Social Media Goals for the New Year

Every year I think people will start to get the hang of social media. After all, it's really not much different from what we've done as a society forever, just more rapid-fire. Every year I am proven wrong.

Perhaps we need to consider better behavior on social media as a New Year Resolution for it to take effect. So here's my attempt at guidance.

Background

When I got to college, few people had heard of email and even fewer used it. Usenet was a foreign concept to nearly everyone I knew in meat-space, but with so much traffic I knew it wasn't hurting for users. Before there was a web, I understood the notion of choosing my words carefully. Archives of all my posts would surely stick around for many years, I thought, and so they have. I can still find stuff I posted back in 1992.

As the web happened and it became easier for anyone to share anything, and as email flourished (back when we had time to read it instead of filtering it), I adopted a variation on an old idea of how to behave in email — never write something in an email you wouldn't want to be posted on the front page of The New York Times. Nowadays maybe it's a tweet on the front page of the Fail Blog.

I think we should all accept that with the ubiquity of cell phone cameras, let alone all the surveillance cameras, web cams, and soon airborne drones made by 12-year-olds, everything you do runs the risk of being scrutinized and posted online for the world to judge. By posting your own contributions to social media sites, you (and I) continue to drive it.

When Facebook's co-founder's sister (who is also Facebook's former marketing director) posted a photo to Facebook and was surprised to see it tweeted by someone she didn't know, claiming it as an invasion of privacy, the collective web laughed at her. She became the holiday poster child for how confusing Facebook's privacy settings are to understand and implement — and she's the sister of the face of the company.

It also makes her follow-up tweet all the more laughable, partly because I doubt she asked the permission of her family members before posting their photos online:

Digital etiquette: always ask permission before posting a friend's photo publicly. It's not about privacy settings, it's about human decency

— Randi Zuckerberg (@randizuckerberg) December 26, 2012

What You Can Do as a Social Media User

Most importantly, don't think that just because you have locked down your social media accounts, no one that you haven't authorized can see it. An errant retweet or a misunderstood setting are all it takes to make that notion come crashing down. Just look at Zuckerberg's sister — she clearly doesn't understand either of the platforms she uses despite what she thinks.

I have my own set of rules I follow and I try to lead by example. That doesn't mean all mine are right, but I had to start somewhere.

• For the most part, I do not post photos of people without their permission. Exceptions include crowd shots.


• I don't post photos of children, though when there are exceptions I do not post names with the photos.


• When I do take general place or crowd photos, I avoid posting ones with the faces of children visible.


• I avoid posting photos with faces visible when I am making fun of a particular fashion choice.


• I don't create venues for homes.


• I don't post photos with street addresses visible.


• I don't embed GPS information when tweeting from someone's home.


• I don't retweet tweets from a protected account (unless I have permission or it's a particularly good insult to me).


• I don't tag people in photos without permission or prior experience that it will be fine.


• I don't tag friends in places when I am out, which is also why I don't auto-tweet my Foursquare check-ins (on top of the fact that it's annoying).


• I don't include information about friend or family schedules in posts, especially when they are travelling.


• I do not sync my phone with any cloud service or allow any auto-posting. I'd rather pick and choose than run the risk of the wrong image making it to the wrong place.

It's worth noting that I have violated all of these at least once, sometimes by accident and sometimes by stupidity. In a handful of cases I have been rightly chastised.

When it comes to kids (anyone's kids), I work to make sure I don't put enough information out there that a motivated offender couldn't just drive up to a kid on the street and spout enough information to make the kid think it's safe to get into his car. I wish more parents on Facebook made that effort.

What You Should Do as a Person in the World

Accept that everyone has a camera and can post photos and videos of you at any time. Accept that you may appear unintentionally in crowd photos that appear on everything from locked-down Facebook pages to the local news to band fliers and so on.

When you have a friend who keeps posting photos of you that you don't want posted, you should confront him or her. At some point you'll have to decide between how cautious or uptight you want to be versus how much that friendship means to you.

If you are a Facebook user, you can control whether or not you get tagged in photos (as a link to your Facebook page only) and you can even un-tag yourself.

Either behave or own your pile of crazy.

Related

• Facebook security hole allows anyone to view private New Year's Midnight Delivery messages and photos, December 30, 2012.


• How much data did Facebook have on one man? 1,200 pages of data in 57 categories, December 28, 2012


• Zuckerberg's Etiquette Sham, December 28, 2012.


• Mark Zuckerberg's Sister Complains Of Facebook Privacy Breach, December 26, 2012.


• Yes, Randi Zuckerberg, Please Lecture Us About 'Human Decency', December 26, 2012

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2012 Advent Calendars for Web Devs

Now that the (Western, my favorite) holiday season is upon us, the tradition of advent calendars whose chocolate is replaced with web-related tips and articles is back. This year's crop is missing some from last year, but there's still good stuff to be found.

If you know of any others, please pass them along. For those not returning, I have listed them at the end.

1. 24 Ways

24 Ways, the one that pretty much defines the genre for me, is back again. It's been going strong since 2005 and based on its history this year should have some good articles.

2. Performance Calendar

Performance Calendar dates back to 2009 (and still defaults to 2011 if you go straight to the domain). It focuses on techniques to speed up your site via scripting, CSS, and general mark-up, along with server tweaks and analysis suggestions.

3. Perl Advent Calendar

Perl Advent Calendar goes all the way back to 2000 (and back then looked a bit more like a traditional advent calendar, too) and has been dispensing tips for Perl developers ever since.

4. Webkrauts

Webkrauts has an all German advent calendar, and it also dates back to 2005. It covers general web topics, but being in all-German readers like me will benefit from a Google Translate version of the page. Suggestion via @patrick_h_lauke.

5. 24 Jours de Web

24 Jours de Web has kicked off its first year as an advent calendar for web folk. Written in French it is clearly primarily targeted at French speakers, but a round of Google Translate will open it up to far more readers (like me). Suggestion via @PhilippeVay.

