Showing posts with label web. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web. Show all posts

29 November 2012

Web-design HowNotTo

Seen recently on a mailing-list I receive:

> These guys stock 29mm Crown Caps http://www.africancork.co.za


Went off to take a look at their website...



"You have to be logged in to view our products"


They have to be joking! I can only assume that they actively hate it when people want to buy their stuff. Needless to say, I bounced.


Do people really still misunderstand the nature of the web that badly when we're already more than 10% of the way through the 21st Century?

23 May 2011

Web Site Passwords

"Signing up" for yet another something-social-facebook-wannabe website, I was struck by a random Thought Particle.


Why do all these websites ask me to enter a password twice?

No, seriously! I know the stock answers. Hell, I've written such web-signup forms myself, more times than I care to think about.

Am I that likely to misspell a password? And who would care, when all I have to do is click a link that says something like, "I forgot my password!" to get a new password sent to me. Or a reminder. Or my original password. Or some other way of recovering from my "spelling error".

So, tell me again, why are we typing these things twice inthe first place?

20 April 2011

shrtn: A URL-shortener

Everyone should have their own personal URL shortener, shouldn't they?
I figured that this wouldn't take more than a couple of hours to write. And, indeed, the core functionality didn't take much more time than that. But then we start designing our way round the shortcuts and quick-and-dirty hacks we've used to "get things going quickly", writing unit-tests and comments explaining our thinking, adding some JSP pages so that we can exercise the whole mess, brewing a couple of batches of beer in between times... let's just leave it at a little bit longer!


Why?

Indeed! Why would anybody want Their Very Own Personal URL Shortener?


First: I don't really trust all the "cloudy" hype going around right now. For a start, I have no good reason to trust bit.ly, is.gd, goo.gl or any of the other several-dozen public shorteners. Not that I have much reason to distrust them, but really, I don't know them or the people behind them from a bar of soap. And why should I, like a sheep, participate in generating value[1] for someone who gives me little or nothing in return aside from a shorter, opaque URL that requires an extra network round-trip? And let's not forget that these entities have a nasty tendency to vanish, sometimes rather abruptly. Companies get bought and the acquiring company borgs the product, or sees no value in it, or any of a thousand other corpthink accidents may happen.

Then, too, what sort of assurance do I have that I'll ever be able to get my data (and if I shorten a reference, it's my reference) out of their service ever again? Granted that Google does make some effort in that direction (or at least nods benignly while their engineers do it), but, like the actions of the kakistocracy throughout history, things are only good until a single bad apple rots the barrel.


Second: I don't have PHP deployed on my servers and have no wish to add to the system-administration burden I already have to deal with, so I distinctly want something written in Java...


Third: A whole lot of the URL-shortening services out there don't give any analytics. At least not of those that I can self-host. I think that the analytics angle is compelling. Conventional web analytics - like Google Analytics - are only accessible to the people who created and host the content under analysis. They know where their audience came from, when and how, but nobody else does. If I refer people to some web-stuff[2] I'd like to get an idea of how many people I influenced - how many people followed my recommendation. It is a measure of my own reputation and influence, so highly personal[3]. URL-shorteners give us a way to measure, with a reasonable degree of accuracy and assurance, the influence we have in persuading others to follow our webby blatherings.

I will confess that Google's shortening service is pretty good, and has some nice-ish analytics, but I still think it's in our own best interest to keep at least some stuff out of Google's (or anybody's) mitts. Just on general principles.


An Unexpected Bonus

As it turns out, this is a really, really nice project to use for teaching a JSP/Servlet course, so I'll be reversing it into my Java web-dev course. It covers all the principles I like to get across, from container-managed security through session management and clever use of error-pages, to exploiting the underlying infrastructure properly (instead of hoping that some crapulatious web framework will substitute for your own lack of knowledge or understanding.)


Where?

I'll be releasing the code under the GNU Affero General Public License (probably via Google Code). Just have some tidying-up to do first (like getting license notices in place.) The first deployment is very feature incomplete - there's quite a bit I'd still like to add to the app - and some downright dodgy implementation details that need replacing in time, but for now its working for me.


Drop me a line if you're desperate to have it work for you and can't wait...

