I’ll be attending N-TEN’s DC meeting next Tuesday, Oct 11. The theme of the conference is data integration. Who ever has issues with that? 😉
If you’ll be there and want to say hi, just drop me a note.
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Author Archives: David
Google RSS Reader
Google is launching an RSS reader service.
(Via evhead.)
Presentation Zen gets all Zenny
I mentioned the Presentation Zen blog earlier this week. Love this zen-like line I just read in a recent post about Larry Lessig’s presentation method:
The number is not important. To be concerned with the number of slides shows that our head is in the wrong place. Because…it is the wrong question to ask.
And what is the right question? You’ll have to read the post to find out.
JPEG Patent Woes?
Just saw this on Paul Bissex’s blog: Burn all JPEGs?:
Some recent news is giving me flashbacks to 1995, when Unisys sprung their GIF patent surprise on the young World Wide Web. We got quite angry and some enterprising people even built a replacement for the beloved GIF.
Are we going there again? Forgent, a Texas company that “develops and licenses intellectual property and makes scheduling software” (it makes me feel dirty just to type that) is suing 40 companies, including Microsoft, Apple, and Yahoo, for infringing on JPEG-related patent No. 4,698,672.
Sounds like patent trolling to me. Hopefully this will not become an issue (I imagine it will unite a big chunk of silicon valley to fight it if it does).
New Article: Getting the Most from Your E-marketing Efforts
Just added another article to the resources section of the site: Getting the Most from Your E-Marketing Efforts:
Do you need to improve your e-marketing results but don’t want to add to the torrential downpour of marketing messages that hit your members every day?
Then focus on improving your existing efforts rather than increasing the frequency of your messages.
This article was originally published in an ASAE newsletter.
Good Intro Article on Web Analytics
Digital Web Magazine has published a nice intro article to web analytics: Dollars & Sense of Web Analytics:
Web analytics, whose origins date back to the invention of the Web, has worked its way from the domain of the technically minded to marketers, thanks in part to software with improved user interfaces and easy-to-understand reports. Despite these improvements, there is still a lack of understanding of the technical side of analytics. Web developers and marketing folks need to share the analytic tool, and each group has specific needs that can be fulfilled by the tool.
Check it out.
NewsGator Eats Ranchero Software
Just heard that NewsGator has bought Ranchero Software, the makers of NetNewsWire, which is my RSS newsreader of choice on the Mac:
Q: How does NetNewsWire fit into NewsGator’s plans?
Greg: Over the last 2.5 years, we’ve built a comprehensive RSS aggregation platform. We have clients for the web, for email clients, for mobile phones and PDAs, and even for your TV. With the acquisition of FeedDemon a few months ago, we added the industry-leading Windows desktop aggregator. NetNewsWire really completes this story for us – we now have the best client on the Mac, which lets us serve this exciting part of the market as well. And make no mistake – we’re very excited about the Mac. Just looking at our data shows a huge penetration of RSS tools among Mac users – clearly you’re all early technology adopters, and that gives us a unique opportunity to try out new leading-edge stuff with you.
Funny thing is that the picture on the announcement page is of a guy using a Windows laptop. 🙂 This should lead to some great integration features for NNW in the future.
NewsGator should have a big knowledge lead on their competitors since they have hired by acquiring the developers of the two premiere RSS desktop applications. That’s probably worth more in the long run than the software.
Presentation Zen and eHub
Here are two new blogs I started reading recently that I would recommend adding to your subscription lists:
eHub is a constantly updated list of web applications, services, resources, blogs or sites with a focus on next generation web (web 2.0), social software, blogging, Ajax, Ruby on Rails, location mapping, open source, folksonomy, design and digital media sharing.
Garr Reynolds blog on issues related to professional presentation design.
eHub is great for keeping tabs on the latest web applications and services that are fully 2005 buzzword compliant. Presentation Zen is wonderful source of ideas on how to create presentations that won’t put people to sleep.
Mambo Schism!
Looks like the open source content management system, Mambo, has had a split among its developers, resulting in a fork of the code. Here is a nice summary from Enter Content Here: Mambo, Joomla
This kind of split is one of the risks of open source projects. I think it can also be a healthy, long-term, survival mechanism as well although it certainly adds some chaos in the short run.
Leading from the Middle
Here is a nice piece from CMS Newswire on how web professionals often have to take on a leadership role: Why Web Managers are Leaders.
You’re in a delicate situation. You need to show leadership for your website, while at the same time not being seen to usurp the leadership of your senior managers. How do you bring them along? How do you make them feel that they are still the ‘real’ leaders?
This is a common theme in association management to begin with: how to lead while appearing to be led. Usually it is about working with volunteer leadership but the same techniques can be used internally by mid-level web leaders who are trying to get their execs to get behind the best ideas for the site.
C. David Gammel, CAE 