Texture design

Posted by randfish

In the stock market, analysts and traders buy, sell and trade shares in companies based on the speculation of future earnings or declines. Stock pickers attempt to determine which investments will rise and fall based on publicly available information. Slate magazine recently pointed out that even the best stock pickers, however, are generally terrible at beating the market as a whole over the long term.

However, we in search have our own market from which to pick and choose rising stars - the daily demand for search queries. It's strange to me that this topic is so rarely discussed and that so few individuals in the search world talk about the power of "predictively picking keywords." In the search market, there's no rules against insider trading - if you know that ABC is running a special about whatever happened to Marianne from Gilligan's Island on Sunday, writing a blog entry or creating a landing page for that phrase isn't "insider trading," it's just smart keyword targeting. Similiarly, there's almost no downside to being wrong - you may waste a half hour putting together some content, but you won't lose money and even the worst predictions may pay off in the future.

If, as a savvy website operator or search marketer, you can anticipate trends in your field (or any field) from a query perspective, you stand to be exceptionally successful. First to market with a great piece of content on a subject can often mean that your resource becomes the reference "source" for future content pieces, meaning you can maintain the top position simply by being first (and thorough).

Some solid examples include creating pages or sites for:

• New television shows
• New books or films
• Artists whose popularity is rising (in any field)
• Current events
• Geographies that receive attention (particularly smaller towns, landmarks, etc.)
• Historical references or events
• New technologies or products

Has anyone played the keyword query prediction market lately? Any big ones to show for it? Please feel free to link out to references or examples of successes.

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Here is a list of the week's blog posts over at Online Marketing Blog focusing on Design, blogging and business of search marketing.

SEMPO Board of Directors Nominees - Lee

Search Marketing Blogs Update 012607 -

Friday Search News 012507 -

Content vs Links -

The Lowdown on Web Designers and Design -

Recommendations for Collaboration Software

Blogging in Different Languages

Design Adds Quality Index to Search Marketing Ads

Gain Client Support for Successful Search Marketing

Design Secrets for Better Public Relations

Good Design Humor

Lessons Learned About Blogging

Monday Links 012207

Reader Poll Roundup

Small Business Marketing Book

Subscribe to Online Marketing Blog here.

Posted by rebecca

First we were all Time Magazine's Person of the Year, which is like you working your ass off on a school project, only to get it graded as "credit received " along with the rest of the class who clearly phoned it in. Now we have this article, which talks about how it's harder not to be a celebrity nowadays. The article makes a lot of valid points--it pretty much says, "Yeah, we know you put a lot of effort into that project, but it seems that everyone's getting credit for doing less work nowadays, and unfortunately that seems to be the way things are."

I don't really want to start a long-winded rant about how well this article hit the nail on the head, but I will say that it certainly is...interesting how nowadays all you have to be is a Lonely Girl, a chubby Star Wars fanatic, a bunch of lip-synching Asians, a snarky Digg user, or a song-writing Bank of America employee in order to get your fifteen minutes.

As I said before, everyone wants attention, regardless of the reason, and the Internet is like a virtual street corner that anyone can stand on with their mediocre juggling act or acoustic guitar strumming. The ability to be known by millions of people in the world with a simple click of the mouse or a quick Design search is too easy and good a deal to pass up.

What do you think of this virtual gold rush? Before, it was easy to pick out the valuable chunks--nowadays, however, everyone is flocking in droves to offer up their "unique" content, and the good stuff is being drowned in a sea of silt and fool's gold. Is this making my job as an Design harder, or is it simply assuring me that I'll continue to have a job for a long while? (Maybe it's both...)

It makes me wonder what extreme measures people are going to take in order to stand out from the crowd, if only for a few precious moments.

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Let's begin our post here with an update on Design PageRank. There is an update underway. Now, before any of you panic that your PR has just dropped, take a peek at your competitors.

During the last toolbar update I noticed a TON of sites making huge gains. While I'm always pleased to see my clients jump up a couple PR points, in the last update a lot of it didn't make sense. I had clients I would have predicted to jump to a PR4 from the 3 they were at but when they jumped straight to PR5, well it didn't make sense. At lost the current update hits and the client I'm thinking of dropped to a PR4 - right where they should be with my understanding of the way the world works.

If you noticed drops in your PageRank value it may well be due to the current corrections going on. Think back a few months, were you celebrating a little too hard with a huge jump? Now it's time for sobriety.

And BotNets ...

