Many consider WordPress to be a full blown Content Management System (CMS) even more than before, with the recent introduction of custom post types (and admin UI to match) and the fact that you can hack the admin interface to your liking with plugins like White Label CMS. It seems (at least for me personally,) all that remains is learning how to use the WordPress core smarter in my projects, plus figuring out whats a nice add-on (plugins, themes, hacks, and custom code) versus what practices should just be abandoned in lieu of improvements in WordPress 3. So, eager to find out what I could do with WordPress outside the norm, enter the latest WordPress NYC Meetup.

After missing a few WordPress meetups I really wanted to attend, I made time this week to head out to the WordPress Meetup NYC at it’s new location hosted at NYU Poly, and I made sure I RSVP’ed to get a slot. Especially, since in this edition the topic was a hot one, Brad Williams of WebDevStudios presented Intro to WordPress Plugin Development. Brad coincidentally runs the Philly WordPress meetup and if this presentation was any indication it’s also definitely worth attending on a regular basis as well.

A few changes since my last meetup were apparent this time around. NYU Poly is now the venue sponsor replacing Oracle in midtown. I must say the sunlight coming in through the window made for a nice feel. The environment definitely felt less corporate than the Oracle space and I recommend getting there early to find a good perch to view the screen.

Brad Williams’s slides were straight forward and focused on laying the foundation of good WordPress optimized code. He’s a great presenter that made nice with the NYC crowd sporting a “I Love NY” undershirt, and using fun examples like walking us through his faux plugin that engaged “Rage mode” on a mock blog to teach us his philosophy on plugin construction. There was a lively Q&A session but mainly the crowd wanted his slides. Other interesting things to note are – there was a heavy presence from designers, and a large group of newcomers to the meetup which was nice to see.

I won’t re-hash Brad’s slides but here are my main takeaways from the presentation and the Q&A:

Brad’s presentation got people excited, after which the crowd broke up into two rooms: WordPress Newbies (in which Chris Cochran of Webdevstudios fielded questions) and the more advanced WordPress crew stayed in the main room with Brad Williams and Steve Bruner.

Sponsors Nrelate and Themeforest.net were on hand to make their presence felt. Nrelate is running a contest you can learn more about by subscribing to their newsletter on their blog, Oliver Wellington basically announced you can style (using css) the output from their Nrelate Related Content plugin anyway you want, which they boast can improve your click-through rates on your site by at least 5%. Submit your styling for their review and you can win some cash and credit in the source code if your styling gets integrated into the next version of the plugin. Also Steve Bruner and Mark Brodhuber of Themeforest.net handed out 23 t-shirts to some lucky early birds.
The other treat for the attendees was that 3 copies of Professional WordPress Plugin Development, and 3 copies of Professional WordPress (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) were raffled off after Brad’s presentation. Still bummed I didn’t win any.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the next one, and seeing some familiar faces and meeting new friends. Especially, since I will have knocked out a “Hello World” plugin or perhaps my own “Rage mode” plugin by then. Cheers.

More thoughts on WordPress, Custom Post Types, and Plugin Development

1. Brad William’s slides for Intro to WordPress Plugin Development

2. The CMS Power of WordPress

3. Tutorial – Custom Post Types for WordPress

4. Registering and Displaying WordPress Custom Post Types In a Very Easy Way

5. Ten Things Every WordPress Plugin Developer Should Know

6. How to Write a WordPress Plugin: 12 Essential Guides and Resources

7. Do we do enough to support WordPress Plugin Developers?

Refining code for this expansive collection of client users that are no longer stuck in front of a computer has lead to many innovative hybrid solutions, and a lot of ingenuity on display in current apps. But navigating the current alphabet soup of programming languages, code frameworks, and scripting technologies in an intelligent way is chewing up a lot of time for any forwarding-thinking developer that wants to stay relevant. Adding to this situation, new players, browsers, and devices enter the stage almost every day.

Mobile market is where the action is

Just to scratch the surface of what I’m talking about, let’s review relevant developments in computing and handheld devices over the last few months. We saw a very public feud between Apple and Adobe over flash (Steve Jobs public letter about flash), with another notable company (ahem… cough, cough… Microsoft) and vocal developers chiming in. We saw thelaunch of the iPad and the another remix of the iPhone after it was leaked in a rather ridiculous and public way. We saw the Android mobile operating system and Google Chrome Web browser debut in the market and claim a loyal user base especially because of Google Apps integration. The iPhone OS itself also got an upgrade, and Apple threw in the not unimportant news that the iPhone’s iBook app will now have Adobe PDF support. Oh, and for those of you waiting for the world of the Jetson’s or Star Trek, both Sprint’s HTC EVO and Apple’s new iPhone 4 offer mobile video conferencing. In other news, we also saw the leak of a Microsoft Courier tablet device, only to hear they decided not to go there after all. Dell’s tablet computer, called the Streak, was launched in Europe (and should be offered by T-Mobile in the US by August 2010); rumors of the HP Hurricane also hit the media. We have heard news of a Google tablet and a Blackberry tablet. Not to be left behind, even Garmin the GPS device maker jumped in on the act and teamed up with T-Mobile to offer the Garminfone. I’m sure I left out a few items, but you get the idea.

In it, to win it

Let’s not forget these devices need software and applications–and everybody is paying attention to this booming mobile browser market and an insatiable mobile app market, which is slated to grow to 17.5 billion dollars by 2012. But, life is not easy for companies on the bleeding edge. Let’s take a look at the recently announced mobile app using the Adobe Air framework. Adobe and Wired magazine teamed up to produce an app for the iPad that from the descriptions I’ve read seems to be nothing more than an image viewer of high-res magazine pages ported over from Adobe Indesign sprinkled with a interactive feature here or there.

