One area where I think Twitter is really useful is in posting short updates to a website. I'm currently in the early stages of a project for a local charity that does a lot of work in fairly remote locations around the world.
I suppose mobile network coverage might be the killer to this idea but how great would it be for someone on a project in Africa to post short updates, sent via text message to their website.
I'm thinking along the lines of "We've just installed an irrigation water tower at an orphanage in Kenya and the water is now flowing! (posted 15 minutes ago)". That to me is really powerful, not only from a geek point of view but if I was a visitor to the site I'd be really encouraged to donate knowing that work is actually happening right now.
The best thing is how easy this is to achieve it's just a matter of dropping the Twitter RSS feed into the site homepage and then styling it.
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Twitter, Skype and Facebook
OK, so I've finally decided to see what all the Twitter fuss is about and sign-up for an account, I was a little dissapointed that my usual username was taken but I managed to come up with something else, but what's this my email address is already registered? Oh yes, I do actually recall registering many moons ago, shows how useful it has proved for me thus far.
I guess it is a little chicken and egg as without any of my friends using it it's not really going to take off for me personally. I read the blogs of quite a few people who do use it but I'm not sure if I'm really close enough friends with them to warrant knowing what they are up to at every moment of the day.
I do have to say though if all my friends were Twittering it could really become useful. I can imagine a situation when on a Sunday someone could Twiter, "thinking about going to the pub" and before you know it we're all at the pub. I suppose text messaging could do the same job but it's easier and perhaps more on the spot than actually sending a text out saying "Do you want to come to the pub" and because we'd all receive updates from each other it would be easier to arrange something.
So Twitter allows you to send updates through their website and also from your mobile and some IM clients but notebly not from Skype. But most of the day I'm signed in to Skype and it would be really handy to update Twitter through that. So I did a quick Google and found an article that describes a slightly mysterious method for doing just that. Gave it a try and it works perfectly I can now update Twitter through Skype.
But I have a Facebook account too and it would be good to also be able to push my Twitters through to my Facebook status as well. That's also possible, I added TwitterSync which is a Facebook application and hey presto I can update Skype to Twitter to Facebook! But what if I don't want to send all my Twitters to Facebook and fill up everyones news feed with my Twitter updates? Well, TwitterSync includes a regex function or filter so Twitters that start with a certain string e.g. "FB:" are the only ones that change my Facebook status. I'm just hoping the application developer is going to make it so that the regex prefix is removed before the status is posted to Facebook as it does look a little clumsy to have "FB:" at the start of my status updates.
I guess it is a little chicken and egg as without any of my friends using it it's not really going to take off for me personally. I read the blogs of quite a few people who do use it but I'm not sure if I'm really close enough friends with them to warrant knowing what they are up to at every moment of the day.
I do have to say though if all my friends were Twittering it could really become useful. I can imagine a situation when on a Sunday someone could Twiter, "thinking about going to the pub" and before you know it we're all at the pub. I suppose text messaging could do the same job but it's easier and perhaps more on the spot than actually sending a text out saying "Do you want to come to the pub" and because we'd all receive updates from each other it would be easier to arrange something.
So Twitter allows you to send updates through their website and also from your mobile and some IM clients but notebly not from Skype. But most of the day I'm signed in to Skype and it would be really handy to update Twitter through that. So I did a quick Google and found an article that describes a slightly mysterious method for doing just that. Gave it a try and it works perfectly I can now update Twitter through Skype.
But I have a Facebook account too and it would be good to also be able to push my Twitters through to my Facebook status as well. That's also possible, I added TwitterSync which is a Facebook application and hey presto I can update Skype to Twitter to Facebook! But what if I don't want to send all my Twitters to Facebook and fill up everyones news feed with my Twitter updates? Well, TwitterSync includes a regex function or filter so Twitters that start with a certain string e.g. "FB:" are the only ones that change my Facebook status. I'm just hoping the application developer is going to make it so that the regex prefix is removed before the status is posted to Facebook as it does look a little clumsy to have "FB:" at the start of my status updates.
Friday, 11 April 2008
MODx and Flash
I've always been a serious fan of Flash, I don't think there's a better tool for designers as you can build pretty much anything you can imagine. Although that's not always a good thing when you consider the usability sins early Flash work commited in terms of scrollbars that didn't resemble scrollbars in any way, shape or form but the components are solving that problem.
Anyway, as much as I would love to create every site in Flash I can't, simply because it's lousy when it comes to search engine indexing. Such as shame, as this I think is the major constraint that has held Flash back since day one. Google I know indexes Flash but I'm yet to see a Flash site in a high position for a competitive search term, it just isn't going to happen.
I suppose as well there are occassions such as when designing a very content intensive site Flash probably isn't the tool for the job. I do recall in days of old when Macromedia used Flash for content pages in their site and they had some rather slick features as a result but it wasn't long until they removed it and went back to plain HTML which was similar to scoring an own goal in my book.
What does get me excited is the prospect of being able to output content from a CMS like MODx or Umbraco into Flash as that would be really cool. The CMS could be used to manage the content and then Flash can be used to render it to the browser with all the bells and whistles. To ensure the search engines are satisfied I'd want to output the content to a HTML site as well, running from the same content as Flash. So updating the content in the CMS would update the Flash and HTML site.
I wonder if we could use the JavaScript flashObject script to embed Flash into the HTML site, over the HTML content?
So lets say I arrive at the site and I have Flash, the SWF could be inserted by JavaScript over the HTML version so therefore giving me the best experience. But a search engine would still be able to index the site as a standard HTML website, interesting prospect.
Anyway, as much as I would love to create every site in Flash I can't, simply because it's lousy when it comes to search engine indexing. Such as shame, as this I think is the major constraint that has held Flash back since day one. Google I know indexes Flash but I'm yet to see a Flash site in a high position for a competitive search term, it just isn't going to happen.
I suppose as well there are occassions such as when designing a very content intensive site Flash probably isn't the tool for the job. I do recall in days of old when Macromedia used Flash for content pages in their site and they had some rather slick features as a result but it wasn't long until they removed it and went back to plain HTML which was similar to scoring an own goal in my book.
What does get me excited is the prospect of being able to output content from a CMS like MODx or Umbraco into Flash as that would be really cool. The CMS could be used to manage the content and then Flash can be used to render it to the browser with all the bells and whistles. To ensure the search engines are satisfied I'd want to output the content to a HTML site as well, running from the same content as Flash. So updating the content in the CMS would update the Flash and HTML site.
I wonder if we could use the JavaScript flashObject script to embed Flash into the HTML site, over the HTML content?
So lets say I arrive at the site and I have Flash, the SWF could be inserted by JavaScript over the HTML version so therefore giving me the best experience. But a search engine would still be able to index the site as a standard HTML website, interesting prospect.
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