Aside from being impressed at the ingenuity of some people, I got struck by the sudden realization that Twitter, or at least a very similar app, will most likely become part of our everyday lives in more ways than we had previously thought. Going beyond the simple status update and information sharing it has been used for, Twitter has the ability to integrate with other offline objects and tasks in order to create a communication stream between us and other objects that never had a voice before.

Having your washing machine tell you that the clothes are ready for the dryer, or your plants asking for water is quite ingenious. Maybe your fridge letting you know that the milk has gone bad and even allowing your pet to tell you he or she is bored are just some of the ways that some people are already using, or are planning to use, Twitter.

Personally, I find the idea of my pet, Maya, telling me she’s bored old news and exciting news at the same time. She always makes it obvious when she’s bored or needs to go outside, but it’s exciting and downright futuristic when you’re getting tweets directly from your pooch asking for some attention. The ability to connect with your home at the conscious level and knowing when something needs nutrients or replacing before it becomes painfully obvious (like a dead plant or drinking sour milk) is a revolutionary feat that the Jetsons would be proud of. Plus, who wouldn’t want to tweet about freshly baked goods?

Thanks to all

As an example, some clients are known to have a Website created by company A while hosting with company B, which is fine and fairly common. But let’s say a problem arises where the ftp server for company B does not allow them to upload necessary files do to certain issues. After much frustration, the client simply chooses to switch over to hosting with company A. Since company A created the Website, they are already familiar with the content, so adding hosting would normally be a simple matter of appending a new service.

The thing is, their Website is already up and running. In that case, all company A needs is the username and password for the ftp server… which the client probably doesn’t have. Company A, unable to access the ftp without the necessary information, asks the client, already frustrated with having to switch hosting, for the necessary login information. Frustrated and unaware of this info, the client usually feels at this stage that company A should have resolved this problem themselves as if searching for the username and password was part of their talent.

So the company tries to upload a photo, a 5 minute task, and ends up taking an hour making phone calls to whomever is necessary to resolve the the fact that they simply cannot log on to the server. The person originally responsible for domain and server access probably vanishes, and since company A is not in the original access list, customer service is of no help and certainly won’t give out login information to those who do not have access.

To put it mildly, third party hosting is also a nightmare.

The issue is just one of several that rise up from a common phenomena among the Web Development community. Involving more than one company in a project means all three sides (company A, company B, and of course the client) must be fully aware of all necessary information. If company B is responsible for hosting, then all they need to know is the information that gives them access to the server. Company A does not require this information since it is not necessary to perform their duties. Once all of this changes and company A now becomes the host, they need to be given everything necessary to get the job done.

Whatever information company B had that gave them access to the ftp server for the client’s Website must be passed on to company A one way or another. Clients need to be aware of this and that when they choose to switch hosting, username and passwords are not automatically learned by the new company. It is because of this common problem that third party hosting, though legitimate, is frowned upon by the Web Development community. It is because of this that third party hosting is usually a nightmare.

Though the opposing titles of these articles may suggest otherwise, this post is not attempting to work against the previous post in an effort to say that SEO is now more important than online content. Both are equally essential for a Website to work properly and we felt that since we had given a short testament post to one, we would do well to do the same for the other.

SEO, usually offered as a separete service by web design companies, is one of the most important tools of a Website right up there with its copywriting. Its power should not be underestimated; just because it’s an optional package in most cases doesn’t mean it’s necessarily optional fopr a Website to have some form of SEO. A client who chooses not to purchase the SEO package usually does so not because it cannot be afforded or because it is not necessary, but simply because they wish to employ their own team’s expertise on that venture rather than outsource it. One way or another though, it is understood that a good Website needs equally good SEO regardless of where it’s comming from. The results of openning Facebook, Myspace and Twitter accounts as well as a respective blog (made easier with the use of Wordpress) are immesureable in their flow of traffic to the Website. After all, it’s as they say about the door-to-door salesman: knocking on a door isn’t entering, but knocking on 100 doors is worth it if one lets you in.

It was the first time we had heard of that song, which we ended up buying later (similar to our previous RIAA story). The song’s artist (Santogold previously known as Santigold) could have easily taken the video down claiming copyright infringement or some other weird legal RIAA tactic, but had instead decided to leave it be. Now, over 300 thousand views have come across this video and now that many more people know about the song and its artist. Roughly 10% or so of viewers probably liked the song enough to buy it, and the publicity that the dancer and crowd in the video provided did not cost the artist a penny.

