LIKEtoKNOW.it connects Instagram fans to the eCommerce websites selling the gear they want to buy.
Could be a way to monetise your website further? Pity it looks like SPAM.
Training is a growing thing in our business, and Special Ed is my favourite.
OK... we all get UX and good UX. Time to take it to the next level and take the conversion rewards that await us.
Give users what they want and you'll get what you deserve.
My experience with Telstra International Roaming is a case study of why you not only need to map your customer journeys and experiences, though you need to experience them for yourself... and observe real customers doing the same.
Truth be known, I was so excited to stumble upon these numbers that I started writing my blog before I finished reading the original article. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm ended up fairly muted by the time I finished reading, though here is my blog anyway: for people who are excited by metrics like me, however high-level and inapplicable they might be.
Help your customers change tact and add that product to cart through knowing what their doing and for how long.
Experience is great though every website needs a baseline. And that baseline is established by testing all reasonable hypothesis.
People are resizing browser windows. Which we knew and know but still... wow, they're resizing browser windows.
We shop differently at Christmas. We're moving quickly and buying for lots of people. Speed and confidence is what it is all about.
The relationship is over. They have unsubscribed from your email. Something went wrong. Don't miss out on your last gasp chance to change their mind or get a sale.
How we 'design' websites has changed considerably. So to then should the sort of websites and online businesses we are designing.
It goes without saying that you should be honest in your content. It is even better if you acknowledge your weaknesses and your website will thank you for it.
Check out this video I found today. Maybe show it to some of your friends.
User testing and validation during the Lean UX process complements more traditional testing approaches and makes the whole testing approach and outcome better.
Website migration is not talked about nearly enough. I'd argue it is much more important than your new website.
MVP gets spoken off plenty these days, though unless you’re an Internet guy or girl, you’ll need additional tools to allow you to achieve it. The ‘value proposition’ is the most important of these tools, backed by the lean UX process.
They have money. They want to be on the web. We just need to help them so.
Google wants everyone to SSL their website. And it has means and ways to get you to do it...
Start dusting off those old email lists you spent years curating. The good ol' days are back.
Its hould be as ubiquitous in the vocabulary of a marketer as 'CMS', 'cloud' and 'viral'. Unfortunately, it often isn't.
There is no right or wrong way to manage clients, web designers and design feedback. Groundwork, baby-steps, helping each other and remaining friends is a pretty good start though.
When you have a 60MB connection at work, 4G on the streets and the NBN in your apartment, it is hard to contemplate how slow the Internet is for so many... and how to design websites for the slow Internet.
The Google Trusted Stores program is the latest effort to boost trust in users in purchasing from a given, authenticated eCommerce website. It goes further than any efforts out there.
Security is fine thought daftness is daftness. Think about your own crudball experience when you design a login and password recovery experience.
Gamification really could be about games if content marketing and content strategy keep advancing the way they are.
Hopefully you never have to take your 'dark site' out of the dark, though they are a necessary type of website for certain businesses and organisations.
Get it right and your email open-rate will be optimal.
Monitoring your website's performance isn't just about knowing if it is on or not. It is about knowing the real-time experience you are delivering to your users; and the sales you are losing when the experience is sub-optimal.
According to the latest NAB Online Sales Index, Australian eCommerce sales have passed $15bn for the first time, growth of 6% over the year. The concern is a recent slow-down in-line with depressed consumer confidence.
Time heals some wounds, though not all are forgotten. Step back five years and as web developers, we had to deal with different sorts of problems, which ultimately only made us stronger.
Form design is critical to website conversion. We have some golden rules as web designers and it is a brave soul that challenges these rules.
Talking of Web 2.0 is like wearing Reebok Pumps and Hypercolour T-shirts. Once upon a time however, Web 2.0 was all the rage.
Turns out that the fundamentals of the constitution of a good website haven't changed much in the past six years. In fact, it is surprising how little has.
An oldie but a goldie: build your website for your users, not your business and its departments.
Retargeting can present a great and effective way to bring previously-visited customers back to your website. It can also look dumb.
The cycles are getting shorter, the buzzwords have changed. What did I hear our clients talking about in 2013? Bring on 2014!
Christmas wouldn't be Christmas at Wiliam without our annual Christmas T.
sitecast cannot be killed. And nor would we want too!
Consistent and growing content equals traffic and leads. Turns out there comes a point where the reward grows much faster than your increasing content efforts. This is a good thing.
Content now sits in the cloud and your website retrieves it via a Web Service.
Most savvy web marketers know that there is a correlation between speed and the conversion characteristics of a website; here’s proof from one of our clients.
Infinite scrolling makes the web and your web pages nice and fluid. Unfortunately, this comes with some challenges you need to deal with in order to gain the maximum benefit and none of the downside.
Bag them out, though most users love infographics and they can have a really positive aspect on your website, its traffic and its conversion.
Gmail has rolled out its new tabbed inbox and your marketing emails have moved. Things you need to know and you can and can’t do about it.
3D printing has very little to do with web design... maybe that's why we have one in the office!
You can hardly even call it a trend anymore... mobile is the new king.
Sure your website can be improved, though it’s not the only culprit.
This breakdown of what email subject lines work (and don't work) are gold.
Call them what you will; User Agreements or Terms of Agreement. How you ‘wrap’ and handle them can be a big deal if you play it wrong.
