Archive for Web 2.0

Project Report - Azeem Ahmad

{ January 10, 2008 @ 5:04 pm } · { Azeem Ahmad, RSS, Web 2.0 }
{ } · { Comments }

My project will be live and online from tomorrow (11/01) at www.fleetbuzz.com (it will be at the bottom) - I chose this website as I did my work experience there, and I am on personal terms with the admins there, so they kindly agreed to host my project for me at short notice.

My final project is not what I originally intended as I had planned to host it myself on my own website, but other circumstances have led to having me change my project and its location in order to meet the deadline on time. I have still managed to amalgamate the four websites RSS codes into one through manipulation of them, one by one. The unique source code that I made is still available however, and will be part of this project.

User Testing, and Accessibility

I managed to get the product tested by the administrator of the website, who found the concept good, and said that it was easy to use. He did say however, that once he was re-directed to the ‘holding’ website, HitRSS, that it became a bit difficult to use. I overcame this by making the link to the news websites more prominent on the RSS Blog, therefore making it easier for the user(s) to access the news they were originally after.

Ideally, as mentioned earlier,I would have liked for the product to be hosted on my own website. I do feel however, that it is easy to access on the FleetBuzz website, as it is placed with all of the other external links. If I had more time to do this project, or to do it again, I would invest more time in advertising and promotion of my product, in an attempt to compete with its bigger competitors.

Skills and Development

When I started this project, I had a very basic knowledge of RSS. I knew what RSS did, but I never understood how it worked. During the course of this project I now feel that I have an excellent knowledge of RSS and its capabilities, and how RSS itself works. I am now able to de-construct an RSS reader, explain what part of the reader has what function. I also understand RSS as a language, and I have demonstrated during this project that I have achieved skills which will make me more employable in the new media industry, but also as an online journalist too. I have skills which enable me to become an online journalist, or to work in the new media industry.

Ideas for development

This project could easily be developed into something much more bigger given more time. It could easily be developed into a website of its own, even created using Flash or JavaScript language, making it more contemporary.

It could also offer users the chance to subscribe to the site, and offer their own websites and links for RSS amalgamation.

The site could also become ‘wiki’ style, giving users the chance to log on and edit parts of the website themselves, making each user a personalised home page. Each of these technologies embrace the web 2.o ethos, and have scope for potential future development.

MySQL

{ November 28, 2007 @ 8:58 pm } · { Marc Taylor, PHP, Tutorial, Web 2.0 }
{ } · { Comments }

Learning MySQL/*First what needs to be done is to create a database for users to store the table; in order to do this enter*/CREATE DATABASE (database name);/*example CREATE DATABASE members;*//*next is to create a table within the database, to do this select the database you wish to use, for example ‘members’ typing ‘USE members’ into MySQL. Then type*/CREATE TABLE `members` /*to create a table called MEMBERS*/(
`id` int(4) NOT NULL auto_increment, /*sets up the classification and

`username` varchar(65) NOT NULL default ”, /*setting up the username variable and allowing a maximum of 65 characters*/

`password` varchar(65) NOT NULL default ”, /*setting up the password variable and allowing a maximum of 65 characters*/

PRIMARY KEY (`id`) /*ordering of the table by listing them in the order they sign up for the website, in this case by ID NUMBER*/
) TYPE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=2 ; /*not to sure what this does however in my case the coding didn’t work*/–
– Dumping data for table `members`
– INSERT INTO `members` VALUES (1, ‘john’, ‘1234′); /*this is setting up the user data into the table*/ ALTERNATIVE CODING THAT DOES WORK FOR MYSELFCREATE DATABASE members;USE members;CREATE TABLE tblUsers(
UserID INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
/*alternative to PRIMARY KEY(id) as labelled above*/
UserName VARCHAR(65),
UserPassword VARCHAR(25),
UserEmail VARCHAR(255));All MySQL Coding is like actionscript in the sense that it is in between the (   ) brackets instead of {  } that actionscript usesINSERT INTO tblUsers (UserName, UserPassword, UserEmail) VALUES(‘Marc’,’1234’,’marctaylor6631@googlemail.com’);

Final Proposal

{ November 2, 2007 @ 11:47 am } · { HTML, Lee Aplin, PHP, Web 2.0 }
{ } · { Comments }

Project Summary

The main goal of my project is to produce all of the main elements required to build a small community based website. While my initial idea was to build a similar website/application to Last.FM, after researching PHP, and frequently using the website, I have decided that Last.FM is probably the leader in online music communities and would be extremely difficult to rival.

