On this blog I’ve spoken about the value of adding a blog, and other social media to a website. Something I’ve not yet talked about is a forum - or message board - that allows contributors to come online and discuss any topic they like. It takes minutes to install an open-source package like phpBB, and maybe a day or two to really get things looking good, but the long term effort is often underestimated.

Sandown High School on the Isle of Wight has taken down its forum and website following undesirable links on the forum (story on Metro.co.uk). It tuns out these are just spam messages that come up on blogs and forums automatically everywhere, but in the radio report I heard, this wasn’t mentioned.

• Do you really need a forum? What value is a forum going to add to your website? Is there another way of getting this information out, such as responding to emails by posting them on a good FAQ section, or by having “open threads” on a weblog with good spam filters, a semi-focussed discussion etc.
• Will you have time to look after it? Many businesses start a forum, and then it seems to be forgotten about. This could be one of the reasons for the downfall of Yahoo! Podcasts - apparently the community were coming on with bug reports and questions, but no one was responding to them. Even worse, if current or prospective customers post to a forum and no one replies, what is the support going to be like? Rather than let someone create an account, describe their problem and check back frequently, only to find no-one seems to care, it’s probably better not to do it at all.
• How secure is the software; what’s the spam protection? This could be the thing that caught out Sandown High School’s forum. They use phpBB, and the number of phpBB forums I see full of spam messages is staggering. I’m not saying phpBB is bad software - but it’s worth signing up for the email newsletters and keeping the software up-to-date, and check out the documentation to see how you can make it secure and keep out spam.
• Is open membership appropriate? In this case, it might have been worth a member of IT or the website team checking out the new registrations every morning. Blocking those with hotmail and gmail.com addresses isn’t a great idea, and those CAPTCHA images can be awful. Minimise the effort required to allow people access, but as you’re inviting them into your house, it’s your job to keep the undesirable stuff out, not make it difficult for genuine users and easy for you.
• Do you want to manage a forum? Forums are a great place to grow a community and have discussions. However, there will be undesirable members posting questionable content. Check out some guides and forums on looking after a community, ensure you have clear rules, and don’t be afraid to remove even very popular members of that community.

Forums are a good idea in general, but without proper attention from moderators or owners they can look deserted, full of useless content and even get you into the news when something goes wrong, as has here. Not everyone will understand the workings of a forum and automated spam - ensure you don’t have to explain it.

I talk all the time about how small businesses can use great content on information pages, articles or blogs to attract more traffic. On the Digg home page right now is “Plan Your Own Ergonomic Workstation“, which links to a page on Ergotron’s website. You can choose your height, and the page will display an image with the measurements you need to setup your workspace correctly.

I’ve been looking at the Ergotron stands for a new monitor, but by putting something simple like this on the website Ergotron can hope to attract new visitors who perhaps hadn’t thought about ergonomics. Even if the majority go off and adjust their desks, or find a Yellow Pages to put under the monitor, I’d think many visitors will check out their products.

One of the great things about Amazon and ebuyer (and many other stores) is the reviews available to those looking for real world information about a product. Magazines get products to try out then return, but the item is only in their possession for a short amount of time, and these products are supplied specifically for testing by journalists.

The Top Gear Survey is built on this premise. They get a car and drive it round some corners quickly, but what’s it actually like day to day? And what are the dealers like? This scenario actually works out quite well - a motoring journalist will know what to look for and can give you some information on the stats, and the owner can complement this with how it performs after a few months, how it copes in everything the weather has to throw at it and so on.

A few years ago I read a piece about reviews on Amazon. The journalist had looked up a number of books, DVDs and other items on sites like Amazon and found many had consumer reviews before they’d even gone on the market. After that I wondered if the product I was looking at on a site had been reviewed by staff in an effort to shift stock, or whether it was a genuine review. Now with so many forums and tools like Technorati and Google Blog Search, it’s become a bit easier to cast a wider net when looking for opinions.

Simon Calder (apparently “the man who pays his way”) is the travel editor for the Independent. Previously on Radio 2 at an hour I was always asleep, he’s moved up to Mo Dutta’s show between 6am and 8am on Saturday and I have to say I consistently enjoy Simon’s discussions on everything travel. The reporting is always straight and honest, with nothing unnecessary thrown in.

This week in the Independent, Simon talks about trusting the reviews on travel websites, following news from Holiday Which? that the reviews might not be as honest as you think and posing a question over the tactics some hoteliers might go to for good write up. My immediate thoughts were around the target audience of these sites and a magazine such as Holiday Which? who conducted the research.

