Then something started to happen. People began to use the web to actually interact rather than broadcast. More and more people started being creators of the content rather than just a small number of writers.

A gradual shift occurred. Ben Ramsey, Senior Software Architect at Schematic, states in one of his blog articles:

“Web 2.0 represents the second decade of the Web (2000-2009), which is characterized by a shift in the use of the Web to not only connect to a company’s or product’s constituents by giving them information but also allowing users to connect to the company/product and to each other. This is often called the era of the read-write Web.”

This is where the web became more of an open forum. People began to speak up and speak out. Communities were being built online and leaders were starting to emerge. Organisations began to listen and interact with its consumers and connections were made. Social networks such as Myspace, Facebook, Flickr, and You Tube became major platforms for social interaction and sharing. Web 2.0 users made full use of blogging, tagging, and social networking. The key to Web 2.0 wasn’t just about information; it was about its users. None of this could have happened without them…you…us.

Okay, so this is seemingly where we are at, right? So what is this about changing again? What does it all mean?

Web 3.0 or the semantic web means we now have social networking with a purpose. It means we change from having one separate computer device, to the web being visible in everyday things we use such as our vehicles, mobile phones, and much more. It means we build artificial intelligence into our platforms. It means we have social networking with a purpose. Where we’re headed is to personalisation of online services in a way more so than what we are used to today.

Eric Schmidt, chairman/CEO of Google describes web 3.0 as a different way of building applications:

“Web 3.0 will ultimately be seen as applications that will be pieced together. Some characteristics will be applications that are relatively small, data will be in the cloud, applications can be run on any device, be it PC or mobile. Apps will be very fast and very customizable, and the applications will be distributed virally through email and social networks rather than being purchased at a store.”

Jonathon Strickland, senior writer for ‘howstuffworks.com’ wrote a piece about How Web 3.0 will work:

“Some Internet experts believe the next generation of the Web -- Web 3.0 -- will make tasks like your search for movies and food faster and easier. Instead of multiple searches, you might type a complex sentence or two in your Web 3.0 browser, and the Web will do the rest. In our example, you could type "I want to see a funny movie and then eat at a good Mexican restaurant. What are my options?" The Web 3.0 browser will analyze your response, search the Internet for all possible answers, and then organize the results for you.­

That's not all. Many of these experts believe that the Web 3.0 browser will act like a personal assistant. As you search the Web, the browser learns what you are interested in. The more you use the Web, the more your browser learns about you and the less specific you'll need to be with your questions. Eventually you might be able to ask your browser open questions like "where should I go for lunch?" Your browser would consult its records of what you like and dislike, take into account your current location and then suggest a list of restaurants.”

Because of the gradual process of this shift, we've been building web 3.0 and artificial intelligence into our platform to not only separate conversations, but making sense and relevance of the conversation within communities is the key both for the participant and also our clients. By doing this, it will save time, money, and energy.

There are exciting and unique opportunities to be had in this next web generation. It won’t be something that just happens. We’ve already been gradually evolving that way. As for terms, we are now living in Web 3.0 space. Welcome to the continuation of the future.

What are your thoughts on web 3.0?

This article was originally posted on the Community Engine blog.

With all the advances in technology and search engines algorithms, are we expecting too much from the search results? In the past few years, everything has been geared around instant gratification (I think this was a driving force in the development of real-time search) and we are not only expecting results accurately but immediately. Now I struggle to recall my searching habits of 4 years ago but I have a sneaky suspicion that I was willing to cut all the big search engines some slack when it came to searching. I don't think they have that luxury any more.

I think a big part of this heightened expectations comes from knowledge. I know Google has 5000 PhD's just sitting around thinking of ways to improve the algorithm, but when I want to get the cheapest accommodation in Melbourne I dont want to have to navigate between 10 different, yet almost identical aggregator sites in the SERP's before giving up due to frustration and ending up in Wogga Wogga, just because it's easier to find a cheap hotel.

