Content Management Matters ™

Any good web publisher knows that it isn’t just content that keep readers reading and visitors returning. Interface design can be just as important as quality content. A bad website design can drive your audience away or seriously erode their confidence, just as they're coming through the door.

On a whole, the art of Web design has begun to be better understood as a necessity in the world of ecommerce and content management. After all, content is only as good as its design and vice versa. Once viewed as something that made your site look pretty but had little significance to the bottom line, web design is now considered an integral part of a site's success.

Not only do many websites have unreliable metrics; they're usually measuring the wrong things.

We're all dressed up or down and off to go interneting. And by interneting, we mean we're going content consuming.

You're dressed up. I'm dressed up. So what we want to ask is: What's your content wearing?

No, this isn't your CMS trying to seduce you. It's a valid question. As we've discussed many times here, there's much more to content than management. You are what you wear or what you eat...or some such thing. And the same goes for your content. So let's talk about its personality.

The Web is showing us that in a great many areas of human endeavor the best intelligence lies in the network as a whole, rather than any one element.

Looking for the scoop and details surrounding what is promising to be “an open, comprehensive and accessible platform that enables developers to tackle increasingly complex problems no matter the device, connection or experience.” Yes, it is Microsoft's LiveMesh -- believe it or not.

The key to successful conversion rates is getting information to the right people at the right time.

Internet technology provides businesses the ability to pin-point markets at precise moments. However, if you’re not delivering the right information, the entire effort, investment and process is severely flawed.

Press releases are a form of propaganda. Publishing them on your website shows your customers how you are attempting to spin the media.

The circus is coming to town! Join mediabistro.com, the largest online destination for media people today for jobs, classes, community and news, at their two-day summit on digital platforms and trends that are changing media.

For every step forward taken in bridging the gap between traditional print and online media, there are two steps backward every time the words "Sign of the Times" are uttered. Such is the case with a recent debate about the merits and downfalls of news aggregators.

The Web allows us to marry collective intelligence with expert knowledge. This is an unbeatable combination.

The future of Web design is coming. In two weeks. Are you ready?

I speak of course about the conference Future of Web Design scheduled for April 17 and 18 in London. The conference features internationally-renowned design experts and alluring workshops such as Creating Sexy Style Sheets and Elastic Thinking: adaptable design in a world of uncertainty.

FOWB boasts the opportunity to learn from the best to become the best. A very tall order, indeed.

On day one, you will be whisked through the day chock-full of dynamic speakers who will extol on such topics as:

• Finding Inspiration For Design
• User Experience vs Brand Experience
• Designing the User Experience Curve
• Getting your designs approved: 12 Simple Rules
• Print is the new web
• From Design to Deployment
• Unconventional ways to promote your site
• Evolving the User Experience

On day two, you will delve into the aforementioned workshops. By the time the after party rolls around, it will be hard to determine the experts from the attendees!

Only full conference passes and the conference-in-a-box, a handy-dandy pack that contains all of the great content that you'd experience from the conference without the hassle of traveling, are still available for registrants so hurry!

The Web offers one of the most significant opportunities to communicators in modern history, but requires a total redefinition of what communications is.

The other day, colleagues and I made a list of of things that sound bad but aren't -- such as Jawbreakers and Chunky Monkey. But now I've started making a list of things that sound good but aren't. Topping the list are sites catered toward women.

Don't get me wrong, women rock. And what makes us so visibly cool is that we have diverse interests, moods and yes, emotions. But that doesn't mean we can't handle weeding through the Internet to find what we seek, whether it be the weather, a great pair of shoes or gasp! --news.

However, Yahoo! begs to differ. They think that the gentler sex are easily distracted by all the choices available to us on the magical Web that we need a one-stop shop offering content from women's magazines and blogs with a "distinctive voice" .

Why else would they launch Shine?

More than 88% of Internet users believe they are served poor content on the Web, according to an online poll conducted by Webcopyplus.