What a Mobile Website is Supposed to do
website
The Atlas of Emotions
The Atlas of Emotion is a tool to help people better understand what emotions are, how they are triggered and what their effects are, and how to become aware of emotions before acting on them. Read More
The Evolution of Trolling
The internet has a problem, and that problem is people. Dramatic incidents of public harassment, abuse and threatening behaviour are never far from the news, and during recent years, public awareness of this unpleasantness has grown dramatically. With it has come an understanding of the harms done, not just by high-level threats and abusive behaviour but by a more insidious culture of dismissal, denigration and disrespect that surrounds them. Read More
Don’t Do This: EVER
How To Sell Your Stuff Online
Do you make your own jewelry? Are you a vintage-collector extraordinaire? Maybe you’ve considered starting your own online shop, but have shied away from it, thinking it would be too difficult to do. Well, it actually isn’t as hard or as costly to get started as you may think, but certainly requires hard work and determination for your shop to be successful.
the smart girl’s guide to starting an online shop of your very own
Source: How To Sell Your Stuff Online | NYLON
Our Analysis Below:
The outline is standard fare:
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Build Your Brand & Do Your Research
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Actually Build Your Shop
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Kill It on Social Media
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Keep Pushing!
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PART 2: Know Thyself and Thy Target
In this second installment we explore the two most foundational things. Knowing yourself & knowing your target audience. After testing all the industry advice we can say without fail that almost all of it is worthless. Useful in a very limited sense, and what is often missing is the most important thing. Their value proposition is you need to hire these consultants to help you figure it out. We’re giving that away for free.
See Part 1: Everything you need to know about Publishing
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When all else fails create a mnemonic acronym
D.E.A.L. and L.E.A.N.
Back in October, Mr. Cunningham penned an open letter on behalf of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) telling content providers and others, “We messed up.”
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Infographic: 9 Features You NEED On Mobile
Top 9 Features Consumers Want On Mobile [Infographic]
When creating a mobile website you think of typography and decide not to experiment with font colors and types. You carefully select content that would engage and entertain. You even predict your vis…
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When Algorithms Go Bad
Filed Under: What were they thinking?
When You See What is Wrong: Share
Last night HBO premiered a teaser two months from its premier of Game of Thrones. It is entitled ‘Hall of Faces’ Teaser. So naturally wanting to remember what the name of the actual temple is we did a search.(Actual answer: House of Black & White) When the ‘Google Information box’ above showed up to the right of our search results we were shocked. Do you see what might be out of place there?
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Great Thoughts from the founder of Pinboard
Fan Is A Tool-Using Animal
Below are some highlights of the talk, or take-away points to the talk that seemed to be far-reaching when dealing with social media. Read the whole thing by clicking the picture above or following the link at the bottom. Read More
Flexibility
“The web’s greatest strength, I believe, is often seen as a limitation, as a defect. It is the nature of the web to be flexible, and it should be our role as designers and developers to embrace this flexibility and product pages which, by being flexible, are accessible to all.”
—John Allsop
Source: Chapter 10 | Foundations of Web Design
Design is a conversation
PLATFORM SHIFTS CHANGE EVERYTHING
Looking back to the mid-2000s and the Web 2.0 era, we witnessed a period of huge change for the internet, where it changed from static pages and moved towards applications.
Sites like Google Maps or Flickr opened up their APIs, meaning anyone could build websites pulling in that data. With this ability to build new things on top of this data, websites were transformed from static pages into services.
A similar transformation is happening today. Bots are to modern messaging apps what APIs were to Web 2.0; a way to build on top of other services, experiment, and create a new way of interacting with existing services. It’s the start of a significant new way of interacting with computers. Read More
Salon.com in 1999
Wonder what Salon.com looked like in 1999? Nostalgic for the web’s beginnings? Take a look at this throwback/flashback to see a site that still holds up & looks greater today than half of the websites we visit!
Source: Salon1999.com
Negotiations: Currency of Attention
Now, it’s reasonable for me to expect that the site requires a revenue stream. It’s reasonable to expect that there’ll be some way to monetise my presence there. But that’s it; that’s where the line is. In every other context in life, I get to choose whether to participate in the resulting transaction. With advertising, though, you’ve made the decision for me – in fact, several decisions: the means, format, and currency of exchange.
It’s the last one that’s particularly troubling. Without even giving me the chance to opt out, you’ve declared – as soon as I stepped in the door, and before I’ve looked around – that I owe you the currency of attention. Read More
A Website Designed
When metrics drive newsroom culture
“Metrics inspire a range of strong feelings in journalists, such as excitement, anxiety, self-doubt, triumph, competition, and demoralization,” Petre writes. Depending on how they’re implemented, metrics can have vastly divergent effects on editorial culture. But regardless of how newsrooms shield their staff, Petre found, the emotional effect remains.
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Sharing ≠ Reading
What You Think You Know About the Web Is Wrong
If you’re an average reader, I’ve got your attention for 15 seconds, so here goes: We are getting a lot wrong about the web these days. We confuse what people have clicked on for what they’ve read. We mistake sharing for reading. We race towards new trends like native advertising without fixing what was wrong with the old ones and make the same mistakes all over again. Read More
What Is Responsive Design, Really?
What is responsive design?
In short, responsive design can be described as building a site, accounting for the varying screen sizes and resolutions that are commonly found on consumer devices in both mobile and desktop browsing. In function, images and columns of content will adjust to account for the different screen real estate, even hiding or showing different sections of content to mobile or desktop users, who regularly access different types. Think of it as intuitive consistency for a website across devices; it’s a must in modern web design.
Is there anything else I should know?
There are two noteworthy methods for developing a responsive design: fluid and adaptive. A fluid design uses percentages to adjust a responsive site, shrinking each pixel as the browser size changes. Alternatively, adaptive relies on set style sizes that have no break points in between. For instance, the 1400px iteration of a site has one layout, 1024px has another, and in between these sizes nothing changes, until the break point is reached and the site snaps to a new layout size. It’s best to employ and keep up to date on both; different sites may require a different responsive approach.
Source: What Is Responsive Design, Really? | Headspace Design
Your Site Sucks: 4 Reasons Why Everything Is Going Wrong
CMS Comparison Infographic
Comparison chart of 3 most popular Content Management systems: WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. Get to know all the pros and cons of each platform.
Source: CMS comparison – WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal |WebsiteSetup.org
Facebook Likes Are Not “Vanity Metrics” ?!?
Really, tell us more?
In the past month I have attended two webinars with thought-leaders from the social media marketing space in which one of the luminaries referred to Likes on Facebook as “vanity metrics” as if this were uncontestable common knowledge. This was troubling for three reasons. First, it reveals engrained prejudices about social media that are simply false. Second, it suggests a profound ignorance about the mechanics of social media platforms. Third, it indicates that direct-response thinking still dominates much of the discourse around social media marketing.
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How to Persuasively Build and Promote Your Brand Online [INFOGRAPHIC]
In the following infographic, originally published by FreeWebsite.com, discover some very valuable tips on building your brand online. They include tips like “custom tailoring your message,” “standing out in the marketplace,” “utilizing social media,” and so much more. It’s not going to be a walk in the park but it is certainly obtainable and should be the goal of any small business.
Source: How To Effectively Build Your Brand Online [Infographic] | Search Engine Journal
Protected: What is Microbranding?
Rule #1:
Jakob’s Law of the Web User Experience states that “users spend most of their time on other websites.” This means that they form their expectations for your site based on what’s commonly done on most other sites. If you deviate, your site will be harder to use and users will leave.
Source: Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design
GLEAMsocial 