Google Audio Search

Summary: Audio content on the internet is in chaos. To reign in the chaos, and to capitalize on internet audio file assets, Google will launch an audio search engine or audio file search tool by 2006, but probably sooner.

Audio Technology on the Edge
Below I have listed some technologies (i.e., BitTorrent, Overnight Loading, Audio Blogs, Podcasting and Speech-to-Text) that allow me to speculate that Google will launch an audio search engine. Please read about these technologies and start thinking about how audio technology has evolved over the last couple of years. We are much, much farther along than most people realize. 
I believe that Google is looking at this information and these tools and they are going to do something amazing with audio assets. But I am getting ahead of myself. Read about the technology and then I'll explain how Google's audio search engine will work.
BitTorrent: Audio files are big but bandwidth is limited. However, bandwidth continues to increase all the time. And, technology is slowly emerging to decrease the pain associated with dealing with large files. One way of dealing with massive files, like audio files, is BitTorrent. As I have explained before, BitTorrent is sort of like Napster. It connects your computer to other computers so you can share files. The more people that share or trade the same files, the faster they can be download by everyone. Just like Google PageRank, as popularity increases, the more relevant the content becomes. I know this might be confusing. So, if you want to learn more or if you need help, read my BitTorrent FAQ for Little Monkeys. It is a simple introduction for people who fear technology. (Don't worry, I fear technology sometimes too.)
Overnight Data Loading: Many people understand how RSS works, and subscribing to RSS feeds isn't too hard. There are many new web services available for viewing RSS feeds, and there are also plenty of feed readers. But, I'm less interested in feed services and feed tools. I'm much more interested in overnight loading (a.k.a., RSS payloads) as it applies to audio files and audio blogs. The idea is that you subscribe to audio blogs and preload them behind the scenes on your computer or audio playing device. Since the audio files are preloaded, you simply click and listen. No wait, no fuss. Instant audio gratification.
Audio Blogs: In addition to mainstream web sites, more and more people are generating audio content via blogs. In the past this information was too big to manage for most users due to bandwidth, but it is getting easier as I described above. Also, it is getting easier to create and post audio content. In effect, more audio content is being generated and therefore more value in audio is building up as the pool of content expands. It is getting difficult to track audio blog information for many reasons. Unfortunately, audio blogs aren't very accessible at this point. This technical void is exacerbated by the increasing gravity between all the audio objects being produced by audio bloggers. Remember, as the pool of audio content increases, the value (i.e., potential money to be extracted) of the audio pool directly increases. Keep in mind that this audio content is very speech driven versus music driven. (Bloggers talk, they don't sing.) Speech can be converted to text. It is easy to search through text, folks.
Podcasting: Somewhere I read that Podcasting is sort of like TiVo for your audio player. That seems to be a good but simple way to explain it. The idea is that your audio playing device is used for storing and playing audio files that you have subscribed to via RSS 2.0, with enclosures. In plain English, you subscribe to get audio files, they get loaded on your device, and you play them. No mess, no pain. This is important in that it is a relatively simple way for people to get audio files directly to audio playing devices. When technology is simple, people will use it. RSS is simple, by definition, and podcasting is similarly simple. I advise you to jump on this technology very soon. It is going to get hot. (Will someone please write up a clear "How to Podcast" article?)
Speech-to-Text Conversion: The technology to convert speech to text is already available. It isn't perfect, but it is getting very close. My tablet computer is capable of capturing my speech and converting it to text, although training was required. Imagine if audio blog feeds were converted to text files, and in turn, those text files were parsed and stored in a database. Any company, such as Google, willing to pour resources into speech-to-text conversion, and storage, will be able to dominate the audio space by using simple text-based search technology. Side issues such as storage aren't really issues. It is cheap and getting cheaper. With Google giving out gigabyte email accounts, you know they can handle billions of small, parsed text files.

Smash these technologies together and you should suddenly realize that the future of audio is here today. Napster was certainly the start, and it kicked off the MP3 revolution, but now we are seeing small pieces loosely joined. We're seeing the emergence of the audio internet. Google is certainly watching the audio internet and they will index it and they will make it possible for you to search for and through audio files.

The Four Ways that Google Audio Search Will Work

Assuming the technology described above works, and it does, then Google is in a position to control audio search on the internet. To succeed, they only need to get between the files and the people who want the files. Once they index audio files and once they parse audio files, the game is over. No other search engine will be able to compete with them. They have the money, technology, and (unbelievable) brainpower to stay ahead for a long time.
But what is "audio search" exactly? I've answered this question in four ways below. In effect, I map out four simple ways for how Google audio search would work. If you believe in the technology I talked about above, then you should believe that an audio search engine is entirely feasible. Here's the list; read on.

First, like current MP3 search engines, you will be able to find MP3's (and other audio files) based on file names. That is, if a song is called "John_Rhodes_Sings_About_Google.mp3" you will be able to find that song doing a search such as "Rhodes Google MP3" or "Rhodes MP3" in the search engine. Your keywords will help you track down audio files based on how the files are named. This is already being done and it is extremely simple, especially for a company like Google.
Second, the search engine will be able to hunt down semantic web information. In plain terms, the search functionality will allow you to search through the metatags (or metadata) of songs, such as artist, album, length, year, and more. Perhaps this will be based on ID3 tag search. Regardless, audio files are more than audio. There is simple text information available under the surface. Google will index this metadata and your keywords again will help you find audio files through simple text mapping.
Third, the search engine will allow you to find songs based on the words used in the song. It'll work like this. MP3's (audio files) will be converted to text and the text will be stored. Google already caches web pages, and they will cache both the audio file and the text conversion of the audio file. As part of this functionality, they might even offer transcription services whereby audio files are parsed and the text is made available, perhaps for a fee. Once again, using keywords you will be able to find audio files. However, the big difference is that your keyword text search will actually allow you to find audio files based on the words in the audio file. That's right, just like Amazon's "Search Inside the Book", you will be able to search through audio content using text. Amazing. Of course, audio blog searches will be first because they are easier to parse, whereas the music in songs will be problematic for some time. In this sense, all music is noise.
Finally, the audio search will allow users to find files based on associations between songs. Audio files aren't currently well indexed and related to each other by any central source. Unlike HTML files hyperlinked to other HTML files, audio files aren't well linked at all. However, Google will associate file names, metadata, and speech-to-text content, so that you can literally link from one song to another song. In simple terms, the text (or text extracts) associated with audio files are easy to link to if your database is big enough. Google can convert and store audio files to text, index that data, associate it, and make it available to you. Interestingly, Google will link audio files to audio files, using simple text. Searching by association will be natural to you. We all talk about songs in reference to other songs, and audio (e.g., conversations) to audio, based on many category types. We make associations all the time. Search functionality that allows users to find similar songs and audio files (e.g., artist, year, time, blog name, speaker, popularity, types of instruments, similar sounds, similar topics) is coming soon. It will be elegant but simple; the Google way. As Dave Winer would say, this is a mindbomb. Definitely.

