Rod Hayes and the search Flash problem

Rod Hayes writes about the web when announcing a new forum in Print and Paper Monthly. Apparently this will be a regular feature in the print edition.

There appears to be no plan for an online equivalent and there is little enthusiasm for social networking software. Sites such as Facebook and MySpace "..are full of the minutiae of people's lives most of which turns dullness into something of an art form, but these sites serve up little of value other than occasional titillation."

Rod has tried to find advice about 'blanket pressure' through a Google search but gave up after 20 links of the 220,000 provided.

Could I suggest that a possible reason for this is that the printing industry has not fully considered the best ways to maximise visibility on the web? For example Print and Paper Monthly may have had an article about blanket pressure but all the pages on back issues are presented as Flash so there is no way they will show up on a search engine.

Presenting the content of a print magazine online is a step towards the web but web design can go beyond simply reproducing the print layout. It is claimed that there is a weakness in the web "due to the way the sites are not capable of responding to specific questions or queries and the conclusion must be that the written word is still king." For "written word" read "print" presumably.

Actually there are some websites with chat. There is some rudeness but often an exchange of advice and experience. YouTube has examples of guitar playing with closeups on exact finger positions by request for specific tunes. Perhaps there will be a record of adjusting blanket pressure sometime soon.

So there may be further developments on the paperandprint.com site eventually. Meanwhile comment is welcome on this post.