Another interesting observation is that more and more users are using longer (longtail) search queries to find what they are looking for. The question I pose is: are users searching with more specific search phrases because they are more savvy to the way the web works, or is it because the search results are so poor for broad-based queries that in order to find something relevant you are forced to use detailed and lengthy search queries?

TMI

Too much information! Normally a teenager's response to a friend giving one personal detail too many, it can also describe the explosion of web sites, blogs, aggregators and web properties in general. Since March 2005, the number of people using the Internet has doubled to almost 2 billion. The figures around number of actual sites on the internet are a little hazy, but according to Google the number of sites they had explored was 26 million pages in 1998, one billion pages in 2000 and ONE TRILLION PAGES in 2008, and the number of individual web pages out there is growing by several billion pages per day.

Now I know Google has some of the best infrastructure, technology and talent at their disposal but if we take the number of pages as products that Google has to provide quality control for, then that's alot of control - even for the world's biggest brand. Not only is there so much more information for Google to sift through, but the information is becoming more complex to evaluate. SEO is becoming more prominent, with alot of people who own web properties having been exposed to some kind of search engine optimisation education and using that knowledge to make their sites more 'appealing' to search engines. Popular blogging platforms like Wordpress also have SEO functionality now built in, straight out of the box, so again, more SEO-friendly pages are added to the web index. Aggregators, with their boilerplate templates are also becoming more popular in the SERPS again, further adding to the congestion.

Social media also comes into this. With Google and Bing starting to index Facebook and Twitter status updates, the amount of information is expected to increase exponentially. However, I think the search engines have the capacity to do this or they wouldn't try.
The Internet is expanding exponentially and pointless pages are taking advantage of Google's ranking system, rendering it unwieldy, Google and the other search engines need to counter this and find a way to once again become dynamic and streamlined and eliminate all those guff and filler sites that take up a large portion of their index (and my time incidentally).

Diminishing core focus on search

When Google first started, all they cared about was search. They put all their efforts and resources into making search better. Now it seems that have moved into fields pretty far flung from search, like renewable energy, cloud computing and mobile phones. Now I realise a simple answer is that they have invested in massive infrastructure and staff numbers to compensate for their diversification but somewhere along the way, with so many different things going on, their focus on search has diluted. Whether it's right at the top with Eric, Larry and Sergey or down the line through the many thousands of Google employees, it's happening.

I believe this dilution of absolute focus on search has resulted in some deterioration (or perhaps not as much improvement) of the search results. It's time to put the focus back on search, or the current batch of search engines may become the HotBot and AltaVista of the past.

Maybe search results have gotten better and we are just expecting too much, however I don't think this is the case; many people with in the search industry have noticed this and questioned the big wigs about it. I think that there are alot of outside factors that might be negatively affecting the SERPS, but I think it's time the search engines took cognisance of these factors and tried to counter them instead of putting feature upon feature (real-time search, more blended results, caffeine update etc) upon pretty average search results that are already crying out for some better quality control and more relevant sites within those SERPS.

An e-commerce site's product pages are that site's lifeblood. These pages highlight products and offer shoppers the option to buy. They are your sites payoff pages: ‘the primary struggle of every e-tailer is driving shoppers to commit to a purchase’ All the hard work and money you put into making sure your website is seen and looks great comes down to the moment when a shopper lands on your page and decides whether to enter their credit card details or not. A well designed product page is critical to your e-commerce business.

So here are my TOP 10 TIPS on how to get a website that will work for your business, and the good news is, following this advice will not require you to re-mortgage your house. In fact getting a fantastic website should be an investment that brings you very significant returns. After all, your site is the face of your business and probably the first place people will look for information about what you are selling. So it is imperative that the visitor leaves with a positive impression, or even better: makes an enquiry or purchase there and then.

1) Go Pro: Get your website designed by a professional agency. Do you get your haircut done by the grocery clerk that likes to do a bit of styling on his spare time? I didn’t think so.

2) Keep it Simple: Simplicity is key on a product page. Don’t overwhelm your customer with multiple products and images squashed onto one page. The most successful online merchants opt for one product per page.

