Due in no small part to my underemployment and current unhappiness with the direction my design skills are going, I have decided to attempt an entry in reboot:bbc.co.uk. To that end, I have put together a rough comp that I may or may not base later designs on. Under most normal situations, I would not publish these (in my opinion) incomplete and untested designs, but I want you, my reader, to see how at least one web designer goes from concept to design.

First off, the wonderful team at the BBC has put together a few guidelines as to what cannot be left out. These are as follows:

• BBC Logo / Branding
• Legal Blurb Links
• Search Box
• The News
• Contact the BBC Link

I will admit that when I had first put this design together, the legal blurb links didn’t make the cut. Let that be a lesson to any in a contest: read the rules first.

So without further ado, here is a thumbnail of my first stab at the design.

From here, you can see a page that is much simpler than the current site. Also, notice the wonderful (over?)use of rounded boxes. I call the overall design retro-circa-2004-blue. I think it has legs.

Anyway, the most important feature of this design is the top rounded box. I’m not thrilled with the wording, but I do like how both BBC content and user content (via blogs, podcasts, and vlogs) share relatively equal footing.

Well, that’s a decent rundown of my first comp. Barring a major distraction, there should be a number of more pieces in this series.

The Pondering Pundit asks:

In my opinion Microsoft’s announcement of Photo2Search, will send ripples through the mobile world. It will also be the tipping point for mobile marketing, mobile search and physical world connection adoption.
The camera on your mobile phone is your “mouse” and every physical object has, or will become, a physical world hyperlink, Phase 2 of the Internet begins.

Phase 2 of the Internet?  Are you serious?  Nevermind the lack of computer vision technology, or the lack
mobile storage and processing power to even attempt computer vision.  Let’s just deal with the term.

I hate the term Web 2.0.  I absolutely hate it but use it for reasons of common understanding.  I have always preferred the term “social software.” But that is all a non sequiter.  Web 2.0 is inherently false.  An organic system doesn’t have version numbers, and any complex enough computer network behaves like an organic system (as per Linked).  When I graduated from elementary school I didn’t become Bill 2.0, I remained simply Bill.  There is no point where the web became 2.0.

Having the audacity to call a doomed to failure technological implementation “Phase 2 of the Internet” is mind boggling.  First off, the web is around Phase 7 anyway.  Phase 2 was when someone figured out how to send email automatically through multiple computers.  What TPP is referring to isn’t truly a piece of the Internet any more than this site is a phase of the Internet.  So a machine translate a picture into a collection of objects, then referrences those objects online, providing the user with such information.  That’s called machine-assisted research with the queries being performed by computer vision.  It’s not as important or world shattering as TPP realizes, and when it is actually implemented (15 years later, at least), it will be considered a basic service.  It won’t be the “killer app” of computer vision.

Scoble talks about plentyoffish.com.

What’s the secret to his success? Ugly design. I call it “anti-marketing design.”

Huh?

He says that sites that have ugly designs are well known to pull more revenue, be more sticky, build better brands, and generally be more fun to participate in, than sites with beautiful designs.

I wonder if it really is the poorly designed sites, or the sites that are designed to be quick and simple.  As far as I would understand it, simple and quick would generally win.  People don’t want to go to a site often that takes minutes to load (an irony this guy with a splash image on his front page does accept), but do the want to go to one that has clashing colors, poor text choices, and other design mistakes.

Web design should follow a number of different paths: visually appealing, quick loading, and easy to use.  Each of these is important.  A look at plentyoffish shows that the site is not truly ugly; it looks amateurish but acceptable.   Another important detail is the fact that it is a free dating site.  Those generally have good traffic despite quirks.  I would love his eyeballs and revenue on some of my work, but I’m fairly sure it is not due to any amazingly good poor design decisions.

It’s due to having a service people want at the right price.

Web 2.0 Is Reminiscent Of Marx - CBS News

According Mr. Andrew Keen, by accepting the tenets of blogging, we have become Marxists in nature.  I wonder how Glenn Reynolds would respond to such a threat, being a man who’s very popularity is derived from these “Marxist” views.

But realistically, is this a question of “drinking the Kool-Aid,” or is Mr. Keen making a valid statement?  I would argue, as Mr. Keen sees it, the Web 2.0 world is insane.  No sane person would want this cacaphony of voices adding even more noise to an already noisy medium.  Mr. Keen does miss a few major points.

Not everyone will blog.  Not everyone who is capable and has the resources to blog will blog.  Most people are quite happy about being the audience.  Those of us who choose to perform are still (and I would argue, always) in the minority.  Our reasons are varied and many, but I would bet that it is rarely to overthrow the “elite” mainstream media.

Citizen Media in its real form is started as a soap box.  That is a step towards Mr. Keen’s distopian view, but it is the only step for easily 90% of those who will speak.  Most bloggers have only a handful of viewers, and many are happy with those numbers.  They speak to friends and family.  Those who speak to the greater world do sometimes espouse a disgust with those who control the message.

Most of those looking for a larger audience do so by focusing on a niche.  Some find a niche in which they compete with mainstream media, most don’t.  I have a hard time seeing Robert Scoble competing with Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal.  I can see him correcting publicly something that Mossberg got wrong in his column.  And that’s the key.

Blogs are more like the opinion page of a newspaper.  Craigslist.com takes over for classified.  Web 2.0 is a threat to many of the institutions of the mainstream media, but, as of now, never a threat to the institution at large.  Marxism espoused revolution, Web 2.0 espouses gradual evolution and, dare I say it, synergy.