A closer look at an iPad app

Let’s analyze this last item and assess what’s really going on, because it’s indicative of the scenario I paint above. Scrambling to get an app to market, developers were not anticipating Apple’s resistance to Adobe flash technologies on the iPad and they had to adapt–fast. The original specification relied too heavily on Flash, and the development team had to re-write the end-product in Objective-C. Adobe is working to circumvent Apple’s exclusion of their software on its iPad by teaming up with a magazine and other app-publishing companies, creating new iPad software add-on packages for it’s print layout program called InDesign. Until now, InDesign has been used primarily in the publishing world, but the way that it works adapts very well to app creation. In publishing, once a document is created, InDesign “packages” it, creating a file that includes all the fonts, images and other documents linked to the final product, allowing them all to be sent to a printer (or in this case an App). The new add-on allows users to include other types of media within their files, for example, video or graphic simulations that are suspiciously flash-like.

Embracing a push for standards? For mobile Web, maybe

The technologies in the mobile development space are moving rapidly and the concepts that have the most staying power have big names behind them. In a recent post I explored some implications for HTML5 and CSS3 which Apple, Microsoft and Google are heavily invested in (for reasons I get into below.) Adobe developers are working within their authoring environment to allow coders to port their code to multiple devices, including browsers. In the process they are also working hard to integrate HTML5 and CSS3 benefits into their products. In a world where developers will search for ways to simplify code, cache data on devices and minimize calls back to servers anyway possible – Adobe might be in a position to ensure their Apps don’t raise the ire of their bandwidth-starved install base with their history of superior Web compression and streaming solutions. However, one developer I talked to addressed that last point and feels strongly that the reason Apple locked Adobe out of its mobile platform is simply because it’s a third-party proprietary technology they weren’t interested in policing. Like most other major corporations, Apple will simply buy out a company and absorb the personnel and brain power it needs if it’s something that critical to their success. In addition, much like other companies such as Microsoft, Google, Blackberry, Android, etc., Apple offers robust software development kits with other options developers can leverage. Whether or not you want to debate Apple and Adobe software history, or if their business issues align, the smart phone and mobile app business was too volatile, and nascent to ease up on the reins of control so early on–so flash has been blocked.

Mobile Web and Mobile Apps are not the same animal

I reached out to some developer friends to get their feedback on this post and in this verbal exchange, it became clear to me there are two divergent paths emerging in the mobile market (that weren’t clearly distinct to me before). Mobile Web is racing as fast as it can to standardization practices; mobile app development, however, is not. Here are some quotes from my discussions: “Mobile Web growth is accelerating due to the standardization on Webkit browsers with full support for HTML/CSS/JS. This includes Apple, Android, Palm, and soon Blackberry will be releasing its Webkit based browser with OS6. With HTML 5 these browsers will start to support content that feels app-like, but that can be developed by anyone with core Web development skills. Microsoft likely won’t do a Webkit browser, but they will likely support some high degree of standardized HTML.” “App development is much harder. The major platforms each have separate development environments with varying degrees of capability. Apple has led the pack in creating great tools for developers, but it’s nowhere near as simple as Web development. You have to deal with issues like memory management, garbage collection, networking, builds, and a whole lot of other things that Web developers are insulated from. I wouldn’t trust any standard tool to create efficient optimized app code that could run cross-platform well. Apple won’t trust components or functionality (which would likely become popular) for the user experience of Apple products to an outside source.” “Some developers do go to code sharing resources like GitHub, Google Code, and SourceForge to look for open source libraries to help with the development. Some developers have tried to maximize code reuse by creating all the core application logic in C++ and then writing platform specific interface layers. The C++ core layer can be quickly ported to Android, Palm, Apple, even Symbian (although not really blackberry).”

Mobile broadband, unlimited data plans offered at a premium?

It’s crystal clear that mobile computing is driving the technology industry right now and there’s a rich landscape for developers looking to sell their wares. But, not to be lost in all this is the fact that mobile devices are useless without their connectivity. If you can’t get a broadband Wifi signal or surf on a quality wireless network connection, your mobile device is just a plastic brick in your pocket. This is not lost on developers that have major investments in this market, as their foundation was shaken recently with the announcement that AT&T was changing their approach to unlimited data plans for their subscribers. As the current exclusive carrier for Apple-based iPod and iPad, developers are freaking out a bit, despite AT&T assurances that this will have little impact on business (Here’s a comparison of unlimited data plans for major US cell phone carriers).

Controlling the future

The obvious agenda, of course, in all this recent in-fighting between the big dogs of Web and computing technologies has been about CONTROL, not about Flash, or even has the most RIA developer fans–it’s about subscribers to media channels and advertising dollars. Everyone is betting on the use of mobile video expanding exponentially just as it did in markets like Japan. All the corporate players want the least amount of impediments to full access to their users. This is all about video search, real-time media and being awash in all-mighty advertising dollars; buying spots in multimedia streams in their exclusive publishing platforms. Microsoft, Apple and Google all made moves over the past two years to eat into Flash FLV dominance in the Web video playback market so their faucet to cash wasn’t beholden to an outside propriety technology. Developers are finding they need hybrid technologies to get around issues like cross-domain scripting security and platform-independent video playback until there are more widely adopted browser standards.

Fast developing scene

Going forward, common variables like dynamic features and basic infrastructure are bound to improve as software manufacturers create new ways for developers to reach users everywhere and on every device. It’s a brave new world out there, from mobile gaming to mobile online dating–we’ve certainly moved beyond checking your stocks on the beach. We’re bound to see improvements in hardware too, to allow phones and other mobile devices (including the iPhone, Android and the recently released Microsoft KIN) to handle more data at faster transfer rates, more layers of information on sites, etc. Currently, developers are searching for ways to reach end-users where they are with on-demand data services, geo-tracking, order tracking, CRM and flexible payment systems. Device creators are beginning to make devices that intuitively read and translate Websites for display on their devices (as Apple did with its iPad) but, as with any automatic translation, developers who want to be sure their site displays correctly still need to think about mobile displays when creating their site. It doesn’t help that there still isn’t a standard browser for these mobile devices–and new browsers, like Bitstream’s BOLT are still being introduced. However below I’ve accumulated a few sites with solid tips for making your site mobile-friendly.

