PRIVA'S JAKE BAILLIE TO SPEAK AT SEARCH ENGINE STRATEGIES CONFERENCE

While a lot of good information exists for search engine marketers on design and content of pages for high search engine rankings, there's not been much discussion on various technical options and techniques. Jake Baillie, VP of Internetwork Engineering, will change that when he addresses a major conference in December. His talk is entitled Dynamic Websites and he will address the uses of the rewrite family of utilities.

If you're interested in attending the conference, details can be found HERE.

PRIVA ANNOUNCES USEFULNESS STUDY

Our Usefulness Survey will include websites that have been produced for enterprises that are a) headquartered or b) operate significant divisions or subsidiaries in the Chicago region. If the latter, the divisional site must have been produced independently of a corporate headquarters.

A similar study has been conducted in Cleveland the past two years by IdeaStar. The results have been illuminating! In an unusual act of collaboration among competitors, we will use a rating system equivalent to the Cleveland study to extend the comparability among sites to different cities.

The Priva Chicago study has the endorsement of Crain's Chicago Business, who will publish the results. It is expected that we will survey over 700 different sites before concluding our study.

The following rating criteria will be used:

• Site Quality: Professional design and intuitive navigability.
• Search Engine Optimization: Site follows principles of search engine optimization.
• E-Commerce Functionality: Visitors can buy online.
• Opt-in Email: Opportunity for target marketing to create enduring relationship.
• Dynamic Pages: Presentation changes according to visitor characteristics or new additions to database of information.
• Site Search Ability: Visitors can find information quickly using search function and/or helpful directory structure.
• Literature Distribution: Mailing costs are saved by distributing collateral online.
• Interactive Customer Service: Eases the burden on a company's other channels of response.

PRIVA HOSTING ACHIEVES 99.9995% UPTIME

For the four months ending this September, Priva's server maintained an uptime record that puts us among the very elite web hosting services.

CHALLENGING PROBLEM POSED BY CHICAGO EQUITY FUND

The Chicago Equity Fund is a large-scale owner/manager of low to moderate-income housing, where rent is controlled via governmental subsidies. The Fund must regularly prove compliance with regulations governing the maximum income tenants can make to benefit from the subsidized rents. In addition, it must make regular reports to its investors and lenders.

Currently, this process is mired in the transfer of paper documents that must make their way from local property manager offices to the Fund and then on to the authorities and investors. It is our challenge to find a much more productive online system that facilitate the process and reduce errors.

What makes this unique is that Priva is working to figure out the best technology to digitize governmental forms, such as tax forms, that continue to be filed via paper documents. In addition, we must tackle authentication of these documents. To the client's knowledge, this problem has never been tackled in this industry segment.

Stay tuned, as we bring progress reports.

DEEP THOUGHTS ON WRITING FOR THE WEB

Most web development professionals feel that writing for websites is a specialized skill.

First, there is the web's greater emphasis on graphics. Secondly, hyperlinks let users immediately drill down to the information they really want, without wading through what they don't want. Thirdly, brevity and concision is king! Reading a lot of text from an immobile screen is tiring. A printed publication offers a more intimate physical relationship with the text, and that just makes it easier to digest.

Most people would rather not curl up with their laptop to read for a couple of hours next to a burning fireplace.

For these reasons, gifted web writers are excellent information architects. They organize content in a "JIT" - "Just in time" fashion. Users are presented the information and options they need just at the moment they want them. As a result, web writers should be very involved with the navigational scheme of a site. They worry about a user knowing where they are and where they can go next.

Why is good web writing NOT different from other writing formats? Two reasons. First, at some point the user is going to want to read about how the "Thingamabob" actually works or the best technique for removing brake fluid from a dress. And if that takes ten long paragraphs to explain, then it takes ten long paragraphs. That just takes good writing.

The second reason is that other formats are going to migrate to web standards. In other words, you'll see more and more brochures, newspaper articles, etc. influenced by web design. It could be argued that USA Today is already an example.

No, you won't have hyperlinks, but you will see information laid out more often in easily digestible "chunks" with graphics helping the reader navigate among these "chunks".

Of course, that's IMHO. Comments? Email us with your thoughts.