Aside: Google Audio Search for Dollars

Making money from internet audio search is the topic of another article. However, the usual suspects for generating revenue are alive and well, such as advertising. With a little thinking, I'm sure you can list plenty of other ways for Google to make money by controlling audio search on the internet. It is an untapped goldmine. We're not talking about millions of dollars, we're probably talking about billions. (By the way, there are many ways to make money on the "plain old" internet.)

Summary Time
So that's the story. The audio web has come together and many people didn't even know it. On top of that, I predict that Google (or some competitor) will use its strength and intelligence to make the audio web available to everyone. Google Audio Search will become a reality because audio information is becoming a true internet asset, and when assets are unclassified there is a search void. Google will fill the audio search void, and make a lot of money. You heard it first right here, right now.
 

How to Bake Usability into your Company

Summary: Train your designers and developers to do some of their own usability work. This gets them thinking about users while it frees up usability specialists to focus on your more difficult usability issues. Everyone wins. 

Knowledge Transfer is the Key

The key to long term usability success in a company is to train designers and developers. Instead of bringing in an endless stream of usability specialists to handle the same usability problems, you should train the people that design and build your technology. In other words, the way to bake usability into your company is to squeeze knowledge from usability specialists.

There is one caveat. You cannot transfer all knowledge and skill. The simple usability problems can be handled by the troops, but the more difficult questions will still require the expertise of the usability specialists. But that’s fine. It means that the value of the usability specialists goes up because they are working on more difficult problems. It also means they don’t have to be bothered by the same old problems again and again. In short, usability specialists don’t go away.


Crank Up the Disambiguation Machine

You cannot expect designers and developers to spend all of their time doing usability work. No one should expect them to run around like little usability monkeys. However, once they understand the basics, 5-10% of their time should be spent on usability.

There’s a good business reason for this. Once they become skilled in the basics of usability they will become more productive. For example, not everything can be spelled out in a project specification. With a pinch of testing, many stupid little design questions just go away. This makes everyone happy. Users get better software, project managers get projects completed quicker, and developers don’t have to deal with as much ambiguity. (Programmers hate ambiguity.)


The Right Training

In my experience there are two basic types of usability training that all designers and developers should receive. First, they should learn how to do a quick and dirty task analysis. Second, they should learn how to do a super easy usability test.

The purpose of a task analysis is to understand how a task is performed. The key is to figure out how something is done and why something is done. There really shouldn’t be any judgment. “Just the facts, ma’am.”

A super simple task analysis can be defined this way. Pick a task, break the task into smaller tasks, and then stop when it makes sense. The key is to focus on the user in the task. What do they want? What do they need? How can the process be improved for the user?

The beautiful thing about task analysis is that it is suited to programming. Programmers already spend a large fraction of their time decomposing tasks. However, their normal focus is on machine tasks not human tasks.

Like a task analysis, the purpose of a usability test is to figure out how people use stuff. You want to see people interact with stuff and learn what works and what doesn’t. Can people find what they want? What steps do they take? How does the product or service cause them to screw up? And so on.

Conducting a usability test can be quick and easy. You can ask just about anyone to sit down and use a web site for example. Of course it is best to have a structured environment, scenarios, a representative sample of users, and so on. But, it is better to have a sloppy usability test at the start of a project than it is to have a great usability test at the end of a project. 


Get Your People Thinking About Other People

I’ve really cut some corners in this article but I hope you get some of the main points. You want designers and developers involved in the usability process because once they understand users better, they will create more usable stuff. That’s a beautiful thing.

It will take 1-2 of solid training days to get your designers and developers up to speed. A usability specialist (with training experience) should do the training and the focus should be about 25-30% conceptual and 70-75% practical. The concepts aren’t too difficult but training people to listen and have empathy is no small chore. Usability specialists are empathy machines whereas designers and developers are typically a bit more narcissistic.
(My apologies to all of you loving, caring developers.)

I’ll end this by saying that usability is a great investment. You are probably reading this because you already care about usability and you understand its value. However, instead of thinking about usability as being the province of usability specialists think about your entire company embracing usability. Why not start with your designers and developers? 

Blogs, Business and Some Usability

Summary: An interview with Matthew Oliphant of Business Logs, mostly about blogs and business. 

Why do so few businesses have blogs? Are they blind? Are they afraid? Are they ignorant? Do they lack good writers? Do they lack vision? 
I think most people in a position to start a company blog had probably never heard the word before September 2004. So we sit now in that "early adopter" phase. As we progress though, I think it will be an issue of the latter two items you mentioned in your question. Having read quite a number of task scenarios and other deliverables that require a small amount of prose writing I can tell you that most people don't write very well. Writing is a skill. You couldn't get an MFA in Creative Writing or PHD in Technical Writing if anyone could just do it. The other aspect is lack of vision. Many companies will start a blog because their competition is doing it. My guess though is that many companies just won't know how blogging can benefit them. Which of course is a good segue to the next question. 

How do blogs help businesses? What are some measurable outcomes? I think many people would like to know how the value of a blog can be sold to a manager or executive. Enlighten us! 
I am of two minds on this issue. On the one mind, blogging is an easy way to open and manage a customer "touch point" or a way to coordinate work between internal project groups. Both of these examples are supported well by blogging. On the other mind, I say just try it and forget you ever heard of the acronym ROI. For many companies the technical aspects of starting a blog are cheap. The price goes up if you want to work with a consultant (hint hint) or you want a professionally designed site (hint hint), but for a straight up answer to the question, "How much money am I going to make or lose," the answer will depend. As I recently mentioned on our site, Stonyfield Farm's four blogs ROI is "...somewhat intangible, but we have faith that there is one." For them, the faith that it works is the ROI. The question I put to potential clients is this, "Do you want to be able to communicate directly with your customers and potential customers on a daily basis in a way that is easy to document and trend (qualitatively) over time?" Some companies may say no to this, but to be honest I am not sure why. 

