When it comes to organizing content for your website, pretend you’re a composer or an arranger. You write for various sections in an orchestra to make a piece of music—a symphony or maybe an orchestral soundtrack—that’s pleasing to the ear. You have some idea about what you want it to sound like. You think of ways to break that idea into meaningful, memorable parts. Your goal is to fit all the parts together into one harmonious whole.

When you’re coming up with content for your website, it’s no different. You want to keep in mind what’s going on elsewhere so your information isn’t redundant or missing or overemphasized. Like a concertmaster’s solos, or recurring themes in a piece of music, you’ll want your messages properly positioned and linked or reinforced in ways that readers will intuitively understand.

When you’re at a concert, do you think about the structure of the music that you’re hearing? If the composers have done their job right, you won’t even be aware of structure. Your attention will go straight to the music.

Likewise, if the navigation and content of a website are well thought out, users (readers) will be unaware of the architecture and go straight—and effortlessly—to the information they’re looking for.

Comparing web writing to music is just one metaphor for web content creation and development. The important thing is to jump in and look carefully at everything you want to say and why, where and how you want to say it.

The further we have dug into this research the more we have come to realize that governments need to change their online approach as well as the way they do business. With shrinking budgets, aging employees and a skeptical public that is becoming more educated, governments need to adjust quickly or risk further tarnishing their credibility.

Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital, wrote the foreword for a new book called Open Government. He says, “it is the next wave of innovation that presents a historic occasion to fundamentally redesign how government operates; how and what the public sector provides; and ultimately, how governments interact and engage with their citizens. It is truly a time when either government will play an active role in its own transformation, or change will happen to it.”

For governments to control their own destiny online, they will need to follow the three pillars of a good website which I presented at zu’s One Government sessions last week (#1gov).

The first pillar is to adopt human-centred design. Too many government sites are built around the structure of government. Citizens do not care who the Deputy Mininster is or who reports to the Mayor. They care about booking a camping spot or paying their power bill. For One Government to work, websites need to be developed from a user perspective. Focus should be on the user, not the technology.

The second pillar for effective One Government is to create a unified vision in every department. This has nothing to do with the website, but rather with internal communications. Governments, like large companies, operate in vertical silos where staff communicate with their superiors and underlings. Imagine if they started communicating with their colleagues. They would save time and money, and provide an enhanced user experience.

The third pillar is to go where the people are. Governments that are still publishing print pieces and doing billboard campaigns are wasting money. For a fraction of the cost you can hit a larger audience online. More people, lower cost: makes sense to most people doesn’t it?

Of course, I have glossed over most of the details of the three pillars for an effective One Government. If you want to learn more, drop me a line and let’s talk. We are living in a once-in-a-lifetime period for government right now and we should all try to get it right.

Every few weeks I find myself making the trek to different corners of the city: north for K&M Sewing, east for the Centre Mall SportChek, and south for Salon Twist. I’ll even tolerate downtown parking for The Cupcake Conspiracy.

Why? Because of the amazing experiences the experts at these businesses consistently deliver. I trust these experts because of what they do, what they know and how they understand that customer service is more than just fulfilling a need. They get what it means to be totally frickin’ amazing.

• Kim at K&M Sewing measures both leg lengths each time and delivers perfect euro jean hems – always with a huge grin on her face.
• Kris at SportChek patiently spends 2+ hours discussing running shoe arch, size and even colour, all to ensure my satisfaction each time I wear the chosen pair.
• Melissa, owner of Salon Twist, uses her UK training and sunny persona to craft precision cuts and ensure a pampered, relaxing escape.
• Christin, co-owner of The Cupcake Conspiracy , sells delectable treats within a lush décor. Her cheerfulness and mouth-watering cupcake goodness create an amazing indulgence that keeps me coming back for more.

Driven by a love for what they do, Kim, Kris, Christin and Melissa combine their expertise, consistent service delivery, and unique selves to craft an intangible magic that makes each interaction amazing.

At zu, we strive to not only deliver this same level of service to our clients but to also extend that experience to an interactive presence. We help businesses create amazing online experiences for their customers and that deliverable begins with our own customer interaction.

