Google, its new Augmented Reality service, and what it could mean for your product documentation

Google has launched its first Augmented Reality application – one that could affect greatly the field of technical documentation in the future. This is probably the most significant announcement in this field since Cherryleaf first began discussing augmented reality and its potential impact on technical documents back in 2008. In 2008, we said: There could be a time where… Read more »

Ten trends in technical communication for 2010 and beyond

Happy New Year! Let’s take the opportunity to look forward into 2010 and beyond. Here are, in no particular order, ten predictions to consider. As we’ve talked about some of these on our blog before, we’ve included links to these earlier posts. 1. The battle between the “Engineering” and “Craft” schools of thought within technical… Read more »

Words of 2009

Here is a very unscientific list of words we’ve spotted coming into favour within the popular media during the past 12 months: Adjectives and adverbs Hefty Uber Trending Nouns A disconnect An ecosystem The Millennials (or the millennial generation) The Outliers Augmented Reality Verbs Hat tip (seen as “H/T”  or “HT” in messages on Twitter and… Read more »

Once more, but with meaning – how will the Semantic Web affect technical documentation and technical authors?

Web technologies expert, John Fintan Galvin, is claiming 2010 will be the year of the Semantic Web, when semantic technologies really take off. If that is the case, how could it be used by technical communicators to deliver better user assistance? The Semantic Web is all about the automation of connections between “resources” in a context-sensitive way…. Read more »

Your future as a republisher

Visualisation Magazine has created a diagram showing how you can use Web 2.0 tools to increase the number of readers of your content – “building an online presence”. It shows the extent to which content can be republished today, through free sites, Web feeds and embedded content. It also shows how you can monitor and receive statistical information on its progress. So why keep… Read more »