Design-World Watch

Well the deal is down for the count. Facebook has just stated today that Google’s fledgling Friend Connect violates it’s terms of service and will block its use of their network. You can read the full post here.

Not only is this really bad news for Google as Facebook was the most important site on its implementation list, but it is bad news for Friend Connect users. Without Facebook the other services, other than LinkedIn, in the Friend Connect network are marginally used.

The only way that Friend Connect will really get off the ground is to have other great social networking sites buy into the program.

But does Facebook’s decision surprise you? Not me, Facebook is in talks with MSN so why would MSN want to let Google has access to one of its “cherry” potential properties. Let Microsoft implement its own version of Friend Connect tied in to Facebook and that’s sure to be winning combination and a perfect ad vehicle for Microsoft adCenter - you go Microsoft!

The war between MSN and Google will be ramping up again for sure on this one.

If you are not using Twitter you may want to strongly consider giving it a whirl. My Twitter site is http://www.twitter.com/mccordweb

I have been having fun with Twitter for about the last 30 days. I went from posting all the time to posting every day or so and include interesting links in my posts.

Twitter is like a mini-blog. I like it, it is easy to use, and I am using it to keep on top of the NOW news on the Web. I have found more really cool applications using Twitter and links from other peoples Tweets than taking the time to read a full blog.

What I like is also the ability to subscribe to Twitter Feeds of others in my industry and real celebrities in my industry as well like Matt Cutts (Google engineer) and Danny Sullivan (SEO guru). I find it hugely interesting to see what they are watching and even seeing their mundane day Tweets as well.

If you are looking for a bit of fun, check out Twitter, you may become addicted too.

We’ve added a new template to our Quick Launch templated web design program. It is called Tropical and you can view it online here.

What Quick Launch Web Design Can Do

1. If you need a fast web presence and like one of the website template designs as they are Quick Launch is a good choice for you.
2. If you want to spend around $600 plus hosting and your domain name then Quick Launch web templates are a good choice for you.
3. If you want to be on the Web in about 7 business days or less Quick Launch is a good choice for you.
4. If you don’t mind if someone else has the exact same website design as your Quick Launch is a good choice for you.

What Quick Launch Does Not Do

1. If you want custom colors or don’t like the images in the Quick Launch website template headers then you should consider our custom web design services.
2. If you want a unique look or want to add your input to colors, navigation, placement of web design elements on the page you should consider our custom web design services.
3. If you want to have a website that integrates strong organic placement techniques you should consider our custom web design services.
4. If you are going to have a website that can grow with your business over time you should consider our custom web design services.

Our templated web design service is not for every customer and some clients may be better served considering our custom web design services, but for some - Quick Launch can be the perfect match!

Typically navigation belongs on the left of your web page. Years and websites have trained readers to look for navigation there. If you differ from this model, you’d better have a good reason as you do not want to needlessly confuse readers or have your site be difficult to navigate. One of the top reasons for a new website design is to improve navigation.

What we typically will do is to provide major navigation links on the left and detail links at the top with drop downs. Another suggestion is if you have a large site is to provide top level navigation on the top and then section specific navigation on the left. The left navigation will be different for each section but the top navigation will be unchangeable.

We also strongly recommend for mid size sites that you include a site integrated web search function. Let customers find what THEY want fast. Improving your navigation will make your website more search engine friendly - typically, more readable, and more usable by your site visitors.

Have you wondered how other websites get that Orange feed icon to light up in IE 7 and Firefox? Here’s how to do it.

In the head section of your source code insert the following code:

link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”RSS Design-World Watch” href=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/Design-WorldWatch” /

Please note so you can see the code, I have removed the < in front and the > behind the code or it would not show in your browser. Simply replace the URL for my feed Design-World Watch with your own feed address starting with http://.

It’s that simple to turn on the orange feed icon!

If you are using WordPress for your blog, you will not even recognize the newest version of WordPress as a WordPress application.

The interface is slick and loaded with AJAX, but is slicker better? Well we’ve seen bugs in the spell checker and image up loader already. I know that WordPress has some fixes for this already in place, but what a pain.

There is some new power with the new application, but I was so comfortable with the old set up, it is hard to get used to the new interface. If you are currently using the older version of WordPress, you may want to wait several months to upgrade until some of these bugs are worked out.

I just solved the very weirdest WordPress problem and wanted to share the resolution with you. One of our client’s has a WordPress blog, and our blogger emailed today to say that the add a link field was totally whited out and what should she do.

 I logged into the blog and found that I could not even get my cursor to lay on the post box, I could add a title and tags, but could not write a post.

The bottom line resolution was in options and under the address for the blog, it had been changed to http://WWW.blog.com and previously had been set as http://blog.com no WWW.  The admin link on the blog was http://blog.com no www.  When I now access the admin with a www. in front of the URL everything works just peachy, I can see the link field, I can see and write a post. Now the admin link in the sidebar needs to be corrected to reflect the www. addition.

Who would have thought that hours would bring the answer with such a simple solution. So if your content box is broken on WordPress, if you are getting post editing JavaScript errors in WordPress, or if you cannot edit your WordPress blog, try this simple change before you start hacking your code. It has taken me five hours of research to resolve my little problem so I hope that you personally start with my post first and save tons of time. 

Click to read our May newsletter. Topics are:

1. Getting Links the Easy Way with “Link Bait” Articles
2. Build Search Engine “Authority Links” with Press Releases
3. Become an Authority On the Web in Your Field by Blogging

Blogger has finally gotten the feature that we wanted most! Auto Publish.

 Now you can enter your post in Blogger and set the date when you want to publish. For some of us who write ahead and want to schedule posts this is a very welcome addition.

Thanks Blogger!

Are you trying to build traffic to your blog? Want to know my best practice tips to increase readership? Click in to our blog post at Blog-World Watch to read about how you can build blog readers and blog traffic.