Web Publishing Tutorials

Free web publishing resources from UT Austin: http://www.utexas.edu/learn/

My Online Marketing & SEO Resources

I exported all my SEO/ Online Marketing-related bookmarks from my laptop and published them online here:
http://zarasteadman.com/bookmarks.html

Check it out for a wealth of resources on content and technical SEO, viral marketing, online marketing, and other random things. I will be adding to this list in the future.

Social Media and Usability in Crises

I've always thought online media was fascinating to look at through the lens of anthropology, or the development of social communities. Obviously - the internet, at its very core, is nothing more than a communication tool used by people to express a message the most efficient way possible. Our need to communicate as human beings has manifested itself in this great new technology, that is now slowly breaking down every possible communication barrier.

Over the years we've seen it transform, building up as a robust channel for expressing thoughts and ideas through images, sound, words, video, and beyond. But what surprises me more than anything, is the way we seem to use it on instinct. The way that people, from professional internet developers to the barely computer-literate, approach using the internet in the same ways. I believe that usability works by figuring out the way that human beings want, or even expect, the internet to function.

OK, that was an absurdly long intro for the subject I actually want to mention. A friend of mine passed away last Saturday. This friend lived in another city in Texas, which means that I saw more of him on MySpace and Facebook than in person. So, when he died, the first thing I did, and what I believe many of his friends did, was turn to the internet. We went to his MySpace page and clicked through the photos. We read his last blog entry. We looked for comments from his friends and family. And then - we began to comment on his Facebook wall (a public bulletin board on a person's Facebook profile page).

Comment after comment began to appear on our friend's wall, as if everyone had the same idea of turning his online profile into a memorial. Into a place to informally eulogize him. It proved the fact that we all went to his Facebook profile to mourn him. It proved the fact that when we needed to express our sense of loss, we found an avenue to do that in the same exact way. And that way was by using an online application never meant or designed for this kind of thing, but that seemed to serve our purpose.

When I saw Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, speak at SXSWi I felt he was criticized for his claim that Facebook's goal was simply to provide the best method for communication. "If that's so," someone asked "then why isn't the Facebook messaging system robust enough?" "Why is there no search and sort function for old private messages?" and a laundry list of suggested improvements to the site's messaging system followed.

Today I realize that Facebook has succeeded in meeting its goal through usability. The application was designed for communication - not organization. It is there so that, in your moment of shock and grief, when you are purely working on instinct, you are able to click on a single blue button, and tell your friend that you miss him. And that you will remember him fondly.

Any takers?

I need someone to invent this for me: a search function for a server/ ftp client. I would love to "search for" and locate, say, all index.html files on a server.

Tracking Your Brand on Social Media Sites

Finally, a mainstream tracking system is being developed to enable alerts on mentions of a website or brand name across social networking sites including Flickr, Digg, Technorati - and all of those other brilliantly viral, but frustratingly untrackable breeding-houses of online word-of-mouth.

OK, that was a long sentence. I haven't thoroughly explored Yahoo! Pipes yet to be an expert on what it really is, besides what Yahoo says it is, which is a "free online service that lets you remix popular feed types and create data mashups using a visual editor." ... But whatever it is, and however it works, it has allowed the invention of Kingsley Joseph's Social Media Firehose.

The Social Media Firehouse pipe allows you to receive alerts whenever your brand or site is mentioned on select social media sites. It is based on Joseph's Social Media Mention Engine pipe, which simply returns a list of mentions across specialized searches like Yahoo! Local, Google Base, and Flickr.

The following is an excerpt from Church of the Customer, and details how to actually USE the pipe. Enjoy.

'In the search field, fill out the terms you want to track. For example, Salesforce Ideas could use: "salesforce+ideas", ideaexchange, ideastorm, dellideastorm, mystarbucksidea. Usually the second field (URL fragment to ignore) should be .yourdomain.com . This is to prevent posts made in the your own blog/community from showing up. The dot before the domain is important.

The first time you run the search, Yahoo might return an empty list. To force it to go fetch feeds, click "More Options" and then click "Get as RSS". You can then hit back and re-run the pipe successfully.

Titles are de-duplicated and sorting is reverse chronological. Multiple search terms can be used and the matched term will be prefixed to the title of the post. This doesn't do mass media, because there are good tools for that (Google Alerts come to mind). Send any feature requests Kingley's way, but don't hold your breath. He's a busy guy : )'

As a side note, the reason I can copy and paste the above text is because CotC has a Creative Commons attribution. Very cool.

On passionate user experiences

Here's a cool link to a blog on Creating Passionate Users. The blogger, Kathy Sierra, presented a keynote lecture at this year's SXSWi that brought up a few surprising points about designing a satisfying user experience. A few things I remember off the top of my head include:

-Give your design elements natural physics. For example, that "bouncy ball bounce" you experience when using the scroll function on an iPhone creates a satisfying emotional response in a user. Using actual physics in your design is a good way to engage users.

-When designing a user experience, keep in mind the physical health of your user. That's right - if you allow your users to experience your brand through body and brain exercises, chances are your users will appreciate you more.

-This all has to do with a theory Kathy has about allowing your service or product to make the user feel like they "kick-ass." Confused? It's all in the blog.