A friend of mine asked me to explain how browser history (a.k.a deep linking) is done in Flex 3. There is a semi-automatic way to enable it by making sure that you use the Flex Builder 3 html templates and putting historyManagementEnabled=”true” in the Application tag of your MXML project. Like so (I think it’s even on by default):

<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" historyManagementEnabled="true"/>

However I don’t personally think this is the best way to do it. It works OK when you are just using the standard Flex components that come with the SDK. Typically though the Internet applications that we build at StudioNorth are super customized and the built in history management just flat out doesn’t work.

I prefer to build it in manually instead. It’s actually pretty easy. You really only need one class and a few events. Using the example below adds a hash mark to the url and a string fragment. It’s that string fragment that we use to do our deep linking. So say http://www.studionorth.com/#home we know is the homepage, and http://www.studionorth.com/#brand_calculator is the Brand Calculator page. When a user changes to a new page, we change the string fragment programmatically so if the user want to bookmark it or copy it and send to a friend they can. One more note, we always try to make them as friendly as possible. A url should be nice and readable.

Here a little sample app stub to get you started. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment.

<mx:Application
 backgroundColor="#212930"
 pageTitle="{siteTitle}"
 xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
 initialize="init()"
 applicationComplete="onApplicationComplete()"
 historyManagementEnabled="false">

<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[

 // these are the imports we need to get a look into the current url
 // don't forget that these use the javascript routines included in the Flex Builder 3 html templates
 // they won't work if you don't include those javascripts stuffs
 import mx.managers.IBrowserManager;
 import mx.managers.BrowserManager;

 // a string to hold the current title of the page
 // especially useful for users when bookmarking.
 private var siteTitle:String = "";

 // the object we will use to get and set the "friendly" url
 private var browserManager:IBrowserManager;

 // first initialize the BrowserManager to tie Flex into the browser
 private function init():void {
  browserManager = BrowserManager.getInstance();
  browserManager.addEventListener(BrowserChangeEvent.BROWSER_URL_CHANGE, browserUrlChange);
  // set the site title to something initially here if you'd like
  browserManager.init("", siteTitle);
 }

 // here we are checking to see where folks are trying to go when they first hit the website / webapp.
 private function onApplicationComplete():void {
  if(browserManager.fragment.length>0) {
   // hey someone is trying to deep link right away!
   // this could be from a bookmark, a direct link, etc.
   // read the browserManager.fragment and send them where they want to go
   // say something like - setInitialPage(browserManager.fragment); maybe?
  } else {
   // nothing special, let's just show them the homepage and indicate that's what we are doing on the url
   browserManager.setFragment("home");
  }
 }

 // the is the guy that gets called when the url changes, tells us that someone is trying to get somewhere manually via the url
 private function browserUrlChange(event:BrowserChangeEvent):void {
  Alert.show(browserManager.fragment);
  if(browserManager.fragment.length == 0) {return;} // nothing really happened that we care about so leave
   // something on the url changed that we care about, let's
   // do something with browserManager.fragment here
   // maybe navigate to a new section or page or unload / load a different part of the application
   // once you do it, don't forget to do browserManager.setFragment("THE_NEW_SECTION");
   // you should also change the site title to match the section / page - browserManager.setTitle(siteTitle+" - "+section);
 }

]]>
</mx:Script>

</mx:Application>

One thing that I eluded to a few times was the site title. Don’t forget that you should update it when you update the url fragment. I’d doesn’t do anyone any good to look at their browser history on your site and just see the same page title over and over again.

Andy leads the interactive offerings and staff engineers at StudioNorth. He consults with clients on strategic technology direction and personally oversees the key phases of the iterative development cycle for many large technology projects. Whether for public web sites, private extranets, or custom applications, Andy uses his rich experience to provide results-driven solutions to our clients. He’s known for being a visionary and for coining the phrase, “conservative wow” in reference to StudioNorth’s ability to create high-impact projects for some of our more conventional audiences. If you want to bring your brand beyond “2.0″, Andy is your connection.

Want to track Andy a little closer? You can follow him on Twitter.

No, I am not referring to a new diet fad. I’m referring to one of the many current trends that exist in the way people consume media — a trend that is certain to be relevant to media producers, content creators, and even companies looking to market themselves (and yes, that includes B2B as well).