We want to give our clients the entire ‘zu’ difference, and to wow them each and every time with our expertise, consistency and passion for the interactive world. This helps build trust in what we do and in what we deliver. It’s all part of the magic that happens at 303 Pacific – we strive to achieve Job One so we can help you be totally frickin’ amazing.

This screen capture from the I-Metrix brochure displays the concurrent presentation of financials for Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, and Dell generated from the XBRL feeds from Edgar Online. This type of tool will greatly accelerate the data gathering process for potential investors from hours to minutes.

Soon the ‘go-to’ description of your enterprise will become the equivalent of a food label nutrition chart in a ‘just the facts’ approach to providing information.

Here we can compare two brands of chocolate chip cookies.

But is this how we buy food? By only looking at these measurables? We all know that, despite the similar make-up of these products, they don’t taste the same and one will be more successful than the other.

The reasons for success may be better explained in the story that goes with the product then in the nutritional performance data.

When XBRL allows your company to be compared side-by-side with its peers in a generic GAAP-compliant view, such as those provided conveniently by I-Metrix, then what is the next step in the analysis? What’s missing?

What will increasingly matter on the Internet and on your website will be the ‘other stuff’, not the financial reporting. It will be the story the CEO tells investors in person. When he’s running the conversation he isn’t reading XBRL to the audience, he’s adding the context, the long-term strategy, and the positioning explaining markets, outlook, competitive advantage and so forth.

When the quantitative XBRL filtering and screening is over with, and the analyst or retail investor visits your website, are they going to get what’s missing? Or is it just out-of-date, coffee table book statements about the company with links to PDF financial reports that are rather superfluous to the slicing and dicing already done by XBRL readers?

Will they find current high-value materials provided in an engaging way? Will they see the clarity in the plan that fosters a corporate culture that will win in their chosen field and create shareholder value? Will it bring to life the recipe that makes a company a success?

When widely disemminated XBRL viewers focus attention on your last quarter’s earnings blips, are you ready to show an engaging version of why your company is a worthy investment?

Even as we integrate new communication forms and technologies, let’s keep our eye on the website.

Here is a little history for those of you who are new to the browser wars. The first major battle was fought in the late 90s between Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and Netscape Navigator. The result was a decisive victory for IE and what followed can be described as the dark ages of the browser world. Microsoft had over 90% of the market and as a result decided to stop developing IE. IE6 was released in 2001 and we never saw another major browser release from Microsoft until IE7 was released in late 2006. IE6 was a decent browser for its time, but it did have a number of quirks and bugs. These problems didn’t matter much since IE had such a dominant market position so everyone just assumed that was the way the browser was supposed to work.

There were other browsers available. Netscape was still around, Mozilla, which was the open source version of Netscape, and Opera were all other options. I was not a big fan of any of them, especially their interfaces. When I began working at zu, Shane introduced me to a browser called Phoenix. It was essentially a stripped down version of Mozilla. I started to use Phoenix on a regular basis and it opened my eyes to how IE-centric the web had become. Phoenix eventually grew up and became Firefox. Other browsers were starting to be introduced. Apple had the audacity to make their own browser called Safari and Google eventually introduced their own browser named Chrome, which is based on the same rendering engine as Safari.

Each of these browsers offered their own strengths. Opera has always been fast and feature-rich while Firefox has always been lean but had extensions which allowed you to add the features that you wanted. Safari had excellent CSS support and pushed standards groups to add new exciting features such as CSS animation. Chrome had a lightening fast JavaScript engine and each browser tried to copy and improve upon each others innovations.

This has created rapid and dramatic improvements in browser technology over the past couple of years. Standards began to pick up steam too. HTML5 started gaining steam and browsers began to eagerly implement features like the canvas tag. CSS3 development roared back to life after a long period of stagnation. JavaScript performance has increased dramatically which has allowed JavaScript intensive websites and JavaScript libraries to proliferate.

Even IE, the enemy of web developers everywhere, has finally begun to catch up. IE8 still lags in many of the advanced features that other browsers have, but IE9 looks downright promising. There are many web developers that think Microsoft should just replace IE’s rendering engine with WebKit (same engine as Safari and Chrome) or even drop the browser all together. I cannot agree with this point of view. Competition is good, especially amongst web browsers. When Microsoft conquered the browser world, they abandoned browser development. However, if Mozilla, Opera, Apple or Google had achieved the same type of market share that Microsoft did in the first part of the decade, I have no doubt that they would have stopped innovating as well. Long live the browser wars.

