Web Worker Daily recently brought up how some local Internet providers are looking to meter users bandwidth. What this basically means is that you are (usually) given a base amount of data you can transfer per month, then for each additional unit, usually gigabytes, they charge you an additional fee.

If you have a website, you are probably aware of this yourself. You can have so much traffic, and additional traffic creates an additional charge. We’ve discussed in the past how you will want to be careful of your site design as it will affect your charges.

Now, you need an efficient site because not only will it cost you more if you don’t, but it will cost your customers more. And they will not like that. If they start telling their friends it will generate the type of publicity you don’t need.

So make your site fast, cheap to host, and cheap to view.

Popularity: 1% [?]

We’ve talked in the past about optimizing your web site so it runs a quickly as possible. This is nice of course as no one wants to wait for your pages to load. And with so many people having high-speed internet access, people’s desire to wait has gone down. (High speed access isn’t a license to triple your page size!)

We’ve also pointed out how Google is using your page load time now as a factor for where to rank your “pay-per-click” adwords ads.

Well now a new survey has come out that says that many (about 35%) of the people who don’t have high-speed internet, choose to not have. They don’t see the need for the speed, or higher costs.

So when you are sitting at your office, or home, and zipping along on you web page, remember that a large number of people will see your site load 3 to 5 times slower. So if that 10 or 20 second load time is driving you nuts, remember that others might see it in 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

If you want to know how your page responds to a variety of users, feel free to give me a call. I would be more than happy to offer a free consultation on how to improve your website.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Recently I downloaded the Firefox 3 web browser as part of the download day. I’ve been using Firefox since version 1, and have always like it. I find it is generally faster and more consistent than Internet Explorer, and also has fewer security holes.

This screen shot came up the day after I installed it. A link that I had followed from a trusted site took me to a site which apparently had been compromised.

Just another reason I enjoy using Firefox.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Image via WikipediaBlogs work great in some circumstances.  For example, they work well with a singular person pushing out information and getting feedback. However, the person leaving feed back cannot change the original posting.  And there are times when parts of a page need to be edited, and/or new content pages added. Wiki’s are a good Web 2.0 method of solving this problem.

Wiki – Hawaiian for Quick, although I know not how that relates allows anyone (within reason) to modify, add, and update pages to the system.

Wikipedia is the best know wiki with millions of articles in dozens of languages. It allows anyone to make changes, or even add pages and categories.

Wikis are based off of the idea of the wisdom of the crowd. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, first published in 2004, states that “the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group.” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds

Instead of seeing an inaccuracy and reporting it, letting people continue to see it, possibly missing a comment, the person who sees the inaccuracy can go right in and change it.

Wikis are becoming increasing popular for project management and tracking.  In it everything from meeting notes, specifications, documentation, and even library files can be stored in the wiki.  IBM has become one of the best know companies to use wikis to track meetings minutes, events, projects and more.  However other companies from law offices, to consumer stores, have implemented wikis to promote communication and knowledge transfer among their workers.

To make them easier to use by non technical people, many wikis allow standard features like Rich Text Editing (Word like editing), and allowing people to search within the Wiki, without requiring anyone to know anything about HTML, or Wiki markup.

Popularity: 32% [?]