The website will hopefully be a prototype of an online music community. I would like to be able to give users the chance to sign up to my website and from their individual user areas, upload and share files, and discuss music. I have done a lot of research into online communities and how they function. The PHP is the focus of the site, and will take the most time to develop; whereas the actual HTML part of the website will take much less time to develop and I can put together the website in a short period of time. I would like to focus most of my attention on the development of solid PHP.This will also be beneficial to me in my final year project which will also be mostly based on functions which are made in PHP.

Target Audience/Users

The target audience of my website will preferably be music fans, possibly the same sort of audience of PitchforkMedia.com, or DrownedinSound.com. These websites are focused on music which is not generally in the charts, and have a very specific fan base. These users might be interested in such a website because Pitchfork and Drowned in Sound are mostly news websites, and do not provide much interactivity. This is where my website will differ, as it will give the users more freedom.

PHP Research

In order to understand PHP and how PHP websites are used, I joined many interactive web 2.0 websites. These include Myspace.com and Facebook.com, which are the two prominent current online communities. While these websites are two of the most popular web 2.0 sites (and possibly amongst the most popular websites online in general), they are by no means the only online communities.

A personal favourite is the music based website Last.FM. I have been a member of this website for over a year now and frequently use it to find new music and share my interests with other like-minded people. I think that this is a big factor concerning online communities; the fact that they can find a website specific to their needs despite what their interests may be. There are always like minded people, no matter how niche the subject.Popular functions of online communities tend to be the following:

·        The ability to add a picture or avatar

·        The chance to edit your own profile somehow

·        Being able to add other members 

Although this is just three functions, they appear to be the things that users expect when they join an online community. However, adjustments could be made for the fact that my site will be about music, as it will not necessarily be a social networking website.

Because I have spent a lot of time on Last.FM, I have a good understanding of the habits of the community. Music communities are different to the other social networking websites such as Myspace and Facebook, because activities are not as focused on chatting and meeting new people. Users are more interested in seeing each others musical tastes, comparing and sharing new music, and generally discovering music they would not have known about.  

Personal Goals 

This will be my first venture with PHP, and therefore I will gain all my experience with the programming language merely during this project. Due to this one of my main goals will be to create a working prototype of the website within the time limit. As previously stated, this project will help me greatly during my final year production project, which will run in the same vein. 

The first section of the PHP programming that I will focus on will be the Login section. Despite the fact that the tutorials for this are quite straight-forward, it is still a large part of the project, and testing this section will be very important. Another of my goals is to get the login PHP as close to perfect as possible so that I can reuse it again if necessary.  

A Gap in the Market? 

Although there are several different social networking websites on the internet, there are not many focused around online music. The website Last.FM is the leader in combining music and social networking, but as previously mentioned, it is very different from other social networking websites. I plan to make my site more like Pitchfork media in terms of the information it provides, but with a social networking feel to it, providing interactive content as well as letting the users have some control over their own user areas. I think that this could be popular because of the merging of two popular types of websites.  

Conclusion 

To conclude, I think that this project will be extremely useful to me in terms of learning new technical skills which are required to advance in the industry. I hope to greatly improve my knowledge of PHP, and become efficient in creating many of the elements used in online community websites. The final product should at the very least, be a partly working prototype of my community website, but I am hopeful that I will be able to take the website live onto the Internet and maintain it after the module is over.

Inspiring Websites

{ November 2, 2007 @ 11:34 am } · { Marc Taylor, Usability, Web 2.0 }
{ } · { Comments (1) }

(Http://www.last.fm) The redesign of last fm doesn’t include the switch button that changes the navigation and the heading text to black. I think this design would work well as there is limited colour, and so when audiences upload their work, there wouldn’t be a huge contrast or mess in colours and design. I like the navigation, as it is a standard tab layout like that of Amazon.com, Play.com, Facebook.com and Myspace.com

——————————-  

(Http://www.myspace.com) Myspace’s new home skin replicates a design similar to that of Last fm and Facebook, offering users a layout that is becoming more universal with web2.0 (customisable) websites.