In defense of the sites, magazines might have one or more reviewers in a particular time scale. Considering the gap between the visit and getting the magazine through peoples doors, the travel sites might do better on recent information if the hotel was suffering a staff shortage, or building work. Another benefit the sites have is seeing “I took my grand children to the hotel…” to “After my girlfriend and I got our A level results…”. In looking for accommodation recently I made extensive use of TripAdvisor, starting off by looking up the hotels Expedia came back with, then used TripAdvisor’s ratings to find prices for hotels visitors had rated highly.

After a while I noticed myself ignoring the 4 and 5 star reviews and hunting out the bad ones. Now I think about it, I suppose I justify that approach by saying that for £80 the hotel should to be nice, with a decent room and good staff . There were some genuine bad stories - one hotel I looked at had rooms backing on to a courtyard which was extremely noisy with drinkers and air conditioning units at 2am. Get a room at the front and the views might be amazing and “the traffic was relatively quiet”. Some criticisms of another hotel might revolve around something like room size and “only a foot and a half around the bed”. Walking around the bed is something I can do at home - I can live with that for a few days.

Simon finishes the article by saying “Even so, anyone considering a large investment like a holiday, who relies exclusively on the opinions of unidentifiable individuals, would be mad not to consult friends, family, guidebooks and a good travel agent.”

Having not consulted any of those four, I hope the reviews online turn out to be right. I’ll post my own when I get back next week. =)

If you’re interested in my persuits whilst I’m away, you can follow me on my Tumblelog at jmsbrrg.com and see photos on my flickr account.

And it’s great. I just found a copy of the Guardian from August in a bag I’m packing at the moment and was thinking about the design they recently introduced. Personally I like the size, and find the fonts easy to read even at 11pm when my eyes are tired. Comparing it to other broadsheets, I think they’ve got it just right. It’s also a co-incidence that just this morning I was thinking the Guardian site had a different front page to a lot of the site, and comment areas appear in three very different styles.

I check out the Organ Grinder blog on media every day and love what they’ve done with it. I think the way the titles of the posts are done is better - now loading with no delay. The categories down the left hand side are very clear and tidy, although I’m not sure how well the red links on grey down the right hand side work. The comments are now formatted in the familiar style from Comment is Free, and they’re much easier to read as a result.

The formatting of posts is very nice indeed. Whilst the trend is to add buttons for the major social sites, or a share button to open a box with dozens of buttons, they’ve stuck with just Digg and del.icio.us, which are certainly the tools I use most for blog posts. Props for plain text links too. There’s also a link to see what’s being said about a post (”Conversations about this post”). This is very worth while when you gather almost 7,000 diggs on a blog post like Charlie Brooker’s I Hate Macs.

I believe the Guardian are doing a lot of work at the moment on the website and look forward to seeing how the rest looks. I’m a big fan of the new Times Online site and think the broadsheets have responded very well with the challenges of putting together sites (see Independent, Telegraph, New York Times, USA Today) which look great, have some familiarity with the paper edition and innovate with new types of content like blogs and podcasts.

Last week on the MediaTalk podcast (look at that smooth segue), Emily Bell mentioned the video player on the Telegraph site. I’ve not been the quickest to adopt viewing these channels, but the Telegraph video player is so well done I’ve gone back a few times. It’s worth noting how these flash players contrast with traditional Microsoft and Real delivery. Just look at what CNN are doing and compare it to the “beta” player from MSNBC. I find Flash is often quick and convenient, especially as it doesn’t interfere with anything else I’m doing. In Vista when I watch the BBC video content I lose sound, the screen goes black for a few seconds and it all comes back with the basic theme. Close the window and the same thing happens again.

I think this extends past a technology choice on the website. The video podcasts from ABC and CNN are very clean and they clearly understand the differences between viewing online and on TV. MSNBC only make available audio highlights from shows like Countdown with Keith Olbermann, even though the clips are incredibly popular online on YouTube or other video sites.

It’s a really exciting time for online content. When ABC and CNN are moving forward, it still seems strange that the BBC would move backwards.

Last week Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture, appeared on Radio 4’s You and Yours to discuss the internet. It was a fairly interesting discussion, where comments ranged from “The internet is wonderful, you can find anything” to “It’s an invention worse than the atom bomb”, a reference to its impact on traditional businesses.

