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When I was first developing corporate Web sites in 1994, business managers were asking how they would make any money or get business results from having a Web site. I’ve been in it from the very beginning and I remember the early years required a lot of evangelism to convince them. Case studies about online success from house hold brands began showing up in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. By 1998, we couldn’t build new Web sites quickly enough and there was a major shortage of professionals in the work force to keep up with demand.

In 2000, we were still building them, but the budgets dropped dramatically for Web site design after the tech stocks crashed and the events that followed such as 9/11. In 2001 and the early part of 2003, there were many starved Web design companies.

From mid 2002 to today, I’ve seen the majority of businesses suddenly wanting a total “redesign”. Budgets have been slowly increasing, but this time around companies are focused on using the Web to save money for their business. Content management, contact us forms, site search and other functionality changed from expensive extras to baseline offerings - and charging for premium services such as custom programming were replaced with open-source solutions or off-the-shelf products. Businesses wanted efficiency, automation, and real business results from their Web site with tools to measure success.

Having been through all the industry cycles before, my experience tells me that it will likely be several more years before Social Media is recognized as “mission critical” by a majority of businesses. We are still in early adopter mode. The mad rush for more businesses to “get in the game”, with dramatic increases in budgets and another shortage of specialized professionals to design, develop and manage social media initiatives will likely hit a peak in 2012.

If you’ve ever been to a Red Sox game in Fenway park, you are very likely to hear the fans chanting, “Yankees Suck” at some point during the game. It often doesn’t matter if we’re playing against the Twins, the Jays, the Rays or the NY Chokers themselves, you have a very good chance of hearing this unofficial Beantown mantra.

So, upon seeing the Yankees die in the first round again, I was quite inspired to write (and record) a song.  After getting positive feedback from friends and a few local radio stations, I decided to post it up on YouTube and share it with other Sox fans.

After my video was up and running the votes and comments started to trickle in. That’s when I noticed a link that says, “Try out the NEW (beta) version of this page!”

…click.  Oh okay!

The first change is to the video details and a greater emphasis on the author who created and posted the video.  In the old version, it has a button that says “subscribe”. The problem is that it’s difficult to see what you are actually subscribing to, so they fixed this bad UI, by putting the user’s name again in tiny print under the button. In the new Beta version, the authors name is much larger and the subscribe buttons are both in a separate box which allows the user to see who they are subscribing to.

In the old version they had a 3-tab section for containing “Related videos”, “More from this User” and “Playlists”. In the new version, they are stacked on top of each other.  I found this to be more effective because the user can see everything at once or they could expand or collapse them quite easily.

Another change is a 2nd column on the far right of the screen that offers yet another list of promoted videos, which made the old design look cluttered and messy. The new beta version is cleaner because the promoted videos are at the bottom of the stack and the user can see them pretty easily… especially if there is a string of several comments to scroll through.

Lastly, the rating aspect under the main video has been simplified with larger icons in the new beta design, which leaves more room for the embed code.  I like that they have moved the embed code to this location. Before it used to be under the author’s name which didn’t make sense to me.

In the new Design, you will find the following benefits:
-    Everything pertaining to the user  (subscribe, bio, edit features) is all in one place.
-    Everything for the video is under the video (share, favorite, ratings and embed code)
-    Cleaner overall, does not require as many tiny-font helper text

Good job YouTube (powered by Google)

Originally posted on WeAreSmarter.org. Myles is a guest blogger for the WeAreSmarter project.

Business networking and Social Media leader, LinkedIn added a long-awaited feature where you can add a photo to your LinkedIn profile. It offers the general browse/upload functionality, but one of the coolest features is the ability to resize and crop the photo before loading it into your profile. It also allows you to select who gets to see your photo. The choices are: Everyone, My Network, My Connections, or No one.

My question is: If you select “No one”, and it won’t be visible to anyone except for yourself, then why would you load a photo in the first place? I’m not sure what the thinking would be behind a setting like this. Over all, I love this feature.

The only challenge I had was taking a photo of myself that I could be happy with. Should I wear a suit and neck tie to look more like the President-elect of the AMA? Or maybe I should wear some Redsox swag to show my support for the home team? Well, in the end, I just went with whatever I was wearing at the time… a t-shirt and a hat with the owl from the tootsie-roll pop commercial on the front. Sometimes the best costume is the one that fits.

Technorati Tags: social networkingweb 2.0social networks

MySpace has revealed plans to create a mobile version of their online social network. It will be free for users through advertising by Fox Interactive Media and Millennial Media. At first advertising will be limited to Fox but should be opened to others by the end of the year.

Here is a quote from a Financial Times interview:

“Accessing the Internet from a mobile phone will soon be as common as text messaging and voice calling, and it’s FIM’s goal to deliver these new free, ad-supported experiences as additional options for our users on top of our incredibly popular premium mobile services,” said John Smelzer, Senior Vice President and GM of Mobile for Fox Interactive Media.

As Mr. Smelzer suggests, mobile phones will help people be more connected to their Space by sending and receiving MySpace messages and friend requests; commenting on pictures and profiles; posting bulletins; updating blogs; finding and searching for friends; and viewing or changing mood status.

Technorati Tags: socialmediamyspacesocial networkingweb 2.0

MyQuire is a new social project management site where you can work on projects by yourself or with a team. The company will make its public debut at the DEMOfall 07 conference starting today, September 24-26 in San Diego, California. I decided to have a look for myself before they unveil it today.

If a user is interested in using the MyQuire platform, they get you started by having you create a profile for yourself. It is less than a daunting task to enter the basics (name, email address, a password and your birth day), so getting through this step and clicking on the verification email seem quite speedy enough.

I find it interesting that your profile is at the center of the MyQuire universe. This “profile” approach is typical for social media sites, but it differs from the approach of other Web 2.0 project management applications like, Basecamp, which focuses on the details needed to start and manage your project.

In terms of understanding the audience, I would say that Basecamp potentially delivers a user experience that more closely matches what a user expected; and certainly does so more quickly. It will be interesting to see if this difference has any impact on their success… especially for people who have use other Web 2.0 project management platforms before.

Technorati Tags: project managementmyquirebasecampsocialmedia

Hillary Clinton launched a new ad to the Web that faded to black just like the final episode of the Sopranos.

The video drew more than a million viewers to the Clinton campaign Web site and to YouTube, which further illustrates the growing reliance by some of the more technologically savvy campaigns to connect with voters online.

In the new Clinton clip, Hillary Clinton, like Tony Soprano, spins through the musical selections in a diner in Mt. Kisco, N.Y., near her home in Chappaqua, as Bill asked her about the campaign and song winner.

The Soprano touches are subtle but perfectly obvious to any fan of the series. Nicely done.

Technorati tags: hillary clintonhillary-clintonsopranosyoutube