New Tech Heroes - New Media and Social Publishing

Going organic with Google's search results

Tom Kephart — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:23:45 -0400

I've been telling clients and prospects for years that there aren't any lasting shortcuts to great search engine results. Back in the ancient days of unrelated meta tags and premium Yahoo listings, there seemed to be ways to game the system and get your site listed higher than your competitors. The problem with that approach was that Yahoo, and on a much grander scale, Google, kept changing the rules of the game, meaning that last week's SEO strategy was a losing proposition today.

The best idea to drive people to your site is the same technique used for generations in any creative field: make great content and promote it with an intensely personal approach. Get your new friends to do your promotion for you. Then do it again.

That's why I found myself nodding in agreement (and not for the first time, either) with Jeff Jarvis today on his BuzzMachine blog. In a post about the increasing personalization of Google's search results, Jeff writes:

But as Google gets better at personal relevance through everything it knows about us — and it knows more and more — then your search for wine may be different from mine and there is no absolute value for placement in results and Googlejuice, no?

What does that mean to brands? The world gets confusing once more. But I think it means that true relevance becomes more important than SEO tricks. It also means that the more relationships you have with people — the more they talk about you and link to you and click on you — the better off you will be.

Imagine... your site becomes a popular destination not because you could outspend your competition, but because you're providing more relevant information. How very quaint.

There are, naturally, always those who will promise the "quick fix" method of getting what you want, whether it's weight loss, debt reduction or search engine optimization. Don't take shortcuts, though, because in the long view the game will continue to change and force you to come up with a new way to cheat.

Here's a better idea: write what you know, write what interests you, write what you really care about, then use the amazing social networking tools we have at our disposal to make connections with others who share your vision. Maybe it's not about having thousands of lukewarm visitors to your site per day, but instead one or two who really care. It's the old concept of a qualified lead. Create your blog or your site for those people, and let Google's organic search algorithms do the rest.

Social publishing across the Digital Divide

Tom Kephart — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:22:47 -0400

Businesses connect with customers, providing information and making sales online, across borders and time zones. Friends reconnect with each other across the years. Community groups reach out to their supporters and those they serve across economic and social barriers.

The technology that's created this incredible virtual conversation is powerful, and has given those who may have been ignored previously a voice to create change in their communities, in their careers and in their lives. Even those who aren't checking Twitter, Facebook and MySpace every few minutes are starting to understand the changes these communications methods are having on society. We're seeing it in the response to disasters, like Hurricane Katrina and more recently, the disastrous cyclone in Myanmar (and the even more disastrous reaction by the military government of the former Burma). We're seeing it in the way politicians, in the U.S. and elsewhere, are using the Internet to connect directly with their supporters, raising amazing amounts of money and gaining foot soldiers for their door-to-door campaigns.

But not everyone is benefiting from the power of social publishing.

The barriers to publishing have been lowered considerably with the ease and low cost of personal web pages and blogs, but many people, even in the world's most prosperous countries, still have no access to the Internet or a computer, or lack the education to effectively use those technologies even when made available through a public library or other means.

According to an annual study conducted by Parks Associates, 18 percent of American homes still have no Internet access, a total of 20 million households, and only seven percent of those "disconnected" homes planned to obtain service in the next year. Among American heads of households, one in five have never used email. And the statistics are even more discouraging in less-developed countries and where local governments have placed restrictions on the use of computers and the Internet, chilling the potential free speech benefits of social publishing technologies in their countries.

Social publishing technologies have the potential to advance human rights around the globe, as we take up virtual conversations across national borders and cultures. To make this truly effective, however, we'll need to make sure we're not leaving some of us out of the loop, effectively disenfranchising the very people who need to be heard the most when it comes to human rights.

Today, bloggers from around the world have chosen to participate in "Bloggers Unite for Human Rights." I'm pleased to be one of them. As we celebrate the enjoyment and commercial opportunities social publishing is creating, let's keep in mind those on the other side of the "digital divide" and commit to working to closing that gap and listening for their voices.