6. Japanese HTML5 Advent Calendar

HTML5 Advent Calendar 2012 is in Japanese, and thanks to the wonderful powers of Google Translate, it was very little confidence that I suggest it is produced by volunteers who have each picked a day and written something about the web (based on this statement: 登録した日に自分のブログなどにエントリーを書いてください。). If you know Japanese, I welcome any corrections. The site Adventar.org appears to host other advent calendars, some about web technologies, some not.

7. Web Advent

Web Advent is back. I had incorrectly listed it as not returning below, under its original address as the PHP advent calendar. With its name and domain change, it appears to be back again this year and keeping its streak from 2007 going strong.

8. HTML & CSS Advent

HTML & CSS Advent uses a rather self-explanatory name. Moving away from last year's advent-calendar-flap layout and to more of a list of articles, you'll find some experimentation with cutting-edge (or nearly so) features that may not make into client work just yet.

9. 12 Devs of Xmas

12 Devs of Xmas was also listed below as not returning (it has articles from last year), but I misunderstood — it will be starting the day after Christmas and going for 12 days from then. When all the other calendars have wrapped up, you'll still have one to read.

10. UXmas

UXmas is an advent calendar aimed at the user experience community. Coming from Australia, American readers may be thrown just a bit by the schedule. The calendar promises everything from sketches, to articles, to tools, to videos. Found this one via .net Magazine.

11. Freelancember

Freelancember 2012 is produced by the makers of Freckle time tracking software and targeted squarely at freelancers. Its daily entries will consist of downloadable gifts in the form of PDF worksheets. Think of this as less about web-tech and more about MadLibs for projects. Found this one via .net Magazine.

12. Mozilla Developer Network Holidays calendar

Mozilla Developer Network Holidays calendar includes brief links to resources or demos and suggests that you can edit them (if they are MDN resources). I had this one listed as non-returning because last year's address was very generic and the site has no navigation on the home page to direct users here. Perhaps that should be tip #1.

13. She Said It

She Said It is an advent calendar dedicated to providing general tips for the web industry in general, with quotes provided by women in the field. I only discovered this on Christmas Eve eve, so I've seen it fully populated by now. This calendar is produced in Sweden, but its contributors hail from everywhere.

14. 12 Days of Podcasts

12 Days of Podcasts, which I discovered on the day after Christmas, runs from December 26 to January 6, 2013. Each day will have a different audio-only interview with assorted web folks. You can stream them off the site or download the MP3 for later listening pleasure (perhaps during that terrible New Year party you're attending).

Not Returning

A handful of calendars aren't returning this year (so far), but content from previous years is still available. These include Font Deck's Adfont Calendar, and the Fronteers advent calendar (in Dutch).

Completely Unrelated

I discovered this one this morning and have no idea what to expect (other than the first day so far), but it might worth a look: Popperfont's Sciencegeek Advent Calendar Extravaganza. With such a compelling name, how can you not look?

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New Main Element Approved, then Blocked

When I saw main proposed as an element a few months ago (or content or maincontent as alternate names), I didn't think the process to fold it into the HTML specification would move very quickly.

Much to my surprise on the W3C HTML Working Group mailing list the main element not only got a draft HTML5 extension specification quickly, it also worked its way through the process to become approved as a First Public Working Draft on Tuesday (yesterday) the 27^th of November.

And so the process appears to be working.

Except the W3C is just one of the standards bodies working on HTML5. There is also WHATWG, the body that years ago picked up the then-discarded HTML specification from W3C and started to carry it forward to HTML5. Now the two groups work together, with the W3C working on versioned specifications with WHATWG working on the ever-evolving standard.

Over on the WHATWG mailing list, main doesn't seem to be getting much traction from the editor, which leaves it in a bit of limbo. WHATWG does, however, try to reflect in its specification approach that which is already in place in the browsers. For example, if the browser makers suddenly supported main, then WHATWG would consider it viable.

Except WHATWG was started by, and is still made up of, people from the browser makers Apple, Mozilla and Opera. Others contribute, but its membership can heavily influence the direction browsers take.

When the author of the main extension specification started to add support for main to WebKit (the core of Apple Safari and Google Chrome), the WebKit bug report quickly turned into a fresh debate over the merit of the main element — by none other than the WHATWG editor.

Mozilla team members have pre-emptively stated that they do not support main being added to HTML5, but they did so on the WebKit mailing list. The argument against main being added as a patch to the browsers is this:

Shopping a patch to implementors, to get something into a standard spec
by asserting de-facto status based on the patch(es) landing, is bad form.

Sadly, it seems the same circular argument is being used to block main in the WHATWG HTML specification. By blocking its implementation in browsers, WHATWG members can claim there is no real-world support and so no need to add it to the specification (this is assuming the arguments against the use cases still stand). Then it's a matter of pushing back at the W3C HTML Working Group to let it wither over there.

Even the author of the use cases for the main element appears to have thrown in the towel at WHATWG.

There is still some hope, however. Both Opera and Internet Explorer representatives have not argued against it and have even offered some support:

@aardrian nothing definitive from opera but @zcorpan appered to support it and helped. got a non objection from IE at TPAC

— Steve Faulkner (@stevefaulkner) November 28, 2012

Bear in mind, all this has happened in roughly a 48 hour window. Much more will happen, but the start of this process is certainly not as positive as I had hoped (disclosure, I voted for it on the W3C list). Even if you aren't in favor of the main element, this is still a telling view into the standards-making process.

Update, January 31, 2013

And there it is, main has appeared in the WHATWG version of the HTML specification.

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Network Solutions and Dark Patterns

We should be familiar with anti-patterns in user interface design — counter-intuitive or ineffective user interface techniques.

Dark patterns are user interface design patterns that intentionally try to steer users into taking actions that are in the best interest of the site owner, not the user. Sadly, users encounter these all the time. You can get a more verbose overview at the dark patterns wiki, which is from where I am stealing this phrase.

