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Sep29
Better Design Through Code
The expectations of computer design and interaction are changing. On September 9 I gave a talk at PARC to the ACM's local human-computer interaction group, bringing a developer's perspective to expanding the possibilities of efficient design. The presentation is titled "Better Design Through Code" and available for download below. What information about our web visitors is available with every request? How can site authors better tap into a full spectrum of run-time information about each visitor, his interests, and his computing capabilities?
Analyze full request information
An incoming HTTP request contains much more information than a host and path yet we typically pay no attention to the additional request data and simply respond with a single resource. The requesting browser identifies itself, communicates its capabilities, the preferred language of its user, computing hardware, operating system, versioning, network location, and much more. Web applications can tune into data contained in these requests and adapt content for specific usage groups.
A mobile client such as the iPhone may have different usage expectations than a desktop or HDTV display. Past solutions have sent our visitors to entirely new domains -- e.g. iphone.domain.tld, wii.domain.tld -- specific to their device or desired experience. We can instead build content negotiation directly into our applications, serving the best content experience to unique use cases at the same URL. Our servers listen to an incoming request, analyze the capabilities of the client, and match the client with the best available content experience for the given path.
Location filters
Large data sets provide navigation challenges that may be best filtered by visitor location. An IP address and its registered parents provide basic location information with varied confidence levels by country, region, or city. A quick lookup of an IP address might identify your visitor as a Comcast Cable customer or a Yahoo! employee, with capabilities to alter your page content accordingly. Homepages of global corporations should not have to ask for user input to select a home country or region. A national retailer can show a map of local store locations before prompting for more detailed user inputs. An e-commerce website can automatically fill-in form fields for each visitor, saving total time in checkout.
New tools allow us to take a step beyond IP-targeting and ask the parent machine to tell us its current location based on available data. We can listen for GPS coordinates, cell tower triangulations, or MAC addresses of local devices with known, observed locations. Tools such as Gears or Loki scan computing resources for location-based data and abstract the results into usable data sets exposed via JavaScript APIs as an address or geographical coordinates.
Detecting installed software
Software installed our computers leave browser-addressable footprints in the form of MIME and URL schemes meant to connect our browsers, webpage embeds, or downloaded files with the appropriate installed application. A Quicken file is automatically passed along to the Quicken program for interpretation. Google's Picasa photo software leaves a detection footprint used by Google and others. We can detect video capabilities of the client by examining installed applications such as Windows Media Player, Quicktime, or Flash for codec availability. We can even search for installed hardware such as an occasionally tethered GPS unit or portable music player.
Browser history tests
The final part of my presentation focused on identifying the favorite websites and web services of a visiting user to improve site content. It is possible to insert links into a webpage for comparison against the current visitor's browser history. Site owners can test URL sets and adapt their web content based on these identified services. We can present different page enhancements to a Facebook user or a MySpace user, test our audience for future development targets, and only show content we determine to have a high probably of converting.
Summary
Every time a web page loads we throw out potentially useful data. With just a little effort we can thrill our users with custom, adaptive experiences based on their unique computing and personality profiles for increased engagement and conversions. This presentation outlines some of the reasonably easy methods of customization available to site owners seeking more intelligent methods of visitor interaction through smart server- and client-side applications.
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Sep17
Facebook usage and marketing
Facebook is the most talked about social network of 2007, connecting over 30 million members daily. The site extended its reach over the past year beyond its core base of United States college students and into high school, workplaces, and metropolitan areas. The new Facebook lets outside developers reach its entire audience through the Facebook Platform, groups, and events yet most companies are unfamiliar with the social norms of the world they are about to enter.
I sat down with my 19 year-old sister the day before she left for her second year of college at UC Santa Barbara. She is part of a generation of teens that grew up with social networks such as NeoPets, LiveJournal, and MySpace as digital forms of personal expression. Today my sister's life is connected through Facebook, which now includes her family, friends, and classmates. She sends more messages through Facebook than e-mail or IM combined, preferring to reach people she knows inside of a webpage.
