript enabled.

My captions using MAGpie v2.5.1

Transcript for my captions using MAGpie v2.5.1

How to make a book. Bookmaking with the Internet Bookmobile Setup.

Making a book with the Internet Bookmobile Setup is a very simple process and can be broken down into four main steps: Printing, Cutting, Binding & Scoring, and Trimming.

Printing

Digital books can be found on the Internet Archives website at www.archive.org.

First, select and download your book from the Internet Archive. Once you have found a book you’d like to print click the DJVU Download button to download and view the text. The book should appear in your web browser.

To print the book click File > Print on the browser to bring up the print dialog box. Once the print dialog box has been opened click on the button labelled Properties. Under the Finishing tab check Print on Both Sides and then under the down arrow beneath it select Letter (Left Binding) for a letter sized Western language book. For books that require right binding, for instance Arabic books, click Letter (Right Binding).

Next, download the book’s cover. To print the cover load your printer with a heavier paper simply click the File > Print and then click OK.

Cutting

Once the book has finished printing place the paper in your Triumph cutter, setting the cutter measurement bar by turning the hand crank to half the length of your paper. So, if you have printed on letter paper which is 11 inches, set the cutter to 5½ inches.

Clamp the paper down, close the hand guard, pull the red release, and cut.

Binding & Scoring

In order to bind and score your book you’ll use two machines: a binder and a scorer.

If your book is a western language book place the stack of paper with its left edge into the Powis Parker Model 15 binder. If it is an Arabic book place the book with its right edge into the binder. Press the large green button. Take the appropriate strip and feed it into the purple tray remove the book and place it on the cooling rack for approximately 10 minutes, or until cool to the touch.

To score the cover, measure the width of the book on the orange measuring plate on the Powis Parker scorer. Place the cover into position 1 on the scorer, turn the green ball to the left, placing pressure at the bottom of the motion. Move the cover into position 2 and turn the green ball again to place the next score.

Now, lie the cover face down on a flat surface. Place the book to the right of the scores if it’s a Western language book. If the book is an Arabic book place the book to the left of the scores.

Peel away the top layer of the binding strip fold the cover around the exposed glue, pressing it down firmly. Flip the book and peel the top layer from the other side of the book. Place the book onto its front cover and peel the top layer away from the other side of the binding. Wrap the other half of the cover around the book, pressing the cover firmly against the spine of the book.

Trimming

You should now have a book that is complete except for its ragged edges. To finish the book simply cut all the exposed edges: side, top, and bottom.

When lining up the book remember to clamp down the paper, close the hand guard, pull the red release, and then cut. And now you have a book.

YouTube’s automatic captioning

Transcript for YouTube’s automatic captioning

How to make a buck. Both making with the in an epoch mobile said.

Making a book with the internet but mobile senate is a very simple process and to be broken down into for means that printing, cutting, finding in scoring, and training.

Printing

Digital books can be found in the internet archives web site at WWW that archive Iraq war.

First selecting down load your book from the Internet Archive. Once you have found it but you’d like to paint quickly deja vu down the one to downloading view the text. The book should appear in your weapons.

To print the puck quick file print on the browser to bring up the print dialogue box. Once the print island parks has been opened click on the button label properties. Under the finishing time think both sides and then under the down a rope in needed select letter left finding for a letter size Western language book. For books that require a finding for instance Arabic books correct letter right back.

Next download the book’s cover. The cover load your printer with the heavier simply click the final French have been quick okay.

Cutting

Once the book is finished print it place the papers in your Triumph Carter setting the Carter mission and bar by turning the hand crank to half the length of your paper. So if you have printed on letter paper which is even inches set the cutter to five and a half inches.

Clint the paper down close the hand guard poll the red released and cut.

Finding things going

In order to binding score your book you used to machines: the binder at its core. If your book is in Western dang which book please to stack of paper with its left adage into the Palace Parker model fifteen bind. If it isn’t every a place the book with its wreckage into the binder. Pressed the large green pat. Take the appropriate that and feed into the perpetrator remove the book in place it on the cooling raq for approximately ten minutes all right so cool to the touch.

To score the cover measure the width of the book on the orange measuring plate on the Palace Parker score. Please the cover into position one on this score turn the green ball to the left placing pressure at the bottom of the motion. Move the current position to in turn the green ball again to place the next school.