There are many ways to talk to people. Why are blogs so important? For example, how is a blog better than a FAQ, wiki, or article? Has anyone put together any sort of chart or overview which shows when a blog is the perfect content delivery mechanism or conversation tool? 
At the most basic level, a blog is distinctive from a FAQ (or fah-que as a friend calls them), wiki, and article because (for the most part) it is never finished. FAQs, wikis, and articles eventually achieve a state of "doneness." A post on a blog may become a static item, but the blog overall tends to be a living document. Wikis can be used like this too, but their use as a living document tends to be in pursuit of an eventual end point. I looked for a chart for a few minutes online while writing this answer but I couldn't find anything. We don't have one drawn up. Perhaps we should build a classic If/Then table? :) 

Most blogging tools and services are designed for individuals. Are there any really good blogging tools specifically designed for business owners? Are there any web sites, products, or services specifically aimed at companies that want to blog? 
I would say that individuals will be drawn mostly to hosted services while businesses will install their own or purchased software to run the blog. Moveable Type  is a product that has been well tested and given news of late about funding seems to have a decent shelf life. Wordpress is also a decent tool. On the hosted side there is Squarespace and Silkware, which are both aimed more at online publishing than necessarily personal writing (a fine distinction based on offered features). I think the true test for some larger companies will be an issue of scalability. This could be overcome by installing as many instances of the application as needed, but for companies with more than say 15,000 employees I think one installation of anything on the market right now will not be strong enough for the use and abuse it would take. So there could be an opportunity there. But as I said, you could also say, "Starting a blog for the project? Let's load this software on your server." And that would be that. 

How important are blog features such as RSS feeds, comment systems, trackbacks? Should businesses care about any of these bells and whistles? 
Where do you want the conversations about your product or service taking place? Do you want to be able to get feedback from real people? Do you want to know when someone writes about something you posted? If you answer yes, then you want comments and trackbacks. As far as RSS is concerned, I think there is enough demand to make it worthwhile to offer. Plus it's relatively easy to set up depending on what you want to do. (Read more about this at Business Logs.) 

Are there good guidelines for companies that want to blog? What are the pitfalls? Are there rules that everyone should follow? 
You can download our free Writing for the Web whitepaper... :) I think the only "rules" people should follow are: be honest, be as nice as possible, don't take "negative" feedback personally. 

Is usability important for blogs, particularly business blogs? Do you see any consistent interface issues or design snafus? Regarding business blogs, what is the top usability issue? 
My guess at the top usability issues is how blog owners choose to categorize their content. The categories they choose may not match those pesky mental models of the people who visit the site. Especially for sites that generate a lot of content. A blog is at once a chronicle and a conversation. While it can be less overwhelming coming in on "the middle of a blog" than say a forum, it could be hard for the visitor to get a good understanding of your site's offerings right away. But if your content is valuable to them, they'll usually find a way to catch up to their satisfaction. Now is it satisfaction or are they just giving up on catching up on past content? Probably a bit of both. Categories are a blogs navigation menu. As designers we always struggle with navigation models that meet that magical 80%. I suggest trying to make meaningful category names and make use of category descriptions. We use those on our archives page. We don't measure if it works, but it would be relatively easy to find out. 

What do you expect will happen in 2005? Will business blogs become really, really important? 
Business blogging will become more prevalent. Plain and simple. I think by the end of next year we will get to a point that, for some industries, a blog, or the latest post of a blog will be featured on the company's homepage. For any web-based company a blog is a natural progression. For product based companies, blogs could be useful for product launch/buzz building. I expect we will see more "timeboxed" blogs; blogs started solely to hype something, then shut down or well archived to make way for the next big thing. Of course the whole rise in podcasting (audio-based blogging) and vidcasting/vlogging (video blogging) will be interesting to watch. With those, especially with video, I wonder more about the issue of ROI in terms of hard bandwidth/HD space. Those files ain't small like a set of HTML files. I really like the idea of multi-media blogging, but for most companies I think the draw will be limited. I reserve the right to be wrong. 

How does Business Logs help companies? Tell us about your philosophy. Tell about your offerings. Go ahead, give us the sales pitch! 
While we can help with installing, modifying, designing, and managing a blog, I think our real "value added" is setting vision. A lot of times, to blog well, the company will have to change the way they look at customer dialog, or issues of transparency. Installing, modifying, designing, and managing are necessary things to do, but they are very tactical. Those activities have to be done in support of an overall communication strategy. Coming up with that strategy is where we help the most. To do it we need to get to know the company and that builds a relationship. That relationship will be the seed that the company will use to build the relationship with their customers, or support their employees communication needs. I hesitate to say we help companies "think outside of the box" because really what we want to do is expand the box. I think where we may differ from some traditional consultancies is that we try to define the current state of the box before we try to expand the boundaries. While we design, do usability, and help build blogs we are really more about communication management and organizational change management. We need to do that part first before we can do the design and build...just like most development methods.
 

Podcast File Name Usability

Summary: The purpose of this article is to help people create more useful and effective podcast file names. Good file names are easy to read and understand, but they also help people sort and search for what they want. A podcast file naming convention is presented for consideration.

Overview

How often do you look for files on your computer or on the web? I do it all the time. I'm constantly trying to find files. Unfortunately, like many people, I am a file name slob. I don't create folders like I should, I don't put files in the folders that I do create, and I usually do a bad job creating file names. 
I'm going to focus this article on podcasts. I've downloaded many podcast files and I'm really unhappy with how people have named them. My own file naming conventions are bad enough, but now I am dealing with files that other people have created. The names people are using for their files are really terrible. I don't mean to complain, but come on folks, some of these names are just plain silly. Here are some (very real) examples:

• cnOct18.mp3
• egc-10-10-2004.mp3
• geeks36.MP3
• KFIAdamCurry.mp3
• PodcastVOPromos.mp3
• mycorner-20041018.mp3
• SDR19OCT.mp3
• WoT_01_20041012.mp3
• TrojanHorses6of7.mp3
• DNDS-2004-10-19.mp3
• RANT_04-10-19.mp3

Listen up, we should be able to do better than this. Much better.

File Name Guidelines

A good file name is easy to read. That is, you can look at it and read it without too much hassle. It shouldn't take any real effort to read the file and understand what it says.
Reasonable: gasoline.mp3
Bad: BoopyFoop.mp3
Terrible: t4rthfl8g.mp3
A good file name also includes information that you care about. You don't want too little information but you don't want too much. Another way to think about this is that the file name should be long enough to get the point across but no longer.
Reasonable: thanksgiving-grandma.mp3
Bad: t35.mp3 (short and meaningless)
Also bad: thequickbrownfoxreallyjumpedandjumped.mp3 (long)
Terrible: flim-2222-flam-4-211-4-coolio-now-tl93.mp3
A good file name should probably only use lower case letters. Upper and lower cases fool some people and some systems. In many cases, you need to have exactly the right name and case sensitivity can ruin your day. If you have used upper and lower characters in your passwords, you know what I mean. 
Also, you should avoid spaces and special characters. You should avoid spaces because operating systems and programs add their own special characters to eliminate the spaces. For example:
"dog food.mp3" will become "dog%20food.mp3" and you probably don't want that. It gets ugly and hard to use. Avoid blank spaces. And, you should avoid using underscores between words because they often get lost in links. For example:
"dog_food" when turned into a link becomes "dog_food" and it is damn hard to know that an underscore is there. This is more of a hassle than you might think. The link camouflages the underscore and it confuses people. Just avoid that from happening by not using underscores. Simple. No underscores.
If you need to separate words in a file name, it is fine to use dashes. Avoid spaces, special characters and underscores, but feel free to use dashes. They seem to work rather well and people don't seem to have any issues with them. 
Avoid ALL CAPS, too. They are annoying and don't add any value.
Reasonable: webword-usability.mp3
Bad: Webword_Usability.mp3
Also Bad: WebWord Usability.mp3
Terrible: WEBWORD USABILITY.mp3
The summary is that you want these files to be easy to read and easy to understand, but you want to avoid using conventions that are inconsistent, hard to understand, and don't work well for humans and machines. Got it?