Joomla releases version 1.5.3

Tom Kephart — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:54:58 -0400

Joomla! version 1.5.3 (Vahi) was released today to the community, correcting a database name validation error that was introduced in version 1.5.2.

Users of Joomla! 1.5 are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible. The patch is available from the Joomla! website, along with instructions on how to do a complete install of version 1.5.3 or simply patch from a previous version.

The legacy 1.0.15 version is unaffected by today's release.

Drupal versus Joomla vs custom CMS development

Tom Kephart — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:16:16 -0400

John Galvin of io1 describes the process his company went through in transitioning from their own XML/XSL content management development to Drupal. After looking at Joomla! and other PHP-based CMS solutions, they settled on Drupal in large part because if its strength with handling taxonomies.

If you or your company have been considering implementing a content management system, John's post is worth a quick read.

"Read and Comment Day" next Monday, April 28th

Tom Kephart — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:07:34 -0400

Chris Brogan makes the suggestion on his blog today that we take next Monday, April 28th, to take time to visit some other blogs and then leave comments. This would be in lieu of - or in addition to - a blogger's regular posting activity that day.

I think it's a good idea. It's been awhile since I spent time searching for some new voices to listen to in the blogosphere, so count me in, Chris!

Drupal, WordPress win Webware 100 awards

Tom Kephart — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:36:21 -0400

Drupal and Wordpress were among the winners in C|NET's Webware 100 awards for 2008, announced on Monday by Webware.com editor Rafe Needleman. 300 web applications and interactive sites were chosen as finalists by Webware.com editors, and the winners were voted on by the web users who actually use them. Over 1.9 million votes were counted (and no campaign chairmen were defense contractor or telecom industry lobbyists, either!).

In the Publishing category, WordPress and Drupal shared the Top 10 award with Apple's .Mac service, Blogger, flickr, fotoflexer, photobucket, Picasa, twitter and Worth 1000.

Congratulations to the Drupal and WordPress communities for this recognition of their hard work on two outstanding social publishing products!

Gmail needs to support HTML and CSS standards

Tom Kephart — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:26:26 -0400

I love my Gmail.

No kidding, I'm a Gmail slappy. It's simple and it works. Its spam filters are 99.9% right in my experience, and with spam making up as much as 80 percent of all email, you know that's a time-saver right there. Plus, I can check my Gmail anywhere I have access to a web browser, even on my little not-quite-a-smartphone Samsung SCH-u740. I don't even have to pay for a data plan. I recommend Gmail to everybody. Or I have been until now.

Gmail has one nagging problem which is threatening to drive a wedge between us. While Gmail is supportive of me in so many ways, it's lacking in its support of HTML and CSS standards. Not just a little; I'm talking hardly any support at all. So I never get the full experience of the lovingly crafted HTML emails that other clever web designers have created for me, just Gmail's limited interpretation of their intended appearance.

You might say, isn't that a good thing? After all, email should be all monospaced, with no graphics. Everything would run a lot faster that way. And I'd agree with you, if this was still 1990.

The main issue here is compliance with web standards. As a web designer, I know the frustration of having to create multiple versions of pages for specific browsers, because each one handled the interpretation of HTML a bit differently. While the major browsers have come a long way towards standardization (and Microsoft's about face regarding Internet Explorer 8 last month was another big step in that direction), both desktop and web-based email clients support web standards anywhere from completely to not-very-much-at-all. And Gmail falls into that second category.

It's not like it can't be done. Yahoo! Mail supports HTML/CSS standards very well, as tested by the Email Standards Project. So does Mozilla's desktop email client, Thunderbird. So why not Gmail?

Google, it's time to show the love back to your Gmail fans. Consider the recommendations from the Email Standards Project, and make Gmail compliant with web standards. Your users - and thousands of web designers - will thank you for it.

