Yes, I know the report is delay (a fair few months) and it may be slightly out of date, but in the past 30 days there has been an increased interest in our review so I’ve decided to upload the report.

To view the report click the following link: Team NVPH – Stack Overflow Report

If there are any questions, comments or concerns feel free to let me know.

Direct YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peYSjTxnzK0
Direct Vimeo Link: http://www.vimeo.com/12230792

The long tail describes a wider range of products that are more specific getting sold less often, rather than the ‘head’ being more common/generic products being sold more often. A great image create by leftclick can be seen below:

Effectively the dinosaur represents a curve on the graph, where there more generic or common a product, the increase of the results. On the other end the more specific the term, the less results occur. Following the example by leftclick, how would you leverage the long tail in web 2.0?

If you were in the hotel business and you had a resort you could describe yourself as a ‘hotel’ or perhaps even the location your hotel was. This would be a very generic term, and really ‘the head’. If you were more specific, you could use key works such as ‘accommodation’, ‘Queenstown’, ‘backpacker’, ‘wheelchair access’, ‘pets allowed’ and the results would be fairly narrow. Putting this keywords into Google may give you the results of a few million (the head), to a few hundred or less (the tail).

The more specific your key words, the more specific your audience – leveraging the long tail can yield lower costs in advertising while also increasing your conversion rate.

By doing the following you can target advertisements on the long tail in the example above. This also means you will have lower costs (because there is less competition) and have higher conversion rates (because the target audience is looking for services similar to what you offer).

Another great tip is from leftclick is focused pages, targeted at these specialised search terms. What this basically means is, don’t rely on your advertisements bringing in visitors, create pages or content so the search engines results will list the page (in in turn bring them to your site). In the above example creating an online guest book, or encouraging user reviews (even better if they blog about it and link to your site) are a few good ways to create content.

So what if your a site like Amazon? Similar approach works but there is a few more tips which you can use. If you have a large product range, once the visitor is on your site you might want to direct them towards more generic items you have for sale. The products are more popular and as a first time vistior you might be more interested.

Perhaps you’ve become a member of a site like Amazon and bought a few items. Soon you wont to direct your members towards a little more ‘specific’ material. This will have the opposite effect in that existing members who have seen the common/generic stuff can get pushed towards the more specific terms. By doing this you are encouraging existing users to branch out more.

The reason you revisit a website is normally because it has updated, there is new data, you have found a purpose to return and all of this is intended to generates a rich user experience that makes you want to return. There are however ways of getting ahead of the crowd and making that user experiences better.

10 years ago you might have been tempted to use animated graphics on a page with some fancy DHTML coding to make you think ‘wow, that’s cool’, however technology has advanced and so should your website. Today a site will use AJAX, PHP, .NET, HTML 5 to create a richer experience for the user. These standards allows a developer to load content that refreshes automatically, embed videos, images, upload data, etc.

The next level up is creating a Rich Internet Application. Now you might be thinking application in the sense of a program you find under the menu in your computer but I’m talking about a Rich Internet Application that uses Adobe Flash, Java or Microsoft Silverlight (the three biggest players in the area). Before you can actually view something in Flash, Java or Silverlight you will need to download and install the plug-in. However once installed you will be able to download a small application on the website and run it in your browser. There are however downfalls in going this way. Silverlight doesn’t work in Linux, Flash doesn’t work on most mobile devices, Java can be problematic on some PC’s, etc which need to be taken into consideration.

So lets move on to some examples! There are plenty out there so I’ve just decided to to pick an example site from Adobe Flash, Java and Microsoft Silverlight:

Adobe Flash – Donnie Darko (the movie)

This one I might be a little Biased to as I really enjoyed the movie and when I discovered the website I was impressed. The website is based on flash and is a great example of a RIA (Rich Internet Application). It combines, text, video, audio and takes the user on a journey through the website. In fact it is a challenge the whole way through as information is provided through to you in short bursts, mouse clicks are hidden at times and you are prompted to put in passwords to open the next section (should you be clever enough to work it out from the information provided).

Java – Yahoo! Games

Yahoo! Games are based on Java. I’ll rephrase that. Most of Yahoo!’s games that you play online use Java. They have a wide range from poker, scrabble, pool to Bejeweled. This has created an incredible series of RIA which gives the user a Rich User Experience that keeps them coming back! I would suggest to give it a try, but I warn you that you may become addicted.

Microsoft Silverlight  - Silverlight.net Showcase

Silverlight is the newest of the three, however this doesn’t mean it hasn’t got any attention. In fact Stat Owl, has showed that Silverlight is slowly growing in market share. The showcase site itself is in in Silverlight, but it provides many examples (over 900) of websites that are using Silverlight. These range from MMORPG, public transport, geospatial imagery to dynamic bar graphs.

Let me know if you have any stand-out examples of Rich Internet Applications!

