Smashing Magazine recently published a collection of some of the more exciting developments in user experience and user interaction with technology. A fair few of these technologies I have been following closely, but there were some completely new and amazing, certainly well worth a look. I will provide an overview of the standouts, but for the full article I would suggest heading over to their post on the user experience of the future.

Perceptive Pixel’s multi-touch display enables such intuitive interactions and allows for so many new possibilities that will blow you away.

Another exciting display of multi touch interactivity is present with Microsoft Surface.  Already a commercial reality, these devices allow user interaction on a scale not possible with traditional computing devices.

Microsoft also brings to the table a new dimension for engaging with images. Photosynth is a revolutionary idea to bring together a world of photos and map them all together, analysing them for commonalities and then using them to form worlds of overlapping ordinary photos. I’ve used the demonstration preview application myself, and the world of possibilities that this could open is incredible. I would also recommend checking out this speech and demonstration of it in action. 

But truly the most jaw-dropping of the lineup found in Smashing Magazine’s entry (and the first time I had seen this particular demonstration) was with Cheoptics360. 3D video and images, with no special effects used post-filming. Simply amazing.

Check out Smashing Magazine for the full rundown.

Often we tell clients that one important factor in attracting visitors to their sites is to get links back to their site up around the web. But what really makes a good link? Surely spam links aren’t going to provide much help? This guide should help give you a quick overview of what constitutes a good link.

Why do links even matter? Google was the first search engine to effectively use links in its ranking algorithms. The thought is this: each link to your site is like a vote for it, a recommendation that the other website found your content useful. The more of these links going in to your site, the more authoritative your site is - at least in the eyes of modern search engines.  But not all links are created equal, Google and other search engines give weight and merit in accordance with many factors, and below lists some major ones.

The rank of the site linking to you
If you get a link from your friend’s blog, it will probably help you out a little bit. If, however, the BBC links to your website, then search engines will factor this in and your site will become much more prominent. The ‘rank’ or authority of the site linking to you is a big factor in how much benefit you receive.

Text in the link
Another key factor is the variety and descriptiveness of the link text. Linking to a website with click here won’t be a big help to anyone. Instead, if you use clear, subject specific links, it will help tremendously. Wording like ‘view an interesting article on stock photography resources‘ will associate your site with the linked phrase and help you rank better in search engines for those terms.

Deep links are good links
Direct links to individual pages within your site instead of just links to your homepage will help you as well. This indicates that links to your website are not engineered or spammy, but more closely resemble good natural occurence. If you have good content in your site, people will link to it directly and not just to your homepage.

These three tips should help get you going. Building links is a tricky business, but one that is vital for most websites.

After my post on Drupal modules and features, I thought I would today share some of my favourite WordPress plugins but Jamie Harrop already beat me to it. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I will add a couple of my own thoughts and plugins. If you’re interested in more I would suggest heading over to his blog.

AdSense Manager- Allows for easy fairly simple integration of Google AdSense code in to posts on the blog. It has some decent additional features too.

Enforce WWW Preference -  Useful to prevent splitting backlinks and search engine results across two domains. Ensure that links to your site and URLs on your site use one of http://www or http:// .

FeedBurner Feedsmith - This useful plugin allows you to harness the power of FeedBurner for all your RSS feeds. It redirects the default WordPress RSS links to FeedBurner. I have set my FeedBurner account to use a subdomain for a bit more of a personal touch.

Google Analyticator - Has some useful options for the integration of Google Analytics code.

Subscribe to Comments - Makes it nice and easy for visitors to stay informed on replies to their comments.

The full list of plugins Jamie recommends are below:

• Adsense Deluxe
• Akismet
• BloggingZoom Vote Button
• Threaded Comments
• Comment Relish
• Do Follow
• FeedBurner Feedsmith
• Feed Footer
• Get Recent Comments
• KB Linker
• Landing Sites
• Live
• Show Top Commentators
• Subscribe Remind
• Subscribe to Comments
• WP-Notable
• WP-Super-Cache

For those who are not familiar with the acronym CMS, it stands for ‘Content Management System’ and refers to scripts that you can use to run, update and edit your website. There are many, many CMSes out there, but today I want to put the spotlight on my personal favourite: Drupal.

Not only was it named the overall winner in the 2007 OpenSource CMS awards it is my choice of CMS for most of the sites we develop.

Why do I think it’s worthwhile? Well it has a huge array of features, it is relatively easy to develop custom modules for it and it’s also a breeze to theme. Being open source and having a very active and supportive developer-base is again a huge plus.

Out of the box the experience is great. Installation is simple (especially if your host offers Fantastico) and the learning curve is much more gentle compared to some other CMS options out there (such as Joomla/Mambo - though they have their positives too). As part of the default install you get a load of goodies, but some of the really exciting stuff can be found in the optional modules which you can download and install.

Some modules/features I could not be without:

• Clean URLs - now part of the core, it’s certainly a fantastic tool for good SEO and plain ease-of-navigation for regular visitors
• TinyMCE editor - a new addition to the core distribution, this rich text editor makes using the CMS simple for the average user
• e-Commerce- not needed for every site, but this module has practically everything you need to set Drupal up with an online store
• XML/Google Sitemap- a must for larger websites that want to provide accessible sitemaps
• Pathauto - if you’re too lazy to set paths yourself
• LoginToboggan- when you want to streamline the user registration/login process, go LoginToboggan

There are many, many more great modules (both core and non-core) that I could have included, but these are some gems that are definitely worth having a look at for your Drupal site.

And these are some of the reasons why I like Drupal so much. If you have your own modules you couldn’t live without or your own stories you want to share, feel free to comment.

Like I said, there are many content management systems out there and Drupal is but one. Another great CMS is the one powering this very blog - WordPress - which I will likely cover this at a later date. Two other quite prominent CMSes worth looking into are Mambo and Joomla.

Today’s Dilbert comic strip reminded me of a recent meeting. One of our sales team had a blank when asked what language did we plan to develop a website in. Whilst not quite as bad as the situation unfolding in this comic, it was nonetheless entertaining to watch.

There are many methods to make money from your website. This entry is only going to be able to provide a very small perspective into the topic, and I expect that we will review it in more detail in the near future. Because of this I will just cover two advertising channels.

Google AdSense is probably the most well known and common form of context-sensitive advertising on the internet. These fairly non-invasive ads are suited to most sites, and attempt to provide relevant, targeted advertising to your visitors. Their new referral program brings some ability for self-selection of ads into the picture.

AdBrite may not have a network as large as Google’s but it does have some very appealing tools and features. Inline text ads, video ads and much more are all supported. They provide a great service and with their novel advertising medium offers, they are certainly worth investigating. AdBrite also offers the valuable feature of allowing your visitors the ability to bid for advertising space on your website.

As I said, this is not meant to be a comprehensive account of different online advertising methods. These two work well, and are certainly worth a look. In the future we will provide a much more detailed overview on some other advertising channels that may be of interest.