Podcast Files Need More Love
Podcasts are not are not really typical files. I think that podcasters (content producers) forget that other people are using their files. So, what makes sense to a podcaster might not make sense to a podcast listener. Producers need to think about their audience. What you want and what you like might not be what your listeners want.
There is also the problem of file management. Podcasts are large files and they don't stick around very long. Storing them, archiving them, deleting them, managing them, and so on, can turn into a chore. People don't want to chew up space on their computers and MP3 media players. To determine what to do with these files, you need to know what is in these files. A good file name goes a long way.
Finally, right now there is a terrible lack of metadata for MP3 files and podcasts. In another article I explain the purpose and value of metadata. Part of this metadata is the file name. In fact, the only real way to know what is in a podcast right now is to look at the file name, or listen to the file. Some people, such as Whole Wheat Radio, provide information on their web sites, but that is not typical. (What a shame!) 

Podcast File Naming Suggestion
I don't expect everyone to follow my suggestions and I don't expect everyone to agree. However, at least I am taking a stand. Little things, such as date formatting, might not seem like a big deal, but in the long run they can have a huge impact. 
Here are the basic guidelines:

• use full words when possible; don't abbreviate
• consider adding host name (web site name or person name)
• use dashes to separate words
• add the date
• keep file names as short as possible, but still useful
• include a keyword or topic

Now, let's apply these guidelines. I further suggest that we all follow a format that flows in this order:
1. site or host
2. main topic or keyword
3. date of publication, creation or posting
If we combine all of these ideas, we end up with files that look something like this:

• webword-usability-20oct2004.mp3
• wholewheatradio-bigbubbles-18sept2004.mp3
• currynet-ipodder-05july2003.mp3

These file names are easy to read, they include great information for sorting and searching, and the date is included. In a folder or directory, you could find these files in a snap. If you are doing hard drive searches, or perhaps web searches, you have keywords too. You also get the date so you immediately understand the freshness of the content.
Of course, this article isn't the final word on podcast file names, but it should point you in the right direction. Now you have an idea about how to do a better job for your listeners. 

Author: John S. Rhodes

Selected Resources

• Usable file and directory names make usable URLs
• What's In A (File) Name?
• About File Systems and File Names
• Making URLs accessible
• Long File Names
• Mp3 Tag Tools
• Unix File Names
• Naming Your Files for the Web
• How Windows Generates 8.3 File Names
• Long and short file names explained
• Information about long file names

 

Audio Content and Podcast Usability

Summary: The first part of this article will help you decide if you want to create podcasts and audio content. Assuming you want to dive into podcasting, then the second goal is to help you do it right; usability applies to podcasts. 

Overview

Audio can be fun and exciting, but creating useful and entertaining content is much more difficult than you might expect. While you might have all the technology you need, there are other issues that you need to know about before you start recording.

In the first part of this article I am going to explain the issues you will face. I'm going to paint a bleak picture of audio production and audio content. However, in the second part of the article I am going to provide you with advice on how to improve the usability your audio content and podcasts. In short, I'm going to try to help you decide if you want to generate audio content, and if you do, I am going to help you do it right.


Should You Create Audio Content?

You might be mentally ready to produce your own radio show, audio blog posting or podcast. You might even have all the technical issues worked out. You might be ready to talk. However, before you jump into the fire, please consider the following points.

When people are listening to you, they cannot talk to you. They cannot respond immediately. Any remarks they have to something you say must wait. Audio isn't about striking up a conversation. It is a one way stream. When you post audio, it is very unlikely that you will receive audio back from listeners. It is a one way street.

Listeners are slugs. They might contact you via email, or chat, or phone, or through a blog comment system, but really, listeners are passive. You talk and they listen. Unlike email, chat, phone conversations, and blogs, your listeners are consumers. You produce, they consume. Once you start talking they have two choices: keep listening or stop the audio feed. They can't click on something you said. They can't leave audio comments on top of your audio stream.

Audio starts at Point A and moves to Point B. It is difficult to know how to skip around. Right now "hyperaudio" isn't available to the masses, although it might be soon. If you reference something, the listener has remember it or write it down. Human memory is fragile. Writing something down while listening is not easy. It is even more difficult if listeners are listening while running, driving, or doing the dishes. For the geeks reading this, we're talking about serial versus parallel processing. Audio is largely serial. You can't easily listen to 3-4 audio streams at once. Compare this to the web where you can have 4-5 browser windows open and you can click on links and easily move around. Audio is a brick; it is what it is.

You can't throw Babelfish at audio content. That is, you can't translate an audio stream on the fly very easily. There are language issues. If listeners don't understand you, they are stuck and your content is all but useless. With audio, you get what you get. However, you can translate text. You can put hyperlinks in text. Audio is even more unfriendly than I have described thus far. You can't use Google to find content inside an audio stream (yet). You can't quickly skim content to find what you want. There is no quick auditory way to scan audio. You can do it, but it is inferior to visual scanning. Unfortunately, when it comes to audio, life is slow. You can read way faster than you can listen. Listening isn't reading.

But there are even more issues. Many people won't have access to your content because it isn't realistically accessible. They can't pull it down over slow dial up connections. Even if they wait for hours, some audio files are just too large to manage. Furthermore, there isn't really an easy way for listeners to preview your content. You can make some samples available but even that isn't foolproof.

I'm not joking when I say that audio content is terrible for many reasons. Of course audio is fun because seems more personal and humans like to hear other humans. However, when you really get down to it, text and images are often superior to audio, especially huge audio files. 
For those still not convinced, consider this: It takes more time, money, and effort to create audio than text. Audio content on the web isn't about you talking, it is about your listeners listening. It might not be worth their effort, or yours.

Do you still want to create audio content and podcasts? Excellent. Read on, brave soul.


