Before the first graphic is drawn or the first line of code is written, you must define the website budget, purpose, target audience, design, navigation, and content. And when that all said and done you must define the marketing that will bring visitors to your site.

It sounds easy, but you be amazed at how many really bad business websites there are out there. Yours might even be one of them. If so, listen up. For nearly ten years now my company has been building and rebuilding websites for every kind of business you can imagine: from mom-and-pops to multinationals. Wee designed (or redesigned) a couple hundred websites and along the way I have come to the conclusion that most business websites do a pitiful job of working for their owners.

What that, you didn know your business website should work for you? You think it should just sit on a server somewhere taking up digital space and collecting digital dust?

Wrong. Every website, business or otherwise, must serve a purpose, and that usually where most websites falls short. They serve no purpose because the website owner never gave much thought to it. It not the website fault. A website is inanimate. It is only what you make it. The only life a website has is the one given to it by its designer and owner. If the human element doesn do a good job of defining the building blocks, the website will serve no purpose and eventually die a digital death.

Building an effective business website isn brain surgery, thank goodness, since that how I make a nice percentage of my living. Building an effective, well-designed website that works for its owner, that actually serves a purpose, is all about definition.

Define the Budget
Every website, no matter how large or small, must have a realistic budget, with ealistic?being the key word. I can tell you how many times Ie sat with a potential client as they listed off the eight million cool things they wanted their website to do, only to find out that their budget was just a few hundred dollars. I always feel like saying, ell you just wasted three hundred dollars of my time, so here your bill

Define the Purpose
Every website must have a purpose. Purpose drives everything: the audience, the design, the navigation, the content, and the marketing. I could do an entire column on purpose, but suffice it to say that there are five categories of purpose under which most websites fall: the purpose to inform, to educate, to entertain, to generate leads, to sell, or a combination thereof. If you fail to define the purpose of the website, all else is just wasted effort.

Define the Target Audience
Your target audience refers to that segment of the public that you hope to attract to the site. For example if you sell shoes, your target audience would be anyone with feet. Taking it a step further, if you only sold women shoes, your target audience would be women (with feet) Why is defining your target audience so important? If you have no idea who your audience is, how can you expect to design a website that will appeal to them? Your target audience could be customers, investors, job seekers, info seekers, etc. Define your target audience, then figure out how to serve them.

Define the Design
Website design theory has changed over the last couple of years, primarily because the search engines now ignore graphic heavy websites and give preference to those that take a minimalistic approach to design. If you look at some of the big boy websites like GE, Oracle, Raytheon, HP, and others you will see that in many cases the only graphic on the homepage is the company’s logo. Search engines now give higher preference to websites that offer keyword-rich text over flashy graphics. Don’t fight the design trend. You will lose.

Define the Navigation
Bad navigation is the number one reason website visitors abandon a website. Navigation refers to the chain of links the visitor uses to get around your site. If your site has an illogical navigational hierarchy or too few or too many links or is simply impossible to get around, you‘e got problems. We live in a microwave society. We stand in front of the microwave tapping our foot and glaring at our watch wondering why it takes so damn long for a bag of popcorn to pop. Why can’t a three-minute egg be done in thirty seconds? If it takes a visitor more than 3 clicks to get to any page on your site, your navigation needs improvement.

Define the Content
Content refers to the information on your website, be it graphics, text, downloadable items, etc. Since the top search engines no longer use HTML Meta tag data to index websites, it is vital that your website content be text heavy, succinct and well-written to appeal to the search engine spiders.

Define the Build Method
Next, who will build the website for you? Will you do it yourself using one of the point and click website builders or will you hire the kid next door? Will you hire a freelance designer or a professional firm? Budget usually dictates the build method, but be warned, when it comes to website development, you get what you pay for. Sure, the kid next door will throw up a site for you if you buy them a pizza or make your daughter go to the prom with them, but you will end up a with a website that looks like and performs like it was designed by the kid next door.

Define the Marketing
If you build it, will they come? Not on your life, at least not without a good marketing campaign. Your website should become a part of all your marketing efforts, online and off.

Put the website address on your business cards, brochures, letterhead, and all collaterals. Include the address in your ads; print, TV and radio. If you prefer to do online marketing, figure out where your target audience surfs and advertise there.

