Gadgets Gizmos Gossip

It is intriguing to see how web development has moved on over the last few years especially. The world wide web has turned from a niche for brochure-ware and intranets into one of the biggest software development environments in the market over just a few years. The web as a platform is a hollow dream no longer – you can now run and develop a web application without needing to host any sort of web page yourself and you can even get the data from a wide variety of other sources. Web development has created jobs around our country which is really helpful. Just watching the TV for five minutes these days is depressing enough – no jobs, un-employment crashes to a new high and the recession just gets deeper and deeper.

Moving web development on is a tricky business. When designing a site you now need to consider cutting edge graphic design and logo design. Simply constructing some for the web is not enough anymore, people want the full package. Unless you have a very compelling product or idea most clients will already have something in place web wise and chances are they have already spent a lot of money on it. Maintaining a website is much more common these days than creating an entirely new site. Yet in today’s modern web society just creating a site is not enough. You want to able to get your site seen. How can you get that done? Keeping on top of web trends is understanding the logistics of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Search engine optimisation is fundamentally tweaking your website to be visible with search engines such as Google and Yahoo! If you can get your site seen by these search engines the amount of revenue and visibility you can get from these search engines is incredible and it can completely change how a business works and earns money.

So what about the future? Well if I knew that I would be on a hot beach somewhere soaking up the sun. However what I will say is that the way some web developers deal with market forces and business people is wrong. What matters these days is how fast you can do the project and how quickly you can get it to market. This goes against what I believe in as a web designer and I think businesses should stand up and fight against these ‘quick wins’. What do you think?

As broadband is marching on into the future it was announced yesterday that a third of homes in the UK still do not have access to the internet! According to ONS’s 2008 Internet Access report 65% of all homes have no internet access what so ever. This is an increase of 1.23 million households in 2007. At a time where the web design industry is going through the roof it is hard to actually believe that some homes still dont want/need an internet connection.

A creative design agency in London added to the debate on the site topic by saying that the reason people still dont have an internet connection is because some of the products are far too expensive and un-accessible for lower class families. However, the computer in general are pushing to make comupters more affordable. The prices for bog standard personal computer are dropping as low as £150.The South East of England are the most connected region in UK to be connected to the internet, swiftly followed by London. Northern parts of the UK are falling below average by only having 54% of homes connected. There is no doubt in my mind that the divide between the North and South is getting bigger. The percentage gap between houses in South and North who were connected to the net was 12% in 2006. Now it has grown rapidly to 20% in just two years.

Personally I think that it is difficult for poor familie s to afford luxury items such as computers. But with the current advancement of technology it is enabling manufactures to produce PC’s for cheaper which will ultimately drop the retail price. Thus making it easier for people to purchase.

OK, im betting you have visited the new bbc website right? We all have. It is a great resource for sport news, news, weather and now tv with the iplayer, which I think is absolutely amazing! I heard on article on my local radio station, splashfm that every year the new bbc website is predicted to cost a wopping £32m!!!! Oh my god. What high-end web design agency got their hands on this lucrative deal??? Cos whoever you are…fair play! I would love to be working on a website like that and to be able to charge that amount of money is un-heard of within the web design industry!

Fantastic!