My sister joins social networks to share media and information with friends. In high school LiveJournal was a way to share stories, suppress gossip, or just generally vent about teachers and parents. MySpace became the central location for sharing photographs through the site's built-in photo feature or extended through the Photobucket widget.
My sister joined Facebook shortly after receiving a UC Santa Barbara e-mail address. Her dorm's resident assistant quickly created Facebook groups for the entire building before anyone arrived at school. Facebook groups connected the incoming first-year students by floor, allowing my sister to know her neighbors before ever meeting face-to-face.
Facebook Applications
Facebook opened its applications platform on May 24th with a group of about 70 launch partners. The most popular of these applications replicated MySpace features such as a top friends list, music playback on your profile, and more Flash widgets on your wall. My sister's friends protested the change by joining a group against the MySpace-ification of Facebook.
The most popular applications among my sister's friends are artsy comment tool Graffiti, The Compass politics ratings by The Washington Post, and virtual drinks sent by Happy Hour. She discovers new applications through her friends' news feeds.
Marketing and advertisements
Happy Hour makes revenue through a survey firm Peanut Labs. My sister answers survey questions in exchange for virtual currency to spend on virtual drinks. She is not aware of other advertising in her favorite applications.
It is unclear what information is shared with each of the applications she uses every day. My sister pays little to no attention to the permissions prompts when installing applications and presumes all boxes checked by default are mandatory for using each application.
Listen to the podcast
I discuss these issues and more in this podcast on Facebook usage trends. Our conversation is 30 minutes in length, a 14 MB download.
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Apr30
Social Media Trends and Engagement
Social computing has decentralized brands and audiences, creating a new class of digital creators, curators, and watchful observers. Citizens of social media transcend time and space, shaping new opinions and carving out a niche audience in ways only an always-on globally-connected network can provide. This new form of distributed creation and communication changes the way brands must market and monitor their business to both new and existing audiences. Who is this new audience? Where do they hang out and participate online, and at what levels?
Forrester Research interviewed 4,500 adults and 4,500 youth in late 2006 to better understand consumer approaches to technology and various levels of social media involvement. Forrester analyst Charlene Li published the results of her study last week in a research paper titled Social Technographics, providing detailed break-downs of social media audiences already engaged in today's Web.
In this week's podcast I discuss social media engagement trends with Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li.
Current activities
Over 60% of young consumers use social networking sites at least weekly, and about 40% check their networks every day. These young creators grew up in the age of personal computers, graphical user interfaces, and digital social annotations. The social computing boom of the past few years has created an online identity and digital hub, altered as frequently as one's clothes.
Adults are also researching news and creating content online. 22% of adults read blogs at least monthly, and 19% of adults surveyed are members of a social media site. Customer ratings and reviews was the most popular online activity, with about 40% of survey participants utilizing sites such as Amazon to read the thoughts and opinions of peers before making a purchase.
Social media involvement
Forrester analysts identified six levels of social media participation in ascending levels of sophistication: inactives, spectators, joiners, collectors, critics, and creators. The categories are not mutually exclusive, as a blog author (a creator) will likely read other blogs (as a spectator), occasionally comment (a critic), and perhaps use web feeds or annotation tools (a collector).
These varied levels of social media participation highlight the need to better engage your audience across the board, easing them into the social media experience. Many social media sites focus on the joiners and creators, setting high barriers of entry and participation. A casual reader might mark a story or video as a personal favorite, or share a collection with friends. A collector might engage more audience members, creating a more focused community for a niche audience. Businesses and websites can engage multiple market segments and open up their community to wider participation.
Listen to the podcast
I discuss these findings and more with Social Technographics research analyst Charlene Li in this week's podcast on social media trends. Our conversation is 20 minutes in length, a 9 MB download.
Niall Kennedy's Podcast
Web technology podcast by Niall Kennedy featuring top thinkers shaping tomorrow's Web.
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Niall Kennedy is a web technologist in San Francisco, California in the United States. I am very interested in the world of... MORE »