For example, do you ever notice how banner ads (typically for questionable weight loss or beauty aids) tend to vibrate every few moments, shaking just a pixel or two? This is intentional because our visual systems are trained to react to movement in our peripheral vision, like an attacking tiger (or liposuction ad).

The real problem comes when this intentional exploitation of user behavior is designed to ultimately confuse users into submission or to hand over (too much) money.

In the case of the latter, I have an example I'd like to take you through. I have used Network Solutions as my domain registrar for years, primarily because that's who I was with before ICANN opened up the registry business to others. I have stayed with Network Solutions because of the hassle of moving away from it, even though the hassle of staying has probably far outweighed it by now.

As an aside, I'd like to take this opportunity to explain that I will not use the morally bankrupt filth that is GoDaddy for a variety of reasons, not least of which is related to its absurd objectification of women, its founder's flimsily explained killing of elephants, its support of SOPA, or its status as a target to the likes of script kiddies.

Back to the meat of my post. I wanted to both register a new domain and renew an existing domain this week and found the process so overwhelming that I feel it's a great example of an ecommerce anti-pattern, a dark pattern. I'll run you through each process, both in my personal Network Solutions account and in my corporate Network Solutions account. I did this using two different browsers to avoid polluting my cookies, so I cannot say whether the differences in design elements are a function of my accounts or my browser.

For each screen capture you can click/tap/select it to see the full-size image.

Registering a Domain

My first test was to register a domain name using Firefox 16.02 and my personal account and Chrome 23.0.1271.64 with my company account.

The Network Solutions home page in Chrome (left, company account) and Firefox (right, personal account).

As you can see, the home page is pretty straightforward. There are a few sales pitches, and the link to log in may be hard to find, but the blue button is established as a prominent way of taking action.

Immediately after logging into my personal account using Firefox I am presented with a sales pitch. Note the use of the blue button in the green box surrounded by the gray border. The option to continue without adding this product is drawn in grays below the sales pitch.

On my Account Manager page, my company account (left) is straight to business, listing domains and actions I can take. My personal account is trying to pitch me on the private registration product and also continues to establish the blue button as a means of taking action.

As I move to conduct a search for a new domain name, in both cases the .com and .net are pre-selected as options. I know I am only interested in .com, so I de-select .net as an option.

This screen is fairly straightforward — it shows me what is available, offers me more extensions from which to choose, and allows me to remove a domain entirely. The blue button allows me to add my selection to my shopping cart.

Clicking Add to Cart immediately results in this overlay for both accounts. I can add a bundle of three or five more domains, using the blue button. Or I can skip this with the far less prominent No Thanks button.

Now it starts to get a bit tricky. In both cases I am being offered an opportunity to keep my information hidden with private registration. You'll note that in both cases private registration is pre-selected and the price is listed, though far less obviously in the Chrome view. There is no language saying that I am adding this to my cart (as I have seen on previous screens), just a Continue or Next button. There isn't an obvious "no thanks" option, either.

To get past this screen without adding $10 to your order you have to read the text, which means you are being subjected to its fear-mongering language (I'm already getting spam, and telemarketers call my house, so there's no real benefit to me). Then you have to choose the radio button for the standard registration, and then press the Next button. This is a departure from previous screens where the user has been trained to look for the gray "nope" option.

The Next button without an accompanying No Thanks gray button beneath it can cause users to breeze through this page without noticing the pre-checked option.

On this screen I am hit with the hosting pitch. Far stronger for my company account, but I still get the pitch when in my personal account. You may note the price difference between the cheapest plan for my company account versus the only plan offered to my personal account. The plans may in fact be different, but at a glance it looks like Network Solutions is playing a numbers game based on my account type.

You may also note that one screen offers a button to Continue Without Adding Hosting while the other simply uses a Next button with no hosting pre-selected.

These are the kinds of clues that suggest someone has made a conscious decision about what I should see as a customer and may be intentionally using these dark patterns.

Now I am getting hit with the leftover product pitches. For my company account (still in Chrome but spanning two screen shots) I see domain forwarding, email for my new domain, and SSL options. Reading the language for each, especially the SSL, these are clearly targeted to less technical customers. However, none of the options are pre-selected and just clicking the blue Continue button gets me past this screen.

For my personal account, I get similar product pitches. No SSL option is listed, but there is forwarding, email, and a "mobile" add-on option for the email. The "none" options are pre-selected, so in this case pressing the blue View Your Shopping Cart will get you past this screen without adding any products.

The shopping cart is your last chance to make sure you haven't added anything you don't want. For this demonstration I didn't add anything along the way, so it's easy to see what I have. Oddly, the shopping cart in Chrome for my company account shows me my "savings" and pitches me on why I should register my domain for five years. The shopping cart in Firefox (personal account) does no such thing.

I bet when you clicked the all-caps blue SECURE CHECKOUT button you thought you were done with the sales pitches. Not so. Here we see the the pitch to protect your domain if you forget to renew it, along with a blue Add to Cart button. At least there is a gray No Thanks, Continue button below it.

This may be a bit jarring in case you thought you were free and clear, after all you were just in you cart, just reviewed it and are ready to pay. If you do accidentally click Add to Cart, you are not presented with your shopping cart again to verify the charges. It just takes you right to the payment screen.

Here you see the total (I did not add the expiration protection), with no cart, as Network Solutions takes your credit card details and bills you. You may also notice that the auto-renew option is pre-selected. What isn't mentioned is that Network Solutions will bill your credit card 90 days before the domain is set to expire, well before the period when many organizations make a decision to switch registrars and well before the 60 days-to-expiration window many registrars impose when they won't allow a switch.

This screen shot is not part of the order flow. If you do select auto-renew accidentally you cannot simply deselect it in your account later, you have to call Network Solutions and sit through its CSRs' protestations and sales pitches to undo it.