[1] At least I assume they get some value out of hosting their shorteners, otherwise why would they do it?
[2] I despise the word "content", despite using it quite frequently.
[3] And, YES, ego-gratifying[4].
[4] Or ego-destroying, as the case may be.

29 July 2010

Refresher Training is Good, Too!

Some while ago I was teaching a course -- Java Web Application Programming, as it happens --  to a group of quite-experienced web developers working in a large corporate environment. Needless to say, we all thought that this was yet another case of the Training Department getting their act together waaaay too late...

We soon discovered, however, that some of the core concepts and technologies of Java Web Application development were, at best, only poorly understood, even by the most experienced developers in the group. Many of the details of the HTTP protocol were unknown to them, as was the development of custom Tag Libraries -- a key component for developing clean, maintainable Java Web applications without in-page scripting. They had not thought much about the consequences of placing large (multi-megabyte) objects in the application Session... (this is in a clustered web-container environment!)

This is not a criticism of those developers! They had, for years, been delivering absolutely critical business functionality. This is merely an observation that technologies move on; sometimes developers need a little help to catch up, since their management usually neglects to allow time for self-study catch-up on new evolutions in the technology.

More important, it is an observation that Development Managers, Team Leaders and Project Managers shouldn't assume that their developers are completely up-to-date on the technologies they're using for day-to-day development.

Replicated from http://coco.co.za/wiki/KeyTechnologyTrainingStory

11 February 2010

User Interface Redesigns

I love this quote by E. A. Vander Veer in "Why Does Facebook Keep Redesigning?"

typically users aren't considered at all when it comes to software redesigns. I wouldn't have believed this if I hadn't seen it in action on countless projects in several different companies! The attitude is, "We're the experts, we know what you want and need, our redesign is making it better, and it won't take more than a few minutes for you to get up to speed."

This is more true than I care to think about! Case in point: the SA Weather Service's abomination of a website. They went from a site that, while it had its faults, was uncluttered, easy to navigate, and pretty useful to an astonishingly broad range of audiences whose weather-and-climate-information needs are wildly different: from farmers to firefighters, airline pilots to town-planners. The new site provoked such a backlash when it was first released that the Weather Service website developers were forced to put in links back to the old site in order to provide the vast swathes of information that was missing from the new one.1

Rather than ragging any further on the shitty Weather Service website, allow me to point out one fundamental driver of user-interface redesigns that E A Vander Veer seems to have missed... a reason that goes, in fact, far further than UI redesigns, but is all too often a well concealed motivation for many, many software rewrites and redesigns: We redesign and rewrite because the developers want to play around with a bunch of flavour-of-the-day, oooh-shiny-new-toy technologies.

Not knocking E A's basic insight, though... The motivation seldom comes from the users (or their legitimate representatives) themselves, but almost always from the technical insiders who want change for change's sake.

Like those who thought that adding autoboxing and varargs to the Java language was a value-add...


[1] At the same time the SAWS web designers tried to do the whole "Social Weather 2.0" thing. Sadly they missed the point completely. Any negative comments on the forums regarding the new site were silently deleted. Way to build trust, guys!

19 July 2008

Datapro/Vox Spam Wrapup

Its been a long, long time... way too long... since I promised to report back on my complaint to the ISPA in which I accused Datapro/Vox Telecom of being spammers.

The first part of the ISPA's complaint-handling procedure is to have the parties try and resolve matters between them. Datapro's attempt to brush me off was a laugh:

So eventually, somewhere around March, the event wound its way to the ISPA's Complaints Committee who deliberated, and some weeks later, sent me a formal Ruling:

Datapro/Vox Telecom were found guilty of spamming, and fined R100 000 (about EUR10 000 at the time.)

Naturally Datapro appealed this decision, as was their right. Unfortunately the appeals process is quite a slow one, so it was only about 9 June that I was informed of the outcome of the appeals process:

On appeal it was found that Datapro/Vox Telecom were confirmed as being guilty of spamming (through address repurposing.) The fines were, however, reduced to R45 000, most of which has been suspended for 12 months, provided that Datapro/Vox do not spam again within that period of time. Effectively Datapro/Vox have had to pay a paltry R7 500 in fines. Their guilt remains undisputed.

This strikes me as the ISPA having no balls.