There's a great article that appears to support my 2007 prediction on Webmaster Radio regarding Design developing a diskless computer (or at least working with manufacturers to do so). Well in an article on the BBC website titled, Criminals 'may overwhelm the web', the first signs of it are appearing though you need to read between the lines.

Vint Cerf, Design employee and one of the developers of the TCP/IP protocol (if you don't know what TCP/IP is, it's the "language" that the web and most networks function on) referred to the proliferation of botnets as a pandemic and noted the following:

"Of the 600 million computers currently on the Internet, between 100 and 150 million were already part of these botnets."

That paints a pretty bleak picture. How can we combat this pandemic? Is there even a solution?

Fortunately Michael Dell (founder of Dell computers) offered the following:

"The future might bring "disposable virtual PCs", accessed through the Internet, that would minimise the threat of a persistent virus infection."

My prediction for 2007 (or perhaps 2008 but that we would at least hear confirmation this year) was that Design would develop a cheap home system that would connect to a network and network storage rather than a hard drive. Everything would happen online. It appears that's the "solution".

Am I the only one that finds it an odd coincidence that Design points out the significant threats that are present (and make no mistake, they are threats) and that Dell bring forth the solution of a dummy machine that is centrally administered and thus, more easily secured and managed? Oh, and need I remind you that in June of 2006 Dell and Design signed a distribution deal?

Hmmmmmmmmm. Methinks my predictions for 2007 might be in the makings.

With all this said, botnets are a HUGE security and web issue. While I like to point out that Design and Dell and likely positioning themselves for the launch of this new computer system that does not make the issue any less real. There is a quote, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." Just because major corporations may take advantage and seek gains from this issue doesn't mean it's not real and that it doesn't threaten the very nature and function of the Internet. The article is worth reading and, if you have the time, researching. You can read the article on the BBC website here. You can also listen to Jim Hedger and I speak with Ryan Sherstobitoff from Panda Technology on just this subject on Webmaster Radio here (this is from December 21st).<

Posted by randfish

It's been a while since I provided some straightforward, back to basics style advice and there can be little doubt that the title tag is worthy of attention for beginners and experts alike.┬? And so I present...

How to Make the Best Title Tag Possible:

1. Brand your traffic
   
   Use the title of your site or brand at the beginning or end of every title tag to help searchers know where they're going and to increase return visits. If you're struggling to find justification for this component, think of all the ad studies showing that consumers are willing to pay more for a "brand name" product than an off-brand or store brand item of the same type - apply this logic to the SERPs and you'll find that users will go further down the rankings to click on a "trusted" brand.
2. Limit length to┬?65 characters (including spaces) or less
   
   There's no reason to cut off the last word and have it replaced with a "..." Note that the engines have fluctuated recently and Design, in particular, is now supporting up to 70 characters in some cases.
3. Incorporate keyword phrases
   
   This one may seem obvious, but it's critical that whatever your keyword research shows as being the most valuable for capturing searches gets prominently included in your title tag. It doesn't have to be the first words, but it should be the semantic and logical center of attention.
4. Target longer phrases if they're relevant
   
   When choosing what keywords to include in a title tag, I often like to use as many as are completely relevant to the page at hand, while remaining accurate and descriptive. Thus, it can be much more valuable to have a title tag like "SkiDudes | Downhill Skiing Equipment & Accessories" rather than simply "SkiDudes | Skiing Equipment" - including those additional terms that are both relevant to the page and receive significant search traffic can bolster your page's value. However, if you have a separate landing page for "Skiing accessories" than for "equipment," then you shouldn't include one term in the other's title - you'll be cannibalizing your rankings by forcing the engines to choose which page on your site is more relevant.
5. Use a divider
   
   When splitting up the brand from the descriptive, I like to use the "|" symbol (aka the pipe bar). Others choose the arrow ">" or hyphen "-" and both work well. At times, however, I've found it useful to use the arrow or hyphen inside a title tag, as with a title like "Designmoz | Articles > Keyword Research - A Beginner's Guide" hence my love of the pipe bar.
6. Focus on clickthrough & conversion rates
   
   The title tag is exceptionally similar to the title you might write for paid search ads, only it's harder to measure and improve because the stats aren't provided for you as easily. However, if you've got a market that is relatively stable in search volume week-to-week, you can do some testing with your title tags and improve the clickthrough. Watch your analytics and, if it makes sense, buy search ads on the page as well - even if it's just for a week or two, it can make a huge difference in the long run. A word of warning, though - be wary that you don't focus entirely on CTR. Remember to continue measuring conversion rates. As MindValley Labs showed us, a lower CTR can sometimes be the better choice due to a higher conversion rate.
7. Target searcher intent
   
