Warmest Greetings,

Do Standards or Best Practices Inhibit Innovation?  

:: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 ::

"Wouldn't it be better to come clean about all this. To my mind they're more Conventions. In other words what a group of people today have decided to agree on. They don't seem to have the permanence that a solid word like Standards implies. Am I right or am I wrong?"

Great discussion in Why Aren't Standards Standard?, including comments from Bryan Eisenberg.

     "I like to recommend that when someone redesigns their site they should take the following seven into consideration:"

     "Thanks to standards changing I have to update all my client sites at the very least once a year, some more because they read something or another that it's the way to do it. Yes I have that talk with them but most don't care they want to be on top of the latest and so called greatest coding procedures."

     "Hence why Jeffrey Zeldman has been on about forwards compatability as well as backwards compatiability."

     "My problem with standards is that if everyone stuck with them all of the time, there would never be any innovation."

     "Standards are limits to creativity in web design as writing left to right is a limit to creativity in writing. There's still plenty of room for innovation in style while following the standards of communicating it."

     "I agree with you about stunting innovation. However, on most sites that I work on including my own. my objective is to increase conversions (sales, leads, registrations, etc.)"


Seth Godin responds to the outpouring of feedback on his opinion on search engine optimization in Better living through hyperbole

     "So, if I go a little overboard (as I did, intentionally, in my SEO post below) please cut me a little slack. All other things being equal, is an optimized website better than one that's not? Sure."

Aaron Wall, of Search-Marketing.info challenged Seth in SEO vs. PPC: Seth is Completely Wrong!

     "I went to a speech of his when he came to Rhode Island and I even drove to his office in New York to hang out for a day. Needless to say I am a huge fan of Seth and I will likely read every book he writes.

Seth is an internet marketing guru who started a cult following with his book titled Permission Marketing. I am part of that cult; however, his recent anti SEO post on his blog is completely wrong."

We Really Liked This Article

In Search of a Bat by Bryan Eisenberg.

Some feedback:

     "It really points out the flaws in many ecommerce sites. The problem is few of those responsible for these websites have any inclination of seeing things from the users perspective."

     "It reminded me of Kim's Why Ecommerce is Not Ready for My Daughter or Me"

Like I was gonna pass up a chance to promote my own article, ha!

Do You Have an Ebook for Sale?

Brand new >>>BowIndex.com

     "BOWIndex.com is a portal for e-books, containing both a search directory for ebooks, print on demand books and digital books, plus a book and author news and announcement service."

:: posted by Kim Krause Berg on 7/07/2004 09:42:40 AM

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