Google Themes – Why?

Google Themes – people are going Ga Ga over it.

Google is one firm which kept the beauty of simplicity alive. What just happened to them to release themes? All Google releases do make a lot of geeks excited. Be it labs or slight changes in color here and there.

This would be one effort to attract other email users badly. They have done enough to get the smart ones to have gmail ids. All cheers. But what about others – who use internet for emailing alone. These would be your users who use mail, chat, matrimony, book tickets (air, train, cinema etc.), facebook and orkut.

Selling them the idea of not cluttering things and keeping the essentials never works. A little bit of jazz is necessary. Similar to sticking flashy things on your laptop, hanging pictures on your desk, keeping that teddy bear at office, unnecessary use of smileys etc.

Sure signs of internet becoming a mass phenomena. Necessary in a way. Careful not to get absorbed in the waves too.

New emoticons for Gtalk and Gmail

Just heard – You are getting new and improved emoticons for GMail and GTalk.

Also heard – AC/DC has come out with an ASCII types video which runs on MS Excel.

Is there a possible connection between AC/DC going to look low tech and GMail looking Hi tech? Experimentation / A/B Testing could be one possible answer. Why A/B testing? Is GTalk not good enough for people who wants to communicate with each other? And is not GTalk more popular than other pretty little cute IM packages such as Y!Messenger, RediffBol etc.?

Google might just be looking out for your future power users (read teens). At present we have quite a good proportion of 18- 35 year olds using Gtalk and Gmail for their academic and professional uses. Close to 10 years of web experience may not entice them much for smileys too. Happy with ’spartan’ smileys and emoticons. Teens might need some chocolates to really get stuck to this chat machine.

On a personal note, this does not make much difference to me. Wait and see how these improvements translate to numbers. Recession proofing? Anyone?

Google looking deep into the mobile market

Launch of Android phone sure makes this Fortune 150 company mobile focussed. Mobile net and smart phones can kick the laptop accessed internet in say three years from now. Similar funda – who wants to go to a telephone booth these days to call up their mom?

Just heard that GMail in Blackberry got an upgrade. Even in the absence of network, you could compose your email and hit send. The email would sit in the outbox till the phone detects network and then fire the mail. Works in similar lines as a text message.

Are we seeing simplicity taking over the tech world in a big way here?

Phone wars continue

There was a time a few months back when iPhone was the favorite kid of all bloggers of all shapes and sizes. Even I copied a ‘sillies‘ from Ctrl Alt Del in this mad fever.

I am not a phone geek. I do not trip on phones, their weight, their look and feel and apps. However, I do believe that the Blackberry is a pretty cool gadget. I am buying a blackberry too. My N73 sucks a lot of ass. The phone has lost the very basics too. It fails to call or send text messages. I have to switch the phone off at times to read a bloody text message too. Even missed a nice chick’s call who wanted to hang around with me.

Joy of Tech did a very neat comic on iPhone vs. Google Android recently.

Google Phone is much cooler than the iphone

Fuck you iPhone seems to be the deal here. Loving the concept. Cut down the hype. Sure Steve Jobs got some neat gadget ready for launch soon. I know – the Macbook Pro.(new one) with two video cards and all.

But yes, phones should focus more on the functionality than other jazz to lure your clients.

Answer the following questions.

1. Can you do X on your phone?
2. How much time and effort to do X?
3. Can you easily update X to X + dX?
4. Does your phone tire out / show fatigue after performing X + dX?
5. Does your phone do X and Y at the same time?
6. Is your phone so simple that it cannot be made simpler (Zen)?

Why do I suck at my RSS Reader?

I use Google Reader for my daily RSS doze.

I confess – I am a really bad user when it comes to RSS. Some 61 odd feeds organized into some 10 odd folders.

I take feeds on Comics, Indian internet news blogs, Global news blogs, trends blogs, market research blogs, generic portals, stock photography, advertising gyan, tips and tricks etc. I take feeds from all sorts of sites I stumble on. Now, keeping in touch with them has become an ENORMOUS responsibility. Natural laziness and resistance to reading makes the whole deal tougher.

