Yahoo's Victor Tsaran, blind since the age of five, is responsible for making sure Yahoo developers design Web pages with accessibility in mind.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET)Yahoo's Victor Tsaran knows how much time Web designers spend agonizing over color and font-width choices when laying out an application. So when he started Yahoo's accessibility push two years ago, he had a tough time arousing sympathy for engineers grousing about how much extra time was needed to create accessibility features.
Fortunately for Tsaran, Yahoo's accessibility manager, he's running into that problem less and less. Web designers are starting to take accessibility as seriously as button placement or heading layout when they develop their products, improving the Web experience not only for people like Tsaran--who lost his sight at the age of five--but for Web users in general.
"We're seeing a lot more awareness and involvement in Web accessibility than we did a few years ago, particularly among big companies," said Judy Brewer, director of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at the World Wide Web Consortium. "It's becoming a solid business expectation that Web sites need to meet the needs of all users."
At the two biggest Internet companies in the world, accessibility is seen as an increasingly important part of what they do. Yahoo requires every new hire to receive accessibility training from Tsaran and Alan Brightman, senior policy director of special communities. And it books engineering teams for tours of their Accessibility Lab.
Google recently rolled out a service that will let YouTube users add captions to their videos, and believes that as the Web moves more from an era of presentation to an era of two-way "data-driven" communication, accessibility becomes even more important, said Jonas Klink, accessibility program manager.
Web accessibility has come a long way in the decade since many of these proposals were first floated. It's still a challenge, however, for the Web community to remember that as it pushes forward with exciting new technologies like HTML5 that could reinvent the Internet experience, it must keep in mind the needs of those who can't type 60 words per minute, operate a mouse like a scalpel, or see the unobtrusive pop-up windows that point to the next destination on the page.
"As the Web gets more and more dynamic, the accessibility requirements get more and more interesting, and sometimes challenging, to implement," Brewer said.
The challenges
There are about 60 million people in the U.S. who can't use a computer to get on the Internet in the normal fashion, said Yahoo's Brightman. For those people, a mix of screen reader software, keyboards with special buttons, and even motion-sensing Web cameras must take the place of the mouse and QWERTY keyboard.
Sites that don't play nicely with special input methods cause accessibility problems that can easily be avoided.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET)That can cause problems for Web designers who rely too heavily on mouse navigation, or who design pages with special multimedia whiz-bang effects that look cool only to the people that can see them. "There can be an assumption of homogeneity on the Web," said Naomi Bilodeau, technical program manager for Google.
Users of screen readers--software that essentially reads out loud a description of text, links, and buttons on a page--are confounded the most by Captchas and Flash Web pages, according to a recent survey of screen-reader users conducted by WebAIM.
But simple things like photos or images can also create problems if the Web publisher doesn't add alt text to those photos, or relies primarily on images as a way of explaining what is happening on the page. And as Web designers push forward with Javascript and AJAX-based technologies that overlay Web content over the primary Web page, there's great potential to confuse screen readers.
The good news is that most of these problems aren't as much technology issues as design issues; content created with things like Flash can be made accessible if designers start off with that principle in mind.
"There are a bunch of things (in Web design) that are not features," said Nicholas Zakas, principal front-end engineer for Yahoo's home page, meaning that while you can jazz up a page all you like with additional features, there are certain things that should be standard fare. "Performance is not a feature, internationalization is not a feature, and accessibility is not a feature."
However, features can make the Web more accessible. As mentioned, Google recently rolled out automatic captioning software for YouTube videos, making it much easier for deaf people to enjoy the world's largest collection of cute cat videos.
In all seriousness, the automatic captioning technology is being rolled out first on YouTube's Educational channel, allowing deaf or hearing-impaired people to take advantage of distance learning programs or other educational systems. It's most definitely a work in progress, (check out this YouTube video of a lecture by a University of California at Berkeley professor by clicking on the "cc" tab, the left arrow, and then "Transcribe Audio") but with refinement could really add to the amount of knowledge that can be consumed by disabled people.
"I wanted this so badly (that) it's good enough, I don't care if there are some bad captions," said Google's Ken Harrenstien, a deaf software engineer who played an instrumental role in bringing the project to life.
The reasons
There are no explicit laws that companies design Web sites to be accessible to the disabled, but many disability experts and Web companies believe that portions of the U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 do apply to the Internet, despite having been written several years before the Web emerged as a mainstream phenomenon.
And in order to do business with the U.S. government, companies must comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which insists that electronic and information technology products sold to government agencies be designed with disabled employees in mind, and that government services produced by contractors consider disabled citizens in equal measure.
