The Stairwell

New Ad Campaign for highschoolsports.net and its partners

We just completed for highschoolsports.net a new series of banner ads and Flash-rich video promotions for their clients that include such national brands as Nike and U.S. Army, adapting their existing marketing campaigns for online audiences serviced by highschoosports.net. The banners we developed contained a nifty Flash code that allowed for a chronometric countdown to registration deadlines, regardless of where the ad was being displayed. And the U.S. Army promotional contained some state-of-the-art video viewers. Even better, BD turned these requests around in under a day and one weekend respecitvely. Thanks RN, AH, TB, and DM.

Web 3.0 gains focus as we enter the web's 3rd decade

While Hilary Clinton complains that she gets all the hard questions, the country's top technology CEO's continue to be pelted by one hard question at most of their public appearances: What is Web 3.0 going to be? Tim Berners-Lee has offered that Web 3.0 is going to be all about the Semantic Web (or a web based on markup code like RDF or OWL that can be read by machines, not just people, allowing machines to deduce and infer what data is important and share it in real time). Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, stated that he believed Web 3.0 would be defined by applications (api's) that are distributed virally and that work universally with the 'cloud' of data that is retrievable from anywhere. Jerry Yang, found of Yahoo!, sees a Web 3.0 where consumers will create software that services their needs and the division between software producers and consumers will blur.

These visions of a future web have their critics, and many of the models they have talked about over the last several years have failed to materialize in any broad way, but several notable instances of their feasibility are well documented.

My favorite summation of what Web 3.0 might be in the next decade comes from Nova Spivack, founder of Radar Networks, who defines Web 3.0 as the third decade of the Web (2010–2020) during which he suggests several major complementary technology trends will reach new levels of maturity simultaneously, including:

* transformation of the Web from a network of separately siloed applications and content repositories to a more seamless and interoperable whole.

* ubiquitous connectivity, broadband adoption, mobile Internet access and mobile devices;

* network computing, software-as-a-service business models, Web services interoperability, distributed computing, grid computing and cloud computing;

* open technologies, open APIs and protocols, open data formats, open-source software platforms and open data (e.g. Creative Commons, Open Data License);

* open identity, OpenID, open reputation, roaming portable identity and personal data;

* the intelligent web, Semantic Web technologies such as RDF, OWL, SWRL, SPARQL, GRDDL, semantic application platforms, and statement-based datastores;

* distributed databases, the "World Wide Database" (enabled by Semantic Web technologies); and

* intelligent applications, natural language processing.[13], machine learning, machine reasoning, autonomous agents

What effect this third decade of the web will have on interface design / engineering will be a topic for next week...

Okay, but where's the profit going?

Great idea: Convince 10,000 digital artists to create a tiny piece of a US treasury note, then assemble it into a collage and sell the prints. Each artist received a penny for their time, and each print costs about $100. It is vaguely reminiscent of the widely publicized site "Million Dollar Home Page" of 2007. But Google isn't amused and they've removed "Ten Thousand Cents" from their legitimate ecommerce vendor list.

The project can be found here:

http://www.tenthousandcents.com/top.html

In their words this is a bold experiment:

"Ten Thousand Cents" is a digital artwork that creates a representation of a $100 bill. Using a custom drawing tool, thousands of individuals working in isolation from one another painted a tiny part of the bill without knowledge of the overall task. Workers were paid one cent each via Amazon's Mechanical Turk distributed labor tool. The total labor cost to create the bill, the artwork being created, and the reproductions available for purchase are all $100. The work is presented as a video piece with all 10,000 parts being drawn simultaneously. The project explores the circumstances we live in, a new and uncharted combination of digital labor markets, "crowdsourcing," "virtual economies," and digital reproduction.

