Podcast: Paul Walsh, Segala

06-12-2006

by Tom Raftery

Tom's guest on this episode of Podleaders is Paul Walsh. Paul is the CEO of Segala, a Certificate Authority for web accessibility, providing a certificate and trustmark to help website owners demonstrate commitment to web standards and compliance with legislation.

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Segala has just released a new Firefox plugin called Search Thresher. Search Thresher allows users to selectively find websites which claim conformance to standards and best practices in standard web searches using a method called Content Labelling.

Tom invited Paul to come on the show to explain:

Paul, can you start off by giving us some background on yourself: who is Paul Walsh and how did you come to be CEO of Segala? And what does Segala do? - 02:07

You were talking about web accessibility and web standards. Why are they important? - 03:37

Oh? It is a legal requirement in some countries to have your site accessible? - 04:57

So commercially, the argument for accessibility has more to do with search engine optimisation than to do with accessibility... - 05:54

What about web standards then, is that different from accessibility? - 07:05

If I am a web designer, where is the best place to go to get information on accessibility and web standards? - 08:05

There are online validators which can validate a site to see if it is accessible or web standards compliant; is that the kind of thing you are talking about? - 10:58

So who do you go to to get your site certified? - 12:32

Once a site is verified, isn't that just a snapshot in time? I mean, sites that are frequently updated -- what are the chances that a new article will break the site's compliance? - 14:21

You are about to launch a plugin for Firefox to help in this process, can you talk a bit about that? - 16:34

Do you want your plugin to become redundant and its functionality to be plugged directly into search engines? - 22:15

Have you been talking to the search engines about their taking in the functionality of your plugin, and if so, what was their reaction? - 24:12

And finally, will Segala be targeting RSS search engines and will the plugin work for RSS search engines? - 25:58

All content, including audio interviews is copyright of Tom Raftery of Podleaders.com. Tom is a podcaster, blogger and web marketing expert and is available for freelenace or full-time projects. You can see Tom's skills set here.