Soccer Scene is a new soccer website designed for both players and fans of the game, with an emphasis on the local scene (Brisbane/Qld).
Target Audience:
Gender: unisex - although likely to be mostly male.
Age: 15-40
Demographics: players, fans, coaches, sponsors (anyone with an interest in the game essentially)
Socio-economic background: All - soccer is played and followed by people from all corners of life, majority of players and fans tend to be standard middle class, sponsors perhaps middle to upper class given their assumed stronger financial strength. Users are likely to be very familiar with the game and the latest issues facing the game.
User skills: Users are likely to have moderate skills and familiarity with web design and navigation, they feel most comfortable with standard features.
Navigation: The website will follow a hierarchical design, therefore navigation will be top-down, however each page will also contain a navigation bar to jump to any fellow child pages.
I discovered Google Reader some time ago, not to say I was ahead of the curve (very rarely am I), but rather I was getting curious about all these RSS feed things I was seeing on various websites, curious enough that I finally investigated!
Google Reader is a tool for you to subscribe to various different sites that publish news and articles of interest. The benefit of such a thing is that you can find everything you want to read on a daily/weekly basis in the one place, the convenience factor compared to navigating from one site to the next is obvious. Another benefit is that it all appears in a simplified, easy to read format, this may be beneficial if the source website is very cluttered and/or full of flash/video/high contrast graphics, that make you hate using the actual website and take away from the enjoyment of the experience.
Basically you subscribe to a 'feed' from a given website, and every time something new is published, it will appear in your Google Reader.
A quick rundown in plain English
Personally I subscribed to a couple of tech news websites and sports site. These sites have several contributors who have daily or weekly columns on a given subject, I enjoy reading them as they all have their own personal opinions and backgrounds that shape the manner in which they deliver their piece. The joys of Google Reader is that they are all just there waiting for me, I don't have to go digging through each section of each site to find them.
There aren't too many negatives about this service, you could say the design is a little bland, and has that generic Gmail feel about it, so if you aren't a fan of that then you may find this to be a downside. The only real drawback I would mention is the clutter that develops if you stop reading for a given time, however you can obviously just unsubscribe if you no longer wish to read from a given source.
Google PageRank Algorithm
PageRank is what Google uses to rank pages that appear in search results. Through a special algorithm, Google assigns a Rank number to each page, the higher the better! A main factor of the ranking is how many links out their connect to a given web page, and the importance of said links. By this I mean you can have x amount of links, and someone else may have half that amount, however if the links to their page come from more popular, more reputable, higher ranked sources, he may have a higher rank than you.
PageRank Algorithm:
As described by Google founders Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin (they should know!)
PR(A) =
(1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))
PR(A)
is the PageRank of page A,
PR(Ti) is the PageRank of pages Ti which link to page A,
C(Ti) is the number of outbound links on page Ti and
d is a damping factor which can be set between 0 and 1.
Get a basic rundown from the expert!
This guy has a good way of explaining things
1) Is this your first completely online subject?
No - through studying BIT@Work I have been through several online subject in the last 2 years.
2) What do you enjoy about the use of blogs during the subject? (Please provide a few sentences or bullet points.)
I enjoy the less formal nature of it, much of the writing is opinion-based, meaning you can speak your mind and express your understanding in a more natural way, rather than translating all your thoughts into formal essay type language, and backing every comment up with a reference (all properly formatted!).
3) Do you feel group work via blogs is a productive way to work through the course concepts (e.g., Web 2.0, Information Architecture, Content Management, etc.)?
Please indicate on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 = Strongly disagree to 10 = Strongly agree)
5 - I believe it certainly has it's place in some subjects, however I have mixed feelings on group work in general, on an online subject it increases the difficulty of speaking with team members obviously with not having any classes to physically meet at. That said, collaboration tools are developing all the time so I would think this is something that will get easier and easier with time.
