This 2010 State of the Internet video is along the same lines as “Did You Know” videos, plenty of stats on the internet, email and social media sites as a video infographic with an electronic beat.

2010 State of the Internet Video is a post from: Trumblog

Mayor Bill Bunten of Topeka, Kansas this week moved  to rename his city Google, Kansas for the month of March as a stunt to secure their selection as the location for testing of Google’s ultra fast internet infrastructure and receive the jobs, investment and who knows, tourism, that goes along with it. Interestingly Topeka means “to dig good potatoes” in the Kansa and Ioway languages.  I imagine that Bill Bunton wants it now to mean “dig for fiber optic cable.”

It reminds me of course of Hot Springs, New Mexico that in 1950 hitched it’s star to a different media channel (radio) and renamed itself Truth or Consequences.  2010 is a different time than 1950 and Bill Bunton is either smarter or less committed than the people of Hot Springs because Truth or Consequence’s name change was permanent while Google, Kansas will revert back to Topeka on April Fools Day.  And that’s probably a good thing anyhow since any city that permanently names itself Google would quickly find themselves on the wrong end of a copyright lawsuit rather than showered with thanks for the PR.

I wonder if the results will be fleeting.  Truth or Consequences (the quiz show) was broadcast from Truth or Consequences (the city) once, but then host Ralph Edwards was dedicated enough to the city that he visited every year for half a century as part of the city’s “Fiesta” held on the first weekend of May.  I seriously doubt that the hardware and fiber optics laid by Google will still be in use in 50 years and if it is then it will be as outmoded as the Victrola used to listen to quiz shows back in 1950. If Topeka’s smart, and I have no doubt that they are, they will need to capitalize on a Google investment by luring tech companies with cheap bandwidth and become a sort of “Silicone Plains.” But they’ll need to act fast because if Google’s plan is a success then Topeka’s window of opportunity will be short and the digital divide closed before they know it.

Photo: Truth or Consequences by einelam

Topeka’s Google Gamble is a post from: Trumblog

I found out last week that I have become something of a web design stick in the mud.  It was because of my friend Eddie Perez”s review of JimCarrey.com.  Fittingly the design and user experience of the site is as unique as the actor and as Eddie puts it,

The site was clearly designed to give visitors a chance to unearth the content through exploration. Cinematic transitions between pages, coupled with great use of sound effects and eerie background music make it seem as if you’re not just discovering the content on the site, but also the mind of Jim Carrey as well.

That same day I met a woman who’s website home page was a mosaic of randomly generated set of YouTube videos that expand when rolled over.  For both sites I reacted violently against the design.  I didn’t want to work so hard to discover I wanted the content that I was looking for and I wanted to find it easily and accessibly. My God, I thought, I’ve become Jakob Nielsen!

What made me such a curmudgeon? Maybe it’s the hours that I’ve spent in usability testing.  Maybe it was the fights about the logic behind cues for wayfinding in website navigation, work that led me to consider writing a book about best practices?  Maybe it’s that I lived though the early years of web design where an image of an office served as the metaphor for the navigation of a corporate website?  Maybe I’m just old, but I like standard, left navigation, no bells and whistles web design.  I don’t want to explore, I don’t want unique experience.  I want to find things quickly and easily so that I can move on. Maybe it’s ADD?

Even the bottom navigation of Jim Carry’s site was not enough.  I needed the nav easily accessed, spelled out and easy to understand.  Maybe I have too many toolbars on my browser? I want what is the target of each link to be  obvious  and I want to get there fast.  I’ve become a stick in the mud when it comes to that stuff.  I am set in my ways and cringe at navigation that is spaced across the page beside little logos or pictures and clearly not governed by CSS.  I know what I like and what I don’t and I’m not going to change.

Now, you damn kids, get off my yard!

Update: Yesterday Conor Brady shot another spitball at my love of highly usable web design and navigation in his post Web Design Has Changed Since 2000, Why Haven’t Evaluation Standards? Argh, back in my day….

I Hate Artsy Website Navigation is a post from: Trumblog

More wi-fi travel news.  Jaunted has a nice little chart with details on the status of wi-fi for the airlines in the United States, availability, provider and cost.  Their report on the subject also includes details on the crucial AC outlet at your seat in order to make the most of that wi-fi access.

Your best bet is still Virgin America (for both wi-fi and AC outlets, love you guys), with Delta a close second.  Come on airlines, this is 2010.  Get your wi-fi on.

Airline Wi-Fi Availability Chart is a post from: Trumblog

In my continuing recap of 2009 as documented by our activity on search engines and social media sites here are the results from YouTube.  It wasn’t Barack Obama nor Michael Jackson, but Susan Boyle’s remarkable voice in a humble package (not to mention some great stagemanship from Briton’s Got Talent) who was the top video of 2009.

Most Watched YouTube videos (Global):

1. Susan Boyle – Britain’s Got Talent (120+ million views)
2. David After Dentist (37+ million views)
3. JK Wedding Entrance Dance (33+ million views)
4. New Moon Movie Trailer (31+ million views)
5. Evian Roller Babies (27+ million views)

While not as detailed as their cousins over at Google YouTube does break out their data into some more detail.  In addition to music videos (who knew Miley Cyrus was popular enough to take 2 spots of the top 5 globally) I’d love to see television shows, movie trailers, news events, user generated videos, video podcasts, etc. as some additional categories.

