Tuesday afternoon on Web 2.0 Berlin 2007

A Conversation with Neil Holloway, Microsoft Europe

Microsoft doesn't get advertising potential in IPTV, and are talking about closeminded methods of using IPTV to enhance advertising... I really see a big market here.

Microsoft doesn't get mobile computing and mobile web.

Microsoft doesn't talk about the Facebook deal.

Microsoft will buy 20 to 30 companies until the end of the year, most of them web 2.0. The statement came in the form of "we don't want to be the 2nd or the 3rd, so we'll buy and buy"...

First thing "good" (for them) I've heard is already after the schedule and as a response to a question. Microsoft wants to generalize their XBOX platform to be a "media platform" (XBOX, Media Centers, IPTV...)

High Order Bit: Introducing Ginger

Ginger is basicly the upcoming version of Netvibes... They're now betting in aggregation of social networks data and widgetise the web using standards (maybe creating some for social widgets?)

Creating Passionate Users

Awsome presentation... Tells you about why does your "help" of "FAQ" or "User Manual" doesn't usually help, people aren't in a "I want to learn this" mood, but in an WTF mood, thinking they're stupid because they can't do what they want with that stupid application... And how to understand the people in that mood and how not to make them have that feeling.

Is Web 2.0 with usability or not?

BBC quotes Jakob Nielsen, while he says, basicly, that Web 2.0 is with a creepy lack of usability. People are more interested in doing fancy things than actualy making them work well. And... Not only I agree with him, but also am having this discussion with several people in the Web 2.0 world for more than two years. Of course that telling this also pisses a lot of people, and we got a R/WW post saying basicly, that none of that is true, and that Web 2.0 has a lot of usability. I'm sorry, I'm not going to use this space to bash anyone, to talk about who's right and wrong or doing publicity to 37signals. I'm just going to pick some examples to show what I mean with lack of usability.

1. Have you ever tried to post a comment in TechCrunch using Opera Mini? Well, you can't...
2. ...which reminds me the whole issue of "mobile versions" and "mobile portals". When you need to do a web version of your web application to run in some browsers (mobile or not), you sure usability problems. Remember, a mobile device is also a computer with an web browser.
3. YouTube was a given example of usability by R/WW. Excuse me? IMHO the only way you can use YouTube in any Operating System besides Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Solaris (like any BSD, for instance) is by downloading the video (using something like youtube-dl or a GreaseMonkey script), since it heavily depends on Adobe Flash, which licence does not permit its use in any Operating System other than those refered above;
4. XHR. You know? XMLHttpRequest, that thingie most use in an AJAX implementation. While I think there are great things that are achieved with this, XHR is still NOT a standard (see status and help changing it), and so several web browsers does not support it. Using it is taking usability off your web application.
   
5. Another example of bad usability is taken from an example of "good usability" given on R/WW: NetVibes. You say they have great usability, but their website says:

   We currently support Mozilla Firefox 1+, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Opera 9.02, Safari 2+.
   

   I'm sorry, but if you only support some web browers, then you do not have usability.
   

Now, I could be hours ranting about this, but I think that it's kind of useless. People are still exited with Web 2.0, so excited that they don't really care. And while they don't care, you can tell them whatever that they won't listen to you.

If you're a Web 2.0 developer and really care about usability, please, PLEASE, prove me wrong. I would love to see, for instance, more people working with W3C.