Looking more closely at the video itself though, it wasn’t just that the song was playing for the viewer’s listening pleasure. Once the man in green stood up and joined the dancer, the motion turned viral, as more and more people began joining in until pretty soon, everyone swarmed to the center. The one dancer represents the one person where the message begins. It then spreads to the man in green, the tipping point for the spread. It continues from person to person, slowly at first but increasing exponentially; it starts with a couple people joining in and then pretty soon everyone crowds around. Messages that are virally spread like this would reach two people, then four, then eight, then 16, and so on until the message has gotten out to anywhere from hundreds to millions, depending on other factors.

In a sense, the scene was a microcosm of viral publicity. As explained above, one dancer turned to several within moments as everyone joined in. In a way, this scene represented what happened to the actual video. It likely started with just friends and subscribers of the author and then quickly spread to the 300 thousand that it reached. Because the video was on youtube (free), friends were more than happy to send each other the link, post it on their blogs (like we did), share it on facebook, and so on.

Another video similar to the previous:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0.

The authors probably set it up on youtube for friends and relatives that did and did not attend the wedding to be able to enjoy watching the events again and again. The results? over 17 million views. We ourselves are in no way related to the happy couple, but we still caught the link thanks to viral publicity. The video was so entertaining that it spread across an enormous amount of viewers. And did the copyrighters of the song take the video down? Of course not, that’s 17 million people that just listened to Forever by Chris Brown at no costs for advertising. Rather than take it down, the video was given a link to purchase it from iTunes, and sure enough, plenty of viewers probably enjoyed the song enough to click on it.

Both of these videos are a case of Remix Culture (further defined on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remix_culture). As explained in the article, Remix Culture encourages derivative works. Basically, it crosses over to protected areas of copyright law (which we have once before described as being too old for the new age). Free society and the information age is changing the way information dissemination works. While there are those who are still fighting it, there are those like the artists whose songs are heard in these videos whom embrace the changes to come.

One of the most common mediums of communication is email and as such is the most readily available example. We all get emails, usually spam, that use impersonal titles if any at all for a subject, all uppercase or lowercase text, enormous attachments, and annoying chain-letter effects. Websites like http://www.netmanners.com/email-etiquette/email-etiquette-101/ get specific with what they call netiquette, or basically, etiquette for the net.

The general consensus is that no one likes unprofessional emails from someone that should keep communications at a professional level. Writing nothing in the subject line or impersonal titles like “Hi” will sometimes mark the email as spam, or at the very least, yield no information to the receiver regarding the contents of the email and instill doubt. So already, before the receiver of the email even opens it, they are already doubting its credibility and possibly already deleted it or marked it as spam. Then, once it’s open, text in all upper or lowercase or a giant downloadable without any description won’t fare much better. Most netiquette sites agree that uppercase text on the net (and in most reading material for that matter) is perceived as shouting, screaming or yelling; emails or messages written in all lowercase might be considered mumbling by some and unprofessional if nothing else.

No one wants to be either yelled or mumbled at , virtually or otherwise. In real world scenarios, 99% of the time there is a better solution to yelling at someone who is not doing what you expect them to, whether they are your service provider, employee or otherwise. The same goes for mumbling; IMs and emails written between close friends can be informal since they trust each other at both professional and unprofessional levels when appropriate. As such, friends generally won’t think any less of each other if they IM, text or email in all lowercase (though uppercase is still considered annoying even between friends). However, when communicating between a service provider and a client, text should maintain proper syntax and punctuation as form of respect for one another.

And yes, one another. It goes without saying that a service provider must always stay professional and respectful with their clients, but what some don’t realize is that the client should also be professional and respectful. It’s alright not to know what the other person on the phone is talking about; making calls to your ISP don’t have to be tense situations that end up in yelling and frustration. Simply tell the personnel on the phone with you “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand” if their process confuses you. The customer isn’t expected to know how a process works and as such, service providers not only provide the physical or technological support but the knowledge base as well. Any questions a customer has should be worded politely and with progress in mind. The service provider should then be ready to respond, even if the response must be “I am not sure how to answer that, please let me patch you through to my supervisor so that he/she may further assist you.”