3) Keep it Together: All of the information for that particular product should be on the same page e.g. other colour options, prices, sizes. If you have a range of products with various options there should be a link to a category page where the customer can see all the variations of that product with a short tag line differentiating them.

4) Keep it Clear: On the product page there should be a picture of the product, a description, the price and the shopping cart. Make things as easy as possible for the customer to purchase. Ensure you are providing the right information to a customer, overloading them with technical specifications for a relatively simple product will put them off. However, a customer will not buy if they cannot find the information that will let them know if this electrical product is compatible with another, or if this toy is safe for a child of a certain age. You can always add an extra link labelled ‘technical specifications’ to help the customer towards their purchase.

5) Be an Expert: Adding Expert opinions to your site can be a seductive sales tool. However, be cautious as too many over-enthusiastic reviews or recommendations can work against you, making the site and your products look over-hyped and cheesy. Stick to independent reviews, preferably from a known publication or retailer. Always choose things that add to your credibility rather than detract.

6) Double Check: When your customer places a product in the cart you should double check with them exactly what they want. If the product has multiple order options you should get the customer to confirm they want this colour, in the size, or with this attachment etc rather than allowing them to order an incorrect option at the checkout.

7) Product Page Key Elements: have a clear and descriptive title and photo that can be found in search engines. Your SEO programmer can help with this. Have an option to enlarge the photo. Provide all the information the shopper will need and avoid jargon or industry specific language. State when the product will be available and the likely delivery date. Prominently display the ‘BUY’ button.

8) Show your credentials: Have a link to your websites guarantee policy. Think about offering a money back policy to build trust with your customers.

9) Think about what you want: Only absolutely relevant material should be included. Product images should be of excellent quality, get a photographer. Try to keep the amount of text to a minimum; nobody wants to read pages of text on a computer screen. Keep it clear and simple.

10) Be consistent: Watch out for the colours you want to use; these should match your logo and brand, and should have good contrast with the text to make it easy to read. Also check if these are Web Safe.

We advise that you get at least two quotes from separate web design agencies so you have an idea of what you are getting for you money.

Post site thoughts should cover consideration of utilising other technologies to go along with the site, such as Email newsletters, Twitter and Facebook to stay in touch with your visitors. But make sure on the website the user can get to your contact or the BUY NOW button without having to click more than once.

Finally you could use the free Google Analytics, which will give you detailed information on who is visiting your site, when, where and how.

There are some great packages such as Magento that your web designer can use to start with, so there is no need to create things like a shopping cart and payment processing system from scratch. That way you can save time and money.

Also when choosing you payment processing provider, don’t be shy to haggle they will often reduce payment processing and monthly costs to win your business.

Want to know more information on website design, email newsletters, e-commerce or corporate branding? Get in touch, the link is below. I will be more than happy to help.

The costs and administration burden will undoubtedly be lower than hiring a in-house freelancer/consultant, but is it worth it and should we trust our valuable projects to an invisible person sitting on the other side of the world?

First things first though. Here are some basic questions to ask yourself before you decide to outsource:

1) Is outsourcing the right move for your business? Would it be be easier to hire an extra member of staff if the work requires a lot of in-house interaction?
2) Have you taken all the costs into consideration? If this is a long term project, do you have the funds in place?
3) Can you bridge the cultural difference between your company and the outsourcer? Will they really understand your brand and its placement?
4) How will you define success on this particular product/ project?

Outsourcing could have an enormous positive impact on your business, but make sure you're not jumping into trusting strangers with your product before you check them out properly. Here are the basics you should have in mind when considering outsourcing to a third party:
1. Clearly define the scope and schedule for your project from the start. Be clear from the outset so they can give you a realistic price and timeframe for completion.
2. Evaluate a service provider in the same way you’d hire a full-time employee. You wouldn’t hire someone who never replied to your emails so why compromise for an agency?
3. Look for specific experience fit. Take the time to look at their body of work. Do you like it?
4. Don’t choose a vendor based solely on price. You’re looking for quality and reliable ongoing support, not cheap rates and disappearing designers.
5. Start small. When using a company or freelancer for the first time try to test them out with a smaller project first to get a feel for how they work and the quality of their service.
6. Negotiate ownership of your work. It’s safer to always own what you pay someone to create for you. It gives you the freedom to go elsewhere for alterations should you ever need to.
7. Opt for people who offer support services after the completion of your project.
8. Get it in writing. Make sure you have records and/or a contract stipulating the time constraints and payment for the work requested.

