Bright Cloud Consulting — Web Writing, Design, Usability Consulting

Introducing Bright Cloud Consulting

September 13th, 2007 · Comments Off

Comments OffTags: Blogging

The 20 most beautiful college campuses

August 15th, 2007 · 1 Comment

Afternoon diversion… Is your campus on the list?

http://campussqueeze.com/static/20-Most-Beautiful-Colleges.html

Despite the selection of Pepperdine as #1, and Loyola Marymount at #3 (odd choice for me — there are several prettier campuses in CA), I think there’s some East Coast/South East bias here!

→ 1 CommentTags: Higher education · Diversion

Is content finally king?

August 15th, 2007 · No Comments

Recent research by Online Publishers Association (OPA) indicates that Web users are spending more time engaging with Web content (news, information and entertainment), and a bit less time on communications (e-mail, forums), e-commerce and search sites.

The trend toward content consumption is marginal at this point, but perhaps an indication that rich, interactive content like video and blogs is drawing and keeping users’ attention. I wonder, too, if RSS is having an impact — perhaps by tethering visitors to content sites more effectively?

→ No CommentsTags: RSS · Content

Find of the week: Do-it-yourself RSS feeds with Feed43

June 6th, 2007 · No Comments

Is your organization stuck with static Web pages that don’t support RSS feeds? Are you too strapped for cash to upgrade to an RSS-capable publishing system? Thanks to a new Web service called Feed43, you don’t have to wait on the RSS sidelines any longer. Feed43 (loosely pronounced “Feed for free”) allows you to turn ANY Web page into an RSS feed. Link to the feed from your Web site and visitors can subscribe to your content from their favorite RSS readers.

The Feed43 system allows you to specify precisely the content on any particular page that should be included in a feed. So if, for example, you have a static HTML news page, you can set up an RSS feed that captures your latest updates. The same goes for photo albums, event calendars, or any other changeable content that you would like to push to your visitors through RSS.

Did I lose you at “RSS?” Watch this excellent three-minute, plain-English explanation of RSS.

→ No CommentsTags: RSS

Common Sense Usability Reminders

May 30th, 2007 · No Comments

Check out 10 Web-usability reminders from Cre8pc. While you’ve likely heard several of these before, it never hurts to brush up on some basic usability standards. I’ve noticed that nonprofits are particularly prone to committing ever-so-annoying faux pas #8: springing PDFs on users with warning.

→ No CommentsTags: Design · Usability

Org 2.0

May 26th, 2007 · No Comments

You’ve heard a lot about Web 2.0, but these nonprofits are redefining Org 2.0. This list of innovative .orgs has been around for a few months, but I just stumbled across it for the first time. I was amazed by some of the creativity and resourcefulness exhibited by these sites — especially in the use of free social-networking/media tools.

Click through to see the plexo

→ No CommentsTags: Web 2.0 · Social networking · nonprofit

Five Common CMS Mistakes

May 23rd, 2007 · No Comments

Having managed Web content at a university for several years, I’ve learned a few painful lessons about working with content management systems (CMS). There are many great reasons to invest in a CMS, and steering clear of these common pitfalls will save you from a lot of unnecessary headaches along the way.

1. Letting IT choose your CMS

Don’t get me wrong; your IT folks needs to be part of the CMS-selection team. Their expertise is essential in finding a solution that will work with your organization’s existing technologies– they’ll be the ones installing and configuring the software, after all. But too often IT is exclusively charged with selecting a CMS vendor, and the communications team and end users aren’t consulted until it’s time to start using the new system.

Is Web 2.0 Going the way of Web 1.0?

May 15th, 2007 · No Comments

Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen criticized Web 2.0 as trendy and overhyped in a recent BBC interview, and warned that Web 2.0 sites risked falling into the “glossy but useless” Web design mold of the dotcom era. He says that in the rush to adopt Web 2.0 technologies, Web professionals are “neglecting good design.”

I have mixed feelings about Nielsen’s criticisms. He is famously cranky about new technologies; he has routinely railed against the use of Flash, and judging by his own sparse Web site, Nielsen considers even jpegs to be extravagant clutter. So, in many ways, his skepticism about Web 2.0 is unsurprising–and even a little endearing. Like an aging writer’s insistence on using a typewriter, Nielsen’s commitment to HTML austerity is charming, a little eccentric and possibly a bit passé at this point.

So what is RSS, anyway?

May 10th, 2007 · No Comments

Are you having difficulty getting folks in your institution to understand the importance of providing RSS feeds? Does your boss stare at you blankly when you talk about subscribing to blogs? Chances are your colleagues have heard of RSS, but have only a vague notion of how it works. This low-tech video is a great introduction to the world of RSS… make it mandatory viewing in your next meeting!

Click To Play

→ No CommentsTags: Web 2.0 · RSS

5 Ways to Use Flickr as a Higher-Ed Marketing Tool

April 10th, 2007 · No Comments

Flickr is everybody’s favorite photo-sharing Web site, home to millions of professional portfolios, wedding albums and baby snapshots. Yet Flickr’s potential as a viral marketing tool–especially for higher education–has not yet been explored by most institutions.

Flickr was one of the earliest distinctly “Web 2.0” sites, and is still a standard-bearer for clean design and tightly-integrated social-networking features. There are several great reasons to use Flickr as a marketing tool for your organization, including ease of use, cost (virtually free) and unlimited bandwidth, just to name a few.

Here are five ways that you can use Flickr to reach new audiences and create a richer online experience for your existing community: