Wordchillies » Essence of Content!

The changing face of the content…Side show from kerela Toursim

Pete Tuvol — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 10:37:37 +0000

Till some time back, content used to be understood and encapsulated within the 26 letters of the alphabet, until it progressed from being a ‘King’ to ‘King Maker’ to the Universal content paradigm of Google. Play-makers like Adobe jumped on to the content wagon once Google started deciphering the flash based neon signs. To say that the ‘Web content’ has come off age would be super-under-statement to say the least. Now content is generated as a bundle of text and pixels. Tools, technologies and testing methodologies are revolving around the optimum ratio of textual content and graphical pixels – Thanks to Mr. Taguchi and others of his elk , we have been perfecting ourselves in getting the best ratio from a marketing angle.

A recent news item caught my eye – ” Kerela Tourism’s global consumer travel site had been selected for the best site for the prestigious award ‘PATA Gold Award 2010′. That’s a great achievement for a state management site, where the emphasis has always been on information assembly and classification rather than on usability and user sensibilities. A quick glance at the Kerela Tourism site justifies the prestigious award.

I felt compelled to bring the site to your notice – So, i divided into 2 easy parts for a viewer like me who has a million other things in queue….

Part1….Striking elements:

[1] Clean, Text-less persona – uplifting

[2] Captivating graphics

[3] Multi-lingual viewing option

[4] Unambiguous message for the visitor

Part2….Striking elements:

[1] Service / Information: Targeted & graphic-based services segments

[2] Colors utilized on the site symbolize the theme of the website

[3] User-friendly text

[4] Predominance of white space throughout

[5] Relevance of the graphics and text in all the segments

Manage your content with the right content management system

Pete Tuvol — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 08:38:06 +0000

A content management system (CMS) can help you organize your website in a way that it is accessible to everyone. However, the trick is to find and implement the right CMS for your projects.

If the content on your website needs to be altered frequently, then you would perhaps need access and control of your site rather than request updates through your web developer. This is when a CMS comes into the picture.

So when you have decided that you need a CMS, the following suggestions can help you choose the most appropriate one for your projects.

Budget: The first step is to determine the amount you can spend on a CMS. While determining your budget, don’t forget about the implementation and support costs.

Review the volume of content and consider scalability: Determine the volume of content you have today, and will have tomorrow. Your system should be able to support your maximum projected users at least for the next five years. Once you have evaluated your needs, match the volume with real life case studies to know what your intended Content Management System can handle.

Format Flexibility: Evaluate the format flexibility of your CMS. If you will be publishing in several formats (social, web, mobile, video, audio, XML, etc.) then ensure that the content can be re-formatted easily.

Printing Flexibility: Websites and web technology flourish on change. So make sure that your web content or site design is twisted or totally changed at least every 12 months. Go for a CMS that does not limit your ability to make changes.

Some of the recommended content management systems are:

Wordpress: This CMS system is best for websites that have four or five static pages, like “About us”, “Contact us”, etc. and pages that change frequently, like the blogs.

ExpressionEngine: This CMS system allows for more dynamic content, and also allows easy multiple changes at once.

Drupal: When a website grows, it becomes difficult to manage information. Drupal CMS is specifically designed for large sites that feature several pages of individualized content.

Make an informed decision about the right content management system and see your business soar to new heights.

Writing for the Web – Keep Evolving

Pete Tuvol — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:24:17 +0000

Content and content presentation is bound to the technologies that work on the web, and is susceptible to change and evolve with the algorithms ruling the search engines. This fact cannot be denied that all content put on the web today is intended and designed to rank better on search results. Keywords are the guiding lights illuminating the path content creation is now expected to take. This may go on for the fact that the search engines today are not really ‘so smart.’ It will take a while before they get better, efficient and completely evolved, where keywords and content manipulation will have no meaning left to bank upon. For the time being however, keywords are all that we have.

Start With SEO Basics

This is true, “If content can be searched on, then it can be optimized for better performance in search.” However, the definition of the SEO is and will mostly be changing by the day. As for the moment you can make the most of the resources and optimize your videos, images and even audios. This can only be made possible through relevant meaningful content and links. They are of immense help and will enable you make better use of SEO tactics in your online presence.

Some More SEO Tips

After compiling your keyword glossary, you could make use of a keyword tool in order to target your audience efficiently.
Do not get carried away, optimize your content for the readers first. Now, go back and make adjustments to make this search engine friendly without damaging the script.
Never overlook and make sure to the use of keywords in the title, sub-heading and the text body. The title is the most important place where the presence of the keyword makes ultimate sense. However, do not stuff keywords just for the sake of them being there. Logical and relevant presence will alone make sense, so that your piece is visually appealing and easy to digest.

Normally, keywords appearing for about 2/4 times, in a 400/500 word release is just fine.