Mobile Frameworks

Thinking about jumping into mobile development? or learning more about how the magic happens? Check out these links for information on how to streamline your project:

1. Slider:Flex Mobile

2. jQTouch

3. Kyte

4. Open mobile IS

5. PhoneGap

6. IPFaces

7. Taplynx

8. Adlib Framework

9. .Net mobile

10. Android

11. Sencha

12. Appcelerator

Below are a few articles for reference in creating mobile-friendly Websites:

1. For the iPhone: 6 Tips to optimize your current site for the iphone

2. For Blackberries: Tips For Optimizing A Web Site For BlackBerry Devices

3. How to optimize your WordPress blog for iphone android and other mobile phones with wptouch

4. WPtouchpro is a popular WordPress plug-in to optimize your WordPress install for mobile users.

5. Optimize Your WordPress Blog Mobile Friendly

6. How to make your Website mobile

So, how was it?

Many thanks to the presenters Steve Bruner and Boone Gorges (who covered WordPress 3.0 MultiSite functionality) for their time and energy. They kept things moving and hosted a lively discussion. I got the most out of hearing what people were actually doing with WordPress currently and possible answers to their functionality questions. In addition to covering the new standard theme for 3.0 "2010", how to retrofit old themes for 3.0, the new native parent/child theme functionality, custom taxonomies, custom posts, some minor changes to WordPress semantics, etc. (here’s a full list of announced features of WordPress 3.0), I also left with a short list of plugins I need to look into that might help me with some of my current work.

Do you need to care about WordPress 3.0?

The short answer is “No, not yet.”
To be perfectly honest I’ve been ignoring 3.0 since I heard about it because I haven’t worked on multi-user or a network of sites that require one back-end database, which is one of big selling points of 3.0. My indifference apparently is being rewarded as I heard the unofficial word yesterday that there will be support of WordPress 2.9.x for sometime even after 3.0′s release, while people sort out how their world is changing. As of right now and on the horizon, there is no immediate need to make the jump to the latest beta or new release as in the past (usually for critical security patches) because 2.9 is so stable. As you can see by this project plan 3.0′s release is a little behind, no doubt due to issues that pop up in real world application of the new release.

Laying the ground work for migration and upgrading

I did walk away with some sound advice from the Meetup, which is – there is functionality in the new release that makes your life a lot easier, ESPECIALLY if you’re running multi-user sites and doing advanced tweaks to your templates and themes. However, using a beta on live client sites is inadvisable due to the fact the product is still in beta testing. What you should be doing is copying your live sites in a “sandbox” environment or doing local installs of the beta and seeing how your data interacts with it. This will help you be ahead of the curve when WordPress 3.0 officially drops later this year. This is especially prudent if you have to describe functionality to others or train your clients on new features. You can peek behind the curtain on the WordPress development blog to get on idea of how furiously developers are working to get 3.0 released.

Is this app going to be a beast?

This is one of the questions that came up at the Meetup, and how your Website will scale is definitely a concern that WordPress 3.0 will have people talking about. Using this software certainly comes with the responsibility of understanding the hosting infrastructure you’re installing it on. There are sure to be some hosts that ban or at least discourage installing multi-user site features on their network for fear of them being resource hogs. Come on… who wouldn’t want a potential open faucet that could scale to thousands of users in a matter of months on each hosting account? The politics behind this should be interesting to watch. The first thought I had when this crossed my mind was the possibility of modified version releases or some ability to disable core functionality with tiered license keys so that hosts could feel comfortable that they can control the install base on their network. I’m curious if this will be a serious push to have WP 3.0 sites hosted on "cloud" platforms. It’s probably also likely a lot more Web hosts are going to get into the CDN business in one form or another as a result of WordPress 3.0′s release.

What’s next?

WordPress 2.9 is stable and fine for most people right now. WP 3.0 beta introduces functionality fixes, and some changes to UI quibbles users had with previous versions. But I’m really interested in what the WordPress plugin and theme framework developers will do with 3.0. I’ll take my cues from that community, which will most likely push WordPress very far from being known as a “blog platform.” For example, Steve Bruner showed a demo of RoloPress, his version of "Contact Manager" built on WordPress backend at last night’s Meetup. WordPress 2.9 introduced a lot of concepts and GUI goodness that will be in 3.0 final release, but 3.0 kicks it up a notch for 2.9 users with features like the "drag and drop" menu builder. In the past building something equivalent and having the associated admin UI to manage that feature would have to been a code hack or involved searching for a pretty specialized and heavy duty plugin. Doing less code hacks and slimming down on the use of plugins is always good because it simplifies your software upgrade path, giving you easier access to the next latest and greatest thing. Everyone likes that :-)

Notes

Looking forward to Wordcamp NYC later in the year (planning was announced for October or November 2010.) The book I mentioned in the Q&A that covers WordPress basics quite nicely is Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Readand having Jeremy Clarke there answering questions was awesome also.

More Thoughts on WordPress 3.0

1. WordPress 3.0 – What Lies Ahead? Awesomeness

2. What’s coming up in WordPress 3.0

3. What’s Coming in WordPress 3.0 (Features)

4. It’s coming! WordPress 3.0 – Pros and Cons

5. How to Enable Multisite in WordPress 3.0

If you’re in a similar situation, hopefully you were smart enough to use a SEO optimized theme for your CMS or blog. If you didn’t, you should switch to one. WordPress theme developers might want to check out the Ashford Framework or the Hybrid Theme Framework. The other option is to research plug-ins or modules that address search engine optimization gaps in your current Website’s functionality.

This post is not a SEO guide (I’ll save that for another post,) it’s more a nudge in the right direction. What I cover here will help you start conversation about why you’re not being found online, or optimize your current strategy to get your message out to more people.

A short review of SEO basics

Here is a really short and sweet snapshot of SEO basics and another Google SEO Basics for Beginners post you can explore for the uninitiated. Also if the dynamics of internet search are new concepts to you I recommend you read Web Dragons: Inside the Myths of Search Engine Technology (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Multimedia Information and Systems), it gives a great foundation to this discussion.

