Share what you know, Learn what you don’t. This is the evolution of one Afrikan.
Another posting on e-Consultancy:
Google launches Cost-Per-Action adverts
In an interesting move, Google has started offering cost-per-action advertising to selected website owners on the Adsense programme. In short it’s aimed at getting around the click fraud that is becoming increasingly worrying for Google – where advertisers only derive an income when the website visitor completes an action.
After much deliberation and discussion, the next Web 2.0 / Geek BBQ is going to be on Sat the 5th August, starting in the afternoon.
We’re going to be having a BraaiMasters this time (Braai is Saffa for BBQ) - basically a cook-off where the cooks get to cook their best dishes, then get judged by the “tasters” (we’re all tasters!). There will be at least 4 Webers in action, with some seasoned pro’s manning the braai tongs, so it should be a real feast.
All you need to do is bring some snacks, drinks, and a fiver - that will get you all the food you can eat, and hopefully a nice healthy dose of Vitamin D.
OK, so here’s the summary:
Web 2.0 / Geek BBQ, done by real BraaiMasters
Sat 5th August
20 Farquhar Road, SW19 8DA
Doors open at 1pm, make sure you’re there before feeding time!
Hope to see you there 
Last year amidst the Live8 concert and the G8 Summit at Gleneagles, I set up G8Reboot with Damien, in an effort to raise the profile of the G8 Summit and it’s importance. Our position was that there are a lot of web sites, and there are a lot of web users, and probably a high percentage of them are either apathetic or simply don’t know enough about the G8. Also we’re African, and with the focus of last years Live 8 concert on poverty, and some of the G8 focus on Africa, it made sense…
So the idea was to get people to do a reboot of their web sites / blogs / home pages the day before the concert and the summit began, to highlight the issue to the people that visited their sites. During the time before that we asked site owners to add a button to their site, to get more people involved.
All in all we did about 12k hits to the site in the 10 days leading up to the Summit, with traffic coming from various sources, and about 60k hits up until I stopped counting late August last year.
So in my book the initiative was a success although there’s no way to really tell whether the message was gotten accross - we can only hope that the message of “Every single day, 30,000 children die, needlessly, of extreme poverty.” hit home with some people.
This year, I’ve wanted to get it up again in time for the G8 Summit in Russia, building on what we did last year, but I’ve just not had the time needed to dedicate to it and neither has Damien. So I feel kinda guilty and a little bit like a loser - I had hoped to get things moving by the start of June, which then moved to end June / start July, but client work has just had to be the priority (unfortunately keeping a roof over my head, food on the table and building a business has been more of a pressing priority).
My gut feel is that I should pick my battles, and do what I’ve got planned instead for the summit next year in Germany (In the summer of 2007, the annual G8 Summit comes to Germany. The meeting will take place in the Kempinski Grand Hotel in Heiligendamm in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, an exclusive health resort on the East Sea. Heiligendamm is about 20km west of Rostock, 200km from Berlin.), so that there is time to do it properly and to do it the justice that I would really like to.
There also hasn’t been much press about the 2006 Summit in the UK, but there does seem to be a lot more going on online about the Summit in 2007, for what reason I’m not entirely sure.
That said, my gut feel is based on my current situation and on no external input, so it’s not too late to do something, even if it’s something small, but I don’t have the time over the next two weeks to do it all on my own. We don’t live in a perfect world, so I’m happy to concede that something is better than nothing at all…
So, I’m asking you in earnest - what do you think? Should we do something? Would you help me by giving half an hour to an hour of your time to get the word out? Any comments or feedback would be much appreciated
My housemate Dunners just took delivery of his new phone tonight, so we all sat around my PC checking out the specs online. Typical web geek that I am, I was more interested in the UI how the site had changed since I was last there, more than anything else… And although I really like it, and it looks nice and fresh on the surface, underneath it’s nice and bloated
It’s got gradients, simplicity and white space, but it’s lacking clean URL’s, semantic markup free of tables (where appropriate of course), uses Flash on the front page, and has loads and loads of inline styling and js bloat… Shoot forward to a language landing page, and things get no better… Opening up the product detail page and again it gets no better… Suprisingly enough, however, the product detail page passes W3C validation and so does the language landing page…
Now, don’t get me wrong here - it works and it looks really good, but when I look at the source I start getting quesy and feel a little like I’m being led astray by someone who really should know better - how can something so beautiful look so ugly underneath? My private hunch is that the project manager at Big Corp (Sony Ericsson?) was given a validation report saying that things are hunky dory and passing validation, so unwittingly it was signed it off and here we are. My position is that I’d rather stand in front of a firing squad or be hung by my rather large big toe, than release code like that on a large public website…
What do you think?