Now, by the cover face-down on a flat surface. Place the book to the right of the scores if it’s a Western nine which broke. If the book is in Arabic book place the book to the left of the score. If you leave the top layer of the bunch old cover round exposed to precedent down for me. But the book and killed a top player from the other side of the book. Place the book on trips front cover and killed a top player away from the other side of the pond. Rap the other half of the cover around the book on the cover firmly against this time at the puck.

Training

You should now have a book that is concrete except for its ragged edges. To finish the book simply cut all the exposed edges: side, top, and Bob. When lining up the book remember to clamp down the paper close at hand are pull the middle east and then pat. And now you have a book.

Because the modern web offers us an unprecedented level of access to information and interaction through audio and visual media – becoming both an integral part of the overall experience and an important method of delivering content to the end-user – what can we do to help people with disabilities enjoy an equivalent experience?

Without question the most effective way of making this kind of content accessible to the widest audience – including those with disabilities – is through the provision of text-based alternatives. Why? Because information rendered in electronic text can be easily enlarged for people with low vision, spoken aloud so that it’s easier for people with reading disabilities to understand, or rendered in whatever tactile form best meets the needs of a user.

So what are some of the text-based options available to us for different types of audio and visual content? What could we be doing? What should we be doing?

Audio-video content

Live video broadcasts

Any video content on the web that isn’t described in text poses a potential barrier for people with disabilities. So by providing a descriptive label (Level A: to achieve minimum level of accessibility) of the live video content’s purpose you can ensure that, even if access cannot be achieved, a user can at least determine what the non-text content is.

This is really easy to do and it makes such a difference. Don’t forget, it’s more than likely that while planning this content someone, somewhere will have written a more than adequate description anyway. Bash it into shape, tidy it up, and use it.

For UK residents the BBC News website offers a 24-hour live video feed of its rolling news channel (Figure 1). They provide a very brief description of the channel, ways that you can contribute, as well as a polite reminder that you’ll still need a TV licence to stream the feed.

Figure 1 - Live stream of the BBC News channel

Another option might be to offer captioning (Level AA: enhanced level of accessibility) as an alternative to the live audio track. This will enable people who are deaf or hard of hearing to watch real-time audio-visual content. Captioning not only includes dialogue, but also identifies who is speaking and other notate sound effects that affect comprehension.

What’s that? Am I seriously suggesting you go to such lengths as to hire an out-of-work court reporter to relay the dialogue of your live webcast or seminar? I think it largely depends on your audience and the nature of your broadcast.

If you’re, let’s say, a college or university offering a series of live video lectures to your students then it’s more than likely there’s a policy of some kind requiring accessibility of online instructional material (or something to that effect). Whereas if you’re a small start-up conducting a one-off live webcast, presuming you’ve make it clear from the outset that real-time captions are not being supplied, providing everyone with a descriptive label, which introduces the host(s) and lists the topics you’re aiming to cover, will suffice. If you then have plans to publish the webcast in its recorded form at a later date then look at providing captions or a full transcript of the dialogue.

Prerecorded video

Aha. Now everything has been recorded and cut to your exact requirements suddenly providing a text alternative like captioning (Level A) doesn’t seem quite so daunting a prospect does it? You won’t have to worry about the perils of live broadcasting, or whether there’d have been enough time to cross-check the captions for spelling, style, or even legal pitfalls.

Depending on how the content is presented to the user not all prerecorded video requires captioning. The W3C’s WCAG 2.0 recommendations state that:

Captions are provided for all prerecorded audio content in synchronized media, except when the media is a media alternative for text and is clearly labelled as such.

What they mean by a media alternative is content that presents no more information than is already presented in text.

Take this recorded interview on Cricinfo.com (Figure 2), because they’ve offered a clear choice of either watching or reading the interview via a text transcript (Level A) no captions were required. But if the video content had offered a different take to what is represented in text form then they would have needed to provide captions. That’s clear enough.

Figure 2 - Prerecorded interview on Cricinfo.com with full transcript

It’s likely some clients will have concerns about the effect that providing a text alternative to prerecorded video will have on the speed of the publishing process. The way I look at it is this: if you’ve missed the live version of your favourite radio show you know and expect there’ll be a short wait for the recorded version to be cut and uploaded to the web. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with providing captions or a text transcript at a later date. Just make it clear where and when a text alternative will be available.

There are some excellent resources available for online captioning and since March YouTube have offered an automatic captioning feature for all English language videos. I’m led to believe that a clear audio track can produce some very impressive results. Hats off to them I say.

