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How to make your content stand out: Give it muscle

Mar03
by on March 3, 2014 at 4:41 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, How-To's

publishign 520x245 How to make your content stand out: Give it muscle

If you want to your online content to have an impact on your audience, it pays to give it some serious muscle. Here’s how…

Make it longer, better, slower, stronger

Sure, your audience has limited time, but if everything is brief, “snackable” and relentless, you may end up getting more unsubscribes than you’d like. Consider changing the length and frequency of your content to make an impact.

Yes, there will always be the scores of OMG political gaffes, animals jumping on trampolines and Ryan Gosling memes. But we’re starting to see a trend away from thinly-reported, quick-hit posts toward longform, magazine-style, well-reported narratives and rich multimedia, experiences (think the Webby/Pulitzer-winning New York Times Snowfall, The Jockey or this Pitchfork feature on the band Bat For Lashes).

When experiences are immersive and compelling, users become more invested. And you might not even need to hire a slew of developers or go quite so big.

Patagonia does a great job with slower, more thoughtful, yet simple content: elegant photo essays, gorgeous, immersive big wave surfing videos, and in-depth profiles of their Ambassadors. You want to spend time on and explore the site, because simply, it’s a great publication.  So when you decide to buy active gear, you’re probably going to feel better about purchasing something from Patagonia.

Adjust the volume

Try slowing down the cadence, too. Make an impact with a weekly schedule instead of daily (radical!) and a make sure to stick to a powerful set of related, thematic features. Take your readers on a longer ride.

Speaking of longer, as we’re all more comfortable reading vertically, there are more and more sites employing scrolling, usually Parallax techniques to tell a visual, interactive story.

The company VonDutch spins a yarn about their namesake Kenneth Howard through super cool iconography and visual wizardry. Every Last Drop UK is just educational storytelling at its most charming. The wide screen, immersive approach lends itself well to narrative storytelling, biography and infographic or educational concepts come to life (see Dangers of Fracking).

Do it live!

What’s better than cooking from a recipe on your iPad? Cooking, live, with a chef that you can tweet and interact with, of course. Companies like The Chopping Block use Google+ for monthly cooking classes where they teach viewers to sauté spinach or trim a tenderloin.

Event-based content using Google Hangouts, Scribble, Ustream or Livestream make it possible to connect with your readers/ consumers in an immediate, humanizing way. But brands are still hesitant to embrace the technology for fear of “Hello? Hello? I can’t hear you…OK now I can’t see you” (and their fears aren’t unwarranted — the technology requires a solid connection from all participants).

Still, this kind of content has legs: with Google Hangouts the content is live streamed and recorded to YouTube — so you can archive it, share it, repurpose it. How-tos, multiple blogger discussions, one-on-one access to experts are all great ways to take your content into real time goodness.

ASOS, a UK-based clothing retailer offered a series of fashion advice Hangouts featuring celebrities and stylists giving two-minute tips to individual users who signed up.

For a different kind of event-based Hangout, consider Scribble, a paid service that allows you to tap into its partner networks through “Scribble Market”(including ABC News and Reuters). If those networks like the content you’re creating, you can find yourself a whole set of new eyeballs. Scribble can also live curate any related topic and the stream can be embedded right into your own site. The NY Daily News used the service for its coverage of Fashion Week.

This article is an excerpt from the Contently ebook ‘Making your Content Stand Out‘. You can get the full version here.

Image credit: Shutterstock

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Microsoft Research reveals 3D browser SurroundWeb that displays content across multiple surfaces in a room

Mar03
by on March 3, 2014 at 4:24 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Shareables

Microsoft SurroundWeb Research1 520x245 Microsoft Research reveals 3D browser SurroundWeb that displays content across multiple surfaces in a room

Microsoft has a small obsession with innovating in the living room, so it should come as no surprise that its research arm continues to plough forward with a 3D browser. Called SurroundWeb, the prototype allows Web pages to display content across multiple surfaces in a room.

The browser has come a long way, but moving from mouse clicks to finger touches is only the beginning. Microsoft wants to take the tool further, making it truly immersive. Here is what the company has so far:

If you’re getting a feeling of déjà vu, you’re probably remembering Microsoft’s IllumiRoom, an exploratory concept that projects images beyond your TV for an immersive gaming experience. Here’s the video back from January 2013:

Microsoft Research has essentially taken the idea from the gaming world and applied it to the Web. The latter is arguably much more difficult to achive as games are much more static than constantly-evolving webpages.

The abstract for SurroundWeb is as follows:

We introduce SurroundWeb, the first least-privilege platform for immersive room experiences. SurroundWeb is a “3D Browser” that gives web pages the ability to display across multiple surfaces in a room, adapt their appearance to objects present in that room, and interact using natural user input.

SurroundWeb enables least privilege for these immersive web pages by introducing two new abstractions: first, a Room Skeleton that enables least privilege for room rendering, unlike previous approaches that focus on inputs alone. Second, a Detection Sandbox that allows web pages to register content to show if an object is detected, but prevents the web server from knowing if the object is present. SurroundWeb provides three privacy properties: detection privacy, rendering privacy, and interaction privacy while simultaneously enabling Web pages to use object recognition and room display capabilities.

Surveys show the information revealed by SurroundWeb is acceptable. SurroundWeb is practical: After a one-time setup procedure that scans a room for projectable surfaces in about a minute, our proto- type can render immersive multi-display web rooms at greater than 30 frames per second with up to 25 screens and up to a 1440×720 display. We demonstrate a range of previously proposed and novel experiences can be implemented in a least-privilege way using SurroundWeb.