Audio Content Usability

If you are going to create audio content then you might as well do it right. Creating good audio content is tough work, but producing great audio content is extremely hard. You need guts and brains. If you want people to listen to you again and again and again, follow the advice below.

You need to prepare. You need to think ahead. This means you should have a script and you should practice. It is a pain to edit audio content and you'll reduce necessary changes by having things planned out ahead of time. Do yourself a favor. Have a script and practice. Start small and grow. Little victories feel big. Have fun. Be yourself.

Test all of your equipment before and after your recording session. Check your microphone(s), check your software, check your outlets. This might sound like silly advice, but just get in the habit of checking everything. Remember, editing audio isn't fun. It sucks up time that you could be using to produce new content.

Test your content on various output devices. Some people will listen to your content with headphones, others with a decked out PC sound system. Check your volumes and your channels. Have the right balance of sound to voice. Experiment. Have users "try" your content on their own devices. Don't give them advice and don't help them. Throw them the file and let them tell you how it worked. Use their feedback to improve your production. Once you have a good system in place, and you feel that your listeners will be happy, save your settings. Make back ups of everything, including your settings.

Take the time to provide text information to listeners before they listen to you, if possible. Give them text to help them understand what they will hear. Give your files good names. The file name should provide users with clues about the content. Think about how other people would interpret your label. If you are posting the file on your site, provide listeners with helpful meta information such as:

• Title
• File length
• File size
• File name
• Category / genre
• Recording date
• Hosts / artists
• Guests
• Topics
• Channels
• Frequency
• Bitrate
• Related links

Speaking of text, if your audio content is very good, it might be worth your time to transcribe it. This makes it easier to find and easier to use. 
You can improve the usability of the audio content by providing listeners with a title and intro at the start of the stream. Give your listeners an overview of what you are going to cover. Give them a summary so they can decide to listen to your file, or instead find one that might be more valuable to them. If you regularly post audio content, then you should try to follow the same patterns in your files each time. Familiarity patterns in your audio content format will go a long way.

I strongly advise people to repeat difficult concepts. When you read the same thing over and over it becomes annoying. However, since it is difficult to scan and jump around in audio, you need repetition. Repetition is a very good thing. Say the same thing several times if it is important and if you want people to remember it. 
In general it is pretty much useless to provide people with URLs in podcasts. Listeners aren't in a good position to write URLs down, and they can't click anything. URLs imply a call to action but listeners are unable to act. If you do provide a URL (or other calls to action) then provide listeners with a warning that you are going to give them a URL. Remember, audio is passive and you have to carefully lead people along the way. Help them. Be gentle.

The summary is that you really must think of your listeners if you plan on keeping them around. They might listen once or twice but if you don't have good content, and if you don't apply some usability, they won't download your content again. 
If you are going to create podcasts, do it right. 

Money Honey: The List of Revenue Generation Ideas

Summary: The purpose of this article is to describe several ways that you can make money on the internet. The main idea is to provide you with options and insights. People with small and medium sized web sites, such as blogs, will benefit the most from this article.

Ideas and Inspiration 
This article will provide you with a checklist of ideas to review, and some reference points. I've included many examples to make the idea more tangible, and to give you some models to follow.
You should consider each idea as a starting point, and you should match your business objectives to the potential revenue generators. Note that the impact of each idea is not discussed. That is a matter of implementation and execution.
  
List of Revenue Generators

• Banner and Text Ads: Display ads for clients on your web page. Generate revenue by impressions (CPM) or a per click (CPC) basis. Note that text ads currently seem to be the most friendly way and accepted way to display ads, but banner ads are still viable for income. Examples of text ad tools include Google AdSense, BlogAds, and MarketBanker.
   
• RSS Ads and RSS Premium Feeds: The idea is to place advertisements into your web site RSS feed. There are many good places to learn about RSS (e.g., RSS weblog, RSS tutorial, RSS usability guidelines), and you should, before diving into RSS advertising. An example of a RSS advertising company is Pheedo. When you subscribe to Daring Fireball, you get access to subscriber-only RSS feeds.
   
• Classifieds: Provide readers and advertisers with the opportunity to list goods and services for sale via your web site. It might also make sense to set up a personals section of your web site. An example of a company that might work with you on setting up a personals section is Spring Street Networks.
   
• Sponsorships: The concept is to get individuals and organizations to sponsor content on your web site, or in your newsletter. They subsidize the content that you generate and write. This is a friendly way to get money from advertisers who do not wish to blatantly promote their goods and services.
   
• Donations: Ask readers for donations. The most popular mechanism for this is PayPal (instructions), but other mechanisms exist such as the Amazon Honor System and Bitpass.
   
• Pledge Drive: Set up a system where the web site periodically asks readers for money. While this is similar to the donation revenue tool, it might also include a request to have readers send in items to sell or auction off. And, it might include live chat sessions or instant messenger sessions to support requests. Think about how National Public Radio and local not-for-profit broadcasters survive (e.g., WESM 91.3).
   
• Sell Site-Related Merchandise: The idea is to sell products that reflect the web site brand. Many people would be happy to buy products that include logos, comments, and characters from the web site. A good example is the Homestar Runner store, particularly Strongbad merchandise. You can sell your own stuff (e.g., t-shirts, baseball caps, bags, posters, and more) through CafePress. It is painless.
   
• Affiliate Links: This is an arrangement whereby when a person clicks on a link on your site and makes a purchase from another site you earn money for enabling the transaction. For example, you can earn a commission based on the amount of the purchase or a payment for the traffic (pay-per-click). The most well known affiliate program is Amazon Associates. There is a lot of good information available on affiliate programs. For example, check out Allan Gardyne's AssociatePrograms web site.
   
• Job Postings: Solicit organizations to pay to post jobs on your web site and in your newsletter. This is particularly effective with highly focused web sites. One effective method is to create a jobs page. Find jobs for your readers (e.g., Monster and HotJobs) and post them on your own jobs page, then get organizations to pay for premium placement on the jobs page and in your newsletters.
   
• Premium Subscriptions: The idea is to get people to pay to view premium content on your web site, or gain access to special features. For example, with Salon Premium you get daily exclusives and they kill the advertisements. Slashdot does something similar, except you pay to kill ads a page at a time and you see content earlier than non-subscribers. The approach that Mobile Gadget News takes is that if you are an MGN subscriber, you get free stuff, you are automatically entered into all of their contests, you earn you earn discounts, and you have almost-instant access to the minds behind the site. The idea with all premium subscriptions is to give people extra goodies and content, and reduce pain associated with advertising.
   