The Appeals Committee recomended that Datapro/Vox
...ensure that a working opt-out facility is provided on all marketing emails and to report back to the ISPA complaints administrator within 1 (one) calendar month of receipt of this report on remedial action taken by it. The Appeals Panel recommended (which recommendation is not binding) that such remedial action should also include cleaning its email marketing lists to avoid a repetition of this complaint. This could be achieved by way of a reminder email requesting recipients to confirm their desire to continue receiving such emails (opt in), which is preferable, or by requesting them to indicate their preference not to receive such communications (opt out), which is adequate and then abiding by the indicated preference.
To my knowledge none of this has happened. I have received neither an opt-in request, nor any opportunity to op-out.

The only communication I have had was on 3 June -- 8 days after the Appeal Ruling -- I received yet another marketing spam from Datapro/Vox... still no opt-out link, still no confirmed opt-in. I just have not had the time or energy to follow-up with another complaint of this violation of the suspension conditions imposed by the ISPA on Datapro/Vox.

Further, the ISPA's documentation carries a notice stating
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL:
All communication is confidential and may not be distributed.
See http://www.ispa.org.za/commsrules for more info.
so I am effectively barred from making the original PDFs available, despite (or perhaps because of) my having made it clear to the ISPA that it was my firm intention to publish the course of events and all documents.

I am also unable to find any notice, link or reference to this ruling on the ISPA website. Are they too afraid of the potential income-loss should one of their largest spammers members get pissed-off enough to depart the Association?

A pretty sorry indication of the general state of the local ISP industry, I'm afraid.

23 February 2008

As BAD as Some can be, Others can be GREAT

We interrupt the on-going diatribe between my self and Datapro/Vox Telecom[1] to bring you Good News for Modern Persons.

In the supermortal words of Hubert Farnsworth, "Good News, Everyone!".

Last eve some mishap caused my DSL model/router to disconnect.  For some while it failed to reconnect: AUTH_FAIL, it said.

Now, my ISP, WebAfrica, whom I hold in very high regard, has been having an occasional little trouble in recent times with their authentication servers.  So: patience is the order of the day.  It was quite late in the day, so my bed called, nothing in my little local network really needed Internet access overnight, so I left matters until the morning, in the hopes that the problems would be resolved without any input on my part.

They were not.

So... Onto the phone this morning.  Less than two rings!  (Contrast this with giving up after an hour on hold last week with Telkom!)  Spoke to a chap who was remarkably candid: "Yes, we have had a problem, and a few accounts seem (for reasons we don't fully understand, yet) to have been stuck in an "inactive" queue.  We're terribly sorry.  I am sorting it out right now [clickety clickety clickety click]; would you like to hold?"

I declined to hold.  The pain of being on hold to Telkom being too fresh in my psyche, I suppose.  After suitable pleasantries I hung up.

A couple minutes later the phone rang.  Same chap from WebAfrica.  " I see that your modem seems to be having some trouble connecting.  Could we please confirm the password it is using to connect...?"

Well, Bugger Me Sideways With A Spoon!  Not only did WebAfrica's support guy sort the problem out instantly, with an ordinary, human-to-human acknowledgment that something had, indeed, gone wrong, but, after I had explicitly said "Ticket closed; I'll call you if there is any further problem." had monitored the situation to make sure that I -- The Lowly Customer -- had been properly sorted out, and called me back to make sure of it!

What am I saying, here?
  • I could have raved about not being kept on hold in some support-queue for an hour or longer.
  • I could have raved about the great service I received during the handling of my support call.
  • I could have raved all night in San Fransisco with the hot chick on her way to Hawaii (but that's another story!)
This guy -- unasked for -- stayed attentive to my little problem until he was as sure as he could be, that it had been solved to my satisfaction.  Not his.  Not Webafrica's.  Mine.

Here's a significant point: None of us (modulo the Absolutely Bloody Minded) is so stupid as to believe that everything Works Flawlessly All the Time.  Shit Happens.  We know this.  When it does, please don't lie to us and use phrasing designed to imply that we, the Customer, are Stupid, Insane and/or Lying!  Please don't pretend that it is Somebody Else's Fault or an Act Of (somebody's) God. (Hello, Telkom!)  If you've fucked up, admit it, apologise, and move on. Nobody will hold it against you.  In fact, given the current climate of Assumed Corporate Infalibilty, we'll sympathise and likely offer to help you fix it!