———————————–  

(http://www.facebook.com) Facebook has become a generic website in its blog like structure. It has a very busy interface, in which I feel is too cluttered.

————————————  

(Http://www.purevolume.com)  Purevolume is an inspiring website, because I like the layout of the website, as well as the design aspect of it. The website contains a lot of information on bands yet the minimalist look works well (compared to that of facebook and myspace).
————————————

(http://www.monster.co.uk) Monster.co.uk Design is the biggest competing website, however I feel the design aspect of the website is terrible. It has too many colours, combined with far to much to look at, making the website look unappealing to audiences.

———————————————–

(Http://www.jobcenterplus.gov.uk) Jobcenterplus is another competing website in which the design aspect I feel could scare away student clients. Its colours creates a few accessibility issues with colour blindness, and the website as a whole looks uninteresting and unappealing to students within the arts industries.

—————————————————

Appendixes

(Appendix1- Windows Vista) http://www.vista-skins.com/downloads/Aerox-1-0-For-Windows-Vista-large.png
(Appendix1 – Windows Media Player 11 default skin) http://www.rinero.it/public/Windows_Media_Player_11.jpg  
(Appendix 1Http://www.apple.com website) http://www.apple.com

(Appendix 1) These are the design inspirations as mentioned in the proposal. All these designs are popular at the moment in the design industry. Web2.0 as mentioned however focus’s on minimal interfaces (as in the graphic design aspect and not how much information they can fit within a page), which I feel works well for CMS systems, but it also needs to include some style and look to attract artistic individuals to join the website.

Marc

http://marc.izonedesign.co.uk

Proposal (draft)

{ November 2, 2007 @ 11:28 am } · { Lee Aplin, PHP, Web 2.0 }
{ } · { Comments }

Below I will introduce the ideas I have had for my project. I will build upon these ideas in order to write the final proposal.

The main idea

My initial idea was to produce a website similar to Last.FM, the online music community. After doing extensive research and testing of Last.FM, I have decided that although there are elements of the website which could be improved or changed, there is not enough wrong with it to justify building a competition website. Also, I do not yet have the abilities to produce a fully working PHP website.

Therefore, my idea is to produce a more basic website, but still based around online music. I hope to produce a smaller and simpler online community, allowing users to create an account and hopefully upload music or files to share with each other. The main focus to start this project will be creating the user login in PHP. If I can successfully create this, along with the database required to make this work, then I will also consider making the website more elaborate, with other aspects of PHP included such as a forum.

Research 

Research into other online communities such as Myspace.com or Facebook.com have shown me which areas of online communities are most popular. The ability to interact, for example, is very important, as users tend to use the website more if there is more for them to do. User generated content is also very important. In social networking websites such as those stated above, most of the content is actually user generated, with the option to change photos, write blogs, chat to one another and share files or pictures. Due to the fact that I am new to PHP, I strongly doubt that my website will have these elements included, but any useful information I pick up on the way might help me to expand the website and include some of this interactive content.

There have been many different inspirations for this project. Obviously the main inspiration is Last.FM. I have been a fan of this website for over a year and frequently use it, and it has heavily inspired many of my projects. However, other inspirations have been websites which are not online communities as such. For example, Pitchfork Media is a music news website which provides up to date information about music as well as reviewing lots of new releases. I would like to combine this news element with the online community idea.

More Tutorial Websites>!

{ November 1, 2007 @ 10:43 pm } · { Marc Taylor, PHP, Tutorial, Web 2.0 }
{ } · { Comments (1) }

http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/phpmysql

  

Offers users tutorials in a structures order of setting up the basics of php

 Here is a list of things PHP and MySql can do with one another, and the website offers advice on creating.

