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Introducing #wdx

There have been words out and about regard­ing the name of our London event for this year, Web Directions @media. To explain a lit­tle where that name has come from, the con­fer­ence this time around is a hybrid as we take over the reins of the highly … Read more »

SVG and IE9

Today at MIX, Microsoft announced the first devel­oper pre­view ver­sion of IE9, a far from fin­ished, but usable look at where IE is headed. Microsoft will update this pre­view very cou­ple of months or so.

There’s a great deal new, and much for us in the web design and devel­op­ment … Read more »

The Myths of Innovation — Remixed and Remastered

A few years back, Scott Berkun gave one of the most highly regarded pre­sen­ta­tions we have ever had at a Web Directions event. It was called the Myths of Innovation, and peo­ple still but­ton­hole me to say how great it was, or to bemoan the fact that their life­time regret … Read more »

Bob Harris’s closing Keynote at Web Directions North 09

Jeopardy cham­pion, fan­tas­tic come­dian, author, inven­tor, tele­vi­sion writer (cred­its include CSI and Bones) and much more, Bob Harris came into my life in a way unimag­in­able only a hand­ful of years ago. My wife was well over due with our first child, and far from con­tented. She … Read more »

State of the web survey — closes today

A quick note for those web design­ers and devel­op­ers out there who’ve not yet taken this year’s “State of the Web” sur­vey — it closes today, so if you have a few min­utes, please head along and take it.

The sur­vey, fol­lows up on last years and aims to … Read more »

@media early bird registration extended to March 7th

A quick note for those think­ing about attend­ing @media — we’ve (as has become some­thing of a tra­di­tion) extended the super early bird dis­count of £100 off until March 7th. So, if you’d thought you’d missed out, you’ve got a few more days to reg­is­ter at this pretty amaz­ing … Read more »

Boagworld Big Breakfast at @media

Web Directions is very proud to be host­ing a really spe­cial and fun event on the Friday morn­ing of @media: the Boagworld Big Breakfast. Boagworld is the longest run­ning web design pod­cast with a pas­sion­ate and ded­i­cated com­mu­nity from all back­grounds. The show offers some­thing for every­one from … Read more »

John Resig speaking at @media

That’s right, some­one we’ve been try­ing for lit­er­ally years to get to come and speak at one of our events, John Resig, father of JQuery, is speak­ing on JavaScript test­ing at @media in London in June.

As web appli­ca­tions mature, the need to test sys­tem­at­i­cally and thor­oughly is becom­ing … Read more »

AIIA 2010 iAwards

The Australian Information Industry Association, a long time indus­try Partner of Web Directions, has recently launched the 2010 edi­tion of the iAwards, now in it’s 16th year, and Australia’s pre­mier tech­nol­ogy inno­va­tion awards program.

With 18 cat­e­gories, includ­ing star­tups, tools, tourism, stu­dent projects, edu­ca­tion and gov­ern­ment, what­ever solu­tions you … Read more »

Reflections on the first 24 hours of the Web Direction South 2010 “Tell us what you want” survey

Yesterday I launched our “Tell Us What You Want” sur­vey for Web Directions South 2010. In essence this is a call for papers really, it’s just that we don’t like using that term as we think it makes us sound like some sort of ante­dilu­vian aca­d­e­mic sym­po­sium, which, I’ll … Read more »

Want to speak at Web Directions South 2010? Got Feedback and Suggestions?

If you want to speak at Web Directions South this year, here’s your chance to pro­pose a topic.

Even if you don’t want to speak, you can also give us feed­back and your thoughts on what you’d like to hear about this year, and who you’d like to see … Read more »

State of the Web Survey for 2010

In late 2008, we did our first com­pre­hen­sive State of the Web sur­vey, with well over a thou­sand respon­dents from all over the world answer­ing. The aim was to cap­ture a snap­shot of the tech­nolo­gies and impor­tantly prac­tices and philoso­phies of pro­fes­sional web design­ers and devel­op­ers. We pub­lished the … Read more »

Announcing Web Directions @media — London, June 8 – 11

In 2005, not long after WE04, the first con­fer­ence we helped organ­ise, well known UK web indus­try expert Patrick Griffiths, of HTML Dog fame, launched @media. An instant suc­cess, @media and Web Directions have always shared very sim­i­lar DNA — a pas­sion for the web, stan­dards, acces­si­bil­ity and best … Read more »

