Thanks for spreading the word on the importance of usability testing. In your article, I couldn’t help but miss your typo/misspelling of Steve Krug’s name and I wanted to bring it to your attention. We’re big Steve Krug fans over at UserTesting.com where we’re all about making usability testing fast and inexpensive.

Happy Usability Testing!
Adam

“Companies that buy into the idea their Web sites have become less important or relevant are making a major mistake.”

http://techcrunch.com/2008/07/30/labmeeting-a-social-network-for-scientists/#idc-container

I would differentiate this from the social media norm, something that goes more along the lines of a forum. An exclusive network with other scientist does not lie in the same realm as Facebook. Social Media is just extremely over rated. I would say its the weakest form of marketing out there for most industries.

Additionally, your target audiences relative size is directly proportional to the effectiveness of social media. If you have a product such as a soft drink that many people can enjoy, sure, go the social media route. Else, you’re just going to have a bunch of lonely tweets and status updates. I still believe time and money could be spent much more effectively. Social media is just term-candy for the most part.

Just how social can Scientific Lab supplies be? Personally I think it’s a waste of resources. Science has no innate social qualities. Just to give you a run-down, Dr. Pepper, one single drink, has 2 million + Facebook fans.

I disagree, with all the research that these scientists and biologists do – I believe they are craving a ‘social network’ to be a part of and share ideas. Part of these companies marketing plan is to have research material available (that shows off their products) – so that scientists can get more information, and BUY products at the same place. Does it work? . . . well we don’t have great info on that – but we do know that the research is being read from our site.

If you can build a network (a Facebook for Scientists) and link that together with a corporate website – I think that would be a huge tool for the business. Even though it’s a niche’ market – I think the demand for something like that is there. Since these researchers go to conferences and network there, having a resource online that they can continue that networking I believe would be highly valuable for them. And then if the business can then tap into that base (that they helped to build) they have a very dedicated audience to market to – which is what all businesses want.

Part of Social Media is to interact with your customers, and for any business today – I think that’s important – to show that you care about your customers enough to converse with them. I think that is why so many government agencies have jumped on the Social Media bandwaggon – simply to answer their clients needs (i.e. for good PR). It doesn’t matter how big or small your client base it – letting your customers know that you care about them is great PR and will help keep customers loyal. Twitter and Facebook are great tools for doing that.

Most basic effects that are done with flash can now be done with the jQuery JavaScript library. jQuery is becoming more popular and more accessible to web developers. Thus, HTML5 being far away isn’t going to halt the decreased usage of Flash.

Agree with you 100% on that one – Flash is being attacked on more than one front, and the openness of and ease of JQuery is making strong strides in replacing Flash in more and more areas on the web. My point is just that Flash may still survive, if it can come up with things that JQuery can’t do.

Plus, a lot of developers I know grew up with Flash and are much more comfortable designing effects using Flash’s UI than trying to code up something in JQuery (Although ,most ‘effects’ code can be found for free by just searching for them on Google). I still think it’s going to be 3-5 years before Flash really is in danger of being replaced entirely. There are too many developers that don’t keep up with the changes in technology, plus too many companies holding on to ‘old browsers’ that don’t support HTML5 – thus Flash is still their best option (for them).

As for Flash as a web-application (like Silverlight) – that’s where it might ultimately find a home. At one company I work for, we have an entire Sales portal built in FLEX (which I think is a little dangerous – especially considering that the other systems that it talks to are Java/Websphere based) – but it just showed how powerful ActionScript has become. The thought of writing a portal in Flash/Actionscript even 5 years ago would have been though to be crazy. – now it’s reality!

I think [it will] survive as more of a web-application platform rather than a “look and feel” add-on for animations

Spot on. Flex is basically Adobe’s version of Silverlight. But I’ve only seen Silverlight used once, and that was for the recent Winter Olympics. Most webapps simply don’t need that much flash (yes, pun intended).