We made a previous post specifically talking about Web Design’s relationship with its customer base and how they should interact: http://www.wemakesimplethings.com/2009/07/the-customer-is-always-right/. The post talks specifically about how interactions between clients and service providers should be kept at a peer to peer level for everyone’s sake. Yelling at a service provider usually generates much frustration and next to no progress. Contacting a client with faulty subject lines, syntax and punctuation will generate distrust and question credibility. It’s just better business all around to keep the atmosphere between worker and client professional, friendly and free of hostility.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MLKnMkwAjw

The commercial illustrates the making of an eighth day of the week, el dia Osvaldo or “Oswalday.” The story hits home because we’ve all been there at one point or another; most of us were in that very conversation two days ago. We’re too tired from an entire week’s work culminating on Friday to do anything that afternoon, Saturday’s the day for going out with friends and dates, and Sunday’s the day spent with the family or else finishing tasks needed for Monday morning. By the time the weekend is over, we are still left exhausted, usually agreeing with our family members over some coffee at a restaurant on Sunday night that the weekend is simply too short, then rushing home to try and get to bed for that awful Monday morning.

But what if Saturday and Sunday weren’t directly next to each other on the weekly calendar? It’s a curious and almost controversial idea that goes even further than the four days of work a week model, and ironically, it actually works a bit better in theory. First of, we can consider the addition of a new free day to the week in perspective. What can we not do with a two day weekend that we could do with three? One simple, awe-inspiring answer is travel. No one wants to plan a vacation that starts on Friday night and ends on Sunday morning; the fact that Saturday is the only day of the week that does not require any “early” factor does not go unnoticed. Even though Friday afternoon usually means freedom for the next 48 hours, it usually also means last minute deadlines that need to be met before the weekend. By the time the afternoon finally hits, we’re exhausted, and even if we go somewhere, we’re not going to want to do anything other than sleep the day off. Saturday morning rolls along and it’s a sleep-in kind of day, no early mornings. Once we’re awake, we can enjoy the activities at our vacation spot and by the time we’re really having fun, night comes along, which is fine since we also don’t have to go to sleep early; no early morning tomorrow either. Come Sunday morning though, our vacation is almost over. We have to be back home in time to get to bed early or else we’ll be destroyed come Monday morning and after a weekend like that, no amount of coffee can fix that. Maybe if we had that extra day at our vacation spot…

Beyond the plethora of possibilities a new free day would bring, we would of course also have to consider any downsides. Obviously, work places that open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week wouldn’t really be affected except maybe having to change their slogans to “24 hours a day, 8 days a week.” But what about office work places that work 5 days/40 hours a week? We can consider more specifically workplaces that consider changing from the standard five day week to a four day since they have a similar goal as the Oswalday model in mind: we need more free time. To explore these two ventures, we’ve taken a standard 40hour work week and played around with some changes related to the 4days a week model and the Oswalday model, coming up with these results:

With a standard 5day/40hour work week, that leaves 8 hours of work per work day and aproximately 2,080 hours worked in one year. If the four work day model is taken up with a compensation for the 8 missing hours per week for the free day, then one would have to work 10 hours total for each of the four work days so as to retain a 2,080 hours worked per year. If however the four work day model is taken up without compensation for the missing 8 hours of work from the free day, then a 2,080 hours worked year turns to 1,664, a decrease of 416 hours worked less per year, due to a decrease from 40 hours to 32 hours worked per week. Of course, not many would be complaining about this; that’s a lot of free waking hours to think about. But that’s also a lot of time that’s not being spent on finishing that week’s project or tasks. The idea of the four work day model is that the steep decrease in time allotted to work would increase work ethic and productivity by a similar amount.

Now let’s look at the Oswalday week. With the extra day added as a free day, the week would retain 5 days of work with 40 hours spread evenly amongst them as 8 hours per work day. With this in mind, what changes in our function isn’t the number of hours worked per week, but the number of weeks per year from 52 to a very rough 46 (45.625). This means that one would work a bit less than 1,840 hours per year, which is only a 240 hour decrease from the standard. Basically, the worker would retain 176 hours of work compared to the 4 day work week model while still earning the difference, 240 hours, in free time. The week would stay almost exactly the same; Monday through Friday would remain the standard days of school and work, Saturday would remain the day for everyone to go out with friends at their favorite hangouts, Oswalday would be the day of recuperation from Saturday, as well as the day when we would finish those tasks for Monday so that Sunday really does become “the day of rest” it is meant to be. Then maybe when we’re out having coffee with the folks, siblings and/or cousins, we won’t have to rush out because we just remembered we still had that last minute assignment to take care of. Oswald took
care of it.

