mediajunk

Google has released the API for Picasa Web Albums, the online site associated with the nifty Picasa application.

I've always liked Picasa - particularly the way it finds images all over your hard drive, and makes it ultra-easy to organise and label (tag) them.

As far as I understand it, this API allows you to do many things including:

• Develop your own desktop app that posts images to the Picasaweb site
• Develop a website that makes use of images, albums and tags already stored in Picasaweb
• Develop a photogallery type website where visitors can upload photos using Picasa (or your own app) ... effectively the site uses Picasaweb for image hosting

Expect a spate of development over the coming weeks and months, as enthusiasts play with this API.

A study of health-related websites has revealed findings that should be heeded by all web publishers.

The results of the health site study were reported in The Times last week:

Research at Northumbria University has identified the factors that get most sites passed by: too much detail, too much advertising, or too general a portal that involves lengthy searching.

The report revealed that users do not like having to spend a long time searching or browsing websites. Scrolling through long passages of text was off-putting, as were advertisements.

Most tellingly, users rarely disliked a site simply because its content lacked quality, with only 8% of participants listing poor content as a turn-off. Design factors, on the other hand, were much more decisive in the acceptance or rejection of a site.

Design, including issues such as layout, navigation aids, use of colour, pop-up advertisements, small print, too much text, a "corporate look and feel" and poor search facilities, were listed by 94 per cent.

Large corporate or portal-type sites were usually rejected by the participants in favour of sites that had an authentic -- even home-made -- feel, and those which offered personal stories.

I believe this study's findings may well apply to other types of website, not just health sites. Recently I gave my views on what makes an authentic website (basically, you know one when you see one).

Companies and organisations should consider replicating the homely, personal authentic feel of "labour-of-love" type websites if they are to achieve success in disseminating information. Perhaps the only way to do this is to recruit and promote passionate webmasters or writers within their ranks?

I'm a great believer in life-long learning. The ability to learn fast is one of the greatest assets an individual -- or company -- can have these days.

Recently, I've been taking an online video course in PHP. It's not an interactive class; nor is it Scorm-compliant (an eLearning standard) or anything so fancy.

It's just a CD-sized bundle of files (though I purchased the course electronically), with a series of desktop videos. I hear the lecturer speaking without seeing him, and I watch his cursor move across the screen as he clicks on his Dreamweaver application. So, as eLearning technology goes, this is pretty low-grade.

But it works -- mainly because the lectures are quite good, and well structured. There are no exercises but the package comes with accompanying PHP code samples.

I had learned the basics of programming in C from a book some years ago, and I also have a grasp of the rudiments of PHP, so that's all helping me follow along with these lectures. If you were an absolute beginner, I'd say it might be too tricky. But that's a criticism of the quality of the lectures rather than the quality of the medium.

Overall though, it's a great feeling to be learning "virtually". Yes, I've seen and even worked on many more sophisticated eLearning products (we did a lot of work for examsupport.ie last year, for example). But becoming a student again has made me realise that e-learning works. My understanding of PHP has already improved significantly, and I'm only one-third of the way through.

TechCrunch yesterday examined yet another Web 2.0 company called Seriosity that wants us to use a virtual currency for -- get this -- sending emails.

The idea is that the more currency (called Serio) "spent", the higher the assumed importance of the email, thus giving us a way to sift through our messages.

Techcrunch rightly poo-poohed the idea:

What isn't clear is what people can do with the currency other than send emails. Let me convert this into cash or frequent flyer miles or something else, and I'm in (beenz did this). Otherwise, what's the point, other than to amass a stunningly large number of Serio and then spend it on ... sending emails.

Nevertheless, the concept got me thinking. What if email weren't always free (aside from the ISP costs of course)? Would I be willing to pay a cent for each email I send, if it decreased the amount of spam I received?

Hmmm... maybe not just now, but if my inbox spam levels got out of control, then I'm sure I would go for it.

After all, I pay 10c -- I think -- to send an SMS message, and I send loads of those every day, never thinking about the cost.

I send more emails than text messages, about 10 times more ... hence my suggestion of 1c per email.

Is it inconceivable to pay for something that used to be free? Absolutely not. Think water.