Episode 17
05/09/2007 | Filed under Podcast
On this show: The panel discusses how to get the most out of multimedia content. We also investigate the challenges of social networking, discover a tool that exposes the relationships between websites and learn more about design in 200 words or less.
Multimedia web content
Following the multimedia theme of the September issue of the .net magazine, we speak to some leading figures in the world of multimedia online applications. We have Tom Harding from Weeworld, Tom Evan from Mook and Mark Bulley from Square Enix. Topics include:- What options are available beyond text and images?
- When is it right to employ multimedia on a site? How do you decide when it’s time to bring out the multimedia arsenal?
- At what point in the design process would you start to think about multimedia?
- What are the hottest apps/APIs for working with multimedia out there at the moment?
- Where do you look for inspiration?
- If you’re going to use multimedia on a site, what are the main mistakes people make? (This can be legal stuff, overuse of technologies, using the wrong packages, anything!)
- What are the coolest multimedia projects you’ve seen recently, and why did they impress?
- What does the future hold for multimedia on the web
News
The challenges to social networking
A couple of articles have appeared over the last week relating to how difficult it is to get social networking right. The first entitled "Social Networks Aren’t Products" examines the challenges of setting up a new social network and growing it to the point where it reaches critical mass. The second is a personal opinion piece from Cameron Adam’s explaining that as far as he is concerned there is only one social network and that is his. The concept behind the post is that most people’s social network is much more complex than anyone site allows for. As a result these sites should play nicely together and stop trying to lock users into one system.
What becomes apparent from these posts is that we still have a lot more to learn about how to create social networks effectively.
Design advise in 200 words or less
There seems to be no shortage of web sites stuffed with articles on design. So, you can imagine how under whelmed I was that another one has been launched. However, on closer examination I was pleasantly surprised by the original approach taken by A Brief Message. The site contains short opinion pieces on design that have to be expressed in 200 words or less. Not only does this approach make the posts much easier to read, it also focuses the writer and judging by the quality so far leads to some really nice results.
A new way to see relationships between sites
Finally today, I wanted to mention an interesting tool from TouchGraph that analyses the relationships between data. Not the most inspiring description until you understand that they can apply it to data coming out of Google. In effect what this tool allows you to do is work out relationships between sites. This potentially can be a very useful way of tracking your competition and what they are doing online.