Google is one example of a service that has transformed dramatically over the last decade. It primarily began as a unique way for consumers to search through the Internet using special text-matching techniques. However, over the years it has grown to encompass other technologies and services, such as e-mailing, online mapping, social networking and video sharing. These new services have only been made possible by taking advantage of Google’s enormous range of data collected and stored over the years.

Above is an image I produced using TouchGraph.com doing a search for ‘google’, which visually displays the major links associated with Google.com. You can try it out yourself!

The Google information database is extremely valuable, with each new web application heavily reliant on this information. Effective database management has become an absolute necessity for the company and the data it holds has become extremely valuable. With out this data, Google’s services wouldn’t exist. This is also a major challenge for any new comer to the market as they will be starting off with an ‘empty’ database as such.

As Web 2.0 sites grow and develop, their data will become increasingly important. Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia place less emphasis on providing content themselves, and a move to user-generated content. There is a far greater focus on the conservations between users, as opposed to providing a place for advertisers to promote brands. Between 700,000 and 1.3 million blogs are made daily and according to Google, a new blog post is being created every second of every day (James, 2009).

There have been many ethical and legal questions raised regarding the website’s privacy settings. Facebook has been featured on many news programs both locally and internationally, with people questioning whether its privacy settings are indeed safe and confidential for each user. Clearly, being in control of this large range of data is a huge and challenging responsibility.

Since many Web 2.0 services thrive on the participation between users, data storage services become more valuable. Consumers depend on these sites for a safe, fun and interactive environment to connect with other people and information. If the Web 2.0 site fails to provide this service, then the demand will reduce. It is becoming more apparent nowadays that the data found on a site is just as important as the actual software. Google has recently shown this to be the case with their investment to DigitalGlobes imagery and geodata. As technology progresses, we demand more than what the Intel Inside chip has to offer. People now have an interactive environment, where communication is fast, simple and reliable.

James, L April 2009, ‘Should you advertise on social networking websites?’, World Advertising Research Centre, viewed 10 July 2009

Perhaps a more familiar term is ‘The wisdom of the crowd’. The idea is that many people can do more than one, a collection of opinions can construct a better opinion than that of an individual. For example, if you had a problem with the brakes on your car but weren’t sure why you could ask someone. They might respond that it could be they need replacing, while if I ask another person they may suggestion to check the brake fluid in the car. Another person may give another solution, and before you know it you have a list of 5 things to look at which is more helpful than before. You have started to hardness a collective knowledge and have a much better opinion than if you had of asked one person.

Continuing on with this metaphor, problems can happen. The people I might have asked could be all Holden mechanics and showed a bias against my Ford. The range of people who I asked might be very wide – as in some opinions were very qualified as they have been an mechanic for 30 years and another person may have never drove a car before yet their opinions get valued the same (as I might not know there background).

So how can this be applied to the internet? Are there any examples?

Wikipedia – It hardness collective intelligence as multiple people can contribute and edit articles to provide better answers and once that are more up to date. In many cases it does better than many encyclopaedias.

Yahoo! Answers – A way to ask questions and find answers. You can post a question and then people can answer (similar to my example above).

E-How – A place where you can find how to do something, or tell the world how to do something you know. From E-How’s home page, “What would you like to do? How to Attract Consumers? How to Lose Weight? How to Make Money in a Bear Market? eHow is the world’s most popular place to find step-by-step instructions on how to do just about everything.”

So is anything on the web an example of collective intelligence?

No, information must be presented or processed in some sort of way, otherwise it is a collection of opinions and not knowledge. This information must flow freely and not be censored.

The collective or group needs to also have some attributes to. Opinions to be as diverse and independent of one another (a persons opinion shouldn’t be a reflection of someone else opinion), aggregation (a way of hardness opinions to make a decision or judgement).

The first was using a video camera, and just recording the presentation.

The second also used a video camera to record the room, however this presenter used a PowerPoint for the basis of the training session. I’ve been thinking of the best way to keep this together. Unlike the first sessions the ‘video’ from the second session wasn’t that valuable but the audio and PowerPoint presentation is.

I wanted a way to combine all of this together and thus I came to a feature I’ve never used before in PowerPoint. The idea is fairly simple but you can save the slides as pictures (File > Save as Pictures).

I’ve also seen the ‘Save as Movie’ option and ‘Save as Web Page’, but in this case .jpg’s of the slides worked out.

I’ve taken the Video of the entire training session as the baseline line. I’ve then dropped the .jpg image over the video feed as required. Some slides go for longer or shorter which I can easily change with Adobe Premiere Pro (or similar software).

This also allows me to take down the .jpg in between slides where there was discussion. Overall I was fairly pleased with the outcome.

I’ve seen other methods of doing this, such as having the PowerPoint slides on half the screen and then the video feed on the other half, but on this occasion this seems like a nice fit.