Now, to paraphrase Napoleon’s revision to the Seven Commandments in George Orwell’s Animal Farm: some alternatives for non-text content offer a more equivalent experience than others. Captions, while an unquestionably important way of providing people who are deaf or hard of hearing with an equivalent experience of prerecorded video content, don’t offer quite the same level of immersion and understanding that an on-screen interpreter can provide for those fluent in a sign language (Level AAA: additional accessibility enhancement). Again, choosing this route depends on your audience, location, policies, and resources.

Audio-only content

Live audio broadcasts

Similar to the challenges posed by broadcasting live video, the use of a descriptive label (Level A) ensures that, even if a user cannot access the live audio-only content, its purpose is clear.

A good demonstration of an effective description for a live audio feeds is the BBC’s iPlayer (Figure 3). They provide the user with helpful information such as the names and time slots of the incumbent and following presenters and a brief description of today’s show.

Figure 3 - Live audio stream of BBC 6 Music on iPlayer

Prerecorded audio

For a person who is deaf or with a mild to moderate hearing impairment text transcripts (Level A) are relied upon for comprehension of prerecorded audio-only content. Furthermore, individuals with visual and auditory perceptual disabilities, including dyslexia, may also benefit from getting information through more than one source at the same time.

Offering more than just a blow-by-blow record of who said what during a sound recording, a text transcript should also contain descriptions of significant sounds and key actions that take place – say if someone produces a mobile phone from their pocket to demonstrate a new ringtone or a door slams shut.

A good example of a text transcript can also be found at Cricinfo.com. Their Cricinfo Talk podcast (Figure 4) is available to play through the website, but they’ve also provided a full transcript of the dialogue.

Figure 4 - Prerecorded audio on Cricinfo.com with full transcript

Again, the thought of having to produce a text transcript for every new piece of audio-only content may concern some clients. But there are services out there that can help you publish good quality text transcripts if you lack the in-house resources or time. If you’ve used a script to create the prerecorded audio content then there really is no excuse. It’ll give you a great starting point and need only require a few corrections for it to closely reflect the actual recording.

Charts and graphs

For a blind or low vision user the information contained in a chart or graph may be difficult or impossible to comprehend without a text alternative.

What form the text alternative takes depends on how the chart and graph has been presented. If one or more have been used to supplement an article, which outlines or explains the data contained within, then that can serve as the text alternative (Figure 5).

Figure 5 - BBC News article using supplementary graphics

But sometimes the text needed to serve the same purpose and present the same information as the chart or graph is too lengthy, or there is limited space. In this instance a hidden or external long description (Level A) can provide the user with helpful information on the type of chart used and a detailed summary of the data, trends, and implications. And, where possible and practical, the actual data is provided in tabular form.

Hiding it can mean linking to a separate page by way of the longdesc attribute within the img tag, but there are CSS positioning tricks you can use to effectively shift the long description from view, but for anyone viewing the page using a text-only browser or having it relayed via a screen reader this information would be visible.

A little daunted? A content strategy can help…

I believe that to stand the best chance of successfully introducing and adopting the processes, technology, and techniques required to provide an increased level of accessibility to our users, we have to take responsibility for the way our web content is planned, created, delivered, and governed. That means assimilating accessibility into a web content strategy.

Because it’s all about breaking our content down into the smallest re-purposeful chunks, for use across a whole host of different mediums and technologies, consider how much easier a web content strategy would make providing text alternatives for non-text content? It’ll allow audio and visual content to be rendered in a variety of ways by a variety of assistive technologies.

It’s also about getting everyone who interacts with web content (surely everyone now, right?) on board. Your technical team may need to make changes to the way content is published so that assistive technologies can recognise it and react to it. Your workflow may need to be altered to reflect the production of text-based alternatives. Your page templates may need to be revised to accommodate further content. All that and more is considered part of the strategy.

So what now? Do you conduct an audit to find out what existing content you could provide text alternatives for? Would a more sensible plan be to start from this point forward? It depends, but you can’t go too far wrong by prioritising. Before you ask how much non-text content already exists you have to ask how much of it is considered integral to the key tasks performed on the website? If that 60 second video demonstration of your web application in action plays an important part in selling its benefits then I believe, regardless of how long it’s been present on the website, you should look to offer a text-based alternative.

Why should I or my clients care about accessibility?

