Firstly, successful Web Presence is not a technological issue! Effective and functional Web Services are full of  features that must be balanced and in order.

That´s why running a cost-effective and well-designed Web Service is a sort of art form of its own that only a skilled, experienced and passionate Web Communications Specialist can manage perfectly.

Download: The Secret of Web Communications (9) (pdf, 4 pages)

It was one of those moments when you didn´t think carefully. After jogging it was my turn to load our washing machine.

Maybe I was exhausted somehow. Without noticing the existence of my tiny green iPod Shuffle (older version) in the back pocket and its earplugs (Sennheiser) I was putting dirty laundry into the machine. And turned on it.

I was shocked after washing. The grimace was extraordinary. Naturally, several bad words were yelled.

Quickly unzipping the pocket of my black jogging trousers and there it was - the earphones wrapped up around the green and marvellous buddy.

You should have seen my happy face after turning the power on. Even the temperature of 60 Celsius and 1200 rpm - iPod was in perfect working order. And still is.

Thank you Steve (Jobs) and your wonderful team in California. I admire your desire to make gadgets that really work!

My second site produced in 2009 smartwaysweb.com stems from the similar idea than freeingminds.fi but focusing on how we can be smarter web users in order to be more creative and innovative.

Smartwaysweb.com proves that it´s possibly to enjoy Web and all its main features as surfing and emailing without stressing or suffering from addicts and info-overload.

“Smartwaysweb.com proves that it´s possibly to enjoy Web and all its main features as surfing and emailing without stressing or suffering from addicts and info-overload.”

In simple terms, smartwaysweb.com inspires by communicating with self-produced youtube-videos and suggesting high-qualified materials for further studies.

Smartwaysweb.com promotes free, cross-platform solutions that are based on Open Source. Mainly, smartwaysweb.com focuses on Mozilla´s products like Firefox and Thunderbird. They are available for different platforms (PC, Mac, Linux…)

I am commanding different kind of genders when it comes to writing styles. As an artfully writer you must be interested in various topics. And I am.

The academic writing is also my expertise. At the University of Helsinki I studied subjects like the rhetorical and sociological studies. My time as a student has been a success story. You can read my excellent master thesis on The Presidential Rhetoric of the United States directly on web. Unfortunately, it is written only in Finnish.

It is argued that the Finns who live in Northern Europe are enjoying the best phase of the winter. The Belgians are welcoming the spring.

Having many times been a witness, I can assure you that if one can experience the real winter, now´s the time. For example, in some part of Finland, the snow is wonderfully covers the ground and decorates the trees.

“It´s time for skiing and walking with a dog on the icy lakes. If you are lucky enough, you are able to do both in the warming sun that doesn´t, however, melt the snow yet.”

It´s time for skiing and walking with a dog on the icy lakes. If you are lucky enough, you are able to do both in the warming sun that doesn´t, however, melt the snow yet.

Guess what - the snow-depth is over 1 metre in Eastern Finland meaning particularl difficulties for the homeowners. It´s a pretty heavy load for roofs.

Therefore, one can see workers shovelling the snow off. Otherwise, it could easily break up your home if you don´t remove and eliminate it.

As always, my former home village Suomussalmi in Eastern Finland has been conquerred by the snow. Our former dog Jakke Jäyhä (translated as a comic series Peanut´s Joe Cool) would not be happy what´s going on. The snow drift is blocking his view. As a defender you must have a clear view.

Meanwhile, Brussels is welcoming Ms. Spring. Literally speaking, we are living in the other reality.

The birds are building their nests. All fields are turning green and some of the flowers are showing their best in our terraces and gardens.

It´s said that the spring is springing. Unfortunately, the spring is causing annoying symptoms to persons with allengies. The consumption of allergic medicine has dramatically reached its the highest level, at least at our apartment.

Although, the rain still falls frequently making patterns the outer surfaces of the windows with beautiful drops, the shades of green make me feeling better - mentally.

It is said when a newcomer enters a site for the first time, the decision of continuing is made within 7 seconds. In such a short time period the usefulness of the site has been analysed.

It does sound nice, doesn´t it?

According to many surveys and studies the search engines (like Google, MSN, AskJeeves.com, Yahoo) that are the most important starting-points for surfers.

A typical user just types in keywords into the search box. In a few seconds he/she scans the results trying to find sources that could be of value to him/her. Needless to say, but if you are not ranked well among those search results, the users have trouble finding you.

As the users and developers of Web we know these facts from the practical point of view.

Too often the messiness of sites frustrates us. Illogicality in layouts and the overall dysfunctionality of the sites make us very angry - what are they doing?

“If there is a document of emarketing/web communication plan (included the tactic), you are more likely having a web site that communicates effectively and enables nice interaction with users.”

In the situation described above we tend to trying other sites in order to continue our info-hunting. If we are lucky, sometimes, we are satisfied with a perfect site that really has something to say. We even visit it the next day, week, month…

In my opinion and particularly from experiences it´s lack of proper communication plan and tactic which is causing problems those to the users and finally are making the owners of those sites miserable.

If there is a document of emarketing/web communication plan (included the tactic), you are more likely to have a web site that communicates effectively and enables nice interaction with users.

And what is  best - you are achieving your goals because of the plan that gives a framework  - the measurable purposes and direction - to your selling efforts in the long-term.

Regardless of whether the site is focusing on giving information (non-profit organizations) or selling products (enterprises), it´s always selling. As an owner you are selling something - ideas and/or products.

However, this approach that you can simplify as “First strategy, then tactics” it is not widely used among some owners. Plans are overlooked. It´s a pity because you can benefit from them.

They seem to think that systems with nice visual layouts and CMSs (the content management systems) do the job. It´s believed that technology automatically creates a clear and effective emarketing campaign and strengthens your position on the Web.

Of course, the visuality and technology are one of those pillars that are laying the foundation for the successful Web presence. But it´s rather naive to expect that the machines write stylish articles and manipulate artistic photos. Moreover, the search engine optimization needs very analytical approaches and lots of skills to complete these tasks effectively.

Therefore, I can assure you that it´s a person, for example professional webmaster, who maintains and tunes up this Web Presence.

We should talk of the Art of Web Communication instead of just “creating websites” because this is such a nice and challenging job. You should take care of so many task carefully understanding the complexity of emarketing.

To summarize - it´s  plan and professionals, who can leave a valuable, long-term impression on your visitors. Now (at the current economic slowdown), if ever, powerful tactics are needed.

I hope these simple videos would let you smile and let you know that… YOU ARE IMPORTANT

Keep in touch! Take care!

Antti

“All You Need Is Love”

Click here to view the embedded video.

“What the World Needs Now Is Love”

Original version (by Jackie DeShannon in 1965) of the song interpreted by two young ladys. The Wikipedia knows that this is “popular song with lyrics by Hal David and music composed by Burt Bacharach. It was first recorded, and made popular by Jackie DeShannon. It was released on April 15, 1965 on the Imperial label after a release on Liberty records the previous month was canceled. The song reached number 7 in the US charts May of that year.”

Using Mobile Web is going back to the roots of World Wide Web, when everything was simpler. Do you remember the time, when there were just pure html-code with links, photos and texts? Sites were clean and practical in 1990s.

Thus, there are several limitations of Mobile Web devices that are forcing designers to “put functionality above aesthetics” as International Usability Partners (IUP) is arguing. On their well-written report, published recently, they are uncovering problems and solutions in Mobile Web and Transactions in very practical format.

In this article I want to mention the most important challenges, although there are a number of them.

Firstly, physical size of current mobile web devices limits.  The mobile site can consists of less information than the “normal” one. Thus, smaller screens (usually 240 x 320 pixels) means that one page can be displayed at a time. Navigation is usually implemented Up & Down scrolling and it as simple as it can be.

If you don´t take tailoring for Mobile Web seriously, it causes serious problems.  For example, pages could be too big to be downloaded, images could be located in wrong places etc.

