HTML 5 is estimated to arrive in 2012. Allowing time for browsers to support the new standard and for these new browsers to become the majority is going to take at least 3 years. Therefore the next version of HTML is still 7 years away - a lifetime for the web.

The last standard to come out of the W3C was XHTML 1.1 in 2001. So 11 years between new standards is that acceptable?

It of course has to be understood the difficultly of producing standards for the web community but the time this seems to be taking for a technology as fast moving as the web is so far off the pace it’s incredible.

No wonder that proprietary systems are gaining more and more ground over time. They are simply filling the vacuum of new technology left by the standards bodies. Adobe Flash and Microsoft SilverLight provide the medium to extend web pages far and beyond what can be done with HTML. Certainly AJAX is being used heavily now as an extra layer on HTML and I never cease in being surprised at some people’s ability to use this lightweight scripting language for more and more impressive web applications but can this keep pace with the “designed for purpose” contenders like SilverLight?

Flash already has a deep penetration into the web market and various actions like Google crawling Flash better could extend its market further. SilverLight is the new boy on the block but already is picking up speed with some predictions of hugely increased market share (you’d never bet against Microsoft).

Is this good for the web? At the moment I believe yes it’s always good to have rival technologies. Competition spawns innovation. However in the long term it may not be.

If it takes, as estimated, 8 years to produce a new web standard how can this new standard bear as much relevance to the web 8 years later? If a possible Flash / SilverLight features war kicked off then the standards process would very soon be left behind - HTML would simply be the base to display the web application (or if the desktop / web blurs even more maybe HTML wouldn’t be needed at all).

In the long term if we effectively see the use of proprietary web technologies in the majority of cases, this could kill the standards process as it stands now altogether. Not good news as this standards process is inclusive allowing the general web community to be involved. Proprietary technology of course will be fashioned to the companies vision which doesn’t necessarily gel with the wider community.

So what to do? Tough one. Maybe the process needs streamlining, maybe there are just too many people involved (although decreasing this could erode the current inclusiveness), maybe the new standards are too ambitious and perhaps rather than whole new versions we should be looking at smaller incremental updates that can see new features pushed out the web quicker.

I posted not long ago on Blogging Brum about a potential new business directory for Birmingham I heard about. It’s now gone live and I hate to say it but I was rather underwhelmed by the online launch.

I’ve had a few comment exchanges with Jamie Morden who is Digital Media Manager for MyBrumTV and he asked for my opinion on the site. Well as I’m always bleating on about the social media phenomenon and I believe the MyBrumTV launch is very closely linked to this I thought why not write a blog critique of the site and allow Jamie a right to reply.

There are two aspects to the critique as I see it. Firstly the actual site, what it achieves and how it achieves it and secondly with regard to the online launch and methods used here.

The website itself it a pleasant design and is pretty simple to navigate. However the filmstrip style menu is going to be outgrown very quickly if this directory takes off – I can’t see people scrolling along 100’s of companies or categories. I’d love to see some kind of AJAX style navigation here to allow you traverse the directories quickly and easily (obviously with some non-AJAX fallback to ensure accessibility isn’t compromised). I feel it just needs some more excitement about it that draws you into the site. The introduction movie on the homepage I really don’t feel is going to be watched by people – if they are coming to a business directory they are just going to search. It’s the same thing for most homepage text people are looking for something specific and therefore don’t read what they just see as promotional blurb.

This brings me onto a search feature which is currently not available. As there aren’t a huge amount of companies online now I can perhaps understand why they haven’t rolled this out as yet but it will be essential in the future.

The company listings rely nearly entirely on the videos produced and although this is MyBrumTV’s selling point I don’t agree that videos should replace other textual content rather it should complement it.

Certainly the video can be used to sell a service but it you can’t impart all the important information about a product or service through a 5 minute video – I believe it’s more of a glossy finish – the final hard sell.

A contact form for each company listing is provided which is good however I’d group contact us (address and telephone) and more information (the actual online contact form) under the same tab “Contact us” as really the form is another way of contacting the company. I was expecting a text description or FAQs under the “More information” tab. I’m not sure how the comments tab is going to work as currently there is no way of posting comments yourself – obviously a function to follow.

Video quality I’ve found to be very good (although this certainly isn’t my speciality) and I’ve had no problem with streaming issues etc. From a brochure perspective I believe they do their job.
Code quality on the MyBrumTV isn’t bad although there are still areas to tighten up with the site currently failing a XHTML validator.

My main issue with the website is the lack of content. I’m talking here about text content which is of the upmost importance to the visitor and essential for accessibility. I don’t think you can assume visitors are going to play every video for every company listing in a category. Therefore the copy should work alongside to give the visitor a taster and entice them to watch the video. As the website is a business directory and therefore going to rely heavily on the World’s most important blind user - Google - this really is a trick they are missing. To this end, in addition to accompanying text copy, I believe the alternative content for the video is essential – each movie has a script so why not provide this in the alternative description for the flash?

Search engine optimisation is virtually nonexistent on the website save some hidden keyword spamming at the bottom of the page – tut tut. I really think a review is needed here as this is only going to get you penalised by Google! The most important element on the page (the page title) is consistently “MyBrumTV” throughout the website not describing the page content at all. The lack of content on the site is going to cause the search engines to see virtually blank pages everywhere.

I understand completely that the work on this website is ongoing and it’s not the finished article. Jamie himself said the site is launching in phases with the main launch in September so please don’t take this as a hatchet job on the website just some suggestions how I feel it could improve.