4) What do you enjoy about the use of Facebook during the subject? (Please provide a few sentences or bullet points.)
I did not use the Facebook page created for this subject, however there were a couple of questions in earlier blogs surrounding the social networking giant. It was a good experience to actually go and read their policies on several matters (security etc.), it forces one to really think about these things, and be aware of the dangers out there. If nothing else it might make someone tighten their privacy rules for their profile if it was previously wide open for the world to see!
5) Do you feel that the use of social networking enhanced your sense of being part of the class community given that there was no real-time interaction within the subject (i.e., lectures, tutorials)?
Please indicate on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 = Strongly disagree to 10 = Strongly agree)
5 - I mark this question so low purely because of my response to the previous question. Had I used the Facebook page I imagine I certainly would have had an enhanced sense of being part of the class community and the score would have been higher. That said I did enjoy being able to read other students work (blog entries) and make comments on them. It was a very refreshing option to be able to go read other peoples entries on subjects after completing my own to see if they had written similar things or had totally different view points.
6) What would you recommend to enhance the experience of a student in an online environment? (Please provide a few sentences or bullet points.)
I think making the Facebook page mandatory would force students to engage with each other more. It might be interesting to integrate other forms of social media such as Twitter, I was thinking earlier in the week about this and thought it might be a good platform students could use to make comments on the textbook readings, weekly youtube videos etc. Having everyone in the group following each other should create a decent flow of opinion to read through. One tweet, and one response per week should be adequate!
The best definition of an Information Architect I can put together is someone who deals with how to present information, considering all factors, such as client requirements and target audience to deliver a solution that benefits and works for all stakeholders. They design the environment and methods for information organisation.
A bit slow...but the point is well made!
Ordering System:
#!%&: Creating Comic Books
$35 a Day Through
Europe
.38 Special
The 1-2-3 of Magic
1001 Arabian Nights
Albany, New York
El Paso, Texas
H20: The Beauty of
Water
The Hague,
Netherlands
The Lord of the
Rings
New York, New York
Newark, New Jersey
Plzen, Czech
Republic
Saint Nicholas,
Belgium
St. Louis, Missouri
XVIIme siècle
a) Did you put The
Hague under T or H?
Under 'H' as 'Hague' is the focus here, the 'The' is merely a definite article.
b) Did you put El Paso under E or P?
Under 'E', although it is a similar situation to the previous question, 'el' meaning 'the', it is also the name of a city, therefore we can sort it by it's full name which starts with 'E'.
c) Which came first in your list, Newark or New York?
New York came first as alphabetical order determines that words that end are ordered above words with additional letters.
d) Does St. Louis come before or after Saint Nicholas?
St Louis comes after Saint Nicholas, standard alphabetical ordering here, 'sa' comes before 'st', regardless of the fact it is an abbreviation. we must take each word on face value.
e) How did you handle numbers, punctuation, and special characters?
These characters general come first before letters so I went with that. From an IT point of view you can refer to the ASCII table, this also orders these characters before individual letters.
f) Assuming the italicised terms are book titles, what might be a more useful
way to organise this list?
Books are often published alphabetically by author rather than title, this is one method, another would be chronological order, either by publish date, or if it is a personal list, by date in which you first read them.
g) If the cities represent places you've visited and the book titles are ones you've read, how could chronology be used to order the list in a more
meaningful way?
As mentioned above, the date in which you first read the book could be used as an ordering marker, so too with cities, the first time you visited them.
Website Labels
Label
Desination’s heading label
Destination’s <TITLE> label
Top-of-page naviagation system labels
Coca-Cola Symbol (Home)
Coca-Cola
Enjoy a Coke and Enjoy the rewards
Home
Coca-Cola
Enjoy a Coke and Enjoy the rewards
Our Products
Our Drinks
Live Positively
Coca-Cola global
The Coca-Cola Company
Coca-Cola Unbottled
Sustainability
Our Platform for sustainability
Live Positively
Careers
Careers
Shape your future, your way
Contact Us
-
Contact Us
Body navigation system labels
Coke Unleashed
Find out More
Enjoy a coke and enjoy the rewards
Share a Coke with…
Share a coke with…
Do You have someone special you would love to share a coke with?