But these are businesses, after all: Yahoo's Brightman estimated that there's about $220 billion in discretionary spending available to disabled people. Making a Web site accessible to as many people as possible isn't just the right thing to do, it also makes business sense, he said.
Also, with a rapidly aging population in many parts of the world--notably the U.S.--accessibility requirements will become useful for today's crop of baby boomers as they grow older. People over 65 are increasing their use of the Internet, according to Nielsen, and features designed for accessibility could aid those who aren't technically disabled but wouldn't mind a little extra help.
The Web is becoming more accessible for people with disabilities, but it's far from complete: 46.3 percent of screen reader users think the Web is getting more accessible.
(Credit: WebAIM) The future
The immediate challenge for those working on Web accessibility is to ensure that accessibility standards are not trampled in the rush to finalize the HTML5 collection of standards that Google and other Web browser companies are currently debating. Brewer said it's "extremely important to be sure that HTML5 can support accessibility fully," and her group is working closely with the other parts of the W3C to realize that goal.
But beyond that goal, Web accessibility advocates have reason to feel optimistic about their cause. Long-awaited technologies like sophisticated speech recognition are finally coming to fruition after decades of joking about how such capabilities were just two years away. And 46 percent of respondents to the WebAIM survey reported that Web content has become more accessible in recent years.
"Anybody should be able to use anything on this page," said Yahoo's Zakas, keeper of the all-important Yahoo.com page. "If anybody can't use it, it shouldn't be there."
AOL's instant messenger, AIM, becomes on Tuesday the AIM Lifestream and gets support for modern social services Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Flickr, and Delicious.
A multiple-platform suite of products being announced at the TechCrunch50 event will support the service.
In addition to instant messaging, AIM Lifestream will display updates from the social feeds mentioned above and, likewise, enable people to post back to the services. The suite of products, including mobile clients, Mac and Windows desktop apps, and a Web client, will launch on September 22. The current Lifestream Web site shows the development of the project so far. The finished version will bring instant messages into the mix.
The iPhone app for AIM Lifestream is available now, however, because the Apple approval process went much faster than AOL expected, said David Liu, AOL's senior vice president of global messaging. (You'll get AIM Lifestream when you download the paid AIM client for the iPhone.)
I tried the iPhone app. It's a decent combo client, although I found it much better for instant messaging than for Twitter or Facebook. While it is really nice to be able to get social network items and IMs in one client, you don't get the full visibility and control over your social accounts as you do in a full-featured client like the iPhone app Tweetdeck for Twitter, or Facebook's own app for Facebook. But if you're not a heavy user of the other services, the AIM Lifestream client is certainly servicable, and it's nice to be able to update your AIM status and other sites with just one message.
I've got Twitter and Facebook in my iPhone AIM client.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)Liu said that the mobile clients are key to the AIM strategy and that geolocation features will be rolling out. Already, the iPhone client will report your location (if you let it) to your friends. In the future, Liu told me, you'll be able to see what your friends have said about places near you. Another big part of the Lifestream strategy is AIM's e-mail service. You'll be able to use your new AOL e-mail to read and reply to all the same messages you get in your AIM clients.
Finally, AIM won't be the only IM platform supported. ICQ support is coming soon. Also coming, I was told, is support for other IM networks. Liu wouldn't say which but claimed that AOL is "having discussions" with the big platforms. That would include Yahoo and Microsoft, as well as Facebook. The Google IM system is is open. Skype support would be a neat trick; I don't expect it.
AIM Lifestream will end up being a powerful social client due to the sheer number of AIM users who will upgrade from the older version of AIM. And while it's a great product for AIM power users, I don't think it's a good option yet for people whose online social lives revolve around other networks. In my case, for example, I'll continue to spend time in Twitter-centric clients like Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop, because that's where my people are. And there's no way AIM is going to pry my wife away from the full Facebook experience.
Even so, AIM Lifestream is a good direction for AOL and I am looking forward to see how this new strategy evolves.
The new version of AIM notifies you when a new instant message arrives.
Good news on the IM front: AIM (Free Edition) and BeejiveIM 3.0 are among the first instant-messaging apps to support push notification, meaning you'll get alerted to new messages even when the apps aren't running.
If that sounds a bit familiar, it's because we reported on AIM's use in push-notification stress-testing about a week ago.
It also follows the news that uberpopular texting app TextFree was first out of the SMS gate with push support, allowing users to get new-message notifications while the iPhone is off or doing other things.
AIM offers a fairly robust feature set for a free app. It supports multiple screen names and works with AOL, ICQ, .Mac, and MobileMe accounts. It keeps you logged in for 24 hours and gives you the option of receiving notifications via SMS for those times when you're logged out.
