The 2.0Benefit

How you can benefit from the 2.0Culture

  

check out the HTML version (for easier reading) at:
http://www.vipedio.com/roman/blog/20benefit_full.html

 

As a follow up to yesterdays, quite well recognized article (towards a 1000 diggs at digg.com so far), I would like focus on the benefits for each of us that may or may not come with the aforementioned 2.0Culture. This is going to be split into a users and a designers point of view. So there’s a benefit in it for every type of reader. Great.

Designer’s benefit

It’s not always about money when we talk about gaining a benefit out of something. But wait, sure, money DOES play a role as well. So I’ll focus on both sides of the bill. First of all, as I have received a lot of feedback on my last article, I am happy to see that most people were able to figure out the actual reason for writing it. It was meant to show you how you can benefit from the ongoing 2.0Culture hype, without actually doing any Web 2.0 or Ajax at all. I very welcome the upcoming trend to focus on simpler design and clean layouts, but I also welcome the mass hype that comes wrapped up with the words Web 2.0 and Ajax. It’s no secret invention that was discovered over night somewhere in SanFran, not at all. It’s been around for ages now, but some dudes were clever (stupid) enough to keep calling everything Web 2.0 and praising Ajax to be the next geek’s Jesus Christ. Even though you can clearly define Web 2.0 and Ajax, you can still rock Digg easily by putting those words into your topic. Believe it or not, I’ve done a proof of concept, just yesterday. It worked.

So, to get to the point: How can you, as a web designer, software developer or service provider benefit from this hype? It’s never been easier than today. No venture capitalists, no Google spin-off, nothing like that is required. It only needs a twist of 2.0Culture mixed up with your useable content. Ok, to get this lined up, let’s invent a proof of concept. Anyone reading this is free to turn this project into a real one. Keep me posted on that.

Our project
Let’s say we want to provide a service to our visitors. Hmm, right, I got an idea: We will provide a neat “What is this file for?” database. So, basically a website including a big search box where you can enter a filename, just like “arp.exe” and then click a “What is it?” which is going to bring up a small list of results. These results include some 1-liners of information about the file itself, i.e. “This file is used by Microsoft Windows for ARP requests. It’s included with the default installation. Not harmful.”. This might be colored as well, so a RED background means this file is highly dangerous, a GREEN one means it is safe. Multiple results might be found for one file, so file sizes might be interesting as well. Still, not much of information to store. A simple table might do just well for that. Also, you need to think of a way to allow users adding their information about various files. So this is not a big thing as well. Remember: KEEP IT SMALL AND SIMPLE. And make it look 2.0Culture. Big fonts, big buttons, you got the idea. Read the 2.0Culture Design guide for further information.
Let’s call it “WhatIsThisFile.com” (still available!). That’s a rememberable name, as “Filr.com” was already given away Anyway. So we got a name, we got a project outline. Let’s do a time estimate:

• Design: 30-60 minutes
• Domain registration and webspace setup: 60 minutes max
• Programming: 2-5 hours
• Putting everything together: 2 hours

Overall est. max time: 11 hours max = 1 Sunday. Great. Just a perfect project to do our first step into 2.0Culture waters. Alright, some of you might be motivated enough to set this thing up now. Let’s assume we got everything already finished and setup at “WhatIsThisFile.com”. Right, now we need to add a very, VERY important thing to make this a number one hit. We need to add those two things:

• An API
• Ajax powered query routines

Concerning the API: This sounds much more complex than it actually is. You do not even need to provide SOAP and such things, it is totally fine to have a .php (or aspx) file, available to do some queries from outside with it. The returned data should be XML or simple CSV text. Call me an idiot, but I do prefer CSV for this case. It’s easier to implement. (This is going to spam my comments section again, oh god). Anyway, let’s just cope with that for now. So, we got a file called “api.php” located at “WhatIsThisFile.com/api.php”. Anyone can now use your service by simply executing your script from their web servers like this: “http://WhatIsThisFile.com/api.php?q=arg.exe”. Right, piece of cake. Ok, the Ajax part is up to you. It is in fact a bit too boring, writing a complete 1.2.3 tutorial for this. I guess you are clever enough to get this sorted out yourself. Do some Google for Ajax, this should get you started within some 30 minutes.

Perfect, so we got this thing set up. It is waiting for it’s users.

Ok, to be perfectly honest, you would have to spend another day or two on adding the most popular filenames yourself. It’s the boring part of the work, but hey, it is your actual content. So don’t try to run away from that task. Grab a pack of beer (or coffee) and a handful of friends and get it done in a day. Still, a piece of cake. Some of you should focus on trojans, virus and adware related filenames, while others should pretty much summarize most of Windows’ -Visible in Task Manager- files. That’s what most people will try to look up in your database. If “svchost.exe” is a virus or a standard, not harmful Windows file.

