Note: This post comes from the Whitespace archive and was originally posted by Scrivs on January 28th, 2004. Links referred to herein may have been moved or modified.

Rhetoric is a framework that allows us to quantify valuable information as having a beginning, middle, and end. This philosophy can be carried over to your websites to create an effective experience for your users. However, the three steps differ slightly in that they become attract, inform, and invoke.

Attract Them

The ability of blogs to attract customers is directly related to the quality of the content on their site. This also involves the topics discussed on a site. However, another element that generally gets overlooked is the aesthetics of the site. If the aesthetics of a site compliment the content, then you are already one step closer to a better design.

Just because you start another web design site, what differentiates it from the rest that will make people want to visit? How will it attract people? Will it be through the looks and feel of the site, the content, or both?

When attempting to attract people to your site and your message there are two main questions that must be answered by you, “Why should I listen to you?” and “What’s in it for me?”.

To answer the first question you must achieve credibility and in this community that can be a difficult thing to do. Over time if you continue to write quality content that others link to then over time you will develop a credibility for yourself. One should not expect credibility from simply placing a website on the web. Another way to gain credibility is through the endorsement of someone else who has high credibility. If Bowman was to one day write an entry talking about a designer that taught him everything he knew then that designer would be given instant credibility and people would be more willing to listen to his words.

The quick answer to the second question is that you will provide the audience with something new to learn and share. If there is nothing to be gained from your site, then there is no reason to visit it.

Inform Them

Once you have attracted users to your site it becomes your job to inform them. Certainly they have showed some interest because they are on your site, but how do you go about informing them? Of course the answer is content, but there are other issues that are involved with informing someone.

To effectively inform an audience you have to convince them of the relevance, importance, and timeliness of the message. This opens your audience up and allows them to more readily receive your message. The best example of this occurred when Zeldman began his tract on Web Standards with the article, To Hell With Bad Browsers.

Invoke Them

There are a lot of “call to actions” in the web community. Examples range from building accessible websites to getting rid of “www” in urls. A major problem with these movements is that they do not address anyone’s needs. To invoke individuals into action (eg. purchasing something online) their interaction with your message must address their real motivations and their real needs. It’s no use saying everyone should develop sites with CSS if making quick money is the intention of the audience.

The Three Steps

If you are consciously aware of the three step process and use it to relay your message over time then you should have no problem developing an audience that is willing to listen. All of the great writers on the web have captured this ability to implement the 3 steps in almost all of their writings whether they intended to or not.

Many of these ideas can be found in John Lenker’s excellent book, Train of Thoughts.

Obviously we have established so far on Wisdump that social networking such as MySpace and Facebook hits off well. They are sites in which you can simply post up who you are and keep in touch with friends. Then, on MySpace for example, you can build fancy, custom, invalid, profile designs and basically create an empire out of your corner of the community. Then, there is Twitter.

A Social Community Too

When Stuart wrote ‘The Ebb and Flow of Social Networking’, Twitter was not included on the growth chart. Why though? Is Twitter not a social community? You get a page of your own that you can customize the colors and background image of, you have a friends list, you have a display name, there are mobile features, and some form of interaction through instant messaging, and of course those spam accounts that are so bothersome. Therefore, we can safely call Twitter a social community too.

Simplicity is Key

Now, wait, if Twitter is a social community in itself, why do we not see Twitter vs. MySpace? Or Twitter vs. Facebook? Well, because Twitter is so simple. Yes, you have a page to yourself with a personal design and it requires a separate account than other social communities, yet all there really is to do is post your status, and reply to others. Simple, and as well integrate-able with your profiles on other social websites. How genius, eh? You don’t see Facebook allowing you to integrate your Facebook status into your MySpace profile, do you?

Following the Trend

So, we have already seen that Twitter is a social community of its own, yet really shows no competition, and is integrate-able with other communities. It currently is quite popular, and some would say it’s at its “self-sustaining growth” stage, although some would also say its past it’s peak. Although, will Twitter even follow the same path that Stuart described before?

Not to bring opinion in, but I will have to say no, Twitter will create its own path. Why though? Well, Twitter is useful to some people, fun to some people, and annoying to others. The concept is much different, you are not there so much to interact with and send messages and comments to your friends, you are more-so just stating your current mood or status for interested people to know whats up. Sure, some people are starting to use it to gather opinions with Twitter’s feedback feature, although the majority are still posting their current happenings either through the online form, instant messaging, by a mobile device, or widget.