I particularly like how you can finger-swipe between different chats. Of course, those features have been around for a while. The big news here is push, and in my tests it worked flawlessly.
I haven't been able to test BeejiveIM 3.0 yet, which is notable for its cross-platform support of AIM/MobileMe, Facebook, GTalk, MSN, Yahoo, and just about every other chat service known to man.
Thankfully, the developer lowered the $15.99 price tag, though it's still on the pricey side at $9.99.
Of course, when you take into account the money you stand to save on SMS charges, that might just be the deal of the century.
Are you geeked about push-enabled IM? If so, what's your favorite app? (Feel free to list those that haven't received the push treatment just yet.)
AOL has been fairly criticized for its purchase of Bebo in 2008 for $850 million. Since the acquisition, Bebo has been rolled into a group at AOL called People Networks. As we wrote yesterday, Bebo now has spiffy new features. But that doesn't make it worth $850 million.
I sat down with Joanna Shields, president of AOL People Networks, about the division's longer-term strategy. Shields was brought in by Bebo's venture investors to "package and sell" the company, she told me. She obviously did that, and quite capably.
"We sold at the top of the market," Shields said. She's stayed there to make the acquisition pay off for AOL, and there are clearly a lot of people who are curious about her plans for doing so.
The goal for the People Networks group, which includes Bebo, AIM, ICQ, SocialThing, Yedda, and Goowy Media, is to "connect people with everything they care about," Shields days. Before she came to AOL via the Bebo acquisition, she says the various social properties in AOL were operating as islands. To an extent they still are, but she's trying to bring all the pieces and parts together into a system that's useful for people, and that will pay back for AOL.
That goal to connect people explains why the team is evangelizing the social aggregation features of Bebo so strongly. People are on a lot of networks, not just Bebo. Shields realizes, though, that becoming another social aggregator is not the ticket to riches. It's useful, but you don't become Facebook by aggregating Facebook.
Joanna Shields
(Credit: Rafe Needleman / CNET Networks) AIM is the key
For the native audience that can drive Bebo and AOL forward, the company will rely on AIM and ICQ. AIM, which has 94 million global users, should have been AOL's social network, I said to Shields and to David Liu, GM of AOL People Networks and the leader of the AIM project. "It should have been our Twitter, too," Shields said.
As AOL announced yesterday, AIM users will be getting Bebo's more developed profile pages. In April an "integration version" of AIM will be released that will combine the AIM and Bebo instant messenger networks. Mid-year, a "revolutionary" new AIM will emerge that will allow access to not just AOL's own instant messaging clients, but others as well. I told Liu I use Adium on my Mac and Digsby on my PC (both are apps that support multiple instant messaging platforms, including Facebook's), and he told me that the new AIM client will be able to replace those. Also, "We'll have a better version of Twitter inside it," Shields said.
Shields indicated that there are no more social service acquisitions coming, so it looks like AOL will be building these new services with the people and companies it already has.
Liu told me that one of the key factors to AOL's future social success is the desktop client. "I can't say enough about how strategic it is have the client." Shields added, "It's that always-on pulse. It's a multiplier."
The group will continue to support both Web-based and mobile AIM clients, but they believe that having the rich client app is vital to staying in front of users.
AOL's People Networks group is aiming for openness. "We want to out-open everybody," Shields says, and indicated that upcoming products will support both OpenID for login and OAuth for third-party access. I did note that some of the products announced yesterday weren't completely integrated even with AOL's own products (the Life story function doesn't read in items from the Lifestream, for example), and she admitted that the integration among the different groups and products is a work in progress.
Worth $850 million?
Before talking with Shields and her team, I felt that AOL's Bebo strategy was scattered: I saw a lot of feature improvements, but no knock-out vision. After talking to Shields, I'm still not convinced that AOL has a killer social strategy.
The company is doing the right thing by finally trying to leverage its strong instant message platform, AIM (and also ICQ) and by taking good features from Bebo and layering them in to AOL. It's also smart to make Bebo and AOL more interoperable with other networks. These are solid moves and should help keep the AOL social products relevant.
But none of what I heard sounded like a threat to Facebook in terms of users, or to Twitter or Friendfeed in terms of innovation.
Mobile VoIP service Truphone announced Monday that it has integrated AOL Instant Messenger into its iPhone app. Besides being able to place VoIP calls, users can now log in to AOL and instant message other AIM users through the Truephone app. The software already includes support for Google Talk, Skype, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger.
