Website Design and Development

Moving my blog

Adam Kempler — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:24:12 +0000

I’m moving my blog to http://adamkempler.com
Update your feeds. Sorry for the trouble.

Public versus private content - a recurring pattern

Adam Kempler — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 02:08:19 +0000

A recurring pattern I encounter frequently when developing community oriented sites is whether to make certain user-contributed content public or private. Often the end-user has the option of making their content public or private and the system defaults to one or other.

The client almost always votes for private as the default, but Ari Paparo tells a cautionary tale in his post about why his bookmarking company Blink.com failed and del.icio.us succeeded.

Ari lists multiple reasons, but the one I identify with as a web developer is the issue of public versus private content. This comes up time and again, and as Ari states, it’s not just the ability to make something private or public, but which should be the default. In his case, making ‘private’ the default was a deciding factor in the failure of his site, whereas del.icio.us defaulted to ‘public’ for the very same content (bookmarks).
So the next time I’m ~~wrestling~~ discussing with a client whether or not user-generated content should be public or private I will refer them to Ari’s post.

[tags]Marketing, Patterns, Content, Content Management[/tags]

A Subversion Repository for my wife

Adam Kempler — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 00:13:33 +0000

My wife’s Valentine’s day gift is a subversion repository. She’s a writer and like many of the writers I know, rarely backs anything up, preferring to believe that the Great God of Writers will protect her and her work from harm. While I live in fear that the next time she has an “oops” with her laptop, I won’t be able to rescue the files from her hard drive. (It’s been four times already).

So today I setup a subversion repository for her to store her manuscripts. I installed TortoiseSVN on her laptop so all she has to do is right-click on her Word file and select “commit”. She can even add comments about the her status if she wants.
I also setup WebSVN so she has the added bonus of being able to access her manuscript from any computer via the browser.

Happy Valentine’s Day honey…

[tags]subversion, svn, scm[/tags]

Website urls

Adam Kempler — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:57:56 +0000

I was setting up a new Wordpress blog and was trying to decide what format to use for my urls (permalinks). I opted for a format like:
http://www.mysite.com/blog/archives/123
I thought that this would be easier on the eyes than having the post title in the url:
http://www.mysite.com/blog/archives/some-post-by-me

However, I was just found a post on the importance of a good post slug. I really hadn’t thought about the importance of relevant content in the url for search engines and ad serving via Adsense.

Project management best practices

Adam Kempler — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 19:05:31 +0000

I’ve usesd a lot of project management software and the key ingredient missing from all of them is a way to document and identify best practices for each of the projects. Clay Shirky says: The best way to learn something is when someone else figures it out and
tells you: “Don’t go in that swamp. There are alligators in there.”

When starting a new project there are always lessons that were learned in previous projects that could be applied. However, these are usually relearned each time. Especially if there are different teams working on each of the projects.

I’ve always found doing a “Lessons Learned” after each project to be helpful in capturing some of the best practices. This can be a simple process involving just typing up some basic questions and answers such as:

Description of the project
What were three things that went wrong during the project and why did they go wrong?
How could they be prevented in the future?
What were three things that went right during the project and why?
How can they be replicated on future projects?

It’s important to ask these questions both internally and with the client. Often what went wrong and what went right are very different based on who you ask.

Idea Generation Methods

Adam Kempler — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 20:36:29 +0000

Martin Leith has an extensive list of idea generation methods at www.ideagenerationmethods.com. Each method links to a page with additional information. Looks pretty interesting.

I think this site would benefit tremendously if it were in a Wiki format. Users could provide additional information on each of the methods such as examples of usage, case histories, and positive and negative feedback about each method. Additionally users would be able to add additional methods to the list.

Sticky sites are now dirty

Adam Kempler — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 00:51:34 +0000

I caught this snippet on Robert Scoble’s blog and it made me stop and think. Scoble: I’ve seen this behavior before…

As a web developer and marketer building web sites for clients one of the golden rules had always been “Make it sticky”. Content, functionality, and navigation were always designed to keep the user on the site for as long as possible.

This brings up a good point which is another golden rule that I’d forgotten - Sometimes the rules change! New technologies lead to new user mindsets which ultimately change the way users expect to interact with an online presence.

I think all of us web developers should put our “golden” rules up on the wall each time we develop a web site and ask ourselves if any of those rules have changed. I know I will for now on.

Don’t forget these steps:

Adam Kempler — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 21:36:46 +0000

10 Steps to a Hugely Successful Web 2.0 Company is a nice reminder of some important points to keep in mind when developing and running a Web company.

#10 made me go back and revisit all the competition for my own soon to be released product. I fell prey to too easily dismissing many of the competitive sites as “no competition.”

SightSpeed Gets It

Adam Kempler — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:59:01 +0000

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts lately about how some big name companies just don’t get blogging and bloggers. Companies such as Dell and Apple have had their share of grief at the hands of bloggers.

Yesterday I came across a company that does get it. I blogged about Google Talk and mentioned that I also was trying other messaging and communication software including SightSpeed. Within an hour, someone from SightSpeed had commented on my post and offered to set me up with an account to give it a try.

This is amazing. I was truly floored. This shows the power, immediacy, and viral capabilities of blogging from a marketing standpoint that most companies are missing out on.

If SightSpeed had just sent me an email saying, hey try out our new software, I would have instantly deleted it. I wouldn’t have seen it, and neither would anyone else.

But when someone blogs about a product, service or company, they are in some ways, extending an invitation to that company to respond. Now the company has been invited to talk to the user, and their discussion (and marketing message) takes place in front of everyone that reads that post.

I’ve been working with the marketing departments of companies for a long time and this is something that I will be using as an example of “what to do” with all my clients. So many companies don’t even monitor what is being said about them in the blogosphere. Here it is proactively being taken a step further.

I’m going to install the new version of SightSpeed today and I’ll post about my experiences with it here.

The problem with wikis

Adam Kempler — Sun, 15 Aug 2004 10:00:00 +0000

Getting ready for my move, I decided to setup a web-based tool to document information and links. The tool will be maintained by my wife and myself. I went through my usual brain spasms - what technology should I use - Wiki, Blog, or some other CMS tool. If it was just me using the system I would have immediately chosen a Wiki, however, since Mel would be updating it too, it needed to be simple, and here I believe is where Wikis fail at being a mainstream application. One - They require the learning of an awkward sytax which may be fairly simple for a technically minded person to use but even I find it annoying. Two - It requires everything you do to be in the mindset of EDITING rather than ADDING. This is key. What I like about blogs is that when I add a post I am really adding it, not editing existing content to add it as is done with a wiki.