From the monthly archives:

February 2009

2009 Web Professional Forecast: Interview with Lance Loveday, CEO Closed Loop Marketing

by Bill Cullifer on February 27, 2009

2009 Web Professional Forecast: Interview with Lance Loveday, CEO Closed Loop Marketing Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
2009 Web Professional Forecast: Interview with Lance Loveday, CEO Closed Loop Marketing Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today’s podcast is a continuation on the topic regarding the future outlook for Web Professionals. To that end, I am on the phone with Lance Loveday, CEO for Closed Loop Marketing. In this interview, Lance shares his thoughts on in the steady increase in Web adverting ad spending and his recommendation for those seeking careers within the Web profession with a knowledge in the areas of Search Marketing.

Check out today’s two minute podcast on the Web Professional Minute website.

Today’s Web Professional Minute is sponsored by WebProfessionalJobs.com There is something there for all skill levels and disciplines and be sure to ask about free resume posting opportunities with this PR6 website from the World Organization of Webmasters.

A full transcript to follow in seventy two hours.

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2009 Web Professional Forecast::Interview with John Allsop, Web Developer and Conference Promoter (2 of 2)

by Bill Cullifer on February 25, 2009

Web Professional Forecast::Interview with John Allsop, Web Developer and Conference Promoter (2 of 2) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Web Professional Forecast::Interview with John Allsop, Web Developer and Conference Promoter (2 of 2) Download

Greeting WOW members and Web Professionals everywhere!

I’m back on the phone with John Allsop, Web Developer and Conference Promoter. As a practicing Web developer and conference promoter of a very popular Web conference series that takes place in various places around the globe, John has a solid understanding of the Web profession. In this interview, John provides a unique perspective on the future outlook for the Web professional in the months ahead.

Check out today’s three minute podcast on the Web Professional Minute website.

Today’s minute is sponsored by the Webmaster Survival Guide. When you need professional resources, be sure to check out WebmasterSurvivalGuide.com. There is something there for all skill levels and disciplines and be sure to ask about advertising opportunities with this PR6 website from the World Organization of Webmasters.

Transcript:

Bill Cullifer, Web Pro Minute: Greetings WOW members and web professionals everywhere. I am back on the phone with John Allsop, Web developer and conference promoter from Australia. John has a solid understanding of the web profession and as a practicing web developer and conference promoter of a very popular web conference series that takes place in various places around the globe, John provides a unique perspective on the outlook for the web professional in the months ahead. John, can you provide the web professional subscribers of this podcast with a summary of what you are seeing and hearing?

John Allsop: From the practical point, [Inaudible] I guess I can only speak from my experience in terms of you know [Inaudible] and also in terms of my experience [Inaudible]. So, I am very fortunate in my position running the company so I can speak [Inaudible] movers and shakers [Inaudible] he is one of the [Inaudible] happened in the last 12 months or so. There has been a [Inaudible] of unbelievable panic [Inaudible] conversations. So people [Inaudible] larger organizations [Inaudible] the base response may be two to three months ago [Inaudible] what was clear [Inaudible] we were not going to spend any money and I think for the last couple of months at least that was very much the nature of the conversations [Inaudible] background conversations I was having with [Inaudible]. [Inaudible] may be two or three weeks [Inaudible] has recognized that the world has changed, that instead of [Inaudible] functions we might have [Inaudible] but you know we have to [Inaudible] and as a consequence [Inaudible] will be much more careful with them. I don’t think there is panic driven [Inaudible] and see what happens [Inaudible] which will definitely out [Inaudible] as I say two to three months ago. So, I think within a few months [Inaudible] you know [Inaudible] and as a web professional I think the Inaudible] is really should [Inaudible] continue to develop your skills, continue to look at the opportunities that will start emerging in place six to nine months around in the [Inaudible] platform and around you know these new technological developments that I just [Inaudible] which are actually a way [Inaudible] browser, but [Inaudible] more browsers [Inaudible] coming in a few months and couple of years [Inaudible].