The client for a web designer will often be unaware of how the process works. They know how their business works, what their goals are, what they need their online presence to do and what message they want to send to their clients. The only stipulation at this point of course is how to actually do this; how does a business create an online identity that best suits their business goals, brand and customer base? That is when the experts are called in. We web designers are here to provide a service to a group that wants to provide their own clients with a service. It’s understandable for a client at a restaurant to order exactly what they want to eat; it’s not up to the waiter whether the food is unhealthy for them or whatever, it’s up to him or her to make sure the customer is always right.

The web design service is different; the purpose of our service is to satisfy our client’s clients. We feel that there is a hierarchy of satisfaction, with the first on the list being the goal we strive to reach:

1. The designs accomplish the original goals of the Website. The client’s users are happy with the Website and find its services useful. The client is satisfied with their company’s new Website’s look and usability. The web designers are happy with the work they did and are glad to add it to their portfolio.

2. The designs accomplish the original goals of the Website.  The client is initially unsatisfied with the look or usability of the Website because it did not meet their own expectations, but then learns that their own clients are happy with the Website and find its services useful. The web designers, albeit disgruntled with their client’s initial dissatisfaction, feel relief that the next generation of clients enjoyed their work, ultimately achieving the designer’s client’s goals for the Website.

3. The designs do not accomplish all the goals of the Website. The client is satisfied with their company’s new Website’s look and usability. However, the users are not comfortable with the Website, finding it unusable and unappealing. The web designers are distraught over the end results, knowing that the users are not satisfied, which means that the client, though satisfied with the immediate results, will not feel that they earned a true return of investment from their Website in the long run.

4. The designs do not accomplish any of the goals of the Website. The users feel uncomfortable with the design and usability of the Website. The client also disapproves of the end results of the Website’s look and usability because it did not meet their standards or goals. The web designers did not do their job.

If a web designer does their job, they should satisfy someone, effectively avoiding grade 4. If they do a mediocre job, they will follow their client’s every whim and leave their users out of the equation; if they do their job well, they will satisfy the users, and if they do a superb job, they will satisfy everyone. In the restaurant scenario, grade 2 does not exist; there is no client’s clients, just the restaurant’s own customers. Grade 1 would be if the customer was satisfied with the food and if the staff was happy to serve. Grade 2 would be if the customer was satisfied with the food even though the staff felt the customer was rude or obnoxious (this scenario is where the importance of “the customer is always right” kicks in). Grade 3 would be if neither customer nor staff enjoyed the experience, probably prompting the customer to either launch a complaint and likely not returning to that restaurant again.

In other words, there is still that idea of the customer always being right; the catch is that it’s not our clients, but their clients, the users, that are right. Rather than treating our clients like royalty, we sit with them and treat them like smart peers that know what they are doing and that have come to us, seeking advise in a field they are not familiar with. Of course, since we are offering a service that we want to sell to them, we have to keep our attitudes in check; as stated before, none of that “we know what we’re doing, so back off” crap will ever fly with our clients. All businesses, not just ours, have to justify the means with and end. So rather than tell our clients that we’re the experts without question, it’s better business to show our clients that we know what we’re doing. In order to do that, we need to help them satisfy their own customers, so in this venture, we need to work together with our clients to make sure theirs are completely satisfied with the Website. After all, the purpose of the Website isn’t to satisfy our client’s needs, per say, but to satisfy the needs of their own customers. In the restaurant, the food you order is for you, no one else, so you expect it to be perfect for the price you’re paying. The Website however is not really for you, but for your own customers. In a bold statement, we the web designers don’t want to cater to what you want on your Website, but what your clients want. But that would only be grade 2, and no client ever wants to feel like they don’t count in the process. It’s up to a web designer’s clients to get involved, laying out the goals of the Website and what their company needs their online identity to be able to do so that the designers can best translate that message onto the web (a more detailed post on the behind-the-scenes making of a Website can be found here: http://www.wemakesimplethings.com/2009/06/value-of-a-dollar/). If we treated our customers like kings or queens, then what would their clients be?

