Digital Communications Past, Present and Future

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Digital CommunicationsPast, Present and Future

• How fast are we going?

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Presentation Overview

• My Background
• The Internet Dream vs. Reality
• Where we are Today
• New Trends
• Website Fundamentals
• Marketing Challenges
• Technical Challenges
• Keys to Success

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My Background
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Timeline

• My Internet Timeline
• 1985 Introduced to computers
• 1989/90 Comp. Sci at science fairs from 3 to 6
  entrants
• 1990 Windows 3.0 ships
• 1992 Purchased 2400 Baud Modem
• 1993 Goderich through Wingham in an online
  network
• 1994 Connected our network to Internet
• 1995 Netscape goes public, Windows 95
• 1996 Started in industry
• 1998 Began exploring e-commerce
• 1999 Google founded
• 2000 Bubble burst
• 2001 Founded rTraction Canada, Inc.
• 2005 rTraction doubles staff from 2004

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What is rTraction?

• rTraction is
• A custom software development company
  specializing in web programming, content
  management, and e-commerce
• Formed in 2001, bought out London office of
  TDG/Agribiz.net
• Our Goal 100 Referable Business

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Internet Dream vs. Reality
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Where it was going

• Initial predictions
• Projections for the year 2002 between USD200 to
  USD300 billion (Forrester and Jupiter) 1
• CEO of Cisco Systems, John Chambers, reckoned
  that figure would be closer to 1 trillion. 1
• At Networld 98, industry analyst Nicholas Lippis
  announced that online commerce would generate USD
  1.5 trillion of US GDP by 2002.1
• 1 www.netvalley.com

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Where it has ended up

• 2002 45.6 Billion, 1.3 of GNP2
• Predictions off by 150 to 1,450 billion
• Why the discrepancy?
• Online retailers/start-ups did not do the
  research that traditional retailers have done to
  understand consumer
• Concerns about security
• Desire for instant gratification
• Social aspect of shopping
• So how are we doing now?
• Q2 2005 21 Billion, 2.2 of GNP2 2
  www.census.gov

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Where we are Today
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Life with the web

• Consider a day without online
• Banking
• Maps
• Downloaded (legally!) Music
• Weather (what is Wilmas projected path?)
• News
• Dilbert Comics
• Kids clothes from eBay
• Online book purchases
• Product information
• Research (Google)

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and thats just the web

• Other electronic communications
• Email
• Instant Messaging
• AOL 51.5 Million users
• MSN 27.3 Million users
• Yahoo 21.9 Million users
• Corporate Intranets
• Voice Over IP (VOIP)
• Video Conferencing
• And what exactly is a Blog?

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New Trends
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To Blog or not to Blog

• The term Blog comes from Weblog-a log of
  websites and information
• Term Weblog may have been coined by Jorn Barger
  in 19973
• Blog by Peter Merholz in 1999 by posting We
  Blog on his site3
• What is a Blog?
• A blog is your easy-to-use web site, where you
  can quickly post thoughts, interact with people,
  and more.4
• 3 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogging 4
  www.blogger.com

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Impact of Blogs

• Blogger.com was purchased by Google in 2003
• Live Journal has 8.6 million journals, 2.6
  activeover 278 posts per minute
• Different types of Blogs
• News/Politics
• Personal
• Health/Literary/Travel
• Legal (Blawgs)
• Religious/Educational
• Corporate Microsoft, Google, etc

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What is a BLAWG?
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Rathergate

• Sep 9, 2004, Bloggers respond to documents used
  in a report by Dan Rather regarding President
  Bushs Air Guard Service
• Within 72 hours a group of bloggers had built
  evidence that they were likely forgeries
• Dan Rather eventually steps down as CBS anchor
  chair

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After Blogs Got Hits, CBS Got a Black Eye

• It was like throwing a match on kerosene-soaked
  wood. The ensuing blaze ripped through the media
  establishment as previously obscure bloggers
  managed to put the network of Murrow and Cronkite
  firmly on the defensive.
• The secret, says Charles Johnson, is "open-source
  intelligence gathering." Meaning "We've got a
  huge pool of highly motivated people who go out
  there and use the tools to find stuff. We've got
  an army of citizen journalists out there."
• Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post
• Sep 20, 2004

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Importance of Blogs

• Thomas L. Friedman, reporter for New York Times
  writes
• I see self-organizing collaborative
  communities most vividly in the news profession,
  where bloggers, one-person online commentators,
  who often link to one another depending on their
  ideology, have created a kind of open-source
  newsroom. I now read bloggers as part of my daily
  information gathering routine.

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From Blog to Pod

• The evolution of Blogging may be Podcasting
• Podcast is iPod Broadcast
• Digital Media allows consumers to download
  Podcast snippets to listen to on personal
  computers, media players and of course iPods.
• Podcasts gain loyal following in the same way
  radio hosts do, without FCC or other regulatory
  interference

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Podcasting

• Sep 28, 2004 24 hits on Google
• Oct 18, 2004 100,000
• Sep 2005 61 million
• Examples of Podcasting
• John Edwards first US Politician, March 2005
• iTunes adds support for podcasting, June 2005
• George W. Bush weekly radio addresses, July 2005

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What is a Wiki?

• Wikipedia
• User maintained encyclopaedia
• 777,000 English articles
• 1,244,000 other language articles
• Founded Jan 2001
• Written collaboratively by volunteers
• Given enough eyeballs, all errors are shallow
  Larry Sanger
• Concept still unproven use with caution
• Can provide valuable reference points

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Voice over what?