Renewing a Domain

Assuming you weren't tricked into auto-renewing, this next test shows renewing a domain name using Chrome 23.0.1271.64 with my company account. I tried to do this in Opera, but had no luck:

@netsolcares Trying to renew a domain using @opera 12.2/Win doesn't work. Checking box, pressing "Renew" returns same page, unchecked box.

— Adrian Roselli (@aardrian) November 21, 2012

Regardless, the process will look very similar. For each screen capture you can click/tap/select it to see the full-size image.

Upon choosing my domain to renew I am promptly pitched on picking up yet more domain names.

Here is the pitch to make my already-public information private (for a fee). You may notice that this screen is different from the two analogous versions we saw above. Here the radio buttons next to the two options are replaced with a grid below, though the option to add the $10 charge is still pre-selected with the big blue Continue button cheerily prompting you to click it without paying attention.

This pitch confounds me. I am renewing my domain, which already has DNS managed elsewhere, but I am still being offered hosting. At least on this screen, unlike the previous screen, it is safe to click Continue.

The suggestion that I need a mobile site is laughable and belies the complexity involved in taking a pre-existing site and suddenly spinning up a mobile version elsewhere. However, I can safely click Continue. Someone who adds this, however, may end up spending more time and money to undo it as a result.

The shopping cart is a brief safe area, assuming I am comfortable with the five year registration period.

Once again comes an offer after I have reviewed the cart, and as I mentioned above, adding the product at this point doesn't bring you back to the cart. This screen makes it too easy to add more to your order without an easy way to verify it.

Wrap-up

Network Solutions is not the only one to make use of dark patterns. It just happens to be one that has tricked me before and has caught many of my clients as well. I simply consider the Network Solutions dark pattern order process to be low hanging fruit, an easy example of how a confusing ecommerce flow and user interface can negatively impact users, intentionally or otherwise.

Update, July 24, 2013

In a post titled The slippery slope, Harry Brignull provides even more examples of dark patterns.

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Ignoring Social Media This Thanksgiving

Past Thanksgivings

Three years ago I wrote a post describing how I used social media during my 2008 Thanksgiving dinner (mostly to keep my guests pacified in my tiny house while I considered cooking a turkey with a pencil torch). To my family it was novel to watch people across the country post their meals, perhaps in stark contrast to what I was feeding them.

I posted again about Thanksgiving and social media in 2010, this time discussing how people were getting help with their holiday plans online and how social media was far noisier than it was two years prior.

Last year when I posted about Thanksgiving, I included the #Turkey911 hashtag and talked about what a terrible idea it would be to answer the call from the web to upgrade your parents' browser. I also noticed even more noise on all the social media outlets, including from my own friends who had derided me for my food photos from prior years.

This Thanksgiving

This year as Thanksgiving approaches I realize there are far more people using social media than there were back in 2008 when I first started posting my holiday photos.

In 2008, Twitter had about 6.0 million users. As of March 2012, Twitter is up to 140 million users. In 2008, Facebook was at 100 million users and as of last month has now hit 1 billion users worldwide. Other social media outlets have come and gone, but these two demonstrate the overall penetration social media has into everybody's life.

That also helps explain why there is so much more noise online. Whereas in 2008 many users were sharing with smaller audiences, not as vocal, and spam and advertising wasn't a big deal, in 2012 it feels like everyone wants to share everything while I am also constantly being assaulted with social spam.

Two pieces I read in the last few days stood out to me as I was thinking about the coming holiday and social media.

The Quiet Ones

Over at The New York Times is an opinion piece titled, "The Quiet Ones." The author tells a story of riding in Amtrak's Quiet Car, where passengers are expected to be as close to silent as possible. In it the author makes the following observation:

In a 2006 interview David Foster Wallace said, it seems significant that we don't want things to be quiet, ever, anymore. Stores and restaurants have their ubiquitous Muzak or satellite radio; bars have anywhere between 1 and 17 TVs blaring Fox and soccer; ads and 30-second news cycles play on screens in cabs, elevators and restrooms. […]

People are louder, too. They complain at length and in detail about their divorces or gallbladders a foot away from you in restaurants. […] People practice rap lyrics on the bus or the subway, barking doggerel along with their iPods as though they were alone in the shower.

Mobile Vs. Social

Yesterday I read a blog post, "Mobile Vs. Social." In it the author discusses how people essentially need this constant input and interaction, that we are giving up or stifling real human interaction for the false human interaction of social media (or even SMS or email). He suggests just looking around in public to see it in action:

Just look at parties, lunches or any other grown-up interaction scene you can think of. People talk for a while, and then they just can't help themselves looking at their phones. Just for a second. Just needing that latest "fix."

My Point

I have a suggestion for all of us for Thanksgiving this year, one I will try to follow myself (which won't be easy) — turn off your phone.

I have no illusions about how trying Thanksgiving can be for many and how compelling it will be to escape to the cultivated social constructs in your phone. This tweet may sum it up nicely:

Always use "Thanksgiving" on first reference. "National Day of Family Hate" is fine for subsequent.

— Fake AP Stylebook (@FakeAPStylebook) November 21, 2012

So let's give it a shot. Consider it good practice for the coming bandwidth / electricity / zombie apocalypse.

If you need a little convincing, see if this TED video from Sherry Turkle ("Connected, but Alone?") does it:

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Social Media Profile versus a Web Site

This image gleefully stolen from The Page That No One Will Ever See. Now it may be a seen page.

Yesterday an eye-catching headline popped up in my Twitter feed: 6 Reasons Facebook and Twitter Are More Important Than a Website (which is a different message than the author's "infographic" that suggests users find Facebook more useful than a brand's site). I have been down this road more than once, but I thought I would follow the link and see what those six well-thought, sound business reasons must be.

1. Websites Require Constant Maintenance

Given the immediate nature of social media, a traditional marketing web site needs far less maintenance than trying to engage followers. I argue that many users expect content on a web site to be relatively constant, updated as appropriate and, in the case of some web applications, automated to a degree.

