WebWord.com Newsletter Issue #30

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ISSUE #30
16-Sept-99
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                WebWord.com Newsletter
              "Usability & the Internet"
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                      List Owner 
                    John S. Rhodes 
                   John@WebWord.com
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September 16, 1999                  Newsletter #30
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Table of Contents

1. Are You Creating a Path of Resistance?
2. My Epinions
3. Fatbrain's eMatter Spam
4. How Programmers Stole the Web
5. WebWord.com Odds and Ends 
6. What Can You Find at WebWord.com?


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ITEM #1

A new WebWord.com article is now online:
<http://www.webword.com/moving/path.html>

Are You Creating a Path of Resistance?

Usability is about making things easy. You want your 
web site to be easy to get to, and easy to use. 
Unfortunately, many web sites make it hard for people. 
Many web sites *require* users to use "www" as part of 
the web address (i.e., the URL). This is a very bad 
idea! In this article, I give you several examples of 
web sites that force users to add the "www". I also 
explain why this practice is a bad idea, and I have 
some interesting data to back up my opinions. (By the 
way, I reviewed my newsletter subscription list for 
examples. You might want to see if you are in my list 
of violating sites.) 

Read the article here:
<http://www.webword.com/moving/path.html>


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ITEM #2

My Epinions

I recently found out about Epinions.com, a web site 
where you post reviews of stuff, and get paid when 
other members read those reviews (so, you don't get 
paid if non-members are reading your reviews). It is 
built on a kind of word of mouth architecture. I tell 
you about a review, you review it, and then you tell 
other folks. You also rate the reviews. You can add 
reviewers to your "web of trust" and others can see whom 
you trust. Hence, you build up a group of people who 
you trust, then others see who you trust, and so on. 
In effect, you get a nice way to see and build online 
trust relations. It is a good idea.

I've written four reviews thus far:

1. What You Need to Know Paint Shop Pro  
http://epinions.com/cmd-review-3899-413C795-37E034D9-prod1

2. Usability of ICQ  
http://epinions.com/cmd-review-36BD-300166A-37DDC71C-bd4

3. Usability of 1997 Nissan Sentra 
http://epinions.com/auto-review-2D86-3121BB9-37DDA13A-prod1
 
4. Usability of Tom Clancey's Rainbow 6 
http://epinions.com/cmd-review-17A3-30D445A-37DD94D5-prod1

You can also read a simple bio I wrote for Epinions:
http://www.epinions.com/user-webword

So, what do you think? 


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ITEM #3

Fatbrain's eMatter Spam

Fatbrain sent me some spam the other day to tell me
about eMatter. It is an interesting idea and I'll 
probably give it a try. You upload a book, whitepaper,
report, etc., to Fatbrain, and then people pay to
download your work. It is secure and cost effective.
The royalties are fair and they have special deals
for the next several months (i.e., you get 100% of the 
purchase price through next year). Not bad.

But I digress. The point is that the message was spam
and it was annoying. Second, they put a URL in their
message that was broken. Geez! 

They took one step forward with the eMatter format, and
two back with the spam and broken link. These are the
things that make Barnes and Noble, and Amazon, smile.
When smaller bookstores fail, the larger ones gobble
customers up. There is no reason for smaller companies
and sites to fail any more than large ones. But they 
often do, and it is not a matter of resources or time.
It is an issue of attention to quality, usability, and
and customer needs.


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ITEM #4

How Programmers Stole the Web

http://www.asktog.com/columns/028WebStealers.html

  "This article is going to come as a shock to computer
  engineers. Unlike the Grinch, who set out to steal 
  Christmas, engineers not only had no intentions of 
  stealing the web, most don't even know they pulled 
  it off."

The article is pretty cool but a reader comment
was also fun reading...

http://www.asktog.com/readerMail/1999-09ReaderMail.html#Anchor1

  "Your history in How Programmers Stole the Web 
  sucks."

  "There are more websites going online every day now 
  than there ever were before. Lots of them are crap 
  that disappear almost as soon as they go online."

  "To bemoan the disappearance of BASIC is ridiculous."  
 
  "VB Script, since you apparently don't know anything 
  about it, is a Microsoft-proprietary product. It's 
  not cross-browser or cross-platform, because 
  Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, doesn't want it 
  to be. Go figure."


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ITEM #5

WebWord.com Odds and Ends 

1) There are currently 1297 subscribers to the 
   WebWord.com Usability Newsletter.

2) On average, 7.5 new subscribers join every day
   and 1 subscriber per day is lost due to bounces
   (from invalid or outdated email addresses), or 
   direct unsubscribe requests.

3) 2-3 news items are added to the WebWord.com home
   page every single day. If you need to get your
   fix of usability news, stop by <http://webword.com>
   once per day to get it. In case you are wondering, 
   this weblog approach has been fairly successful in 
   terms of gaining loyal readers and increasing 
   subscriptions. Good, fresh content makes people
   happy.

4) I'm still looking for WebWord.com sponsors. Send me
   a note if you are interested. You can get exposure
   on the site and/or in this newsletter. 

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ITEM #6

What Can You Find at WebWord.com?

Articles (Moving WebWord)
<http://webword.com/moving/>

Expert Interviews 
<http://webword.com/interviews/> 

Recommended Books
<http://webword.com/books/booksindex.html>

Newsletter Archive
<http://webword.com/archive>

Usability Reports 
<http://webword.com/reports>

Recommended Web Sites
<http://webword.com/hotsites.html>

Free Stuff
<http://webword.com/freestuff.html>

Friends
<http://webword.com/friends.html>


---- End of WebWord.com Usability Newsletter #30 ------

(c)1998-99 by John S. Rhodes. All rights reserved.
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