Pump
How to enter
Win round the world flights + $5000 to spend
Live Positively
Our Platform for sustainability
Live Positiviely
Powerade Zero
Zero Sugar Enhance Hydration
New Powerade Zero
Bottom-of-page navigation system labels
Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
Terms of Use
Terms of Use
Promotion Terms & Conditions and Winners
-
Promotion Terms & Conditions and Winners
Like many areas of web design, there are a good amount of areas that follow a formula to some degree (or should). People have come to expect a certain amount of things when it comes to websites, a navigation section either across the top or down the left hand side for example. without these the usability of a website instantly drops as users don't know what to do initially as what they are used to doing is not available.
Labelling is part of this area, a user should be able to find what they want within three clicks they say. while this is an unreasonable figure to put on websites in reality, the moral behind it is sound, most users aren't interested in exploring your page, they want to get in and get out as soon as possible! Labelling is key to all this.
The coca-cola site follows the method of top horizontal navigation links, these are obvious and legible to the user and the buttons are a solid size. The only negative I would say about this site is that some pages (including links and labels) follow a different template to others, making for an inconsistent experience, I feel like I'm jumping websites at times.
Comparison with competitor sites such as Pepsi and Schweppes finds Schweppes to be a similar site to Coke, with top horizontal navigation and the bonus of page template consistency and drop-down menus for extended navigation. Pepsi is going at it from a whole different angle, with some sort of social media mash-up looking home page. While I'm sure its very trendy and hip with the kids, anyone looking for simple information about the drink is really going to struggle! To summarise I would have to give first place in terms of consistent labelling, and all round better website usability, to Schweppes.
Social networking needs no explanation in this day and age, however it is interesting to discover that it's not all twitter, facebook, myspace and other fellow heavyweights that are the be all and end all. The Ning option is one I admit to knowing nothing about until recently. It is essentially a site where you can created your own customised social network...yes you read correct, you can create your own facebook!
Of course the trick behind Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's success is not as simple as creating a social network and then just sitting back and waiting for the dump trucks full of money to show up, there is also the minor issue of having millions of people sign up and become addicted! Although that said there are more direct ways to generate income from your social network, you can set up storefronts where you add your design to generic products (t-shirts etc.) and you get a cut of any sales. There is also a donation app should a random billionaire drop by and feel generous!
The base purpose of Ning though lies more in the realm of niche markets and company use. If a business wants to go to this much effort to create an online community for its fans/customers, it wants to stand out, it wants customisation. The ability to customise your network to a near total state is very appealing compared with the cookie-cutter nature of Facebook. It also soothes the inner hipster in us all to have something different and not be part of the crowd, although that said, Ning does also offer facebook integration so you're not left out of the horde in your own cult altogether!
I would recommend the following blog for another solid explanation on the joys on Ning:
There are a few constants in our lives, they range from little things to huge complex issues. The issue of privacy is a big one on the internet, and these days more so in social networking. The idea of some random unknown person looking at your profile is a little freaky to some, however there tends to be sufficient security settings to take care of this.
The terms of Service and Privacy policy on Facebook are vast, as with most 'terms' on a product or service. After taking a week off work to read through all this thoroughly, I am happy enough with their efforts in this area, I trust their security setup and am content with my details being as private as they can be (discounting the possibility of the Anonymous group deciding to target their hacking efforts on my profile page because they just have to have the photos of me from St Patricks day downing Guinness after glorious Guinness!).