Perhaps. But a good experiment is one that can be replicated, and we can't imagine anyone boondoggling 10,000 busy people to work 3 minutes for a penny - twice. Even Marx and his gang couldn't pull that off for very long. Perhaps this has merit as a structure for 'crowd-sourcing' and 'virtual economies' if its profits are channeled into deserving charities. And try something besides legal tender next time. Then we might see it become a popular means for fundraising on par with more old-fashioned bake sales and lemonade stands.

Web Development on Safari

This posting is from Hicksdesign, where Jon and Leigh Hicks have conveniently collected plugins to make Safari all the development tool that Firefox has become. You'll need to download a fresh beta of Safari (aka WebKit.app), but otherwise it's worth it, especially if you like Safari.

Apple Spaces Almost Simplifies the Desktop

-- Update --
I'm no longer fond of Apple Spaces. It's a great idea, but until the bugs are worked out I've turned it off. It was switching when I didn't expect it too, despite my concerted efforts to assign specific apps in different combos, etc. Maybe they'll update it soon.
-Ted

Old Entry:
I've been using Apple Spaces for the past couple of weeks now, and it's really been a positive experience. Spaces allows you to create multiple desktops to group applications and their windows. It essentially emulates multiple monitors, allocating more desktop space to keep things in smaller piles. OS Shortcuts can also be assigned at the same time, but I tend to avoid those beyond the norms (i.e. save, open, close, cut, copy, paste, search, etc.) since I use so many inside the apps. Thank you Apple for this subtle yet powerful tool.

If you're in Belgium next week...

We love this tour poster! Its rich colors and strong outlines are reminiscent of Toulouse Letrec, but its typeface is undoubtedly modern and oh so smooth. It also helps that one of our team members is in the band - The Rempis Percussion Quartet' - featured herein. Described by Downbeat as "one talent deserving wider recognition," and also featured in All About Jazz they are now making the rounds in Europe and all of us here at Billups Design wish them well. If you don't have tickets to a Cubs or Sox game next week, you can catch them in Utrecht, Amsterdam, Krackow, Wroclaw, Gent, and Dresden. Knock 'em dead, travel safely and don't forget to bring us all back a tour t-shirt, guys.

Hyatt Caters to Special Events Marketing Needs

Congratulations to everyone at Hyatt Corporation who contributed to the successful completion and launch of an all new Catering and Events web site system for properties all over the United States. The site is an easily updatable Flash-based application that can be customized for any property's offerings and venues. It features original music scores, FlashPaper menu viewers, Chef bios, and a multitude of fine photography. Thanks to KC, RN, TB, CS, PT and SM. A number of these sites will be going live in the coming weeks.

How to mortally wound good web design

Here's a very interesting article from Matthew Inmann in SEOmoz.com. He sums up well what experienced web agencies have known for some time (see our White Papers), but we like how he interprets it and we agree with his conclusions.

How to Ruin a Web Design

Yahoo! Mail Beta Blocks Images

Like many other major mail inbox providers are already doing, Yahoo! announced in February that their beta version of the Yahoo! Mail will block email images by default. This is important news to email marketers who rely on wide email broadcasts that contain imagery.

Of course, subscribers can still change the default to allow for images in emails, but most users don't change their settings unless they know something is wrong. This means that the most important thing email marketers must do is ensure their message and from information contains what they want their customers to understatnd. Relying only on an image to convey a sale, special or service could result in much poorer response rates.

For more on this important development, read the latest article by Ken Magill in Direct Magazine online.

Looking Beyond the Machine

I was thinking about how technology has removed a lot of the inefficiencies in life and how that applies to our plight as humans. The world markets, for example, are increasingly computerized and therefore less error exists for traders, bankers and analysts to take advantage of. So, in pursuit of efficiency, we create machines that increasingly remove the 'human' aspect in economics.

If you apply this approach to other sectors of society the results are somewhat mixed, but one universal truth emerges. We will never be satisfied with our human inability to match the efficiency of machines. So why do we try? Probably because the pursuit of perfection is exhilarating and can be quite lucrative.