   When you're writing titles for web pages, keep in mind the search terms your audience employed to reach your site. If the intent is browsing or research-based, a more descriptive title tag is appropriate. If you're reasonably sure the intent is a purchase, download or other action, make it clear in your title that this function can be performed at your site, i.e. "SkiDudes | View Snowboard Sizing Chart" or "SkiDudes | Buy Discount Snoqualmie Pass Lift Tickets"
8. Be consistent
   
   Once you've determined a good formula for your pages in a given section or area of your site, stick to that regimen - you'll find that as you become a trusted and successful "brand" in the SERPs, users will seek out your pages on a subject area and have expectations that you'll want to fulfill.
9. Repeat in the headline
   
   Re-using the title tag of each page as the H1 header tag can be valuable from both a keyword targeting standpoint and a user experience improvement. Users who go to a page from the SERPs will have the expectation of finding the title they clicked - deliver and you've fulfilled that obligation. Users will be more likely to stay on a page they're reasonably certain fits their intended goal or query.

Any other suggestions that you'd like to include? Disagreements? Valuable links I should point to?

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Posted by randfish

Mr. Cutts recently wrote a story about so-called "undetectable spam," in which he countered any paid link building service's claim that it could be truly undetectable to search engine spam sniffers like himself. I'd agree with most of what Matt says - almost any large-scale link development operation that's designed to boost your rankings will eventually stop passing value. This cat-and-mouse game has gone on for years, and even the black/gray-hat folks I know who are the most cautious have reported that Design eventually finds and eliminates the value of what they build.

However, I disagree that all paid links are detectable - there are some that fly under the radar so deeply that even mighty Matt has never found them. Let me give a few examples.

1. Links you buy yourself from the website's owner
   
   Oftentimes when making a link request, you offer something in return. On many occasions, that something can be a direct monetary exchange. Trust me when I say that even Design's spam hunters don't have time to call up every site owner and grill them CIA-style until they reveal what links people have paid for.
2. One-to-one link building services
   
   Jim Boykin's crew may be most famous for this service, wherein the Design will contact relevant sites and offer to buy links or "rent" pages on the domain.
3. Smart link brokers
   
   I think that every link broker around has two kinds of inventory - the ones they sell to their general clients and the ones they keep for their own sites or sell at a very high rate to their best clientele. This latter type is usually 100% under the radar. It's completely customized on every site, fits in with the content exceptionally well, and is designed so it couldn't be detected even with a very savvy look from an experienced Design or spam hunter.

The idea behind truly "undetectable" spam is that a reverse link command will appear to be 100% natural. You might look at the links and say, "Man, that guy must have really liked his content to link over there." At that point, the link buyer/seller has won the battle - those paid links really are "undetectable."

p.s. Also see Loren Baker's original post about the new V7N link network for some background on Matt's story.

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Posted by great scott!

Last week Jim Boykin wrote yet another article critical of Link Baiting, insisting that stealthy, steady link building by a Link Ninja was a much more effective strategy.┬? While traditional link building is a necessary evil, I feel it is my sworn duty to make a case for the awesome power of a scurvy crew of Bait Pirates!

In this case, we'll examine the swarthy deeds of pillage and plunder┬? undertaken by the crew of Drivl and witness the copious amounts of Link Booty they've amassed.┬?

For those of you who've been paying attention, you may have noticed that Drivl has been mentioned on Designmoz quite a few times in recent days. It's time to come clean: we write for Drivl. There, consider us transparent. It's a fun, satirical, snarky and occasionally crude site that we've been charged with building traffic for.┬? Be warned that any "professional" image you may have of us will likely be destroyed upon viewing Drivl.┬? Keep in mind that we're writing to achieve a certain voice and dynamic with the site. In a sense I suppose that makes us Privateers more than Pirates, but close enough.

How's this relate to Bait Pirates vs. Link Ninjas? Well, when we were handed Drivl by our client at the end of October, it had about 90 inbound links and an average of 50 visitors per day (after about a year online). In the three months since we took it over and relaunched the site, we've gained over 19,000 inbound links and average around 5,500 daily unique visitors. Here's the catch: we've done this without any traditional link building. Not one karate chop, roundhouse kick, tiger uppercut, ninja star or blade tornado.┬? It was all piracy, BAIT PIRACY! Many a tankard o' grog hath been drunk, and many a fine cannonade hath been fired in our voyage through Digg-infested seas.