The next training session is next week, which I’m planning on recording a screen capture (recording the users PC) of the entire session as the sessions will be demonstrations on ‘live’ sites where the content is dynamic and wont be in a PowerPoint slide (flicking through windows, watching the screen change, etc).

I wont be able to show you any of the work I’ve done though due to the training sessions being an internal thing at work, but if you have ideas how the best way to record ‘training sessions’ is or you know of any other useful tips and tricks, even software to make the job easier I would be interested to know.

So this semester is over, exams are all done and we now are waiting to get results which should be made available by the end of the month. Personally I think I’ve done fairly well managing full time uni / full time work and at the moment I feel like I’m on holiday (even though I’m still going to work).

I’ll be wrapping up the blog and looking in ways to make it more ‘me’ based, I dare say I will continue to keep posting but they wont be as frequent.

So whats new? Well I’ve purchased my first Apple computer – 27inch – i7 – iMac. I haven’t had to much time to spend on it but I’ve set up an VMWare Fusion 3 – Windows XP Virtual machine just in case. I’ve imported all my photos over into iPhoto, just need to sort through them and start using the ‘Faces’ feature which seems really cool. Then I’ll need to copy over documents and I’ll be set. (Installed CISCO VPN – which hasn’t been updated in years, and Windows Remote Desktop Tool).

Anyway, let me know how you went with the subject!

Web 1.0 – Static Pages, HTML Based, very much like a ‘document’

Web 2.0 – Dynamic Pages, Social Networking and generally “2″ way communication

Web 3.0 – The Semantic Web – structured information

Justin Lee, has put together a great slideshare presentation which I would like to share. It explains the direction Web 3.0 is moving and offers a few examples.

Web 3.0 seems like a natural progression, and it is. The ability to have data easier to get to and analyze might not seem that exciting now, but the buzz word is developing and so are the applications. Web 2.0 offers so many different uses and is still expanding today and if the changes that come with Web 3.0 sites and applications is anything like the changes brought forward from Web 2.0 we will be in for an interesting time.

Ronald Azuma in 1997 gave the following definitions on Augmented Reality:

combines real and virtual

is interactive in real time

is registered in 3D

With this in mind and wanting to use information available on the net, I was surprised at how many applications where available on the iPhone. The first one I used was called NearestWiki.

NearestWiki once open finds out where you are located, and then searches for all wikipedia articles that have been geo-tagged with a location in a 20 mile radius (roughly 32 kilometers). Once it has this locations loaded you can then navigate 360 degrees to find out what articles around you and how far they are.

NearestWiki being used outside a QUT lecture room.

As you can see from my example standing outside a lecture room at QUT. You can see that it has picked up an article about QUT itself, which is 190M away. Yes I was at QUT but it was fairly accurate in saying that the heart of QUT was a little bit away.

It also picked up the GABBA as we know it, but officially know as the Brisbane Cricket Ground. Having just drove past this I could say that I had driven further than 1.54 Km. If your wondering why there is a difference it is because it directly 1.54 Km away and doesn’t take into account how you would actually need to get there (and I’m okay with that).

As you scan around you can pick up on the Roma Street Parklands in the opposite directions, Parliament House which is next door to QUT and so on. So how can you use this to help you out?

Well provided you had phone reception, and could get a data connection on your phone. If you were close to a ‘tourist attraction’ or something that has a wikipedia article you could turn on this application and identify things yourself. You could locate nearby interesting things you may not have come across and if something caught your interest you can simple tap on article and it loads up the full wikipedia article for you to read.

You are now your own tourist guide? You are empowered with information instantly and easily. You are using information in ‘Real Time’ to interact with the ‘Real World’ and this is just the start.

This application only provided data on wikipedia articles so I thought I would see if I could find another application to find a place to eat or drink.

The first one I’ve tried and just briefly (no more than 5 minutes) demonstrates potential was called buUuk.

With a similar interface and concept as I said before, this locates places that have been added to the database (unsure if it is is buUuk’s or a shared one) and displays them in a similar fashion.

The buUuk application being used (spinning around) to locate the nearest palces to eat or drink.

One thing that looks nice is that not only do you get a list of places you see user ratings. Not only that you can rate the places yourself which really empowers you with data in real time.

With a click of a button you can see details of the place (even a button to make a phone call to them), user reviews you can read, prices, address and a whole lot more information.

So what are its downfalls?

• There are a lot of places that don’t turn up as they haven’t been added.
• User participation is fairly low from what I can tell.
• Heavily relies on the ‘Network Effect’
• With small participation reviews could be skewed or biased made by owners
• You need an device that has this enabled (are there any others besides the iPhone 3Gs)?
• Internet connectivity on your mobile device (often expense)

The nearest places to eat or drink that buUuk has found. A lot of places missing at the moment, but over time will this improve?