• Pay for Access to Full Information Stream: This isn't quite the same as gaining access to premium content. Instead, the idea is to give subscribers access to all the news that is submitted to a web site that accepts news. One of the best examples is Total Fark. The Fark web site posts about 30-40 stories per day. By subscribing to Total Fark, a subscriber gains access to 1,000-2,000 submitted stories, unfiltered, in real-time. There is more, of course, but the idea of having people pay to see your full operations is the key here. It is more about offering people an inside look, and raw access rather than specially filtered information.
   
• Offline Events: Surprisingly few people with web sites capitalize on their potential ability to get people together offline. There are plenty of tools available now to help people set up offline meetings with people who have similar interests, such as MeetUp, Orkut, Ryze, Friendster, and LinkedIn. The idea is to get people together, perhaps like a party or speaking event, and charge them for access. This is a way to make money from the internet, not on the internet.
   
• Pay to Post Comments: The concept is to ask people to pay a fee if they want to post comments on your web site. Anyone would be able to view any content, but only subscribers or paying customers could post. Perhaps people would pay on a per-post basis using micropayments. One interesting advantage of this approach is that there is motivation to generate good comments, since it costs money to post. An example of a site doing something like this is the Something Awful forums. The sites currently charges a one-time fee of $9.95 for the right to post messages to the forum.
   
• Lottery and Contests: Provide people with an opportunity to win money, goods, or services in a 50/50 or lottery. Perhaps this is an added bonus for people who subscribe or pay for other things, such as job postings, classifieds, or subscriptions.
    
• Corporate Buyout: One method of making money is to have another organization buy your organization. If you are good enough, perhaps Gawker will buy your blog, for example. Another example is that eBay bought a 25% stake in Craigslist, and still another is that Google bought Blogger. The bottom line is that valuable web sites and valuable tools are noticed. Larger organizations will buy smaller ones, and that can be your plan to make money. Build value then sell.
   
• Offline Media Distribution: Generate unique, original, interesting, and valuable content online and then sell it offline. For example, articles and interviews can be packaged and sold as a book, CD, or DVD. Recently, this is exactly what Joel Spolsky did with his Joel on Software book.
   
• Premium Content Offerings: Put together a Greatest Hits or Best Of series of content and sell it as a special package. Perhaps re-edit the content, or add comments, or add some other value to the material online. A similar idea is to lock down old content and ask readers to pay to access the archives, perhaps with an improved search mechanism or personal touch (e.g., author adds special notes or answers specific questions about the material). The idea is to repurpose your old content.
    
• Help People Online / Consulting: Provide real-time consulting advice to people. Allow people to pay to access the brains behind the web site, newsletter, or forum. Google does something like this with Google Answers. If a web site owner is an expert, that owner can do ad hoc consultation. This can be done via email, forums, IM, blog comments, webcams, or WebEx (disclaimer: I own stock). The idea is to provide help to people via the web and ask them to pay for it.
   
• Provide Additional Technical Functionality: People can pay for web site tools and services that they cannot otherwise obtain. For example, Systran provides Altavista with language translation technology, which in turn yields Babel Fish. The idea is to either be the source of the technology and sell it as a service, or use technology to offer people a service they are willing to pay for.
   
• Auctions: Take spare inventory and sell it via auction, such as through eBay. Better yet, for those organizations without merchandise, auction consulting time, advertising space, and other non-tangibles and services.
   
• Newsletter Ads and Sponsorships: Assuming you have a newsletter, which you probably should, you can get advertisers to place advertisements and sponsor content. Targeted ads at the top of the newsletter are effective. Be sure the list is opt in only.
   
• Paid Alerts: Offer truly cutting edge information to people, send it to them faster than anyone else, and charge for it. The idea is to be a great news source and offer people a way to stay on top of things. This is done for financial information, e.g., stock alerts, but it can be done for other information as well such as competitive information. For example, take a look at the New York Times News Tracker.
   
• Grants and Endowments: It is possible to get grants for your web site, particularly for writing. This is a revenue generation idea that is well suited for bloggers and other content creators. Creativity is required, but the opportunities exist. Do some searching on Grants.gov to find potential matches, and see The Foundation Center to learn about individual grants. Be creative.
   
• Business and Service Listings: Set up a page for businesses to list their products and services. A good example of this is the UPA People Pages. The Usability Professionals' Association (UPA) allows any consultant or organization get listed on their People Pages by paying $100 for a 12-month listing. If your site is highly focused, and you do not directly compete with the people and organizations listed, this can be a good way to generate money and provide a useful service to readers.

Conclusion
There are obviously many ways to generate money on the internet. The list above does not cover every scenario but hopefully you have been inspired. A core idea is that you can generate money. It is being done all over. Indeed, many people are making a living through the web. You can do it too, if you apply the right tools and techniques.

Suggested Reading
The BloggerCon wiki for Making Blogs Make Money
So You Want to Join the World's Grubbiest Club: Internet Entrepreneurs (Philip Greenspun)
How to Make Money with Your Blog
Making Money From A Content Site
Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing (Clay Shirky)
Making Sense of AdSense (Anil Dash)
Blogging for Dollars (Matt Haughey)
Selling on the Web the Easy Way
Cre8asite Forums - Business and Marketing
How to make money with an online news web site (David Strom)
Money for a Small Business

Profits First, Users Second

Summary: The purpose of this article is to challenge a core belief in usability. An argument is made that profits are more important than users since organizations cannot survive without profits. Although the business value is high, usability is only one mechanism for driving profits and success. 

What is the Point of Usability? 
 
People like to talk about how usability has a certain intrinsic value, as if usability has its own literal value. This is simply not true. Usability provides no value to a product or service until it is purchased and used by a customer. Usability is merely a quality that is associated with a product. In fact, some might say that it is not even a quality since it can really only be measured by the perceptions of people. Perhaps another way to say this is that the measurement of usability is subjective, not objective. For the most part, the value of usability is in the eye of the beholder.
 
Usability is a competitive advantage for a company only once that company sells a product. In effect, usability adds value at the time a purchase is made. This means that usability as an end, in and of itself, is entirely foolish for an organization. This is also why business managers look at usability with a skeptical eye. What is the value it brings? Will it help the company? If yes, in what ways? Ultimately, this means that focusing on usability for the sake of usability, or even focusing on usability for the sake of customers, is poor business. Instead, usability should be seen as a way for an organization to generate increased sales or decreased costs. Usability as an end point does not make sense. It must be evaluated in terms of profit generation.
 