Netbiscuits, a company that provides a Web software platform for mobile development and advertising, announced Monday that it has partnered with AdMob, the world's largest mobile-advertising service, to provide users with the advertising firm's ad placement tools. According to Netbiscuits, its software will offer users the option to integrate ads in mobile video and other media. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Google announced Friday that mobile-phone users are now able to modify Google Spreadsheets. According to the company, users can view, edit, sort, and filter spreadsheets on a variety of mobile devices, including the T-Mobile G1 and iPhone.
Today we have a new president to lead a new American path through what will be a tumultuous time. But President Obama won't be able to do it alone. He and his administration need to work together, and communicate with one another and the country, to ensure everything is running well.
That's why I've compiled a "cheat sheet" for the Obama administration, listing five services it should use in the White House. Sadly, it probably won't. Record-keeping laws and security concerns will ensure that none of my suggestions take effect.
AIM for White House staff
Why shouldn't the White House staff be able to communicate with one another over AIM? I'm sure many of them use it in their daily lives and bringing it to the White House to communicate quickly is, in my estimation, a pretty good idea.
Instead of forcing his staff to walk back and forth between wings and offices, what if President Obama was able to instant message his staff from the Oval Office. I can see it now: PrezObama312: "Where's the dossier on the Russian spy we've been tracking?" WHStaffer35: "IDK. BRB." PrezObama312: "K. G2G. L8r."
Wouldn't that be great?
BitTorrent for distributing government documents
I know BitTorrent has been the target of the RIAA and MPAA over the past few years due to its huge supply of copyrighted material, but why shouldn't the government embrace the technology and use BitTorrent to distribute information to the public?
Sure, there's always that issue of "pirates" running the service, but I don't see what all the fuss is about. Who will they tell? President Obama should look to BitTorrent as an ideal way to get the word out. The distributed network reduces the cost of running data centers by allowing all the network's users to share the load.
It makes sense to me.
Present.ly for internal microblogging in groups based on level
Aside from AIM, I think the Obama administration should use enterprise microblogging service Present.ly to allow White House staff and the president to communicate.
The real beauty of Present.ly is its ability to allow users to create groups. A top-level aide can put the president, vice president, and cabinet in one group so they can discuss world affairs in a Twitter-like format, and the rest of the staff can have their own group to take care of their own work.
Sure, someone might be able to hack their way into the president's Present.ly group ("Michelle10" is an easy password to crack, Mr. President), but it still would help the staff communicate far more effectively than walking back and forth between desks.
Did you see 24 Monday night? That's all they do.
Stickam for White House room streams
I don't know about you, but I'm not always convinced that White House staff is really working. I'm not even sure President Obama would ever really know if his staff is working. How could he? He's busy.
That's why he needs to install cameras throughout the White House and use Stickam to monitor his employees. At any given time, he can log in to Stickam, find the White House channel, and start viewing all the different rooms in the house.
I'll bet that would get everyone working.
Ustream with moderated chat for country-wide town hall meetings
Ustream is a fine video-streaming service that makes connecting with others simple and fun. It's also ideal for a White House town hall meeting where President Obama would be on camera and citizens from across the U.S. would have the opportunity to ask him questions in a moderated chat room.
I don't see any reason why the president shouldn't exploit Ustream in this way. He has shown time and again that he has a real desire to use technology to connect with the populace and capitalizing on Ustream to give citizens a voice would be just another example of him doing just that.
I realize that allowing citizens from across the U.S. to comment on the president's policies could be troublesome, considering millions would probably want to join in, but if the room had a cap on the number of people who could join, or an effective team that could moderate comments, I doubt it would be a problem.
I'd certainly like to join in on that chat.
Check out Don's Digital Home podcast, Twitter feed, and FriendFeed.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
AOL on Monday quietly released a brand-new version of its instant-messenger application for Mac users. Called "AIM for Mac beta 1," it's a replacement for version 4.7, which has remained untouched since February 2004.
Back then gas was a little over $1.50 a gallon.
Unlike the changes in oil prices, those four years have amounted to little more than what was offered in previous iterations of the program, or Apple's iChat application which comes pre-installed in every Mac computer. In the new version users can change emoticon sets and tweak background chat wallpapers--all things that you can't do with the current version of iChat. There's also tabbed browsing and contact search which the previous version did not have. Otherwise, it's largely playing catch-up to the PC version, which has received the most attention and is currently on version 6.8.
Also worth noting is how much the market has changed since the latest Mac release. iChat and third-party applications like Adium, Digsby, and Pidgin have the upper hand with compatibility for other protocols. AIM for Mac is currently limited to AOL and Yahoo contacts, while the others support things like Jabber, ICQ, and XMPP. In a more frequently fragmented market, with newcomers like Facebook and Google, these open platforms simply end up being more appealing.
