What a woman has to do to make online advertising work……………Apply 360-2020 sense and get coding………..
It’s well-known that Flash advertising on the Web is not as successful as it should be. This is because the marketers, SEO specialists and advertisers may not have either the technical skills or the imagination to increase user interaction with the advert. What currently happens is that the Flash advert acts as a PUSH mechanism, bombarding the online user with its message (which they resent as an intrusion) — rather than pulling and attracting them in as a process of discovery.
The current solution deployed by marketers, to make adverts work better, is to ask UI designers to recommend where the advert would be better positioned. The answer the UI designer typically provides is:
* near any log-in panel
* top of right-hand side column
* middle of the article to break up the text
* bottom of left-hand side column
In fact, the real problem lies NOT in the position of the advert but in the way with which it entices online users to engage with it and go on a journey of discovery about the content! That’s an obvious.
Now, when things don’t work I have a tendency to go ahead and fuse any technical, creative and business knowhow I may have……..until it DOES work. Here’s what I mean in relation to increasing advertising engagement and user interactivity on a website.
In the next tech videos, I’ll demo how to re-imagine and customize AJAX to create a dynamic RSS page, an ordered list accordion and a non-SVG edit in place collaboration areas which foster more user interactivity and is flexible enough for their personal choice.
This will provide a glimpse into the types of technology I’m leveraging to create my version of what features a website UI should have and what the site should be able to do for users, advertisers, companies and collaborators alike.
Finally today sourcebinder has invited me into their alpha testing group.
I registered on their site many months ago because as readers are aware I’m interested in systems which facilitate linkage and sense-making of what may be seemingly discrete, silo information sources. When I saw this video from them on YouTube, it looked like they’re trying to synaptically connect information sources in a visually and technically innovative way (with Wii, haptics, Papervision3D and AS3 in synch):
Initially, it’s obvious that this alpha group is extremely small. At this initial stage I count 6 participants, including myself, who’ve activated their invites and are exploring the features available.
Over the next few days I’ll explore more and update everyone on functionality and ease of use as I discover it myself. At first glance, the layout is quite neat — although clearly oriented towards people who may be more technically capable than the mass consumer; this UI does not look like a MySpace / Facebook / Twitter. It’s an amalgam between viewzi, onellama (a radio music site a friend of a friend founded) and a music download iPhone app store that I once happened upon. In any case, I’m looking forward to playing around with it and testing what it has to offer.
ALPHAs, BETAs, CONTENT OWNERSHIP + TWAIN
Following what was an unexpectedly awful experience with a SemWeb beta last year (appallingly unprofessional management team, systematic breach of user goodwill and trust on their part, lack of consideration towards user feedback and the decimation of collaborative user content), I’ve made the decision NOT to contribute my content or insights to any site / mgmt team where users are not valued, where users can’t monetize their content within a reasonable timeframe, where users’ time(s) and positive energies are being wasted or where, as a user, I simply feel uncomfortable with my reputation being associated with that particular platform.
I am a quality content contributor — as shown by the fact Google Knol has awarded me “Top Pick Knol” for three different postings — and I will only engage on quality platforms with quality management teams.
Platforms and management teams I do recommend entrusting content with include:
A lot of marketing research is currently being conducted on online behaviors and motivations. Here’s an insight into me as an online contributor. I’m not the type of person who creates a socnet account to garner followers or to throw electric sheep around — although I admit I have a facebook and myspace account simply to prevent anyone squatting on my name and then posting items pretending to be me.
For someone who enjoys sharing knowhow, I’ve simply made the choice to exclusively participate on platforms where the return on utility (ROU), the reciprocity of user respect (RUR) and the collaborative dispersion of sense (CDS) is high. Users’ content, their collaborative capabilities and their time are precious and valuable.
There is absolutely no point giving a platform like that SemWeb play these treasures and gold nuggets for them to exploit when there are a million and one other competing platforms out there which do treat users, their content and their contributions with respect, and where they can monetize their content or organize / promote / own it in a way which suits their needs.