The only data that remains public is some basic details to give my profile some shape and personality (name, gender, picture etc.). The main use of my information for them is in regard to advertising, they will use my details to tailor ads to my likes and interests as best they can. This is not a bad thing in my opinion as I am highly unlikely to ever buy something off a Facebook add anyway, plus it stops me from enduring totally irrelevant ads (eg. female targeted, products/services only available overseas).
Breach response is dealt with reactively obviously, and they don't make too manner guarantees in this area. I don't have an issue with this as it is such a large, well-used service that policing it would be extremely difficult. I like to think I am smart enough not to put anything up there that is too personal or damaging so if I ever was hacked it wouldn't be the end of the world.
I would say that best way to summarise social networks such as Facebook is this; There's no such thing as a free lunch. You're getting a very popular, useful platform to do many things for free. In return you can't expect the world in terms of security and accountability, so be smart! Also they are more than entitled to monetise your user experience a little so unless you want to pay a subscription, get used to ads!
Web 2.0 has come about in a way that would be best described as evolutionary, rather than any kind of deliberate change over from web 1.0 - by this I mean the ability of the web and what it can offer us has developed piece by piece over the last 10-15 years, hand in hand with hardware and software advances.
The development side of the web has become a very exciting area to be involved in. Long gone are the days of boring static pages, powered by nothing more than HTML and CSS, we now have several powerful programming languages to build vibrant, attractive pages that are database-backed, enabling users to generate unique pages to suit their needs and access more than a standard page of information.
In terms of physical development outside of websites themselves, the two biggest developments are no doubt Internet connectivity, and platform advancement. They say that time heals all wounds, and distance makes the heart grow fonder...this is clearly true when it comes to memories of using dial-up internet. I can clearly remember the annoyance and impatience I felt sitting there waiting for my internet to logon to my ISP and connect me to the world, but also the excitement and anticipation. I also remember the pain and suffering of being unable to connect, due to any number of technical issues I was ill equipped to troubleshoot back then, or being disconnected because my unknowing mother would pick up the phone to make a call downstairs, or one of my sister's friends would ring the home phone to speak with her, instantly pulling the plug on my online experience. Yet despite all this, whenever someone mentions 'the bad old days of dial-up', or I hear that old familiar connection sound on some retro 90's video, I can't help but half crack a smile. That said I can not describe my happiness the day we finally switched over to broadband internet. The joys of the 'always on' internet connection are like giving a race car to a kid on a pushbike; he's going to go as fast as he can, for as long as he can, and push the cars ability, possibly to breaking point, until the novelty wears off and it becomes the norm.
Platform advancement is, again, an area I labored through as a child. For years I was stuck with an old 486 that ran on a whopping 66MHz, while my friends gradually upgraded to Pentiums and beyond. When I finally upgraded, again it was a big jump to a Pentium 4, being the child I was, I instantly had about a hundred video games I had been wanting to play for so long but couldn't due to the 486 not satisfying minimum requirements. I was also able to fully embrace the web, and in particular streaming and downloading music/video content which was just starting to take off.
Web 2.0 would not be practical, or even possible in a lot of areas, without the super fast internet speeds we enjoy today, many web sites are too feature rich and resource hungry to even display properly on 56k dial-up. Similarly, PCs, and more recently smart phones, have advanced in both hardware and software to the point where we can enjoy heavy-duty database-backed websites and watch hours upon hours of video, listen to music, and download/upload content without batting an eyelid.
One technology that takes advantage of these first two advances, is Adobe Flash. Flash is a piece of software used primarily for multimedia. If you've ever used a website with an interactive video feature, there is a good chance Flash is responsible. The use of multimedia on web pages has exploded over the last decade, with anything from a blog to a shopping website including music or video clips in their content.
Another huge technology to come along is Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), a client-side technology (or to be more accurate, a group of technologies) used to build web apps. The joys of asynchronous data retrieval means it can constantly update the data being used by the webpage without interrupting the user experience of the webpage.