Web distribution of video is certainly nothing new. For as long as I’ve had an email account, people have been forwarding me videos that I, in turn, share with others. The creation of sites like YouTube didn’t introduce us to web video, it simply relocated it. Now almost anybody — from major studios looking to repurpose their content, amateur filmmakers looking to be discovered, or teenagers with a camera phone recording their friend playing Guitar Hero — has the opportunity to not only distribute their content, but to receive feedback through metrics, user ratings and viewer comments. But even access that’s this easy to come by hasn’t drastically altered viewer behavior and media consumption. People have always talked about television shows, commercials, and movies around the office water cooler, only now they sit at their desks and post their thoughts in the comments section under the video they just watched online.

So why “snacking”? Snacking is a term that is being used to refer to the consumption of media in small snippets. Instead of people sitting down for an hour or two at a time to watch television, they are turning on their computers and watching 4 minutes of online video, jumping over to read a different blog, watching another 5 minutes of online video, finding a link to a similar 3-minute video and watching that one as well. Thus, the snack session goes throughout the day. People still sit down at the media dinner table to enjoy the latest episode of Lost, but the trend is beginning to show that people are becoming much more likely to dip into the cookie jar instead.

A recent survey from IDC found that people spend an average of 33 hours each week online — roughly twice as much time as they spend watching TV (about 16 ½ hours). ComScore recently found that about half of all online video is being viewed between 7 am and 5 pm on weekdays. So, how would the average person have time to spend 33 hours each week online and account for half of their online video consumption? That’s right — at the office.

This is where content creators and B2B marketing have the opportunity to join forces. The advertising and consumer sides of marketing have been setting out an online video buffet for a couple of years now, either in branding user-generated content (Stride gum) or creating their own form of branded entertainment (Anheuser-Busch). With so many people logging on looking for “safe for work” content, and marketing firms looking to reach an audience at work with their messages, the table may have been set for a new menu of B2B marketing initiatives.

Eric Pound

As an Executive Producer, Eric is responsible for the direction and development of StudioNorth’s audio and video solutions. With experience ranging from news broadcasting to national advertising, Eric brings the ability to deliver high-end media experiences with the urgency and attention to detail that clients demand. In addition to broadcast work, Eric also has credits in several documentaries and award-winning short films. Since joining the StudioNorth team in 2005, Eric has played a leading role in understanding current and developing trends in viral marketing, social networking and user-created content, and how they impact B2B marketing initiatives.

SEO is Built-In at StudioNorth

It is critical for us and our clients to budget for SEO in the design process. It is an essential marketing strategy that yields highly targeted visitors, good conversion rates, and a good return on investment (ROI) for our clients.

Sites designed with heavy graphics, frames, Flash, dynamic databases, or other embeds that are not HTML based require specific optimization techniques for proper indexing by major search engines. Though we consult with external resources for specialized SEO expertise, we follow the below established best practices internally as we develop our clients’ web sites.

There are a number of techniques in our toolkit to ensure our clients’ web sites are fully indexed and well positioned in major search engines. While SEO techniques change constantly, the following are essential today for superior positioning.

• Domain Name Selection
• Web Site Copywriting
• Meta Tags (Title, Description, Keywords, Heading, Alt Tags)
• Hypertext Links and Site Map
• Directory and File Name Structures
• Spider Analysis
• Robots Exclusion File
• Content Tagging & Categorization

Domain Name Selection

Domain name (URL) can be a key factor in both search engine and directory positioning. StudioNorth conducts research on networksolutions.com to assure URL availability when requested. We also consult the uspto.gov TESS trademark availability web site for potential trademark conflict with URL selection.

Web Site Copywriting

Web page copy is of major importance for search engines, directories, and customers. Search robots require machine-readable content (plain text) in web pages and HTML tags to index the site. Directory editors decide whether or not to list a site based on unique and relevant content. Since consumers make buying decisions primarily based on savvy marketing copy, brand, and look and feel, a skilled balance of human allure and bot-baited style is required. Our priorities are: we write for people first and search engines a close second.

We analyze recent keyword traffic on major search engines to determine a starting point for integrating key words in copy. Our copywriters then keep an eye toward liberal use of these keywords in their writing. Text near the top of the page is important to search spiders, as are keywords at the beginning of paragraphs and in headings. We write text first then create meta tags relevant to specific page content.