AIM for Mac looks quite similar to iChat, although without the audio and video logos to let you know who is ready for media chatting.
(Credit: AOL Inc.)
AOL has upgraded its AIM Express software, an online Flash-based application that replicates many of the features of the regular downloadable software (add your own review here).
Among the new AIM Express 7.0 features are tabbed conversations, status messages, text-message support to communicate with buddies' mobile phones, and compatibility with Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Mozilla's Firefox 2 and 3, and Apple's Safari 2 and 3.
The software is an example of the growing utility and sophistication of Web-based applications. Instant messaging, though, is somewhat more amenable to the task: it doesn't require the heavy processing burden of a spreadsheet, and not being able to work while offline isn't a big deal given that the whole point of IM is to chat with contacts on the network. Moving applications online poses some compatibility issues with various browsers or with software foundations such as Flash, but it can sidestep myriad other compatibility issues such as operating-system compatibility.
AOL also announced a new version of AIM for phones using the Windows Mobile operating system, including the Motorola Q, Samsung BlackJack, and some Palm Treo models. CNET Download.com editor Jessica Dolcourt reviewed the AIM for Windows Mobile phones beta in June.
Palringo's the first multi-chat protocol app for the iPhone.
(Credit: Palringo)The new iPhone app from Palringo brings an official multi-instant messaging client to the Apple device. It supports eight chat protocols and includes some useful iPhone-specific features, but also suffers from several irritating limitations.
Palringo can handle Apple iChat, AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber, and Windows Live Messenger. Assuming you've got no problems with the iPhone keyboard, creating a profile for one of these accounts is as simple as selecting the proper icon and typing in your username and password. First, though, you must set up a Palringo account. Not to worry: when you open the Palringo app for the first time, it will redirect you to their Web site for registration.
When you receive a message, it gets dumped into the universal in-box at the bottom left corner of the screen. This may sounds chaotic, but I was surprised at how well it worked. The camera feature worked flawlessly, too. When you select a contact to chat with, tap the camera icon in the lower right corner and you can either take a fresh photo that will be instantly sent, or send an already-saved photo from your album.
However, do note that the photo gets uploaded to Palringo's servers and stored there for 10 days. Users must then download images to keep them. Click here to see the image that Jason Parker sent me from his iPhone.
Palringo offers a variety of status options, but no clear way to log out of one client.
(Credit: Palringo)The big hang-up, if you'll forgive the pun, is that the app doesn't offer a way to sign out of an account once it's been created. You can change the status of an account to Invisible, Busy, or Away, with the default status being Online, but there's no way to be logged in to your AIM but not your ICQ.
Also, since the iPhone can currently use only one app at a time, you must be running the app to receive new messages. The phone vibrates when it does, but that won't do you much good without having the app always on. The promised voice-chat feature has yet to be implemented, too.
Even with these drawbacks, for people who don't have a jailbroken phone Palringo offers a solid and Apple-approved way to get access to all your IMs at once.
Who's Online on AIM
(Credit: iPhone Atlas)Fulfilling a feature available previously with jailbreak applications, AOL is offering a free instant-messaging client, available through the AppStore, for the iPhone. In our brief testing, the client was a snap to configure, and worked well, but exhibited a few freezes.
When the AIM application is first launched, you are presented with options to use either the AOL instant messaging service or MobileMe. Once you've made your selection, however, we couldn't find an easy way to go back and configure another account.
AIM chat screen
(Credit: iPhone Atlas)Buddy lists are displayed with icons, status messages, and the typical blue iPhone interface arrow, which allows you to initiate a chat with a buddy or add a buddy to your favorites. The blue icon doesn't, however, allow you to access an active chat with said buddy. For that, you'll need to tap on the "IMs" button at the bottom of the screen.
The AIM application adds a preference pane to the "Settings" application, allowing you to change your screen name and password and control whether or not your account signs off when the AIM program is exited. If the option to sign off is turned off, IMs will continue to stream in while you work in other applications, and be displayed in the "Active IMs" window.
AIM My Info screen
(Credit: iPhone Atlas)Tapping the "My Info" button allows you to set your Avaialble/Away status, as well as establish a status message. There's also a neat feature embedded here: you can tap on your buddy icon to bring up an option to either take a photo with the iPhone's built-in camera and use it as your buddy icon, or choose an existing photo from your iPhone's library and use it similarly.
As aforementioned, we experienced a few freezes in perfunctory use of AIM. If you experience such a freeze, hold the iPhone's Home button down for several seconds to force-quit the app.
(Cross-posted from iPhone Atlas)