One man's simplified explanation
In the absence of videos such as the above, I think the best example to explain Ajax to someone would be to point them to Google Maps. It is the use of Ajax that allows you to interact with the map, zooming in and out of a location and even going as far as to look at a house from a 'standing outside' point of view. Without Ajax, the webpage would need to reload the page each time you adjusted the view, as it sent a request to the database for a zoomed in/out version of the current map you are looking at. So too with the street view it would send a request to the server, and then reload the page completely to change the map to a photo rendering of the house/street - no quick and simple rolling of the mouse wheel for this handy tool!
So the web has evolved...or rather, is evolving. I suppose that's something that will always be true, this monster we have created, the World Wide Web, has gone from the crawl of the nineties into a steady jog in the last decade. It has become instrumental to our lives in so many ways, from personal experience I remember when it was a novelty, something I would 'surf' without any real destination in mind, but rather just seeing what was out there. I am old enough to remember the Yahoo! homepage pictures we see in the week 1 reading. My first ISP was a company called Powerup, and they had a similar type of homepage, mostly a portal page linking me to other search engines. I can honestly say it was a fantastic service at the time and it was my first 'world at your fingertips' feeling. That said, if I was to use that sort of thing these days I would probably throw my PC out the window!
It never ceases to amaze how devices continue to get faster, smaller, and all-round better, we have all-in-one PC/Screens now, we have ultrabooks, smartphones. In fact we have phones out there now that can substitute a computer altogether. The Motorola Atrix, while flawed, is a fine prototype for what is surely to come. With it's dual core processor it has the muscle, it sports a HDMI input for your monitor (feel free to just use the TV), two USB inputs and Bluetooth for keyboard, mouse, and any other peripherals. It makes me wonder if at one point things will have to stop and go in a different direction. The one example we have seen on this point is phones. In the previous decade there was a sudden, and obsessive need to make phones smaller and smaller until they were bordering on the ridiculous, and anything that wasn't keeping up with the trend was condemned to be known forever as a 'brick'. Thankfully the advent of the IPhone and Android models has now replaced this trend with a need for a bigger unit to cram all the tech into.
While not the best example, you can get a good idea of what I mean about the Atrix.
The very idea of blogs and wikis are two areas I must admit to not really knowing a great deal about up to this point. I had arrogantly dismissed Blogging as the arena of self-absorbed individuals looking for a 'Hey look at me!' platform to share meaningless garbage about their mundane lives. While for a large part I believe I was right, I feel there is also an avenue to be explored here in the way of sharing information and adding to the 'social web' that has emerged in this 'Facebook era' we find ourselves living in.
As for Wikis, I again own up to being a little presumptuous in this department. Wikis were Wikipedia to me and nothing else, and through that line of thought, they were simply a handy off-hand reference point to read up on general interest subjects, historical events and personalities when curiosity strikes. If we can put aside the occasional poorly constructed (or vandalised) page, we find we've built ourselves an extremely valuable public resource. The idea that if you are knowledgeable on something, you can go and either create or add to a page on a given subject, and that will then be read by countless people all over the world, this is something truly special and cannot be undervalued.
I do admit to my skepticism at data from Google trends showing wiki is a more popular search term than blog, I believe if we took Wikipedia out of the equation the stats would plummet, although that said you can Google most areas of interest these days and you will find a Wikipedia-independent wiki created for it, so I could be wrong...it has been known to happen on occasion!
This is the world we live in people, we live in a world were all those stories your mother told you when you were younger are true, you CAN go out there and speak to the world and they will hear you, you CAN create something, something that everyone can benefit from. And the best part...is that you don't have to do it all yourself, we don't have to go it alone, the word of the day is 'collaboration'. We can build something, and slowly but surely chip away at it until we have our great construct.
I love to hear a choir. I love the humanity to see the faces of real people devoting themselves to a piece of music. I like the teamwork. It makes me feel optimistic about the human race when I see them cooperating like that.
- Paul McCartney