SEO is critical as the Web grows exponentially

SEO is critical to any Website, and is really a never-ending balance of context and usefulness for your users. Your site needs to embody what search engine users are searching for or you’re toast, because search engines need to serve their users great content (that addresses their needs) or the search engines lose market share.

With the overall growth of the Internet booming and the Web being accessed from more diverse devices – it’s easy for your site to get lost in the shuffle. Some are even saying the Internet is running at full capacity as you read this. To paraphrase Fredrick Marckini in the foreword of Rebecca Lieb's book “The Truth About Search Engine Optimization“- “either users find you or they find your competitors.”

Search engines index text, text, and more text. (I might have stole that line from somebody, but it’s a good one and is the key to getting good search engine ranking.) All the other bells and whistles are nice, but what happens to your page when you turn off the images, flash, and video? Does your message hold up? Now that I’ve your attention, and before you panic, here’s what not to do try to improve your SEO. Don’t forget to check your code after you implement changes, and avoid doubling up on the same type of meta tags.

Alright, since the stage is set and we know some of the issues involved. Let's see how our site is doing…

Build your SEO toolset

Ok, first there is the obvious stuff like Google Webmaster tools and Google Analytics. Google Webmaster tools helps guide you though improving your site in ways that help optimize your search engine ranking in Google. With features such as a keyword analysis tools, and interfaces that assist in setting up a sitemap and robots.txt file it’s a no-brainer to use it. I also recently found that Yahoo has their own version of this called Yahoo! Site Explorer. Google Analytics is a little more advanced, and helps slice and dice your traffic stats, track online campaigns, view and analyze details about your users through the lens of Google’s servers.

I’ve compiled a list of more tools that are useful on their own, but in combination are a powerful suite of SEO software.

You will find these Websites incredibly useful for fine tuning your SEO to produce great results:

(Descriptions compiled from content on each respective site.)

Free Online SEO Tools

1. Reaction Engine

This is a free tool to help analyze the SEO performance of your domain for a given keyphrase. Reports include a variety of useful information and structured recommendations to improve overall effectiveness. Generate a few reports that aim to encourage the use of standards compliant, user-friendly and accessible code while at the same time helping website-owners to attract more visitors to their websites. Since launch in 2005, it’s provided tens of thousands of free SEO reports.

2. SEOCentro Meta tag Analyzer

SEOCentro is a site that offers a myriad of tools and articles for the internet community. I link to the metatag analyzer but they also offer a keyword analyzer, among other useful tools. This tool stands out because it’s free and helps you test against a specific keyword phrase and gets really granular about how a search engine bots would view your content.

3. SEOWorkers SEO Analyzer tool

This tool is similiar to SEO Centro (almost like a second opinion) You can analyze most common meta tags, analyze keyword density from the page content, page load time from the page, size from the page, analyze title meta tag relevancy to page content, plus a host of other cool things like peeking into the actual header response to the initial server request.

4. HubSpot's Website Grader

HubSpot has tools that integrate with your sales and marketing activities, you get end to end marketing analytics that help you make smart marketing decisions. Optimizing each website page for key search terms may seem daunting. HubSpot gives you easy-to-follow recommendations to improve each page, even helping you prioritize where to start so you can manage optimization with ease.

5. SEO Site Checkup

Just your URL you want analyzed, and SEO Site Checkup will provide easy to understand recommendations so that your site will load faster, rank higher for your search terms, and get more visitors. SEO Site Checkup can analyze your site and give recommendations so that your site will load faster, rank higher for your search terms, and get more visitors.

6. W3Optimizer

There are 100s of sites competing every day. W3Optimizer in just a single click you will get a crystal clear report on changes that must be done to your webpage (on-page analysis), your reputation in the internet & what your competitor pages are about (Off page analysis, Google Top 10 Competitor analysis, Google Keyword Competition analysis, Google Top 10 Competitors Keywords) and many more.

Firefox Plugins

These Firefox developer plugins are key for anyone that publishes Web pages on a regular basis. They are great for many reasons beyond working with SEO, and it would be foolish not to mention them here.

1. Web developer Tool Bar

The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. Among the information you can filter from a page is meta tags and other page header data.

2. Firebug

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. Firebug allows you to view a page’s source in a split screen view and highlight different characteristics of the page to troubleshoot problem areas.

3. YSlow

YSlow analyzes web pages and why they’re slow based on Yahoo!’s rules for high performance web sites.

4. SEO plugins

I’m not big on SEO plugins, but here’s a decent list of SEO Firefox plugin options to review.

Your work is never done

Remember, SEO is a dance that is never really over. You must continually tweak your relevancy because Web pages change, your users taste change, and multiply that by a factor whatever number of your competitor sites are out there. Some businesses are known to tweak their meta tags and keywords for seasonal changes, holidays, and to target visitors from their respective metro area – your strategy will be your own. But, changes should be given a chance to take hold to judge their effectiveness. Like any other aspect of your Website, SEO is an organic process that will evolve over time.

More Resources – Books on SEO and Web Strategy

1. Get to the Top on Google: Tips and Techniques to Get Your Site to the Top of the Search Engine Rankings — and Stay There

2. When Search Meets Web Usability

3. Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations.

The future in question

The real question is, “Can all parties REALLY agree on the new HTML5 standard across the board, enough so that it will have a legitimate impact on today’s Web browsing and Web application experiences?” Adobe has even been accused of being an impediment to W3C green lighting the HTML5 standard. On the flip side of that coin, people have begun to analyze why they’re using Flash and other RIA technologies in the first place. Naturally, developers want to use the right tool for the right job and we can already see the effects of developers seeking rich media alternatives in the open market. One major example is the rise of using CSS and JavaScript frameworks such as JQuery for client-side scripting instead of Flash in some of today’s most innovative Websites. Gartner analyst, Ray Valdes, wrote a piece about HTML5 and the future of Adobe Flash, in which he lays out the current state of affairs. Of course, none of us truly knows what the future holds, but I doubt that the key players are sitting on their hands either. Several different players are trying to influence how the future takes shape; hopefully, open source methods will win out over licensed software.

