Social media platforms & web publishing services

In the previous post we explored how Social Networking sites normally have 4 different functions:

Networking;
Social;
Identity; and

Sharing

Now, by looking at four well know examples, I will illustrate how different emphasis on these functions differentiate Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Second Life.

Second Life

Second Life is in fact a weak example of a Social Networking media property.

This is primarily because it lacks Networking functionality (You have no friend or contact lists, where you can create ties or nodes …

Are you building a so-called Social Networking site? Then you need to know what makes them tick, what user needs they address, and how by adding certain features a site’s nature will be different.

But first lets start from the beginning. What is a social network?

According to the collective wisdom of Wikipedia -

A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of relations.

But what does …

Formas brief >>

Formas is the site of product and shoe designer Laura Villasensin. She wanted both blog functionality and passwork protected portfolio. In the future she might want to use the site to retail her own shoes.

A Quick win – a mashup

We wanted to have a feature that would drive traffic and search engine page rank. We used Yahoo! Pipes …

 Pellissier-Place brief >>

Pellissier-Place is a new guest house in Bloemfontein South Africa. It needed a website that would be its primary source of generating customers.

Bloemfontein is a venue for the 2010 Fifa World Cup and the town has over 200 guest houses and a number of hotels and motels, all with their own websites.

So the big challenge was to make sure …

First bear in mind that we will use the Neoclassical theme as only the framework for customisation. The customisation can change the design radically.

The Neoclassical theme was also designed by Chris Pearson, a them designer renowned for his attention to both design and search engine optimisation (SEO).
* Design customisation
Like Copyblogger the theme was made for design tweaking and customising.

It has a custom stylesheet on top the basic stylesheet. This allows you to change the look and feel risk free.

The …

First bear in mind that we will use Copyblogger as only the basis for customisation. The customization can change the design radically.

This theme was designed by Chris Pearson, a them designer renowned for his attention to both design and search engine optimisation (SEO).
* Design customisation
For a start, the theme was made for design tweaking and customising.

To enable this Pearson included a custom stylesheet on top the base stylesheet.

Pearson himself says:

“Judging from the overwhelming response to my Cutline Theme, the one …

[ Read on ]

 

For some weeks the Wordpress community has been buzzing with rumours. Rumours of a social networking orientated release of Wordpress, which will extend the publishing platforms potential into yet a new area.

The rumours turned out to be true. Developer Andy Peatling had started on the social networking incarnation of Wordpress and two days ago some of the social networking features being built into “Buddypress” was announced.

Buddypress will be …

Writing for blogs and the web is not the same as writing elsewhere. Why?

As Jacob Nielsen showed a decade ago, reading on computer a screen is not as easy and comfortable as reading from paper. Besides, the web is an active medium and web users have allot of choice. They have a tendency to be fickle and easily go elsewhere.

The result is that users scan web pages, and that when writing for the web one …

The key challenge online is how to ensure people actually find and see your web site. The Web is revolutionary and your site is accessible from anywhere. But so is millions of other websites, all competing for those valuable eyeballs.

Since Search Engines are the key way users discover and find the services they are looking for, a whole industry has blossomed: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

And while conforming to technical web standards, redesigning your page structures and writing your web pages …

The secret is out. Google (and other) search engines love blogs. But why this blog love?

It’s true that most blogging systems are Search Engine friendly. For example many blog systems like Blogger and Wordpress allows for blog posts’ titles to be inserted in the post URL AND in the web page’s title tag. Dynamic titles is just one important factor that enhances Search Engine …