I’d also like to just mention the launch of the site as I believe this can be vital to building an initial visitor base.

I certainly can’t comment with regard to offline promotion of the MyBrumTV website other than the free newspaper that dropped through my door that alerted me to its existence (I don’t read much traditional press at all). However as this is an online project I was surprised to find that there is virtually nothing happening online at all.

Perhaps this initial launch of MyBrumTV is a beta version to be tested and built on? In which case I could perhaps understand the muted buzz online. However it’s not promoted as such and in any case I really think even websites in beta should try to promote themselves in some way to attract visitors to beta test or start laying the groundwork.

A good example of this Odadeo which is currently in private beta (ask for an invitation) – an excellent idea of a social media site for Dads! Even though in private beta the wheels are already moving with regard to making people aware of the site.

The MyBrumTV website certainly has many sources open to promote itself and improve its offer. Being a local website means it can lean on local community to promote it – it’s the only reason I posted about it in the first place. Having this local community means it makes it easier to promote to this restricted location. Also it’s going to take time to get the site visible online in the meantime why not lean on existing applications available such as YouTube?

Directories are ten a penny online so they need to distinguish themselves online be it with functions not available elsewhere (not sure videos are enough alone) or by attracting a website community.

I’m sure there are other things in the pipeline – Jamie mentions social networking in a way that suggests the site will feature social features in some way. However if this is the case why launch with a site that doesn’t have any of the more flashy features? Web users are fickle so if they don’t find anything on a site that excites them getting them to come back is more difficult than getting them in the first place.

Maybe I’m wrong and the slow burn is the effect they are after but I would try to create as much of a bang for the launch for a site like this…it’s been more of a pop. It feels premature if I’m honest.

Don’t get me wrong I really think if done well a local community business directory could work well (I’m not aware of any that do this well) especially with Google’s move to more and more local results.

At the end of the day there has to be a big carrot to get people to navigate away from their Google homepage to an alternative way of searching for businesses.

Perhaps another sign of a disjointed online and offline approach here is that there is no mention of how to get a business into the directory on the website. Obviously all approaches to businesses has been offline so far.

It’s an online project so why not embrace the many varied online tools to make your life easier and you website more popular? In addition online promotion is so much cheaper than offline – it’s a no brainer really.

I’ve just read an excellent article about blind users still struggling with computer obstacles. Now I can only comment from a web perspective but it seems to me people are still missing the point when it comes to accessibility.

Firstly accessibility doesn’t just apply to blind or partially sighted people there are many other groups that it can advantage from the physically disabled right though to dyslexics and even the elderly.

Creating an accessible website is seen as a chore and perceived as difficult to do when the reality is that when developing using web standards and best practices you are nearly there. Adding other accessibility tools to a site may take a little extra time but think about the huge untapped market that you are opening your website up to! There are 8.6 million registered disabled people in the UK alone. An excellent article by WebCredible shows how much an accessibility can increase the reach of a website.

A couple of comments on the original article show how much people just don’t get it:

“When I’m trying to convince the suits how important it is to code our web pages to the W3 standards for accessibility I never get very far arguing that it is the right thing to do for visually-impaired users. It just doesn’t seem to be all that important to them.

I have much better luck when I point out that compliance with these standards helps out the biggest blind user on the Internet; that is to say Google. Search rankings they care about.”

Again the argument that it’s “the right” thing to do doesn’t usually wash when it comes to business but the extra reach from an audience (and potential new customers) and also search engine penetration perspective is a difficult one for “the suits” to ignore.

“Sorry to bust the thread going here but computing has for the most part always been a visual thing and probably will be for a while to come. The last thing needed in this world is more guidelines or legislation telling us how to do things. I sympathize with people with disabilities but when you start suing private business over accessibility issues, the sympathy stops there.”

Why does accessibility stop computing being visual? It doesn’t. Websites that create a text-only version of a website show little or no understanding of what accessibility is about. All these websites do is create a two tier system with a text-only website that doesn’t provide the same user experience as the graphical site. It’s just laziness.

“Its time the disabled learn that their disability is not caused by everyone else on earth. Nor is it the responsibility of others to help them overcome it on demand. The disabled have no more right to demand that others provide for their needs than I, as a diabetic, have a right to demand that sugar no longer be used. The principle is the same.

I adapt at my own expense and effort and you should too. If you can’t, you will have to depend on other’s voluntary charity and not act like a thug and use the gun of government to fulfill your whims.

Its too bad you are disabled but its not my fault nor is it my responsibility to fix. If the government says I must then to hell with government! I am not your slave nor are you mine.”

Again a total misunderstand of what can be done or the advantages of providing access to these groups. No problem - carry on as you are going and other companies will be happy to take the customers that you don’t want to spend your “expense and effort” to attract.

I do apologise if I have taken any of the quotes out context as I can’t personally comment on anything but website accessibility however I do find they cover a lot of arguments I hear about online accessibility.

Web 2.0 causes more of an effort for accessibility. Essentially any AJAX used must have a fall back to ensure everyone can use applications. In some cases this might mean the fall back user interfaces might not be so interactive but they should provide the same functionality as the whizzy scripts. Again there is an argument here to do this for the addition audience and search engine access (large areas of some AJAX sites are just search engine no go zones). However I believe a lot of this lays at the door of AJAX framework providers. When I use an AJAX control why shouldn’t this be built into the control rather than me needing to have two versions of the page? Certainly some are taking this on board but other could take a more inclusive attitude.