What’s the dirt? Well, last Thursday at their iPhone 4.0 event, Apple announced a shiny new iPhone operating system and the fact that they will no longer accept iPhone applications in their store that were developed using non-Apple software development kits.

For some time, Flash lovers had been lamenting the lack of Flash support on Apple’s mobile devices. This was most noticeable in their web browser but also affected the stand-alone applications in the app store.

Then Adobe announced a breakthrough: their new CS5 Flash applications would be able to compile iPhone-compatible apps! Flash and Flex developers around the world (count me in with them) rejoiced like teenagers invited to the cool kids’ party. We all waited in eager anticipation for the party to start (i.e. the shipping date of Adobe’s CS5 Suite) until ‘daddy’ Steve Jobs came home and grounded us, probably forever.

So now we’re in the midst of an uproar. Forums, tweeters, bloggers, and Facebook groups are all weighing in on the issue. Many are very insulted. Even Adobe’s own platform evangelist directed some very colourful language toward Apple. People love to hate the guys with the power, especially when they use that power. Thankfully there are a few level heads out there at the same time.

Maybe if we hadn’t been staring at CS5’s iPhone development carrot for so long we wouldn’t be so mad that Apple is taking it away. As a professional Flash developer, I respect the intention behind many of the arguments wanting Apple to allow for a more open platform. I also respect the passion of the Flash developers, because many of us would likely compare ourselves to artists, with Flash being our medium of choice. We feel hurt when someone wants to take away something that gives us so much creative freedom.

But let’s not take it personally. Apple is not anti-developer and anti-consumer as the Facebook group would have you believe. They’re not out to get anyone, offend anyone, or destroy any particular platform. They shouldn’t be expected to do things “for the common good” as some people want. It would have been nice if they would have developed this new policy sooner, certainly, but it does take time to get decisions made sometimes. Apple is a shareholder-held company that exists primarily to make money.

They know how to make money by using market positioning. When their ’suits’ sat down to figure out their official policy, they knew there would be an uproar. They also knew they didn’t want the iPhone to be just another platform that plays the same applications that every other platform plays. Apple has historically prospered when they strove to be different. So, as the level-headed blogger pointed out, “it makes sense from Apple’s perspective — and it was Apple’s decision to make.” They chose to be the ‘other’ platform, and to reap the consequences.

The Facebook group goes so far as to accuse Apple of being anti-competition. I ask them: isn’t every company that wants market share anti-competition in some way? You can’t paint Apple as the bad guys just because they are winning the smart-phone competition right now. In the same way, you can’t fault Adobe for being tops in the web multimedia game. If you want competition, go out there make products that are better than theirs which attract their own market share. That’s real competition, and that’s what Apple is trying to do.

So whether you agree with Apple or not, let’s just see how it pans out. If they were wrong, then their market share will suffer and they may or may not change their policy. If they were right, then iPhone will remain a popular product with a user base that actually wants to be different, and maybe Adobe will have to face the fact that Flash isn’t supported as widely as they would like. Either way, technologies will continue to change until the end of the age. May the best product win, and may the best developers adapt.

The navigation drives home SIAST’s primary messages of diversity and workplace rewards suited to individuals. The primary needs of site users—viewing current opportunities, and finding SIAST careers—are also addressed at this top level.

With the site as part of SIAST’s “Total Rewards” campaign, the accompanying content was put at the forefront. Integral to the campaign are the stories and testimonials of current employees. Knowing that pages titled “testimonials” get very little traffic (users see them as inauthentic and overly promotional), we instead designed the site’s architecture around providing the stories as a primary part of the site design, available on every page. The implementation keeps the stories close at hand and avoids constantly overwhelming the user with text. Typical user apprehensions over testimonials are lessened by the sincerity of the stories, which focus more on personal growth than on marketing catch-phrases, and are augmented by the photography, which is professional but not polished and uses actual employees rather than unrealistic stock photo models.

SIAST’s stories of Total Rewards have been worked consistently throughout the site, with the diversity of experiences in the testimonials tying in to the overall message. Unlike many corporate careers sites, SIAST has kept the content fresh by adding new testimonials regularly, ensuring that anyone repeatedly checking career postings will see a new story every time.