Making Press Releases Work

Traditionally a press release is just another type of announcement. However, an online press release, like all online content, is so much different that you can do more than just pitching a message or an event. You could even inspire calls to action, add you onto Facebook, or even make a call. You could even take the reader to a landing page for optimization analysis. Look at these as more than a one time thing, what with your links in place, a press release is your very valuable investment and asset.

Welcome to Wikimedia – Free Content Online

Suhasini N — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:45:43 +0000

“Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.” This is the Wikimedia commitment.

Wikimedia, owned and operated by the Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit foundation devoted and dedicated to bring free content to the world through the internet. The stated goals of the Wikimedia Foundation is to develop and maintain open content on Wiki based Projects, and to provide these to the general public free of any charges. This acquired name “Wikimedia” was first coined by the American author Sheldon Rampton in a post to the English mailing list in March, 2003.

The Wikimedia Foundation relies heavily on the generous support offered by the users themselves. The Foundation is incorporated as a 501©(3) non-profit organization in the United States, where donations from US citizens are tax deductible. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is presently headquartered at San Francisco, USA.

Following is the list of Content Projects relating to Wikimedia –

Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia with multilingual content
Wiktionary – A Wiki-based Open Content dictionary
Wikiquote – A Free Online Compendium of Sourced Quotations
Wikibooks – A Free Library of Educational Text Books
Wikisource – The Free Online Library of Free Content Publication
Wikinews – The Free News Source Where You Can Write articles
Wikiversity – Open Learning Community
Wikispecies – Free Species Directory
Wikimedia – Incubator
Wikimedia – Commons
Wikimedia – Meta Wiki
MediaWiki – Free Software Wiki Packages

Helping to contribute and collaborate makes it simple and easy. The idea behind the basic Wiki concept is just this. It is willing to provide us with an online platform where we can pool in our resources and build something which all of us in the future can make use of. Wiki will only check the genuineness and authenticity of the subject and help preserve and maintain the database. Terrific idea, and terrific work combined with some non-profiting motives are spelling out some online wonders, which shall be very difficult to duplicate. The entire global community using and building Wiki’s resources sincerely hope that Wiki, some day will come out of the red and make some money without compromising.

Globalizing Collective Online Resources

The best part of Wiki products and packages is that they come in many languages, so that a truly global community can benefit using Wiki’s services. Then, the content is always open to editing, which again makes the material more substantial and truly updated. It is no wonder that most Wiki’s sites are in the best lists and highly rank on all search engines. Wiki products, as time goes by are turning to be the most popular and most frequented websites.

Print Media to Digital Media – The Evolution

Pete Tuvol — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:34:56 +0000

As the traditional print media began adopting digital technologies for gains, little did it realize then that sooner or later the new media would be putting the traditional methods into oblivion. While the digital media is perfectly able to fulfill on the promises that it made, the fast paced technological changes in the new media, has totally transformed what actually appears today. Frankly, if we hold both ends, they appear like two separate entities, unless we are able to reconstruct the missing link.
Understanding Globalization – Through New Media
New media is a new term meant to bring together the emergence of digital, computerized, or networked information and communication technologies operative as of now. Most of these techniques are digital, and often bearing characteristics of being manipulative, networkable, dense, compressible, interactive and extensively impartial.
The best examples of these are our websites, internet, computer multimedia, computer games and so on. New media today can simply be understood as a mix between existing older cultural conventions for data representation, access, and manipulation and newer conventions of data representations. The new media especially with the help of the internet is bound to make extreme changes in the way we are able to present news even surpassing constraints like space and time.
The new media is capable and
• Will alter the meaning of geographic distance, as meaningless.
• Allow for huge increases in the volume of communications.
• Provide ultimate possibilities of increasing the speed of communications.
• Provide unending opportunities for interactive communication.
• Allow different and separate forms of communication to overlap and interconnect with one another.
New Media – The Perfect Tool for Social Change
The rise of this new media has tremendously increased communication between the people all over the world and especially through the internet. The new media now available as a tool to all, without any kind of barriers, and equally serving the right and the wrong has immensely contributed towards a global social change engulfing us all; and at the pace with which it is growing, sooner than later, none of us would be left out.
Newer orders, with fewer restrictions, better connectivity and faster communications will enable us come out with our best. The positive outcome as a result is far more appealing than the bleak picture that some of us may want to paint.
Let the best of us come together, no matter from which corner of the world this belongs, after all we are one as mankind.

Keywords: Are they getting undue importance?