I’ve been writing a bit on user generated content (waiting for editorial consent!) lately for e-consultancy and there seems to be a real thread moving around the blogosphere where the emphasis seems to be on real writing for real people, not writing for the sake of advertising clicks or for what you think your audience wants to hear, but actually connecting with people - when you do that, it’s the purest and possibly easiest to do. The knock on effect is that you do develop a community around whatever you’re interested in…
So, without further ado, here’s some bedtime reading for you:
Jeff Veen on People writing on the web
Vanderwal on Still Thowing Out the User
Scoble on The Screwing of the Long Tail
They’ve all got interesting points, so I’m wondering whether anyone actually working on a user generated project is listening?
The way I see it, user generated content (for want of a better word) is only really going to work when it offers value, or it takes away a pain that someone is having - so you can’t fake it or create something and just hope that it will catch on, relying on advertising to bring in the big bucks… and so this is why I see vertical niches as the way the internet is moving. We all have our own vertical niched interests above and beyond what we all share in common (we all might read BBC news for example, but do we all have an interest in 1950’s Japanese samurai movies?) so it makes sense to tackle something that you’re passionate about - not sit in a corporate boardroom, suck your big thumb, and say “hey, we’re going to do user generated content in a big way, and we’re going to focus it on “name your celebrity here” - we’re sure to make it big!”. If you do, you’ve got rocks in your head, and you’ve obviously never implemented something like that… Web 2.0 isn’t going to be the silver bullet that makes something like that successful, not in the slightest…
Anyways, rant over
Just a friendly reminder for this Friday:
The next BBQ is this Friday on the 23rd June, same time and place as the last one:
http://www.oneafrikan.com/archives/2006/05/23/geekbbq-tomfoolery-in-london/
Upcoming.org -> http://upcoming.org/event/80247/
Address is: (now withheld to protect privacy
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=sw19&om=1 (also to protect privacy)
Open invite - everyone welcome. Please forward to anyone you know interested in Web 2.0, geekery, blogging, being a suit, being normal, or just plain good old fashioned steak!
If you want me to organise you meat, then please let me know too.
Look forward to seeing you there
Posted my first blog entry for e-Consultancy earlier today, on Web 2.0 and customer relationships.
There seems to be this disconnect between what’s happening with Web 2.0 on the social / consumer front, and what business is doign with it - they key to moving forward (IMHO) is to start small and grow as your community / stakeholders push you - if you’re feedback loop is always open and you’re willing to listen, you should be fine - happy buying customers is better than unhappy buying customers right?
Here’s the intro for you:
Web 2.0 isn’t all about rounded corners and social software – there are real benefits to leveraging the Web 2.0 philosophy and technologies in business, but the key is selecting the right entry points to start conversations with your customers, and then to grow from there, using the community you’ve developed as your sounding board.
There are many ways to look at Web 2.0, and it strikes me that within the UK business sector there is either a reticence to get started, or people simply don’t know how and where to start. It seems that for the most part, the business community is dismissive of the change that is happening on the web as we speak, why I don’t really know.
I haven’t yet had the time to look through the evidence and posts yet, but since I’ve been to France, two things have happened that make me think that MSFT is about to start a very long battle to keep it’s dominance of the desktop office software market…
Google release Google mail for domains, and then they release Google Spreadsheets… They already have Word like functionality working in GMail so that has to be coming soon, they have Notebook (not seen that either yet), they’re offering an RSS reader, their Calendar is compelling… what else is already offered?