You can read the full 16-page paper below.

➤ SurroundWeb: Least Privilege for Immersive “Web Rooms”

Image Credits: Microsoft-News

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Gaming company CEO hints at ‘Ouya Everywhere’, a way to play Ouya games without the console

Mar03
by on March 3, 2014 at 3:59 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Gadgets, Insider

1controllercropped 520x245 Gaming company CEO hints at Ouya Everywhere, a way to play Ouya games without the console

Gaming company Ouya is reportedly looking into offering a new feature that will see gamers able to play Ouya games on TVs without the need for an Ouya console.

Although Ouya started life as a Kickstarter project looking to produce $99 gaming consoles, it seems the company is now looking at ways in which it can diversify from producing Android-based gaming boxes.

Julie Uhrman, founder and CEO of the company, hinted at the upcoming news in an interview with Slashdot but failed to give any solid details of how the service will work. From the sounds of it, the company is looking at ways to embed its software platform on existing hardware, like set-top boxes and smart TVs. Uhrman noted that “there are a number of different ways games can be played on a television and we’re actively exploring all of them”.

Removing the need for hardware from the equation is a smart move for a company that wants (and needs) to scale its offering rapidly, but don’t expect Ouya to get out of the hardware business altogether. With one deal reportedly signed and sealed (and under wraps, for now), we’d expect to find out more about ‘Ouya Everywhere’ in the next few days.

➤ Ouya Expanding Beyond Its Console with ‘Everywhere’ Initiative [Slashdot]

 

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Microsoft reportedly wants to bring Xbox Live to Android and iOS, take on Google Play Games and Apple’s Game Center

Mar03
by on March 3, 2014 at 3:54 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Mobile

Microsoft is reportedly looking to port Xbox Live to Android and iOS, bringing its many functions to the mobile games that run on Google’s and Apple’s mobile operating systems. A recent Microsoft job posting notes ” We will create a modern framework that is open source, light-weight, extensible and scalable across various platforms including Windows Store, Windows Phone, iOS and Android.”

While the job posting in question doesn’t mention Xbox Live, The Verge cites its own sources and says “Microsoft will position Xbox Live as an alternative for players to use to earn achievements, find friends, and possibly cross-platform gaming.” It makes sense that Microsoft wants Xbox Live to run on multiple platforms so it can woo developers to bring their games to its service, whether they run on Windows, Windows Phone, Android, or iOS.

See also – Xbox One review: A multimedia extravaganza that also plays games and Overview: Here’s how Skype will work on the Xbox One

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Marc Andreessen and eBay hit back at Carl Icahn’s criticisms over handling of Skype deal

Mar03
by on March 3, 2014 at 3:50 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

P1040411 786x305 520x245 Marc Andreessen and eBay hit back at Carl Icahns criticisms over handling of Skype deal

Marc Andreessen, board director of eBay and co-founder of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, today defended what he described as “false and misleading” accusations over his involvement with Skype and companies that compete with eBay.

Carl Icahn, who owns a small percentage of eBay shares, has published a number of open letters (1/2/3/4/5)  for company stockholders lambasting Andreessen and board member Scott Cook. He accuses Andreessen, along with other investors, of derailing a planned Skype IPO by purchasing a 65 percent stake for $1.9 billion in 2009.

Icahn argues that Andreessen was placing his own interests ahead of shareholders, which paid dividends when Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011. As such, he wants eBay and PayPal to be separated.

In a statement, Andreessen said he was upfront about any personal interest he had in the 2009 deal and was not involved in any discussions, negotiations or decisions. “I was uninvolved in eBay’s decision to spin-off Skype and in eBay’s decision to choose to partner with the Silver Lake syndicate,” he added.

The entrepreneur also maintained that as part of an investor group featuring Silver Lake, Index Ventures and the Canada Pension Plan, Andreessen Horowitz only owned 3 percent of Skype after 2009. eBay owned 30 percent, meanwhile, which meant it had greater influence over the Microsoft acquisition.

“The Skype transaction received a high degree of public scrutiny when it happened,” he said. “All of the facts around my role in the Skype transaction were fully public at that time; eBay has a very sophisticated body of shareholders; and if any of them saw any problem with my conduct around the Skype transaction, I am confident that they would have brought it up by 2012.”

Icahn responded today with a new letter pointing to aspects of the two deals that he claims are “indisputable”. These include the consideration of an IPO for Skype, which then didn’t happen, the amount the investor group paid for the controlling stake and the return Andreessen Horowitz received from the Microsoft buyout in 2011.

He then puts forward a series of questions for Andreessen, which asks whether he knew Microsoft was interested in Skype back in 2009 and whether he disclosed this information to eBay’s board of directions. Icahn suggests that Andreessen may have signed a confidentiality agreement that would have prevented him from talking about Microsoft’s interest to eBay’s board – but that this would have been “a breach of duty in itself.”

He is now requesting an inspection of eBay’s books and records under Delaware law. “We will attempt through our examination of these books and records to answer the above questions for ALL stockholders of eBay,” he said.

Since both remarks were published, eBay has released a fresh statement of its own called ‘the truth about Skype’. It covers the reason why eBay divested in Skype and reiterates that it considered an IPO as part of an “exhaustive process”. In a section titled ‘Icahn v. Reality’, eBay then refutes that the deal in 2009 preempted a planned IPO or that it “gave away $4.5 billion to a board member (Andreessen).”

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