Hurry up and wait

Long gone are the days when a simple text site adorned with goofy icons captured site visitors’ attention. Billions of dollars are at stake these days in the fight for user traffic. Site builders, on behalf of their clients, engage in that particular battle every day while trying to keep up with the competition AND remain relevant. Hence, they are improving their sites with sticky, interactive features. That being said, we live in a “What have you done for me lately?” world, and the dollars will go where they are most effective. Software vendors have been maneuvering forever to provide tools that site builders will want to use. Chess plays are being executed to gain top market positions and we all know how ugly that can get; let’s not forget how Microsoft put both Sun and JAVA into a corner several years ago, restricting them from bleeding into the Windows’ desktop experience. Companies like Microsoft maintain a split-personality agenda, creating proprietary products like Silverlight that they’re striving to seed in the developer market. It’s easy to see why the sharp elbows are out when you take a good look at the numbers. Worldwide application development software was a $7.3 billion dollar business as of mid-2008 alone.

The plot

This creates the context of a Dr. Evil-like plot in which each player fights for the loyalty of the very designers and developers who assist in creating the demand for software and merchandise for their peers and the masses. Adobe has long been treated as an unwelcome “guest” in the technology market and this disdain bubbled up in the early ’90′s as well when Apple and Microsoft teamed up to create the TrueType standard for fonts, leaving Adobe’s PostScript in the dust. Desktop publishing and electronic printing really took off and the impact felt by this current situation is likely to be just as large in scale. Tim Burden over at NewsFix executes a great write up with “Apple and Google go to war, Adobe takes collateral damage.” What really keeps Adobe’s competitors up at night is Adobe’s infiltration into the enterprise software market. I have a friend who works for an American soft drink giant that uses a home-brewed application consisting of a mixture of PHP and Adobe Flex to generate sales reports for the management that includes interactive bar charts and graphs, so I know that this threat is real.

The payoff

I’m paying attention to role descriptions and knowledge requirements for job openings that trickle my way, always gauging how these changes may affect my immediate world and job market. As a web developer, it’s hard to fight the feeling that you’re standing in the quicksand of an ever-changing technological landscape. Although, I know that some of us are making this “war” work to our benefit. I got word this week that a friend of a friend got a job offer of a quarter of a million dollars a year to be a senior Flex developer. Yeah, you read that right. As a person who mainly deals with U.I. and front-end design, I feel that the impact of HTML5/CSS3 on RIA workflows will be tremendous.

If compliance and HTML5 adoption within browsers pick up steam, I predict that the folks in charge of executing the design and function of Websites are soon to see their tools change in dramatic ways. Without a doubt, it will be slightly easier to implement data objects, UI behaviors, and to create slicker presentations on future Websites with “open source” tools. Having lived through the browser wars of the 1990′s, I can say definitively that smart people will still be around to pick up the pieces after big corporations beat the “propriety code” out of each other. I hope to be one of them.

More Resources

1. Jeffery Zeldman’s take on the IE9 preview

2. Sneaking into Future: 25 Ultra Modern Websites Using HTML5

3. Adobe shakes off all the noise about HTML5, by announcing new tool “Web Tech.”

Read more on ChrisDigital's Digital Designer Blog:

1. Exploring web fonts, moving beyond Arial and Verdana

2. HTML5 is no longer like a mythical white Unicorn

Life happens, and Twitter moved on without me, time passing by as Twitter's user base just kept growing. I started to come around slowly. First I put it on my Blackberry. Then I played with Tweetdeck and got immersed in its Matrixlike view of the public consciousness.I got busy filtering for keywords, and I realized I was looking at news and information almost in real time. It was slightly addicting watching this stream of thoughts go by, processing breaking information that I normally would read about online or see on the evening news several hours later. The power of Twitter began to sink in.

“I can use this to research a topic and get timely information, and even tap into public opinion to form a consensus.”

Around this time, I was reading a lot of articles about how social media was a critical promotional and networking tool for anyone that wasn’t a dinosaur. I even read about Dell computer’s recent 6.5 million Twitter strategy that was considered a great success. This is, of course, after they publicly mentioned they’ve made 3 million off Twitter since ’07 earlier in the year. I took notice.

I decided I was wrong-headed about the subject initially, and jumped on Twitter seriously in late October of 2009 adding it to my toolset of online media channels. I was in the planning stages for this blog and it just made sense.

It’s now 4 months later and by observing the rules and guidelines I mention below, by the end of 2010 I should have 3,000 Twitter followers. Sure, that’s conservative by some standards but that’s plenty for me. Racking up a big follower list isn’t so important to me as is finding new people to interact with and learn from.

I’ve compiled this list from lessons learned so far. Some of this is old news to Twitter veterans, but I get asked all of the time for advice about Twitter. So, I threw this together to help the conversation.

Here is my quick list on how to use Twitter effectively:

1. Hunt for your crowd

We like people that have common interests and if you’re a fan of somebody, a hobbyist or a company, you’re looking for a certain audience. One of the ways I find people to follow and hopefully follow me back is by finding what I call “touch points” or connections. Looking for geeks?  Explore the followers of SlashDot. Looking for Flash developers, check out the followers of FlashMoto, etc..  Just like a lion that waits by a watering hole, hunt for friends where there are basic common needs of a community.

Here’s a great post by John Jantsch entitled “7 Insanely Useful Ways to Search Twitter for Marketing” that expands upon this topic. He explores filtering your searches to find the crowd you’re looking for on Twitter.

2. Mind your manners, and avoid TMI

Some people use Twitter as if it’s a personal AIM account, but they should be mindful that if their tweets are public (and possibly even if they’re private), we’re all in the room with you. Ranting about your football team’s loss, your job or your personal life might make you look like a narcissistic child to people who don’t know you  — except, of course, if you’re a celebrity and you make money doing it. I personally don’t tweet anything I wouldn’t say to someone’s face or in front of a client.