Just say "Yes.  We Had a problem.  We've fixed it. (OR: Here's what we're busy doing to Fix It.)  We're sorry."

If it is a significant proportion of the working day, offer a credit for the lost service time.  Not difficult, is it?  Not Rocket Science!
I cannot think of a way to praise this enough!

This most recent incident is the perfect exemplar of the sort of brilliant, attentive, honest service  I have unfailingly received from WebAfrica!  I have had a friend[2] phone me up especially to say, "Thank you for putting me on to WebAfrica as a service provider!  I've since recommended them to at least 15 other people!".

I kid you not!

If anyone in South Africa wants or needs ADSL service, Internet access or web-hosting, do yourself a favour: www.webafrica.co.za

Their rates are amongst the lowest around.  Their service is out of all proportion to what you pay!  (i.e. It's brilliant!) If they ever get bought out by Vox Telecom I shall probably have to leave the country -- and even then I won't find an ISP as good!

[1] A "keyboard/finger" interaction nearly made that "Pox Telecom", whIch would have been appropriate...


[2] We've known each other over 35 years, now... I think that qualifies as friendship, no?

15 February 2008

Taking on the Spammers: Datapro/Vox Telecom - Part 1

For well over a year now I've been getting spammed by Datapro (a Vox Telecom subsidiary) with sundry Friendly Newsletters, Product Offers and Special Crap We're Sure Will Interest You.  Now we're in a fight argument complaint-resolution discussion.

Background

Datapro is a fairly large supplier in SA of web and email hosting, ISP services, and all the myriad little bitty services around that.  They're also one of only 15 "Large" members of the Internet Service Providers' Association -- the industry's self-regulation watchdog in SA -- and hence a signatory to ISPA's Code of Conduct, which includes a clause saying, in effect, "members won't support spam or spamming."

I have never been one of Datapro's customers because I think their technical standards are... dodgy... to say the least.  But, I have had contact with some of their technical staff in the course making changes to email, web-hosting and DNS on behalf of some of my clients who do use Datapro as their service provider.  For whatever misguided reasons.  Evidently, some of Datapro's tech staff have had their email address-books "harvested" by The Marketroid Department.  Or Something.  How ever it happened, my email address got repurposed without my knowledge or prior consent.  A major point, here, is that I have never been in a business relationship with this company.

In the anti-spam world "repurposing" is considered a Very Bad Thing, and will result in instant and permanent blacklisting on some aggressively well-run mail servers.

I've lost count of the number of times I have emailed the sender asking, demanding, pleading or threatening legal action, in the interests of getting off their mailing lists.  Countless times I've clicked on the (rarely present) "unsubscribe" links and jumped through web-page hoops to get unsubscribed.  Nary a confirmation have I received.  Nor has any of this actually diminished the volume of crap I get from them.

To add insult to injury, Vox Telecom, the parent company, have in turn taken to spamming their subsidiary's lists.

A Lightbulb Moment

A short while ago, a contact on one of the local Internet-industry mailing lists I haunt, suggested that I lodge a complaint with ISPA.  I must confess that I had never seriously thought about it, but maybe worth a try...

I waited.  Made sure I gathered and archived the evidence.  Then, last Tuesday, I struck: lodged a complaint via the ISPA's webform:

Action The First: The Complaint
NameISP: Datapro/Vox Telecom
name: <redacted>
email: <redacted>
Address: <redacted>
Telephone: <redacted>
Cellphone: <redacted>
SectionCoC: E. Unsolicited bulk mail (spam)
Details:

I have never been a customer of Datapro.  My only interactions with them have been on behalf of my clients, in the course of managing clients' DNS, email, hosting, etc. technical requirements where those services have been provided (at the clients' choice) by Datapro.  As such my interactions have been with technical service personnel only.

During the course of such interactions Datapro staff have, without my consent or prior knowledge, added my email address to various mailing lists that they use to send marketing "newsletters" and advertisements (a.k.a. address repurposing.)

I have on numerous occasions requested that my details be removed from all mailing lists and databases under Datapro's control to no avail.  I have made such requests telphonically, by email, and by clicking through the (rare) unsubscribe links that some of this spam contains.