• Voice Over IP (VOIP)
• Calling Video conferencing now built into Yahoo
  Messenger
• Skype, a tool specifically built for Internet
  voice video communication has been recently
  purchased by eBay
• Infrastructure is now an inexpensive commodity,
  enabling rich content

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Wireless

• Bell Telus launching new wireless high-speed
  service in 2006
• Largest Wi-Fi Cloud is in Rural Oregon
• Morrow County
• Spans 2,000 square miles
• 11,000 people
• Not a single stop light
• Completely wirelessused to maintain emergency
  communication for USAs largest stockpile of Cold
  War-era chemical weapons

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What does all this mean?

• Traditional media is being enhanced, modified, or
  replaced
• Blogs/Podcasting vs. Traditional Media
• Wireless vs. land-lines
• Instant messaging vs. voice
• E-Commerce greater of GNP
• Mentality shift
• 1990s/2000s Need a website because competitors
  will have one
• 2004/2005 Need to use your website to be
  relevant in new media

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Website Fundamentals
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Website Fundamentals

• Key points to a successful site
• Define the audiencewho is going to use your
  site? Why? What are the technological and visual
  needs of your audience?
• Easy to use? Easy to find information?
• Is it fast?
• Is it up to date?
• Does it encourage users to interact with you?
• So who does this best?

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The Winner
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Runner Up
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Honourable Mention
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Marketing Fundamentals
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Marketing Fundamentals

• People buy from People
• People buy from companies/websites that they
  trust
• People will continue to surf as long as they are
  finding relevant informationif not, they will
  leave
• 1 page/visit 10
• 1-2 pages/visit 54
• 2-3 pages/visit 17
• More than 10, 35 5 onestat.com

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Robarts Homepage

• Front-line
• Constantly updates
• Allows Robarts to publish news in highly visible
  area
• Flash animation on home page
• Shows aspects of Robartsa white board,
  scientists, patients and the buildings

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Robarts - Navigation

• Fly-up Navigation does not interfere with the
  content of the website
• Tiered-system allows users to easily find
  information they are searching for
• Animated menus give sense of movement

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Robarts - People

• Key areas of site present key photos of staff
• Scientist page has photos of the people doing the
  work
• Brings a level of humanity to a research-based
  site

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rTraction Home page

• Main home page focus
• Client case study
• Latest News
• Focus of site is on the work that we doshowing
  rather than explaining

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rTraction Portfolio Page

• Most developed area of the site
• Provides detailed information about our
  involvement with our clients
• Some clients have enhanced Case Studies that
  provide more in-depth information

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Todays Trucking

• Todays truckingmember/subscription based site
• Collecting information on subscribers is key
  focus
• Advertising to subscribers based on data is key
  revenue

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Technical Challenges
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Technical Challenges

• Battle of the Browsers
• Backend Integration/Content Management
• Search Engine Rankings
• Security / Credit Card Transfers
• Disability Guidelines Funding(?)
• Multi-lingual
• Screen resolutions
• Flash

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Battle of the Browsers

• The good news There are industry standards for
  how HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and XML
  should be interpreted
• The even better news All major browsers attempt
  to implement these industry standards
• The bad news that makes all the good news
  irrelevant Browsers implement these standards
  differently

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Battle of the Browsers Stats
Source GVU WWW User Survey (1996 1998)Janco
Associates (1999 2001)Onestat.com (2002 2005)
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Content Management

• A Content Management System (CMS) allows
  non-technical staff to maintain website content
• By making websites easier to maintain, websites
  are kept up to date by key stakeholders in an
  organization

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Search Engine Rankings

• Google dominates
• Google 57
• Yahoo 21
• MSN Search 9
• AOL 3.26
• Google has complex listing calculation, factors
  heavily into who is linking to your site
• Getting listed in Google can take 6 months time
  is reduced if trusted resource links to your
  site
• 6 onestat.com

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Screen Resolutions

• lt 19 of users are 800 x 600 or lower
• 81 of users are 1024 x 768 or higher7
• Do you set your site to
• Expand to fit the width of a screen?
• Harder to implement
• Images are more difficult in navigation
• Fix the width of a site
• A 800 x 600 site floats in higher resolutions
• 7 onestat.com

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Flash

• Pros
• Can be used in 98 of browsers
• Can greatly enhance the presentation of a website
  (IE Robarts, Todays Trucking)
• Increases the interactivity of a website, the
  user plays more on the site
• A well done Flash element increases the
  professionalism of a site
• Combines audio, video, animation and text

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Flash

• Cons
• Flash can be over done
• Beware the Skip Intro button
• Search engine rankings may suffer
• Search results may be low for a page written in
  Flash due to search engine algorithms
• Versioning can be a challengenewer flash
  (version 5 and higher) may not be compatible with
  previous versions
• Know your target audience lower-tech users may
  resent flash

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Keys to Success
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Keys to Success

• Communication Plan
• Know your objectives for the site
• Know your target audience
• How do you communicate with them?
• What are their audio, visual, disability needs
• Analyse your statistics
• Statistics can tell you what users are looking
  for on your websiteit may not be what you think!
• and most importantly

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Have a Good Team!

• A Successful website incorporates
• Communication Staff
• Project Management
• Visual Creative Designer
• Technical Implementer/Integrator
• IT Team/Service Provider to host the finished
  website
• Key staff to keep website up to date, fresh with
  content and manage continual improvement

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Thank you!

• I will now answer any questions.