January 2006 Archives
January 22, 2006
Gaining Online Advantage: Internationalisation and Localisation - part 9
This is page 9 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Internationalisation and Localisation There are lots of reasons why you might want to do localisation or internationalisation. Here are some examples that I've picked out: The UK's Home Office, when giving information on immigration to the UK, might consider that it wants to present different sections of that information...
Gaining Online Advantage: Internationalisation and Localisation - part 8
This is page 8 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Internationalisation and Localisation I want to move on now to talk a little bit about internationalisation and localisation. Some businesses or organisations in the UK are very UK focussed, and some businesses in the UK represent the British part of multi-national organisations. Both present challenges in representing that orientation...
Gaining Online Advantage: Classification and Indexing - part 7
This is page 7 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Classification and Indexing Again I would stress that if you are in a large organisation, for example a Government Department where business units have responsibility for similar areas of content production, it is really important when you put your site index together that you can expose these overlapping areas...
Gaining Online Advantage: Classification and Indexing - part 6
This is page 6 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Classification and Indexing Another thing I would like to stress the importance of is a comprehensive index of your content in a browse format. If you have a large publishing organisation, having a central organised index is a vital way of giving your audience a browse mechanism, giving access...
Gaining Online Advantage: Global navigation - part 5
This is page 5 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Global navigation In part one of this article I looked at how in order to have a successful web presence you needed to identify both your business needs on the web, and the needs of your customers and audience. I also discussed how identifying your business model, and provding...
Building An Effective Web Presence In A Large Organisation - Part Two
Hopefully today from a LAN connection in a hostel in Bratislava I have made available the second part of my article "Building An Effective Web Presence In A Large Organisation". It is based on my presentation at the Ark Group's "Gaining Online Advantage" conference held in London in October 2005. The first part, published earlier this month, dealt with how to identify the business needs and audience needs that should be driving the strategy of your web presence, how to...
January 17, 2006
Helen Lippell on the BBC's ABCs
If you haven't come across it yet, Helen Lippell has written an excellent case study for Boxes and Arrows about the redesign of the BBC's A-Z Index, one of the key 'glue' components of bbc.co.uk. It is well worth reading [via Common User]...
January 9, 2006
Currybetdotnet archive restored
One of the pieces of work I have been doing in Doha is finally restoring all of the currybetdotnet pages that were lost when I had server issues last year. Yesterday I published the final 150 pages, which take the site from April 2004 right back to the very first post in December 2002, complaining about Google not coping very well with seasonal searches for "turkey". Whilst the actual restoration task itself has been dull, involving lots of cut/paste of...
January 1, 2006
Gaining Online Advantage: Understanding online business models - part 4
This is page 4 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Understanding online business models Earlier during the Gaining Online Advantage conference Ross Jenkins outlined some of the different business models you can have on the web. Being accountable or allowing people to make a complaint, these are examples of the kind of self-service business model, where the BBC is...
Gaining Online Advantage: Subverting audience need for strategic reasons - part 3
This is page 3 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Subverting audience need for strategic reasons Sometimes you might even want to deliberately subvert the audience need for a strategic business decision. A recent example on a project I worked on was the re-design of the BBC's TV portal at bbc.co.uk/tv. The previous iteration was a place which displayed...
Gaining Online Advantage: Why does your organisation need a web presence? - part 2
This is page 2 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Why does your organisation need a web presence? What I want to do now is to take the BBC as a case-study and examine why the BBC has a website, and I hope in this way to help you to work out what your web offering should be. From...
Gaining Online Advantage: Building an effective web presence in a large organisation - part 1
This is page 1 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Introduction This article is based on Martin Belam's presentation "Understanding The Portal Concept Within A Federated Organisation" at the Ark Group's Gaining Online Advantage conference in London, October 2005 The BBC, like many companies, first had a public internet presence in the mid-nineties. John Birt is not generally remembered...
Building An Effective Web Presence In A Large Organisation - Part One
One of the advantages of having a break from work, and a restful holiday over Christmas before starting travelling in earnest next week, is that I have had plenty of time to catch up with some of my writing. I've finally been able to finish some articles that had been sitting around in draft for some time, and also to write up some of the presentations that I have given over the last year. I hope to gradually publish these...