So, I guess I am [Inaudible] optimistic now around the state of what’s happening than I was a couple months ago. I certainly don’t think people are going to have the kind of boom time [Inaudible] they might have had you know the parties[Phonetic], you know the [Inaudible] often useless web sites that seem to be getting extremely easy money[Phonetic] and [Inaudible] and I think that it’s quite [Inaudible] that the [Inaudible] a lot of [Inaudible] a lot of [Inaudible] people will be really looking hard at their investments and their expenditure [Inaudible] but [Inaudible] something that they are hearing from some of the bigger companies who have a lot of [Inaudible] the fear is that while [Inaudible] companies you know across the [Inaudible] television as well as the web will diminish, it might be that the web spending in and of itself might even increase as people look to more and more return on investment for their advertising and let’s face it [Inaudible] or any other measures you won’t [Inaudible] but you can get a lot better return on investment… on your investment in the web with a lot lower outlay than you can for a lot more traditional media.

This is a [Inaudible] for [Inaudible] web industry, you know around technological innovation, around the grand use of the way [Inaudible] location [Inaudible] what seems to be the potential for advertising revenue to increasingly focus on the web in [Inaudible] traditional media, but I certainly wouldn’t be looking for a very quick return to the boom times of the late ’90s or maybe the last couple of years with the Web 2.0.

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2009 Web Professional Forecast::Interview with John Allsop, Web Developer and Conference Promoter (1 of 2)

by Bill Cullifer on February 24, 2009

2009 Web Professional Forecast::Interview with John Allsop, Web Developer and Conference Promoter (1 of 2) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
2009 Web Professional Forecast::Interview with John Allsop, Web Developer and Conference Promoter (1 of 2) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’m on the lookout for perspectives regarding the future outlook of the Web. I’m hopeful that this series will provide insight regarding the opportunities for those that practice, those that aspire and those that teach within the Web profession. To that end, I am on the phone with John Allsop, a 12 year veteran Web Developer and Conference Promoter of the Web Directions series of conferences.

I caught up with John via Skype in his home country of Australia and for today’s podcast John shares his wealth of knowledge his interesting perspective on the future outlook for the Web and the opportunity for the Web profession.

Check out today’s three minute podcast on the Web Professional Minute website.

Today’s minute is sponsored by the Webmaster Survival Guide. When you need professional resources, be sure to check out WebmasterSurvivalGuide.com. There is something there for all skill levels and disciplines and be sure to ask about advertising opportunities with this PR6 website from the World Organization of Webmasters.

Transcript:

Bill Cullifer, Web Professional Minute: For today’s podcast, I am on the look out for perspectives regarding the future outlook of the Web. I am hopeful that this series will provide insights regarding the opportunities for those that practice, those that practice and those that teach within the web profession. To that end, and I am on the phone with John Allsop, Web developer and conference promoter, of the Web Directions series of conferences. I caught up with John via Skype in his home country of Australia and here is what he had to say.

John Allsop: I am very, very excited around the technologies that are emerging for the Web that are becoming a reality. I think that we are seeing a burst of innovation in all of the browsers. I mean even architects of IE8. Clearly, Microsoft is recognizing that it’s important to start teaming up. I hope at some point start innovating again. I mean there are often innovations in IE8 and they to be much more focusing or playing well with others. Perhaps the way the difference innovations we’re working a decade or so where they would to take the browser war approach to innovation, trying to get people to use your browser because your technological was cool. very much [Inaudible] out of the standards book very much cloying [Inaudible] without the [Inaudible] some of the stuff they do around [Inaudible] and [Inaudible].

So, I guess [Inaudible] to the [Inaudible] around what the future lies for the web industry is and [Inaudible] practicing web profession, technically I think we are living in very interesting times and I think what we are seeing is the way there is a platform becoming an incredibly mature and rich platform, the advantage of being able to [Inaudible] out of your iPhone or the one on your [Inaudible] you kind of [Inaudible] new Panasonic televisions which have web browsers [Inaudible] laptop [Inaudible].

We are seeing you know a [Inaudible] of sophistication in the browsers [Inaudible] make the audio [Inaudible] application, applications that conform [Inaudible] to be able to set expectations around what an application should be like. The [Inaudible] they get from a distant application. I think we are seeing the emergence and implementation of technology [Inaudible] the world in that respect will become a [Inaudible] citizen as a platform over the next 12 to 18 months.

