The Beginning of the Semantic Web Era

Now with Google being on the fritz and Facebook turning into Twitter, it is time to move on to something else.   How does semantic web searching sound?

Check out Wolfram Alpha, one awesome attempt to turn searching into a more natural feel.  This site has a long term gold to make al systematic knowledge immediately computable. 

You can type in dates to see what happened back then, enter any math formula, any city.  Pretty cool stuff and it returns some surprisingly accurate information.

However being that it is semantic search, it takes a little to get used to after searching for vague ideas in Google like "seo pittsburgh cheap” or “sexiest man in pittsburgh.”  Wait, does that last one even need searched? hehe…anyway I will be keeping my eye on this and see if they can integrate it into Google APIs to provide better imagery and more meta information.

Brand Management Software

Your brand is everything and making sure it is managed properly is important.  This is where brand management software comes into play.  There are plenty of solutions out there, but the best kind in my opinion are online brand management software tools.

Brand management software can actually efficiently manage and distribute identity materials from a central place online.  Doing this allows you to provide 24/7 access to your brand materials from anywhere. 

Brand management software also keeps staff, vendors and partners up-to date with the latest changes in your brand identity.

Shifting from Print to Online

The latest trend in the publications world is shifting your print magazine to an online format. Tons of traditional print magazines are finding it hard to maintain their traditional print magazine, dumping them and moving to an online only version.  This makes total sense in this day and age, plus there are many advantages to do this.

Advantages of Online Magazines over Print Magazines

• Dynamic Ad Serving
• Online Allows for Interaction
• Print out as many copies as you’d like
• Online Magazines are printable

There are a few things to consider when migrating from print to a web-based magazine format.  Customers will want to print pages out, so keep in mind your print style sheets. 

In order to manage your newly created online magazine, it is important to make use of a content management tool that is geared specifically for and online magazine format.  While there are many (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupla), many have so many options and features that it is impossible to even know where to start.  Many features are extraneous and cumbersome to use.

Here is my list of required features that are perfect for maintaining an online magazine:

• Article Rating
• Flash Carousel of Article Images
• Online Gallery
• Polls
• Drag-Drop menu items (great for rearranging articles and departments
• Asset and Image management
• Event Registration
• RSS feeds <- This is totally important for getting your articles out there
• SEO ready tools…built in

If the core CMS doesn’t contain all of these requirements, then chances are you will have a hard time converting your print publication to online.  I know for a fact that the Brady Communication’s CMS is a perfect tool for creating and maintaining on online magazine.  I’ve used it and it is pretty slick.

The Fate of Print Publications

Who knows where we are all going with this.  I thought for sure a few years ago that everybody on my commute into town would be reading the Wall Street Journal on their Amazon Kindle I don’t think print publications will ever die out, but I know for sure that the need for converting from print to online will only increase.

Cool Collapsible DHTML Menu

We’ve released a new collapsible DHTML menu over at Brady Communications in order to accommodate the every-growing articles of our Think Further Newsletter.  

The code to control the menu is pretty click and simple. I made use of a remote library from the Google Code library using ajax and jquery.  Pretty cool indeed, not having to house these scripts.

Madden 10 to Feature Troy Polamalu on the Cover

I hate sports, I don’t like video games, but for all you sports, especially Stiller fans can cheer to see Troy being plopped on the cover of Madden 10 from EA Sports.