A Twitter account that pushes out content every few days, however, might be considered slow. One that pushes content every few minutes can be an assault to a follower's timeline. One that doesn't respond to tweets from users might be considered disrespectful.

Contrast this with a Facebook page that has some traction and has many fans. When those fans post to the brand's wall or comment on posts from the brand, there is an expectation of a quick response from users, which requires constant vigilance to keep users from feeling like they are being ignored.

The author also claims web sites can cost between $50 and $5,000 dollars to build, but makes no effort to identify how much a social media resource costs to maintain profiles and fresh content across multiple social media outlets. This assumes a business isn't so clueless that interns are considered good resources for representing the entire brand on social media.

Sticking with the cost argument, I think the author hasn't been paying attention to recent Facebook changes in the form of promoted content.

2. Social Media Is Scalable

The author seemingly assumes most web sites are hosted on servers under desks. Granted, the real point is that a web site may not be able to handle traffic from a random viral traffic spike.

This may very well be true for some sites, but given how many sites are hosted on, and get resources from, content delivery networks and national hosts, the need to scale can often be handled with a phone call to a hosting provider to kick the site into the next hosting bracket. One cannot call Twitter or Facebook when it has been overloaded and demand it scales up for your traffic.

Interestingly, pages on my own site have suffered far more downtime as a result of embedded content from Twitter and Facebook. When they suffer the inevitable and random "fail whale," their poorly-written scripts can take down my entire page. At least when social media platforms are on the fritz, I can still direct users to the rest of my web site for information.

3. Websites Require Specialized Knowledge

I am actually a little sad this point isn't true. With the preponderance of WYSIWYG editors, export-to-web features, free platforms like Blogger or Wordpress with pre-built themes, it's far too easy for someone without specialized knowledge to get his or her message out there. And this is a good thing.

The author does make a point that to have a truly unique site with modern standards such as HTML5 and CSS will require someone with skill to do it for you. Oddly, the alternative he proposes is to use exactly the same Facebook or Twitter layout as everyone else. And I can personally guarantee it won't be built to modern standards such as HTML5 and CSS.

To be fair to social media, almost no web site claiming to be built to modern standards actually is either.

4. Your Customers Are Already on Social Media

Really? He knows that? He has run a series of surveys, done market analysis, engaged my users directly and determined they are on social media? And he found more than 15% of US adult web users are on Twitter?

For my target audience, he is right. Although that's by accident. I can also rattle off plenty of businesses (including my own clients) who don't know that for sure, haven't done the research, aren't in a position to, and can even guess that it's still not true.

The assumption in the article is that users are already inundated with web addresses. He argues that somehow a link to a Facebook page can percolate above all that, that even a Twitter hashtag will make sense to more users. The logic is that users are already on social media, so they'll just go right to your message.

Nevermind that your target users may be in a demographic that doesn't use social media. Or your business may not be a fit for social media. Or that there are still more web users than Facebook users (even if you include the thousands and thousands of fake accounts). Or that there is already enough noise in my Twitter and Facebook feed I don't see stuff from my real-life friends.

5. You’ll Be Easier to Find

Using SEO as a dirty word (well, it is), the author suggests that it's hard to find things on the web. He says social media platforms have their own search already, so if you just focus there you will be found much more readily.

To make an anecdotal argument here, which is abnormal for me but curiously appropriate in this case, I can tell you that if I want to find a brand or person on Twitter or Facebook, I go to Google first. Google provides a far better search for me than I can get in Facebook's or Twitter's results, partly because both Twitter and Facebook are too busy trying to pitch me or assume I know their lingo. If I'm not logged into either one, it's an overall useless experiment. If I am trying to research a product or service, then Facebook and Twitter are the last places I'll go.

Given how readily Twitter suggests people or brands I should follow that are either promoted, of no interest, or that I have already unfollowed, I would not rely on the discovery method of gaining new followers. Given how Facebook has changed its model to require you to pay to get your message in front of fans and their friends (promoted posts), I wouldn't rely on discovery there, either.

If you dismiss the value of a search engine to help users find you and rely solely on the search and discovery features of social media, then you are painting yourself into a corner. Twitter use won't generate enough content over time for all your targeted phrases (unless you constantly assault followers) and neither will Facebook, because they both push older content down, out of the view of search engines.

6. Facebook and Twitter Facilitate Content Creation

Yes, they do.

When I am particularly angry at a brand, I go right to their Facebook wall and post my issue. I also approach them on Twitter. In some cases, I hijack their hashtags. I create all sorts of content about how much that brand has disappointed me. The brand may respond and make it right, but my words are out there, getting indexed by Google, being associated with the brand.

But that's not what the author means, he means (his words) content can often be generated through the simple click of an upload button. Regardless of the fact that you need someone to take that photo, craft that caption, be available to respond if people engage with it, and even hope that anyone cares, he's telling us that content is free and writes itself.

Which it doesn't. Otherwise I wouldn't have had such a good turnout (and feedback) at my content strategy session at the local WordCamp.

Wrap-up

Only in the closing paragraph does the author suggest that maybe you might still need a web site and maybe you might benefit from Twitter and Facebook. So I have to ask myself, why didn't he lead with this? Why are the hollow arguments told strictly from the perspective of spending you effort on Facebook and Twitter to the detriment of your site? Because he's a social media services peddler.

If the author truly believed that Twitter and Facebook are more important to have than a web site, then I look forward to when he demonstrates that belief by shutting down his site and moving it all to Facebook and Twitter. Until then, it's a poorly-argued sales pitch.

Related

These are posts I've written that go into more detail on some of the points I raise above. Traditional web sites easily have as many issues and more, but that's not what this discussion is about.