Go back to your books – hard copies that is. It helps

Take a look at the general trend. Most of our influential bloggers are authors. First a book and then a blog to keep your readers fixed on your trip. Goes for Seth, Garr Reynolds, O’Reily, Chris Anderson etc. The core of the blogs lie in those books (250 – 300 pages of ideas). The two page blogs make a lot more sense if you are used to the 250 – 300 pages of the idea.

Offline is not really offline

Online is more of a reflection of the offline world. All that we see on the net was always there outside the net. Just that it requried a lot of time, money and energy to access and experience them. Now the barriers are slowly fading away. Adds to the responsibility of reading your feeds.

The Long Tail

The long tail is getting longer. It sure pays to integrate the math and statistics to your RSS reading. Selective reading – the whole “how to crack an objective questionnaire” theory applies here. There are 250 questions and 120 minutes. You should be aware of 250 questions and be ready to crack some 80.

The Core

Keep your core strong. There are blogs which needs a daily attention – without fail – if possible. The core pretty much defines your trip on the internet.

RSS feeds – its beautiful man

Processes in a Web Development Project

Been reading a lot about Web 2.0 and got absolutely mind blown by the possibilities and the cool factor involved in the whole deal. Even took up a job in an Online advertising agency to know what the deal is all about. My reading goes something like this -

Web Development projects need a lot of talent in the first place. Strategists, Information Architects, UI professionals, Front end developers, Server side scripters, copy writers, content writers, Relationship Executives, Computer hardware junta, Chai walas, Rickshaw drivers, Office space, intoxicants and of course fast, decent and reliable broadband connection.

Going about the activity in a very White board kind you may divide the process into seven broad categories -

1. Information Architecture Phase

2. Project Management phase

3. Wireframing

4. Design Mockups

5. Front end development (XHTML, CSS, Javascript)

6. Back end development (CMS, PHP, ASP, .NET)

7. Quality Assurance

Information architecture is the baby of all AOE geeks. An architect could spend long hours, days or weeks tripping on ideas, competition, functionalities, features and what not. A few techniques here and there like mind mapping, Card sorting and related jazz could get you a lot of dope on things that could be done, could not be done, should be torn and shot into a trashcan (from a distance or point blank range). A lot of new age websites do have a lot of architecture behind it – Look a facebook, cleartrip or Orkut for instance.

“Should I allow a first time user to read some random astrology stuff?”

“I could make a seasoned user ‘SLAP’ a fried. What about a ‘THROW A BEER’ or rather just ask them to chill out and watch a movie”

“Do you just want to go to Delhi? No hotel booking? What about sight seeing? Oh, so you are an executive. Would you like to surf the net when you land? Have you thought about where you will pee? do you know the Vadapao vendor at Banglore?”

Information Architecture – Microsoft Visio – Kivio (Linux users anyone?) – Dia (Less sophiscated Linux Users – anyone!!??)

But hey, business is not for you to trip on arbit stuff. Ever thought about this concept called time? Or about these homosapiens called clients? They would enjoy the Vadapao questions for sometime till money and opportunity costs come knocking hard on the doors. Speed up architects – 5 minutes remaining!!!

Project Management – The whole planning can start here. How much time to create a wireframe, how may days for an approval, how much time and how many resources for tech work etc. Can get to your nerves in a ‘tight’ project or can trip on timings and processes. Use MS Projects, Gantt Charts, Project trackers and all the corporate tools here to make an effect!!!

Wireframing – The IA (Information Architecture) looks for hundred and twenty two things on the homepage. All of them look good. All look important. All look cool. All need attention.

“Whatever happened to the clean white breathing space jazz – make another heavily cluttered shitty looking website guys – way to go” – the necessary evil guy in all Web development agencies – comes in the form of Relationship Managers, Front End Developers, “Experts” and random guys who appear out of nowhere – Popup blockers do not come in real life!!! (SAD!)

Wireframing to the rescue!