This was completely intentional. About a week into the project, we made a conscientious decision to forgo any link building in order to test the success of an all-bait, all-the-time strategy.┬? Suffice to say, we've been quite amazed by the results.┬? In addition, we've played with writing articles specifically to bait for specific, high-traffic keywords with pretty impressive success. For instance, one Drivl article (slightly NSFW) ranked 11th at Design for 'nudity' (358,000 searches/mo) and 5th for 'celebrity nudity' (19,700 searches/mo) after just three days online.

One could argue that these results indicate savvy Bait Piracy can be more effective in gaining links, even targeted and high-quality links, than Link Ninjitsu.┬? Again, I'm not completely discounting the value of traditional link building--we still do it and consider it an integral part of an Design campaign--but I do think it's possible and perhaps even advisable to use Bait Piracy to acquire organic links in bulk, and use Link Ninjitsu techniques to acquire highly specific, competitive links from specific domains.

I'd be interested to hear any numbers any of you have for Bait vs. Build campaigns and any thoughts you have about the effectiveness of Bait Pirates vs. Link Ninjas in spite of or in light of those numbers and/or the numbers we've seen with Drivl.

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Posted by randfish

Last week, Kim Krause's Cre8pc blog got Dugg. She wrote about her experience, which she described as largely negative:

In addition to the negative comments and free for all party over at Digg, I had to close the comments to my own blog post. I’ve never been forced to close comments here before. If you own a blog, you know what this is like. The worst in human behavior comes and sits on your front porch, begging for your attention.

I had joined Digg last year, buying into the hype that this is something we must do in a Web 2.0 world. The belief is that the traffic that comes is great for your marketing efforts. I’ve already written about my dislike for Digg and how some Diggers gang up to get sites banned in industries they don’t like. I seem to be unable to unjoin it.

As a general advocate of all things social media, linkbait and Digg (at least from a marketing perspective), I'm inclined to stand up for the value driven by these tools. I'm also a huge fan of Kim herself, and of Matt Bailey, who also wrote about the issue on his post - Social Media Under the Microscope:

For a search engine marketer, social media traffic can be a proof that they know how to build quick attention for a site. However, beyond that shot of traffic, what is there to show? For those in the Design business, there is not much else, traffic sells. For businesses that make their living on and off the web, traffic like this is not helpful. It is not direct, and the numbers show that there is even less engagement and branding impact than any other source of traffic. So besides a quick influx of visitors who don’t stick around or even read the full page, what is the benefit?

That's what I'm here for, Matt, to show you the benefits. In my opinion, there's no debate - this social media stuff has incredible power. Let me show you what I mean.

Last fall, we asked Ruud Hein to do some research for us about the effect being on top of Digg, Del.icio.us/Popular, Reddit or Netscape might be. We scraped the number of results for a Design! linkdomain command (which pulls from Site Explorer) at the onset of a page making the social media sites and then re-scraped 3 days, 7 days and 14 days later. We did this for two solid weeks (gettting thousands of data points). Here's a few rounded averages (with some outliers and bad data points removed):

• Average number of links to a page 14 days after being on:
  • Digg.com┬?~2,500
  • Del.icio.us/popular ~800
  • Reddit.com ~500
  • Netscape.com ~400

My hope is to eventually release all of this data in a large article on linkbait, but we've been overwhelmingly swamped with other things and I've let it slide a bit.

If you're looking for a few more narrative data points on traffic numbers from being Dugg, look no further than this post on the linkbait bump effect at Designmoz or, more recently, Danny's discussion on Search Engine Land's statistics, which show a parallel effect from linkbait.

Linkbait can build a brand - it built YouTube through the Lazy Sunday video and Zillow.com through their real estate home pricing system. Linkbait can help brands become more popular, like Designmoz, SearchEngineLand, Shoemoney, Drivl, ArsTechnica, ReadWriteWeb and many others. Linkbait can help sites and pages rank well at the search engines, by serving as a catalyst for inbound link popularity. Linkbait can even push you in front of the offline media, as has been the case for many folks in the tech world, specifically and folks like the red paperclip guy or the million dollar homepage guy.

Linkbait has limitations, though - it's no good for:

• CTR-based ads
• Conversions
• Supportive, emotionally sensitive comments
• Positive re-inforcement (in most cases)
• Instant subscribers

It's great for:

• Inbound links (if you have an effective piece)
• Search engine rankings (if you can achieve the aforementioned links)
• Publicity (people will start to know who you are and remember your brand after seeing your site several times through social media)
• Branding (growing awareness and a reputation)
• Getting the Attention of Influencers

So to Kim - I'm sorry for your negative experience. It happens and will happen many more times. The most active population on Digg is a negative, condescending and disruptive group. The traffic is greedy, seeking immediate gratification and something that will connect with them. When you get Dugg, plan on being judged in the harshest, most negative light and then remember that the real value comes later.