Broadly speaking, the premise of the book is that the internet is home to “amateur content”. The majority of blogs are full of opinion where the facts aren’t checked and authors can’t be held to account, whilst sites like Wikipedia contain a lot of misinformation. Another issue addressed is that content creators, artists ad musicians are finding it harder to earn a living thanks to the internet.

It’s an interesting discussion and one worth reading about. I think crowd based news websites mean we’re seeing more stories than we might do if we relied solely on a newspaper and TV channel. For example, I wouldn’t know who Ron Paul was if I wasn’t a visitor to Digg. You would do well by starting with this discussion with Andrew Keen and Emily Bell, digital content director at the Guardian. Andrew Keen v Emily Bell - Is today’s internet killing our culture?

I’m in a quandary. Since April I’ve been using just one computer - a Dell Inspiron notebook. After a month or two I hooked up an external keyboard so I could stretch out and move the screen back, and now I look at it, I’m amazed I sat in that position for so long. However, I take this thing everywhere. On the desk, hooked up to the TV, on the train for work or watching a DVD and more in-between. Sometimes it’s not even switched off for days as I download Linux distro’s or backup a site locally. It frightens me to think what I’d do if I lost it, or part of it failed. I couldn’t even get online to look for a new machine.

I’ve never been happier with a piece of equipment. One of Dell’s bargains about a year ago, it’s been flawless and still performs with Vista, XP and Ubuntu on the same 100GB drive, with lots of heavy applications and the full Office suite (with Visio, OneNote, Project etc) on each Windows installation. However, it’s a bit heavy and the 15″ widescreen is starting to feel restrictive. I have no idea what to do about finding another computer. Add in that I’d like a box for Apache, Tomcat, Ruby on Rails and Subversion that’d also be a PVR. My TV is also a monitor with VGA and DVI, so it’d be the additional PC I need. Options as I see it are;

• Cheap Dell Machine, with the same tri-boot scenario. In July, Dell released the new Vostro range aimed at small business and home users. These look pretty good and I haven’t played a computer game since Sim City 3000, nor am likely to own a video camera, negating the need for anything that powerful. I’m using Ubuntu more and more - I’d be quite happy using it full time, although would miss iTunes and would need Windows for some tasks.
  Pro: Cheap, well supported hardware. Easy to get tri-boot working, reliable computing. Easy to upgrade/add to. Lots of free software.
  Con: Paying for Windows even if you already have licence, unless you build it yourself.
  Total Cost: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz, 2048MB RAM, 320GB HDD, 256MB GeForce, 16x DVD - £411 (plus monitor)
• Mac Mini. These things have a tiny footprint, are very cool and I’m being tempted to look seriously at a Mac. If you still need access to those Office programs take a look at Boot Camp or Parallels. In a computing pull-out in the Independent today there’s some good points made about getting a Mac, although I was disappointed to read about the short warranty offered (one year RTB).
  Pro: It’s a Mac. Long shelf life, stable, secure computer. Still able to run Windows/Ubuntu apps on virtual machines, whilst enjoying the Mac portion. Comes with iLife.
  Con: It’s a Mac. Expensive in the short term, no (or little) upgradability. Shortish warranty. If you have the Windows version of something like Photoshop, you either need to load Windows or buy the Mac version to use it. Constant speculation about the line being discontinued.
  Cost: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB HDD - £399 (plus monitor) OR Intel Core 2 Duo 2.00GHz, 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD - £499 (plus monitor)
• Even cheaper Dell without the 19″ monitor, and keep the laptop as a desktop replacement with external monitor. By cutting back to the minimum and only running Ubuntu on the box, with a DVB card for Freeview, you’d have the backup whilst keeping a decent machine on the desk. I’ve seen some good Samsung widescreen LCD monitors for under £170.
  Pro: Getting a server, PVR, DVD player and spare machine for just over £200. Well supported hardware. Upgrade options.
  Con: It’ll be under the TV. Not that useful for tasks outside of being a server and a PVR.
  Cost: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.00GHz, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD, Integrated graphics, 16x DVD - £211 (plus monitor)

Source: dmxdimension.com, Apple UK Store

Having laid out the options there the last seems the most sensible. There’s something about a Mac that I like (and everyone seems to be using them for design and development - every single Ruby book, screencast and website I’ve looked at has development being done on a Mac). I don’t suppose that’s really a good reason to go for one. Having Vista and Ubuntu under Parallels on a Mac would be great, and it does look like they have a pretty good shelf life.

Any thoughts? Anyone gone over to a Mac? Anything else to consider?