Of course, by now we’ve seen the effects of “too much information” being shared on a Twitter feed. Some examples are: Kim Kardashian outing an Air Marshal while she sat next to him on a plane and the college football player that ended his career by sharing that he had a mysterious source of income and inordinate amounts of cash handy.

3. Don’t be a content “bait and switcher”

Tweeting “link lists” of things is a popular thing. This post is a perfect example of a list. However, some Twitter users have taken to LAME behavior, and put up “shell blog sites” (no real original content) and regularly stick them in between you (as the follower) and the list content (what you want to read) as an interstitial (e.g. “here’s a list” link on my Twitter feed —>you arrive at the site saying “here’s a list” link with ads and all kinds of garbage —> the REAL site with the list content) People that do this, suck. Hard. Integrity means something;  don’t lose it for a minor bump in site traffic. Yes, you know who you are. What you’re tweeting isn’t original so eventually you’re just going to lose followers.

4. Respond to interaction, and follow back

If someone is directing a query @you, or retweets you, or references your feed, you should respond. Sometimes you miss something. Of course that happens, but even if your response is not timely, people will appreciate some acknowledgment. When someone follows you it’s nice to follow them back. It’s not necessary but it’s a sign of good manners. I tend to examine my follower list and try to check out if they’re a real person before I do that.

5. #FollowFriday or #FF

This is a great way to find new feeds you might like. Twitter users share feeds they like, or think should get more love by first starting with the hash mark #FollowFriday or #FF then listing users. This is done every Friday as a community.

6. Trending topics

Participate in timely trending topics. Sometimes this results in traffic back to your feed by people who may be curious about you. The Oscars are coming up this weekend. No doubt that will be a trending topic and maybe you’ll find some movie-going friends or followers.

7. Lists and Listorious.com

Lists are a relatively new feature on Twitter and help showcase the things that you’re personally into. Being known as a curator of a good list is a nice way to get street cred, like being a reviewer on Amazon or Ebay. Here’s one of my favorite lists on Listorious: jQuery curated by Paul Wallace.

8. Be relevant

Between Digg.com, Delicious, and Google Alerts you can find something highly relevant to your interests and “meaty” for the followers of your feed to talk about. Mundane stuff only works if you’re really brilliant at it like Conan O’Brian. I’m sure you’ve heard how his feed exploded with followers once he signed up.

9. Avoid spammers

They’re everywhere and especially in your direct message inbox. Do not click ANY link that looks like an advertisement without testing it under high security settings or Googling the service first. There are things you can do to combat the spam, like using a validation service. They can stop spammers from following you but they can only cut down on the DM’s; you’ll have to manually “drop” or ban the spammer via your followers list. As with emails, never click a suspicious link from an unknown source. I’m currently evaluating TrueTwit to cut down on the spam direct messages.

10. Automation, apps and flooding your feed

There’s a whole culture of third-party applications based on Twitter.

One of the issues that pops up for me in regard to “apps” is that some of the people whom I follow use automated services that can flood feeds with posts in rapid succession. This tends to dominate the “conversation.” Usually you can tweak your settings to not “vomit” all over your followers. People will realize it’s not a real person that just tweeted 10 entries in a row in 3.6 seconds. Besides, you’re just adding to Twitter’s maintenance problems by chewing up their bandwidth with this kind of nonsense. Services like SocialOmmph and HootSuite allow you to time your Twitter posts in a schedule. I have a few people that flood my feed and I hate it, but they provide interesting tweets so I tolerate it. On the flip side, use automation to keep your feed alive when you get busy or want to appear engaged when you have to step away.

11. Use short user names and link shorteners

You have 140 characters,and  that space becomes valuable when you’re trying to make a point or re-tweet someone. An example of a popular link shortener is Bit.ly. Bit.ly is cool because they provide an archive of your shortened links for you to examine at your leisure with a reasonable level of analytics you might find useful. It’s also native in some third party apps. Feedburner , Google’s RSS service that posts to your feed for you, uses Goo.gl shorter and Hootsuite has its own called Ow.ly.

12. Don’t solicit people with your widgets or services

It’s possible via automation to send spam about whatever you’re up to in a “welcome” direct message when someone first follows you. There’s a serious problem with this – they didn’t ask for your spam. Your customers want to be reached on their terms, not yours. Twitter is highly intimate and contextual, so you’re basically being rude, barging into their virtual personal space and waving marketing materials in their face and interrupting their day.

13. Geo-tracking

Look Rudolph, no one cares that you’re at the laundromat. Use this for stuff we want to hear about – sharing about parties, events, or favorite eating spots that we can go to ourselves. Then we will appreciate participating in your reindeer games. Also be careful about announcing your where-abouts to the whole world especially if it can compromise your safety or your property.

14. Watch your back

Twitter is great for corporate espionage, as in keeping tabs on the competition and what they publicly announce. It’s also a great way to keep tabs on your own reputation online.

Just as recruiters advise to regularly Google yourself and address negative information, so too should you do this on Twitter. Check your @replies and references regularly to make sure you nip problems in the bud early, or encourage praise.

15. Be yourself

Even if you think you have nothing to say, you’re wrong. You have likes and dislikes, and you’re an authority on something even if it’s 80′s TV stars, Hello Kitty collectibles, or vintage video games. You can certainly weave yourself an online persona that has a place in some niche sub-culture. Just be yourself and people will find you.

16. Brand your profile page

Everything from your Twitter profile page background to your Twitter icon is scrutinized. If you care at all about first impressions, put in the same effort into setting up your Twitter account as you did into your resume. It’s also been said that using a nice photo of yourself as your icon is preferable; it helps to make you seem more “real” to your Twitter followers.

Granted, many Twitter users access feeds from mobile devices, but trust me if they’re considering doing business with you, it’s highly likely they’re googling you and reviewing any public information about you. I personally do really quick assessments based on available information, and a Twitter page tells me a lot about you…

My advice is that if you need help with your “presentation,” kick it up a notch and ask for referrals for a designer and a photographer (shameless plug for the wife).  If you’re doing a portrait, go with quality. It counts.