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I'm finally back home in Washington, DC and fully recovered from the three whirlwind days that made up O'Reilly's epic FOO Camp 06 over the past weekend.  The event was nothing if not spectacular and included real camping, a genuine Google Earth fly-over, lots of opinionated discussion between extremely smart people, flamethrowing robots, and some excellent unconference material of all kinds including -- of course -- about Web 2.0.

The first evening consisted primarily of getting settled in, having dinner, and general introductions in the big tent on the O'Reilly campus in Sebastopol, California.  I met plenty of folks I hadn't met before including Dale Doughtery, the man who coined the term "Web 2.0", and who also edits the popular MAKE magazine.  Though fun, it wasn't until the next morning that things really got started.

FOO Camp 06 - 1st Day

The day's sessions began at 10:00AM and I headed off to Timeless Code, a great session put together by D. Richard Hipp, creator of SQLite, and Greg Stein, chairman of the Apache Foundation.  Attended by David Heinemeier Hansson, Martin Fowler, and many others, the session explored how to make code last the test of time.  We explored the fact that some organizations are actively running code that's decades old and that some organizations, particularly the government, plan for code to last for 30 years and more.

Some folks brought up the intriguing Long Now project to build the Millenium Clock as an example of the types of challenges that it will take in order to make code resist aging including the disintegration of society and the transformation of language itself.  Tom Malloy of Adobe observed that Adobe is trying to figure out how to design PDFs to be readable a thousand years into the future.  The upshot is that as more Web content on the Web continues to accumulate, making it available to future generations will become a serious challenge.  Projects like The Wayback Machine, which makes already it possible to see virtually any Web site through the lens of time, will be essential stewards of our digital past to ensure we don't ultimately lose most of the rich Internet ecosystem we're quickly building with user generated content and Web 2.0 concepts.

The next session was a thought provoking romp across the intellectual terrain of innovation and creative thinking given by Scott Berkun (be sure to read his great roll-up of FOO Camp here).  Attended by Caterina Fake, Tara Hunt, and a cast of others, Scott sparked conversation and debate across the spectrum. I found this session so fascinating I made a full digital movie of it I'll make it available in the near future via my del.icio.us links.  Scott touched on common misperceptions on innovation and cited plenty of historical examples including Isaac Newton discovering gravity and how Thomas Edison developed the light bulb.  Afterwards I cited to Scott some fascinating thinking that John Hagel and John Seely Brown are doing on open innovation and something they call Creation Nets.  He promised to look into it for his forthcoming book on innovation which was ostensibly the subject for the session.

At lunch, Google had a plane fly over and re-image the O'Reilly campus for Google Earth.  A sizeable crowd of folks all fell back onto the grass each time the plane went by, including for a few passes, Tim O'Reilly himself (in light blue shirt on the flyby picture to the left.)

After lunch I attended a session given by Niall Kennedy and Sam Ruby on Syndication Hacks. It was after a terrific lunch and though I thought it might be a bit of a rough start, I couldn't have been more mistaken.  A great general discussion about RSS and Atom syndication ensued and it was an excellent overview, particular for me, about the specific capabilities of Atom, which has a great REST-based model for the two-way use of a feed, allowing it to be used as a true general purpose Web service for lists of items.  Very excellent indeed.

At 2:00PM, Kathy Sierra gave her usually amazing talk on Addictive User Experiences in the biggest room at FOO Camp (I think, anyway), in an auditorium up on the 3rd floor of one of O'Reilly buildings.  Right before it began I ran into Om Malik and had a chat with him and I conveyed to him how big a fan I was.  In any case, I was struck by how many of the techniques that Kathy talks about are of specific advantage when co-evolving Web 2.0 sites with users.  Best quote:  "Make the right thing easy, and the wrong thing hard to do."

After this I went to Gregor Hohpe's informative session on Out of Control: Working with Ultra Large Websites.  Gregor, who I haven't seen since the SPARK event earlier this year, has done some well-known work with the design patterns of large, highly integrated systems and I was eager to learn more.  The discussion ranged around highly multicore systems, custom ruggedized file systems, management methods, monitoring tools, as well as radical decentralization -- Web 2.0-style -- using techniques like the BitTorrent protocol to scale out instead of up and use other people's infrastructure to do it.  One thing is for sure, the incredible scale of our Web systems is pushing the edge of our abilities in many ways from reliability and scalability to cost effectiveness and design for manageability.