If marketing is foreign to you, do yourself a favor and call in an expert. Many businesses fail because they simply do not know how to market their products and services effectively. This is also the downfall of most business websites.

Here’s to your success!

1. Web designers are marketers per se. Web sites are all about advertising products, ideas and services. Thus, a web designer has to understand the mindset of marketers in order to create a design that sell.

2. Read, read and read. We do not experience everything. Thus, our tendency is to learn from others. Reading web design books, newsletters and tips are pretty valuable since they can save you time and effort. Basically, books are more conclusive than newsletters and tips however, they are for free and mostly updated.

3. Narrow down your target market. You cannot please everybody same thing that you cannot be good at everything. Thus, this fact calls for the narrowing of your target market. Even in the interface of the so-called web design, a designer cannot claim that he is an expert at anything or everything about the needs of a website. It is better to pick a certain audience and try to be good at catching their attention, preference and choice. This practice allows you to be best at a given area thus developing expertise.

4. Answer your target audience needs. In order to answer the visitor needs, web designers must know what kind of visitors his site is welcoming. Do they belong to the younger generation or otherwise? What do they want from your site? Are these information, details and pleasures in your site in order to get their undivided attention and loyalty? Bear in mind that colors, font size, style of graphics, contents and the entirety of the site affects viewer decision and choice.

5. Know the basics of SEO and copywriting. Though Search Engine Optimization and copywriting are not directly related to designing, still, designers must have basic knowledge about them. This is because web designing is intertwined with marketing, use of keywords and visibility.

Aside from that, designers must also have knowledge of the programming basics. If not, the tendency is waste time or to create a mediocre or unsatisfactory design to the detriment of the sites.

6. The primacy of functionality. If ever you are faced to make a decision between a web site aesthetic form and its functionality, you have to be firm in upholding the latter. Not everything that is pretty is aleable? Besides, you don create web sites for the sake of making it nice-looking.

Above anything else, the site must be functional so as to cater to every visitor wants and needs. Appearance is a means to catch visitor attention nevertheless, it is not the end. If a designer prioritizes appearance alone without considering its primary consideration the web site marketability will suffer.

7. Know when to break the rules. Rules are only guidelines, if you feel that the rules are inappropriate for a certain creation follow your heart desire and venture on an experimental adventure.

Step 1. Research.

What – you don’t think a fisherman starts with research? How does he know not to fish in the bathtub? How does he know not to fish for dorado in USA? How does he know that his favorite lemon meringue pie on a sardine hook won’t catch sharks?

Imagine you’ve invented a 100% cure for Paraguayan piques. You pay a graphic designer to make your web site design. After a year you still haven’t been able to make money. Your host tells you that the few visitors that you had only stayed for ten seconds.

Research would have told you that
*Your prospects speak Guaran?not English
*Most of them can’t read Guaran?*Even fewer speak English
*Most of them don’t have computers

A little research at Overture would have told you that only 3791 people looked for pique in a month, but most of them were interested in polo, not in an insect. Does your potion kill Jiggers? 1432 people searched on that word, and they were mostly North Americans. Perhaps you could make money from them?

If your web site design could inspire 10% of these searchers to visit your sales page and 10% of these bought from you that would give you 14 clients per month. Would that make money enough to pay for your web site design? You’ve been fishing in your bathtub!

Step 2 Preparation

As a fisherman you’ve discovered what fish are in your area, what will attract them to where you are, and found a spot where you won’t get your line tangled up with other fisherman’s lines.

My research for this article showed that ‘web site’ had half a million searches but people could be totally uninterested in web site design. ‘Web site design’ had only a third of a million searches, but readers were more targeted. There were 239 advertisers on Overture, which shows that it is popular, and there are only 24 million competitors.

‘Build a website’ had less than 50 thousand searchers, but 337 million competitors. Ouch! I think my lines would get tangled!

So the rule is: find what people want then design your web site with pages filled with the information that they want. If nobody is interested in your subject, advertise offline or find another subject for your web site design.

Step 3 Get crowds

You sprinkle oatmeal soaked in your secret ingredient on the water, and soon fish are following the scent back to where you are.

Your first task is to make your web site design attractive to visitors.

Tuna fishermen throw un-baited hooks into the mass of fish and pull them out in a sort of rhythm. The hook, which has no barb, snags a fish which falls off into the hold, and the hook is thrown out again, with the whole process taking a few seconds.