Bringing it all together

Your compliance with these guidelines speaks volumes about you, and sets off a chain reaction of assumptions that will be made by people who don’t know you personally. Granted not everyone uses Twitter the same way. But, people who are consider associating themselves with you for any reason are accessing all kinds of data about you to make a decision if it’s a good idea or not.

You don’t want what you’re doing in your social media channels to undermine the message you’re sharing with people in person.

You can even manipulate this to your advantage, of course, by using your appearance in your social media channels to support your story. For example, you may want your profile to APPEAR as if it were a personal account (e.g. as part of a viral ad campaign), a small start-up, a BIG corporation, or a collective of people that share a feed ON PURPOSE. But, it should be your choice what that communicates to your audience, not general ineptness.

Tell me what you think of the list. One Love.-C.

Add your own tips in the comments. I’m here to learn and I’d love to hear them.

More Resources

1. Here’s a fun tool that gives your Twitter profile a grade.

2. 50 Cool Twitter Profile pages courtesy of Indeziner.com.

3. 100 Fantastic Twitter profiles for your Inspiration from Splashology.com.

4. 5 Mistakes to Never Make on Twitter courtesy of American Express’ Open Forum.

5. Here’s a post by Margaret Mason from 2008 on polite Twitter etiquette.

6. You rebels will enjoy this post about breaking Twitter etiquette rules by Robert Scroble in 2007.

Read more on ChrisDigital's Digital Designer Blog:

1. All the single ladies

2. Blogging kids, something to think about

Turns out my meta description tags were running in place

The problem is an easy one to overlook the first time around. Thanks to Pillar Consulting’s Keywordfriendly SEO tool I caught it. After reviewing the report it generated, I discovered I had multiple meta description tags in the head of my blog pages that were competing against each other. The first one being the standard tagline for the blog, and the second is the content compiled from the fields in All-in-one SEO plugin I installed. As Jeffrey Nichols points out, Google IGNORES the second one, defaulting to the first one it sees. Which confirmed my previous worries that something was off, after examination of my Google Alerts results for the blog. So, I was completely missing out the fruits of my diligent SEO work.

A really smart fix

So after a quick Google search I ran across Nathan Rice’s great post on taking complete control of your meta description tags titled Ultimate Guide to WordPress SEO – META Descriptions. This is a must read for any theme developer and I was able to apply his code as a quick fix to my problem.

I modified his code to alternate between the blog tagline and plugin generated meta description tags as needed, depending on whether you were on my homepage or not. Originally, his solution alternates between the tagline and your post excerpt (which is very cool).  So the end result is now that the search engines have a better idea of what I’m writing about, and on my terms.

If you’re not using a SEO-optimized WordPress theme, you might want to look into what’s going on in your header.php file(s) as well. SEO is fickle business.

More SEO Resources

1. Check out the Pillar Consulting Website, their blog and their Keywordfriendly tool.

2. Learn more about All-in-one SEO plugin.

3. Dig in with some more SEO tips and tools with Jeffery Nichols SEO Toolbox.

4. Learn more about Nathan Rice and what he does with WordPress.

5. Here’s a great series of tips for tuning your WordPress install for better SEO results.

Read more on ChrisDigital's Digital Designer Blog:

1. The CMS Power of WordPress

2. WordPress line break bug in posts

I loved it. I was a young kid, just a few months removed from graduating from the School of Visual Arts and my Scholastic Illustrator contract had just ended. There I was sitting in the middle of a retail brand incubator with a slight bump in pay. I was feeling good about myself and I was only scratching the surface of that experience — because in walked Johnny.

Johnny was the “big gun,” the guy the owners would call in if they needed to blow a client’s socks off (which was often). He was fun to be around and we became friends. He appeared to be the archetype of the designer I wanted to be ever since my graduation. His client list was to be envied, and his work studied. To me he was part genius comedian, passionate advocate for beauty in design, and like many men that were mentors to me growing up, he did not “suffer for fools” easily. He worked a few stations over from me in the office and routinely, I would peer over at my big British soccer hooligan-looking workmate marveling, as he kept us in stitches with his most recent observation.

There were at least 10-12 of us including designers and production assistants who worked in that general area (not to mention the amazing retail buyers and merchandising consultants G+G had brought in) and we were a cast of characters. We all really liked each other for the most part, and I’d say there was definite team chemistry. It showed in the genuine delight people displayed when they saw you, and the general wackiness in the office. It also showed in the sporadic practical jokes that lightened the mood when a deadline neared.

I remember one incident in particular that was pretty hilarious in hindsight, but I was none too happy about at the time. I had one of those yellow-haired key chain trolls on my desk and I scanned it into the computer and made it into a big desktop wallpaper in order to mark my territory. This was a little unusual, because the freelancers technically could sit at any computer station they wanted. One day while I was at lunch some antics ensued. I returned to find someone had Photoshoped… um, let’s say “distinctive male parts” onto my desktop troll. As I turned beet red, everyone in the group snickered with delight. It was an interesting lesson in humility, to say the least.

I later learned that several co-workers were in on it, and to this day, Johnny will only cop to “I may have art directed some of it, lol!”

Eventually, the clients went away and our crew split up, but our friendship endured. Johnny is like a brother to me. Each time we speak, the words pick up from the previous conversation as if no time has passed. We have supported each other during up and down times, throughout multiple changes and various moves in our lives. Amidst all of that, one thing remains the same.

Johnny is still the “big gun” called in when a company needs to blow a client’s socks off.

John Carrington Simpson’s work speaks for itself, and can be viewed at Graff1.com.

I highlight their pain because it just doesn’t make sense to me that someone hasn’t developed tools to even the odds. Between Facebook, Twitter, Match.com, eHarmony, etc., somebody somewhere should be able to come up with some kind of data architecture, API, and license rules that allows everyone to share in a serious money making opportunity.