It goes beyond nobility. Whether it’s buying what you sell, making a donation, or simply getting in touch, creating content that is accessible to people with disabilities will allow more people the opportunity to interact, enjoy, and be stimulated by your web presence.

And as the general population in developed nations ages, and with it an increase in the number of people with functional limitations, it is essential that the traditional and existing resources that are being replaced by the web – from submitting a VAT Return to checking your bank balance – are effective, efficient and satisfying for all.

Sources and resources

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
• WebAIM’s WCAG 2.0 Checklist
• Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
• Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance

If you add to those the collection of presentation slides on Slideshare, the Flickr group pool, and a video of Jonathan Kahn’s presentation there’s a lot of great stuff to get through.

So make yourself comfortable, grab a notebook and pen, and pour yourself a glass or two of wine (preferably French). It’s just like being there, except you cannot answer Kristina when she asks if you’re in the room – no frantic ‘I’m lost at sea’ waving makes a difference. I didn’t try this at all.

A slide note (sorry)

To answer Kristina’s question about the American version of Snakes and Ladders I am led to believe (by such sources as Wikipedia and Google image search no less) that it’s better known over there as ‘Chutes and Ladders’.

Now, I don’t know about you, but while I’d much rather entertain the prospect of sliding down a chute rather than a oversized hissing garden hose, they don’t really have an instantly recognisable silhouette do they? You need only grab a pen and draw a thick wiggly line and fork tongue (important) and you’re pretty much there.

In fact, it’s just shy of eight months since I charted the number of delicious bookmarks tagged with ‘content strategy’ and found that there’d been a significant increase in bookmarking between the back end of 2008 and the first half of of 2009.

The data available to me at the time only went up as far as June, but we now have an additional seven month’s worth that takes us up to February of this year. Well, if that’s not an excuse to plot some more points on the graph then I don’t know what is.

So, what can we try and deduce from this data? Is it pointing to an increasing level of awareness of content strategy and its wider benefits? Unquestionably. Could this be the direct result of the community and its most vocal evangelists helping to bang the drum by openly sharing their knowledge and experience? Almost certainly. Is 2010 the year it goes mainstream? It looks that way.

Best give it a year eight months before I revisit the data again.

We’re all trying to reach out to our ideal customers or clients. We want them to be aware of what we’re offering, selling, or doing, and we want to demonstrate to them why they should choose us over our market competitors.

The social web platforms offer us such a chance. We can engage directly and regularly with new and existing customers or clients, to put them first in the queue for special offers or new products, and to make it easy for them to share our content with their friends.

But rather than let the first question be a case of choosing whether to launch a Facebook group, start a company blog, or register on Twitter, it should be to ask just how much time, resources, and budget we’re willing to commit – now and in the long term.

Like any web content we publish it shouldn’t be taken lightly and needs to be backed up by a strategy where all the pros and cons have been carefully considered. That way we’ll give ourselves the best chance of engaging our audience – no matter where they choose to congregate.

Credit

• Social network icons by Rogie King

But like the musician who releases a fantastic first album when most of their tracks were penned years ago – back when they were a lovesick teenager at college – we may have enough great content in the well to fill up three months worth of newsletters, but what about the next quarter?

Suddenly, at the behest of their record company, this musician is now expected to produce subsequent albums of equal quality in the space of a year or less. We’re also on the conveyor belt now. There’s a captive audience and with that the added expectation that our publication will continue in the same vein.

If we’re serious then we’ll need to assign people with the necessary roles and responsibilities. We’ll need time to get used to the publishing process. We’ll need to know what our audience wants and what we’re measuring. We’ll need a plan.

Now, far be it from me to advise on exactly what to do when a client asks what the next steps are in this kind of situation (and it goes without saying that if the client has a legal department then gladly hand over all your findings to them), but before we begin to entertain the prospect of infringement proceedings and mounting legal costs surely there’s a polite and civil way to go about resolving these things?

The automatic right

In the UK (and indeed most other parts of the world) there is no official registration system for copyright. It’s an automatic right that’s bestowed upon the author or creator when a piece of work of physically written or created.

The law states that a copyright holder has the right to

• make copies or reproduce the work for the purpose of selling
• import or export the work
• make changes to the original work
• display the work publicly
• assign or sell the rights to someone else

And though a website in its complete form cannot be considered for copyright, its individual content elements can be protected as

• Literacy works – such as written content, code, and database data
• Artistic works – including photographs, diagrams, and other artworks
• Recordings – such as audio and video content

What the law doesn’t protect you from is minor or ‘insubstantial’ copying. I was already aware that there is little or no protection for the ideas or facts which are represented in a work, nor for that matter is there for very minor work such as an individual title, headline, or even a tweet. But at what point does insubstantial end and substantial begin?