Common to many institutions, SIAST is tied to an existing careers system that has been outside the scope of the website work to date. Job postings are currently viewed as PDFs, creating problems with searchability and reuse. An eventual reworking of this system will facilitate the spread of job postings to aggregators and allow individual job postings to be dynamically pulled to relevant areas of other SIAST websites.

Anyways, it turns out the most successful companies deliver an “experience”, in addition to whatever else they are doing. (So please take that as a given or go to the MX conference for yourself). The main dividing point in how brands or companies deliver an experience to their clients is whether it is delivered in a ‘prescriptive’ way or in an ‘adaptive’ way. The former is how Disneyland presents their experience of ‘Magic’: “come here and we do it to you”. On the other end of the scale is Harley Davidson: “Buy this and become a modern day rebel” (instructions not included).

Now, many investors, especially more advanced ones, have a planned experience in mind when they hit your site. With mathematical formulas and ratios set to plug in your numbers, these investors use an adaptive approach to create their own experience using materials you passively provide. Most websites will support this type of experience by default with their filing cabinet of materials.

But can your website provide a ‘prescriptive’ experience? Is your website empathetic enough to less prepared visitors to consider how the parts go together to tell a story? Do you provide instructions and strategy to relate the various departments, performance measures, and operations into a cohesive whole? Or will your site come off as a poorly coordinated set of activities and assets, a somehow-successful holding company communicating little sense of priority, direction or focus to the whole enterprise. While the evidence is there, the vision that unites the actions will rarely be realized by chance without empathy for the naiveté of first time visitors. And everyone who owns you was once a first time investor.

While the big picture view may be found in areas of investor relations ‘magic’, such as a CEO’s speech, the greater whole is an unscripted landscape, good for adaptable experiences and poor for the uninitiated.

I’m thinking of an investor-oriented website as a new kind of taco bar, where all the ingredients are laid out, each in their little bowls and serving dishes; it might be delicious, but I’m unsure how to put it together. How does this work? How do other people do this? What is the key to understanding this? I might be fine after I get through it the first time, but I frankly need some prescriptive advice to get the most out of what is being offered.

So please feel empathy toward your first time potential investors, and make sure they enjoy themselves and don’t feel like goofs trying to figure out why you’re worthwhile eating, I mean buying.

Join us for this live webcast

Date: Tuesday March 16, 2010

Time: 11:00pm PT, 12:00pm MT, 1:00pm CT, 2:00pm ET

Cost: Complimentary

Register

Join Stephanie and David live as they walk you through basic strategies for how you can enhance your school’s online presence. Learn from current university, college and institution examples, showcasing some of the best websites, online initiatives, and social media tool use. Stephanie and David will highlight how you can develop interactive experiences to fully engage your stakeholders.

• Explore opportunities to reach your main audiences, including students, alumni, and potential staff.
• Examine simple social media tools that schools can use to more widely distribute their message.
• Review steps to take your interactive strategy towards the ultimate goal of creating an engaged, sustainable community, both on and off line.

Stephanie Hughes is an Account Executive at zu and has worked with a variety of educational institutions, including SIAST and SIIT (Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology). Serving individual departments, entire school divisions, and specialized training centres has granted her well-rounded insight into the realm of schools. When combined with her knowledge of web trends, the newest interactive tools, and her own BBA and MBA experience, Stephanie will share a unique expertise with viewers.

David Francis is the Academic Director for SIAST’s Virtual Campus and has 15 years of experience in leading online learning initiatives. SIAST’s Virtual Campus is the institution’s centre of excellence for online course development and delivery, as well as website oversight, faculty training and print-distance materials. David will share his experiences in managing stakeholder expectations while delivering high quality initiatives for SIAST’s web properties and online training materials.

Ads: The more pages of content you are forced to cycle through, the more ads you are served. This is the reason articles are infuriatingly broken into multiple pages. Good from a business sense, perhaps, but certainly not good for user experience.

Legacy: When people still accessed the Internet with 2,400 baud modems, pages loaded so slowly it made sense to break content into easily downloaded chunks. Once it became ingrained that pagination was good usability, it somehow got lost that average Internet speeds are hundreds of times faster now. If your only reason for breaking content into numbered pages is download speed or tradition, you’re probably better off with the content on one page.

