Tag Archives: Internet

Reading The Web And The Magic F

9 Feb

A few pals of mine have just set up an IT and web strategy business – Bongo IT - back in my hometown of Oxford. They asked me to write a post for their blog and here it is, but you can read the post in full on their blog.

How you read the web – and 5 ways to improve your copywriting

I’ve got some bad news for you. Of all the brilliant, titillating and engaging online content that you are writing for your website, only 28% of those words are read by your audience. Web users don’t gorge over every word when they read the web, they scan for the information that they need. To optimize your copy, you need to understand how people read the web.

The F Word

Our eyes tend to read web pages with this dominant F pattern, rather than left to right, according to research by Neilson Norman. And what does that F mean? Fast, as we scan over pages in seconds, looking for the information we need. We read only two words, before we decide to commit to reading the entire page.

The dominant F

Link: nngroup f shaped reading pattern article

It’s not the same every time, but there is a trend of reading full length of the top bar, a second horizontal movement further down, and little scans dotted in the main copy. This shows how important titles & subheadings are in your content.

The first two paragraphs

If you have made it down this far – hurrah! You are probably one of the 16% of people who read websites word for word! The first two paragraphs are the most read parts of the article, people rarely tend to read beyond this. Make sure that your opening paragraph contains your article summary or conclusion and your first paragraph is a keeper. Keep it to a point per paragraph, and try to be as clear and concise as possible. If you are inserting dictionary hunting terms or words, you are doing it wrong.

The Left/Right divide

The web is the best place to lean-to the left, as 70% of words are read on the left hand side of the page, compared to 30% of words on the right. Take advantage of this trend with bullet point lists, and subheadings.

Slow scanning

The internet is no Jane Austin – we read the web very differently to books, novels or other documents. When we finally get down to it, we actually read 25% slower when we are online, and this is to do with how we scan for the information we are looking for, picking out individual words and sentences, often re-reading when we having found the information we need the first time around. Highlighting or bolding the important words, tips and keywords. will help your readers find the info they need.

A picture tells a thousand words

A phrase that have never been more true on the internet. How often have you clicked on an article because the image was so inviting? The more relevant images you can use to sell your content the better, as these are better for conveying information than any paragraphs. And if you want people to like it, put a gif on it.

beyonce superbowl

For more tips and info on writing better copy for your webpages, read more of Neilson’s research.

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Henry Jenkins on Spreadable Media

16 May
Jelly Jam on Bread by Roger's Wife

Jelly Jam on Bread by Roger’s Wife via Creative Commons on Flickr

This is not a blog post about Facebook on toast. Thank the lord. But rather a summary of some interesting points raised by Henry Jenkins on the topic of his new book, Spreadable Media. A well-respected professor of Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his latest research looks into what all internet marketers have striven to find in a magic formula, how and why certain forms of  digital media goes viral on the internet. Less of a masterclass and more of an exploration, here are some of the main interesting points I picked up from his recent talk at the University of Westminster on social media and sharing on the web.

  1. What is Spreadable Media? It’s exactly how it sounds. For Jenkins it’s a study of how media circulates around the web. Some bits of content are ‘sticker’ than others, some get spread far and wide, some stays in one place. One obvious and major example was the  Kony 2012 Youtube video by Invisible Children, with over 1 million views in just 4 days, second only to ripped footage of Susan Boyle, which took 7 days to attain the same number of hits. At time of writing this video was a little shy of 90 million views in a little over two months, the fastest spread video ever online. Why was it shared so much? Because there was a call to action at the end; “Above all, Share this movie online.It’s free.” The act of sharing allows people top put their own personal viewpoint on the content; a personal message in agreement or disagreement, and the contents status changes as it moves through the online space. Sharing is a stepping stone to other politically charged commitments, and socially engaged people are more likely to take part.
  2. Think like a  Dandelion.  Drawing on the ideas of science fiction writer and blogger Cory Doctrow, Jenkins notes if producers want their ideas to fly out into the world, we need to stop thinking like the mammals that we are, who keep their ideas close and are reluctant to share. But if we made our work easily copied and shared, those ideas will spread into the eyes who find it pleasing, and may eventually end up into the right hands where a commercial relationship can begin. Traditional exchange economies are not so valid for artists any more, and must look for other revenue streams.
Mike Arauz - Facebook Friends via lynneluvah creative commons on Flickr

