Spurred onwards by a ridiculous discussion at work (the gist of which was that you had to use Flash to build interactivity on a website), I decided to build a very quick proof of concept for a javascript slideshow.
In fairness, when I say “build”, what I mean is “plug together a few things where other people have already done the hard work and do a little bit of coding round the edges”.
However, the whole reason for this was to prove how quick and easy it is to build interactivity into sites without using Flash. So I figured using free, open-source code already provided by others was fair game :-)
So, using the completely free-to-use Smooth Gallery alongside the completely free-to-use phpFlickr, I present a javascript slideshow that goes to the Reading Room Flickr pool and finds all the photos currently uploaded and tagged with the word “competition”.
Something that had until recently passed me by was that the New York Times has stopped charging for access to their website. Most of the site will now be open to the public without a subscription, including the majority of the archives section. The site will now be funded by advertising, an option that, since the success of Google, has become the standard business model for many sites.
On the flip side of this, in an August 2007 Alert Box, everyone’s favourite usability guru Jakob Nielsen has written about an in-depth study that proves web users suffer from “banner blindness” - that is, they never even look at the areas of the page that banners are placed on.
Nielsen says there are 2 or 3 exceptions to this - firstly, search adverts do get seen, meaning Google et al are probably safe. Secondly, classified ads, such as eBay, are looked at and seen. Finally, he talks about in-page, in-context advertisements - ads made to look like normal content that appear in the content area of the page. Whilst Nielson - rightly - considers them unethical, they are very effective, and you can now see this style of advertising appearing online (Facebook being probably the highest-profile example).
Other than this however, most banner advertising doesn’t even get looked at, making them deeply inefficient. As Nielson says
“Marketing managers won’t remain clueless forever. Sooner or later they’ll discover that Web advertising offers almost no ROI.”
I wonder if Nielson is right. If so, then we’re looking at heading back towards a subscription-style model that the New York Times has just left behind.
People have long used advertising to tell stories, and one of the best examples of this was the old Gold Blend couple adverts - each new commercial slowly brought the story forward and, for a brief time in the 80s, they’d created a proper “will they, won’t they?” moment.
Now imagine if they were to release the commercial now, and the power that telling that story across multiple media could generate. Using lower-production web video to tell the story between each commercial, you could build the story of each of the protagonists’ lives - what did Anthony Head do whilst not looking for a coffee? Where did Sharon Maugham work? The trick of course if to have the television commercials make sense without needing to go online, whilst using the online space to develop the story further, and draw people further in.
What if off the back of this, these stories became interactive? What if users left comments on videos, or were asked to upload suggested storylines for upcoming commercials? What if their homes could be explored through an interactive online environment? Or what if those characters took on a real identity through second life or other virtual world?
The real power of the internet is to tell stories; to be able to truly interact with your audience and involve them in these stories. None of this need pretend to be real - it should be clear that this is simply a story, but it’s a story that the user can involve themselves in to almost any depth that they wish.
I think that could be the great power of the internet for communications - the depth of brand experience that it is capable of delivering. However, it should be remembered that alone - with nothing to drive people to the web in the first place - it could happily sit in cyberspace unnoticed and unloved. And I think thats where the power of integration could really be.
According to New Media Age, Tesco are revamping Tesco.com, using “social media as the key driver to replicate the in-store experience”.
Did I miss a meeting? Has anyone been to a Tesco recently? The “in-store experience” is akin to the Tower of London before it was a tourist attraction. Supermarkets are horrible places, where people go because they have to because they have to buy food (or toilet rolls, or cheap socks). What exactly are they going to replicate? The shock of an over-loaded trolley colliding with your ankle? The sensation of hundreds of kids somehow screaming at exactly the same moment? The sad realisation you’ll be stuck in this queue for the next half hour because the woman in front wants to pay using a mixture of cash, vouchers and credit card? The fact that no matter how many times you ask, you can’t ever find the damn fair trade coffee?
Its just the most ludicrous idea I’ve ever heard. Tesco isn’t like, for example, Diesel or Ted Baker - shops where I quite like going just to wander around the store (albeit the clothes are shit). Who gets up to leave their desk at lunch, declaring to their colleagues “I’m just going to Tescos, to have a quick look around their pork pies”.
And this of course is surely the point - online grocery sites should completely re-define the in-store experience. No queues, no screaming kids, easy-to-find goods, no carrying your shopping home after you’ve paid? Where do I sign up? And to a greater or lesser extent, this is exactly what online shopping delivers - its quick, its easy and it gets delivered direct to your front door. Why ruin this by allowing the actual store to intrude?
You can’t reincarnate without the Chinese government’s permission. How would that conversation go? And do you need written permission in triplicate, or will a simple telephone call suffice?
I’ve been toying for a while about what I actually think Web2.0 and all that marketing nonsense actually means and how it affects people, and given the job I do, how it affects business, and how it can be used by business.
My reaction has always been that “web2.0″ is a marketing phrase that clouds the fact that “web2.0″ is just exactly what the web should have always been - socially inclusive, driving collective opinion with a 2-way dialog between website and webuser, and then between webuser and webuser. To my mind, this is what drove the development of the web forward, until brand managers got hold of it and created brochure-ware hideousness.
However, the development of new technologies over the last couple of years has really enabled the web to fulfill these goals in a large-scale way for the first time. Usenet might have been around for years, but there was still always a barrier to entry for the average person on the street (”whats a modem?”). And therefore, perhaps the advent of new technologies has changed the way we use the web, and the way brands and businesses should use the web.
I’ve started summing this up with the phrase “a digital representation of your non-digital life” - to me, this is an ethos where web sites, applications and other digital technology is being used to create human situations; taking digital and modeling it around human interaction. The reason I like Facebook is that its like having constant really short conversations with all your friends at once - you feel up to date with their lives, and can sit there and procrastinate together - its like the ultimate pub conversation. Second Life, and other virtual worlds, are very literal interpretations of this idea, and of course, blogs (some would say in their very worst form) are your diaries and notes that you’ve always wanted the world to see.
For brands and business to use this successfully then, I think there are 3 elements that they need to consider:
1) Themselves. Are they willing to be open, honest and inclusive? Do they want to build an even relationship with the consumer? Will they listen to what the consumer has to say, without censoring them? It won’t work if they won’t take this step.
2) The Product or service and its audience. Do they have something that is of interest to people? Will people want to talk about it? Is there an angle to take to encourage people to debate and discuss it. Is there an audience here in the first place?
3) The technology to enable it. What best suits them and their audience.
The key thing is to create something your audience actually wants, to give something out to get something in return. The Cluetrain Manifesto guys got this a long time ago, but maybe now the rest of the population has caught up.
Our band, The Sweet Confusion, played at the Metro Club last Saturday - thanks to everyone who came down and checked us out. Other than having to dash off with all our kit right after we finished, it was a great gig. More photos of the gig are on Flickr, and of course, check out our Myspace page.
A friend reminded me of the old Terry Tate, Office Linebacker commercials for Reebok the other day. These are probably my favourite adverts of all time; just a total classic:
I’ve been toying for a while about what I actually think Web2.0 and all that marketing nonsense actually means and how it affects people, and given the job I do, how it affects business, and how it can be used by business.