There are many sites on which to post your needs or look over freelancer CV’s. Here are just a few:
Elance: You'll find tons of freelance writers and designers on this site.
http://www.elance.com/

Freelancer Now: You'll get services quickly on this site.
http://www.freelancernow.com/

Guru.com: Post individual projects on this site and have professional bid on them.
http://www.guru.com/

RentACoder: You can literally rent a Web coder from this site.
http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/default.aspx

Scriptlance: You can post a project on this site, which lists bids in a neatly organised list.
http://www.scriptlance.com/

Workaholicsforhire: Find people 24/7 on this site people by "a team of workaholics who have a compulsive need to work at odd hours, drink too much coffee, and love meeting impossible deadlines."
http://www.workaholics4hire.com/

iFreelance: Post your project for free to receive bids from hundreds of professional service providers.
http://www.ifreelance.com/

Agents of Value: This Webmaster staffing company specialises in finding full-time programmers, graphic designers, journalists, researchers and link builders to help your business grow.
http://www.agentsofvalue.com/

Once you’ve decided to outsource its advisable to allocate a manager or member of staff track the progress and monitor the results of the third party working for you as you are still accountable for the work they produce, as with any regular employee. Projects that require team interaction or brainstorming don't work too well; self contained tasks or projects are more suited to outsourcing.

If you're looking specifically for designers here are a few sites to get you started. But remember, make sure you're all clear on who owns the designs after completion. if you need a brand logo designed for your company, it follows that you'll need to own it, not your designer.

AG Design: http://www.allgraphicdesign.com/jobs.html

Graphic Design Freelance Jobs: http://www.graphicdesignfreelancejobs.com/

Freelance Designers: http://www.freelancedesigners.com/

Graphic Design Jobs: http://www.graphicdesignjobsandleads.com/

Creative Pool: http://www.creativepool.co.uk/employee/jobs/design-jobs.php

Project management can also be dealt with using sites like Basecamp http://basecamphq.com/ or Assembla http://www.assembla.com On sites like these you can collaborate on projects, manage your contacts, organise your business and chat with your group. Sites like these are relatively good value but may have add on costs for extra users or packages. Other sites include:

Zoho Projects: http://projects.zoho.com/home.na

Easy Projects.net: http://www.easyprojects.net/

Wrike.com: http://www.wrike.com/

ProjectManager.com: http://www.projectmanager.com/

I could go on but here are a few more all in one:

http://tomuse.com/top-10-best-free-online-project-management-application-services/

Virtual PA's or Assistants provide administrative, creative and/or technical support and are a rapidly growing phenomenon online. They work on a contractual basis via online communications and can handle all the things an onsite PA would, looking after your schedule, your online files or your customer database. Here are a few options for you to browse:

City Office: http://www.yourcityoffice.com/virtual-pa.php

Virtual Resources: http://www.virtualresources.co.uk/

My PA: http://www.mypabusiness.com/

Versatile Assistant: http://www.versatileassistant.com/

Business Exchange Virtual Offices:

http://virtualoffices.mwbex.com/packages/virtual-pa.html

Virtual PA Central: http://www.virtual-pa-central.co.uk/

Whatever you need to outsource, it may take time to find the right people or companies that work for you. However, once you've found the right recipe for your company and sourced people to work with that you trust, who share your work ethic and understand your brand, product and aims then you're cooking.