Mike Arauz – Facebook Friends via lynneluvah creative commons on Flickr

  1. Grass-roots communities and Astroturf: Spreadable media to a group is like a grass-roots community, sharing content they are passionate about with each other for a shared experience and want. The first spreadable media form was the ‘zine from the traditional printing press over 150 years ago, sharing homemade fanzines via the post, which is still popular today. Personal opinions on what people think is good and ‘like’ has currency and has gained much ground. Web 2.0 isn’t as participatory as these analogue forms, but rather the friction between producers and users around what is wanted/needed from media that has produced this participatory culture. And what of the new ideas for Facebook users to be paid for sharing content with their friends on the web? Jenkins called this Astroturf, a fake sharing experience which is a sign of a struggle.
  2. Democracy Struggle: For the first time in history, people are able to fully reciprocate and get their voices heard. But it’s a preconception that the new media revolution will create a democracy that we have all been striving for. Instead, as referenced by the ideas of John Fiske, this new freedom is creating new struggles as we try to negotiate and understand this new media landscape. While there are 10 million active  Twitter users in the UK, more than are buying newspapers, there is still a participation gap; some people don’t have access to it, and some are still not using it meaningfully.
  3. A better education: Ending on a point that is often made by academics, Jenkins said that a better education is needed to make people, especially the youth, understand the best ways to make use of these new forms of communication. However, there are many barriers in our way. In thousands of schools and colleges in the UK, many social media sites are blocked to increase ‘productivity and learning’. Children are then forced to learn how to learn to communicate in these online spaces on their own, without any guidance, mentoring, or safe practice guides, which makes them vulnerable. Students need to be encouraged to be participatory online.

Now, when I make some new content, new questions will be in my mind to make me think about how it will be shared around the web. Why would people want to share this? What value can people add when sharing this? Can this idea be developed into something new? All good creative food for thought, which most importantly I’ll have to remember; ‘If it doesn’t spread, it’s dead.’

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Reading the Web – some stats

28 Sep

Today I attended a course on writing for the internet. It was very interesting and cemented most of my knowledge about online scanning and SEO keywords, but I found some tasty and enlightening stats that I thought I would share. Those looking for more info nuggets should also take a look at Jacob Nielson’s research on reading the web, which for me was also a new discovery.

What percentage of words are read on a webpage?

28 - Leo Reynolds on Flickr

28 - Leo Reynolds via Flickr

What percentage slower do we read webpages compared to physical documents/books/novels?

25 - Billa via Flickr

25 - Billa via Flickr

What percentage of online activity uses a search engine to find content?

80 - chrisinplymouth via Flickr

80 - chrisinplymouth via Flickr

What percentage of time is spent looking at the left/right sides of a webpage?

70 - duncan via Flickr          30 - Leo Reynolds via Flickr   

How many words of a paragraph do we read before we decide to read a entire webpage?

2 - Horrgakx via Flickr

2 - Horrgakx via Flickr

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Sherry Turkle at the London School of Economics: Alone Together

3 Jun

Last night I attended another fantastic talk at the London School of Economics by MIT professor Sherry Turkle. I was already familiar with her work from my university studies, but she was here in London to discuss the major themes in her latest book; ‘Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less from Each Other.’ Much of her work looks at the human relationship with computers and technology from a psychological perspective, with her earlier works identifying the persona we create using technology and the internet as the second self.

But 15 years ago, before commencing the research for this book, which focuses on the American family and cultural attitudes to technology in the social sphere, she admits that she didn’t expect our public technological personas to exist simultaneously with our private self. This is seen now more than ever, as we spend more time communicating with each other on social networks, avoiding any face-to-face contact with our nearest and dearest. As technology has improved our lives and created simpler modes of communication, we seem to communicate less, in short 140 character messages, and in turn dumb ourselves down also. She argues that our increased reliance on technology it putting the ‘self’ in conflict.

Through technology we enter ‘a zone’, removed from real life. Developers ‘plug in’ to a zone when they are coding. We log in to facebook to connect with others. We are fearful of being disconnected with the world as we know it, if we leave our phones at home we feel naked and without the internet we can not function in our everyday lives. Being forever connected with each other via technology promotes the idea that we can not survive our own solitude, although physically we are alone. People don’t even want to talk to each other in person. I don’t want to talk to people in person half most of the time, so much of these themes she discussed rang true with me.