Finally I have records good enough to prove my point.  Their latest "February newletter", sent in duplicate today, 9 February 2008, is in clear violation of

1) my past instruction to them of 2 August 2007 (and subsequent, evidence-free removal-link-clicking)

2) the ECT Act itself, in failing to meet the information provision and opt-out requirements of the Act, and

3) the ISPA Code of ConductCopies of all relevant emails are available from myself.
Let's see what results...

29 April 2007

5 Trust Points for Website Usability

For a while now I've been working (slowly) on a new web application; the details are unimportant; I'll talk about the specifics in a couple of months when I'm ready to show something.  I have about 60% of the backend written, and am just starting in on the web frontend.

I am far from being a good "web designer", having the graphic-design and artistic skills of a newt.  The best I can hope for is creative imitation.  It worked for the Japanese car manufacturers, didn't it?  Consequently, I am paying close attention to what works and what irks on other websites, particularly the flow around initial engagement and user sign-up.  Here are the most irritating and unnecessary five things I've figured out.  These are all prompted by stuff I see over, and over, and over again on website after website.  It's getting old.

1. Don't Make Me Jump Through Premature Hoops

Allow me to explore the website. I am entitled to poke about and get some reasonable idea of what the site does, the why and how, before you ask me (or require me) to create an account.

I grant its really not a big deal creating an account, especially since most/all of the details I'll give you initially will be bogus because I have no reason to trust you at first. IBM still, about ten years after filling in a webform on their site, send junk mail (the paper kind) to "Lord Mike" :-)  But there's still some small effort involved in entering a Login-ID, email address and whatever other bits and pieces you require me to fabricate before you allow me into your walled garden.

If I cannot fathom enough detail about the site, if it does not help me to figure out the value proposition it offers me, I will just walk (well, click) away to somewhere else.  The Web is, for all intents and purposes, infinite.  For me to have stumbled across your tiny patch of virtuality was nearly a miracle in the first instance.  Don't block me from finding out whether I want to actually give you my time and attention.

2.  Don't Assume a Trust You Haven't Earned Yet

When I actually do sign up for an account, don't ask me for my whole life history, food preferences, sexual orientation and DNA samples.  I'll just lie, anyway.  I don't really trust you yet.  I only think that your site may have something I want.  This ties into the previous point: The more information I am able to glean before signing-up, the less likely I am to lie to you about myself, the more trust you will have created between us.

For the site I am building, I will be asking for:
  1. Your choice of Login ID
  2. Your email address.
Nothing else.  I don't need to know anything more about you yet; why would I assume that you're willing to give me any more?  I will generate a password and send it to you; I need to confirm that your email address works anyway, and, since I want to be able to send you email, I need you to confirm that you're OK with that, so I may as well send you a password at the same time.  You can always change it to that standard password you use everywhere later, if your browser doesn't remember it for you, anyway.

Incidentally, I just made the sign-up process as quick and painless as it can possibly get, didn't I?  There's only one way to make the process shorter.  Do you really, really need people to sign-up?  I know its an attractive proposition to a certain mindset, but is it really, truly necessary?

As I gain confidence in the site, I may go back to my profile page and fill in missing details, and correct some of the more egregious inventions.  This may take months or even years.  This brings me to my next point:

3. I Am Human, Ergo I Forget.


OK, so you don't burden me by asking for too many personal preferences and details early on.  Well done!  On the downside of that, I will repay your consideration by almost instantly forgetting that I left out details, lied about my birthdate or typed jarblewarblefarble into that form-field.  I know that you can actually make your site more useful and usable to me if I do give you those details, I just was not ready yet.

I suggest that you remind me occasionally.  Perhaps every second or third time I sign in, put a little reminder message on my landing-page, and ask me to fill in one specific piece of missing data.  And make it dead easy for me to do so, either by linking to my profile-management page, or by placing a relevant edit-field right there on the page.  Don't get tiresome by nagging me every time.

And while we're talking about reminders, if you're running any kind of email service, do remind me that I am subscribed, together with my subscription details and your unsub-algorithm periodically -- not more than once a month, but not less than quarterly.  Perhaps in the form of a newsletter.  (You did get my explicit permission to send me email, didn't you?)