Laziness: Organizing information well can be challenging, and good information architects aren’t easy to find. Templated blogging platforms reinforce this bad usability with their architecture designed to accommodate any content while excelling at none. Far more useful than a link at the end of a post to an “older post” is a list of similar, relevant articles.

Disregard: If a website provides a service no one else does, it can survive for a time ignoring how people actually use their data. If users are trying to compare items in a list, or have the ability to resort tables based on different headings, you probably shouldn’t be paginating.

Scale: Sometimes there is just too much content to architect well, like Google search results, and the effort becomes pushing as much relevant information as possible to the first page. Though the other pages become unnecessary, they are still better ways to present this information, like loading in new content when the user scrolls to the bottom of the screen.  Cooliris is a dramatic display of how much better image searches could be without pagination.

A caveat in conclusion: test with your users.  Pagination may be greatly overused, but it still has its place, so think critically about why you’re using it and evaluate if it really is adding more than it’s detracting from the user experience.

Non-retail companies have a more difficult time determining what merits prominence, or even if information should be segregated. The former depends on the site’s target demographic, and the latter on how much information there is to present.

Well-designed primary navigation not only directs users efficiently to the information they want, but doubles as a sales pitch about the company. For retail sites, it tells the user what kinds of products they’ll find for sale. The primary navigation at CNN immediately tells you what kind of news you’ll find there, and gives you an idea of how important each type of news is to them by order of priority. The primary navigation may not even be a series of choices; Grooveshark presents a simple search bar that encapsulates the purpose of the site.

The difficult part is never deciding what should be primary navigation, it’s cutting out what shouldn’t, which comes down to determining the primary demographic and what their needs are. Of course, that’s easier said than done, and most clients want every possible visitor to be a “primary demographic”, but that’s another discussion entirely. Once a target demographic is known and their needs are identified, there’s still the potential to segregate navigation to primary navigation that informs and markets to the user, and secondary information.

zu has been working with Cameco on the redesign of their website. Many different target demographics were identified (employees, job seekers, regulators, the media, people looking for information about the nuclear industry, and many others), but the primary demographic was narrowed down to investors. The primary navigation specifically targets this demographic with information relevant to them and providing an overview of the company from an investment standpoint. The navigation highlights information specific to investing, shows the range of Cameco’s operations for those only familiar with their mining operations, and makes it clear that marketing the industry and good corporate practices are also top priorities for the company. So what was left out, and how were other demographics accommodated? Generic information about the company was moved to secondary navigation; the whole site is largely information about the company, so the “About” section serves as a quick overview for random information seekers. Job-seekers were considered an important demographic, but was kept as secondary navigation because having careers in the primary navigation didn’t help with the messaging to investors, and because people coming to the site looking for jobs don’t need to be sold to, they will seek out and find what they need.

The media is generally directed to a specific page, or, like job seekers, are looking for their specific information, and don’t need to be marketed to. The needs of regulators and employees overlapped with those of investors, so information targeting them is within the primary navigation. While the structure and terminology was chosen to target investors, these other demographics were also considered for clarity. For example, there were many possibilities for “Investors”, but other investment-related terms were rejected for potential ambiguity on whether it was about investing in Cameco, or investments Cameco has made; “Financial Information” is awkward and incomplete; and other terms were potentially confusing to secondary demographics.

It’s always a struggle to keep information out of the primary navigation (particularly convincing a client, who then has to pacify demoted corporate divisions). The utility of a website is greatly improved when not only is the primary demographic known, but spoken to directly through navigation that both informs and serves as the company pitch.

twitpitch: Best practices for well-designed primary navigation. Some good user experience examples from @zutweets Levi Myers http://bit.ly/2KR7U1

For starters,  communicators should respect the new ways audiences interact and meet them on their own terms. And frankly, most companies that put Social Media in such high regard is really questionable, given their handling of Web 1.0.

Remember that one? Publishing good content in HTML?

A good example of these forgotten basics in the Investor Relations world is the handling of annual reports online. Even though this is the Internet, where folks like to use their browsers to read, search, enlarge, bookmark, copy and paste, enjoy rich media, interactive elements, light boxes, related information–many companies are deciding that the LEAST they can do in meeting the expectations of their online audience is the right choice, and so provide only lifeless PDFs or freakish custom viewers designed by print publishing houses.

