Back to Basics & the Golden Rule

The internet and by extension the www was meant to be a place of freedom, freedom to share information and ideas in a totally unprohibited manner. This means that a website – any website – exists to primarily provide information and/or a useful service. Then, much later, the website may make money as a consequence of its usefulness (one hopes!)

How do you make your website useful? Remember the golden rule: when designing and creating a website, get your priorities right: you are making that website so that people may visit it and use it; you are making it for its users. Therefore:

  1. Provide useful content. Visitors to your site should have access to this content in the easiest and most efficient way possible.
  2. Make your website the best it can be without thinking, at first, of how to make money with it. It is often said that the most profitable sites were first created to enrich users’ lives and then, relatively much later, ways were found to make them earn money. Does Google or Craigslist ring a bell? Both started out with these principles.
  3. Do not mistreat your website’s users. Let them come and go as they please, do not obstruct them with ads and other crap. Moreover, NEVER ask for their emails, names or for them to register with you unless it is absolutely necessary.

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This Post is part of a series of posts describing web 2.0. If you find it interesting, you may want to check out the rest of the posts. Not sure? Try read this summary of this series of posts. Otherwise, the other posts in this series are:

So, you want to go web 2.0?
web 1.0
Web 2.0: All the rage?
Back to basics & the Golden Rule
In with the New.

Web 2.0: All the rage?

The dotcom crash taught us something, even if we vehemently deny it. After the dotcom crash dust had settled the only writing on the wall was: ‘It is all about the user’. No matter what you want to gain from your website, or the web, you have to realize that you need to take care of the people who come to your website; your website’s users. This is the golden rule of the internet. Try as you may, you can never change the intrinsic nature of the internet. And try they did: the rapid monetization of the internet and the www in particular was in complete disregard for what the internet was supposed to stand for. As we all know, this approach failed as it led to the dotcom crash.

Wikipedia defines web 2.0 as ‘a supposed 2nd generation of internet based services such as social networking, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies that let people collaborate and share information online in previously unavailable ways’.

Coined by Oreilly media in 2004, web 2.0 was initially just another marketing buzzword meant to entice, enchant and pull out the money men (read venture capitalists) from their post-dotcom-crash bunkers. However, web 2.0 has come to mean something, as Paul graham points out. Web 2.0 simply means using the internet the way it was supposed to be used in the first place. I’m not too sure it’s a good thing to have a phrase describing what the web should be, but that’s just me.

So, you want to go web 2.0?

No doubt about it, web 2.0 has got people in a frenzy. Everyone’s looking at how they can jump in on the action. Nobody wants to be left out on what has been referred to as the next major internet attraction. All the while, some of us are still struggling with basic questions, while web 2.0 gurus abound. What is web 2.0?

join me in this series of posts in which I focus on web 2.0 and try to explain what is it.

Web 1.0

The World Wide Web (www) is that part of the internet in which web pages can be found. On a typical web page, there are often links (hyperlinks) to other web pages, pictures, audio or whatever. On the www, one page links to another, which in turn links onwards to other pages, each of which links to other pages still. There is therefore, a ‘web’ of interlinked pages. (That’s why it is called the www.)

The www really burst into life with the creation of the browser. (You may remember the browser wars and the dotcom boom.) Basically, when the browser came into being, the web became much more accessible, hence much more useful – recall Metcalf’s Law. This precipitated an unprecedented boom: millions of websites were created as the www quickly commercialized. This was the dotcom boom. Unfortunately, this led to the dotcom crash.

The rapid commercialization of the www robbed it of its true nature. The internet was largely defaced and became mostly about money: it was, and probably still is, all too common to find thousands of websites that offered very little to the user but were nonetheless bursting at the seams with advertisements. I’m sure we all remember those large, obstructive, flashing banners and the all too familiar and extremely irritating flurry of pop-ups. The user, and website usefulness was forgotten and the original internet ideals of freedom and community were but a distant memory.

Blogging And the Blogosphere

Everyone has something to offer the world. All a person needs is some sort of stage. Needless to say, the internet is the perfect stage. With a click of a button you can offer whatever you have got to the whole wide world. It really is that easy! Actually, the internet offers a number of such stages. One of them is blogging.

Yes, blogging. I am yet another writer writing about blogging. I just have to tell you of blogs. Blogging is, in my books, a phenomenon. And not just an internet phenomenon. There are million of blogs and even more millions of blog readers. Thousands of blogs are created everyday. I would say that blogs are one of the most important consequences of internet technology. It is reaching a point in time when blogs not only shape the internet but the real world as well (if it still is possible to separate the internet and the so-called real world).