Google Adsense is excellent to make money from this kind of web site design.

Step 4 Research

But that was in step 1 you object? Your research should never end. Talk to the other fishermen. Visit fishermen’s forums. Search Google for information. Your oatmeal has attracted fish, but when you put it on the hook it washes off.

You must find what bait will stay on the hook long enough for hungry fish to bite. This will vary from season to season. Experiment and record your results.

Research for your web site design should never stop. Try different ideas to make money and record your results.

Step 5 Pre-sell

OK. Your fish are crowding round you. Your bait has some colorful feathers disguising the hook. You want to persuade the fish that your bait is more attractive than the scraps of oatmeal.

Your web site design should start to describe your experience with whatever it is that you are selling to make money. You should try to communicate in all your web site design just how interesting you find what you are offering.

Step 6 Arouse Enthusiasm

Keep pulling your bait through the water so that fish will think

*I’d better act while the food is there!
*It’s heading towards the other fish. I’d better be quick!
*I may get a better offer, but what if I don’t?

If your web site design is aimed at affiliate income, don’t try to sell yet. You strike only after the bait is in the fish’s mouth. Let the vendor handle the last step.

Step 7 Hook Them

Once the fish has the bait in it’s mouth you strike to drive the barbs home, then the fish can’t leave go. Then you pull the fish in, and eat it.

Oops! I’m not advocating cannibalism! Once your web site design has hooked a customer the same rules no longer apply.

Bonus Tip

To succeed, your web site design must have ways to keep your customers so happy that they will keep coming back again and again.

Your web site design must obviously have a contact page. You should have a frequently asked questions page. You should offer further sales of related products to make money for you. If you eat your client you won’t have her returning again and again.

If you are reading this article, most probably you have faced some communication problem with your offshore team or you are considering to offshore your project work and want to learn effective ways to communicate to the team which is thousands miles away.

Being CEO of outsourcing company , I deal with  many clients(based in USA, UK, Italy, Ireland, France etc.) & our team here in India. I will share some of my insights and day-to-day observations, so that you can get benefited.

Lets try to understand the basics of communication and possible ways to make mistakes when communicating with your offshore team in India. There are 3 entities involved in any communication – 1. Sender, 2. Receiver & 3. Channel between Sender-Receiver.

Now, try to understand Sender (its you yourself!!!). Mostly you are born & brought up in western country, having some cultural inclination and English language knowledge. Receiver is mostly the person in India, who knows English, but finds it hard to understand American English accent as well as having different cultural & geographical understanding. Channels of Communication can be phone, email & chat most of the time.

Now, lets try to accept the fact that – when messages(technically communication signals) are sent from sender to receiver through any communication channels, then some sort of noise or distortion will happen and because of that communication will be broken. These kind of communication gaps can become critical for long term success or failure of the project or relationship between you and off the shore team.

So, here are best 7 tips:

1. Start initial communication on Phone It is easy to pick up a phone and start talking with someone who is ready to listen to your ideas or project requirements. If you can find someone from offshore company who can understand your English accent, that抯 a very good first start. Nowadays many offshore companies have US phone numbers or Skype ID, so just find it out if any phone communication channel is available to offshore team and start using it first. If any offshore company is not providing phone support, then either they are not capable to understand western English or do not understand the importance of this communication channel. Beware of these kind of companies because in long run, you will find it very problematic to communicate because of time difference & cultural differences.

2. Start Email communication to extend initial Phone Communication If you have passed the first phase of phone communication, then next phase is to have some written text via email. Do not expect that the receiver (offshore team) will remember & understand 100% whatever you have discussed on phone. Nobody is 100% perfect, so accept this fact and try to fill-up the gaps of phone communication by writing email. This 2nd phase will crystallize your thoughts/ideas or project requirements and will provide written evidences for future use.

3. Start Chat Communication to extend Phone & Email Communication
Once you have passed first & second phase, then you should start feeling better if the offshore team is good at communication & understanding your project requirements. Now, you can have some chat communication with CEO or Project manager if still there are communications gaps exist. Chat communication is useful for quick confirmation, clarifications and project updates. Make sure to send all chat communication through email to all concerned people, so that everyone can be in a loop.

