Business Logs

Helping companies communicate better

Home

Movable Type Accessibility In Question

Joe Clark, one of the loudest voices in the world in regards to accessibility, has a boombastic writeup on his weblog that discusses how Movable Type is an application that generates content, and should therefore adhere to the Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines or ATAG:

A detail of note here: Many browsers comply with most of UAAG, and we have a few thousand sites more or less accurately claiming to comply with WCAG, but nothing whatsoever complies with ATAG, including demo projects created by the W3C itself, like Amaya.

We could sit around and wait for inconsequential and minor products like Amaya to comply, or we could go big right away. Movable Type is pretty big, isn’t it? And aren’t they committed to standards compliance and accessibility, at least on paper?

Joe is referring to the A List Apart interview where Anil discussed TypePad’s concerns for accessibility and web standards. Joe’s point being that content generating tools like Movable Type and TypePad should adhere to the ATAG guidelines because they’d be an amazing example of highly-accessible products. I’d have to agree.

GM Blog Gets It Right

We’re beside ourselves with excitement that General Motors, one of the largest automakers on the planet, has a weblog that is personal, entertaining, insightful, and written by the Vice Chairman.

Check out the GM FastLane Blog and get a taste at what GM has in store for the Saturn brand, their interiors, and the new G6. From The Car Blog.

Updated postWe fixed Trackback on posts, so everything should be working like a charm now. You can find the Trackback URL and pings just above the comment section on individual entries.

Don’t Forget Design

Things have been slow-going around here as of late, and that’s not because we’ve run out of things to say. We’ve been busy with a lot of internal and client-facing projects, and hopefully we’ll be able to show y’all soon. We were talking recently and wondering, where did real design go? When did “having a company weblog” not involve real design? Did people forget that a weblog is just a type of website? It appears so, at least from stuff I’ve seen lately, and it’s a trend that really bothers me.

[Read more…] about Don’t Forget Design

Six Apart to Buy LiveJournal

Directly from Om Malik’s inside sources, Om discusses Six Apart’s imminent purchase of LiveJournal. In his own words:

The deal is a mix of stock and cash, and could be announced sometime later this month, according to those close to the two companies. If the deal goes through, then Six Apart will become one of the largest weblog companies in the world, with nearly 6.5 million users.

[Read more…] about Six Apart to Buy LiveJournal

Should Apple Sue?

Personal computers + personal publishing = …

There are many companies in this wonderful world of ours who have delivered products and services into the hands of common, everyday people. Some of these people appreciate those products and services.

So what do you get when you put all that in together? Fan’s who post all sorts of things about the product or service sites. Case in point, one great ad for the iPod Mini by George Masters.

Related cases in point, the recent Kottke/Sony issue and aeons-ago Netflix opportunity fumble.

There was a time when conventional wisdom taught us that there is no such thing as bad press. Think that is still the case? I am not really sure there is such a thing as conventional wisdom (or common sense for that matter, but that’s another post for another time). So, given the plethora of “don’t use our stuff or even talk about our company” activity of late thanks to all those uppity bloggers, should Apple go after Mr. Masters?

No, of course not. All Apple has going for them is viral marketing. With 5-ish% of the market, what else are you going to do? It’s too bad that a company’s reaction to fans with production/publishing ability is based on whether they need the publicity. Or at least think they need it. If you put it in terms of, “Would you like people talking about your company,” most companies are going to say yes.

A company should use its fan base. Are there blogs about your company out there? Congrats. Now go build a relationship with those bloggers. Are there blogs out there being critical of your business practices? Congrats. Now go build a relationship with those bloggers.

Blogs by fans may be outside the control of a company (until they decide to squash them via lawsuit), but they don’t have to be outside a company’s ability to positively influence. If your company is not going to have its own blog with which to interact with customers, make sure you are combing the web for the sites that will allow you to do just that. Most of the blogs have comments enabled; start commenting.

And a side note to Apple… When the iPod Mini first came out, I was pretty upset at the price. Specifically the price-to-gigabyte ratio. To me, there was no way in heck or hell that I would ever buy an iPod Mini. That is until I saw Mr. Masters’ ad. As I was watching it I found myself thinking, “Well… maybe…” And who doesn’t want their potential customers at the “wellmaybe” stage? I am such a pushover.