10 Best Practices For a Better Website

Reposted from The SMB Research Blog…

Have you read enough pieces yet on what makes a great website?

You have probably seen quite a few articles and posts addressing this.  We here at SMB Research know we have seen a lot of material. (SMB Research includes at least one fairly good article on SMB Research’s Top 20 Favorite Reads of 2010.)

Many of these articles seem to take a cookie-cutter approach:  it should go without saying at this point that a website needs to have good navigation, and that a website needs a “Call to Action”.

We think there are a number of other critical website features and best practices that get too little attention.

SMB Research’s Top 20 Favorite Reads of 2010

What was the best SMB or technology-related piece you read this past year?

When we at SMB Research started talking a few weeks ago about what we thought were some of the most interesting and valuable articles from 2010, we realized that once again this year there has been a great deal of very good (however you define this) research and writing. If you struggle to find the time to read to read everything that deserves your attention, we share your pain.

To help you out, SMB Research decided to take a look back at some of what has been written and published this past year, and to identify some of our favorite reads.

SMB Research’s Top 20 Favorite Reads, 2010:

Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer’s Guide (Sneak Preview)

Over on my alter-ego, The SMB Research Blog (re-posted with my own permission…)

Data Center Infrastructure Group (DCIG, www.dciginc.com), and SMB Research are nearing completion on the DCIG Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer’s Guide.

While you will have to wait just awhile longer, we don’t mind giving you a sneak peek at some of the great learnings you can expect to get from the finished product.

The New Complexity Management

I have had a working assumption for awhile – we all have one or a few of these, don’t we? Something to keep the mental gears oiled and in good working order when our minds are not otherwise actively or productively engaged?

One of my working assumptions – stay with me on this – is that we are increasingly over-estimating our collective intelligence, and over-designing our world, our processes, our gadgets – our things – as a result.

Do I Know You? Identity Authentication in the Real and Digital Worlds

I had occasion recently to sit down to talk with Reliable Identities‘ Wes Kussmaul, accomplished entrepreneur, author, and prolific Internet tinkerer.  Wes experienced early success founding the Delphi Internet service.  (Some of the more seasoned among you may remember Delphi as being one of the early online services, along with CompuServe, Prodigy,  and AOL.)

These days, Wes is talking about another frontier – identity authentication.  It is interesting to think that we are as inattentive to establishing and authenticating everyone ‘s digital identity as we are focused on proving and authenticating people’s identities in the real world.

Thoughts and Readings on The Software Maintenance Fee Model

As I read the transcript of Oracle’s recent 1Q2010 results, and some analyst reactions to it, I am more and more intrigued by the market forces at work in the third-party support area.  As almost everyone knows, maintenance and support fees are the lifeblood of many enterprise vendors.  While maintenance and support from an end-user’s enterprise software vendor provides excellent protection for a large investment, the support comes at a price that some, if not many, consider onerous.

Passwords (Not) As Easy as 123

Wired’s Kim Zetter reports over at the Threat Level blog (“Most Common Hotmail Password Revealed!“) that “a researcher” did a study of the compromised Hotmail, MSN, Live.com passwords and found that “123456” was the most common password.

Are you kidding me?  C’mon people, we can do better than this. If this wasn’t so damn pathetic, it would be funny.

Tweet of the Week – “How big is the internet?”

We owe our thanks for this week’s Tweet of the Week to Forrester‘s Jeremiah Owyang:

Visutalization (sic): Only 23% of earth’s 6 billion citizens are on the Internet http://bit.ly/viqmi
9:18 AM Jul 30th from web

Enterprise 2.0, Boston, June 22-25th

I should have known that something was up when I walked in to my first Enterprise 2.0 session on Tuesday morning to the sounds of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”.  Was this just someone’s good taste for wake-em-up ambient music first thing in the morning (I concur!), or was someone sending a not-so-subtle message to attendees for a conference on emerging social media?

Enterprise 2.0 Conference

I will be attending the Enterprise 2.0 conference at the Westin Boston Waterfront for the next day or two, and will be collecting and posting the best insights and take-aways that I can gather from this event.

TechWeb, no novices to putting on events, seem to have really mastered the art of the registration process and the integration of the social media into the registration process.  Planning an event?  You could do worse than to walk yourself through the Enterprise 2.0 conference registration process to see how to do it right.

While I am at the conference, look for periodic postings from the event on twitter, at http://twitter.com/reastman.  And if that does not get you to finally make the plunge into twitter, what will?