When I first brought the topic up with my professor, she just gave me a confused look. I had to explain to her that PHP is a programming language commonly used by web developers. I also explained I was writing the definition in an effort to educate young web developers who may only be involved in XHTML and CSS but are looking to expand their knowledge. She agreed with the idea, but asked me how I would deliver my message. I had a few options: article for a newspaper or magazine, a brochure, a section of some larger document such as a report or text book, or a web page. I am sure most of you can guess which topic I choose, so without further ado, What Is PHP?.

P.S. I know the styling and overall look of the page isn’t that great, but it was for an English project in which I was the only student to do a web page. For only a few hours of work (including research, writing, and creating the page), I would say it came out just fine.

There is a flaw in the WordPress.org plugin directory. It is a rather large flaw to be honest, and it is something that has plagued our recent series of upgrades to Google Analyticator. We recently added a new dashboard widget to Google Analyticator that mimics the Google Analytics dashboard using the Google Analytics API and a series of AJAX requests. We took over twenty hours developing and testing this new feature. We tested the plugin using MAMP with PHP4 and PHP5 in Opera 9, Safari 3/4, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 7/8, and Firefox 2/3. Everything appeared to be working properly and we thought we were ready for the release. After releasing Google Analyticator 5.0, we soon found we were wrong.

As soon as we released the latest version of Google Analyticator, our support forums were flooded with problems. Unfortunately for us, a huge majority of these support requests all appeared to be the same issue. For anyone who has ever done software support, you know the users usually do not give you nearly enough information to solve the problem. The general message we got off the forum was “the plugin breaks my dashboard”. They sometimes would not give us a URL to their site or even the version of the plugin or WordPress. After doing a massive search for information over the course of a two week period, we eventually found the plugin had problems in some IIS installations, memory issues with certain server configurations, issues with Google’s AuthSub using multi-part domains, and issues with people using brand new Google Analytics accounts. Those two weeks were some of the roughest I have experienced since Spiral Web Consulting began maintaining Podcasting and Google Analyticator. It took us two weeks and five releases to get our dashboard widget to work properly. Here is an example of the final version.

This brings me to the point of my post. We tested this plugin as thoroughly as possible on our end. We did everything we could to try and prevent any issues, but we could not test on every possible server configuration. Google Analyticator is not the largest plugin in the directory by any means, but with almost a half a million downloads it is far from small. We cannot test all the installations that run our plugin. Every large piece of software runs beta releases, especially open source software. WordPress.org’s plugin directory needs to introduce some sort of beta release option for the plugins listed in the directory. As a plugin developer, I would love the option to give people the chance to beta test a plugin before the official version is released. We need the option to use the community as a tool of our development. As a plugin grows, it becomes more and more discouraging for plugin developers t continue due to the additional support requests that come with each new feature. If we could eliminate some of that unneeded stress, plugins could grow more. WordPress is growing at an ever-increasing rate, why limit its possibilities by making plugins difficult to advance with it? The time has come that beta version become an official part of WordPress.org. Voice your opinion now and be heard!

I will admit, there have been several frustrating moments both myself and Ron have gone through while providing support for our plugins. Podcasting for instance is a plugin neither of us use, yet has double the support requests compared to Google Analyticator on our support forum. At the time of writing this post, Google Analyticator has 373,074 life time downloads while Podcasting only has 48,024 life time downloads. Some may argue that Podcasting must be extremely more buggy than, but in fact it is simply that Podcasting users seem to not read any of our documentation. This is one of the most annoying parts of support. We have a very in depth F.A.Q. for each of our plugins and a large database of questions that other users have asked, yet we keep getting the same questions. Neither Ron nor I even use Podcasting, yet we support it for the community.

We recently added advertisements to our plugin site and the ability to donate to our plugins. We have been very much appreciative by the fact that we have gotten a decent amount from both methods. Now, this money most certainly does not cover the cost of even a few hours of charged work Ron and I would do for a client, but it does cover some of the monthly expenses that come with running a business. We love giving back to the WordPress community that provides us with so much work already.

So, what can you do to show support for your plugin developers? Well, the first thing is to make sure you do as much research as possible before you come to them with a bug or a problem you are experiencing. No open source developer will have a problem if you have a legitimate bug, but saying something is broken because you refused to look up that you forgot an important WordPress tag in your theme is ignorant. In your support request, be as detailed as possible and provide as much information as you possibly can. Try to listen to the plugin developer when they respond. The fact is, most people automatically assume it is a plugin, and if a plugin developer tells you it isn’t, then it is your job to get reliable proof that it is so they can fix it.

