The Machine is Us/ing Us
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE[/youtube]
This is from last year but I was just re-visiting it now and I still think it’s one of the best examples of the idea of “Web 2.0” or “Social Media” as we prefer to call it now. It also touches on the separation between content and format which is so essential to building websites for SEO and usability these days.
It’s essential for any website to use coding that provides the raw content the search engines need but is also attractive and engaging to people. Adobe’s Flash can’t do this, well not very well anyways, and so much on the Web needs to be converted to a combination XHTML (the actual content of a website) and CSS (the style the content appears in).
All of the points from the video are becoming a mantra and rightfully so as the Web shifts to a medium controlled by users instead of machines. Although it may be off-putting to imagine allowing our customers or users to control the conversation about our products or services, it’s becoming so commonplace that if you’re not doing it, there will be a time in the not-so-distant future that your brand or message will be much less credible without it. Indeed this is already happening as users have now grown accustomed to things like Amazon product reviews or Travelocity user ratings.
Anyways, just some things to consider for those that may still be reticent to embrace the new ways the Internet and its users are shaping business currently and into the near future.
Tags: social media, tips, video