Think about it. All you need to do to spread a rumour is to post it on a popular blog. There are now professional bloggers (people who live off their blogs). Blogs are increasingly being turned to books. Bloggers are migrating to the traditional media, having launched their careers on a blog. Traditional media writers are migrating to the blogosphere. Some bloggers were even invited to the White House, along with traditional media journalists and reporters. An Egyptian blogger (Alaa Abdel Fatah) was arrested for being anti-government. Company-sponsored blogs are the in-thing in the corporate world. There is even a Kenyan Blog of the Year – tHiNkEr’S rOoM! Blogging is big!

Whoa! Let’s not get all excited and forget to ask some important questions. What is a blog? A web log, which is usually shortened as blog, is a type of website in which entries are made much as in a journal or diary and displayed in chronological order. But that’s just the technical mumbo-jumbo. A blog can be anything you want it to be. Your diary, your magazine, your newspaper, your photo album, whatever.

There are several types of blogs. Personal blogs are often used to record your own opinions, feelings, experiences and views much like in a diary or journal. Blogs which aim at fostering a community with a specific interest may be called community blogs. These are blogs like Kenyan Soccer, Kenyan Cricket, the Capital Breakfast Crew blog the awesome Mzalendo or even the type of blogs used by the U. S. presidential candidates last time round. An ODM-K or NARC–K blog would fall in this category. Some variation of community blogs are those family blogs – a convenient way to tell the whole family something quickly and accurately. There are also news blogs which, like newspapers, aim at delivering news. However, such blogs often deliver highly slanted news, to say the least. Finally, we have company or corporate blogs such as the Google blog.

Apart from just text and pictures or photos, some blogs ‘broadcast’ audio or even video. These are called podcasts and blogs respectively.

It is a shame that you have to tell people of something’s benefits before they try it out.

Why would anyone want to blog? For the individual, blogs are the ultimate freedom of expression. Now you can say anything to anyone or everyone. People interested in writing may find blogs particularly interesting. If you haven’t broken into print yet then a blog is just what the doctor ordered. It’s your opportunity to show the world what you are made of. The number of blogs being turned into books is increasing, so blogging doesn’t just have to be a hobby. Believe it or not, some people blog their novels! If you already are a writer, a blog may be the way of getting around your editor. Above all, blogs can make you money.

A surprising twist to the story of blogs is that corporate blogs are now cool. They’re in. It is not hard to see that blogs can be the perfect PR or marketing tool. Readers find blogs and bloggers to be more approachable and readable – they have a personal touch that we all like. I, for one, would be more likely to read a blog that ‘just happened’ to tell me something about a company than an official, boring, uninviting company statement. Is there a better way to reach your customers?

The easiest way to get a blog is via blogger or blog who both promise to have your blog up and running in three easy steps, and, in record time! Live journal is another notable blog publisher – all your posts are not only published on your blog but also to a giant aggregator on which all live journal blog parts are published. All 11 million (at last count) of them! These all allow you to get a blog for free. However, there are many other blog publishers out there: wordpress.com, wordpress.org, movable type among others.

Go ahead, get a blog today. Do remember to join the Kenyan bloggers webring while you are at it.

For more info. on blogs, and neat tips, visit problogger or check out his Blogging for Beginners series.

You may also like:

Blogging For Dummies .

Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.

What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting: Real-Life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere (What No One Ever Tells You About…)

Now, to bust some jargon:

Blogger – a person who writes and maintains a blog
Blogosphere – that part of the world where bloggers live
Posts – articles written for and published on a blog.

Internet Chat Tips: Online Safety

Following my interview with SmellyCat on chatting, I have identified the following main points about internet chat:

Safety tips From SmellyCat:
The problem is that a lot of people invite problems by not practicing safe chat. You see, young people make friends really easily and they can’t help but trust (to some extend) these friends. What they don’t understand is that not everyone you chat to is honest.

  1. Never use or reveal your real name in a chat room. Use a nick name- and not one that reveals your gender (unless you want to) or attracts bad attention e.g sexy beast.
  2. Be careful who you trust. The person you are talking to may just as well be 20 years older than he says he is.
  3. Think before you reveal anything personal or answer private questions.
  4. Get away from unpleasant situations by blocking the offending user, logging out or even logging in using a different handle.
  5. Meeting people (in real life) that you first met in a chat room can be dangerous. Always tell an adult about such meetings.
  6. Adults should talk frequently to young people about their chat experience and recommend safe chat rooms to them. (An example of a regulated chat room is gridclub).
  7. If all else fails, adults may also block block chatting using special software – you may also ask your ISP for help on this.(Though there are ways around this!)

Internet chat is really very nice, try it at talkcity, through YahooIM/MSN, or-for the ‘ultimate’ good-old expereience-try IRC. I personally vouch for talkcity – I have met many long-term freinds there.