Give back to the plugin developer in any way you can. If this means you want to donate, then donate. If you can’t afford to donate a few bucks, then simply say thank you and provide feedback on the plugin. I can’t explain how frustrating it can be to release a new version of your plugin, and no one even responds if they like it or hate it. It feels like a complete waste at times. You can also simply help support the plugin by visiting their support page and answering some of the simpler questions. If you find a bug, try fixing it yourself. If you can work it out, give the code to the developer so they can use it. Everyone appreciates a solid starting point. Finally, give the plugin user a shout out or a link back. Get some conversation of the plugin going on your blog, Facebook, or any other social site. Make sure to use WordPress’ plugin rating system to give the plugin a good rating as well.

My Opinion

I would definitely have to say that WordPress’ plugin developers are appreciated. The community as a whole supports the open source spirit. The amount of plugin users I encounter who are appreciative of the efforts of the plugin developers far outnumber the users who think they are entitled to the plugin developers time and effort. Unfortunately, the latter really do have a negative effect on plugin developers. They are the reason why Spiral Web Consulting has this message displayed on our forum:

We want you to understand a few things right up front:

• We do this in our free time to give back to the community.
• You are in no way “entitled” to immediate support.
• We will help as best we can, but we are not obligated to fix anything on your time frame.
• We may not respond as quickly as you would like us to, and we apologize, but we do this as a hobby and we give a significant amount of free time towards these plugins already so please bear with us.
• Please do not demand something from us. We respond much better to a polite request rather than obnoxious demands and a blatant lack of respect.
• If we do not respond to your thread right away, do not email us through our business contact form. Any support requests sent through that form will be instantly deleted.

Don’t be an abusive user. Appreciate the work the developer does for you, and you will get better results as time goes by.

Since creating Spiral Web Consulting, Ron and I have received a consistent flow of requests from clients for design and development jobs. I have become accustomed to these terms being used interchangeably. The fact of the matter is that most people do not seem to understand the difference between web design and web development. Let me explain.

Web Design

Web design, as described by Wikipedia, “is the skill of creating presentations of content (usually hypertext or hypermedia) that is delivered to an end-user through the World Wide Web, by way of a Web browser or other Web-enabled software like Internet television clients, microblogging clients and RSS readers.” This definition is very vague. Google’s search results are full of vague answers very similar to this one.

Web design, in my terms, is the creation of graphics, layout, and overall aesthetics of a web page. Web design is a task that can be accomplished without ever writing a single piece of XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.. I guess in the most simple terms possible, web design is the planning phase of creating a page. You need to acquire/create the proper graphics, work out a layout, create a site-map, and decide exactly how the site should look.

Web Development

Web development, as described by Wikipedia, “is a broad term for any activity related to developing a web site for the World Wide Web or an internet.” I would have to strongly disagree with this definition. In essence, they are saying that anything you ever do to a web site is web development. Web development is much more structured than that.

Web development is writing the code to reproduce a preconceived design and creating the functionality necessary for the site to operate. This process is almost entirely based in code, using XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and usually a programming language (PHP, ASP.NET, JSP, etc.). This phase follows the web design phase in the process of creating a web site.

Where Do I Stand?

The most common discussion about this topic is the question, “which is more important?” I will tell you, as a web developer myself, neither is more important. Planning a web site properly is very important, but creating that web site and making it functional is also important.

In short, web design is the look and web development is the code. How can either one of them be considered superior to the other? They are both useless without their counterparts.

Before I continue with my post, I would like to point out that I have tried this new sensation. I am only level 2, but I have played it for a bit and talked to people who played it more extensively.

There are some aspects of what was said that I agree with, however there are several major flaws that need to be considered. Eston Bond stated “I am trying to maximise the user experience of those playing Spymaster.” This was his justification for why the Spymaster’s notification system is in place. With this type of logic, the way the notification system maximizes user experience is by getting more players. This makes sense and it is understandable.

For those of you who don’t know, this is what a notification may look like. There are several variations of that, such as an assassination attempt.

There is a flaw in Spymaster (and these arguments) that I would like to address.

It Promotes Useless Messaging

I understand the game developer and company is trying to promote the game and to be honest it is a brilliant idea. The problem I have is that it actually makes your character in the game stronger to constantly send these #spymaster messages out to your Twitter feed. This really puts some people in a bind. It forces the players to either buy into the game hard enough to just tell their friends to endure the constant useless messaging, or to stop following them.

The most popular rebuttal for this is that Twitter needs a filtering system. I actually agree with everyone who is saying that; Twitter does need a way to filter messages. I will not agree that this is purely a Twitter issue however. The developers knew this would happen and they wanted it to which hurts the community. It would be much simpler to allow users to turn off these messages while not effecting their character. The argument that “they (Spymaster users) can alienate themselves if they feel it is worth the reward (by sending out all notifications)” is a terrible way to look at this new game. It ruins the whole spirit of this “community building” game. The people who want to play are going to play. There is no need to make the game so dependent on everyone else being so actively involved. All it does is cause tension between different friends on Twitter.

