How to build faster loading websites

In an age of short attention spans, speed matters

During the 1980s and 1990s, technology resources were precious. Programmers would eke every byte out of available storage space – nothing was wasted.

When it came to early online networks such as Compunet, deathly slow modem speeds meant efficiency had to be the watchword of the day. Uploaded programs would be compressed to within an inch of their lives to ensure they could be downloaded as quickly as possible. Interfaces were fast, obvious and efficient, to ensure no one’s time was wasted.

When the web first became popular with the masses, savvy designers adopted this philosophy. With connection speeds still sluggish, every trick was used to try and speed up websites: heavily compressing images and reducing them in number; removing white space; making scripts as efficient as possible.

The aim was always to retain visitors with itchy fingers, who were increasingly likely to go elsewhere on a whim as the number of available websites grew at an alarming rate. Yet somewhere along the way, this line of thinking has been largely lost. Today, many designers have become a little lazy when compared to the medium’s pioneers.

With broadband almost ubiquitous in many countries, optimisation has fallen by the wayside. Many now assume they can throw anything they want online and it’ll be downloaded ‘quickly enough’. But when you step back and look at many current sites, a ‘good enough’ approach often isn’t good enough.

Just a lag of a few seconds might be all the encouragement a restless visitor needs to go elsewhere, potentially losing your site a sale. And in an age of broadband, it’s absurd that some sites shove loading delays down your throat akin to (or even worse than) those suffered users during the late 1990s.

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The surge of new technologies and social media innovations is altering the media landscape. Convergence is everywhere. It’s easier than ever to reach a large audience, but harden than ever to really connect with it. These changes are affecting the way people behave.

Are you ready for the future?

Well over 1,000,000 books are published worldwide every year, where Google Book Search scanner can digitize 1,000 pages every hour.

This year, traditional advertising is in steep decline. Meanwhile digital advertising is growing rapidly. 47% of broadcast television viewers say they’d “pay for ad-less” programming. NBC, ABC, CBS had been airing new content (video) 24/7/365 since 1948 (which was when ABC started broadcasting) but more video was uploaded to YouTube in the last 2 months. NBC, ABC, CBS get 10 Million unique visitors every month, collectively. These businesses have been around for a combined 200 years.
The number of unique visitors on YouTube, MySpace and Facebook is 250 Million, collectively and is growing every day. None of these sites existed 6 years ago.

Facts:

• Wikipedia launched in 2001. It now features over 13 million articles in more than 200 languages.
• Nokia manufactures 13 cell phones every second.
• Dell claims to earn 3 Million via twitter posts since 2007.
• In February 2008, John McCain raised $11 million for his U.S presidential bid. That same month, Barack Obama attended no campaign fundraisers. Instead, Obama leveraged online social networks to raise $55 million in those 29 days.
• Twitter played an unprecedented role in sharing information during the 2009 Iranian presidential elections.

So how are you using social networking sites?

The mobile device will be the world’s primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020.

“The computer in your cell phone today is a million times cheaper
and a thousand times more powerful
and about a hundred thousand times small
[than the one computer at MIT in 1965]…”

“ So what used to fit in a building
now fits in your pocket,
what fits in your pocket now
will fit inside a blood cell in 25 years.”

Now that’s convergence and now you know.

Credits & Sources:
Written by: XPLANE, The Economist, Scott McLeod, Karl Fisch, Laura Bestler
Designed by: XPLANE | The visual thinking company www.xplane.com

Welcome to ArtWebDubai, where art meets web and technology.

What is Art?

Art is the process of arranging elements in such a way that it appeals to the sense or emotions.

The nature of art has been described by Richard Wollheim as “one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture”. It has been defined as a vehicle for the expression or communication of emotions and ideas, a means for exploring and appreciating formal elements for their own sake, and as mimesis or representation.

Web and Technology:

There are many types of technologies which use to support the world wide web (www) and more are being under process all the time. There are many groups of people continuously work on the improvement of these technologies.

Objective:

I will share the creative stuff with you people here only how “Art meets Web and Technology”. Art could be anything. It could be Web Design, Internet Marketing, Web Development, Social Networking, Social Media Marketing (SMM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Kindly share your feedback.