Learner's Point

[markupstech]

[markupstech]

How to Generate Leads with Social Media

You’re already on social sites like Facebook and Twitter, but are you generating traffic from them? And, more importantly, are you generating leads? One of the big misconceptions about social media sites is that they don’t drive quality visitors. Compared to outbound marketing, social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate. How do you generate leads from the social web? In order to show you the steps you need to take, I’ve decided to create an infographic that will break down the whole process.

Click on the image below to see a larger view:

Conclusion

Only 6% of small businesses are using social media to generate sales, which means you can still get on the social media bandwagon before it gets competitive.

When you follow the 8 steps in the infographic, make sure you don’t leave out the research part. Too many companies try to generate leads from social sites without knowing what they are getting into. The last thing you want to do is waste your time driving visitors that won’t convert into leads and, eventually, sales.

[markupstech]

CSS3 – Transforms – 3D

Adding on the the last tutorial about 2D Transforms: Adding a third value to our specifications, we can create a 3D effect. Unfortunately, this is not yet supported in all browsers.

Internet Explorer and Opera do not support 3D tranforms at this time, the others (Chrome, Firefox, and Safari) require prefixes -webkit-, -moz-, and -webkit-, respectively.

Rotate

This is our square rotated, as shown in the 2-D Tutorial, without an axis specified:

and is created by this CSS:

{ transform: rotate(50deg); -ms-transform: rotate(50deg); -webkit-transform: rotate(50deg); -o-transform: rotate(50deg); -moz-transform: rotate(50deg); }

This square is rotated around the Z-axis (forward-backward, adding depth):

and is created by this CSS:

{ transform: rotateZ(150deg); -webkit-transform: rotateZ(150deg); -moz-transform: rotateZ(150deg); }

And putting it all together: In addition to specifying the degree of the rotation, we also have to specify to which point on each axis we want to transform our shape to.

{ transform: rotate3d(2,-1,0.5,50deg); -webkit-transform: rotate3d(2,-1,0.5,50deg); -moz-transform: rotate3d(2,-1,0.5,50deg); }

Scale & Translate

These functions work the same way as the just discussed rotate function. So to each, we can add X, Y, Z, or all three. The angle specification (deg) is not required here. For example:

{ transform: scale3d(2,1,0.5); -webkit-transform: scale3d(2,1,0.5); -moz-transform: scale3d(2,1,0.5); }

{ transform: translate3d(110px,30px,15px); -webkit-transform: translate3d(110px,30px,15px); -moz-transform: translate3d(110px,30px,15px); }

You’ll notice that the ‘Z’ directive doesn’t seem to have any effect here. Since we’re viewing on a ‘flat’ display, this move won’t be apparent unless demonstrated in relation to another object. Then we can see this much like with z-index.

[markupstech]

What is HTML5?

HTML5 is supposed to be what HTML should have been in the first place.

The Journey of HTML was started when the first web browser, Mosaic, was introduced in 1993. A year later Netscape, based on Mosaic, was introduced and the net began to become popular. HTML was used in both browsers, but there was no "standard" HTML until the introduction of HTML 2.0.

HTML 2.0 was first published in 1995.* HTML 3.0 was published two years later and 4.01 two years after that. HTML 4.01 has been the work horse of the net ever since.

The first "working draft" of HTML5 came out in January of 2008 and it already has surprisingly broad browser support. However HTML5 is not yet fully implemented and won't be for some years yet. There are any number of planning committees that have plans to make it a "Recommendation", but such plans are still in the planning phase – and don't plan on that changing anytime soon.

Two groups, the W3C and the WHATWG, are in charge of developing HTML5. Why two groups? "The WHATWG was formed in response to the slow development of web standards monitored by the W3C." wikipedia – In other words they got in a fight and parted ways.

They say they have since kissed and made up. Both groups agree that it's going to take years to fully implement HTML5, though it will be in wide use long before then – assuming that, like eColi, they don't divide and multiply again.

Many on the boards of W3C and WHATWG work for competing browser companies. Inevitably conflicts of interest (for example MS's brutal attempt in the late 1990s to control it all - wikipedia), have provoked problems, but I will admit – albeit begrudgingly, that on the whole they have done a reasonably good job.

In many ways HTML5 is not all that different that 4.01. Certain tags, such as the <font> tag, that were "deprecated" (but worked) in HTML 4.01, don't work in HTML5. There are a number of other odds and ends that have been changed, but they tidy up old messes rather than introduce fundamental changes.

Fundamental changes are coming with the development of APIs that will run in HTML5 – exciting and powerful new tools that will take the internet places we can't begin to imagine. Also new elements such as the <header>,<nav> and <article> have been introduced which will help search engines analyze web pages better.

The internet will absorb television the way it has telephone technology. Now if you want to add video to your page you either have to add a complicated script to your page, embed a YouTube video or have to open it in a separate application such as Windows Media Player. The former is not easy and the latter two lack professional polish. HTML5's new <video> tag will solve that problem. At the moment no one can agree on what video format to use. Eventually they will work that out and when they do making and distributing television programs will be within the reach of everyone who can make videos and write HTML.

With the introduction of IE9 even Microsoft is getting on board with most of HTML's newer elements. Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari have complied to most HTML5 standards for some time.

HTML5 is not just the future of web design, it's the present.