Some people don’t have a problem with this. For some, the internet persona that we create is a much safer world to exist, where we can control our image by photoshopping our profile pictures and construct our identities through likes and links; “I share, therefore I am”. While this technology is seductive, and some would say is addictive, Turkle argues that it is in fact our perspective of the internet that is actually distorted, particularly as use the online sphere to experiment with our personalities more. We believe what we want to believe, thinking technology will solve our problems, choosing to ignore that the internet in it’s relatively infant state can be easily manipulated can actually cause more harm than good to it’s users. We need to moderate our relationship and dependencies with technology, and some of us defiantly need to have a diet.

Turkle listed many examples to back up her point, such as the World of Warcraft and a 15-year-old’s birthday party, but for me these ideas perfectly echo the themes of the film Catfish. In the film Yaniv, a photographer, by chance builds an online friendship with Abby, who sends him paintings. From this he forms a bond with her sister, who in reality *SPOILER ALERT* turns out to be Abby’s  mother. Angela builds this online life as an escapism is tragically intertwined with the solitude that she feels in her real life, projecting the feelings and the relationship she wants to have with Yuri. Together, they are very alone. The self is in crisis, and has to connect to others to feel safe.

While we may not know it, our relationship with technology allows others to take advantage of our basic human rights. The idea of privacy is a relatively new one, but is grounded by the ideals of democracy. Turkle finished by telling an anecdote of a recent webby award party, where a web luminary used Bentham’s panoptican to argue that privacy is a negative in today’s world as nobody should have anything to hide – which sounds suspiciously like the Zuckerberg school of thought. This is wrong. Everyone should be able to have private ideas and actions as this is what makes us free, and allows us to experiment and grow as people. Assuming people have something to hide criminalises people into self-regulation and is not the basis of a democracy, but a forced dictatorship. With society is forcing it’s own dependency on technology this is breeding ground for a potentially dangerous situation.

While her views may some strike some as dark and gloomy and portrays herself as a luddite, Turkle thinks her views should be seen as refreshingly distant from the utopian interpretation we view on technology. Her book isn’t to say that everything is wrong, but that something has gone a-miss, and we need to take urgent steps before our children have their personal freedom taken away, before it they even knew it existed.

For a better explanation of the ideas described here, check out Turkle’s recent TED talk.

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The DEBill – Flirting with the Devil

10 May

While this political story may be old news now, I wrote about this  issue to educate students about  the last act Labour rushed through parliament before the election. This was printed in the April issue of the Verse.

The DEBill – Flirting with the Devil

Draconian internet laws have been rushed through parliament.

The Internet is about to change forever. No longer will we have a fountain of knowledge and creative freedom at the ends of our fibre-optic fingertips. On 8th April, a new law was passed, allowing the government more control over what we read and do on the Internet. The bill that was passed was called the Digital Economy bill. While it may not come into effect until next year, and the next Government may drop some clauses, it will affect the way that we all interact with each other digitally.

The intention of the bill, proposed by Lord Peter Mandelson, was to regulate and control the country’s booming creative industry. However, many at the heart of such industries, particularly here in Brighton, met the bill with grave concern. The bill included sections about digital radio, Channel 4 as a public service, Broadband tax and illegal file-sharing. The Open Rights Group mounted a campaign encouraging people to write to their local MP, and over 20,000 letters were received. Many were concerned about the speed of which the bill was being passed through the government’s wash-up as the general election was called; it was debated for less than five hours by less than 30 MPs (out of a total 647) when a bill like this would normally receive over 80 hours of scrutiny in the Commons.

The most controversial are clauses 10-18, declaring that if anyone is even suspected of illegal file sharing their Internet is at risk of being completely cut off (although they will receive a warning letter first). The government is calling on ISPs to report on their users; if they fail to do so, they could face a fine of up to £250,000. It will be the responsibility of the owner of the internet connection to ensure that all who use it do so legally, be it the parents of a household of internet savvy children, or a public establishment such as universities or libraries. One area of concern while the bill was being discussed in the Commons was how universities would be able to monitor and control how students use the internet connection in halls of residence; should all students on the same connection suffer due to the acts of one individual? It became abundantly clear during discussions that MPs knowledge on digital media is severely lacking, particularly after a leaked document surfaced where the Digital minister and bill author Stephen Timms referred to IP as intellectual property, not its correct meaning of Internet Protocol.