Email Standards Project - Gmail Grimaces from Mathew Patterson on Vimeo.

Hat tip to Amy Stephen of OpenSourceCommunity.org for the info about the Email Standards Project.

Drupal 6.2 release fixes bugs and security issues

Tom Kephart — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:54:22 -0400

Drupal version 6.2 was released today, fixing a number of bugs and some important security issues. The security flaw is considered to be "moderately critical," and is described on the Drupal website as follows:

The menu system routes page requests to appropriate handlers. It also determines whether a user has access to pages based on several criteria, such as permissions assigned to a role. Drupal 6 features an entirely revised menu system, including changes to the way access is dealt with, which if not properly understood by developers can lead to vulnerabilities. This security release provides a more secure access behaviour by default, and fixes incorrectly set menu items in Drupal core.

Users of Drupal 6.0 or 6.1 are encouraged to upgrade to 6.2 as soon as possible. This security issue doesn't affect users of Drupal's legacy branch, currently at 5.7.

Why reinvent the wheel? Start with a solid CMS platform to build social sites

Tom Kephart — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:32:33 -0400

It's long been efficient coding practice to reuse proven blocks of program code. After all, if you've already written something that works, why reinvent the wheel the next time you need the same function or operation? With open source coding, the resources for good, proven code are even greater. Thousands of solid scripts and code blocks are available for use in a new project, just by searching online. This not only improves reliability, since the code you borrow has already been battle-tested, but it also reduces development time and costs.

So why are there are so many social media sites apparently being developed from scratch?

I've discussed the positives of building a business site around a blog, or adding a blog to an existing site before. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger also listed the pros and cons of converting a website to a blog format in a recent post. I believe that the interaction between you and your customers that a blog-style site can create is essential in today's business communications.

The number of businesses and organizations looking to develop seems to be growing every week. Jeff Whatcott of Acquia took a look at the number of job postings related to social applications and found a large disparity between those just looking for PHP programmers (which he assumes means they're planning to write their own code from the ground up) and those mentioning Drupal (which assumes they understand the advantage of starting with an established, robust content management platform). Jeff notes:

There are currently 816 social app building jobs mentioning PHP skills and only 89 mentioning Drupal skills. As you page through the actual job postings, you see evidence of lots of social publishing application development going on out there, but a lot of it appears to be heading down a path of custom PHP development.

So what's up with this? Drupal is the killer social publishing system. It's built on PHP. It saves a ton of time over building a custom system from scratch. Why are so many people who are friendly to LAMP and PHP in particular decide to reinventing the wheel? Which of the following do you think it is?

They've never heard of Drupal

They're vaguely aware, but not sure why it might be relevant to their projects

They've actively evaluated it in the past, but rejected it.

They know Drupal and like it in general, but it's just a poor fit for the current project for some reason

Companies that are looking to develop a next generation web site need to understand that content management systems have matured to a level where, at a basic administrative level, it's not a requirement to be a PHP expert to implement a CMS-based site. It's nice, but it's not absolutely essential unless you're looking to completely customize every element of the site. Requiring multiple years of experience in PHP and MySQL in order to qualify an applicant to create and maintain a WordPress, Drupal or Joomla-based site is like asking someone who'll be using Microsoft Word to be fluent in C++. It'd be nice, but hardly required for the task at hand.

From an evangelism point of view, those of us who are marketing these new technologies to clients need to emphasize the time and cost advantages of starting from a solid, proven base instead of building a web application from the ground up.

UPDATE: Nick Lewis weighs in with "Top 5 Reasons Developers Don't Use Drupal."

Next Drupalcon announced for August 2008 in Hungary

Tom Kephart — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:58:56 -0400

The Drupal Association announced the dates and location for the next Drupalcon on Monday. The event, which is expected to attract one thousand Drupal developers and devotees, will be held in Szeged, Hungary, from August 27th to 30th.

More details are available on drupal.org. Get your passports ready!