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Mr Nevill-Manning, who is based in New York, was in Auckland for the World Class New Zealand Awards event yesterday and said internet speeds in New Zealand were significantly slower than services in the United States.

“I am shocked that the people aren’t up in arms to demand from their service providers that the service be more reliable and faster.”

- haven’t we been saying this for what seems like forever!! 

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When used properly, Twitter and Facebook are powerful tools to allow people to connect with each other, and more recently to allow businesses to connect with potential customers online.

So who should be using Facebook and Twitter?

Well in the context of catching up with friends online, any person can sign up for a Facebook or Twitter account and start typing. In the context of a business communicating with customers online, any business that has something to say should have a facebook or twitter account.

An example would be a Heliski company posting descriptions and pictures of the current skiing conditions on the mountains. This is useful and compelling content for anyone thinking about doing a Heliski. Even if your business is an icecream van, you can be telling people your route or new flavours of ice cream.

Facebook and Twitter (and other social media platforms) take time and effort to maintain, but used properly they can be highly effective tools to not only connect with customers but give your
business an online personality. Some excellent examples of this is are Harris Mountains Heliski and Alpine Heliski who maintain up to date and informative Facebook pages.

• Faster tracking code load times for your web pages due to improved browser execution
• Enhanced data collection & accuracy
• Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn’t fully loaded

The way the new asynchronous code works is that most browsers will load the asynchronous tracking code in parallel with other scripts on the page, thus reducing the web page load time.

The new code can be found here

In a recent post Steve Jobs talks about his thoughts on flash and why it is not supported on apple’s mobile devices such as iphone and ipad.

“Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.”

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I felt myself running into the same problems every time when we build websites, no matter which CMS we chose:

• Multiple columns and content areas on websites are difficult to manage

• WYSIWYG editors leave little room anything else other than formatted text and images, such as flash elements, forms etc

So what I wanted was:

• An interface that is fun to use when dealing with complex layouts
• No more limitation for layouts
• Straight forward extendability
• Re-usability of code and components
• Seamless integration in existing CMS Interface an Workflow.

These were my key requirements to start with.

So I started putting these Ideas into code during quiet times in the office and sleepless nights.

Even though, as some of you might know, most parts of the Silverstripe back end system are using prototype as native javascript framework, I decided to use jQuery and the jQuery UI to power this interface.

In a nutshell it lets you define areas in the page template (“Slot”) where blocks with certain content & functionality (“Element”) can be inserted and rearranged.

Elements typically have two main interfaces:

• Input – what the webmaster accesses
• Output – what is shown on the website

My aim was to optimize both:

Provide the webmaster with a clean and simple, but powerful interface.

Based on rules of accessibility, w3c guidelines etc – generate the html output that is, how it should be: clean.

Check it out! http://www.page-elements.com/

This is often a forgotten or neglected aspect of website creation. In her article “Starting Out Organized” posted on Smashing Magazine, Kirstin Wemmer explains different methods of content planning and organization. These are all important tools to be used (when needed) at particular stages in the website creation process.

In my experience if you’re redesigning any content driven website (particularly larger scale ones), there is always the need to go through the rather painful content audit process. This tedious, but extremely necessary part of the process can save you a lot of headache in later stages. Without thorough analysis and a lot of harsh editing, rewriting, re-grouping, you’ll end up trying to re-purpose what is already in there and hit roadblocks later on. It’s the same old adage – if you put garbage in you get garbage out.

Whatever content units you decide to keep, edit, delete or create should start from an understanding your users. Who are they? What are they there to learn? What are their patterns of content consumption? What information do they want to receive and in what form do they want to receive it? Think about ways that you can add value your website content to captivate your audience and bring them back.

If your website can become a valuable source of content on a particular topic (or even fun/ quirky/ interesting)  this will encourage repeat visitation. Here are some ideas out there in the wild:

• Three Wise Men – a business shirt company have an area called the boredroom. This works with their brand, and provides businessmen with a reason to come back to see a tit bit of comical content if they’re bored at work.
• NZ Ski – have a webcam so potential visitors can see what it’s like on the mountain, and snow bunnies can check out what the conditions are like for the day.
• The Rock – have a funny s**t area which uses video to extend their brand online

However, this all said and done, your audience won’t find you just because you create a website with all of this great content. As Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media put it in her post “Content is not King. Your ability to promote that content is.” You need to employ methods to get your site promoted at least initially, but once you have a following your audience will promote content for you.

To find out more about how you can promote your site effectively in search engines such as Google contact our Search Engine Optimisation Team or find out more about this on our website http://www.kelpdesign.com/search-engine-optimisation/

Read the article: http://craigmod.com/journal/ipad_and_books/

Citi Research analyst Mark Mahaney talks about growth areas across the Internet this year

View the full article here.