Here is a list of acronyms that make up a lot of the language used in internet chat….just so you don’t get lost…

PS: Don’t forget your netiquette!!

The Secret to Internet Chatting

The following takes place between 5am and 6 am.

At exactly 5am I walk into the room. It isn’t very crowded but, as usual, there is already a heated debate amongst some of the regulars. I suppose a heated debate could also arise from my use of the word ‘walk’ at the beginning of this paragraph. It is complicated: some would say I teleported into the room; others would argue that it is not a room at all.

But let’s not get into that.

My guest ‘walks’ in. Just in time. I immediately launch a private conversation with her. Folks meet Smelly cat

Hey. How are you doing?
Hello. I’m fine and I hope you are too. Sorry, I’m a bit late.

Smelly Cat: That is interesting name. How did you get it?

Yeah its good, isn’t it? It’s actually my childhood nickname. I don’t really want to get into how I got it. Anyhoo, it serves its purpose quite well. When you are in a room such as this one, it helps if you have a good unique nick name – otherwise known as a handle.

Tell us about yourself

Well, I’m young and I love life. You really have to be more specific if you want more out of me.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a chat room regulator

A what?

LOL. Right, I……get paid to spend all the day in the chat rooms, like this one, and ensure that the public discussions don’t get indecent, abusive or otherwise inappropriate.

Cool

Yeah. It gets me by. The really cool thing is that I can work from home, or anywhere else.

So what is internet chat?

Internet chat is a way of communicating instantly over the internet. I like to call it TOIP.

Text over internet protocol? That doesn’t exist, does it?

No. It only exists in my mind. But you never can be too sure, what with the pace of technology nowadays. I call it TOIP because it is like an actual conversation but one in which you don’t speak but type whoever you want to say.

How does one get to experience ‘TOIP’

There are two ways of chatting on the internet:

1 You can chat via websites that have chat rooms like talkcity or mashada. Basically, you register with the website and you can then enter the chat room(s) on that site. There, you’ll find people having a public discussion that everyone ‘hear.’ You may take part in that discussion or start a private conversation with anyone.

2 You can also chat through instant messaging (IM) software (usually available for free) such as yahoo IM, MSN IM, AOL IM etc. When chatting through such software, you log in to the messenger and chat with any contacts you have.


How do get these contacts?

Contacts are actually your friends. Every messenger has an option that lets you invite contacts, so that you can chat to them whenever you’re both logged into the IM software.

What about IRC?

IRC is an open protocol for chat/instant messaging. Some people say it’s the original mode of internet chat. It works a lot like IM software. You download some software, like mIRC, and log in. It then connects you to number of IRC services or channels and you can chat. Incidentally, IRC is mostly used by adults, for their type of discussions.

Speaking of adults, are chat rooms as dangerous as depicted on CNN or Sky news?

You cannot say that chat rooms are any dangerous than walking down the street, or having a drink at the local. You just have to be careful.

Really?

The problem is that a lot of people invite problems by not practicing safe chat. You see, young people make friends really easily and they can’t help but trust (to some extent) these friends. What they don’t understand is that not everyone you chat to is honest.

How do you practice safe chat?

Never use or reveal your real name in a chat room. Use a nick name- and not one that reveals your gender or attracts bad attention e.g sexy beast.
Be careful who you trust. The person you are talking to may just as well be 20 years older than he says he is.
Think before you reveal anything personal or answer private questions .
Get away from unpleasant situations by blocking the offending user, logging out, or even re-logging in using a different name.
Meeting people (in real life) that you first me online can be dangerous. Always tell an adult about such meetings and arrange the meeting to be in a public place and go to the meeting with one or a couple of your friends.


Can parents do anything to protect their kids?

1.Adults should talk frequently to young people about their chat experience and recommend safe chat rooms to them. (An example of a regulated chat room is gridclub)

2. You may also block chatting using special software – you may also ask your ISP for help on this.
In the spirit of freedom I have to say that there are ways to get around chat-blocking, such as by using websites like meebo or e-buddy.

What does chat mean to you?

Internet chat is beautiful technology. Just take us as an example: you’re interviewing me in a chat room! That just speaks for it itself.

Any last words?

Chatting is a wonderful way to meet people and have lots of fun online – with anonymous flirting and what not! It may also pay your bills, like it does mine. For people with websites, a chat room may drive some decent traffic your way. It is also emerging as an excellent (and cheap) way of offering customer care on websites, especially for companies that provide online services.

Think about it.

Now to burst some jargon:
LOI – Laugh out loud; used to indicate laughter when chatting
MSN – Microsoft Network
AOL –
America online
IRC –Internet relay chat