Most people in the field of usability assume that usability as an end point makes sense. The idea goes like this. If we focus on usability, we are bringing the thoughts, desires, and needs of users into the fold. That is, if something is highly usable, it is something that is good for people. People like things that are more usable. People are willing to pay more for usable products and services. When people are at the center of design, then the things we sell them will make them happy. It seems that the idea is to have a closed loop system. Start with the users, build products and services they say they want, and then they will buy what they tell us they want. Seems like a great idea on the surface. But there are issues. If the focus is on users, and they always come first, will the business maintain the margins it needs? Where is the focus on the business? A focus on users does not guarantee good business whatsoever. Users at the center mean that companies are not. What does this entail? Where does it lead?

Center of the Universe

Generally speaking, users are not looking out for the best interests of companies. Customers don't just give their money to companies. Instead, money flows from users to organizations because organizations create value. Without organizations, we have no products and services and users will never get what they want. In other words, we might say that organizations, such as corporations and businesses, are the locus. They make stuff people want.

If the corporation is the center of the universe, what does this mean to usability? It means that usability specialists need to wake up and smell the coffee. Users are necessary because they spend money. The flow of profits is what organizations need, not usability. Usability is more of a means than an end. For businesses, usability is more of a tool than an attribute of a product or service.

This revised model of the universe also drives other ideas. For example, customer needs, customer satisfaction, and so on, come after corporate profits. This is not to suggest that corporations should be soulless money-making machines. Instead, it just means that perhaps profitability should come before usability. It means that corporations should be allowed the room to make decisions based on the principle that usability is an investment, with the goal of driving profits. Furthermore, it means that the usability should sell itself to organizations in terms of what it can do for profits, not customer satisfaction, better user experiences, improved designs, or anything else. A usability specialist should sell usability as a way to help an organization drive profits.

Competition for Funding 
 
All of this means that usability is in competition with every other business idea. Face it, this is the way it is treated by business managers. The usability community, and usability specialists, should just wake up and realize they are selling some level of value, just like anyone else. Designers, marketing folks, quality control people, cost specialists, strategy gurus, and so on, are all selling the same thing: Bottom line value to an organization. There is fierce competition for budgets and money. Usability is being weighed against all other value-adding ideas, tools, and techniques. 
 
In light of all of this, usability specialists need to start getting better at understanding the business value of their services. The community needs to bone up on marketing, sales, finance, and more, in order to find the value proposition for organizations. 
 
There should be no pity for those folks waiting for organizations to understand the value of usability on their own, since it is "obviously" the greatest idea ever. We should have no sympathy for usability people who can't formulate a solid business case for usability. The value offered should be obvious, explicit, easy to explain and digest, and the bottom line should be in focus. Always. 

Corporate Motivations, Usability Motivations
 
Organizations care about profits. That is what we should care about too, and we should work backwards from there. We should figure out what organizations need, right along our with our user research. 
 
In short, the usability community must get out of the business of always putting users first. It is will be extremely hard to do this, but ultimately, everyone will benefit. Users will get the value they want, corporations will get the profits they want, and the usability community will get the recognition it needs in the business world, and perhaps increased funds, profits, and projects. 
If you feel that this is an anti-usability rant, take a few steps back. Ultimately, what is being offered is quite simple. If an organization isn't profitable, it will die. Usability is only one business tool. 
 
Our job should be to help organizations succeed while simultaneously helping users get what they want. The best way to do this is to help organizations better understand the value of usability, get usability into products and services, and help organizations profit from doing the right thing for users.
 

Open Source Versus Capitalism

Summary: Open source is not open source software, and open source is not an organization. Open source is a model and we should treat it as such. Further, as an economic model, it competes with capitalism.

Open source is not a type of software, nor is it a characteristic of software. Instead, it is a way of thinking. It is a model. It is a way to operate.
 
When people use the term open source they often mean open source software. But that is very limited because open source is larger than what many people understand. For example, the Open Source Initiative’s FAQ includes the following information:

“Open source promotes software reliability and quality by supporting independent peer review and rapid evolution of source code.”

So in this sense, open source is something that helps people understand how to think and act. The very goal of open source isn’t software itself. Open source software is merely the output of the open source model. Open source is the engine whereas open source software is the movement resulting from the actions of the engine.
 
Unfortunately, nearly all definitions of open source focus on open source software versus open source itself. Good definitions expand on several ideas, such as how to use and distribute source code. Thus, open source is about how to treat the code, and how to think about it. It certainly isn’t just about free software, but that is a different topic entirely. Suffice it to say that open source is not functionally equivalent to open source software. They are different animals entirely.
The failure to realize that open source is more valuable as a model than open source software artifacts is a failure of marketing. Most people involved in the open source community equate the ideas of open source to open source software. Further, they sell benefits related to open source software (e.g., security, reliability, performance) versus the open source model itself. These are certainly benefits but they are benefits of open source software, not the model. There is a difference.


Open Source is not an Organization
 
There is a tendency to treat open source like it is an organization or an entity. People want to tie open source it to an organization or entity. The reality is that open source is not an entity. And, it is not an organization. Open source is a model. It is a way of thinking and operating. Therefore, open source doesn’t compete against any organizations.
 
This has some huge implications. The idea that open source competes against for-profit organizations is a non-starter. It is not even an argument since open source cannot be compared to organizations. You cannot compare something that is clearly not an organization with an organization. You cannot compare a model to an organization. You cannot compare apples to oranges.
 
You cannot compare open source to Microsoft.
 
Don’t even bother arguing about this or you will be wasting your time. If you agree that open source is a method, a way of thinking, and a model, then it is clearly not an organization or an entity. Therefore, you cannot say that open source is in any sort of fight with an organization such as Microsoft. It simply doesn’t make any sense so give up. It won’t work.
 
However. 
 
Open source software can be compared to other open source software, and software produced by for-profit organizations. That is, open source software can be compared to software produced by Microsoft. You can fight all you want about that. Have a ball. But, don’t waste your time comparing open source itself, which is a process, to Microsoft, which is an entity. 

Open Source Competes Against Capitalism 
 
If you buy the concept that open source is a model, or a way to act, or a way to behave, then there are other implications. One major implication is that open source can compete against other models. Models are compared to models all the time, much like theories are compared to other theories. This isn’t a perfect way to think about the issue, but you can probably follow.

If open source doesn’t compete against organizations like Microsoft, because it isn’t logical and it doesn’t make sense, what does it compete against? You might have been thinking this for a long time, but it doesn’t really show up in books and articles. It is on the tip of your tongue.

Open source is an economic model and it competes with capitalism.
For some people, this might be completely obvious. For others, it might really hurt. There is pain associated with this idea, but it is basically true. Let’s take a look at a definition of capitalism:

“Economic system characterized by the following: private property ownership exists; individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain; and free market forces determine the prices of goods and services.”

Capitalism is clearly a model, or a system. The core ideas are private property, competition for gain, and free markets dominate. In contrast, open source is about public property, cooperation for gain, and free markets dominate. Two out of three core concepts are different in the models, but one is the same. In any event, both of systems care about property, gains, and free markets. What is different is how they care. This is why the models are different.
 