4.  Don't Make Me Sign In Again

I'm talking about the phase immediately after initial-sign-up.  I've made the emotional commitment (however small!) to sign-up with your site.  Don't immediately demand that I do more work by signing-in.  I've just told you all that stuff -- login-id, password (twice, no doubt) -- don't make me type it all in again.  You're just being tiresome.

What?  Did you think somebody may have hijacked my IP address in the intervening two second?  That some malware may have sucked your session cookie out of my browser for nefarious unpredictable purposes?  Get over it: you already know who I am (for some value of "know".)

And then, once I am "signed in", don't forget it. (Hello, Feedburner!)

5. Reciprocate My Trust


Having
  1. signed-up for an account, possibly
  2. jumping through the confirmation email hoop, and then
  3. signed-in to that new account
Don't pretend you don't know me!  Don't present me with a page that says

Get an Account with Us!
Here is how:
Step #1: Create an account at Flibertigibbet.com
Step #2: Blah, blah, blah.
Step #3: Blah, blah, blah.

That's it!! What are you waiting for? Get major benefits, make money, win friends, influence millions! Create your account now!
Didn't I just do this?  Who are these idiots?
You just trashed my tentative trust in you.  Goodbye.

16 December 2006

Technorati STILL sucks (and blows!)

In response to "The Technorati prism vs reality":

Technorati is a joke - a complete fucking waste of time. 

As a source of statistics it is meaningless, inconsistent within their its own presentation, and takes forever to catch up with reality - sometimes months.

As a search engine it sucks.  Google's blogsearch is way, way better at finding relevant blogs and articles.

And then Technorati have the gall to present Alexa stats on blogs, too, as if Alexa's stats were any better.

This has all been covered before.  Ad nauseam.

Frankly, I'm not sure why we all keep using this piece of crap. Perhaps its time to build something that actually works!

01 October 2006

Guy Kawasaki Finally Catching-up with Me?

In Is Advertising Dead?” Guy Kawasaki finally reaches the place I was at in "Why Advertising is Broken", posted back in July.

Welcome, Guy!  Its going to be very interesting to see how this story plays out.

15 August 2006

Social Networking 2.0?

A thing that really, really irritates me about the whole "social networking" hoopla is how it takes such a short view of history.  Dave Pollard has a very nice, very useful writeup about social networking (2.0-style).  (Sidebar: Was that mindmap done using Freemind, Dave?  Great piece of software!)

But let's not forget that we humans have been "social networking" since before we fell out the trees.  The fact that we're now trying to do so over the 'net, through a much-lower-bandwidth interface than we're geared for (nothing beats face-to-face!) just means that we've set ourselves some obstacles to overcome.

Perhaps the only significant contribution that the 'net brings is the ability to communicate anonymously.  Some might argue that this is also the handicap that the 'net brings to our conversations, too, since it is what enables spam, wiki defacements, etc.  But I think that anonymity is also exactly what allows us to express a lot more of our true nature, our inner self.

27 July 2006

Why is CSS so damn HARD?

Seems to me that the whole CSS model is pretty poorly designed.  It shouldn't be so damn hard to implement a website design.  I'm not talking about bleeding-edge Zen Garden stuff; I'm talking about very simple layouts.

For a start I prefer liquid layouts: That graphic designers coming from more traditional media hate fear and loath the concept, I understand.  Its a mindset - the user has partial control over how a thing looks - and many graphic designers have trouble dealing with their inability to guarantee pixel-perfect alignments.  Perhaps the user wears hectic prescription glasses, so 18pt fonts are a reasonable default for them.  Get over it.

Secondly, I'm no n00b at CSS.  Whilst I'm hardly a professional CSS designer, I think I understand the concepts and details pretty well, and I've fumbled my way around a fair number of web designs using CSS with results that have attracted fair compliment from people who do that stuff professionally. (No, this blog is not currently an example! That's what I'm working on.)

But its still so damn hard!

One of two thing I think are needed: either
  1. a redesign of CSS that works to a "springs 'n' struts" layout model, or alternatively a "springs 'n' struts" model that can get compiled to CSS2 (possibly on the fly as a filter), or
  2. the additional of another "position" mode in CSS - "absolute-relative" positioning - absolute positioning of an element, but relative to the containing box.
Number one is unlikely (except maybe as a translated/compiled language), but number 2 is possible without breaking existing CSS-based layouts.