Meta Tags

Though we place less emphasis on meta tags due to their abuse and subsequent irrelevance, as a minimum practice we include title, description, keywords, heading, and alternate tags in the head section of all indexable pages. All meta tags should be unique and apply to a specific page. The following best practices apply to StudioNorth meta tag techniques:

• Title Tag — Use 5-10 words to write a keyword-rich title that’s relevant to the page. Begin with keywords, using sentence case. Most search engines use this copy as the link to pages in search results.
• Description Tag — Very important because these are often used by search engines as a web site description in search results. Use 15-20 words (170 characters), starting with several strategic keywords. Make it compelling and relevant to receive qualified traffic.
• Meta Keywords Tag –List strategic keyword phrases up to a maximum of 744 characters. Use keywords that are relevant to the page, with or without commas.
• Heading Tags — Place these tags at the top of pages, using strategic keywords relevant to the page.
• Alt Tags — Also called image tags as they contain the text that appears in roll-over of an image. Use keywords to describe the image appropriately.

Links and Site Map

We always ensure that search spiders have plenty of basic links to follow. Search engine spiders will index the text on your homepage, then attempt to follow links from there to other pages in the site.

• Most search engines can’t follow dynamic links (question mark in URL), so basic links or image maps must be provided.
• The text in links is important and should include keywords related to the page it’s linking to.
• A site map is an excellent way to provide links for search spiders.

Ideally, hypertext links should have a keyword in the link text or in an .alt description of the image or area tag.

A well-structured site map makes it easier for search spiders to find all web pages in the site. The site map is also very useful for site visitors to navigate against their immediate needs. Be sure to provide one or more links to the site map from the home page.

• Place a text link to the site map at the bottom of the page titled “Site Map”
• Include strategic keywords in the link text link.
• Create a static list of links to all your pages, with a link to this page from your homepage or site map.

Directory and File Name Structure

Because many engines and directories index file names and even directory names, it pays to create these using keywords whenever possible. Use at least one keyword phrase in the file/directory names, preferably at the beginning. Don’t stuff keywords and keep the names relevant. Use hyphens or underscores to separate the words in the file and directory names.

Spider Analysis

Spider Analysis can provide a record of spider activity in its effort to index pages upon entering the site. It shows whether or not the site has been crawled, by which search engine(s), on which pages, and on what dates. Spider Analysis reveals which pages are considered more relevant and which should be re-optimized and re-submitted. It also can identify and eliminate harmful spiders like email-harvesting robots. We rely on our SEO consultant partners to offer spider analysis services.

Robots Exclusion File

It’s important to have a robots.txt file present in the root directory because some search spiders will not crawl a site if they don’t find this file.

-Greg French

Greg has logged more than 27 years as a practitioner and published author in marketing, branding, and communications. His primary mission is to help StudioNorth clients make their marketing programs more effective by identifying and addressing value gaps. With this perspective, Greg helps our clients synthesize new brand marketing solutions to fill these value gaps and deliver real, measurable business results. Greg’s credits include award-winning white papers entitled, “The Role of Electronic Publishing Technology in Business-to-Business Marketing Communications” (McGraw-Hill), and “Wi-Fi for All” (International Engineering Consortium’s Annual Review of Communications). He was also a finalist in the Silver Microphone awards for creative direction on an Ameritech Mobile radio spot series.

The art of testing at StudioNorth has come a long way since I first joined the team back in 2001. At that time, most of our site testing was primitive at best, conducted at the browser level using Netscape and Internet Explorer for PCs and Safari for Macs. Testing was primarily to ensure all of the links were leading to the right pages and that design worked consistently on every platform. For the more complex projects, we detailed the business rules and made sure the application worked according to the rules laid out.

But since 2001, the Studio has evolved, undergoing many technical changes that naturally led the testing environment to change as well.

Our first endeavor was creating a content management system that gave our clients the ability to add, edit and delete content on their own web pages. This step had extensive implications for back-end administration as it required resources to manage security, user accounts, pages, and some file pooling for sharing between the document management system (DMS) and the CMS.

As the CMS application expanded and changed, the test plan evolved as well. To accommodate, we created a generic test plan that could be applied to all clients that used the CMS. This helped with regression testing and ensured that an update in one area did not impact the application in another area.

The next Studio enhancement was the added emphasis on Flash programming. Initially, we included a .swf file in the HTML that would be isolated on a page and usually involved some slick animation that caught the user’s eyes. In order to sustain this, the testing department needed to become familiar with all aspects of Flash, including its different versions and the effects of uninstalling it in browsers that did not already have the application. Sometimes, corporations keep tight control over what version of Flash resides on the desktop. At SN, we’re prepared with contingencies because, as always, our goal is to maintain a seamless experience for all types of users, from the savvy guy running the application on Vista/IE7 to the one running Windows 98 on an IE 5.5 browser.