• You Get What You Pay For


• Picplz Shutting Down, as Free Services Often Do


• Use Twitter's New Embedded Timeline without Slowing Your Page


• Reviewing Twitter's New Profile Header


• Facebook, HTML5, and Mis-Reporting


• Followers, Likes and +1s as Meaningless as Hits


• Facebook Likes…Your Data


• Twitter As Passive-Aggressive Enabler


• Twitter's t.co Continues UX Failure of Link Shorteners


• Lots of Twitter Followers Guarantees... Nothing

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Confusion in Recent Google Updates

Google pushed out some updates recently which have had SEO experts and spammers, as well as the average web developer or content author, a bit confused. It seems that some sites have been losing traffic and attributing the change to the wrong update. It also seems that some of this has percolated up to my clients in the form of fear-mongering and misinformation, so I'll try to provide a quick overview of what has happened.

Exact Match Domains (EMD)

For years identifying a keyword-stuffed domain name for your product or service was considered the coup de grace of SEO. Frankly, on Google, this was true. For instance if my company, Algonquin Studios, wanted to rank highly for the search phrases web design buffalo or buffalo web design then I might register the domains WebDesignBuffalo.com and BuffaloWebDesign.com. I could even register nearby cities, like RochesterWebDesign.com, TorontoWebDesgin.com, ClevelandWebDesign.com, and so on, with the intent to drive traffic to my Buffalo-based business.

Google has finally taken steps to prevent that decidedly spammy user-unfriendly practice. With the EMD update, Google will look at the domain name and compare the rest of the site. If the site is a spammy, keyword-stuffing, redirection mess, then it will probably be penalized. If the domain name matches my company name, product or service and (for this example) is located in the area specified by the domain, then it will probably not experience any change.

In all, Google expects this will affect 0.6% of English-US queries.

Panda/Penguin

While spammers panicked about this change, some not spammy sites noticed a change at about the same time. This may have been due to Panda and Penguin updates that rolled out around the same time and have been rolling out all along.

Considering the Panda update was affecting 2.4% of English search queries, that's already a factor of four more of an impact than the EMD update. Considering that Google pushes out updates all the time, tracing one single update to any change in your Google result position is going to be tough.

A couple tweets from Matt Cutts, head of the web spam team at Google, help cut to the source instead of relying on SEO-middle-men to misrepresent the feedback:

New exact-match domain (EMD) algo affects 0.6% of English-US queries to a noticeable degree. Unrelated to Panda/Penguin.

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) September 28, 2012

This one details the number of algorithm changes that regularly happen:

@gregrysmith yes. 500+ algo launches/year mean 1-2 a day. I know of at least one other algo rolling out over same timeframe for example.

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) September 30, 2012

The trick is trying to recognize what on your site might have been read as spam and adjust it to be user-friendly, not to try to tweak your site to beat an ever-changing algorithm.

Disavowing Links

This one ranks as confusion for a web developer like me.

The only feature Google has added that I think takes potential fun away from blogs (or any site that allows commenting) is the tool to disavow links. This tool allows a site owner to essentially tell Google not to count links pointing at it when figuring PageRank.

One reason I don't like it is that it allows sites that have engaged in black-hat SEO tactics and have ultimately been penalized by Google to undo the now-negative effects of paid links, link exchanges and other link schemes that violate Google's terms. While this is good for sites that have been taken to the cleaners by SEO scammers, I still don't like how easily they could be excused.

Another reason I don't like it is that all those liars, cheaters, scammers, spammers, thieves and crooks who have spam-posted to my blog can go and disassociate those now-negative links to their sites. Sadly, associating their sites with filth of the lowest order by careful keyword linking (as I have done at the start of this paragaph) is the only ammo I have with which to take pot-shots at their spam juggernauts.

This new tool means you might not see spammers harassing you to remove their own spammy comments from your blogs. Which is unfortunate, because ignoring them seems only fair.

Just this morning Matt Cutts tweeted a link to a Q&A to answer some questions about the tool:

I did a Q&A with Danny Sullivan about the recent disavow links tool we launched: goo.gl/VtC4P

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) October 29, 2012

The post includes some answers intended to address concerns like mine.

Meta Keywords, Redux

As I have said again and again, the use of meta keywords is pointless in all search engines, but especially in Google. This doesn't stop SEO snake-oil salesmen from misrepresenting a recent Google update to their prospects.

Last month Google announced its news keywords meta tag, which does not follow the same syntax that traditional (and ignored) keyword meta tags follow. An example of the new syntax:

meta name="news_keywords" content="World Cup, Brazil 2014, Spain vs Netherlands"

From the announcement, you can see this is clearly targeted at news outlets and publishers that are picked up by Google News (your blog about cats or your drunk driving lawyer web site won't benefit):

The goal is simple: empower news writers to express their stories freely while helping Google News to properly understand and classify that content so that it’s discoverable by our wide audience of users.

For further proof, the documentation for this feature is in the Google News publishers help section.

In short, unless your site is a valid news site, don't get talked into using this feature and fire the SEO team that tries to sell you on it.

Related

• Cutts: Google Launched Another Update During The EMD Update (i.e. Panda 20), October 3, 2012 at Search Engine Roundtable.


• Google EMD Update: What Is Its Real Impact?, October 14, 2012 at WebProNews.


• Deconstructing The Google EMD Update, October 25, 2012 at Search Engine Land.


• Q&A With Google’s Matt Cutts On How To Use The Link Disavow Tool, October 29, 2012 at Search Engine Land.


• Members Library » Google: EMD Update at Search Engine Land.

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My WordCamp Presentation: Content Strategy

On Saturday, October 20, 2012, I spoke at the first ever WordCamp Buffalo. I am a casual WordPress user, not a developer, though my decade-and-a-half experience with multiple blogs and content management systems (even writing our own CMS at Algonquin Studios) gives me plenty of insight into the overall process of blogs. I've also got the experience of helping clients who are not technical get past the mechanics of web sites and instead focus on the business and goals of their sites.

I figured this made me uniquely suited to discuss content strategy to a room full of WordPress authors (not developers). I suspected I'd be less likely to get bogged down in implementation discussions and lose attendees in the technical bits.