Perhaps social media is the answer! Perhaps all will be made well by Twittering about a recent posting of some required filing in PDF format, or blogging about their uninspiring filing-cabinet-of-a-website. “Web 1.0 is dead! Long live social media!”

Excuse me if skip the parade, I have to get back to working on Web 1.0.

twitpitch: Get back to basics of Web 1.0 before you invest in social media.@zutweets @tonyzuck shares insights for publishing good #IR content online.

1. Clear objectives. Effective websites are built with goals in mind. What do you want your website to accomplish? Sell, educate, encourage contact, provide timely information, build community, or a combination of a few? Regardless, clear objectives should guide everything your website does and contains.

2. It’s about the visitor. Too often websites are populated with what the company wants to say and not what the visitor needs or is interested in finding out. Position messaging and content based on what will make it easy for a visitor to understand what you can do for them.

3. Communicates who, what and why. Visitors to your home page will make an evaluation of your organization faster than it takes them to decide what pair of socks to put on. Make sure the home page clearly states who you are, what you provide, and why it’s important. The Blogger homepage is a good example of effective communication.

4. Keep it simple. Providing concise and well-written content is critical. Any content taken from existing marketing materials should be chopped in half and then take half of that. Most website visitors skim content and read less than twenty percent of the content on a page. So, keep it short—there is a better chance what is read will be relevant.

5. Prioritized and predictable navigation. Once the main sections have been established, do not deviate from how navigation is presented. Keep things in the same place and in prioritized order so visitors always remember where stuff is accessible through navigation. Main navigation should be prominently displayed whereas sections of tertiary importance should be relegated to the header or footer.

6. Consistent design. Good websites need only use a handful of different page templates and always maintain standard design elements throughout. A good example is the Apple website—their design is starkly minimalist but elegantly effective. Standardize the use of colours, heading types, fonts, table formats, picture treatments, link styles, form fields, etc. so that they are consistently used throughout the website. Make sure these same design styles are also applied to the content.

7. Makes use of multimedia. The ability to produce and post video, pictures, audio, slideshows, animations, etc. has become affordable for even the sole proprietor. If your website is for a large organization it is likely there is a stable of media assets you can be converting for use on the web to provide a more engaging experience for visitors. The Landing TV website utilizes a free, third party video player that can be easily embedded in any website. Also, providing content in multiple formats addresses the fact that all visitors are not the same; some prefer to read, others like to watch, and some like to listen. Use different media to communicate more effectively.

8. Compliant with web standards. The best way an organization can compete well on search engines, ensure their website behaves as intended, is accessible to the handicapped, and produces as few errors as possible is to ensure it is developed in accordance with accepted web standards as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Different web developers adhere to W3C standards to different degrees, so it’s important to know what your web developer’s standards are.

9. Regularly reviewed. Shift happens, markets change, business models adapt, and products/services evolve; the website should follow. Conducting regular audits and tests of your website is a quick way to assess how current it is and what sections may need updating. A website should be perceived as an evolving entity—it can be easier and more affordable to make incremental changes as opposed to leaving it static for years and then begging for the budget to give it a complete overhaul.

10. Built by a web development expert. Ok, this is a plug for zu, but unless you have an experienced web developer on your staff the website, if handled internally, will likely get built by the same people that maintain your computer’s hardware and software (if and when they have time). A website is a communications vehicle not IT inventory. An experienced online communications agency is your best bet for getting a website that exhibits best practices.

twitpitch: He’s been there, done that. Now @zutweets @HarleyRivet shares 10 things that make a rock solid website. http://twurl.nl/vme6eh

You’d be hard pressed to see me walking into a bookstore and not walking out with a new book in tow. But about a year ago I decided to try switching to ebooks to see if they could take the place of my book buying compulsion, if only for a short while.

I’m continuing to work at it but I’ve yet to make the full switch. There are many reasons including price, DRM and device and format compatibility, but the real issue came from one specific niche of the book industry—comic books.