The bill also proposed that the Government would have more power to shut down websites that it believes are infringing on copyright laws. One of the first websites believed to be shut down could be Wikileaks, who publish leaked official documents, thus reporting government and corporate misconduct. While one of the clauses proposing high court injunctions to shut down sites such as these was eventually withdrawn, the government has made it clear that they will accomplish this task by any other parliamentary means. The whole debate of shutting down websites and Internet connections in an increasingly digital age not only limits freedom of speech, but slows technological progress. This is concerning for an industry which is blossoming and carrying the country out of a recession.

However, there is a silver lining in this cloud, which came in the shape of clause 43 detailing what to do about orphan photographic works. The government suggested that if someone wants to use a photograph but could not find its author to obtain permission; they could pay a fee to the government and then be able to use the work in any way they wanted. This clause put at risk the livelihood of photographers across the country, as many could strip the photograph of its metadata and claim ignorance. This was something that both the Labour and the Conservative governments did quite brazenly in their vicious advertising campaigns. Both parties appropriated the image of Philip Glenister from the BBC series Ashes to Ashes. Permission to use the image was never asked, despite the authoring information being very obviously available. Thankfully, this clause was dropped.

Some call the bill a violation of human rights. Some say it is purely the voice of the music industry. Regardless of what people say, it is going to happen, so get internet-wise.

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Digital Economy Bill – a protest

16 Mar

Use the internet? This affects you. Read it.

This morning I awoke to find the news that the Digital Economy Bill has been passed through the house of Lords. I first heard about the proposal of the bill a few months ago and have been keeping my eyes peeled for any news on its developments. Now the bill has been passed through the House of Lords, it will be very quickly pushed through the commons as a law before the election, if not the whole process will have to start again. This news is being shoved under the carpet in a very immoral way (why is it below America getting high speed internet?), a public discussion is not being openly encouraged, which needs to happen.

For those that have not heard about the bill, being proposed by Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, you can read it here. To summarise, it’s main proposal is that anyone even suspected of illegal file-sharing will have their internet access cut off, even before trial. This bill has huge implications on our human rights, particularly for those working in any digitally creative industry were sharing their work virally is the only way to get noticed. It is controlling, draconian and only operating in the efforts of large multi-national businesses, echoing the musings of record companies affected by the rise of downloading. Cutting peoples internet is opposed by industry experts, giants such as Google, Facebook, internet service providers, as well as the British Library, but the bill is still being passed through.

What does it mean for you and I?

Say you are a student living in a house with 5 other people, sharing your internet. One of you gets suspected of downloading and your internet gets cut. Everyone in the building suffers due to the act of one individual. As more of our everyday activities become integral to the use of the internet, this could have a major affect on your degree studies, not to mention your life.

It doesn’t stop there. What about if a student downloads something from a uni or school computer, or one at a library? Then that whole institution suffers, as well as the people that depend on that place for access and personal technological development. Small businesses, whose’s access to the web is integral to their survival, would be forced to shut down. This is also if you are even suspected of file-sharing. What if you shared a file, that is by rights yours, but the internet police believe that you are engaging in an illegal activity?

The opening quote to ‘Steal this Film’ – which is a must see by anyone interested in this subject – quotes Paul Getty as saying “Data is the oil of the 21st century”. The sharing of information, ours or not, is essential to the progress of society. I am not saying that we should be allowed to steal the things we want, but knowledge is a powerful thing and sharing should be actively encouraged in the interests of social progress, not discouraged in the interests of capitalism.

Time is running out before the next election. I am encouraging everyone to write to their MP, urging them to make your feelings known when this bill is discussed in the commons. We need to resist this bill in the interests of our human rights, cultural endeavors and technological progress. This bill will only leave alot of people in the dark.

This website  makes writing to your MP really easy. It takes 10 minutes. Please do it –> 38 Degrees

“Good artists copy. Great artists steal.” – Pablo Picasso.

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