And I so set about creating the presentation you see here. I knew nothing of my audience — how many there would be, how technical they would be, what businesses they represented, if they were casual users, if they had simple blogs or full sites, if there were copywriters, and so on. Not knowing your audience is a huge problem when developing content (I even address that early on in my slides).

All that being said, please enjoy my presentation:

Content Strategy from Adrian Roselli

My presentation is now on WordPress.tv (as of Nov. 14, 2012). You can also enjoy the embedded version of it below.

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SEO Isn't Just Google

This past weekend I had the pleasure of participating in Buffalo's first WordCamp for WordPress users. Before my presentation I made it a point to sit in on the other sessions that were in the same track as mine.

When discussing SEO, all the sessions I saw mentioned only Google. The Google logo appeared throughout, Google's PageRank was discussed, Google search result screen captures were used, and so on.

The presenters for an SEO-specific session even went so far as to embed a video of Matt Cutts (from Google) in their presentation and declare that Matt Cutts stated that WordPress is the best platform for SEO.

For context, Matt Cutts appeared at a WordCamp in May, 2009 to discuss his search engine (Google) for an audience using a particular platform (WordPress). Matt even said, WordPress automatically solves a ton of SEO issues. Instead of doing it yourself, you selected WordPress (at about 3:15 in the video). He's pitching his product to a particular audience to validate their technical decision (he's just saying they don't need to manually code these tweaks).

If while watching that video you heard Matt Cutts declare that WordPress is the best platform for SEO, then you are engaging in selection bias.

This same selection bias is also happening when developers work so hard to target Google and not any other search engines. If you convince yourself that Google is the only search engine because you don't see other search engines in your logs, then perhaps you are the reason you don't see those other search engines.

To provide context, this table shows the ratio of searches performed by different search engines in August 2012 in the United States. These are from comScore's August 2012 U.S. Search Engine Rankings report.

Google Sites	66.4%
Microsoft Sites	15.9%
Yahoo! Sites	12.8%
Ask Network	3.2%
AOL, Inc.	1.7%

It's easy to dismiss 16% when you don't know how many searches that translates to.

More than 17 billion searches were performed in August 2012. Google ranked at the top (as expected) with 11.3 billion, followed by Microsoft sites (Bing) at 2.7 billion. The breakdown of individual searches per engine follows:

Google Sites	11,317,000,000
Microsoft Sites	2,710,000,000
Yahoo! Sites	2,177,000,000
Ask Network	550,000,000
AOL, Inc.	292,000,000

To put this another way, for every four (ok, just over) searches using Google, there is another search done in Bing. For every five searches using Google, there is another one done using Yahoo.

If your logs don't reflect those ratios in search engines feeding your site, then you need to consider if you are focusing too hard on Google to the detriment of other search engines.

Now let's take this out of the United States.

Considering Bing's partnership with the Chinese search engine Baidu, contrasted with Google's battles with the Chinese government, it might be a matter of time before Bing tops Google for Asian searches. Given the size of the Asian market (over half a billion users), if you do any business there it might warrant paying attention to both Baidu and Bing.

Related

• Selection Bias When Reviewing Browser Stats, March 13, 2011.

Update: May 15, 2013

Bing is now up to 17%, having taken almost all of that extra point from Google.

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Speaking at WordCamp Buffalo

Having returned late last night from a six-timezone jump and an almost complete disconnect from technology, in just two days I'll be back up to full strength as I speak at WordCamp Buffalo on Saturday, October 20, 2012. Some information about the event from the site:

WordCamp Buffalo is a one day conference held in Buffalo, NY focusing on WordPress. Our goal is to increase knowledge about WordPress for people who already are working with it, and show some benefits of using it for anyone who may be interested, but aren’t currently working with WordPress.

WordCamps are a bit different than your typical Conference. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events with information for anyone from a new user to a core developer.

While I am not a WordPress developer, I am a regular user and I also have over 15 years experience in content management as a concept and more than a decade experience having built our own multi-lingual enterprise web content management system (QuantumCMS) at Algonquin Studios. Having worked with clients directly as well as in the nuts-and-bolts of assorted platforms, I'll be bringing that experience to bear for a session on developing your content strategy.

You can learn more about the other sessions and speakers at the WordCamp Buffalo site. If you are lucky enough to have gotten a ticket before they sold out, here's a handy map:

View Larger Map

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Chromatic Type with Pseudo Elements

Typography on the web has come a long way from the days of a handful of web-safe fonts, six sizes, and little other control. With the ability to embed custom typefaces in web pages and exert a great deal of control via CSS, it was a matter of time before old-world printing techniques for multi-colored text came to the web.

Over at Webfonts.info there is a tutorial, Layering type with CSS z-index, which shows how to achieve a multi-colored text effect by stacking the same piece of text on itself and applying a different font specifically meant for this kind of layering. The problem is that you have to duplicate the text for each layer, creating redundant text on the page that, without CSS, can look pretty odd (or sound pretty odd when read aloud by a screen reader). Discussing accessibility or SEO is outside of what I want to cover here, though.

The HTML

For my demo I am relying on CSS pseudo elements and generated content to duplicate the text for me up to two times. I also use the HTML5 data-* attribute to contain the same text value of the content itself. While I could use the title attribute, that would result in tool-tips appearing whenever you put your mouse over the text. For my demo I am using the following block of HTML:

<div>
<p class="chromatic" data-copy="Vote early &amp; vote often.">
Vote early &amp; vote often.
</p>
</div>

The CSS

I am using a new typeface family built from old wood type blocks and specifically built to be layered. More information on the typeface is at the end of this post.

Example 1: Strike Up the Band

Click/tap/select to see demo page.