It isn’t until you start comparing and contrasting open source to capitalism that you grok that open source really is a model. Until this point, you might have been able to ignore this central idea. But once you get actively engaged in the debate, it is easier to understand just how deep open source can be as a concept and model. 
 
Open source advocates should care more about the implications of open source as a model than treating open source being the equivalent of open source software. It doesn’t make sense to sell open source short. It is a powerful model that has hardly been explored.
 
There are interesting implications. For example, if you want to succeed in the capitalist system, you need to understand certain principles, such as supply and demand, buy low and sell high, and so forth. There are similar ways to succeed (e.g., make money, gain recognition) using the open source model, but that is the topic of another essay. 
 

How to Properly Format Dates

Summary: The purpose of this article is to examine how dates are displayed on the web and to provide people with a usable format to follow. The recommendation that is provided is general and not limited to web pages.

I've been bothered about dates and date formats on web pages for a long time. I've been suffering and it is time to break the silence.
 
I'm extremely active on the web. If you are reading this article, my guess is that you are active too. We don't have time to mess around and we don't want ambiguity. When you go to a web page, particularly a news or current events page, it is important to know that what you are reading is fresh. The value of news goes down rapidly. If you are a blogger, you know exactly what I am talking about.

In addition to freshness, dates are important if you are comparing information. For example, do you want to get old medical information or new medical information? In some cases, months matter, and even days can matter.

In short, dates matter because they help people understand the context of what we are reading. They give people reference points. When it comes to information consumption, humans tend to like certainty. When dates are displayed on web pages they are like warm blankets because they make us comfortable.

How Are Dates Used?
The most common date is no date at all. Don't laugh. Most web pages, including most news pages and current event pages, don't have any dates. Verdict: This is insane.
 
It is also common to see today's date, which acts something like a clock. The date you see on the web page is always today's date. This is fine on some web pages where you want to know today's date, perhaps on a major news web site, but generally this is a silly idea. Do you really need to see today's date on most web pages? Is there really value? Furthermore, can you tell that the date you see is actually today's date? Generally, you do not need to see today's date, it doesn't add value, and you can't tell that the date you see is today's date versus some other date. Verdict: Usually a bad idea and confusing.

Sometimes, if you are lucky, you will see date of publication. If you are really lucky, you will see last updated date. If you are lucky beyond lucky, you will see date of publication and last updated date, if the page was updated. In general, these are the dates we care about. They provide us with an indication of freshness and relevance. Include date of publication and last updated date when relevant. Verdict: Very good or great idea.

There are other dates too, like the date when something is available (future publication or release date), expiration dates, date the last time something was viewed or selected, and so forth. These conditional dates can be quite useful in the right context. Verdict: Conditional dates can add a lot of value to a web page when used strategically. 

Types of Dates and Date Formatting on the Web
Below I am going to show you how dates can be formatted on the web. I'll go in order from worst to best and at the end of this section, you'll have my recommendation for the best date format. 
The first date format is the one I see the most often. Ironically, it is the one used most often. 

FORMAT:  7/8/04 or 7.8.04 or 7-8-04 

It is bad because it confuses people around the world. Is it the 8th of July or the 7th of August? Other than your own knowledge and preference, it is completely ambiguous. Another issue is that it doesn't include the full year (2004) which can be confusing to some people. One good thing about this format is that is doesn't eat up too much space. However, it is rare that space is an issue.

The  second format is very much like the first. It is also used very often.
 
FORMAT: 7/8/2004  or  7.8.2004  or  7-8-2004 

This format is bad for nearly all the reasons mentioned above. It is improved by adding the rest of the year information so it reduces ambiguity, but it is slightly longer.

The third format brings in actual words, which most people like. The information is easier to digest.

FORMAT: July 8, 2004  or  July 8th, 2004

The major benefit is readability, but the major downfall is length. This isn't an issue very often, but sometimes it is. Another small issue with this format is the comma. That can cause formatting problems, such as line breaks at the wrong times.

The fourth format is quite good, but it doesn't look quite right and I've only seen it used a few times.

FORMAT: 8 July 2004  or  8 Jul 2004

The spaces look kind of funny and I've also seen formatting issues because nothing forces the entire date to stay together so it might wrap to the next line. One good thing is that the order is logical from smallest to largest. Day, then month, then year. That makes a lot of sense to users around the world.

The fifth format is the one that I like the best. 

FORMAT: 8-July-2004 or 8-Jul-2004

The date is short, easy to read, logically ordered, accepted globally, and it will stay together if formatting pushes it to the next line. It is reasonably short, but I admit it could be shorter, but not by much. It could also look a bit less mechanical, but I don't feel that is a problem. I've literally never had any usability complaints about this date format and I've never seen any research against it. In most cases, it just works. 

Useful Notes About Date Labels
It almost always makes sense to add a label to a date. If you publish or create something, and you have the room, add a label. Here is an example:

Created: 29-July-2004

If an event occurs that users should know about, such as a revision to something published, add that too. I suggest keeping the original date with the original label, then adding the other label and date. This gives users a trail to follow, and it indicates freshness of the material at the same time. It indicates also that it is a living document, open for growth. Here is an example:

Created: 15-July-2004
Last Updated: 29-July-2004

In almost all cases it makes sense to place date information at the top of the page. The bottom can also work, but the top is the best. It sticks with the convention used by printed materials, such as newspapers and magazines. Placing this information in the middle of the material or halfway down on the sides just doesn't make sense.

Caveats
The date formatting advice presented above doesn't really apply to forms. Virtually no forms I have seen use the format outlined above. Your best bet to increase the usability of dates on forms is to use proper labels. This is a topic worthy of its own article. 
Some pages don't require dates. For example, many web applications simply don't require dates. Don't get the idea that all web pages should have dates posted, just most of them.
As far as I know, my recommended date format causes no issues in Europe or Asia, or the rest of the world for that matter. However, perhaps my format confuses people in far off places. If I am an ethnocentric date snob, I apologize.

If you want to just post a month and year without a day, then using something like "July 2004" would work just fine. You can safely ignore my recommendations.

You might be surprised but my recommendation goes against the ISO date recommendation, which is backed by the W3C in this case. They say that 8-July-2004 should be written 2004-07-08 but I think that is poor for humans for the reasons described above. Humans aren't machines and they won't always parse 2004-07-08 correctly. In fact, I think it would confuse most people.
I am assuming that almost all readers care about the Gregorian calendar. Non-Gregorian dates and calendars, often used in religious circles, are not covered by my recommendations, although the usability principles probably still apply.