Twitter users aren’t bound to leave when they ‘get-too-old’ or fluctuate between active and inactive based on whether they are having a hot conversation with another user. Rather, if they have no one to talk to, there are still other ways to use Twitter, such as implementing it on your personal site or blog to share with viewers.

So, Why is Twitter Addicting?

Well, it can obviously be seen that most Twitter users are pretty consistent with their updates, and that there are those fun little features that do bring you back. Although, overall Twitter will be, for some time actually, a very active community mainly because it is integrate-able and easy to use. Seriously, when you can send a simple IM message and you update a section of content on your blog, MySpace, Facebook, and the other places you linked your status to, why would it not be addicting?

As mentioned previously, Wisdump needs a new logo. The following entries have been received and the choice is down to you.

Whilst the designs vary in quality (in my opinion), each and every design submitted is here.

Cast your vote for your favorite in the comments below. The design with the most votes received by the end of Wednesday will be the winner. Please ignore colors as these will be changed to suit the new design anyway.

01 – Submitted by ‘Stalker B.’ :

02 – Submitted by ‘DDAG’ :

03 – Submitted by John Proctor :

04 – Submitted by Bartus F. Teipel (www.bybartus.circuscircus.com.br) :

05 – Submitted by Chris Moyer :

06 – Submitted by James Smart :

07 – Submitted by John Stansbury :

08 – Submitted by Jernej G. :

09 – Submitted by Krystian – Sunlust (ignore the typo!) :

10 – Submitted by Dan Burke :

Note: Only one submission included a URL to the designers website. If your design is listed above and you would like a link to your site, drop me an email.

First off, in a quick paragraph I would like to introduce myself as one of Wisdump’s new bloggers. My name is Ryan Barr, and I am a young designer that has been designing for almost eight years now. My personal interests are web standards, validation, web programming, and seeing in what ways CSS can be bent. Honestly, I am completely honored to help contribute to Wisdump, and I hope all of you guys can do your best to put up with my sometimes-nonsensical ramblings.

Understanding a Web Application

It is a lot to take in, a web application is often a powerful, useful, constructive tool that betters a website, manages content or information, and helps the user with the main purpose of whatever the application is. Although, when you are the person who is building the application, it is something completely different compared to using the features and (for those involved users) submitting bug-reports and feature requests.

Putting Yourself in Their Shoes

When I started to build the web application I am now working on, my first thought was to jump right into coding its design and its main features. Now, I did start going through with that thought, and I stopped right after I finished the front-end and back-end design.

Your first thought should be ‘what is the main purpose of my application?’ and then furthermore, ‘how are people going to use this?’ and ‘what features are really necessary and what ones should be put on the side?’ Doing so will give you a better understanding of what you should focus on when building your design, and what things will be the main engine that powers the content the application will hold.

Now take a breath, I understand I just probably threw a whole-lot at you and a simple one-sentence statement is needed to actually get what I said: Ask yourself basic, broad questions from a users aspect before doing anything else. This will weed out silly little thoughts, useless little features (for now), and help you build in the long run.

Designing Your Application

You can’t just throw any ol’ design at a web application. There is this new thing in Web 2.0 that is called usability, and any good web application should probably hold it. What better way to do so than have a usable design that functions with your features, and not against them. When you log into your application it should be inviting, and in some way have the more important content stressed and be the main focus, but also carry the eyes to the smaller features. The only way to accomplish this is to have a good flow.

This is where you need to think back to 3rd grade art class when you started to learn contrast, repetition, and flow. Yes, designing websites is an art and all of your handy-dandy little art lessons can probably help in some way. In this case, using those aspects in your design can help the users eye to stay where you want them to be, and allow them to flow thru all of the content and features that your application has to offer.

Finally Building The Application

As you run through all of the pre-stages of getting your application going, you will run into quite a few roadblocks and such that make you think. Doing (in my eyes) the first two steps might take a while, seeing as if you ask yourself a good enough amount of questions, you will form a good business plan ASWELL AS making a good choice, design-wise, might take some time to hit the nail on its head. But after you pull yourself through all of that, it will be time to actually getting your dynamic coding in there and building an engine and some good features to go with it.

Now, there isn’t much to say about actually building your application, just for that reason: its YOURS. Although, my advice would be to make sure all of the big features are in there first, and build your little features on the side of them. It will help you realize what features you might actually want to hold off on for a later version, or perhaps give you more ideas for better features.