It would sure make simple layouts a hell of a lot simpler to implement.

24 July 2006

Reports of the Death of Email Greatly Exagerated

So there have been a couple of surveys among college students indicating that the surveyed population mostly uses IM to keep in touch with their social circle.  They only ever use email to contact companies and "old people" like their parents, and view email as "old fashioned".  This has led some commentators to pronounce the Imminent Demise of Email as communication channel in the Internet.

Horseshit!

Social Networks are Killing Email? - I think not! What we are seeing here is the confluence of two things:
  1. Younger people have more time on their hands, and so are more inclined to spend some or much of that time in online communities, or social networks. (Newsflash: Social networks are nothing new.  We've been doing social networks since before we fell out the trees!)  As a result they tend not to use email, preferring IM, as email lacks an immediacy - we're seeing the impatience of youth.
  2. As one ages, one's priorities, as well as the demands on one's time, change.  Therefore, the preferred modes and channels of communication one favours are likely to change with age.  Duh.  Why do I love my cellphone more than my landline?  It does voicemail.  I can disconnect without missing anything.  There are times - many times - when I prefer to disconnect.  I truly won't miss anything important in the endless torrent of attention-grabbing shit, and I need time to myself.  Time to stop and think. Time to reflect.  And I'm not insecure about it.
So, in a nutshell, we see 1) the impatience of being young, and 2) the insecurity of being young, reflected in some surveys that say that young people don't much use email.

And from this, people are extrapolating Email is Dead?  Let's see the same surveys done on the same populations 5, 10, 20 years from now, and lets see how their channels of communication have changed then.  Perhaps then we can begin to draw some conclusions, instead of this bogus pseudo-science.

Otherwise I will stick to my premise: Death of Email Greatly Exagerated.

Disclaimer: I am in my mid-40's and have two sons who fall into the "youth" category, one at Rhodes University, the other a hotshot Software Developer.  As such, my views may be biased.

08 July 2006

Blogosphere Blues

I hate the word "blogosphere".  It sucks.  Its just an ugly word.  The person who thought of it should be shot.  Come on!  Own up!  We know you're out there, and, Google willing, we'll find you eventually!

So, not one to accept generalised wingeing, I propose a replacement: Blogsphere.

There, see?  By dropping just one little letter, its a whole heap more palatable.  Although I confess it does remind me of "Vogsphere"...

22 May 2006

Front Door Syndrome

Ever on the lookout for god and bad ideas in software user-interface design, here is one on LinkedIn really blows me away. Its a classic case of what I term Front Door Syndrome.

Front Door Syndrome is a website misfeature most often designed-in by web designers who come from the conventional advertising or conventional media world - a world where there really is a Front Door - a single point of entry.  Somehow they try to keep hold of this idea in the web, where it really doesn't apply at all.  They forget, or never absorbed the fact, that every page in a website is a Front Door.  And, in a world of such abundance that the only realistic way to navigate to content we seek is through search, every page is guaranteed to be used as a Front Door: A First Point of Entry into a website.

We've all seen those sites; if you're lucky its just a big page saying "Welcome to Fubar.com.  Click <here> to enter."  If you're less lucky it is a great ugly Flash animation.  Personally I never get further - my mouse finger has reflexively clicked me away to somewhere safer and more pleasant in the 'net.

So what has this to do with LinkedIn?  I searched for the name of someone I knew long ago, and their name turned up on LinkedIn.  I clicked the link from the search-results page to take a look whether this page really belongs to the person I was looking for.  Something like http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/801/801 (I'll use my brother's LinkedIn page to illustrate, firstly to protect the unwary, and secondly because I know he won't mind some publicity). 

Go ahead - click the link.  I'll wait here for you....

...Good!  You're back.  If you're using a decent browser you can have both pages open on different tabs so you can see exactly what I'm about to tell you about.  But I digress...

On the destination LinkedIn page, there are a couple of links enabling non-members of the LinkedIn network to Join Now.  Very good.  Very viral.  But I am already a LinkedIn user.

Where is the link allowing me to log in?  Where is a link to a login page?  Nowhere.

No wonder LinkedIn is seen by geeks as a tool purely for spammers and fools.
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