Given all the above, the best tip I can give you, whether you're just starting out or you've been outsourcing for a while, is: if you can, sit down and have a good old chat with your potential supplier, even it it mean a little travelling. That’s right. By having a coffee with the person in charge of the team you are considering to outsource to, you’ll be able to learn far more about them and their business ethos than you will after many calls and reading their CV's. For example: how good are their language and communication skills? How polite, approachable and professional they are? Are they trustworthy? Are they who they actually say they are? Do you like them? You’re putting your company in their hands, you need to be able to do it with confidence.

The problem is you can’t sit for a coffee with an offshore-based company unless they have a home-based contact. And this is the most important point of the article. I would not recommend anyone outsourcing digital work to a company that does not have a person responsible near home - I learned my lessons the hard way: when programmers left holes in programmers to copy confidential information or get more work, disappeared into thin air or people simply delivered work that appeared to have been done by my 3-year old niece.

When you’re speaking the same language everything suddenly becomes simpler. Make life easier for yourself if you’re looking to outsource. Ask around, get recommendations, research well and choose a company you can talk to and build a relationship with. It’s your business and your reputation so be confident you're choosing the right people for you.

Want to know more about outsourcing digital? Please feel free to get in touch, maybe even for a coffee.

Obvious uses came to mind, such as the ability to target Google Search Advertising to live conversations via the content network.

I could also see how brands could promote themselves to consumers through personal and direct conversations. Take the car market as an example, you could set up a ‘Ford Wave', where Ford lovers could share experiences and, perhaps, Ford could offer exclusive invitations to Wave riders to test-drive new models.

However, I was still struggling to understand how marketers could really make brands famous using Google Wave. Or let's cut to the important stuff... how us ad-folk could make some money from it. So, I decided to embark on the task of analysing some of the industries that I felt would benefit most from greater collaboration.

One of the first areas that sprung to mind was Education. All over the world there must be teachers, university lecturers and students who are keen to share learning experiences. This could take classrooms and lecture theatres global. Unbounded by classroom walls, children could have live Waves with kids across the globe, and teachers could share and develop learning ideas with
like-minded people. Students could get their exam results delivered by the Wave, so they no longer have to loiter around the letterbox waiting nervously. Assignments could also be marked and commented on via the Wave.

Journalists, reporters, producers could all use Google Wave to develop and share story ideas.

Sports clubs could use it to organise team games, training and as a forum to get to know their teammates better.

Government agencies and departments could use it to spread important messages. For example, they could set up a Wave for people living in areas at risk of bushfire that would allow them to collaborate with each other and, importantly, get access to real time updates. The Wave will also be a powerful tool for cause-related activities, as proven this month by the ‘My Oath Campaign' promoting White Ribbon Day.

The possibilities for collaboration really are endless. Perhaps, rather than being a money spinner, it will simply be the tool that modernises communications in industries and organisations that are crying out for new and more effective ways to collaborate.

Google's approach to this launch has also been quite clever by opening it up to the developer community first on an exclusive ‘invite only' basis (which, on further investigation, can really be anyone who poses as a developer or gets an invite from one). I think that the real meat of this tool will be uncovered by the development community through the API. In this sense, it is a blank canvas.

One of the first things I think we will see from the external developer community is the creation of a tool that allows it to work with other email clients, while at ‘Camp Google' I think we will see a commercial variant of the software that sits in their business applications portfolio.

Internal corporate collaboration through the Wave is inevitable, but the big players will only leave their safe Microsoft havens if developers can create some safety nets between the discussion and the clouds.

In 2010, consumers will be smarter and more security conscious about their social interactions. If they are marketed to via social networks it will only be accepted if it's secure, relevant and engaging, and businesses will only use the Wave if they have ownership of the conversations.

The other big question I have is how does Google plan to make money from the Wave? At a recent seminar, one of the creators, Lars Rasmussen, said he had a romantic notion that people might actually pay for it. However, I he also mentioned recently there are a number of ways it could generate revenue. One idea was to set up a Google Wave Apps Store for all the robots, embeds and gadgets being developed.

My tip? Watch the space and make friends with a geek.