Let There Be an HTML 5 Logo
The branding of HTML 5 is upon us. Logo designer Michael Nieling came up with an html 5 logo that someone inexplicably asked for. It also has its own website. Like your mom’s cat has his own Facebook page. The logo is good and it will work as a mark on any background, scaled as big or as small as you would need and looks great in black and white. The palette used is trendy and why not? HTML 6 is on the way, I suppose in some engineer’s nerd-dreams, nestled between Big Bang Theory Fan-fic and Olivia Munn. I especially like this logo for what it doesn’t try to do. It doesn’t attempt to speak to what html 5 promises for the future, or how it will transform the user experience, or any of that silliness. Just an orange shield with an S on it. I mean a 5. It’s a 5.
As always, what I really like about a big, goofy logo roll out is the marketing gibberish language that is attached to it. I remember Pepsi’s latest logo redesign came with a bewildering 15 page explanation of the process that was at once hilarious and yet totally acceptable. If you spend that amount of time and money, you need to show and tell. So, take a pull on this:
“It stands strong and true, resilient and universal as the markup you write. It shines as bright and as bold as the forward-thinking, dedicated web developers you are. It’s the standard’s standard, a pennant for progress. And it certainly doesn’t use tables for layout.”
I felt like Thor when I read that. Funny though, the developers I know would not be described as “shiny”. Our new developer’s shirt could be described that way, however. Clearly, this is tongue in cheek and whoever wrote it has a pretty good sense of the absurdity of these puffy, cringe-inducing logo mission statements as descriptions. At least I hope so.
The classes’ logos are a little less successful at least for me, but there is a definite cohesive suite here.
So there you have it. One big bold logo perfect for branding and a bunch of odd supporting logos that serve little purpose really. I give the whole set high marks and am a fan. Let us know what you think and feel free to send me a logo shirt (they actually sell for 22 bucks on the site). Ladies medium, thanks.
The State of Mobile Development
When you discuss mobile strategy with most folks, almost all of them equate a mobile strategy with launching an iPhone application. The iPhone has had a huge cultural impact and has changed the way we think about mobile. However, the reality is that the iPhone has more mindshare than it does market share, and there is a lot more to mobile than the iPhone. In a recent post, Fred Wilson includes a chart from comScore breaking down the market share for major mobile platforms.
The takeaways from this are that RIM (Blackberry) is still the biggest player in the mobile market and that Google’s Android platform is growing rapidly. Apple has a steady 25% of the smartphone market, and won’t see a jump until it is available on carriers beyond ATT.
As you think about mobile, you should keep an eye on these numbers and develop a strategy that gets your content in front of the most eyeballs possible.
What’s this HTML 5 Thing?
As a web development firm, we’re closely following the progress of HTML 5, which is the latest HTML standard that promises to dramatically change the web. At this point, only a small percentage of Internet users are capable of viewing sites in HTML 5, as most browsers don’t support the standard yet. As a result only a few sites have invested the time to take advantage of HTML 5’s possibilities and the average web surfer has no clue how the standard will impact their browsing experience.
I could blather on conceptually about how HTML 5 will change things, but I think it is better to show you. Check out this video demo of the HTML 5 version of the search engine Bing for a real example of how things will change.
If you have Google Chrome installed, you should also check out this interactive piece for the Arcade Fire song “We Used to Wait”, which is an even more impressive example.
Facebook’s New Platform: An Exciting iFrames Development
Last week, Facebook announced a set of changes that its development platform is set to undergo within the coming months. In a blog post, the company talked about the enhancements coming to the Facbeook API. A significant change will be the replacement of FBML with iFrames, with the former having been the gold standard for designing visually appealing Fan Pages of the last several years. In fact, by the end of 2010, Facebook will no longer allow for new applications to be created using the antiquated FBML.
How will these new changes affect social media CRM on Facebook?
Short answer: it won’t.
Long answer: The changes will make it easier for developers to bring more dynamic functions to Facebook pages, games, and other applications. On August 23rd, all tabbed pages in profiles and fan Pages were readjusted to be only 520 pixels in width. This standardized (albeit more narrow) width allows for implementation of across-the-board support for IFrames – which enable designers and developers to easily break up a page into multiple segments with some static and some dynamic sections. Iframes also tend to use lower bandwidth, when compared to single-frame variable content that has to continuously reload.
The Bivings Group is a full service Internet communications firm, whose own developers are incredibly excited about this change. Chris Roane, a TBG developer who's familiar with FBLM noted that:
It always seemed ridiculous to me that Facebook would implement a specific language for developers to use with their system for web development (FBML). Why not tap into the same coding system that everything else uses across the internet? Instead of having to figure out how to work with a new coding system, developers and programmers can use the systems that they have always been using. This will not only make pages easier to develop, but applications should appear more seamless as it will be easier to make more complicated applications run directly in a facebook tab/page.
TBD.com – DC News Served Up Fresh
A new DC News Site launched last Sunday– and the local social media scene has been abuzz with the innovation, social media outreach, and hyper local focus seen on the site. The pages of this online portal will function to aggregate news from all over the DC metro area and create a one-stop-shop for DC residents. TBD is owned by the same company that owns POLITICO, but its model of news delivery is decidedly different. The site seamlessly mergers the ‘old media’ video news from WJLA (Channel 7) and News Channel 8 with news reporting and blog posts.
Reaching Out to The Blogging Community
127 local blogs from across the Washington DC metropolitan area have joined together to contribute and publish content though the TBD portal. The neighborhood blog section features stories from TBD staff writers as well as those found on DC-area blogs. In order to continuously improve their content, the site is also asking for reader feedback (and not just in the comments section). Yet the best part of the new site that if you input your zip code into a handy search bar, TBD will tailor content specifically for you.
In addition to engaging with users on numerous social media platforms, TBD also released several mobile phone applications –allowing readers to get their news on the go. The Bivings Report can assess with high confidence that this new website is an arbiter of great things to come as social media merges with traditional media formals on the web. It features a large amount of white space and is intuitively designed with the end users' experience in mind.