Customer Reviews

Content Critical: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through High-Quality Web Content

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is primarily about web site design, although that may not be very obvious from the title. I wish many more web site authors and publishers would read this sort of book, though.

The overall premise is that the job of producing and running a web site has a lot in common with traditional paper publishing. Central to this idea, and the inspiration for the title, is that whatever the site, people actually visit it to read words. Not to look at pictures. Not to admire layout or coo at dynamic navigation menus. To find and read content. Everything else is at best irrelevant, at worst a distracting nuisance or even a reason to leave the site completely.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, and generally follow with the recommendations that the author makes about how to encourage and profit from this understanding: keep things simple, short, and fresh; understand your readers; make it easy to find stuff; treat editing and publishing as key business functions and so on.

What I find slightly disappointing is that the book itself doesn't entirely embody these values. The style is repetitive and often long-winded. As a well-edited web site or a conference presentation this would pack a much more powerful punch. I felt I understood the essential message quite early in the book, and finished reading it mostly out of duty.

This book is a must read for those planning, creating or managing websites.
The sub-title of the book captures what it is about, Gaining competitive advantage through high-quality web content.

Gerry McGovern, through his internet newsletter, New Thinking, has been on a consistent crusade to get all of us to recognize the working content of a web site is words (effective messages) and that website visitors are readers. The book examines this reality in considerable detail and contains many helpful suggestions for improving the effectiveness of website investments

The writers make the point that a website is essentially a publication, and needs to be managed in the same sense. The site publisher needs an involved editor, and should use skilled writers----and should not leave content to the nearly obsolete "webmaster"

The authors make the point that in many cases the words in a web site are not written with needs of the reader in mind and fail to get the desired response. Their message as too "the seven things readers want from your web site" is a real gem. These are:

1. Readers want to be able to find things.
2. Readers want your advice.
3. Readers want up-to-date, quality content
4. Readers want relevant and straightforward content.
5. Readers want to do things
6. Readers want to interact
7. Readers want Privacy.

Two passages from the book are effective summaries of its main message,

"Remember that the reader is king of the Web, and that everything about your website needs to be done with the reader in mind, is the key to online success.
If you know your readers, know how they behave in our information-literate society, and know the seven things they want from your website, you'll be well on your way to success. Remember the best word that sums up the online reader is - impatient".

"Few investments in website design are as critical - and as difficult - as planning, testing and implementing a navigation systems that's simple, intuitive and comprehensive enough to serve readers. ..........Readers like a variety of ways to navigate through a website. Make sure you include a wide enough range of navigation options to account for different readers' habits and tastes".

The book is filled with clear thinking, practical advice and suggestions. It is an absorbing read, worth your time and money.

Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton are experienced journalists who write unashamedly about text content. They define visitors as `readers', not `users', who come to a web site to read and gather content. If that makes Content Critical old fashioned, it is old fashioned for all the right reasons.

It deals with the fundamentals of web site content; its purpose, its design, its creation. Readers of McGovern's weekly newsletter won't be surprised by the content, themes or style of the book. It is direct, business-like, sometimes humorous and always well argued.

Content Critical is the best non-technical book on the subject of web content that I have come across to date. It is comprehensive and well structured. It demonstrates the authors' long fascination with the Internet as a publishing medium as well as their advocacy of information architecture as a professional discipline.

Content Critical has an important message and presents it according to its own rules and guidelines.

Content Critical analyses the benefits and costs of content with a model for comparing the cost of content to its reach and value.

It is easy to forget when we are surrounded by technological marvels that great content is still difficult and expensive to produce. The proliferation of television channels offering cheap to produce content is clear evidence of that.

The central chapters provide checklists and examples for the principles on which the majority of content rests. Topics include:
*Creating content and the importance of editorial (since `even the best writer needs an editor')
*Information architecture as the foundation upon which a web site is built and developed
*Principles for good navigation design
*Content layout and design.

Content Critical is particularly scathing about headlines and summaries: `Most headings and summaries on the Internet are poor. Headings often give you very little clue as to what the document is actually about.' Nor does it pull its punches when it comes to common stupidities: `At all costs avoid "intro" or "splash" pages. They are a total waste of time.'

The final chapters cover building a web site production team and the publishing strategies required if an organisation is to treat content as a high-value asset rather than as a commodity.

Content Critical can be summed up by a recent Gerry McGovern newsletter: `Time is our scarcest resource. The less time we have the more our attention span contracts. Write simply. Keep headings, summaries, sentences, paragraphs and documents short. Get to the point. Then stop.'

I picked up this book based on the strong reviews here. Perhaps at one time this book was more relevant than it is now, in late 2005. It is most certainly not a book for web designers or developers. It might still be useful for someone in marketing, newly assigned the task of maintaining a site, who hasn't ever thought about web content before.

The book pounds a few ideas repetitively throughout: "content is king! Long live the content editors!" But in terms of actually delivering on that message, it falls far short.

Other reviews mention the book provides "solutions" to content issues -- this is certainly not true. It barely provides a methodology for approaching content issues on the web. When he tire hits the road, the "solution" is often along the lines of "it's important to do the hard work to figure these issues out." Well, huh.

It must be noted that the production quality of this book is terrible: some pages, and graphics, were of fax quality. I'm not kidding. The entire book seems photocopied. Reading about "high quality content" through such a poorly produced book was ironic enough.

