Below is a 1981 news report about the future of news delivery: headlines on the computer screen. Today marks the day that the Kindle 2 is officially available for sale on the Amazon web store.

A little reflection on our progress as a race: just under 30 years ago, we were speaking of the day of digital newspaper delivery. Today we have a device, less than a couple centimeters thick, that can wirelessly download books over the cellular network and delivery live RSS feeds using e-paper technology that allows the battery to last for well over a couple of weeks.

The world is screaming the death of newspapers, magazines, and other traditional print media. We are living in a period of a fundamental media shift. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict direct delivery of news to our brains – human brain – machine interactions. I’m sure someone’s on it.

Here’s a great article about SEO for enterprises and how that has failed to a large extent for major corporations that feel that paid search is an easy way out for gaining sufficient awareness and face time for consumers who search.

Several instances are noted – Cottonelle – a major corporation – has an all-flash website that isn’t friendly to spiders – and Lenovo, that has missed out on rerouting Google past their country-selector page and has compromised Google’s ability to make a meaningful cached version of their website.

An additional problem lies in several websites that don’t drive traffic from their specific brands but drive traffic from specific long-tail searches – this is summarized well here:

It depends–but especially for large retailers,  SEO is important. It’s sites like Bizrate, eBay, and Nexttag that keep showing up in the top of Google when searching for Long Tail queries like “yellow queen size flannel sheets”.

These results suck. Where are the brands/enterprises that carry this merchandise? Where is JCPenney? Target? LL Bean? Lands End? They might be advertising through PPC, but 85% of consumers click on the natural listings.

How will you attempt to mend the rift the divides IT capabilities from inherently marketing-related initiatives? How can IT and Marketing live together and progress in a more unified way?

Link: SEO at the Enterprise Level a Major Flop

Nothing relevant to the heavens however, in this discussion. Today we receive alarming news of the withdrawal of large amounts of angel funding in the entrepreneurial sphere. Particularly hard hit: tech startups, and potentially more relevant to us: tools that will further the web technologies and subsequent shifts that are supposed to define the web as it is today and will be tomorrow.

The angels are become a bit less forgiving to high-risk ventures. High-risk, high-return, is not a chance they would like to make in these economic situations. But please: remember that risk is what MAKES entrepreneurship. Please don’t let the numbers slaughter our gaurdian angels. It’s just not worth it.

Article Link: The Angels Are Fleeing

The new Whitehouse.gov redesign is testament to how design truly mimics reality: change in its raw form. Change in a tangible form.

Smashing Magazine has a great article analyzing the recent redesign of the Whitehouse.gov website. They touch on a few great things that the lead designer has done a great job putting together.

There has been great attention and detail put into preserving the classic and traditional elements of government in the form of various design elements like classic serif fonts and glyphs: more modern elements, like large message-oriented buttons and billboard like sub-headers still appear mature and respectable throughout this change.

Attention Paid is Attention Earned: Implications

The Obama administration has crafted their online brand with a phenomenal amount of care. I can only guarantee that future political campaigns around the world will follow suit in leveraging the web to gain support. As much as that former statement has been repeated throughout the media in respecting Obama’s initiatives, there is still a missing point that this article proves: design matters. Your audiences online are vast and diverse, but also vocal and educated (hence the need for media that accompany public conversation online, especially in political issues). Campaigning online is about marketing online in a fashion that convinces your audience that you have put enough care into the design and infrastructure to earn their attention. It’s time to pay attention to earn your much deserved attention.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/01/whitehousegov-redesign-the-change-has-come/