4. Have some central Storage of All Communication Once you have started communicating with offshore team through combination of channels (phone, email, chat), then it is very easy to get lost in the pile of digital papers. So, use Google Docs or some central web-enabled storage systems (Box.net, Microsoft One Note etc.) and collaborate with team members of offshore team. You may consider developing your own customized central storage for all communication.

5. Send same message through Phone/Email/Chat You may experience that many times the messages may get lost on other end. For example, many people just leave chat message or only voicemail or only send email and then expect timely response from the offshore team. Offshore team might be busy and the message can get lost (in bulk email or voicemail or chat) which exist in only 1 communication channel. So, make sure to send same message to multiple communication channels, when something is urgent and important. If important & urgent messages are passed more than one time, there are more chances that it will be received or heard on other end.

6. Be ready with emergency communication strategies We all live in the world where anything may happen at any time. Offshore team may face power outage, internet connection outage, social problems, riots, traffic jam, computer virus, network problem etc. So, you need to have some emergency communication strategies with offshore team. You have to accept the facts that – people live in other globe of the earth are also humans and nobody anticipate failure of communication channels in advance. So, be calm and patient when something goes out of control. This tip will help a lot once in a blue moon, but very important for overall success or failure of the project or relationship.

7. Make sure to close the communication loop this is the last and essential point for any communication. In very simple words, sender say something to receiver and then ask for receiver to re-iterate same thing to sender in their own words or own ways. If both messages from sender to receiver & receiver to sender are almost same, then it is considered that the communication loop is closed. For clarity of all communication messages, closing the communication loop is very essential. Sometimes, this seems wastage of time & efforts, but believe me – in long run this last tip will make the big impact.

Use these 7 basic tips for successful communication with your offshore team in India or any offshore team through the world.

Use all simple 7 tips above and share your stories with us. We would be happy to learn further from you.

1. Conceptualize an idea. Think what you like your future website to be. What audience will you cater? Everything you do must redound to their fulfillment. They will be visiting to get what they need. Be sure that their needs are answered. That way they will be satisfied and will keep coming for more. Not only that, they can recommend your site to their friends if they find it functional and nice.

2. Find a host. Having a host is not that expensive. In fact you can get one at $70 for two years. However, if you don want to spend a single penny, there are lots of sites that are hosting for free. The only consideration is that their banner must be placed in your site. That for one is a great deal, isn’t it?

3. Start with your first page. Do the layout and design your first page. It will be easier and better if you have basic knowledge in HTML. Though there are hundreds of What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editors, but you will create a better site using HTML. There are tutorial sections available online. Take advantage on them and apply your knowledge to the web design you are creating.

4. Edit your page. Observe the loading and the navigation. Are they doing well? How about the web design, is it pleasing to the eyes? Are the fonts readable? Is the content helpful? Are there errors in spelling and grammar? Better check all these little details. They may be tiny details but they make up the whole website. Be careful in dealing with them. If there is a need to redo the page do it. It will be disastrous if you are displaying a total trash.

5. Do the rest of the pages. The goal is to attract visitors, keep them and to gain more.

Edit, proofread and edit more. It pays off to have everything in order. Never sacrifice the quality of your website. It is your frontline. It is the one capable of attracting visitors that makes your business sell.

6. Submit the pages to your host. After you are done with the pages and the editing, you can submit them to your host. Wait for it to be shown in the net. Do not forget to update the pages regularly. You have to be updated in order not to lose your target market. Otherwise, they will look for a better site that can satisfy their needs. You don‘t want that to happen, do you?

You may not realize it but your site is already done. Easy as your ABC!

Many people (including my mother-in-law) think that computers are becoming so smart that programmers will be no longer needed in the near future. Other people think that programmers are geniuses who constantly solve sophisticated math puzzles in front of their monitors. Even many programmers don’t have clear idea what they do.

In this post I want to provide some explanation to uninformed people what programmers really do:

Programmers are translators of human ideas into the language of computers.

They are a link between two worlds – human and computers. Do you think it is easy to maintain this link?

Human World Background

The problem with people is that they’re only human. -  Bill Watterson

Humans are product of biological evolution and have a unique and precious organ for producing ideas for programmers – the brain. The brain is a complex combination of neocortex (unique to humans) and older structures inherited from mammals and reptiles. Older brain structures are mostly responsible for reproduction (sex) and survival (finding food or escaping danger). Neocortex evolved to support these function better, however it started to cause strange side effects – consciousness, thinking and curiosity. Thanks to these effects humans invented civilization and thousands years later computers.