The Intellectual Property Office, the official UK government body responsible for copyright matters, states that:

A substantial part has been interpreted by the courts to mean a qualitatively significant part of a work even where this is not a large part of the work. Therefore, it is quite likely that even a small portion of the whole work will still be a substantial part.

After careful consideration and study the client and I both felt that if this third party company were deliberately using the written content to make clear financial gains then they at least had a case to answer.

Contacting the site owner

I’ve enjoyed some success in the past during these emotionally-charged embryonic stages of a copyright infringement claim simply by helping the client shape a polite but firm email (it’ll always carry more weight coming from the website owner rather than a representative) that informs the third party company that we’ve noticed content on their website has been directly copied from the client’s. Don’t hold back with the details either. Clearly state the occurrences where content has been duplicated, using comparisons with the client’s website where necessary. You could even attach some screengrabs to illustrate the points.

Why are we striving for this level of detail if they already know where the content originated from? Well, let’s not forget that the recipient of this email might be as surprised as you to learn that their copy has been lifted from elsewhere. They could just have easily hired a copywriter who took quite a shine to your client’s website. Try not to sound triumphant, cocky, or take the moral high ground to such an extent that you’re perched atop Kilimanjaro.

I’ve found offering a seven-day window to either remove or make significant changes to the content tends to suffice, with the added warning that you will be contacting their web host if they fail to carry out your request. Web hosting companies are usually very helpful and don’t want the negative publicity that comes with one of their hosted sites openly infringing on someone’s copyright.

After a few days of radio silence you may decide that a follow-up telephone conversation between the client and the third party company, in which they reiterate what was said in the email, might be in order. This leap of faith can help to humanise your request as well as making it abundantly clear how seriously you’re treating the matter. Again, tone is important. Don’t let them approach it too aggressively. If there’s any danger of that then stick to email, where it’s not nearly as easy to convey emotion.

No luck? Contact their web host

If after seven days you don’t hear anything back from the other party, or your calls are being met by answering machines messages, dial tones, or the faint sound of tittering then you’ll just have to get started on the email to their web hosting company. There are some great tools available which can help you work out who to get in touch with.

Detail your findings once again as well as your so far unsuccessful attempt(s) to contact the third party company. At this point it’s always worth having a look at the business terms and conditions listed on the web host’s website. What you’ll often find is an item that reads something like:

The Customer shall not, nor knowingly permit any other person to, use the Services to display or use any material which is infringing of any obligation as to confidential information or copyright or any other Intellectual Property Rights.

You could always politely remind them of this particular passage.

And when all else fails…

Thankfully I’ve always managed to help clients amicably resolve all cases of copyright infringement without the need for legal aid. Often it’s been nothing more than a case of opportunism or laziness on their part. But if you find that you cannot resolve the matter with the other party, or their hosting company are equally unhelpful, then by all means call in the experts. At least if it does end up in court your attempts to solve the matter through mediation will not go unnoticed.

You may have Old Father Time perched in the corner pointing at his hourglass, your budget might be drying up faster than you can say ‘right, where’s the kettle?’, or you may even find yourself having to swim against wave after wave of apathy, resignation, or downright stubbornness (hopefully not all three, otherwise it’d be best to take flight to the nearest set of hills).

Is there a quicker (and whisper it softly: cheaper) way to reveal those weaknesses and gaps, discover those pressure points, and still make some considered recommendations as to the ideal path ahead? I believe that, through a combination of small-scale auditing, testing, and interviewing, you can go some way to achieving just that.

• Conducting a quick and dirty audit will help to reveal some of the clearest patterns and relationships that exist between the content assets and with it the obvious holes that’ll need attention.
• Testing choice samples of the existing content with a handful of live audience representatives will allow you to measure its impact and effectiveness.
• Interviewing only the key content handlers will enable you to learn more about how the content is published and maintained, as well as who’s responsible for the vital tasks of reviewing, approving, and removing.

Even though what you’ll produce may not be anything close to a full-scale analysis of the existing content, nor will it necessarily reveal a complete representation of the existing workflow patterns and publishing processes, you’ll at least have a much better grasp of your web content and, with it, the confidence to decide on the direction you’ll need to take.