I guess I always knew about CNET, but never really thought to go there to read tech news. Recently I based two purchases (printer and camera) on their in-depth editors reviews and I’ve been really impressed.

A few weeks ago James Cridland posted about Buzz Out Loud, a podcast from CNET. There’s a lot of tech podcasts out there and I normally take my cue from Digg Podcasts when looking for something new. It’s been one of the top ones for a long time and I still hadn’t listened to it.

Anyway - it’s great. I love the format and the presenters are very easy to listen to. On Wednesday for the iPod announcements they had a stand in presenter (Jasmine France, from MP3 Insider) who gave a really balanced view to the announcements, taking into account different media players on the market.

Another show I’ve been listening to but haven’t enjoyed perhaps as much is This Week in Tech (TWiT). It’s a very good quality show with superb audio quality, and I recommend checking it out.

Revision3 do a lot of video podcasts, but I’ve been enjoying Systm the most. They get into some fairly technical details, there’s no crazy camera work and it’s very easy to get into.

For a long time I wished there was more technology programming on TV. But now I find myself watching less of shows like The Gadget Show when this “new” type of media is more in-depth and a lot more relevant, especially when developments are rapid (such as the possible inclusion of Bluetooth in the iPod touch). CNET and TWiT are providing a lot of high quality content with good presenters, and there’s many more specialised shows in-between.

Just a few quick observations. I’ve heard a lot of tech podcasts, but don’t remember yet hearing a UK tech podcast. I’m sure there’s a magazine doing one (like Stuff or T3), but I’ve not even seen an independent UK tech podcast. Some of these podcasts have taken the idea of doing a radio show and applied it to a podcast, but they’ve brought in techniques used on talk radio and gone a bit nuts, like some very over the top processing.

And it’s only a small niggle, but I rarely hear talk about Vista or Dell machines - there’s a real emphasis on Apple products, and in the video podcasts everyone has a MacBook. I mean, GarageBand and Final Cut are the business for putting these shows together and they’re great products, but a bit of Linux or Windows love wouldn’t go unnoticed. I’ll post more about choosing an Apple or desktop PC for work over the weekend.

Like a lot of people, I kept an eye on the Apple announcement today. I was actually amazed the BBC didn’t cover it more, considering the number of other journalists and bloggers in Television Centre for the feed from San Francisco. As each development was unveiled, it looked very cool and attractive. Then I started to think about the practicalities of each product.

• iPod Touch. The new iPod is similar to the iPhone, only without the phone and camera. Coverflow (the method of browsing music) is very nice, the Safari browser and iTunes Wifi store very cool - not to mention the other applications and access to YouTube. However - I’m not going to start getting out an iPod Touch at 10pm on the bus back from Newcastle. My Sony Ericsson K800i isn’t really attractive to anyone now. Wifi is also great - however, if I’m at home I have the laptop and if I’m out it’ll cost an arm and a leg. If on the train it’s extremely unreliable.
• iPod Classic. A seriously impressive 160GB could never consume all of the songs and video I own. Even if I did have that much material, there’s a lot of shows I’ve recorded that I can easily stick on the new Creative player and not the iPod, considering the availability of DivX. The range of shows on the iTunes store is nothing to get that excited about. Nice improvements with a good price point though.
• iPhone. Interesting developments here - especially with the price. The 4GB version is no more, and the 8GB version has $200 taken off the price tag. I’m a bit sceptical that the iPhone could be close to £200 in the UK, and even then who knows what the contract will look like with a monthly cost, minimum term and data rates. At $0.99 for a ringtone (on top of buying the song), I’d stick to the defaults.

Personally, at the moment, the best option looks like a Sony Ericsson K850i and the new Creative player. Getting a 5MP camera and FM radio, plus a media player with the same space as an iPod Touch with SD card slot, with the ability to play back a lot of video I’ve encoded sounds pretty good. When wifi here improves significantly in speed, reliability and cost the iPod touch will be totally worth it, and when the mobile companies come up with a very attractive offer for the iPhone, for me anyway it’ll get a whole lot more interesting.

I also started thinking about the radio speculation. I only listen to FM radio in the shower - there’s not a lot on commercial radio that’s really gripping. Start listening to internet radio, or music services like Pandora over wifi, and you’ve got another thing altogether. My closest wifi hotspot is at a McDonalds - the day Durham City gets free (or cheap) wifi like Norwich and I can have my lunch outside whilst listening to NPR, I’ll be first in line.