MOB Case Study now​.web​di​rec​tions​.org

The amaz­ingly tal­ented folks at MOB pro­duced a cou­ple of fan­tas­tic things for Web Directions South 09. Working with YiYing Lu, they pro­duced the won­der­ful “you are what you tweet” Augmented Reality project. They also built now​.web​di​rec​tions​.org, an iPhone opti­mized web appli­ca­tion (yes, yes, the design deci­sion … Read more »

Google’s new approach to China

Google had just taken what we believe is a huge step for­ward for the web, and the world

We have decided we are no longer will­ing to con­tinue cen­sor­ing our results on Google​.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be dis­cussing with the Chinese gov­ern­ment the basis … Read more »

Web Directions South 09 Resources — many more now online

Thanks to the tire­less efforts of Guy in prepar­ing all the pages and pro­duc­ing all the pod­casts, we now have a whole raft of the pre­sen­ta­tions from WDS09 now avail­able online, so, if you’re look­ing to catch some­thing you missed because you you went to another track, or you couldn’t … Read more »

Got your Google Wave invite? Scratching your head?

It looks like all the Google Wave invites for WDS09 atten­dees, cour­tesy of Stephanie and Cameron (thanks again guys!) went out over the weekend.

If you’re scratch­ing your head as to what to do next though, and you’re in Sydney, why don’t you come along on Tuesday the 20th to the … Read more »

First batch of WDS09 resources now available

You wouldn’t believe how many things there are to do in the week after an event — I actu­ally feel like I have been busier this week than I was in the week lead­ing up to the con­fer­ence. But one of the big things we have been treat­ing as an … Read more »

Trip to Japan for Web Directions East — winner announced!

A cou­ple of months back we announced that we were going to be giv­ing away a ticket to Web Directions East to one lucky attendee of Web Directions South.

Well, that lucky attendee turned out to be Dylan Fogarty-​​MacDonald, who has already let us know that he is very excited to … Read more »

Web Directions — The Soundtrack

I’ve got a few enquiries here about the music we played dur­ing the con­fer­ence, so I thought I should really give credit where it is due and write up some­thing comprehensive.

Between ses­sions in the rooms we played XX by The XX — which came rec­om­mended by Luke … Read more »

GovHack, Canberra Oct 30 and 31 — produced by Web Directions

On Friday after­noon at Web Directions South we were excited and hon­oured to be able to announce GovHack, an event we’ll be pro­duc­ing in can­berra at the end of the month. GovHack is an ini­tia­tive of the Government 2.0 TaskForce, in sup­port of MashupAustralia, a com­pe­ti­tion encour­ag­ing … Read more »

Tech23 startup event in Sydney

Hot on the heels of our amaz­ingly well received Atlassian Startup Space at Web Directions South, Tech23 is a full day startup focussed event in Sydney on October 27.

If you are a startup, an investor, or some­one think­ing about start­ing up — get along, learn and net­work. … Read more »

Web Directions South 09 — Our best ever

Web Directions South is over for another year, and judg­ing by the com­ments in per­son, in blogs, via email and of course via twit­ter, it would seem many think it is the best to date, some­thing we’d have to agree with. Sometimes the stars seem to align — extra­or­di­nary pre­sen­ta­tions … Read more »

99designs Are Hiring A Front-​​end Ninja!

99designs, the sis­ter com­pany of our media part­ners, SitePoint, are look­ing to hire a full-​​time designer from their Melbourne office. In their words, they’re after a “front-​​end ninja” with tal­ents in graphic/​interface design, usabil­ity, acces­si­bil­ity and cre­at­ing standards-​​based HTML/​CSS.

If this sounds like you and you’re in Melbourne (or pre­pared to … Read more »

Special event for Web Week — go deep in the bowels of a leading data centre

Thanks to our spon­sors Anchor Hosting, and Australia’s largest car­rier neu­tral data cen­tre, Global Switch, we’ll be run­ning two, lim­ited places 1 hour tours of their data cen­tre facil­i­ties, in Tuesday the 6th and Wednesday the 7th of October at 345pm (and fin­ish­ing up at the … Read more »

Win a ticket to Web Directions South from Opera Software

If you’ve not been able to get along to the con­fer­ence next week, our excel­lent friends over at Opera Software are giv­ing away a place to Web Directions South 09.

