Error Forum Blog

First of all, I have to make a disappointing confession: this is not a Web 2.0 tutorial - but fear not, at least the logical and absolutely valid question to this dilemma (i.e. why the hell is the article entitled ‘Web 2.0 tutorial’ then?) will be provided.

Although this blog’s tagline is ‘Ruby, Rails, Web2.0′ and I am blogging/planning to blog about all these topics in the future, I did not have an exclusively-and-only-about-Web2.0 post yet (as far as I remember). That’s why it strikes me odd that according to google analytics, a lot of people are finding this site via the keyword combination ‘Web2.0 tutorial’. This post was inspired by them and for them!

Since this trend is nearly as old as this blog - and it seems to continue, and even rise as time goes by - I am now really curious what the heck are people imagining behind the term ‘Web2.0 tutorial’. Why? Well, there are more reasons to ponder about:

• Nobody knows what Web 2.0 actually is (or if does, the others don’t agree ). Since coined by Tim O’Reilly back in 2005, ‘Web 2.0′ has been redefined, argued about, glorified, despised, parodied, upgraded to Web 3.0, regarded as vapor, bubble etc. (and who knows what else…) countless times - just one thing did not happen: A commonly accepted, concise (or even lengthy) definition with which everybody would agree. You won’t find anybody interested in the Web today who would not have his own definition associated with Web2.0 - however, these definitions (although more overlapping and similar than ever) will be varying from person to person.
• The conjunction itself is kind of absurd - even if we accept that there is a common understanding of the term ‘Web2.0′, it definitely has more facets: Look (Apple aqua reinvented, round corners galore, reflections of reflections etc), social aspect (digg, del.icio.us, youTube, myspace et al), theoretical backend (ontologies, folksonomies, openAPIs, microformats, mashups etc), standards (XHTML (2.0! ), RDF, FOAF, ATOM, SVG, SOAP), innovative ways of communication and catering to the users (WS, REST, Podcasts, Videocasts), typical Web2.0-purpose pages (wikis, blogs), development tools and frameworks (AJAX, Ruby on Rails, …) and other buzzwords
• Even if we define Web2.0 as a collection of the things from the previous point, the term ‘Web 2.0 tutorial’ is too broad-sense to get you too much relevant results (I believe - maybe some smart webmasters engaged in the ways of SEO tricking found out the carving after a Web2.0 tutorial already and wrote up a few for you ). Just as someone would not search a ‘programming language tutorial’ (but a ‘Ruby tutorial’ instead) or a ’sport tutorial’ (rather a ’squash tutorial’), searching after a real ‘Web2.0 tutorial’ could be ineffective, too. I suggest to look for ’rounded corners tutorial’, ‘mashup tutorial’ or ‘Ruby on Rails tutorial’ etc. instead. Additionally, if you are really keen on Web2.0-ness of these documents, don’t forget to add ‘Web2.0′ to the query - just in case .
• Related to the previous point: attack the problem from bottom up rather than the other way around - i.e. try to look for solutions of concrete problems and assemble them into a Web2.0 style whatever once you are done, rather than trying to do something which is Web2.0 in the first place. In my opinion you should think like ‘I would like to create a great mashup in Ruby on Rails with AJAX and a Web2.0 look - how should I go about this?’ rather than ‘Let’s see a good Web 2.0 tutorial and then I will cook something great’. You should strive for creating great looking websites with great content and functionality, and people will like it and use it - whether you call it Web2.0, Web3.0 or whatever - even if the URL of the site will be www.thissiteisnotweb2.0.com .

Now that I have mentioned ‘Web2.0′ and ‘Web 2.0 tutorial’ more times in this article, I guess I’ll be receiving even more hits through this query - though this was definitely not the reason for writing this article. However, if you already got this far, please take a few seconds and share with us your thoughts on this. After all Web2.0 is also about collaboration, you know. Heck, I might even write a few Web2.0 tutorials in the future - just tell me what a ‘Web2.0 tutorial’ means

A friend of mine and a skilled developer, Marc-André Ross from DevTaxi, did a great review of Web 2.0 forms and I think it’s worth reading! So here it goes:

I decided to review the registration forms from most of the sites that made it to the invaluable Web 2.0 Awards.

Most of the registration forms were very disappointing.

• Some will validate on submit, but will display very unclear messaging to the user when an error occurred
• Some look like an entry form to the FBI (Yahoo!)
• Some display the password in clear text in the form!
• Most of the registration forms had no JavaScript / AJAX validation at all.

My Recommendations

• What can be validated through JavaScript should be done on submit or on change (email, password match, password strength)
• What can be validated through AJAX (username availability, email already registered) is a nice to have
• On submit, all errors will be reported at once with invalid fields highlighted, instead of stopping after each error found
• Each field’s requirements should be displayed near the field
• Focus should be clearly changed to inform the user of the error to be corrected (focus to the first error found in the form)
• Error messages should be clearly visible. Different colors for errors than positive feedback. Feedback containers should be positioned in such a way the form doesn’t shift down when messages are changed.
• An input’s background and border color should be changed (to red) on error and its border to bold when focused.
• Terms should be “Sign in” and “Register”. I find “Sign in” and “Sign up” too confusing. Where do I start again? Oh, that X at the top right
• Use labels in your forms!

A Few Good Examples:

1.Validates inputs on change, suggests improvements / errors.  Not visually attractive.

• http://blummy.com/register.php
• http://www.newsvine.com/_tools/new/user

2.Simple and efficient

• http://looklater.com/do/createaccount
• http://eventful.com/register

3.Nicely designed, good level of feedback to the user

• https://secure.fluxiom.com/signup/private

4.I like the information provided to the user for each input

• http://multiply.com/user/join/

Again, thanks Marc-Andre. Do you guys have any other recommendations or suggestions?

Seth Godin keeps a running total, based on Alexa  data.

On a related note, Search Engine Journal has an excellent article about Yahoo’s acquisition of MyBlogLog:

“MyBlogLog is a hybrid between a blog analytics solution and a social networking environment which has recently swept the blogging world by storm. A ‘MySpace for bloggers’, MyBlogLog lets registered members congregate around communities set up by those members or the blog owners themselves“

MyBlogLog was #47 on Seths chart.

You have a hot story, you write it as fast as you can, and hit the publish button, only to notice that there is an error in the post.

Your blogging software has already notified Feedburner, and most likely Feedburner have already picked up your feed, and using their Pingshot feature, have already notified lots of sites to come and index your feed or site.

What can you do?

Refresh Feedburner

• First of all, you need to edit your post. My most frequent mistake is forgetting to include tags with a post, so it is not as vital to update as soon as possible, because it might take a while before Technorati comes calling.
• Secondly you need to visit Feedburner. Their preferred method is for you to reping your blog.
• I have tried using the ping option, but often I am in a rush. One of the primary reasons is that RSS readers like Google Reader typically only cache one copy of your feed. Under “Troubleshootizeâ€? there is an option for Resync. Hit that button and the copy of your feed stored by Feedburner is fixed, almost immediately.



• I have a bookmark to resync my most active blogs

Technorati Pings

Technorati provide for a way to have a bookmark to ping them. It is not very useful if you have multiple blogs to have that many bookmarks.

Some time ago I hacked together this little Javascript Widget which can Ping Technorati for any site you are currently viewing. This isn’t something that Technorati provide on their own widget page.
You can just drag that widget to your bookmarks and click it to ping Technorati for any site.