What I have in mind is a system that would distribute real-time statistical “singles” data based upon neighborhood or general location, enabling ladies (and men) to find love. A user could tap into this main “registry” app at their leisure and check out the prospects in the current area, view proximity to local attractions, industry districts (jobs data), and even filter for time of day.

This, of course, would be “weighted” in the context of the target gender. For example, say a group of women are walking around the city, and they end up in an office district after hours . We all know that there are  far less men around that area than during the day. However, this tool would theoretically help the women to find the after work spot that everybody goes to, or suggest alternative options. It would be like having a friend “in the know” or ”hunting at the zoo” (to borrow a friend’s phrase).

But on a serious note, if you’re wondering what sparked all of this, it started with this singles map. I think the map is fun to talk about partly because I’m married and I don’t have to deal with dating any more, and partly because the map has its detractors. It first appeared in National Geographic February 2007 and ever since, it has been an interesting conversation piece because of the conclusions it draws, plus I love information graphics.

There are resources like Yahoo Neighborhoods, MSN Real Estate, Kiplinger’s Best Cities, and Sperling’s Best Places. Those tools have their place, but I”m talking about something fun and hip with a slick user interface that singles can use on the go. I mean, it’s been three years later already!

I’m certain that I am not the first to think of this, so there must be an online service or geo-tracking mobile app that I don’t know about. It would be hard for me to believe some enterprising mind hasn’t been all over this.

List any Websites or apps in the comments if you know of any.

I’m sure there would be crazy privacy concerns and there’s also a risk that someone would try to skew the system for their own purposes, but it would be interesting to see it in action. I mean even on a generic level the data would be interesting.

Maybe we can re-define the word “hot spot” and come up with a system similar to the FON shared Wifi network and have single people register in their own neighborhood, anonymously if they choose to.

Come on, people work it out! I can’t think of everything. This situation presents a ripe opportunity for some angel fund investor.

Hang in there, ladies. I’m trying to support you by shining a light on this situation and hopefully answers are on the way. Maybe those boys over at Hot Potato can take a run at this one.

And fellas, if you’re reading this… Yes, I wrote this post to have an excuse to use that headline and use a picture of Beyonce… Later.

More Resources:

1. Online Dating Infographic via Mashable. Full of interesting statistics.

2. The New York Times attempts to demystify online dating.

3. Listio reviews a few Dating Applications.

Foundation for a framework

In addition, anybody has access to the source code so you can blow up the whole posts/pages paradigm (by using your own code methodology) and still have access to all the built-in WordPress goodies. I can easily see an advanced developer using this code base as a framework to make a stripped down event booking system, inventory control catalogue or some other database entry system that needs an easy admin user interface for maintenance personnel. They can even change the admin interface for their purposes, or just find a cool admin theme like this one I came across recently.

Why WordPress?

If you’re not familiar with WordPress, check out WordPress.org for some background information. It’s safe to say I really like WordPress, and it reminds me a lot of a CMS that I really liked (despite a few quirks that it had) and used 3 years ago for a project. The CMS I’m referring to is CMS Made Simple. If you find that humorous you should realize that at CMSMS has been downloaded 750,000 times (as of October 2009) and it does have a loyal user base. However, CMS pales in comparison to WordPress’ recent update, 2.9, which has been downloaded 3,999,515 times (as of this writing) and that fact alone gives you an glimpse into why I switched. Nevertheless, my experience with CMSMS was very positive and I barely had to touch the documentation. It just all made sense, and I jumped in with both feet. I was up to my elbows in code, mucking around with templates in no time. I’m pretty much in the same place with WordPress right now.

Back to the powerful magic

As I was working in WordPress recently, I ran into a situation in which I needed to pull specific data out of the database about each page in a WordPress install and then print that information to the homepage for a theme I was tweaking. The answer was integrating custom fields into each entry and adding some minor edits to a few template files. When I finished, I got up from my desk and went to get a latte. I was done.

To get an idea of what you can do with this feature, Smashing magazine has a great roundup of some custom field hacks that can make your theme stand out. And as I mentioned in the intro here’s a great post about hacking the appearance of WordPress custom fields and how they function in the control panel. There’s no doubt in my mind that depending on the scale of your project WordPress makes a flexible CMS.

Jumping into WordPress theme development

Needless to say, you can find guidance for creating your own WordPress theme online. In addition, there are some powerful WordPress theme development frameworks you can experiment with that pretty much push theme development to the next level. Personally, I like to target my tweaks and be the originator of the code changes instead of adding another layer of coding standards/documentation that I will need to deal with.

Can I get a little help?

Half the battle of understanding any software or framework is finding help and figuring out the nomenclature and structural paradigms of folders and files. In this regard, WordPress is impressive; you just need to do a couple of Google searches and you have an answer to whatever is confusing you, ails your current install, or offers the right fix for the piece of code that you’re tweaking.

You can easily pull up resources in your Web browser such as WordPress’ codex, forums, developer community, plug-in architecture, and themes. It’s like this growing unstoppable force.  Check out these video WordPress tutorials for example. This is a sample of how hard devotees work at WordPress evangelism. Eventually, you will be assimilated. You can even test drive it for free on their hosted platform.

Why go through all this trouble?

Why would you want to invest time into bending Wordress to your will? I’ll give you two reasons:

1. For now it’s open source with a reasonable learning curve that gets you up and running quickly.

2. And as mentioned above, WordPress’ admin control panel is pretty easy to use AND explain to your Web design clients for example. Which means they’re not calling you for very easy edits, and you can focus on big ticket changes. No more having to track and bill for minutiae.

More Resources

Here’s a rundown on 5 approaches you can take to get your Web clients familiar with the WordPress admin interface.

If you are looking for other PHP-based CMS’ to consider check out Silverstripe, MODx, Expression Engine, Drupal, Joomla, and I’ve been hearing a lot about Elgg lately.

Here’s a great question and answer thread from LinkedIn.com (account required) that details some plugin favorites by Linkedin members and issues associated with using plugins.