These guys are Gods. They can make an over crowded Mumbai local look good – Ah! Put the long distance travellers inside on the seats. Put your bags on the overhead compartment. The young and adventurous on top of the train (careful – just dont balance yourself using the overhead lines). They talk in terms of placeholders, link holders, usability, 508 etc. Take up the responsibility of Riot Police in a web agency. Good people, nice people. They dream in B&W and has really fast fingers – shortcuts on Autocad and stuff – must have a good sex life! Enjoy making chaos look good! Butterfly effect???

No one would be so bothered about usability tests as a Wireframing executive. Navigation, User Science, First time user, Seasoned user – they know it all (better know it all – its your website, its your money)

Design Mockups – Creativity vs. Science. The ultimate dream that comes true! Arts meets mathematics – I am so bloody excited.

The B&W user centric Wireframes comes out of the sixties in Eastman color (READ WEB FRIENDLY COLORS – capitals to disturb the reader and to make my point so clear – clearly I am no wireframe expert)

The Web 2.0 of rounded edges, over sized icons, reflections, Sans Seriff fonts – design mockups!

Watching a design mockup is more or less like watching a whole website in jpeg format. Clients love them. Their trip starts here! Straight from the logo to the (c) Copyright font. Relationship Managers have a time here selling the designs – usability, business ideas, users and the general bored guy hitting Google to fight sleep at work – no one is spared here – we need every single net user on the planet to come here and “Register with us” or “Pay us for whatever we sell”

Approval – the necessary evil to trip on your remaining Web 2.0 dreams. No one – not a single web developer is advised to go ahead with the coding of your webpages without being 100% happy with the design mockups – [The text (copy in advertising language) is NOT A PART of design mockups].

Copy Writers and Content Writers can work parallely on making the captions, the initial content, the messages etc. at this point of time. Design mockups do have a big part in the fonts, font sizes, font colors etc. Again being “web friendly” when it comes to the text is of mighty importance. We dont want our copy to look like shit just because some jack asses do not like Mozilla!!! What if some non tech savvy 20 words a minute, 55 year old – “We never used computers on a daily basis” rich guy actually wants to “Register” or “pay using Paypal”???

Front end development – XHTML / CSS / Javascript to put it in very concise and simple terms. All the designs (in form of Photoshop drawings, Flashes etc.) is converted into HTML (HTML 4.01 with external CSS – in detail). The weight of the website, the way it loads, the closeness to the design etc. all depends majorly on your front end coding.

In fact initial marketing of the website (Search Engine Optimization) could start off here. It is recommended to first finish off with the coding and think of SEO later though.

Two forms of coding as on date (with Divs and with tables). Anyone who uses tables to do their stuff needs to be kicked on their crouch immediately. It sucks – why? too heavy! But Divs takes an insane amount of time – worth it also!

Backend Development – Most websites are just about information – We are this, we do this, please get in touch. However, there are a lot of websites which develops a special kind of relationship with the user such as E-commerce, Publishers, Financial Services etc. They need to be updated regularly, collect data and respond accordingly, put fresh content regularly etc. A simple HTML / CSS site could end up shitting bricks if these things are needed.

ASP, PHP, .NET etc are certain computer languages capable of doing all these things. You may need to build a CMS (Content Management System) or do a little bit of programming or develop logic (like how you add friends in orkut, surf images on Flickr, poke chicks on Facebook and so on). Backend Development - Geek paradise!!!

Quality Assurance – Yes! The website is live! My product is out! I am so HAPPPPYYYYY! Hold it mister. Your website sucks! It has a million spell check errors, links that do not work, Sitemap which does jackshit and site looks like a rebellious teenager’s room on Internet Explorer 6. Now what!!!

Yes, sit and do your quality checks. Make a list of bugs, check them out once done. Patience, time and peace – three very important qualities needed for this exercise. Ususally done on a staging server (you would host the website on a free server / paid server with a funny URL and test it before hosting it on the domain which you paid for).

GO – LIVE – Yes, the site is live. Now what?????

1. INTERNET MARKETING – SEO, SEM, PPC, PPA, Social Media, Affiliate Marketing, Email marketing, Banner ads, Offline marketing, Google page ranks, Yahoo page ranks – Its a different ball game then.

2. SITE MAINTENANCE – Update content, remove un-necessary content, archive stuff, new pages etc.

The tip of the iceberg ends here!