Lifehacker wrote a post yesterday on “The Top Ten PDF Tricks” that made me think of how often I try to use the latest Web 2.0 technology of the moment instead of using Old School technology. With the Web moving at light speed, PDF’s are way Old School but are a great example of a product that has carved out a niche for itself because it simply gets the job done.
Recently, I was collaborating with a User Interface Designer and thought it would be great if we collaborated via a Wiki . I quickly dove into researching Wiki’s that we could use and how they could empowerus to best work together. I soon realized that setting up and managing a Wiki for a short-term document collaboration between two people was more effort to manage than simply using a Word document with document tracking turned on. I also learned that the person I was working with had never used a Wiki and there would be a learning curve for them to come up to speed. Consultants and learning curves are not a good combination
The next time you are thinking of going New School, start with these simple questions:
What are you trying to accomplish?
Is there software that you or your organization is currently using that can accomplish your task/project quicker and/or easier?
What is the level of effort to learn the tool vs. payback for your effort?
Know your audience - Will they be open to using/interacting with this tool?
What do you do when you find yourself in similar situations?
Tip: If you are looking for free software to print your documents to PDF on you computer - check out PDF995. I have been using it for about a year and have been very pleased with it.
If you want to build a web destination that makes a positive impact on the world, it helps if your users understand the basics of Web 2.0 and how it empowers them. Lee and Sachi LeFever at Common Craft do an amazing job of making the complex simple. Anytime you can take a concept like RSS and break it down so my mom can understand it, you are definitely on to something! If you are plugged into the Web 2.0 scene it is hard to imagine that most people do not know what RSS or even Blogging is! However, the fact is we are in the minority, according to this post on Common Craft. My travels and discussion with teens certainly confirms these findings.
No one wants to reinvent the wheel
There is plenty of work to do to better our world. With so much great content on the web why reinvent the wheel? At WebolutionNow our goal is to help you leverage excellent tools and content that help you focus on your passion and empower your community to make a difference. I can not think of a better place to start than sharing with you this video explanation on RSS which, you may have noticed I have a link to in my “That Was Easy” section. For more great educational videos make sure to check out The Common Craft Show.
Feel free to share other sites/media that are helping to make the complex simple!
YouthNoise has recently implemented a widget campaign to help promote Animal Rights in partnership with Peta2. In so doing, YouthNoise is not only creating a win/win partnership with Peta2 but they are leveraging the power of widgets to empower their audience to spread the word. So far this has lead to 49 people signing up for the “I Am Not A Nugget” Cause on YouthNoise.
More important than the above numbers is that YouthNoise will be learning and refining their capabilities on using Viral Widget Marketing to help promote their website and message. Launching a campaign and having it go viral is very rare. However, over time you can learn what combination of content, design and functionality works best for the target audience you are trying to connect with. Improvement is an iterative process; you must continually test and improve your widget if you want to improve its reach.
Widget Uses
1. Self Expression - These are widgets that allow the creator to express themselves either creatively (RockYou, Slide, Scrapblog) or via promoting a cause (YouthNoise) on their social networking profiles, websites or blogs.
2. Functional - These are widgets that provide the end user with configurable program type functionality. The classic example would be a weather widget that shows the weather based on user enter zip code. More recently fund raising widgets such as ChipIn have demonstrated the immense power that a simple widget can wield.
In either of the above types of uses you want to enable a simple and intuitive experience for the end user.
Widget Platforms
So how do you know if the changes you are making to your widgets are making a difference? Excellent, question, grasshopper: YouthNoise is leveraging a cross-platform widget service called Clearspring which provides analytic tracking and widget creation. Clearspring provides a free and premium service. I found their service easy to use and was able to create a simple widget in under 5 minutes. Gigya is another player in this space that provides analytics for widgets that you might want to check out. Both services provide you with the ability to track widget views and site installs. They are both great tools that will enable you to demonstrate to senior management the impact of your campaigns. The best part is that these tools are free!
Tell Me More!
So how do widget companies make money? They don’t, or at least most of them do not. They are currently a business in search of profits. Have no fear, widget companies are backed by the leading venture companies in Silicon valley, check out the who’s who of widget funding at Widget Blog - Sexy Widget. The Widget market is in a similar position that Google was before they figured out how to monetize the millions of eyeballs that were using their services. You can be confident Widget companies will do the same. As a matter of fact, Max Levchin of Slide and former co-founder of PayPal will be making the bold move of allowing widget creators on the Slide platform to opt in to display ads on their widgets. It will be interesting to see if this is the secret sauce that pushes widgets into profitability.
Mark Glaser of MediaShift wrote an excellent guide on Widgets that I highly recommend reading if you want to impress your friends with your knowledge on the history and players in the widget field.
Widget promotion can be an extremely cost effective tool to promote your message. However, it does take time and effort to perfect. It is an exciting time to get involved with widgets as the industry is desperately seeking to win users to their platforms and are offering many excellent features and functionality for free.
Lifehacker wrote a post yesterday on “The Top Ten PDF Tricks” that made me think of how often I try to use the latest Web 2.0 technology of the moment instead of using Old School technology. With the Web moving at light speed, PDF’s are way Old School but are a great example of a product that has carved out a niche for itself because it simply gets the job done.