  • Banner Rotation. On this site, where each banner is, a PHP script is called. This opens a database and picks a random banner from it to show the visitor. It also counts the number of times the banner has been viewed and could, with a few changes, track clicks too. To add, change or edit the banners all I have to do is change the database and the script will pick the correct banners for all the pages on the site.
  • Forums. Hundreds of forums (message boards) on the internet are run using PHP and MySQL. These are much more efficent than other systems that create a page for each message and offer a wide variety of options. All the pages in the forum can be updated by changing one script.
  • Databases. One quite obvious example is sites which get all there information from a database. For example Script Avenue is run by a few scripts, which gain all their information from a large database. All the different script categories can be accessed in one script by just changing the URL to access a different part of the database.
  • Websites. If you have a large website and you want to change the design it can take a very long time to update and upload all the pages. With PHP and MySQL your whole website could be just one or two PHP scripts. These would access a MySQL database to get the information for the pages. To update the website’s design you would just have to change one page.

 ———————- Websites such as http://www.maketemplate.com/menu/ offer scripts for PHP CSS and HTML coding, giving you step by step instructions, like in this case an include menu template.

————————http://www.php-mysql-tutorial.com/ offers users the ability to work step by step of setting up PHP, and MySql with links to resource pages, Links to useful books, a question and answer page, PHP jobs currently in the market, tutorials (for example a gallery which will come in useful, CMS creation) and how to find php hosting web space. The tutorials are straight forward and I recommend this website to everyone who is starting to look into PHP web design.

————– http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/627 is also good as it goes from very basic PHP stuff however offers comment systems in which users can provide help with the tutorials and since PHP is open source, allow for their own personal updates/ customisations to the tutorials

————–http://www.tizag.com/mysqlTutorial/ offers downloadable PHP MySql PDF’s to help in the development, however again covers basic coding.

http://www.tutorialstoday.com/Programming/PHP.aspx offers 28 pages of PHP tutorials so if you cant find what you want here then you probably cant anywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRd4xguBX6A and the linking pages on the right offer video tutorials of php basics, which are useful as not always text is straightforward to read. Linking pages include http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txj4mj5yom0 - covering the basics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JmSf9JfQjY- login pages
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_G6Uh8saFk- login pages 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JRICTFnViM- user login and cookies as well as a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLvb-nAb7H4 showing how to hack Php Email which is useful because we can see how vulnerable PHP is to hackers. This video hacks into users emails in which you can read or forward users emails.

Whats new in the industry?

{ November 1, 2007 @ 9:43 pm } · { CSS, HTML, Marc Taylor, Web 2.0, ajax }
{ } · { Comments (1) }

This is some solid advice given by the website Webdesign.about (http://webdesign.about.com/od/jobs/a/aa081307.htm)  The industry does move at a phenomenal rate, and while PHP is in at the moment, in a few months it may not be. Coding abilities thewebsite says you should know in order to gain a job are, HTML, CSS and Javascript. HTML and CSS are the founding backbone to the webdesign industry, and it really is not worth learning other coding languages until these are learnt. (Other codes still rely on these for the graphical design and layout of the websites.) Javascript on the other hand was an odd choice. However her validation is a good one: 

“I can’t tell you how often I’ve been asked to write a quick validation script or rollover image. Knowing enough JavaScript to whip these out has helped me to improve simple Web sites while we waited for the more complicated server behaviors to be built.”

 This next quote from the website is very important to understand, as the industry moves so quickly coding languages need to develop, and developers need to adapt.  

 “Don’t focus on any one programming language. Chances are, by the time you finish school, that language will be “out” and something completely different will be “in”. Companies follow fads just as much as any other industry, and Web programmers need to be aware of what’s hot and not. You’re better off learning how to learn programming languages and then scanning the jobs 6 months or so before you are going to start working to find out what language you should focus on to get hired. Some good bets right now are: ASP, JSP, and Ruby. PHP is popular with smaller companies, but has a lot of security issues. “

 As mentioned, because PHP is open sources, it may have a lot of security issues, however, it is always being developed, and therefore in the future it will not. It is mentioned as one of the top coding languages to learn later in the extract, and with its evidence of its functionality and security in web sites like Facebook.com it is not really an issue I am worrying about. PHP is a strong plus point when looking at an individuals CV. 

When interviewing David Kelly (Izonedesign.co.uk, dK web and new media and Stormconsultancy.com) web developer and managing director of the companies listed above, he mentions that PHP was one of his top priorities to learn after learning the fundamental HTML, CSS and Javascript. His first experiment was with a Blogging website back in 2000, which was when blogging became a huge trend within the industry. Since then he has used the language for almost every delevopment (with the combination of CSS and HTML) however simple or complicated the website.  