So, that’s really exciting and the people who have developed their web skills [Inaudible] being able to deploy [Inaudible] the traditional [Inaudible] of a web site [Inaudible] takes the [Inaudible] that’s precisely something that [Inaudible] rotation aspect or [Inaudible] which [Inaudible] but the standard by [Inaudible] the [Inaudible] that mean if you have got a web application, a web site, you can ask the browser [Inaudible] and provide… giving permission to the browser to tell you that.

You can [Inaudible] and provide [Inaudible] based on that location. [Inaudible] let’s think about the way… and what happens with the web from a economic point of view, from a business point of view, [Inaudible] become more [Inaudible] where do you use the [Inaudible] what [Inaudible] most of us use our web, you know or [Inaudible] it’s physically [Inaudible] to a [Inaudible] range of locations and it’s also [Inaudible] instance of its use case. Most people use the [Inaudible] kind of research based, work based like activity.

It’s always [Inaudible] what’s called recreational like of experiment with [Inaudible] where I will start expecting the percentage of people using the web would [Inaudible] when jumping into the double digits, jumping into maybe even a significant minority of the use of the [Inaudible] will be around you know location and [Inaudible] traditionally have [Inaudible] things are going to be seen [Inaudible] the opportunity for the web to benefit people’s lives will increase extraordinarily and as a consequence the business opportunity will increase extraordinarily because at the moment, [Inaudible] of why [Inaudible] which we can [Inaudible] as you know [Inaudible] every month and we [Inaudible] having physical access to web pretty much anywhere anytime even in aeroplanes or [Inaudible] to the US that has [Inaudible] activity and about [Inaudible] 300+ of [Inaudible] Wi-Fi [Inaudible] very few places where you won’t have web access and today this [Inaudible] and it is a [Inaudible] range of [Inaudible] theoretical point I think the opportunity to [Inaudible] like [Inaudible] you know come [Inaudible] I think the opportunity is unbelievable.

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2009 Web Professional Forecast: Back to the Future Series

by Bill Cullifer on February 21, 2009

2009 Web Professional Forecast: Back to the Future Series Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
2009 Web Professional Forecast: Back to the Future Series Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Greetings WOW members and Web professionals everywhere.

In previous podcast, I’ve made it pretty clear that I think that the cup is half full regarding opportunities within the profession. Sure education needs to improve and recognition and the pay scales for Web professionals also need to improve.

All of that said, opportunities abound for those that posses the right mix of skills and that also stay on top of their game. For today’s podcast, I’d like to continue the discussion regarding the current state of the Web profession from a veteran Web professional point of view.

To that end, I am on the phone with John Allsop, software engineer, speaker and founders of “Web Directions a series of Web design and development conferences both here in the U.S. and abroad. John good afternoon and thanks for agreeing to this interview.

I asked John to summarize his state of the Web profession session that you at Web Directions North Denver and his efforts to survey the Web professional market.

Here’s the high level view of the web professional results:

•just how few of the respondents use any form of Internet Explorer for their day to day web use (with only 3 out of over 1200 respondents using IE8), and similarly how few use Google Chrome as their primary browser, despite the splash the launch of that browser recently
•nearly half of respondents use Mac OS X as their primary operating system, and only 10% use windows Vista
•less than a third of respondents test their web sites with Internet Explorer 8 (while Mobile Safari comes in at 20%, and Chrome at 40%)
There’s also a great deal of interest in terms of the nitty gritty of web design philosophy and practice, from the high percentage of respondents who use JavaScript (around 95%), to the very small uptake of Silverlight (around 2% of all respondents) to the very high percentage of database driven sites (96%), overwhelmingly run on open source databases (over 80%).

Conclusions

•Open Source dominates
•Where’s the cloud?
•Developers, developers, developers
•The mobile web cometh?
•Best Practices on the rise
•Current browsers, not legacy browsers come first

What conclusions can we draw from this broad range of 50 or so questions? A number of broad trends, some of which we’ve referred to already, seem to emerge from all this data.

Open Source dominates

Open Source solutions dominate, or play a very significant role in most areas other than client operating systems including
•the browsers respondents use themselves
•database systems
•back end programming environments
•server operating systems
•web servers
•JavaScript libraries and Frameworks

The only area in which closed source dominates is client side operating systems, where 95% of respondents use a closed source operating system.
Where’s the cloud?