Pre-release and Releasing

You have your application’s design and system complete, and hopefully took the initiative to build a website where people can acquire your system, although there is something you might want to consider: beta-testing. Without beta testing hell could break loose and your system creating a pathway to some private files on someones server, or your system not having the right security to eliminate iframe injection and other corruptive things could lead to some pretty big arguments in the long run. So before putting out that 1.0 release, try a 1.0b release and let selected people play with the system on your server, then after you fix those bugs and problems they find, let them move to their server and do bug-reporting. Eventually you will have a strong system that is safe to release and ready for the world to enjoy.

Closing Statements

This will be the only time I include closing statements, only because it is my first post. The whole time while writing this entry, the thought that it will be put on almost 8,000 feeds just drove me wild and put a pavilion of butterflies in my stomach. Now I do apologize if my writing was a bit scratchy, bumpy, discombobulating, or eye-burning in any way. I would love to personally open you to e-mailing me ( ryanbarr [at] gmail (dot) com ) and letting me know your thoughts in how I can improve, because personally, I really want to write more enjoyable pieces in the future.

It’s taken a while to get here, but I’m pleased to finally introduce myself as the new owner of Wisdump.

My name is Lee, and I run UK-based Maxafi Ltd.  We are *not* a blog network, but more of a publishing and web-app network.  In fact, this is the first blog we have ever been involved with.

Why did you buy Wisdump?  Are you mad?

When Scrivs first put the For Sale sign up, many people thought he had over-valued the site because it was based around him and would fail without him at the helm.  This may well prove to be the case, but I prefer to look at it from a different point of view.

Taking over an existing site presents a few challenges – firstly, you want to maintain the existing readership.  Secondly, you want it to grow and build on the success the previous owner built.  I’ve seen many sites acquired in recent times where the buyer has seen the pagerank and pageviews and simply expected that if you keep posting, visitors will keep coming.  I don’t believe this to be the case, as is evident from many previously high-profile sites now virtually defunct as the realization hits the owner.

So, my challenge is to build on the previous success seen here, add my own personal flavor and bring some extra features along with me.

So, why should I keep reading?

I remember the not too distant past, when Whitespace *was* 9rules, long before Scrivs became the wealthy net celeb he is today ;-)  Back then, it was about design, speaking your mind and commenting on the goings-on in the industry.  A lot has happened since those days, and those that read Whitespace back then have watched as 9rules went from Scrivs and his personal blog, to the massive community it now is.

In many respects, I find myself at the point Scrivs was back then.  Whilst my destination is different, the journey will be pretty much the same – and I hope you’ll stick with us for the ride.  We’re working on some really exciting stuff right now, and I hope to be able to bring you some insight into the challenges faced by startups, with a bit of light relief (and, probably, some moaning) along the way.

However, I’m not vein enough to think everyone is interested in what I have to say, and I believe some variety is important to any site.  That brings me nicely on to my next point…

Do you want to write for Wisdump?

The first thing I want to do here is bring a few more authors on board to bring a variety of content and opinions.   So, if you think you can be an asset to Wisdump, I’d love to hear from you.  I’m specifically looking for people that can write in a warm, endearing manner.  Subjects include design trends, usability, startup commentary and the web industry in general.  However, if you believe you can bring something else to the table, I’m open to ideas.  This is a paid gig with exceptional rates and incentives.  If you would like to be involved, drop me a mail directly at lee [at] maxafi.com with the subject ‘Wisdump Bloggers’.  Tell me a little about yourself, your blogs and what you feel you can offer.

What else is changing here?

The first change to come in the next few weeks will be a re-design.  We have a crack team of designers working on a new layout and style, and as we near completion I will begin posting some teasers of the changes to come.  What I can promise you is that I’m a firm believer in clean presentation, usability and aesthetics.   You won’t see a barrage of advertisements cropping up everywhere (you’ll notice I’ve already dropped adsense).  The content is first and foremost, as it should be.

From there (or possibly around the same time) we’ll be adding a few features to the site.  I’m keen to get the readership more involved and become part of Wisdump itself, and I’m hopeful these additions will help make that happen.  More details on these to come.

Finally, and most importantly, I want to hear your input along the way – what do you want to see here, do you have suggestions or complaints – they’re all welcome.  Wisdump is nothing without it’s readers, so I’m listening.