So, what is the answer to the question of how will technology affect us in the future? The shortsighted answer might be that we'll extinct ourselves from this earth. I think we'll first arrive at another level of enlightenment where technology unobtrusively finds its place in our lives while we place more value on the human aspects of life, such as daydreaming. In fact, I think that's what lead to this blog entry ;-)

Hyatt Mumbai Goes Offshore to Billups Design!

Congratulations to Hyatt Mumbai Rental Residences in Mumbai, India who recently have taken delivery of their new web site! Though they considered choosing an agency based in Mumbai, they instead chose to go 'offshore' to the U.S., Chicago and Billups Design. Now Hyatt Mumbai boasts a dynamic, usable, Hyatt-branded web site that allows them to market their properties and services to target audiences around the world. The new site features floor plan blueprints, an extensive interactive photography gallery, complete virtual tours of all rooms and facilities, and more. Thank you to everyone who helped complete this project successfully - UD, LB, CS, RN, SB, TB, VRX Studios and the entire team in India!

Hyatt Mumbai Rental Reesidences

Splash Pages Are Rarely A Good Idea

here are a few web sites that support the theory that splash pages are usually a very bad idea (and I agree):

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/10/11/splash-pages-do-we-really-need-them/
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/splash/
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530_comments.html
http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/term_79.txl
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-convince-a-client-they-dont-need-a-splash-page

Barack Obama's Web Site Gets Our Vote

This week I visited barackobama.com and was struck immediately by its patriotic, but very contemporary look and feel. It contains the usual colors (red, white and blue), but a different delivery that emphasizes simplicity and fit. It's airy and is clearly of the genus, web 2.0, with its user-driven / social networking content and features.

His positions are not organized alphabetically or by order of 'importance'. They are parsed into categories like: People, States, Action and Issues. This is in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton's site, which in many cases lists her speeches by date or her positions numerically. Last week, she changed that on her site and now organizes by voter group. Way to learn from your opponent, old girl.

Upon signing up to his site, I was requested to make a small donation or a matching donation just once. Up front. Simple. So I did. This should underscore to anyone soliciting sales online that simple pitches early in the transaction or the shopping phase are more effective than late-arriving pitches or ceaseless ones that appear on every page.

After I left the site about a half hour later, I found that already I had a letter from Barack (we're friends now and that's how it looks on my iPhone when he mails) asking me if I would like to have my voice heard. Literally. I opened my friend's email and was given a simple set of instructions that would enable me to call good folks in Texas and Ohio and tell them what I thought of my friend. Wow. From my home, simply by going online, I can avail of a pre-approved list of home phones and call them from my home - all in the name of mass mobilization. This is viral email marketing at its best because it was sent to me even before I left the site, asking me to expand my own self-expectations and get involved. Did I make the calls? I came close, but I'm just too shy. Plus I don't like people calling ME at home - especially campaigns. Nevertheless, I was impressed by their site-to-mailbox-to-phone-to-site funneling and the grand scale upon which they are mobilizing their supporters and winning new converts around the country.

Finally, we looked under the hood. Some of the technologies he's using to make the site effective and simple to use are appropriate to the task and well executed. Overall straw poles in our office give it a thumbs up which is rare indeed for campaign sites in our experience.

We hope everyone visits all the candidate sites this year and examines their positions and experience closely. Then, go out and vote.

http://www.barackobama.com

http://www.hillaryclinton.com

http://www.mikehuckabee.com

http://www.johnmccain.com

An old friend and a very talented designer

Patrick Corrigan is an old friend and designer we hired at Web Design Group, Inc. (back in 1997!). Here are his two portfolio sites that we thought our readers might like to check out:

www.workingempire.com
www.burndowntheweb.com

Reverse Engineering the Wii Controller

You've got to admire someone who thinks their way through to a place we scarcely imagined for the benefit of all mankind. A moment of thanks for Johnny Chung Lee. We smell a Nobel.

Wii's Potential Unlocked