Despite the buzz around “cloud computing”, there was little if any mention of cloud based solutions for hosting, particularly services like Amazon’s EC2 and S3. While we didn’t ask specifically about the use of such services, the fact that they went virtually unmentioned by respondents indicates the day of cloud computing is still on the horizon.

Developers, developers, developers

We’ve mentioned a number of times the way that respondents saw themselves predominantly as “developers”, which is also reflected in the use of JavaScript by 95% of respondents, and the overwhelming majority of sites using dynamic database driven models rather than being static sites.
In future will web professionals become increasingly generalists, expected to, and able to use a combination of front and back end technologies? Or, will we see a growing specialization, as the level of sophistication required for various aspects of design and development increases? In future surveys it might be interesting to ask respondents what percentage of time they spend on various aspects of design and development – for example wireframing, page mockups, HTML and CSS, JavaScript programming, backend programming and administration.

The mobile web cometh?

Despite the hype around iPhone, and Android, and the widespread availability of excellent browsers on a wide variety of mobile devices, gaming platforms, and even televisions, even among these early adopters, the focus is squarely on traditional web browsing platforms – the laptop and PC.
With only around 20% of respondents using the mobile web, it may be at least some time before we see wide spread adoption of the web outside the traditional web browsing contexts, if early adopter behavior prefigures wider technology adoption patterns.
Best Practices on the rise

For decade or more, individuals, and groups like the Web Standards Project, have advocated for the use of standards in development, and a number of recommended practices, such as the separation of presentation, content and behavior, the use of valid semantic markup, the avoidance of presentational markup and so on. While objective studies like Opera’s MAMA indicate that there’s still some way yet to go even among member companies of the W3C, among respondents, adherence to these recommended practices (or at the very least, acceptance of their importance) is strong.

Current browsers, not legacy browsers come first

Despite the fact that versions of Internet Explorer still account for over 70% of the browsers used on the web, respondents to the survey indicate that their approach is to develop to standards, and only then ensuring (if at all) their sites work properly in versions of Internet Explorer. This is a significant change in a relatively short period of time. Anecdotally, we increasingly less often see the “best viewed in” message when browsing the web, and these together suggest we are beginning to see a viable browser neutral web for the first time since the bad old day’s of the browser wars of the mid to late 1990s.

For additional detail visit the survey website

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2009 Web Professional Forecast: Back to the Future-Third in a Series

by Bill Cullifer on February 17, 2009

2009 Web Professional Forecast: Back to the Future Third in a Series Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
2009 Web Professional Forecast: Back to the Future Third in a Series Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Greetings WOW Members and Web professionals everywhere.

If you’ve been following along with the Web Professional Forecast: Back to the Future series, than you’re already aware that I’ve been covering the current status and some of the higher level issues plaguing Web designers today from the eyes of an early pioneer and Web evangelist by the name of Jeffrey Zeldman. I recently sat in on a keynote session with Zeldman in Boston, MA and here is what he had to say:

“Architects, attorneys, and firefighters get something most web designers don’t: the respect of the community. Our work drives the information age and powers the economy, yet nobody outside the field understands exactly what it is that we do, or why it is important. Learn why journalists, clients, and employers underestimate our abilities and ask for the wrong kind of work—and what you can do to enhance the profession and get buy-in on good web design.” I’ve covered a variety of reasons for these issues in previous podcast. If your new to this series, I’d like to invite you check them out. First in a Series and the Second in the Series.

For today’s podcast, I’ll go over my notes of his list of recommendations to improve upon the current situation. Zeldman hits the nail with his recommendations for Web designers practicing today in my opinion and I encourage you to take a closer look. Check out the list on today’s podcast on the Web Professional Minute website.

Today’s minute is sponsored by the Webmaster Survival Guide. When you need professional resources, be sure to check out WebmasterSurvivalGuide.com. There is something there for all skill levels and disciplines and be sure to ask about advertising opportunities with this PR6 website from the World Organization of Webmasters.