FOO Camp 06 - 1st Day

The day's sessions began at 10:00AM and I headed off to Timeless Code, a great session put together by D. Richard Hipp, creator of SQLite, and Greg Stein, chairman of the Apache Foundation.  Attended by David Heinemeier Hansson, Martin Fowler, and many others, the session explored how to make code last the test of time.  We explored the fact that some organizations are actively running code that's decades old and that some organizations, particularly the government, plan for code to last for 30 years and more.

Some folks brought up the intriguing Long Now project to build the Millenium Clock as an example of the types of challenges that it will take in order to make code resist aging including the disintegration of society and the transformation of language itself.  Tom Malloy of Adobe observed that Adobe is trying to figure out how to design PDFs to be readable a thousand years into the future.  The upshot is that as more Web content on the Web continues to accumulate, making it available to future generations will become a serious challenge.  Projects like The Wayback Machine, which makes already it possible to see virtually any Web site through the lens of time, will be essential stewards of our digital past to ensure we don't ultimately lose most of the rich Internet ecosystem we're quickly building with user generated content and Web 2.0 concepts.

The next session was a thought provoking romp across the intellectual terrain of innovation and creative thinking given by Scott Berkun (be sure to read his great roll-up of FOO Camp here).  Attended by Caterina Fake, Tara Hunt, and a cast of others, Scott sparked conversation and debate across the spectrum. I found this session so fascinating I made a full digital movie of it I'll make it available in the near future via my del.icio.us links.  Scott touched on common misperceptions on innovation and cited plenty of historical examples including Isaac Newton discovering gravity and how Thomas Edison developed the light bulb.  Afterwards I cited to Scott some fascinating thinking that John Hagel and John Seely Brown are doing on open innovation and something they call Creation Nets.  He promised to look into it for his forthcoming book on innovation which was ostensibly the subject for the session.

At lunch, Google had a plane fly over and re-image the O'Reilly campus for Google Earth.  A sizeable crowd of folks all fell back onto the grass each time the plane went by, including for a few passes, Tim O'Reilly himself (in light blue shirt on the flyby picture to the left.)

After lunch I attended a session given by Niall Kennedy and Sam Ruby on Syndication Hacks. It was after a terrific lunch and though I thought it might be a bit of a rough start, I couldn't have been more mistaken.  A great general discussion about RSS and Atom syndication ensued and it was an excellent overview, particular for me, about the specific capabilities of Atom, which has a great REST-based model for the two-way use of a feed, allowing it to be used as a true general purpose Web service for lists of items.  Very excellent indeed.

At 2:00PM, Kathy Sierra gave her usually amazing talk on Addictive User Experiences in the biggest room at FOO Camp (I think, anyway), in an auditorium up on the 3rd floor of one of O'Reilly buildings.  Right before it began I ran into Om Malik and had a chat with him and I conveyed to him how big a fan I was.  In any case, I was struck by how many of the techniques that Kathy talks about are of specific advantage when co-evolving Web 2.0 sites with users.  Best quote:  "Make the right thing easy, and the wrong thing hard to do."

After this I went to Gregor Hohpe's informative session on Out of Control: Working with Ultra Large Websites.  Gregor, who I haven't seen since the SPARK event earlier this year, has done some well-known work with the design patterns of large, highly integrated systems and I was eager to learn more.  The discussion ranged around highly multicore systems, custom ruggedized file systems, management methods, monitoring tools, as well as radical decentralization -- Web 2.0-style -- using techniques like the BitTorrent protocol to scale out instead of up and use other people's infrastructure to do it.  One thing is for sure, the incredible scale of our Web systems is pushing the edge of our abilities in many ways from reliability and scalability to cost effectiveness and design for manageability.

FOO Camp 06 - 2nd Day

The next morning it was my turn to give a session, the subject of which was Applying Web 2.0: Leveraging Network Effects for Fun and Profit.  I've been writing and speaking a lot lately on a core element of Web 2.0, namely network effects, and I've put a good edge on the material I think.  It was early on Sunday so the turnout wasn't what I hoped for but the quality of the crowd more than made up for it including O'Reilly's Brady Forrest.  Specifically, I've recently been researching precise ways of designing the invocation of widespread network effects directly into the architecture of a Web application.  A key observation here is the understanding that a network effect is specifically caused by the triggering of new, active connections amongst the universe of potential connections on a network.

