Topic: The Internet and the World Wide Web

Designing websites is different from traditional media such as print and television. In spite of the usability guidelines being fairly well known, some of the common mistakes recur even on popular sites. Designers need to be careful and follow these guidelines to improve a website's interface. Web-usability guru Jakob Nielsen speaks with Larry Magid about designing websites that capture and sustain the user's attention. [Larry's World audio from IT Conversations.]

The time is right to explore your own Internet TV or radio station. Get ready to reach out to the world through podcasting and video blogging. Listen to Lisa Williams and Ryanne Hodson discussing "Get Your Word Out: Audio/Video-casting" at the BlogHer 2005 conference. [BlogHer 2005 audio from IT Conversations]

It may have his first name in its title, but the service founded by Craig Newmark is more the result of its community of posters and readers than it is of those who run it. Now in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, that community has found ways to utilize this amazing resource to help the victims. Craig's List is now one of the best ways for people in the Gulf Coast region to find places to stay and ways to get there. The site is also helping displaced and relocated people locate one another. [Larry's World audio from IT Conversations.]

As blogging becomes a more popular and important publishing medium, many bloggers disagree on some fundamental aspects of its very nature. In this discussion from BlogHer, women bloggers question whether they need to compete with male bloggers on the men's terms, or if their goals and needs are fundamentally different. In a discussion that will resonate with any blogger who isn't a household name, Charlene Li and Halley Suitt spark a debate about how women bloggers define and achieve success. [BlogHer 2005 audio from IT Conversations]

Who owns the internet? This may seem like a meaningless question; of course the internet isn't "owned" by anyone. But without some knowledge of the arrangements under which packets are moved from one network to another, the foundations of the global infrastructure remain hidden and consumers have no way of knowing the commercial factors that frame the accessibility of bandwidth. This is one of many policy questions discussed in the Policy Workshop Panel from Supernova 2005. [Supernova 2005 Audio from IT Conversations]

Tim O'Reilly and Nathan Torkington speak about cool things happening in tech world. Commoditisation of software and selling software as a service is changing the tech industry. They speak about products that threaten to change the way the web works and influence the everyday lives of ordinary people. [O'Reilly Open Source Convention audio from IT Conversations]

Now ten years old, and with 975,000 independent vendors, Amazon.com is one of the classic long-tail online companies. Its new CTO, Werner Vogels, talks openly with Halley Suitt about the company, their policies for making data available to others (while protecting customers' privacy, and the state of search engines. Werner says that search is still in its infancy, but it's like dancing bears: the novelty alone makes it look pretty good. Internally, Amazon.com is "organized chaos," deploying small teams to implement new systems. Externally, they've learned valuable lessons from the knowledge of their customers'reviews to build out a large-scale network of shared intelligence. [Memory Lane with Halley Suitt audio from IT Conversations]

Some bloggers bare all on their weblogs. What are the costs and benefits of getting naked before the whole world and how do bloggers balance their responsibilities to their readers and their families? A panel of women bloggers discuss these issues in this Q & A session. [BlogHer Conference audio from IT Conversations]

In this second part of an evening with John Markoff at the SDForum Distinguished Speaker Series, Bill Duvall, Lee Felsenstein, Dennis Allison and Larry Tessler follow-up with John and explore the beginnings of the PC revolution.

Robert Scoble is a Microsoft technical evangelist, but is most know as the world famous "Scobleizer" blogger. He discusses his early days of blogging and how his blogging at Microsoft was often risky. He also explains how blogging is proving to be a valuable corporate communications tool. Robert discusses other important issues such as Windows Vista, podcasting, weblog search, opml and attention.xml. [Web Talk audio on IT Conversations]