When I went to ask him a few questions about a project I needed help with in the first year of university, he was instantly trying to make me learn PHP combined with HTML, as he believed it was simpler to develop website templates with the <?include> tag then with a HTML template. In this way, he mentions, the coding script is arranged in various folders and files and therefore is a lot harder to copy it from the Internet (with the view source command). He mentions that it is very difficult to decide what will come next in PHP as developers are constantly trying to create something new with the open sourcing. However he does mention, “right now Web2.0 and customisable websites are all the rage” and that websites like facebook and myspace and gripped the nation with our need for companionship. Again the problem being, how long will this trend last? 

(http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/london_mashup_web30.php) This article is really important in looking at web designs future as a whole. In a recent conference MASHUP (FEB 07) in London, they discussed,”

 What’s next, Web3.0? - The coming semantic web”.

HCard and Hcalendar looking at a new bookmarking system for users for example http://www.worldcupkickoff.com  which allows users to ability to bookmark their teams games in the world cup in their own calendar application. It only works so far in third party browsers however soon it will be installed into firefox 3. Sidewinder allows web coding to be used in a normal desktop instead of browsers. A little bit odd and kind of irrelevant X-port (or X-forms) is my like XHTML 2.0 and is designed to be the next generation of HTML/ XHTML forms. 

Content Labels which will change the way in which search engines in the future will operate. Content Labels are much like Meta tags however differ in the sense that in order to get them verified it needs to be sent off to a company (for a small fee) in which they can judge if the tags are correct or not, therefore placing them higher or lower in search engine results. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/search_20_what_is_next.php 

According to this blog (December 06) whats new in the web industry is the Snap Feature (http://snap.com) allowing websites (links) to be viewed as thumbnails therefore hopefully speeding up the time it takes to view sites. Works through the coding AJAX. Can be viewed on websites like wordpress to view small images of websites from just links.

Alternatively Searchmash (http://searchmash.com) owned by google, it searches the web however much like snap, it offers an image, blog, video and wikipedia results to the right of the screen. Due to Ajax there is no slowdown. It also makes it much easier to browse the search results when you need 

 “more information, simply click on more  information, simply click on “More web results” and new results appear at the bottom - enabling you to continue scrolling down on the same page, instead of opening a new page. SearchMash also allows you to give feedback about the results; this may be a sign of the introduction of power of masses into Google Search. “

 

Developed Proposal

{ October 30, 2007 @ 11:06 am } · { Katie Butler, PHP, Web 2.0 }
{ } · { Comments }

Project Outline

The main aim for my assignment 2 project is to design and create a fully working application for Facebook. However realistically speaking, this will prove to be a difficult challenge for me and my personal technical abilities, especially as I will be embracing the field of PHP and technologies that I have previously never used or worked with before. What’s more, professional developers themselves do not always produce flawless applications to begin with, so with this in mind I can probably expect that my own application will take a great deal of work and progress to become effectively useable. 

Ideally I hope to be able to meet the demands of this project outline, because in doing so I can expect many personal benefits. Nevertheless at the very least I will certainly produce a finished prototype for my proposed Facebook application.

Target Users

My taget users will initially be users of Facebook whose profession or hobby is as a web designer - a profession/interest which I can connect with. Nonetheless if this application does become developed successfully, then there is no reason to say why a similar application for photographers or designers for instance might not be developed as well, and which can be used in the same way.

Market Research: Analysis of similar/exisiting Facebook applications

In order to gain some insight into the types of characterisitcs that make an application successful on Facebook, I have done some initial research into similar existing applications to that of my proposed idea.

‘MySpace Link’ - The MySpace link is a popular application that allows users to put screen grabs of their MySpace page onto their Facebook profile. This application is what inspired my idea for a portfolio application specifically for web designers, and therefore the objectives for both applications are the same: 1) To Promote something 2) To Attract attention towards something that reveals more about that user, or represents that user.