All you have to do is sub­mit an abstract detail­ing what you would do to show­case the new breed of web … Read more »

Atlassian Startup Space at the Web Directions Expo

Thanks to the sup­port of Atlassian, Aussie star­tups turned world­wide suc­cess, at the Web Directions Expo this year we have a ded­i­cated startup focussed area, the Atlassian Startup Space.

7 recent star­tups, with a broad range of prod­ucts and ser­vices rel­e­vant to the web indus­try have been cho­sen for this … Read more »

McFarlane Prize 2009 Shortlist

The Judges have been hard at work with the higher than ever before stan­dard of this year’s Prize, and have decided on the short list for the 2009 Prize.

Last year’s win­ning design­ers, Propeller Global, after two gru­el­ing rounds of judg­ing have three sites they designed in the short list … Read more »

Website Spark — loads of (almost) free stuff for web designers and developers from Microsoft

Late last week, Microsoft announced a new pro­gram for web design­ers and devel­op­ers, WebSite Spark.

Included in the pro­gram are

  • Microsoft Web design and devel­op­ment tools, includ­ing three licenses of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, two licenses of Microsoft Expression Web 3 and one license of Microsoft Expression Studio 3
  • Four … Read more »

    WE Rock — web education evening — sponsored by Adobe

    WE Rock is a series of events planned for all over the world, and cre­ated by Leslie Jensen-​​Inman, from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

    The first WE Rock event, held in Chattanooga in August was a great suc­cess, and Australian Web Week sees WE Rock come … Read more »

    Calling Aussie Web focussed startups

    Do you have a startup with a focus on tech­nol­ogy that would inter­est atten­dees at Web Directions as poten­tial cus­tomers or part­ners? Thanks to the gen­er­ous sup­port of startup-​​turned-​​huge suc­cess, Atlassian here’s your chance to get in front of hun­dreds of web design­ers, devel­op­ers, and deci­sion mak­ers at the … Read more »

    Designing for iPhone? Get yourself some Notepods

    Check out these cool lit­tle sketch pads from Melbourne based Inventive Labs and Jacky Winter Group. They’ve called them Notepods and they’re per­fectly designed for mock­ing up iPhone Apps.

    Get your­self a pack of … Read more »

    Web Directions Discount period ends Weds night

    If you still haven’t quite got round to reg­is­ter­ing for this year’s big­ger (now 4 tracks), even bet­ter Web Directions South (now with added Web Week good­ness) then here’s an even great incen­tive — save $100 if you reg­is­ter before mid­night Wednesday September 15th, mak­ing it just … Read more »

    Web Directions South 09 T Shirt — With Augmented Reality Superpowers

    This year for Web Directions South we’ve pro­duced a superb con­fer­ence t shirt with aug­mented real­ity super­pow­ers designed by Fail Whale cre­ator Yiying Lu. But if you’re going to dress in mag­i­cal style with this shirt at the con­fer­ence, you need to get in there fast … Read more »

    About NSW — a new project from the PowerHouse museum

    Seb Chan, one of the web wun­derkinds at the PowerHouse Museum, talks about their new site, About NSW

    a bit of a Frankenstein cre­ation of dif­fer­ent data sets mashed together by a sophis­ti­cated back­end. The project began with an open-​​ended brief to be a cross-​​sectorial exper­i­ment in pro­duc­ing new … Read more »

    Opera 10 released

    Opera 10, the lat­est install­ment from the long term sup­porter of a stan­dards based web, Opera Software, was released yesterday.

    Opera 10 has sup­port for numer­ous HTML 5 and CSS 3 fea­tures, as well as a new look and feel from well known web designer Jon Hicks, and great devel­oper … Read more »

    McFarlane Prize nominations close tonight at midnight

    A final reminder to all Australian Web design­ers, devel­op­ers, both indi­vid­u­als and teams. Nominations for this year’s McFarlane prize close tonight at mid­night, and to allow the esteemed panel of judges time to assess the nom­i­na­tions, we sim­ply can’t extend that deadline.