Somebody could believe that after thousands years of development humans should become completely dull, predictable and rational species, but it didn’t happen – their old brain structures, complex psychology and social behavior often make people irrational, unpredictable and deceiving. In addition, humans have poor memory, strong emotions and personal interests. However, programmers don’t have choice of working with more rational species and have to work with human beigns to translate their ideas into the language of computers.

Computer World Background

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest. – Isaac Asimov

A computer is the best invention of human civilization. It consist of CPU, motherboard, memory, hard drive, monitor and some other parts. Computers moved our civilization to the new level, filled our life with meaning and entertainment and compensated weaknesses of our brains. There are good chances that computers will become more intelligent than humans. (However, I am a bit concerned if computers need human programmers after it happens.)

Modern computers are completely logical, straightforward and obedient. It is pleasure to work with a computer if you know what it should do and how to instruct it. The only problem is that computers will do exactly what you tell them to do. Therefore, you should have very clear ideas and instructions for a computer to avoid feeling miserable when you see your boss or customer.

Translation Between Humans and Computers

There are three main challenges in translation:

1. Language ambiguity. Human language is vague, complex and ambiguous – for example: “This program doesn’t provide good user experience”. Culture, background and context affect communication and meaning. On the contrary, any computer language is exact, straightforward and context-free.
2. Levels of details. Humans communicate often in general terms without many details – for example: “I want this f* program work right”. It allows them to save time and energy, but cause two big problems – misinterpretation and possibility that important details are missing. And a computer requires all details – everything should be spelled out.
3. Thinking style. Humans often think in terms of needs, outcomes and solutions – for example, “This report should run in 2 seconds instead of 2 hours”. However, computers need algorithms – sequence of steps how to achieve desired outcomes.

In order to write good software, programmers have to overcome these challenges, understand humans and translate their ideas into the computer language.

Skills of a Super Programmer

As we can see a super programmer should have two distinct sets of skills to deal with both worlds.

Understand humans and create solutions:

1. Communication -ability to establish contact with humans, talk with them without alienating and even heroic attempts to share own opinion.
2. Meaning - extract useful information from conversations with humans, decode and make sense from it
3. Logic - clearing, removing ambiguity and controversy from human ideas for uncompromising reality of computers
4. Creativity - dig, twist and play with human ideas to create good solutions
5. Design - wrap programming ideas with human friendly interfaces and convenient interactions
6. Big Picture – know how solutions fit into world of users, business and Universe to make your program useful.

Tell computers what to do and build solutions:

1. Logic (again) – organize programmer’s thoughts into cohesive software ideas and instructions for computers
2. Technology - uncovering and understanding the black box of technology (black box for 99% of population)
3. Programming Languages – learn the beautiful, logical and unambiguous languages for feeding computers with programmer’s ideas
4. Algorithms - master the most effective ways how a computer can accomplish a task
5. Modeling  - create abstractions and models for grasping and manipulating ideas in software code
6. Practices (as Refactoring, Unit Testing, Continuous Integration) – recurrent activities to keep system solid, healthy and possible to change

There is a big difference between a human-oriented and hardcore object / system – oriented programmer.
A programmer who is specialized to work with computers only is a half of the good programmer. Great solutions require skills for computers and human worlds.  Connect both worlds and become a super good programmer!

Command and Conquer is the grandfather of all Real Time Strategy games and the game that really made the genre popular.

My friends and I spent countless hours playing the original as well as subsequent sequels (Tiberian Sun, Red Alert).

Check out the demo video.
[pro-player]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPjHuFtnb2o[/pro-player]

You can play the Command and Conquer – HTML5 version here and read about the development of the RTS game here.

Do try it out and leave your feedback.

The browser wars

The First Browser War (BW I) raged from 1997 to 2001, with sorties by Internet Explorer 4, 5, and 6 — all of which were bundled with Windows — steadily battling back Netscape until complete market dominance was obtained. IE’s market share was so overwhelming that Microsoft didn’t release a new version of IE for five years, effectively stifling the march of innovation and standards on the web.