Sometimes, we don’t get the source files necessary to make the small changes clients are asking for. One day, a new client was asking for one button in the menu to be changed, but what they gave us was a flattened Photoshop file. So rather than taking the 15 minutes it should have to turn off all the other layers and work on the changes the client asked for, we basically had to recreate the entire menu from scratch in order to incorporate the change. And needless to say, neither side was happy either working on the change or getting charged for 2 hours respectively. This happens several times throughout the redesign process; sometimes, we get files that make us wonder “what the heck was its original designer thinking?” Some files are simply impossible to work with and sometimes have to be recreated from scratch. An example of such files are those that have one simple thing changed around, but what we assumed was a simple task turns into chaos when other little problems start to come up from the page. After all, each page was custom made to fit a specific purpose, design, and text in mind. Once this stuff changes, the design might no longer fit the text or the design might not make sense for the purposes of the page anymore. Fitting images in can start creating problems when resizing certain parts of the page, id and class tags can start creating problems; it’s all a mess.

Both sides of the agreement usually end up stressed out over the whole ordeal. The client is frustrated for being charged more than they expected to from a redesign, while the designers probably got an earful the entire time. Starting from scratch tends to be much easier on both parties. The clients brings the designers a fresh new proposal for a fresh new Website. The designers can then sit down and familiarize themselves with the project, forming a new design in their minds that will work with their code. Source files will be nice and organized in a specificed folder, images in tidy psd formats, id and class tags harmonized and easy to change if necessary. The designers will have complete control over the Website, free to test and change whatever is necessary whenever it is necessary. The client will be completely aware of the process, how long it will take and how much it will cost them, no surprises attached.

Cars are a better example for the modern era. A standard car needs to have at least four tires to be able to balance its load properly on the road. A car needs an engine that uses some form of fuel to power it, two or four seats in the inside, a steering wheel, pedals, gear shift, mirrors, and so on. A new company that makes cars is going to have to copy these ideas from their competitors no matter what; it’s hard to deviate from a standard four-wheel car with a steering wheel after all. It is understandable that a new company will have to copy certain basic ideas from its competitors in order to get a basic model. Beyond that however, it’s up to the new company’s ideas and image to individualize the idea into their own brand. A car can have different models; beyond meeting the physical requirements of a standard car, a company’s unique car can have multiple differences that make is stand out: aesthetic beauty inside and out, economic fuel consumption, race car speeds, air conditioning and radio conveniences, comfortable and spacious seating, etc.

In other words, the idea isn’t to figure out a way around using an engine, tires and steering wheel, but how to make your customers feel that your engines, tires and steering wheels are better than your big time competitor’s. Websites are the same; what makes a company’s Website work for them? Simple: it’s THEIR Website, custom designed to perform tasks that the company requires from it. Big-shot company A is going to have a Website designed to cater for their customer’s needs, and small-time company B is going to want in on some of that action. As previously mentioned, some ideas are good the first time around and shouldn’t really change. Company A’s Website probably has a warm, friendly approach towards prospective clients and colors that complement their brand logo. Company B is free to copy the customer satisfaction idea, centering their content around making the prospective client comfortable around their service. But use the same color or design as company A?

For copyright reasons, company B can’t use company A’s logo as their own. Company B should choose colors and designs that best complement their own logo. Rather than copy and pasting their competitor’s content, they should create new content that best explains why they are the better service. There is plenty wrong with copy and pasting another Websites exact content and calling it your own, but there’s nothing wrong with exploring your competitor’s Website and services and finding flaws to exploit. Not to say that we should all bash our competition openly, but rather, we should focus on what we can do right that no one else, not even big-shot company A, can. It’s focusing on our unique talents and services that will ultimately make us the better choice. It makes sense on pie charts to copy everything that the other successful company did since by simple logic, it should provide us with exact results. But with realistic logic, we can realize that this isn’t true. The ideas that worked for the first company aren’t going to work for us too.

Copyright infringement makes copying other’s ideas illegal for one. Moreover, the services of our companies may not match 100% with big-shot companies, so copying every marketing idea wouldn’t make sense. Even if services were to match 100%, ideas should not, and if we were to copy an existing company’s ideas and image and everything else that should otherwise be unique, we wouldn’t even be our own company. The way we become our own, successful company is by finding that niche in the industry that no one else except us can fill. Rather than focusing on another company’s success, a new company must focus on its own.