Most Watched music videos on YouTube (Global):

1. Pitbull “I Know You Want Me” (82+ million views)
2. Miley Cyrus “The Climb” (64+ million views)
3. Miley Cyrus “Party in the U.S.A.” (54+ million views)
4. The Lonely Island “I’m On a Boat” (48+ million views)
5. Keri Hilson “Knock You Down” (35+ million views)

Finally I’d like to see this monthly data and global/ US split from other search and social media sites, which is a nice reminder of what captivated us over the course of 2009 and how US taste coincides and diverges from that of the global online population.

Fastest Rising YouTube search terms by month (Global):

Fastest Rising YouTube search terms by month (U.S.):

Most Watched YouTube Videos Of 2009 is a post from: Trumblog

Will that button/ animation/ etc. fall “below the fold”?

If you’ve been in website design for any length of time you’ve asked or been asked that question and probably had a folder held up a designer’s large, beautiful, high definition monitor to show approximately where mortals endowed with older, smaller monitors will have the web page cropped.  How many times has your gorgeous design been ruined altered to suit these lesser monitors.  On the other hand how many times have you not made a change and suffered the impact?  I can be sure that for every sigh heard when that folder was used to estimate where the fold lay a designer has asked “but how many people will actually see the fold there?”

Now all of your answers can be found with Google Browser Size.  Just enter your url for an overlay of what percentage of people who will see the given screen real estate.  The sizes in the layout are not browser window sizes they are “client area sizes,” which Google defines as “the size of the browser without the title bar, toolbars, status bars, etc., and thus give a true representation of how much content can be seen by a particular segment of the Web-using population.”

Pages, like my blog, that do not have a left aligned, fixed layout require that you re-size your browser to force the left edge of the page against the left side of the browser to get accurate results. Otherwise this is an extremely handy feature.

Find The Fold With Google Browser Size is a post from: Trumblog

And It’s Free For Now!

In my continuing obsession with wi-fi and modes of transportation, a friend riding on the Acela earlier this week reported that she had free wi-fi on the train from Boston to New York.  Evidently Amtrak announced the addition of wi-fi to the Acela in November, with little fanfare, as a means to boost ridership and has been slowly rolling this out on some trains.  Some trains may have had wireless as early as May according to Baratunde Thurston who reports less than stellar connection speeds.  For now the wi-fi is free, but that is subject to change and I suspect it will in order to subsidize our chronically underfunded train system here in the states.

Personally I love traveling by train and refuse to fly between Boston to NY.  The equal length of time, lack of lines, leg room and not having to take off my shoes for security would have been enough, but the power outlet for my laptop and beer sealed the deal so that I’ll never fly to New York again.  Years ago it felt like I produced an entire set of elearning courses while riding between Boston and New York.  The addition of wi-fi to the Acela experience makes it that much sweeter.  I can’t wait for my next trip to NY to give it a try.

Wi-fi Comes To The Acela is a post from: Trumblog

Alnylam, a client at my previous agency, is a MITX Inteactive Awards finalist this year in the Biotechnology/ Pharmaceuticals category.  Congratulations to the team that designed and developed the site and especially to our client who championed the design with management and maintained high standards throughout the development process.  This is an award that is well deserved.

UPDATE: Alnylam.com was the winner last night.  Drinks all around and even more congratulations to all involved.

Alnylam.com MITX Interactive Awards Finalist is a post from: Trumblog

A couple weeks ago Google announced that they would be crawling RSS feeds in order to discover the latest pages on websites as soon as possible.  However they don’t provide a whole lot of detail on how to set that up and ensure that it is being done.  Here’s how:

How To Add Your RSS Feed For Indexing by Google is a post from: Trumblog

This week LinkedIn added Twitter integration so that tweets from your selected Twitter account can also update your status on LinkedIn.  You can either have all tweets update your status on LinkedIn or only tweets with a #li or #in hashtag.

It’s about time that LinkedIn got linked up with Twitter like most other social networks, but it’s too little at this point.  I want more.

Current integration of Twitter status updates with other social media networks is too clunky; either all of your tweets go to the other social networks or you have to use a hashtag.  Routing all your tweets to Facebook or Linked in means that you end up boring your family and friends with those business links or Twitter-specific chatter that they really don’t care about. Send all of your tweets to LinkedIn and that can result in some serious oversharing for a business network and major work:life conflicts.

Sure, you can add a hashtag to your tweets in order to ensure that only specific tweets appear on certain social networks.  But isn’t that hashtag in your status update just a blemish that says “I don’t care enough to update my status specifically for his network, but I’ll cc: you on some of my tweets.”  Different social networks are different communities and I want customization so that I can send unique status updates that deliver the specific content that is of interest to individual communities and audiences. Oh, and did I mention that I want it all in one app?

So far the application that is doing it best is the IM client Digsby.  Not only does Digsby aggregate all of your IM accounts (including Facebook and Google Talk) and your social networks, but it also allows you to update your status across multiple social networks.  The status update window is a Global Status Update window from which you can check off which specific social network (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and even your IM status) you want updated.  Digsby even knows what social network stream you clicked “update status” in and checks that network off automatically. Adding links and sharing images is easy too.  Excellent. No more unregulated tweets to your social networks and no more hashtags that show which of your networks are second class citizens.

Now if anyone is listening, I want this on my BlackBerry.  It seems like Loopt might do the trick, but I can’t seem to download it for my BlackBerry 8310.  If anyone has suggestions for BlackBerry applications that will perform this little trick please let me know.

LinkedIn Adds Twitter Integration is a post from: Trumblog