Pete Tuvol — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:11:27 +0000

In ancient ages people thought that the sun and stars revolve around the earth. It turned out to be otherwise. The same paradox applies to the web. Earlier we thought that search engines go around in web, but it seems the whole web has come to revolve around the search engines. Further inwards, keywords were meant to make rounds of search engines; but now it seems the whole search engine philosophy revolves around the keywords. Or, are we going wrong?
The web of earlier era was like free flowing and ever expanding galaxies within the earth’s ether. There were no restrictions. It let all the physical boundaries go burst and the blood of creativity flow. Going by the URLs was still the norm and people had URLs on the tips of their tongue or fingers.
This expansion was so rapid and beyond the ken of the common user. It became impossible for the users to keep track of websites sprouting at every node. The search engines woke up to the reality that users are looking for something to help them sort out searches and provide for one-point gateway to whatever they needed. That was the time search engines descended on the psyche of the net users.
Keywords became the master-key to get whatever information one needed on the web. The time since words became keywords, the direction of the revolution of the web reversed. Websites, networks, contents, blogs… everything started revolving around keywords. It has come to such a stage that we need to decide the keyword before jumping into the web-wagon. You must finalize your keyword before doing a search, designing a website or writing content.
Keywords provide you a cliff to go bungee jumping into the web. But ultimately, this cliff, platform or gateway has become more important than the web itself. It has curtailed the freedom of using the web and writing content, as search engines are using their spy-eyes to record every key-stroke. The search engine is also keeping track of the traffic. But it is interested in watching which vehicle you use rather than where you go.
Is too much emphasis being laid on the keyword? Agreed that key permits you to enter the house, but are we giving more importance to the key than the house?

Content Writing: Art or a Science?

Suhasini N — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:38:13 +0000

Changing mediums of communication have thrown open many new avenues within the field of writing; and content writing is the one amongst it that is much in demand and growing by every keyboard press. Though it is basically a type of writing, it has certain strict regulations. That creates a platform to discuss whether content writing should be treated as an art or a science.

It’s an art

There should not be any doubt that writing is an art form. Like dancing, painting and singing; writing is also regarded as one of the art forms since ages. Good and prolific writers are always revered like gurus by the disciples of writing. Content writing, basically being a type of writing, qualifies to be called an art.

The only feature of content writing that differentiates it from other types of writings is that it is for the electronic media. Traditional mediums like pen and paper are not availed for content writing. That does not mean that it does not need basic skills required for an art form. Like any other art form, flair for writing is born within and it cannot be inculcated from outside.

It is a science

Content writing does not have a freedom like other forms of writing. It has many limitations and techniques involved. Writing for specific readership, limitation of word length, use of keywords, and its density, creating hyperlinks, etc are some of the features of content writing that makes it more like a technique.

Unlike other types of writings that give you freedom to explore various aspects, content writing is basically done keeping specific readership and electronic media in mind. An author can give personal touches to the other types of writings, whereas content writing does not allow anything other than a professional touch.

Well, the debate is open for all. Do bring out your points of view.

Podcasting for Small Businesses

Suhasini N — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:15:27 +0000

What does it mean?

A podcast is a transmission of digital media files in audio, video or any other format, over the web. It is a series of many small parts that follow web syndication and can be downloaded. Like, on radio it is broadcast, on television, it is telecast; the same way on internet it is podcast.

Where did the term ‘podcast’ originate?

This term is a mix of two terms – the first part, pod, relates to the iPod, a popular portable media layer device by Apple Computers; and the second part, cast, is derived from broadcast. A British journalist, broadcaster and photographer, Ben Hammersley first mentioned this term in 2004 in one of his articles. He also suggested a few other names, but incidentally, ‘podcast’ caught on. Some others refer to it as Netcast as well.

What supports podcast?

Despite the name that has derived from iPod, the usage of podcasts is not restricted to this particular gadget. It can be played on any media player whether it is portable or system based like computers. Its format is easily accessible across playing platforms.

What are podcast types?

Though podcasts are mostly in user friendly MP3 file format; there are various types of podcast based on the format as well as what it contains.

An audio podcast is in simple audio format without any kind of video or graphics supporting it.

Similarly another popular type of podcast is video podcast. Sometimes it is also referred to as vodcast. It is mostly a video clip delivered online. Television serials that can be viewed through cable, a set top box or a computer, are all video podcast.

A podcast that contains an audio with simultaneous display of images is called as enhanced podcast. Images may be in the form of an artwork, animation or a recorded video. While playing podcast, all these are activated simultaneously within the window of the device on which it is being played. It is fast catching the fancy of one and all, as it enables audio and video to amalgamate and produce the required information. Educational institutes, business houses, entertainment producers are all vying for enhanced podcasts to achieve their purposes.

What is its utility?

Great! You have the sky – you display your flight skills now. What Podcast has been able to do is, given you an opportunity to be creative in a particular media. What you are able to make out of this – is your take.

Audio and video podcasts can give a whole new meaning for ways to delivering web content. This will also be able to generate better audiences since is based on multimedia. Providing viable and meaningful content using podcast would be a challenging task.

How we are able to make use of this space would be very interesting. Unlike the verbal scripted text there is less room for blah – blah – blah. Multimedia may be difficult creating, but it sure makes a better impact.

Audio and Video Podcasts can give a fresh and new meaning to the working of the World Wide Web.