Case study
When I first opened my freshly delivered copy of The Absolute Sandman—Vol 1, my senses were overwhelmed. The look, feel and smell when I first opened it were an overload to my system and I had to sit back for a minute to compose myself. And when I finally set my eyes on the first page of panels, I nearly started crying. I’ve yet to have that experience replicated by an ebook and device combo when reading a comic book. Or any book for that matter. And until an ebook reader comes out that can show a comic as utterly resplendent—yes, it’s so good that I had to pull out the thesaurus—as The Absolute Sandman print version, I won’t make the full switch.

Opportunity knocks
While I was catching myself up on a long-running comic series I’d neglected for the last couple years, I had a dream. And in that dream it would be possible to subscribe to my favourite comics and have them delivered directly to my ebook reader as soon as they’re published.

I only follow a few series but keeping up with releases is a pain and when you want to try and follow crossover arcs, it’s an exercise in futility for all but the most devoted fans. Why not make it easier for people to buy that content?

If a Batman story ties in with a Green Arrow story, I’d be much more inclined to buy the tie-in if it was presented to me just as I finished the Batman story and I could buy it at that exact moment. Take advantage of book lovers at their weakest—when they’re fully engrossed in a plot—and keep them reading! Ebooks present an amazing opportunity for comic book publishers to develop a platform to deliver their content right to their readers and help make sense of the tie-ins. They’ve even got a chance to develop their own niche-market reading device.

Marvel is getting close but they still haven’t nailed it. With things picking up in the digital world for comic books, this is a step that publishers can’t miss.

Related Links
Stan Lee and Walt Disney Partner on Digital Motion Comic Series
Digital Comic Books Now Available for iPhone and iPod Touch
Readers Say Paying for Digital Comics is the Future

twitpitch: The future is #ebooks. @thebatlab explores opportunities for #comic book publishers to deliver content.

Obviously, I have not used every single CMS available. I have used a few, both commercial and open-source, as well as building my own. Off-the-shelf CMSs have some great features. The app is usually well-tested, mature and very stable. There are often many advanced features that are built-in such as flexible workflow and multi-language support. Many are quick and easy to setup for small projects. However, you are also getting a lot of other undesirable things. They are usually tough to customize, especially the admin interface. You often have slow turnaround time to fix bugs. There are often many features which you don’t need on every project which adds unnecessary complexity for the users. And the instructions are often non-intuitive. Additionally, many off-the-shelf CMSs work great for the IT guys, but non-techies have troubles understanding the interface and find them difficult to update. This is very evident when you support an off-the-shelf CMS.

If you, or your interactive supplier, build your custom solution correctly, you can have the best of both worlds: a stable, feature-rich CMS that perfectly meets your needs.

A custom CMS is not always a cheap solution, though. I don’t advocate trying to build a custom CMS for a client that is not willing or able to spend the money. However, a custom solution can be built for the same price it takes to purchase and implement a large commercial CMS. Using some pre-built components will be necessary to keep costs in line. There are many open-source frameworks and libraries that can be used to speed up the development process and therefore keep costs down.

To develop a competitive-cost CMS, you need the right interactive firm, team and people to build the solution. There are many inexperienced or inadequate web developers who promise the world, but can not deliver. Much of this is due to inexperience. Most custom CMS solutions fall short of delivering the tools promised in an easy-to-use system. This is why companies fall back to pre-built CMSs; they are scared to spend a large sum of money and end up with a terrible solution—or, even worse, no solution at all.

How can a company get around these fears?

Experience
If your web developer has a track record of providing quality solutions, then it will be easier for your company to trust that the project can be delivered.

Process
There must be a well defined process from start to finish. This will allow the developer to provide the client with more accurate timelines and estimates.

Communication
From the web developer’s perspective, you must keep the client informed at all stages of the project and be completely honest in communication. If there are problems or delays, advise your client. By hiding those and then failing to meet targets and deadlines, a web developer is only going to cause mistrust with the clients.

Documentation
For the developer and client to agree on a timeline and price, they must both understand what exactly is going to be build. The developer must provide on paper exactly what the system they are going to build.

One thing a business may be wondering is how big the project must be to make a custom CMS worthwhile. I cannot answer with a number or any definite rules. I will just say that every project is different and every project has a different solution. There is a lot of work that must go into breaking down the problem and finding the best solution. This process in itself can cost lots of money. If you want to provide service to a range of project sizes and types, you cannot support only one solution. You must be open to all solutions.