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download.<br />
When you make video for the web, though, you have some technical things<br />
to worry about. You should really make any video content available in three<br />
formats: Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, and QuickTime. Video authoring<br />
tools will save in all three formats, but it can often be complicated to write<br />
scripts that let users choose between these players and load them: you need<br />
to consider this when you design the website.<br />
If push comes to shove, you need to be prepared for a segment of your<br />
audience to be just plain unable to view your video content, no matter how<br />
hard you try. For this reason, I would recommend that you make a text<br />
version of anything you say in a video available as a 'can't see this?' link, after<br />
you've offered some troubleshooting advice for common video problems.<br />
You might also consider taking screenshots of the video and making them<br />
available as static images, so that people who can't see the video aren't just<br />
forced to read a huge chunk of text.<br />
Chapter 29: Opening a Web Shop with E-Commerce<br />
Software.<br />
If you have products to sell, then your number one reason for starting a<br />
website is likely to be promoting them. Have you considered, though, that<br />
you could sell your products directly, online? This is e-commerce – basically<br />
like a much better version of mail order, where the descriptions can be any<br />
length and your customers can communicate with you as much as they like<br />
before they buy. To start up an e-commerce 'web shop', however, you need<br />
to take a look at e-commerce software.<br />
The Free and the Expensive.<br />
E-commerce software, more than any other kind of web software, varies<br />
massively in price. There are e-commerce solutions out there that cost<br />
thousands of dollars, but at the same time there is open source software like<br />
osCommerce that you can download for nothing. What's the difference? In<br />
my experience, very little.<br />
If you want to make a good profit from your website, then, you should really<br />
be looking at the free e-commerce solutions, or alternatively writing your<br />
The Web Design Guide for Newbies |99
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