For the last few years the phrase 2.0 has been a technological buzzword. Recently I read an article discussing the future of the Web, and the roadmap for Web 3.0 and beyond. I thought that I would share with you what I have learned.

What is the difference between Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, and Web 4.0? Although the lines between them are blurred, here is my take on the differences.

When selecting a car, you must make a series of choices. Do you want a sports car, sedan, truck, SUV, van, or something else? If I want to transport my family of six, a sports car probably isn't very well suited for this purpose. However, if I want to haul heavy loads, the truck is probably my best option. There is no one car that is perfectly multi-functional. A certain amount of compromise must be made to find a car that is well-suited to a particular purpose.

Similarly, no single quality assurance tool meets the needs of every project or type of software development. This poses a unique challenge for our (quality assurance) QA organization, because the easiest solution would be to settle on a single tool. This would enable everyone to become familiar with a single tool and leverage the knowledge of everyone else who also used the same tool. Unfortunately, this isn't possible for several reasons. First, there isn't a single tool that supports all the technologies we work with. Second, if we did this we would be giving up a lot of useful features to get a very generalized tool. Third, and most importantly, this would not give us the best software.

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One of the best features of the new LDS Maps application is its ability to allow Web users to submit feedback directly to the LDS Maps development team at the Church. We appreciate community members around the world who have reported location errors and data inaccuracies.

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For the uninitiated, Twitter is a microblogging service akin to group instant messaging. People post little reflections (“tweets”) about what’s going on in their lives, and they keep up with tweets from other people they choose to follow. You can follow thousands of people, or just a few.

When participants add hashtags to their tweets, such as #ldsconf, Twitter enables a community of people to gather virtually during an event. Through the hashtag, you can connect to a community of all other twitterers adding the same hashtags in their tweets, regardless of whether you’re following them or whether they’re following you.

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Procrustes was the ancient champion of enforced conformity. In Greek antiquity, he was a legendary highwayman who lived in Attica. He had an iron bed, which he regarded as the standard of length. Because it just fit him, he concluded that everyone should fit it. He stopped every traveler and tied him to the bed. If the person happened to be too short, Procrustes stretched him until he attained the correct length. If he happened to be too long, his legs were cut off until he met the proper requirement. Thus, everyone was made identical in size.

The iron bed on the highway of Attica has been supplanted by one on "the highway of information technology." It operates now in the field of technology, rather than in the physical realm. Every technology provider has its own bed, and all who would sojourn among them must be expanded or contracted, distended or diminished, enlarged or compressed, according to the product.

At the Church, we have been working to ensure that as we explore various technologies to further the work of spreading the gospel, we adapt to the preferences of those who will use a particular technology, and, in so doing, save the tithing funds of the Church.

As we have been working to update our 15-year-old phone systems to IP Telephony, each provider offered us a quote for its preferences for specific technology, or the technologies most popular among its customers. It is as if these modern Procrustean vendors have offered a one-size-fits-all product regardless of the varied work patterns of employees.

Instead of accepting proposals at face-value, we are taking the time to look at each user group to identify its specific needs and preferences. Some prefer to use a mobile phone, some prefer a “soft phone” (making telephone calls using a computer and a headset), and some prefer a traditional desktop phone.  By going through the extra effort of identifying specific user groups and creating user profiles for phone usage, we have been able to meet the individual needs of each user while saving thousands of dollars.

Some lessons learned:

• Employees don’t need expensive, proprietary handsets. We can select IP phones based on a broader set of unified communications needs.IP telephony is becoming more plug-and-play rather than proprietary.

• Most employees with unified communications and a computer screen will not need expensive IP Phones with a screen.

• Negotiate with providers for an enterprise-wide license for IP telephony instead of a per-phone contract, to reduce costs.

• Before beginning any project that requires new equipment, identify different usage patterns of your target audience, and ensure that your solution meets the needs of differing working patterns and preferences.

Kimberly Ishoy is a senior product marketing manager for the Church.

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When we design and write systems for our customers, do we look toward helping them accomplish their work, without getting in the way? We need to look critically at our systems to decide if they are too feature-laden and whether they just get the job done. There are many things that we use every day that we don’t notice because they completely blend into the actual task we are performing.

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A Problem for Consideration

The goal of increased efficiency and lower costs is nothing new in the tech industry. At the Church, those pressures are acutely felt, along with the moral obligation to wisely spend the widow’s mite. I’d like your help and suggestions on the best approach to solving a problem.

The Church sponsors and supports multiple outward-facing Web sites, such as LDS.org, Mormon.org, Provident Living.org, and stake and ward Web sites, to name a few. Most of these sites provide a way for site visitors to offer feedback. We need the capability to uniformly and consistently track, route, and reply to feedback from member and nonmember visitors to the various LDS sites we now support.

The problem is this: the existing process for screening, routing, and responding to submitted feedback is slow and labor-intensive, will not scale to the future needs of the Church, and is incapable of supporting multiple languages.

Please consider the following questions:

• What options should the technical staff here at the Church consider in the next version of this service?

• Are there credible existing commercial solutions?

• Is a custom application the best alternative?

• Is a mix of custom code and existing commercial applications an appropriate approach?

• How would you solve the problem?

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“As a Church, we believe there is value in teaching the gospel in the languages of the earth, because your mother tongue is the language of your heart.” – Elder John H. Groberg

Not only must the Church teach in all the languages of the earth, it must also build software for use by local leaders and members in all the languages. Building global software that adapts to various cultures and languages adds many challenges to the work. One of the most important and challenging parts is handling the names of members in a culturally appropriate way. For example, when you receive e-mail with your name incorrectly displayed, the tendency is to discount it as spam. If your product hard-codes American name customs, which are not appropriate in other cultures, it may be discounted, laughed at, or even be offensive. In one extreme case, it could have been harmful to a member. In a country with civil unrest, the member’s name had been written with characters from a different ethnic group. The membership record was sent back with a note explaining that this would identify him with the wrong ethnic group and his life would be in danger.

Handling names and dates correctly are two of the major issues that must be addressed when building global software. Externalizing strings, data corruption or characters not displaying properly in displayed strings are additional issues that must be overcome. While working on MLS for the last five years, I have come across these issues as well as others.

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Development continues on the Internet Mission Office System (iMOS), a new Web application that allows mission office staff to manage their organization and perform financial tasks. Project 2 has ended, and Project 3, which will complete the main finance features and enhance existing finance and mission organization sections of the application, is in progress.

Currently, about 30 missions are using the system’s mission organization functionality in a beta testing stage of the application rollout. Three of these missions are using the finance features. The Missionary Department expects to add more missions to the beta testing group soon and will begin a general rollout in January 2009.

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Is content really king in search engine optimization? Find out why.

Is Content King?

Today my colleague Jimmy Smith pointed me to an absolutely fascinating blog. Once I started reading it, I became enthralled and kept reading one page to the next. By the time I got done, I had spent a good 30 to 45 minutes reading some of the posts on this blog. When I finally got to a point where I could actually pull myself away from the LCD and regain my composure, I started doing e-mail again.

That’s when I came across the e-mail request to write a post for LDS Tech. “Oops, better save that one,” I thought. I received a call from Cassie a few weeks earlier, but since it was a month or more away before she needed my article, I just left the e-mail request in my inbox. So after making a mental note to write an article, I went back to doing more e-mail cleanup.

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