Moreover, this screen issue challenges, of course, all those manufactures and software providers in the mobile industry. Mobile handhelds and operating systems should have been coded usability in mind.

I haven´t tested  iPhone yet. However, I have understood that it is well-known and exceptional when it comes to user-experience in such a small size. I have also quite nice memories of when I used my Nokia E61 smartphone.

Secondly, very often slower Internet connections and uneffective (compared to PCs) processors in the phones simply mean that it takes time to load all content to be displayed on the screen. It´s typical for this kind of technology that sometimes there is no coverage.

Thirdly, there are problems with interoperability although there is common understading on standards like The W3C Mobile WEb Initiative.

To summarize, it´s more difficult for designers to create a compelling user experience.

Although technically mobile web brings several issues into play and designers have to deal with slower connection and smaller screen, many organizations have produced very usable user-experience.

To prove that it´s possible, I´ve collected several links on m.anttihaverinen.net, my mobile web experimental and promotional platform. Visit there and click on Links on navigation.

My favourite sites are m.nytimes.com and yle.mobi. They have done their homework. Surfing is pure pleasure on them. These sites enable us to enjoy the well-written content in a functionable package.

I am considering mobile web as huge paradigm changer  for the communication industry. Of course it brings some challenges but some of them are positive. As a supporter of simplicity I wish to see more well-designed Mobile Services in the future.

According to Steven Snell “The simplicity of mobile websites can be refreshing.”

I agree.

More articles

In that case that you want to gain more understanding on these issues, I recommend you reading these articles and writings.

• Steven Snell´s article Mobile Web Design Trends For 2009 on Smashing Magazine.
• Mobile Web (according to Wikipedia)
• W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative

During October 2008-January 2009 I set up, implemented and launched Web Services of the Finnish-Belgian Business Association as a Web Communications Specialist.

Mainly, it was the marketing purpose that guided the redesigning process of BFBA. The client needed an extendable system that is an easy to use and manage on a daily basis.

“The client needed an extendable system that is an easy to use and manage on a daily basis.”

Therefore, I suggested a perfect partner, Wordpress CMS (an open source CMS-system) as the web publishing platform of BFBA. The influential actor in business of the Belgians and Finnish deserves good tools.

Wordpress, for example, guarantees that the site is following important web standards. Of course, Wordpress is one of the easiest CMS in the world for publishing news and being in the contact with the community.

In addition, BFBA was looking for a effective newsletter service to inform all of their members by e-mail. By using open-source newsletter manager PHPlist BFBA is going to achieve this goal.

To summarize the improvement that has been made by me.

• Wordpress as a platform with integrated SEO and Google Analytics-features.
• A new theme and outlook that has been customized for BFBA in order to robust their visual identity.
• An amazing PHPlist Newsletter platform to take care of newsletters.

After creation, the staff of BFBA was trained to utilize the site. Naturally, I am taking care of its maintanance as Webmaster.

I´ve created a new concept promoting creativity and innovative approaches named as freeingminds.fi. On freeingminds.fi I am writing columns and telling about ideas and techniques how to be more creative.

Freeingminds.fi is the most important site that I´ve ever been working on in Finnish. Why? Because the creativity matters in these days.

“Freeingminds.fi is the most important site that I´ve ever been working on in Finnish. Why? Because the creativity matters in these days.”

I believe in that telling people that they can and should be creative can revolutionize our lives. That´s why I am promoting these ideas of creativity and innovative for the public.

All the site is a result of my Web Communications Specialist skills. I´ve created emarketing plan with SEO-strategy, implemented visual identity, managed and edited texts and photos.

And naturally I am webmastering the site that has been taking advantages of Wordpress, a wonderful open source publishing platform.

During autumn and this spring freeingminds.fi has been extended. Now, it is offering exercises for awakening your creativity and being positivity and guides including weekly column.

I consider this topic essential because the creativity and positivity should be playing more central role in our lives. Unfortunately, It´s now in Finnish, but your never know, when I am going to bring ideas in English.