Over the course of seven years, perhaps the greatest challenges in our evolution have been learning from our mistakes and being able to anticipate the unexpected. For example, there will be times when a user leaves a field blank and hits the enter key. In order to prevent a system error from popping up on the screen because the programmer and tester did not anticipate that a null value would be entered, we’ve learned to test what is inputted as well as what is omitted. We’ve also learned that some users like to “test” the integrity of the system by inputting as many characters as the field allows. Thanks to this caveat, all of SN’s newbies know that “maxlengths” are a programmer’s best friend.

Java came with its own set of challenges — beginning with apostrophes that translated into question marks and limitless integer fields. Now, all input fields are routinely tested for “weird characters” and extremely large, zero and negative values to ensure that if the user does enter these into the system, the system will be able to handle it gracefully. For added security, we’ve adapted our thinking to match the naive user and the hard-core hacker. Whether a user enters the system via the login screen or tries to enter by hard-coding the security link into the URL, our job is to guarantee that the system will be safeguarded against innocent and malicious alike.

As we learn to master the defects and accept the enhancements to our department, we also like to celebrate our accomplishments here at the Studio. One of our biggest pats on the back came when we developed our proprietary Defect Tracking System. This SQL back-end web application offers the QA department and developers a chance to collaborate on projects and track the issues on a per-project basis. Because projects are not deemed ready to go live until all issues are resolved, this systems helps ensure that problems are not forgotten or lost in the shuffle.

In the growth process, we not only learn from our mistakes, but we take recommendations from our most important critics — our clients. We enjoyed a great leap in quality when we took the recommendation of a client to put our system under a “stress test” to ensure that it would operate smoothly with 100 users hitting it at the same time. Since we don’t even have 100 computers here at the Studio, we had to look into a stress tool that could simulate 100 users accessing the system. After researching other tools on the market, we opted for an open source application to run our test against. This tool gives us the unique ability to go into the code and make the necessary adjustments in order to simulate 100 different users logging into the system via a login screen. Most stress tools do not allow for such adjustments; rather, all 100 simulated users would be using the same login — which of course would not be a true test of the system’s capabilities.

We were able to run the tests after business hours and report on the number of errors encountered, the server thresholds, and the number of requests processed in a second. Once our client saw the reports, they were more than satisfied that their application would run without incident. We’re thrilled to report that it did, in fact, run flawlessly when the application opened to audiences a week later.

Going forward, QA is looking for ways to improve the productivity and accuracy of all of the applications we develop. With Andy at the helm pushing our developers to be on the cutting edge of technology, it’s never boring or stagnant in our area. We realize that when collaboration happens between departments, the needs of the client are better met and managed — that’s what makes StudioNorth an integrated brand communications agency. Currently, we are reviewing a new online defect tracking/project management tool that will allow us to align projects with any issues associated with the program. Because it’s accessible at the project management level, the application will be open to viewing and editing by both our Client Services and Interactive departments.

We’re also looking into automated testing tools to aid us with regression testing. Regression testing involves testing the application to make sure that what was working before is still working after the updates are applied. Regression testing tools save time and money, and ensure that the application behaves as expected.

To ensure that our evolution continues, we make it a priority to be up to date on the latest technologies, hot trends and current forecasts. We receive QA feeds in our email accounts on a daily basis, order books and videos, and attend training classes to make us the best testers that we can possibly be.

Laura Zavala

Laura leads the quality assurance team in the testing of applications at StudioNorth. Before any program is released, she subjects all applications to rigorous testing in such areas as browser compatibility, operating systems, business rules and requirements, stress testing (performance), link checking, and overall usability. Laura has been with the Studio since 2001. With more than 15 years of experience in programming and project management, she is well versed in testing methodologies as they relate to Web, Flash, desktop, and extranet applications.

A new way of living is upon us. A new facet for our lives to occupy. More and more of us are living our lives online, storing very important aspects of ourselves and information about our lives on the Internet (a.k.a. “The Cloud”). Think about how much of your life is spent online, and how many services that only exist online know something about you… something important. How much have you researched online? How much have you bought online? How much have you banked online? More than you realized, I’d bet.

“Cloud Computing”

More and more services online are competing for our lives. They are asking us to invite our friends, store our documents, entertain us, and streamline our lives. What’s more they aren’t just asking to do it, they’re actually making our lives better, providing a return on our “investment of information.” I can say without a doubt that online services make my life easier and more convenient. On the flip side, they also add clutter. However, once you figure out how you work best online it becomes somewhat easy to cut out the clutter and actually simplify things.

