There is little doubt that patents are driving innovation. However, those same patents can hinder the progress if applied incorrectly.

Wikis have been a hot topic this year, and most of the stories about them have been both positive and optimistic. Everybody likes wikis, a lot of individuals (and businesses and organizations) want them. But a recent open peer review experiment at the scientific journal Nature has failed, and some people are now second-guessing the model.

Over the years, many entrepreneurs have told me about one problem they found very difficult to solve.

Critics of the US Patent Office get their chance to put their expertise where their blogs are and participate in a new peer review initiative aimed at finding patents that are obvious creations and thus not qualified for a patent.

The SEO Consultants Directory is a useful resource for search marketers and potential clients of SEM firms.

Matthew Gertner: Why Autolink (and Greasemonkey) is evil: They may provide fleeting satisfaction, but anything close to widespread adoption is going to create a big mess.

I took a look at kiyonna.com and had a few thoughts to share. My first thought, even when I first saw the thumbnail link on webpro was that it was a porn site. The women are in such “vampy” moods and so intimate with each other, it definitely does not say clothes to me. It is OK, but I think it might make some people feel like the site is not for them. Even when I went to the home page it took me a bit to grock that the site was for womens clothes.

Overall I like the design and layout and I think it works well. The colors give it a very classy look and suggests a high-quality product. The product page seems very intuitive and I am a big fan of the “We also recommend..” cross-sell approach. I think this sets the stage for a functional shopping cart, which maximizes impulse puchasing trends. I think this a great design. It is easy to use and again, very intuitive.

Not all peer reviewers write extensive reviews. Here are the short comments received, which can be just as useful as lengthy ones.

I’m going to make this fairly quick as there are so many fundamental things wrong with this site technically, it’s difficult to know where to begin. I guess I’ll start with file size. The home page is over 240 KB. Although, it currently ranks as sixth in a Google search for “felt”, this puts a stake through the heart of many of their potential visitors. The vast majority of visitors are still using dial-up modems and many of those aren’t even 56 K. That means this site takes over a minute for the average visitor to load the Home page. Most of this is due to the over 200 KB used for images, but even the HTML coding is over 30 KB by itself.

I had the opportunity to take a look at The Felt Source, and would like to offer the following comments.

Thank you for inviting me to evaluate your website. I have worked on this with the checklist on http://www.waller.co.uk/usability16.htm.

This website appears to follow the motto of form follows function. Overall, I think the site serves its primary purpose very well, providing its product to consumers. However, the web design leaves something to be desired. Here are some areas I thought could use improvement:

When I first saw the name, I thought – well I do a lot of sewing, this might be a site I would enjoy reviewing. Then I read that it was for educational toys. I decided to look anyway, and I found a number of neat items, if I was a teacher, or a parent of small children I could understand how the kits that were advertised would be of benefit. I did find a number of things about the web site, that I would like to comment on.

I took a few minutes to look at The Felt Source. I only have a couple of comments. Overall, it had a good “feel” for me. I am an amateur webmaster so I tried to look at the site as a prospective buyer.

Browser Compatibility.
The page works nicely in Explorer, Mozilla, and Opera. It passed my first hurdle.

The Felt Source needs some quality control.

In our peer reviews, readers offer their unique perspectives on the design of a reader’s site. This time around the review is of The Felt Source, and educational toy company. Check out the critiques readers had to offer and use their ideas to improve your own site.

What did DevWebPro readers have to say about Toolup.com? Read on to find out. You’ll find some great tips for your own site, including tips on navigation – some written by professional Web designers.

Short comments can be just as helpful as lengthy analyses. Here are the short items sent in by readers regarding the Toolup.com site:

On the whole I think the site is laid out well, is functional and simple, however there are a few niggles that I have about it. The site loads nice and quickly and only needs a few minor changes.

On first glance, and during the initial loading of the site, (approx 1 minute) the “left column” overlaps onto the main body of the page, which was a little disconcerting for about a minute or so (Looking at the site through a 56Kbs modem connection) but then pops into place with no overlaps once fully loaded. That was a relief! Once all the java is loaded moving around your site is pretty quick.