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2009 Web Professional Forecast: Back to the Future-Second in a Series

by Bill Cullifer on February 12, 2009

2009 Web Professional Forecast: Back to the Future Second in a Series Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
2009 Web Professional Forecast: Back to the Future Second in a Series Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Greetings WOW Members and Web Professionals Everywhere.

Earlier last week, I reported on the Jeffrey Zeldman session entitled “respect” where he outlined his understanding of the current status of the Web profession.

“Times have changed for those designing for the Web according to Zedlman and the lack of consistent education resources is the primary cause”

For today’s podcast, I’ll go over my session notes regarding a number of other issues plaguing Web designers according to Zeldman with a few observations of my own.

Today’s “Web designers also suffer because many of those practicing in the field today are Webmasters by default” says Zeldman.

Very true statement, since many of us practicing in the space including yours truly are self taught. This issue has more to do with the newness of the profession and the lack of established career pathways in the past in my opinion. I say in the past because that’s about to change. Stay tuned for more in depth discussion on that topic in future podcast.

Candidly, I don’t think Webmaster by default statement is necessarily a bad thing. That said, it’s true that many of us take on so many responsibilities that are outside our immediate core skill area that it’s bound to take negative effect on our ability to manage them all.

I am not 100 percent sure if that is where Zeldman was going with that observation, but I do know that he strikes a chord when he states that: “Great web design is about the character of the content, not the character of the designer. Good web design is about the character of the content, not the character of the client. It’s about content and it’s about people.”

Zeldman also states that “Web designers suffer from the fact that a lot of the training that is available today is product centric.”

WOW! This is so true! “Lots of great product training out there but we lack emphasis on the important stuff like HTML, Usability or interactive design” according to Zeldman. I couldn’t agree more with that statement. In fact, this has been one of my pet peeves over the years. In fact, a year or so ago, I received a call from a school teacher from upstate NY that was concerned about her Web design class. Turns out she purchased 50k worth of WYSIWYG software only to find out that it wasn’t compatible with her Mac OS9’s. I offered to mentor her to understand HTML within basic notepad, but she never called me back. Sad but true.

Zeldman say’s it best when he suggests that when educators and instructors that say to students “Here’s Flash, and here’s Photoshop. And you’re done. “To me, that’s like going to a business school, and they say, Here’s Excel and here’s Word”.

Zeldman also states that “Web awards that focus on the buzz factor and not the bigger picture have a negative effect on our industry”

Also a pet peeve of mine and with all due respect to the Web design tool manufactures, I’ve been saying this for eleven years. In fact, if you look closely at WOW series of national and international Web design contest for example, the Web Pro Challenge, (see www.webprochallenge.org) and the Extreme Markover, (see www.extrememarkover.org) and our annual Web Design Contest that we conduct in Kansas City every year, (see www.webprofessionals.org/skillsusa) we not only promote Web standards and accessibility but employability skills as well .

Zeldman and a handful of others conducted a sizeable National Web Survey that on the surface suggests:

•Relevancy of degrees with the Web profession
•Poor pay scales for Web designers
•Lack of standardized titles

Survey’s are always tough in my opinion and Zeldman himself makes it a point to say that the “data itself may have been skewed” with the way that questions we’re asked. That said, there is no question that we’re still an immature profession and we suffer from a variety of ailments and growing pains.

We need to organize as a profession and develop strategies with qualitative and quantified data in order to improve upon this situation.

All of that said, I’d like to add a WOW perspective to the discussion and why I think that despite educations shortfalls, the cup is half full:

•The Web industry is very young and immature
•Education operates by committee and this simply takes time
•Today, there are hundreds of high schools and community colleges have formalized credit programs and degree level programs. Many WOW member colleges for example, offer college level associates degrees that are online, instructor led and have local advisory board and endorsement the Departments of Education in their respective states.
•Programs such as Web design needs to be vetted by the government.
•Education for those working in the field is only a part of the respect puzzle in my opinion. For example, the Web profession faces equally daunting issues and these are the need to educate the general public and those that we work for so they have a better understanding about what it is we do everyday.
•Teacher training is weak. In the U.S. Teachers in the U.S. for example, teachers receive about eight hours worth of paid training a year and that needs to improve

Stay tuned for part three of the Zeldman keynote list of recommendations to improve upon the situation early next week.

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