In sum: had I seen this book on a shelf and flipped through it momentarily, I most certainly would not have bought it.

This is an excellent book that teaches about styles and contents. I find it very helpful for deciding how to provide quality information on my client Web sites. What can be improved about this book is a good discussion on RSS, the tool that get your site contents syndicated and distributed on the Web instantaneously. I also recommend "Free Prize Inside" and "101 Ways to Boost Your Web Traffic, 3rd Edition." These two books address the missing points in the book.

Please note: English is not my mother labguage. So, my review may a bit hard to read. But I really want to share my idea.

Summary:
Good introduction for anybody who really want to understand how to be a good web editor and how to manage content to make the benefit for your business. However, this book need more example or case study to fulfill reader's need.

Overview:
Content critical generally reveals the important of content and how can we enhance the user (which author define his user as a 'reader') experience with content. I recommend anybody who interested in information architecture (IA), User experience (UX) to read this book since it explore deep into the area of content.

Good things and not really good things:
Content is quite broad terms. It is not easy to conclude every perspective about content into only one book. But author has the journalism background which is one of the most suitable career to write this book. He descrbe which kind of 'e-content' is good for 'reader' with simple language and without any IT jargon. He also have done a good job on creating the ROI calculation formular. Yet, good comparison between traditional publishing and electronic publishing. This book might be a good reference for students who attend the e-publishing class. If I have a chance to change the name of this book. I think it should be "How to be a good web editor".

Nevertheless, this book still need more case study diagram and picture to make it more easy to understand.

Who should buy this book?
If you are in e-content business already; you may not enjoy to read it because it is too general and lack of case study for you to apply it with your work. But, if you think content is very important (and critical) and you still need to learn more about e-content. This is a great introduction for you.

The World Wide Web is the world's largest publishing medium, and one of the most important. It is a news source, reference tool, sales venue, meeting point, marketplace, exchange, and entertainment center. It is also an information point and service center. The Web connects millions of organizations to many kinds of clients, customers, members, and publics. The Web is one of the great tools of the information society. It is also our greatest source of information overload.

Web problems commonly develop because individuals and organizations fail to recognize that using the Web to aggregate and distribute information is publishing. Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton have written this useful book to help those who write, edit, or design Web content to publish effectively.

Effective Web publishing involves getting the right content to the right person at the right time. In this useful, well written book, McGovern and Norton explain how to do it.

Content Critical book is a how-to-do-it manual. Written in direct, clear language, the book offers systematic explanation for dozens of useful techniques and principles. It is also a primer in the theory of Web publishing. It explains why the techniques and principles work. It encourages readers to develop a useful philosophy and theory of web design.

Most web sites do not work well and many do not work at all. McGovern and Norton attribute this to the lack of common publishing standards on the Web, where the libertarian attitude toward freedom of content is mistakenly confused with failure to consider legibility, ease of use, and ease of navigation. According to McGovern and Norton, this confusion is made worse by designers who mistake the web for an extension of MTV and programmers who see the Web as a playground for new technologies.

The solution this book offers is a five-stage publishing strategy with usable checklists and serious conceptual tools for analyzing the situation, defining publishing scope, designing information architecture, building a publishing team, and designing appropriate technology.

This book is highly recommended. It belongs in every design library. It should be on the reading list of every course in Web design. Any Web designer who plans to be in business five years from now should read this book. KF

Ken Friedman. Book review. Design Research News, Volume 7, Number 1, Jan 2002 ISSN 1473-3862.

This reader-friendly book provides a useful overview of the pertinent issues involved in Web content development. Its main argument is that traditional publishing principles should be applied to Web content development. The authors maintain that the quality and effectiveness of Web content can be ensured by using the same approach in online content as is used in print publishing. With regard to persuading the reader of the importance of quality of Web content, the book is effective. However, it falls short of its second goal which is to help the reader gain the skills to develop quality content. One of the main reasons for this shortcoming is the book's lack of depth. By addressing such a broad subject area, the authors neglected to provide the reader with any deep insights. Nonetheless, for anyone new to content development the book would be useful in providing a general idea of the all the elements involved in developing effective Web content. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is looking for in-depth information.

At last, content problems no longer have to break the hearts of web designers. Content Critical offers many solutions for making better web sites. Content is so often an after thought (Cut and paste) of web site design, this book clearly states why people are visiting your site (To read) and just how important quality content is. You'll find yourself quoting the easy to understand explanations of XML, search engines, content categorization, navigation design and web site design fundamentals.

Too much, far too much content on the Web is not presented in a way that makes use of the media the way it is meant to be used. I have been guilty of this myself and soon realized that a different approach to writing and presenting content on the Web was essential. Since reading this book eagerly from cover to cover I soon realized the wisdom of the approach presented by Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton. Less is more! Yes! Drill down to the facts and the heart of your Web content. I'm looking for information, don't waste my time with pretty colors and graphics, I want to learn!

This book has inspired me and given me a new attitude to my work - I teach System Analysis and Design at the University of Regina. My students now use this book in my classes! They tell me this book has been invaluable in creating effective Web sites for clients as part of their term project. I have observed that the extent to which the Internet has penetrated organizations has outstripped our understanding of the effective use of the technology. This book resolves that conundrum. You won't go wrong in buying this book.