Anyways, much more on this soon, but you have to wonder in the meantime - does MSFT have this one covered? With their long desktop app release cycles, they’re really, really behind and can they play catch up / compete / differentiate enough?
On the topic of conferences to go to, Content 2.0 has been on the radar for a while… whilst I’m not going to be going mainly because I’m going to be hanging over from a little hockey trip to France with a drinking problem, it is something that I’m really interested in
Some blurb from the site - The issues at stake:
There are many points of view, so here’s my take:
If you look at the speaker lineup, there seems to be a lot of weight - all folks who have been there and done that, and I guess that’s the point of the whole event - there is this huge mind shift taking place on the web at the moment (let’s call it Web 2.0 shall we?), where users are being given the power to manipulate and change their content by the techies (call them web .20 geeks - talk nerdy to them), and now business is trying to figure out what role it can play going forward - big companies are notoriusly slow, and it seems that whilst the Beeb is playing the proverbial lead in this grand show, so this conference does come at a time in the UK when it’s needed. It totally sucks being at around 18 months behind the Valley, so I’m hoping that this event, combined with the e-Consultancy Web 2.0 event, will start to create the momentum needed in the UK for change to happen.
As always, I think the benefit of going to conferences is more about the people that you meet and discuss stuff with, rather than what you hear - most of the stuff you can read about at your leisure if you have the time and inclination to do so. So if your bag is figuring out how your business will fit into this new content landscape, then it’s probably worth going to
Apart from the fact that I’ve never been to Amsterdam, I’m really, really keen to go to The Next Web conference happening in July - I’ve been seriously thinking about it, but am not sure how good / how bad / how worthwhile it’s gonna be?
Weighing that up with @Media happening a few weeks before you’re looking at £800 just to get to the two events, with at least another £200 for the trip to Amserdam.
Amsterdam looks cool ‘cos it seems to have more of a venture / business focus, whereas @Media is more about the tech (at least, seems that way to me…) - but I read all the speakers blogs anyways, so am not totally convinced of the value over and above simply being there for the people and the vibe…
Who’s going? Who’s got any comments? Who thinks they’re both worth going to?
Well, after what was a great night on Friday, it seems that there is demand for more GeekBBQ’s here in little ‘ol Sunny London, and since there have been requests for a “where do I sign up page”, I’m posting something here until a better idea comes along, or I get the time to set up a domain or something…
So without further ado, the next date is the 23rd of June, same place, same time, same stuff to bring…
You can see the Flickr set from the BBQ on Friday;
You can read the series of posts leading up to the first one…
and for shits and giggles I’ve added another Upcoming.org post as well…
Please comment to this post to RSVP / steak your claim to, er, some good steak… (note the pun
A few of us have been chatting about the long train trips / cab fares home from events that always seem to be in Central or East London, so we’ve decided that we’re going to try do something a little closer to home, for all the obvious reasons…
So, if you’re into the mixed bag that is becoming Web 2.0 in the UK, then you’re welcome to join us whether you’re from the South West or not… just remember that there are still Wombles in Wimbledon Common so bring your brollies…
Would be really cool if we could get some bloggers, writers, designers, coders, accessible type people, business people, wordpress people, Ubuntu people, GTD people, backend system beasties and maybe even one or two lovely ladies along…. you never can tell
The details:
Friday the 19th May, 7pm onwards
Location is: My house for a BBQ (address forthcoming).
View the Upcoming.org post as well (http://upcoming.org/event/73637/).
My place is one minute from the station, and about 40 seconds from a butcher and a Threshers.
I’m thinking that I’ll go get good steaks from the butcher near us if you ask me to, and prepare them properly myself. All you’ll have to do it bring drinks and a snack or two.
If you’re thinking of coming, please post a comment here so that we have a rough idea of numbers - it may help us to get a special deal or something.
Thanks in advance
Last night I was watching the national geographic channel with everyone at home, and I caught a glimpse of what the future of the web could hold.