This example is intended to sit on a background made up of a texture or color different than you want for the text. I use the white fill as the lowest layer, then stack the blue border on top to trap the white text and add the red stars on top from there.

div {
  position: relative;
  margin: 0; }

div p.chromatic {
  font-size: 600%;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 1em;
  position: relative;
  color: #fff;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_solidregular';  }

.chromatic::before, .chromatic::after {
  content: attr(data-copy);
  position: absolute;
  padding-right: 1em; }

.chromatic::before {
  z-index: 3;
  color: #00f;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_outlineregular'; }

.chromatic::after {
  z-index: 5;
  left: 1em;
  top: 1em;
  color: #f00;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_starsregular'; }

Example 2: That Old-Timey Feel

Click/tap/select to see demo page.

I am mimicking the mis-registration of old-timey print by off-setting the text and applying some transparency to show the texture underneath as well as the overlapping points of the "inks." I also use the distressed font for the letter fill.

When you hover over the text the alignment snaps into place, the letters become opaque, and I replace the distressed font with a solid fill.

div {
  position: relative;
  margin: 0; }

div p.chromatic {
  font-size: 600%;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 1em;
  position: relative;
  color: rgba(255,255,255,.85);
  font-family: 'hwt_american_shopwornregular'; }

.chromatic::before, .chromatic::after {
  content: attr(data-copy);
  position: absolute;
  padding-right: 1em; }

.chromatic::before {
  z-index: 3;
  color: rgba(255,51,51,.9);
  font-family: 'hwt_american_starsregular';
  margin-left: -0.02em; }

.chromatic::after {
  z-index: 5;
  left: 1em;
  top: 1em;
  color: rgba(0,0,0,.5);
  font-family: 'hwt_american_outlineregular';
  margin-top: 0.02em; }

div:hover p {
  color: rgba(255,255,255,1);
  font-family: 'hwt_american_solidregular'; }

div:hover p::before {
  color: rgba(255,0,0,1);
  margin-left: 0; }

div:hover p::after {
  color: rgba(0,0,0,1);
  margin-top: 0; }

Example 3: Accounting for Different Backgrounds

Click/tap/select to see demo page.

Here I want the text fill to be the same color as the background, which allows me to use three different colors (black for the 3D effect, blue and red). On hover I change the background color of the container, which requires me to swap the bottom layer to the fill font and set it to white.

div {
  position: relative;
  margin: 0;
  background-color: #fff; }

div:hover {
  background-color: #000; }

div p.chromatic {
  font-size: 600%;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 1em;
  position: relative;
  color: #000;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_outlineregular'; }

.chromatic::before, .chromatic::after {
  content: attr(data-copy);
  position: absolute;
  padding-right: 1em; }

.chromatic::before {
  z-index: 3;
  color: #00f;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_stars_topregular'; }

.chromatic::after {
  z-index: 5;
  left: 1em;
  top: 1em;
  color: #f00;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_stars_bottomRg'; }

div:hover p {
  color: #fff;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_solidregular'; }

Example 4: Using CSS for More Colors

Click/tap/select to see demo page.

Using some CSS drop shadows can help keep the text have more contrast with the background color or texture. On hover I turn the bottom stars red. While red usually looks terrible against blue, adding a white edge with CSS makes them stand out against the blue. It's a subtle effect that shows how you can use CSS in conjunction with chromatic typefaces to create even more effects.

div {
  position: relative;
  margin: 0; }

div p.chromatic {
  font-size: 600%;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 1em;
  position: relative;
  color: #44f;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_solidregular';
  text-shadow: 0 0 0 transparent, 0 0 0 transparent, 0 0 0 transparent, 0 0 5px #fff; }

.chromatic::before, .chromatic::after {
  content: attr(data-copy);
  position: absolute;
  padding-right: 1em; }

.chromatic::before {
  z-index: 3;
  color: #fff;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_stars_topregular';
  text-shadow: none; }

.chromatic::after {
  z-index: 5;
  left: 1em;
  top: 1em;
  color: #fff;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_stars_bottomRg';
  text-shadow: none; }

div:hover p::after {
  color: #f00;
  text-shadow: -1px -1px 0 #fff, 1px -1px 0 #fff, -1px 1px 0 #fff, 1px 1px 0 #fff; }

Example 5: Swap Fonts and CSS to Make It Pop

Click/tap/select to see demo page.

Using CSS to outline the text gives even more flexibility, so the hover effect with the 3D font and color swap makes the text pop.

div {
  position: relative;
  margin: 0; }

div p.chromatic {
  font-size: 600%;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 1em;
  position: relative;
  color: #fff;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_solidregular';
  text-shadow: -1px -1px 0 #000, 1px -1px 0 #000, -1px 1px 0 #000, 1px 1px 0 #000; }

div:hover p {
  color: #000;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_outlineregular';
  text-shadow: none; }

.chromatic::before, .chromatic::after {
  content: attr(data-copy);
  position: absolute;
  padding-right: 1em; }

.chromatic::before {
  z-index: 3;
  color: #f00;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_stars_topregular';
  text-shadow: none; }

div:hover .chromatic::before {
  color: #00f; }

.chromatic::after {
  z-index: 5;
  left: 1em;
  top: 1em;
  color: #00f;
  font-family: 'hwt_american_stars_bottomRg';
  text-shadow: none; }

div:hover .chromatic::after {
  color: #f00; }

About American Chromatic

The typeface I used for this demo is HWT American Chromatic, a collaboration between the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin and P22 Type Foundry in Buffalo, New York. Some detail about the typeface from the readme file:

The HWT American Chromatic set is a multilayered font set that will allow for thousands of possible color and pattern combinations. The original 19th Century Chromatic that this font set is based upon included 2 fonts. The HWT digital version includes 8. The alignment isconfigured to allow any combination of the 8 fonts to all align when identical text is set and arranged, one on top of the other.

American Chromatic was originally created by Wm. H. Page & Co. circa 1857-59. It was created as a two part chromatic where portions of each color would overlap to create a third color via the blending of semi-transparent inks. Chromatic wood type was an innovative approach to the limits of the technology of the time. To print them as shown in their specimen books required a highly skilled printer.

No, I wasn't paid or given a free font family to write this.

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