Think about these services for a moment… How many of them have you had to install on your computer? How many of them are available offline? Hardly any. They only exist or make themselves available when you are connected to the Internet and because of this you are drawn into the Internet more and more.

The future of marketing, software, services, and products

This is where it gets interesting. Many of the leaders of these services are developing vast data centers using cheap hardware on cheap or free operating systems. Companies like Google, Yahoo!, IBM and Microsoft are moving very quickly to create the facilities to enable and store the services and data that allow people to function in the cloud. Because of this, the ability to find computing power and data storage online is becoming extremely cheap and ubiquitous. It’s actually becoming very much like a utility for companies that take advantage of these data centers in the cloud. Amazon, for instance, has two offerings in particular that they call the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3). These can be used by software engineers and .com start-ups to host virtually unlimited amounts of data and virtual computing power. They can turn them off and on as needed and only pay for what is used…and it literally costs just pennies.

As these services become better and more available people are flocking to use them. Companies like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube have attracted people in droves, and keep them engaged. That means that more marketing and advertising dollars must follow. We are only beginning to see what context-based and pay-per-transaction advertising will become. The media game is changing and it will be interesting to see how media buying and selling changes with it. There is tremendous opportunity within this transformation to change the old crusty advertising industry.

How StudioNorth is taking advantage of “The Cloud”

At StudioNorth we are very highly aware of how to use the cloud to help our clients. We use it to host high traffic/high bandwidth “components” of websites. Components like videos that are attached to direct marketing campaigns. We are also using the cloud to create the future of our agency service offerings. It’s very cost effective for us and highly scalable. We’ve always been a custom online software application agency, but now we are able to offer much more. Automating and moving some of our core processes into the cloud to achieve usage and reach audience we’ve never thought possible before is very exciting and rewarding.

So…

As Sun Microsystems used to say back in the 1990’s, “The Network is the Computer.” It wasn’t then, but it is fast becoming true today (too bad Google and Adobe are eating Sun’s lunch). Only the future will show for sure how far the cloud boundary will permeate our lives. And once it has, what’s next?

-Andy

Some references for more info.

Wikipedia: Cloud Computing
Advertising Age: What Cloud Means to Marketing Forecast
O’Reilly: The Network REALLY is The Computer

Andy leads the interactive offerings and staff engineers at StudioNorth. He consults with clients on strategic technology direction and personally oversees the key phases of the iterative development cycle for many large technology projects. Whether for public web sites, private extranets, or custom applications, Andy uses his rich experience to provide results-driven solutions to our clients. He’s known for being a visionary and for coining the phrase, “conservative wow” in reference to StudioNorth’s ability to create high-impact projects for some of our more conventional audiences. If you want to bring your brand beyond “2.0″, Andy is your connection.

Want to track Andy a little closer? You can follow him on Twitter.

StudioNorth just launched a new version of its dot com website. If I’m counting correctly, this is version 5 of www.studionorth.com. This version is different though. Not because it’s done in Flash. Not because it’s implementing very purposeful analytics with set goals. Not because this version has actually been built by both designers and engineers (yep, many portions were actually built by a designer). In my opinion this version is different because it’s not a website at all.

Not a website? What does that even mean? You can classify www.studionorth.com revision 5 as two things, and neither of them count as “website” in my book. First and foremost, it’s an environment. It’s built on a true 3D engine. It’s defined and exists in an x, y, and z Cartesian coordinate system. It has a moving camera and lights. You don’t just go to www.studionorth.com, you go into www.studionorth.com.

Second this is a web application. It runs inside a virtual machine (Flash 9). It has both heavy client and heavy server components. Things like the Brand Focus Calculator run almost exclusivly inside the client and do all their processing there. They share data and processing with the server only when necessary for longer persistence or data storage.

Yeah, this isn’t a website. This is something different. This is something breakthrough.

-Andy

Andy leads the interactive offerings and staff engineers at StudioNorth. He consults with clients on strategic technology direction and personally oversees the key phases of the iterative development cycle for many large technology projects. Whether for public web sites, private extranets, or custom applications, Andy uses his rich experience to provide results-driven solutions to our clients. He’s known for being a visionary and for coining the phrase, “conservative wow” in reference to StudioNorth’s ability to create high-impact projects for some of our more conventional audiences. If you want to bring your brand beyond “2.0″, Andy is your connection.

Want to track Andy a little closer? You can follow him on Twitter.