For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s a micro-blogging platform that allows users to broadcast 140 character posts (aka ‘tweets’).

You can expect to read tweets about the conferences and events we’re attending, webinars we’re holding, white papers we’re writing, trends in the industries we’re following, as well as the technologies that have piqued our interest. (Yes, we’re busy people here at INM!)

It’s not all about us though. If you’re on Twitter, please add us. We’d love to hear from you. Ask us questions. Send us links to articles. Share your knowledge. Give us feedback. We’re here and listening to you.

RIA runtime engines are all the rage and Google has now thrown its hat into the ring with the release of Native Client, an open-source technology for running x86 native code in web applications. This is already done today by Adobe Flash Player, MS SilverLight, Java and other less popular technologies on the market. In many cases, these alternate solutions offer more features and better performance than Native Client promises.

All in all, Google wanted to take a stab at solving the problem of how to manage local resources on a computer without the limitations of ECMAscript in a web page or the web browser's sandbox.

Those who have been in the industry for a while may relate this Web Browser / Native Client interdependency to Director / Xtras, and may also remember that Adobe had always deflected the industry's request to support Xtras in Flash. On the other hand, we can also recall the rise and demise of ActiveX Controls for Internet Explorer back during the time of Microsoft's plans for world domination. Not that I believe that there was anything wrong with their ambition either.

Let's also mention that Google Gears, Google's native extension to web browsers that implements features such as: database functionality and geolocation among others, is a specific instance of what can be developed with Native Client.

Google’s Native Client comes with the hefty promise of “faster, more powerful web apps.” Competition is always good in the sense that it brings new ideas to the industry and keeps incumbents awake, but so far, it looks like Google's Native Client has a long way to go to even start to be a threat to Adobe or Microsoft.

In the past several weeks, there’s been a lot of buzz about measuring usability and user experience. A recent posting on the Site Point blog, provided suggestions about "5 Ways to Get Usability Testing on the Cheap". I appreciate that the author prefaces his post by saying that the proposed solutions "...might not be quite as good, but they won’t hurt your pocketbook nearly as much." It’s important to set up the expectation that just as you won’t be able to make a jaguar out of a Siamese kitten, these low cost alternatives will provide you with decent feedback, but they aren’t as robust as what traditional user testing experience provides.

Products such as Silverback, UserTesting.com, Feedback Army, and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, among others, offer a range of services that span from text-based surveys and written questionnaires all the way to video reports of users talking their way through their interaction with your website and recording user interactions via facial reactions, screen clicks and other such navigational behaviors.

In looking at usability testing, the available alternatives can be roughly broken out into:

1. Classical testing by experts in the field who are specialized in evaluating user behaviors and developing customized solutions based on their client’s requirements.
2. Analysis via tools such as Google Analytics and Site Meter
3. Low cost solutions such as those mentioned above

Having a wide selection of tools to choose from is ideal, rather than being forced to purchase services that may not necessarily be suitable for your web project. Some of these low cost solutions are a perfect way to gain a snapshot of how a site or specific application is functioning.

However, low cost options shouldn’t necessarily be considered a full replacement for user experience analysis for large-scale websites or those sites requiring complex interactions. For these, it is still recommended to "consult a licensed professional".

As a Product Manager for INM’s eLibrary solutions, the launch of the massive European eLibrary project, Europeana, last week certainly piqued my interest. After hearing about this project months ago, I was curious to see it go online and to gauge the reaction.

The developers of the site launched with over two million documents, images, video and audio clips chronicling the continent's culture and history, from 27 participating countries. Initial estimates for site traffic were expected to reach up to 5 million hits per hour, but by 24 hours after the launch, the actual figures were over three times this volume, bringing the site crashing down.

Some would say that Europeana was a victim of its own success. However, to me, it seems unusual that a site of this magnitude with millions of users and millions of documents would opt for a hosting model that depends on fixed servers with a fixed capacity, especially today when flexible-scale Cloud offerings offer a viable alternative.

If the developers of Europeana had entertained using Amazon S3 for storage, or EC2 for greater scalability, the site may still be up and running. A valuable lesson indeed for any content provider that is looking to launch a project of this scale – be sure to look at all the options and plan for the "what if" scenarios or you too could be managing a massive PR challenge instead of a successful launch.