In short, the system was built on a selfish design. Being someone who is involved in the tech industry I can respect the company’s decision to build the system this way, and I do not fault them for it. I just don’t like everyone defending it as if it is solely on Twitter to remedy the issue. They made the game to promote sending these useless messages to promote their product. It is that simple.

I would like to provide you with some insights that have come to me while working on these sites and with InfoGenius. Some of the things I have to say may seem like common sense, but the fact is that implementing these things truly works. These tips are given in no specific order.

1) Respect the Customer

You wouldn’t believe how many people disrespect their customers. Now in this situation, you are probably thinking that it would be obvious to be as polite as possible to the advertisers. They are, after all, the ones who are paying you for the ad space. The important thing to realize about this is that the advertisers are only on your site because of your user base. If you receive an email from a user asking a question, never blow it off. It is very easy to view a single user as “not important” or “insignificant”. That would be a huge mistake! With today’s communication abilities, blowing someone off or being rude to someone can be leaked almost instantly. With things like Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, cell phones, email, forums, blogs, etc these altercations are told to everyone and made public quickly. My point is, the fact that you blew that person off will get out and then a much larger problem will be on your hands.

2) Keep Your Content Fresh

You will not be able to keep a consistent flow of users unless you give them a reason to keep returning to your site. Try to keep the most up to date information you have constantly available to your users. Also, moderate all the content that you are given. Some sites do well, and as they grow, they receive more information from their users than they are ready to handle. This causes some of them to slack on moderation, and inevitable leads to bad content on the site which results in less users.

3) Show Advertisers Why They Should Advertise on Your Site

Some people will strongly disagree with me on this, but you need to be able to give your advertisers a reason to advertise on your site. By this, I mean you need to publicly display to your advertisers what type of traffic your site produces. Your advertisers need to be able to see at a glance exactly how many people will be viewing their ads. Some examples of what I am talking about include:

These images, all taken from Codango.com except for the first one, are publicly available to everyone. Any potential advertiser that visits the site automatically sees how many people they can expect to see their product. This type of thing also gives a potential advertiser a better idea of how much an ad may cost. It will also weed out the lower end advertisers who may not be able to afford a spot on your site. This will save you time and money in the long run.

4) Only Advertise Products That Are Relevant To Your Users

The main reason I say to only provide ads that are relevant to your users is because it is what I would call a “win-win situation”. No one likes going to a site and having random banners spread all over the place cluttering up the content they are looking to access. Advertisers also do not like paying for a spot on your site if no one on the site actually wants to buy their product. For instance, it doesn’t make much sense logically for a meat company to advertise on a vegan site.

Relevant ads are much more effective and much less obtrusive. Your advertisers will appreciate better results, and your users will appreciate the better experience. There is no downside!

5) Keep Competition Among Advertisers

If your site is popular enough, you should have a multitude of advertisers lined up waiting to get their banner on your site. If this is true, this is great news! The most important thing to remember however, is to keep the competition among the advertisers strong. You should not sell an ad spot to any advertiser for an extended period of time. It is usually best to keep things on a per month basis. This makes all advertisers willing to keep their price on the ad spot high to avoid another advertiser from out bidding them and taking their spot on the site.

Advertising is all about exposure, and these companies know that. The best spots on your site should be fought for among several advertisers. If you allow someone to lock in an ad spot at a static price, then any additional traffic your site might receive essentially becomes useless. No one will be able to give you more money to buy the spot because it has already been sold. The upside to this however, is that if your site has a few low traffic periods, the advertiser is already locked into a price.

If you want my advice on this, do what your gut is telling you. I personally would not lock an advertiser in. The advertiser will not be happy about paying more money than a spot is worth if your site takes a hit, and you will not be happy about an ad spot being sold for cheaper than it is worth if your site has a traffic spike.

Final Thoughts

If there is only thing you take away from this entire article, please let it be that your most important customer is your user. Without your users, your site is worthless. Always try your best to accommodate them at all times. It may sometimes be difficult, in fact you will most likely run into a situation where it could be an advertiser against a user. Do not let the advertiser push the user around. Stand up for your user base and let them know that you appreciate them. Your users will respect you for making the right decision and most likely tell their friends about what happened. Their friends visit the site, your traffic goes up, and you get a larger advertiser looking to buy a spot on your site. In the end, it all works out for the best.

In closing, use your own judgement to make the best decisions for your site. There are no set rules that can be followed to run a successful site. It is up to you to determine your site’s future. Good luck!