Many years ago (like, mid-2003) I had this idea that the internet was actually a bit dysfunctional (imagine that) and that there were things that could be done to improve its usefulness.
For example:
OK, so I’ve harped enough and I’m sure lots of people will tell me I’m wrong, but in my mind the fact remains that search engines are good, but not good enough, yet.
75 000 years ago there was a cataclysmic event on earth that had a devastating effect on life for at least 1,000 years. It was a supervolcano, and it’s eruption created a layer of sulphur in the atmosphere that blocked out sun, and created acid rain; the effect of which was a mini-ice age. Wikipedia | National Geographic
This in itself is not really related to this post, but what is related, is that it took 3 different scientists working in 3 different fields in 3 different parts of the world, to figure this out. I won’t go into the details (add a comment if you want me to mention it) of what they were researching ‘cos it will take long and I don’t have the time, but the bottom line is that all three scientists were working on the same problem without knowing about it - what happened on earth 75 000 years ago?
So, imagine being able create a page, and tag it with a date as well as descriptive words, in an application that allows researchers around the world to collaborate on the problems of our time.
This could be an end in itself, but it could also be indexed by other search engines too. In the instance above, the scientists could for example tag it with “75 000 years ago”; “supervolcano”; “cataclysmic event”; and anyone looking for help or already working on problems with keywords like that could find out who else on earth is working on similiar problems.
I cannot understand why in this day and age, researchers around the world still rely on journals to find out what other people are studying? (I am a bit out of it, so perhaps things have changed but I somehow don’t think so…)
So, the question is, why all the fuss about web apps and social networking, when we could be creating web apps that help to make the world a better place?
Anyone with thoughts / ideas / comments / criticisms?
I’ve been asked to provide some feedback on a search engine issue for a clients client, so I put some thoughts together (off the top of my head) and into an email then whisked it off.
Anyways, I thought that it would be worth putting here as well ‘cos you never can tell who would find it useful, or offer better comments!
1. You definitely need to be optimizing for search engines (SEO), especially if you are marketing your web site online and even more so if you expect to derive sales from your web site in the future.
2. Any SEO programme will take time, so make sure you’ve got a 3, 6, and 12 month plan in place.
3. The links on your web site should stay as consistent as possible so that they will work in the future, for both search engines as well as browsers. This can be accomplished by future proofing your web site with something like mod_rewrite, so that no matter how content is delivered the links will always stay the same, or by settling on a long term content management solution. This is especially true if you plan to have dynamic content such as news or press releases.
4. The basic things to cover are page titles, meta data for content that at least covers keywords, descriptions, page headings, page sub-headings, increased keyword densities that match some of the keywords in the keyword meta tag, site wide menus that are text based (and a site map!), and an external link strategy that links to other relevant sites if it makes sense.
5. Make sure that as much as possible the content for each of your pages is well structured, well written, and that all the elements mentioned in point 4 above are different too so that pages appear different to the SE’s. Remember that SE’s can’t see, so the underlying content and code needs to be different for each page as well as any visual elements.
6. Your web site code should be written using semantic markup that abstracts structure from presentation from any server side code or logic. In this instance it’s easier for SE’s to index, but also easier for you to maintain.
7. Keep up with the major search engine developments from time to time, by reading blogs and industry analyst commentary if possible.
8. Ask vendors to provide you with examples of the work they have done before, and the results they have achieved.
9. Remember that if a vendor allows you to choose keywords that are general to your industry, then you’re working with people who are either not going to be honest with you, or who aren’t as good as others are. For example, if you are a tech support company based in Chiswick, then keywords that are specific to your niche and location (100 people or less medium-size organisational IT and desktop support for the media industry in Chiswick) are going to be much more beneficial to you than general keywords like (IT and desktop support London).
Lemme know if that helps or what you think?
Welcome to the personal blog of Gareth Knight. On web 2.0, technology, living in London, business, software, the web, Africa and sustainability. This is the evolution of one Afrikan.