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2444083156&ref=s

‘Blog Link’ - Designed by the same developer, the Blog Link appears to be a relatively new application that is an extension or adaptation of the original MySpace Link. Instead of putting a screen grab of your MySpace page onto your Facebook profile, with this application you can but a screen grab link to your blog. As a new application the percentage of users is relatively low, however with the popularity of Facebook and blogging combined, I can almost certainly see this application growing in popularity, especially with professionals such as journalists etc.

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2804306884&ref=s

‘Top Friends’ - The reason why I have considered the Top Friends application is because it uses ’skins,’ something which I may incorporate into my own application. The use of ’skins’ with the Top Friends application is extremely popular and makes the application highly distinguishable on a user’s page - This is a quality I would like my own application to have.

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?api_key=217a985a6147764ff583cc944fa14633

‘Top Sites’ - Finally the Top Sites application is one that I came across when looking at the Top Friends application, and allows a user to put screen grabs of their favourite websites onto their profile. The application however doesn’t appear to be very popular which could be due to a number of reasons - I.e. It could be quite new, users might experience technical problems with it, however the reason why I feel it is not so popular is because it is quite broad. By this I mean that it may become more appealing if it was more focused, for example instead of just being ‘Top Sites’, it could be ‘Top Clothing Sites’ or ‘Top Music Sites’ etc.  

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=4247506471&ref=s

Market Research: Would a web designer use my application?

Instead of just follwing my own judgement on whether my proposed idea would work well or not, I decided to contact an established industry professional through Facebook to see what their thoughts on my idea are, and whether or not they would potentially consider using the application on their own profiles.

My contact was Steve Firth, and below is a short extract from what I asked:

‘Im looking to develop an application for Facebook, and was proposing an idea which would allow web designers to put screen grabs of their work onto their profiles to promote themselves.
I was wondering what your thoughs on this idea are as a web designer (good or bad!) and would you consider using the application on your own Facebook account? if yes, why? if no then why not?’

Below is the response I got back from Steve: 

‘Yes i’d certainly use the app myself (would be nice to install a useful one for a change). Any extra links and exposure is always good, web worlds pretty saturated [mostly by bodgers] and anything that helps one rise above the bg noise is always welcome.As regards making it ‘commercially viable’ i’d consider keeping it quite open, don’t pitch it too tightly to a niche as if you miss it it’s pretty much end of story … if you kept it so that, for example other creatives could use it as a portfolio or even gen public you’ll probably get a wider uptake.If you’re being marked on just the app itself, that it works, forfills spec etc then keep the focus tight - that way you control the varibles that you’ll be marked on, take up being secondary.If you’re being marked on the ’sucess’ of the app then flexibility is key, people will find use a general app for their purposes. Some gen thoughts:

You can go mad on javascript, facebooks dependant on it anyway (also with slow general loading times ppl wont notice the overhead)

Whilst your designing an app for webdevs, its the public that will ‘use it’ and public like shiney/popup things (am thinking ask’s use of url preview etc)

Any support for stylesheet switching so they can skin own portfolio? (cross url content is common on FB so isnt a security block on this)

Hope this is of help, feel free to msg/add me should you want to bounce any ideas off me or just fancy a webby chat.

gl with your app, it’s nice to see a some women coming into webdesign to balance off a pretty much XY world.

I feel that Steve has made several key points in his response that I can and should take into account, making this particular research quite valuable towards my assignment. For instance when he talks about targeting a niche or mass audience depending on the assignment criteria - I found this particularly important to consider. I also liked the fact that he too suggested the idea of using ’skins,’ something that I have proposed but did not actually put foward to Steve in my original message.

A link to Steve’s company: http://www.devolved.co.uk/

Other comments welcome

The Facebook Conquest?

{ October 29, 2007 @ 5:03 pm } · { Katie Butler, PHP, Web 2.0 }
{ } · { Comments (1) }

Below I have collaborated links to some of the most interesting articles which show just how popular Facebook is, and how the site is becomming more than just a social networking site…

Article 1 - ’Is Facebook the next frontier for online news?’