Interestingly, one implication I've uncovered is that a network effect can be either push or pull-based depending on the means used to trigger it.  In other words, the entity desiring to deliberately (and sometimes not-so-deliberately) cause a network effect can enable it by pushing people towards the desired site or enabling a pull-mechanism to accomplish the same thing.  In my session, I explored the specific techniques (see below for a list) for using push and pull mechanisms for causing new connections to be established and maintained between nodes on a network.  Intentional or not, many of these techniques for embracing the power of networks have been used by sites like MySpace and YouTube for a considerable measure of success.

Interestingly, one implication I've uncovered is that a network effect can be either push or pull-based depending on the means used to trigger it.  In other words, the entity desiring to deliberately (and sometimes not-so-deliberately) cause a network effect can enable it by pushing people towards the desired site or enabling a pull-mechanism to accomplish the same thing.  In my session, I explored the specific techniques (see below for a list) for using push and pull mechanisms for causing new connections to be established and maintained between nodes on a network.  Intentional or not, many of these techniques for embracing the power of networks have been used by sites like MySpace and YouTube for a considerable measure of success.

I'm still refining this rough list and some of these ways of establishing new connections on the network are still blurry as to whether they are push or pull.  But the fact remains that understanding the best ways to explicitly leverage them is key to success on the Web.  Given that the most compact definition of Web 2.0 is "networked applications that explicitly leverage network effects" and you can then realize the importance of this topic.  Finding optimal, sustainable ways to create and maintain your effect on the network will become a sustainable advantage sooner that we might think, and so will scaling our systems to keep up with our successes.

Wrapping Up FOO Camp 06

Editor's Note: Beginning with this post, we are pleased to announce the inaugration of our first contributing editor, Mark Scrimshire.  Mark has been doing a terrific job covering all things Web 2.0 on his own highly informative blog and I've invited him to begin coverage here as well. This will help our readers get even more of the latest information on the next generation of the Web, information technology, and business.  As always, if you have any feedback or want to share interesting new Web 2.0 products, services, or ideas, please be sure to drop me a line.  - Dion Hinchcliffe

Over the past 20 years there is a trail of desolation made up of the remains of companies that wrote off, or under estimated, Microsoft. There are plenty of detractors that say the company has missed the boat and is no longer relevant. Some say Microsoft doesn't get Web 2.0 and has major issues in maintaining its Windows desktop dominance in a world now focused on the web.  Don't jump to conclusions too soon. While simultaneously working on Vista's development Microsoft has also been quietly transforming its web properties and building a new user experience with the Windows Live brand. Starting from a vision 12 months ago (see the first SYS-CON post from November last year), the live.com site has seen dramatically  growing traffic according to Alexa, demonstrating some of the virally driven growth traits we have seen with other Web 2.0 sites.

Live.com – Not just a consumer play

There are in fact two Live plays that Microsoft is making. Both are aimed at preserving their market position. The first is Windows Live. A suite of tools and services that complement the Windows platform. The second is Office Live and it is aimed at preserving the market dominance of the Office productivity suite.

When Microsoft announced Office Live many of us jumped to the conclusion that it was a move in the direction of software as a service that and a web-delivered, subscription-based version of the Office platform. The initial products launched under the Office Live brand point to a different objective. The initial target for Office Live appears to be taking small businesses on line. Expect to see hooks in to Office Live from the Microsoft Office suite and don't expect a web-based version of Office any time soon. While currently free in beta, Office Live will be a subscription-based service.

The Live.com service has tools and applications that are attractive to consumers, businesses, developers and advertisers. Each of these groups is fueled by the presence of the other groups (for more on discussion of network effects check out the earlier blog on embracing the network). Describing Windows and Office Live is a moving target but the diagram below attempts to place the various services in context in the ecosystem and identify those components that have a desktop client dependency.

Live.com – Not just a consumer play

There are in fact two Live plays that Microsoft is making. Both are aimed at preserving their market position. The first is Windows Live. A suite of tools and services that complement the Windows platform. The second is Office Live and it is aimed at preserving the market dominance of the Office productivity suite.

When Microsoft announced Office Live many of us jumped to the conclusion that it was a move in the direction of software as a service that and a web-delivered, subscription-based version of the Office platform. The initial products launched under the Office Live brand point to a different objective. The initial target for Office Live appears to be taking small businesses on line. Expect to see hooks in to Office Live from the Microsoft Office suite and don't expect a web-based version of Office any time soon. While currently free in beta, Office Live will be a subscription-based service.