Ok, so now comes the magic. Literally every web designer is able to make it this far. There are no tough pitfalls in that project, so I think it’s an easy one to set up. But how do you get that huge amount of visitors on your website? I had 0 readers at my blog two days ago. Today, I have 14.000+ still counting at a rate of 1 to 10 per minute. Despite my design guide, I haven’t even got a great looking blog. But I have hooked this design guide that I wrote onto the number one hyped words: Web 2.0 and Ajax. People seem to go crazy with that. I mean, check out digg.com, TechCrunch, del.icio.us/popular. You’ll find these terms just about everywhere! That’s your chance. Right, great services and products will get popular easily and quick, you say. Bad ones don’t (without investing millions). That’s very true. But having your project hooked onto a hype makes it hell easier for people to like it. And what’s much more important to remember is: More users bring in more comments on your project. More ideas and suggestions. So that you can benefit from that and collaborate with your user base in order to take your project a step further, altogether. Oh great, isn’t that what we all want? A Wikipedia heart in every one of us. I love it.

Ok, so how do we get famous without living around the Bay area? Hmm, frankly, this is not too tough as well. First of all, summarize your idea into a small set of lines, make it sound like a great invention, but remember to keep EVERY SORT OF SALES PITCH OUT of it. I do not like sales pitch, so you don’t. Well ok, I made this article topic sound like you can earn a million dollars by simply reading it. Sorry for that

Ok, we have our summary, we have our project ready, we need to fire up the promotion engine now. First place to go: digg.com. Get your article posted there. Get your friends to check it out and digg you if they like it. Spread the word in newsgroups (DO NOT SPAM) and if you have blog, get the news published. Ask for ideas and suggestions. Let people share their ideas with you. Visit slashdot.org and submit your article. This usually don’t works but give it a try anyway. Depends on your project and idea if people pick it up there. Check out some of the number one blogs in the IT sector and contact the authors personally by e-mail. Do not spam their comments section, this is not nice and not welcome. Let them know about your idea and that you would be happy to have it covered in their blog. Suggest to provide a backlink from your site as well. This might also work for 2 out of 10 blogs (depending on your idea again).

Now, that we have done our basic promotional actions, we need to wait. Well, not really. Waiting is stopping. Stopping is not what we want right now as we are just about to get it going. What’s more to do? Have your friends (those that helped you doing the boring work) help you with the promotion, not to say – the marketing – of your project. Spider around all blogs, forums and boards. And always remember to post it where it’s relevant. If you spam around, people will notice it. This is like signing hell’s guestbook. Once branded, always branded.

Good, allow some time to get the word going. Just do always emphase the words “Web 2.0” and “Ajax” with every published article. And, check out my blog at http://blog.mittermayr.com – where I published some information on press releases (you can do this for free!). See here: http://mittermayr.blogspot.com/2006/02/magic-press.html

That’s going to rock your page. Trust me. And if you have forgotten to include some decent web statistic analysis program, god, you won’t stay online longer than a couple of days. Analysis is gold. Check where your users are coming from (keyword: Referrals) and how long they reside on your page. Try to find any problems that users might encounter with your website. Have a “How are we doing”-sort of section. Best for this is a blog, of course. Keep your users updated on what you are planning in the near future and let them comment on it. That’s all you ever need. A loyal user base is what platin is to gold.

And if you really worry about the costs of your project, a small line of Adsense links at the very bottom of your page will do the rest. Do consider a “Donate” section as well. If people like your project, this is going to generate a greater income than Adsense will. More on Adsense and why it might not work perfectly at an IT related website in my other blog (blog.mittermayr.com) soon.

Just always remember the basic, yet most important rules:

• Do not spam
• Do not try to screw things like digg.com or Blogs
• Do not fake
• Users decide about your success
• Design is crucial (see previous article)
• Say Web2.0 and Ajax
• Keep up the free spirit and avoid any connection to money making

Phew, whole lot of information in here. But it is going to work. Every one of you is free to grab the domain name and get that thing started. I might do it as well – just in case nobody cares to do so. Let me know how it is going with it then. I promise to cover it at this blog. A friend of mine is now also working at a typical 2.0Culture project. As soon as he is done, I will post a follow-up, comparing the project with the guides and it’s success.

Users’ benefit

Ok right, how do you as a user benefit from this hype? Just try to get a brief look at digg.com or TechCrunch.com to see the latest projects popping out of the mushroom heaven. You will notice quite a lot of extremely useful utilities. And I call them “utilities” for a particular reason. In our perfect world, we have our virtual office consisting of various tools put together individually suited to your needs. Imagine your are a project manager in the IT industry. You will likely need a todo list, a calendar and web e-mail. All these things are already out there, waiting for you. Make sure to check out Google for terms like “widgets”, “gadgets” combined with Web 2.0 and Ajax. This definitely gets you busy for a whole afternoon. And it might take another year or two for everything to get into perfection. But most likely these things are going to be subscription services, offering a fully online administrated virtual office. I know (to prevent some comments right away), things like this already exist out there. But they are still not at their perfection.

So everything you do to get into all those gadgets, widgets, ajax, Web 2.0, bla bla, scene – will allow you to act, think and use these technologies ahead of time.

So as I said before: Grab it while it’s hot. Only at Naked IT.

Roman Mittermayr

For IT matters: http://mittermayr.wordpress.com
For Business matters: http://blog.mittermayr.com

feel free to flame and send suggestions to:
software@mittermayr.com