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/071008yung/

Article 2 - ‘UK Facebook users soar to 3.5m’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/may/23/digitalmedia.facebook

Article 3 - ‘Microsoft strikes ad deal with Facebook’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/aug/23/digitalmedia.microsoft

Article 4 - ‘Social networking a boost to PR’

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2195423,00.html

Article 5 - ‘Amnesty harnesses Facebook generation’ 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2187073,00.html

Azeem Ahmad - Final Project Proposal (Detailed)

{ October 29, 2007 @ 12:54 pm } · { Aggregators, Azeem Ahmad, CSS, HTML, RSS, Syndication, Web 2.0, XML, XSL }
{ } · { Comments }

Project Outline –

Many internet users travel to various news websites to digest daily occurrences around the world. Most often have e-mail subscriptions (no matter how dated the service may be), and it is often tedious having to trawl through several websites to find the news the user is looking for.

A lot of people are now taking advantage of RSS, or Really Simple Syndication – a method of linking through a ‘feed’ that can provide up to 15 or more links (in this case, news stories) at once. This is a good new media technology, but it has room to be developed more. Subscribing to an RSS feed is anonymous, hence eliminating the need for e-mail news subscriptions, but placing several feed boxes on a browsers toolbar can seriously overload the screen with unnecessary information.

For my project I aim to manipulate four popular news websites, BBC News, Sky News, The Guardian, and The Mirror, and converging them into one feed so that online news users only need to subscribe to one feed.

I plan to do this by creating a one big feed, essentially a mash-up of the four feeds mentioned above. I will also attempt to categorise the links inside of the feed by genre so that browsing through the single feed is easier. Also, by categorising, I am also able to promote this product as an RSS 2.0 feed, rather than simply an RSS feed, thus enhancing potential attention from interested parties.

Market Research -

One very successful website that does this is http://imooty.eu, a news aggregator for the whole of Europe. Imooty allows users to pick and choose which particular publications they want to see an RSS breakdown (of top headlines) on the users ‘my imooty’ page – a clever individualisation for the website. Such personalisation of the site will keep viewers and readers coming back to the site for more, and more regularly, as all of the news they wish to digest is on one page. Imooty also has options to view the news for the rest of Europe, and is a very successful website.

Upon viewing the page source code for imooty, it is clear to see that the technical side of the website is heavily reliant on javascript coding, and embedding CSS into RSS coding, both of which are advanced coding procedures. For my project I simply intend to create a single feed which is a mash-up of four feeds, rather than creating a whole website.

I intend to create my product by obtaining and re-writing the RSS feed codes from the four sites mentioned, including date, category and GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) tags – so that any copyright issues are avoided. A simple breakdown of how one link in one section of the whole feed will look something like this:

<xml type="text/xsl">
 
<rss xml: version="2.0">
  <channel>
        <item>
      <title>Saudi king chides UK on terrorism</title>  
      <description>Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah accuses Britain of doing too little to fight international terrorism.</description>  
      <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/uk/7066867.stm</link>  
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7066867.stm</guid>  
      <pubDate>Mon, 29 Oct 2007 11:21:57 GMT</pubDate>  
      <category>UK</category>  
      
    </item> 

As seen from the box above, the link is the first story from the BBC News front page, taken at 1237 on Monday 29th October 2007. The date is relevant as the feed constantly is self-updating.

Included in the sample feed is the formatting of the code, in this case, XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language) – this method eliminates the need to include CSS into the code. As with every RSS feed, the ‘version’ and ‘channel’ tags remain present, so too do the ‘item’ and ‘description’ tags.

However, the features that make this an RSS 2.0 feed, are the other tags. In this case, because the BBC is the original creator of the page (containing the story), there is no need for a GUID, hence the ‘false’ answer to the tag – the link simply points to the page that it is describing.

 

Also included is the publication date, and the category. These two categories are often overlooked when people create RSS feeds, but are now becoming increasingly relevant as the latest versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox now include standard options into their browsers that tell users when RSS feeds are present on a page, and also allow users to browse directly through a feed by category.

 

Conclusion -

 

To sum up, my product will be a single RSS feed that is an amalgamation of four mini RSS feeds from BBC News, The Guardian, The Mirror, and Sky News. I will also be including features that will make this a Web 2.0 technology, such as:

·         The publication dates of the feeds, so that they are self updating

·         A GUID – so that the feed that I have created is unique

·         Category tags, so browsing through the feed is easy

·         XSL encoding, so that the need for CSS is eliminated.

« Previous entries