CONTENT IS KING, CONTEXT IS QUEEN AND CONSIDERATION ARE THEIR PROGENY, (C) Twain, 2009
This weekend I’ll expand on this phrase I coined in response to someone’s comment to my Google knol on ‘The Global Brain’ and explain how it relates to a viable monetization model for Web 3.0.
LONDON 2012 — ROYAL MINT DESIGN A 50 PENCE COMPETITION
I’ll also release some images and a video of my submission to this competition. Essentially, the Royal Mint is inviting the public to design the tails side of the 50 pence coin in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics. There are 27 sports themes for designers to choose from and the prize includes seeing their designs appearing on 50 pence coins in circulation as of March 2010.
It’s been a little while since I sketched anything so I found the flow arcs of my wrists not as flexible as they were when I sketched more, but I’m pleased with the design concept I submitted!
That’s all for now except perhaps to say that my Knol entry “How to LOL” is apparently in the lead to win the Google Knol-Dummies contest and that some parties from the Knol Authors Foundation would like me to join them.
Again, because of the bad experience with the SemWeb play I’m reluctant to allocate my time to helping systems and teams improve — unless it’s actually my job or I’m being financially remunerated for my efforts, upfront.
Goodwill which isn’t reciprocated or respected is simply exploitation and that’s……….MORALLY WRONG.
This is how my cool Flash pre-loader and homepage now look. I hope you’ll agree the site’s taking shape reasonably:
Compass pre-loader to Always the Twain (@T)
Always the Twain (@T): homepage
The pre-loader is essentially a 100-frame swf with a customized compass complete with a color wheel and flared camera lens that I created with Adobe Photoshop. I used the circular cut out tool……….A LOT — lol.
Designing websites isn’t easy. However, it can be extremely helpful for exercising your own creativity and I’d definitely recommend it. For absolute beginners there’s a wealth of packages out there including:
Plus there’s a plethora of free online literature on everything from html to CSS (to control layout and design/style) to how to set up an SQL database.
I used to hand-code the html until I discovered that with Adobe Flash you can save the file as html too and this auto-generates all the html you need. Nevertheless, it is helpful to know html yourself because you can go back in and edit where appropriate; knowing where tags and divs begin / end and how they affect the layout is useful.
It gets more complicated when you start including Javascript or C++ to make calls and functions to the server and databases — particularly when you have an online form, forum, blog or any information gathering text box (that you may want to publish or simply store in archives).
We won’t cover that………………..yet. It is possible to teach yourself Java and other OOPs (object-oriented programs) in 14 days.
For now, I’d like talk a wee bit about Flash CS3 and Papervision3D.
MY DESIGN TOOLS OF CHOICE
I’m autodidactic in Flash and have learnt it organically via direct application rather than theoretically; this has its advantages and disadvantages (more on this in another post). There are several good sources of information so I tend to go in search of code Enlightenment here:
My favorite Flash anything at the moment is obviously Papervision3D — which is what the brilliant Spanish team, Bestiario, leveraged to build the TEDtalks videosphere:
What would be “too cool for school” would be if I learnt how to cross something like sourcebinder with MSNBC’s Spectra product with some form of Quantum4D.
THEN that resultant application would be something close to….AMAZIN+.
The products in action can be seen in these YouTube videos:
The limitation with Flash used to be that Google didn’t have much capability to search for Flash content. However, hopefully, with its recent strategic alliance with Adobe this will change.
Whenever I create an swf, the thing I always forget to do which I DEFINITELY SHOULD DO FROM THE OUTSET(!!!) is to optimize the images and to choose the right format (jpeg / gif / png / png-8 / png-24) so that the file size doesn’t become unmanageable.
Needless to say…………..I forgot and then had to go back into the FLAs and optimize the images with Photoshop. Some of them went from 120KB to 12KB — proving that optimization makes a world of difference!
THE BEGINNING OF AN ADVENTURE
I have a definite strategic vision of what I’d like to see the Always the Twain site become over time: a collaboration hub with cool tools.
There’s a much more immediate to-do: my MPM (Media Perception Matrix) tool which I’m coding in Javascript — with plans to pitch it to Google (seriously), so this site will build up over time rather than overnight.
Thanks for following its progress! Lots more still to do and to enjoy………………
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