The Second Browser War (BW II) began when Microsoft realized that Mozilla Firefox — which emerged from the ashes of Nutscrape in 2004 — was a serious contender. Gates awakened the IE team from their dragon-like, mmm-fat-piles-of-gold slumber to produce IE7 in 2006 — but it wasn’t enough to stymie Firefox’s growth. Then, with Firefox creeping closer and closer to 30%, Google released Chrome at the end of 2008 and Internet Explorer’s market share began its free fall in earnest. Microsoft responded with IE8 in 2009, but to little avail.

In 2010, BW III kicked off. You probably remember it well. It all started with HTML5, and an almost slavish adherence to “the open web.” Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla fell over each other to provide standards support and faster JavaScript execution. The end result, though, has been commoditization. All three of the Big Three (or Four if you include Safari) are capable, secure, standards-compliant browsers, with the only real differences coming down to personal taste. Unsurprisingly, with IE9 being Microsoft’s first competitive browser since IE4, its market share has also started to stabilize.

Browser War I & II

And now… now we find ourselves in the midst of the Browser Cold War. Every combatant is armed to the teeth with an almost identical feature set, and all three of the big browsers have roughly the same population. Short of launching a nuke, which fortunately no one has, the only way to gain ground is through propaganda, FUD, and sleazy underhanded maneuvers.

The Berlin Sandbox

Take Google, for example. It is now spending millions of dollars to market Chrome as the fastest option, when we know that it’s virtually identical to Firefox and IE. Even worse, and reminiscent of the tactics that resulted in an antitrust ruling against Internet Explorer and Microsoft in 2001, Google abuses its search and video monopoly to advertise its browser. Then there’s the recent independent (but Google-funded) study that shows Chrome to be the most secure browser on the web — but hilariously, and probably because Google dictated the test protocol, the study simply ignores a bunch of Firefox and IE security features to paint Chrome as some kind of indomitable Hulk-like hero. In reality, all three browsers are very secure.

Mozilla, which is being squeezed out by rabid bloodthirstiness and larger marketing budgets, has started to get its hands dirty as well. The launch of Firefox 5, released in June, was the biggest social media orgy since the Firefox 1 launch parties in 2004. Recently, with its shift to a Chrome-like rapid release cycle, a lot of work has been done on introducing automatic, behind-the-scenes updates — and now, at long last, Mozilla is nudging Luddite Firefox 3.6 hold-outs to update. Last, but not least, Mozilla is even using adorable red panda (firefox) cubs to try and boost its user base. With only a fraction of its competitors’ budget and gravitas, expect a lot more of these cutesy, forebrain-type land grabs from Mozilla.

And finally there’s the Microsoft, the 800lb gorilla that’s desperately trying to appear calm, collected, and graceful — but deep down some large cogs are whirring, grumbling, and crunching under the strain. In the last 10 years, Microsoft has registered just a handful of market share increases. Seriously, just look at the graph below — if you were the exec in charge of Microsoft’s portal to the web, how would you feel? Some poor sod — or, more likely, a long line of poor sods — has had to struggle through a decade of yearly reviews, each time explaining, yet again, that he has lost another 5% of the market.

Browser War III & The Browser Cold War

This is why Microsoft is enabling silent, automatic Internet Explorer updates. It went half way and rolled out Internet Explorer 9 through Windows Update back in April, but it still required users to click through the IE installer — now, IE9 (or will simply install with the rest of your important and critical updates. Microsoft, like Google, also uses its huge web presence to push surfers towards IE9, and it uses a few of Mozilla’s social tricks with sites like IE Test Drive and Beauty of the Web.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Where is this technological Cold War heading, then? To be honest, as far as consumers are concerned, there’s nothing to worry about. The web has never been as fast or functional, and as long as HTML5 and its Open Web brethren continue to thrive this will continue.

As far as the browser makers are concerned, though, expect further foul play. Expect Microsoft to register a huge win with its built-in, Metro version of IE10 in Windows 8. Likewise, expect Chrome to dig its claws further into Android — and perhaps a renewed push for Chrome OS is due soon, too. Mozilla, being a charity, can’t (and won’t) apply the same kind of pressure, but hopefully its Web API and Firefox for Android efforts will be enough to keep it relevant. Without Firefox, of course, there would be nothing to stop Microsoft or Google from heading down the same path that led Microsoft, back in the balmy days of the Dot Com Bubble, to introduce such  standards-defying disasters as DHTML. Let’s hope that it doesn’t get to that.