Browsing through Digg today, I came across a great example of how designers develop a series of pictures to end up with something truly beautiful.
If you have ever dabbled with design, you’ll appreciate just how clever this is. Hats off to Taylor James, the Photographic Retouchers…
Yahoo have announced they have made changes to there index last weekend.
Why is this important?
Search engines don’t actually search the internet in real time, what they do is pre-search websites and build a database to all the pages they have found – this is the index.
When you type a search into Yahoo, Google, or any other search engine you’re actually searching the search engine database, or index, this is what returns the results.
As you can imagine a change to the search engines index can effect how well your site ranks in that search engine.
Changes like this can take some time to settle down and during this time search results may fluctuate from day to day.
If you are concerned by the performance of your site in the major search engines either drop a comment to this post or contact us here.
Hotxt is launched today. It’s a subscription based text messaging service, which uses the internet to send your messages.
Co founder Doug Richard (the American guy, who is on the Dragon’s Den panel), seems to think the service can save users hundereds of pounds a year, “SMS text messaging typically costs 5-12p per message whereas the Hotxt user’s average text message cost is a fraction of a penny,” states the firm’s online literature.
“For someone sending seven texts a day that represents a reduction of their bill by 75 per cent, a saving of over £210 per year.”
Rather than paying per text message, this service offers unlimited texts after paying a one off fee of £1 per week.
I’ve just subscribed and have to say the install and subscription was smooth and very simple. Like with Skype, you just need most of your contacts on the service as well, to really benefit.
Three out of every four UK searches are made using Google. That’s the latest statistic, which has been produced, independently, by WebSideStory.
These figures, which state that the UK are bigger ‘Googlers’ than the Americans (UK 74.67, USA 55.39%), will have a major impact on companies that are looking to drive traffic to their website. Basically, if you are not listed in Google in the UK, you will be missing out on threequarters of the UK searchers.
The other search engines really did feature poorly:
U.K. Search Engine Market Share, February 2006
| U.K. Search Engine | Search Engine Referral Share |
| 74.67% | |
| Yahoo | 9.30% |
| MSN | 5.46% |
| AOL | 4.21% |
| Ask Jeeves | 2.28% |
AOL’s planned charges for sending emails to their email users is facing pressure from businesses and individuals around the internet.
There are many groups now opposing the charges which are due to begin testing later this month (see previous post).
One such organisation is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who now have well over 500 organisations supporting their petition to prevent the charges. You can add your organisation or individual name to the petition here.
The stakes seem to be higher in the USA, the matter got several column inches in the New York Times. The column itself has caused controversy, ZDNet blog on this matter very well here “DearAOL.com coalition tangles with Esther Dyson over Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail approach to spam eradication“.
Google were ordered by the courts to hand over search data to the US Government.
Unlike AOL, MSN and Yahoo, Google had held back from releasing any data to the US Government. They formally rejected demands to comply with the request stating “The request would violate the prvacy of its users and reveal secrets to their competitors”.
The government initially asked for potentially billions of addresses, later reducing the requet to just 50,000 web addresses and 5,000 seacrh terms. The government wanted this data to help prevent access to online pornography, and understand how easy it is to ‘stumble’ upon pornography online.
However this week, the court forced Googles hand. Google handed over the 50,000 web addresses, but were not required to release details of search terms.
Google viewed the outcome as a success. From a PR point of view, they seem to once again get one over on their rivals and hit the headlines again.
Following my last post, a reader sent this short clip in…. Microsoft Motivates
And another….. Developers
I’ve heard many motivational speeches before, but this guy – Microsofts CEO… well take a look.
Keep them coming, all good examples will be posted on this blog.
A recent viral email doing the rounds, shows a short video demonstrating Microsofts branding strengths! View the video here and a news piece about it.
My recent post regarding the accessibility guidelines, has obviously had some impact with the BSI (well i’d like to think it was down to me).
For anyone wanting a copy of the guidelines they are now available to order and download online. I still think that for an awareness document it should be free, however the price is £30 + VAT (£35.25).
lastminute.com have admitted that their recent email marketing message was inaproppriate. Inappropriate? That’s an understatement.
Their email marketing message, was sent to their subscribers advertsising children’s shows in London’s West End, with two young boys faces and the headline….
“Doing it for the kids. Like Gary Glitter in a sweet shop, you too can have your pick of kiddy treats in London’s theatre world”.
Perhaps this was lastminute.com’s new group marketing directors way of gaining publicity? Niall McKinney, previously of ‘Lad Mags’ Loaded and Nuts, joined the firm earlier this year.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) stated: “We considered the reference to a registered sex offender in conjunction with images of children in an ad for children’s theatre was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.”
Lastminute said it had withdrawn the ad with immediate effect and had no plans to use the promotion again. How gracious of them.
