Cresting the peak of Mt. Madison, part of New Hampshire’s Presidential Range, I discovered a timeless truth: climbing one mountain reveals  the next one. This truth applies equally to web development: mastering one technology reveals the next to be learned.

Ajax is the next mountain in web development. Remember the internet before Flash? Quicktime? Ajax promises another leap forward, delivering a more dynamic web experience. When that promise is fulfilled, what we see today will seem as clunky as your first 300 baud modem.Continue Reading

My 13 year-old son burst from boy’s sizes to men’s in one summer. In the blink of an eye he sprout like  prize-winning produce at the county fair. Online video consumption experienced that kind of growth spurt in the last year. The kind of video being consumed is provides a clue on how you can tap the power in this trend.

Eighty-four percent of consumers surveyed recently by Advertising.com said their viewing of online video in the last year either increased or stayed the same. The survey reported the most viewed category was news clips (49%) followed by music videos (47%) and movie trailers (33%). TV programming and user-generated video accounted for 26% and 21% respectively.

Before you can influence consumers, you have to get their attention. Attracting that attention boils down to saying something interesting to THEM. News clips were the top viewed category because we feel connected to news. Meanwhile, network television programs ported to the web only edged out user-generated video by 5%.

Get the point?

Your customers want it real and it better really relate to them. Lucky for you, getting video online is easier than ever. With a meager investment, you can establish relationship with customers face-to-face.
Yes, production values are a factor–but not the most important factor.

Good now beats perfect later.

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“I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either,” says New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, the paper’s owner, chairman and publisher.

Talk about a shock to the system. I remember seeing The Gray lady in person for the first time. The granite face of The New York Times stared down at me like a well-travelled sailor’s face, hardened by waves and storms, I was 13 at the time, visiting Manhattan with my dad. To any aspiring journalist, this was Mecca, the burning bush, the promised land all rolled into one. I was thrilled.

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Pioneers get the arrows, settlers get the land. I’ve heard it many times, but it only recently dawned on me: pioneers must not be in it for the land. They’re in it for adventure: cutting a new trail, opening fresh territories, pushing at boundaries.

So it goes with Podcasting. Since being created recently, the number of available podcasts has ballooned into the thousands; some are good, most are… unlistenable. And yet, the pioneers are driving where no bandwidth has gone before.

Settlers have now begun arriving in this brave new world. Audible, the audio book people, have announced a tool which, beginning next month, can track how many people actually listen to podcasts. Until now a download count was the only available metric–and that’s plenty for pioneers. Settlers, on the other hand, need more finite accountability.

Audible’s tool will enable tighter measurability, attachment of
advertising and can prevent the downloaded show from being forwarded to
another user. With the tools, “you can build a bona fide rate card” for advertising, says Foy Sperring, Audible’s senior vice president for strategic alliances.

Rate cards? We don’t need no steenkin’ rate cards, the pioneers shout back over the rumble of thundering hooves carrying them hooting with laughter into the next valley of innovation, leaving us behind in their dust to settle the land of podcasting.

If you haven’t given thought to how a podcast can enhance and extend the relationship-building power of your web presence, better hurry up. The next thing settlers tend to do is build fences…