    If you’ve launched, or sig­nif­i­cantly updated a web … Read more »

    Web Directions discount period extended ’til midnight September 14th

    A huge thanks to all who’ve already signed up to come to what will be the biggest and best Web Directions to date. For those who still haven’t quite decided, or got around to reg­is­ter­ing, then a quick note to let you know that we’ve extended the dis­count period … Read more »

    Win an all expenses paid trip to Web Directions East in Tokyo!

    This year one very lucky Web Directions South attendee will get to rekin­dle that warm fuzzy con­fer­ence glow just six weeks later by head­ing to Web Directions East in Tokyo, on us, includ­ing air­fares, accom­mo­da­tion, con­fer­ence, two work­shops, recep­tions, din­ners, par­ties … Read more »

    Announcing the W3C Track at Web Directions South

    We are really excited to be able to announce the W3C Track at Web Directions South, hosted and curated by the W3C Australian Office, and sup­ported by CSIRO, home of the Office. Laurent Lefort and oth­ers at CSIRO have been work­ing incred­i­bly hard for some time now to … Read more »

    McFarlane Prize nominations close early Next week

    Great nom­i­na­tions con­tinue to come in — but make sure your work doesn’t miss out on its chance to shine.

    Nominate today — it’s free and will take 5 min­utes or less!

    Would you like service design with that?

    We’ve just filled the last ses­sion in the busi­ness track at Web Directions South 09 — Suze Ingram will be speak­ing on a hot new user expe­ri­ence topic: Would you like ser­vice design with that?

    Service design is a new dis­ci­pline which focuses on under­stand­ing what cus­tomers … Read more »

    Wanted: a passionate web geek

    Passionate about web design and devel­op­ment? Been tin­ker­ing with dif­fer­ent web tech­nolo­gies for some time? Keep up to date with the web indus­try? Enjoy read­ing and writ­ing? Then a tech edi­tor role at SitePoint might be just what … Read more »

    Matt Webb — Web Directions South 09 opening keynote

    The final keynote for Web Directions South 2009 has just been announced: be there on the morn­ing of Thursday October 8 to see what we know will be an excit­ing and inspi­ra­tional open­ing keynote from England’s own Matt Webb.

    Matt will be join­ing an already ter­rific lineup:

    • Read more »

      Typedia

      With the com­ing of embed­ded fonts, Web devel­op­ers and design­ers are going to have to become increas­ingly knowl­edge­able about type. The just launched Typedia from won­der­ful design­ers like Jason Santa Maria, Liz Danzico, Aaron Gustafson and many other looks like a great resource to learn about and explore typefaces.

      You … Read more »

      Introducing Australian Web Week

      Maxine and I are really excited and proud to announce Australian Web Week, October 2 to 9, a show­case of the strength and cre­ativ­ity of the Australian Web indus­try. It’s a project we’ve been plan­ning for years, and work­ing hard on for months now.

      The Design indus­try has its … Read more »

      The reason it’s been quiet at Web Directions…

      Well, there are two big big rea­sons why, but you’ll have to wait until next week to find out. Rest assured, we think you’ll be very excited.

      Have a great week­end, and see you Monday with the news.

      McFarlane Prize reminder

      We’ve got many great nom­i­na­tions for the McFarlane Prize already, putting us a fair way ahead of pre­vi­ous years, with more diver­sity than we’ve seen before. Thanks to all who’ve entered so far. For the rest of you, it’s quick, easy and costs noth­ing to enter a site … Read more »

      Business track — one session remains

      At Web Directions, we like to have most of our ses­sions all orga­nized before announc­ing our con­fer­ences, but we do usu­ally leave one or two ses­sions open for break­ing developments.

      We’ve now got a sin­gle ses­sion remain­ing in the busi­ness track, and thought we’d do a bit of crowd sourc­ing. … Read more »

      McFarlane Prize: nominations are now open

      Nominations for the McFarlane Prize for excel­lence in Australian web design opened over the week­end, on Saturday August 1. If you’ve been involved in the devel­op­ment of a site over the last 12 months that you think deserves recog­ni­tion for … Read more »