The Live.com service has tools and applications that are attractive to consumers, businesses, developers and advertisers. Each of these groups is fueled by the presence of the other groups (for more on discussion of network effects check out the earlier blog on embracing the network). Describing Windows and Office Live is a moving target but the diagram below attempts to place the various services in context in the ecosystem and identify those components that have a desktop client dependency.

Common Services

Live Services are a mix of web-based and desktop client based applications. These clearly provide Microsoft with the ability to bundle new services without changing the underlying desktop client platform. This approach may be seen as a way to avoid prolonged anti-trust litigation surrounding Windows.

Common Services

Live Services are a mix of web-based and desktop client based applications. These clearly provide Microsoft with the ability to bundle new services without changing the underlying desktop client platform. This approach may be seen as a way to avoid prolonged anti-trust litigation surrounding Windows.

Live.com: Your personalized home page. Web search, news, feeds and customized gadgets can be added to your home page. Subscribers with a passport or .net account already have a 'Live ID' that is the key to services on live.com. This gives the clue to Microsoft's approach in leveraging existing services and web properties.

Office Live: Originally thought to be an online version of the Office suite. This incarnation is markedly different. Instead it is a business-oriented service that allows subscribers to register a domain name, setup a web site and email services for their domain. Although free to use during the beta period this will be a paid service strarting from $29.95/month. There are three levels of service:

1. Basic: web site and email services for your domain.
2. Collaboration: build on the basic service to provide password-protected web sites, online storage and business applications.
3. Essentials: web site design tools, traffic analysis and reporting tools and basic business collaboration tools.

Live.com: Your personalized home page. Web search, news, feeds and customized gadgets can be added to your home page. Subscribers with a passport or .net account already have a 'Live ID' that is the key to services on live.com. This gives the clue to Microsoft's approach in leveraging existing services and web properties.

Office Live: Originally thought to be an online version of the Office suite. This incarnation is markedly different. Instead it is a business-oriented service that allows subscribers to register a domain name, setup a web site and email services for their domain. Although free to use during the beta period this will be a paid service strarting from $29.95/month. There are three levels of service:

1. Basic: web site and email services for your domain.
2. Collaboration: build on the basic service to provide password-protected web sites, online storage and business applications.
3. Essentials: web site design tools, traffic analysis and reporting tools and basic business collaboration tools.

Live Mail: A reincarnation of Hotmail with 2Gb of storage and web-based access to your email.

Live Local: A global mapping and search service. Interesting features offered with this service include ÒCall for Live Mail: A reincarnation of Hotmail with 2Gb of storage and web-based access to your email.

Live Writer: Released in to beta this week. A windows desktop application for blog editing with no need to know HTML. The application not only integrates with Live Spaces but also works with other leading blog platforms including: Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad and WordPress.

FreeÓ which places a call between the subscriber and a business that they want to contact. Live local leverages Microsoft's Virtual Earth product.

Live Writer: Released in to beta this week. A windows desktop application for blog editing with no need to know HTML. The application not only integrates with Live Spaces but also works with other leading blog platforms including: Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad and WordPress.

Live Mobile: Microsoft has invested heavily in the smartphone market so it is not surprising that there is a Mobile service for Windows Live providing local, Web and Live spaces search. We expect to see more development of the feature set offered for mobile Live subscribers. At present this service is heavily based upon the existing MSN Mobile search features. Signing up for Live Mobile will take you to the MSN site to register for the service. Given that Google is putting a lot of emphasis on support for mobile phones expect to see more activity in this area.

A Serious Competitor To Watch

Windows Live is still in its formative stages of development but the significant investment looks to be paying off. It is already demonstrating great potential and clearly shows that Microsoft gets Web 2.0 and how to leverage the ecosystem it has developed around the Windows platform. You can also expect to see the XBox Live service integrated with Windows Live. Hooks are already in place on the site. This is clearly a serious competitor to watch and one that current popular Web 2.0 services cannot afford to ignore.

Office Live appears to be a different service to the one that many people had been hoping to see. Expect to see collaborative tools and business oriented applications that are attractive to small businesses and workgroups within larger enterprises. Don't expect to see Microsoft cannibalizing its Office customer base by providing the Office Suite online. Instead expect hooks in Office Live that will only work with the latest versions of the Office Suite, thereby preserving the valuable upgrade revenues that Office generates.

What do you or don't you like about Microsoft's foray into Ajax, SaaS, and Web 2.0?