Our arsenal of old-skool website ‘conversion’ tricks is starting to weaken; and even the much promoted concept of ‘social proof’ is seemingly taking a hit.
Like advertising where they only show the advertiser’s message for a single frame – surreptitious advertising – Outbrain is that single moment link you might see between web pages, though one that promises to serve better content.
When it comes to ‘conversion’, you’ll never know what will work on a web page or not, unless you test it. If you had to make a call however, bigger images might be one of the safer bets.
Users think differently to us owners and designers of websites.
This is a very cool technology to let you visualise what is happening on your eCommerce website in realtime.
Sad as it is, RSS failed because you probably don’t know what it is.
The smartphone was made for email. It's just a pity that so little email is made for the smartphone.
Access your smartphone's camera through your browser.
Apps were great before we worked out this whole 'mobile web' thing. We're past working it out. And apps need to go.
There are some very specific principals for when it comes to 'lean'. If you build your start-up or existing web business against the principals of MVP (Minimum Viable Product), you're being about as lean as you can get.
We can learn a lot by looking back at how retailers – almost a hundred years ago – did it.
An example of poor usability… and a missed usability opportunity.
Reviews are great. Testimonials less so. Realign how you use testimonials to your advantage.
Take a mum, hand her a mobile phone and she'll shop online. Make sure your website is ready for it.
There are certain fundamentals in the design of your eCommerce website you just shouldn't mess with.
Building an online channel means you need to invest in dedicated resources to look after it. It is not a matter of set-and-forget.
The 404 page of your website is your chance to amend wrongs… and get users back on track.
The tide will turn and we will probably bore of them at some stage – as with every Internet invention – though for the time being, Infographics are a low-cost and quick way to spike traffic and build SEO momentum.
I know what a photo is. I don't need it in a virtual photo frame. Web design is online, not an offline concept.
Pinterest might not be making money, though it sure has a lot of users.
Whilst it is true that traffic to a website is central to the success of the website, the only more important factor is how the website converts its traffic: essentially the usability of the website. Posting SPAM to a website in order to gain rankings in Google is a short-term game... and a fairly self-defeating one at that.
The term 'Omni-Channel' sounds ugly because it is. Nowhere in conversation do we talk of 'omni' and that's because we're neither Octypus, nor understand what the concept of 'Omni' means. Retailers who talk of it don't either. Run...
HTML isn't the silver bullet to the problems of the web. It doesn't add the sparkle many think it does. And it's not ready for commercial use...
Know your the Internet like the back of your hand? Take the Wiliam Internet Quiz.
301 Redirects separate the men from the boys. They show that you know what you're doing. And yet so few web developers use them when launching new websites for their clients. (Dear Client, this means you are going to lose out big time...)
Two-column forms are tricky for users. They do however come with theoretical upside and so is there a way to make them less tricky for your website users to navigate and complete? I hope so.
There is undeniably a digital economy in Australia. And now there is going to be digital disruption to follow. You can run, but you can't hide.
Paginated website content can be dull; we scan through lists and lists of results to find the article or page we need and then we’re out of there. You can change this behaviour for the better.
These stats aren’t amazing if you work in the web industry. In fact, they don’t reveal anything that extraordinary. Except that the divide is beginning.
My quick round-up of web stats with a few surprises.
Getting people to the end-goal of your website is a science, with a dash of art; a dash of <b>incentive</b>, a pinch of <b>value</b> and a good helping of <b>motivation</b> should keep the bitterness of <b>anxiety</b> and the <b>saltiness</b> of friction away.
Even I am guilty of simply referring to her as ‘Mum’, the all-powerful, all-consuming driver of mainstream eCommerce. Turns out, it’s a little complex than that.<br><br>Who would have thought!
Forms are the make or break of a website. Getting them right is not easy though it isn't hard.
I accept this has absolutely nothing to do with web design, though I'm a Woody Allen fan and I had nowhere else to post this quote.
We’re past the halfway mark for 2012 and the numbers grow and grow.
They might look small and simple, though Facebook applications are quite literally websites themselves and are no different to build.
Based on who you are and how you act can entirely vary the price you pay online... Well, on sophisticated websites anyway.
Unless you're lucky and the small minority, chances are you're stuck with supporting older versions of Internet Explorer even as the web tries to pull away.
We spend hours sculpting the headers and homepages of our websites. And especially the homepage. We spend almost no time on the footer. This should be reversed. Or at least equalled.
Websites die. Knowing what causes it and how to deal with it can make the death and the mourning much less painful. And bring around resurrection faster.
The website is beautifully architected. It looks beautiful. The content is amazing. The website is slow however. Really slow. Fail.
Mobile website versus Mobile app? Build a mobile website. Not an app. Unless you really, really have to.
A revolution in how we find, compare and book restaurants in Australia has arrived.
The money is not in an eCommerce website. It’s in an optimised eCommerce website.
I was accused of being ‘phonist’ the other day when I made a few observations about the browsing habits, or lack thereof, of Android users.
Microsites can be argued to be a crutch, though they are often necessary and can bring much more to the table than simply band-aiding the inadequacies of your primary website.
Statistics and common sense point to increasing open rates for emails on mobile devices. And declining click-through rates if you don’t optimise.
I reckon Facebook picked up Instagram, not because Instagram is growing, though because Pinterest is growing much faster.
Great microsite example of how quickly you can get online and sell
Google might have an answer to the Pay-wall. Less revenue per user, though more users. You will need to do the maths.
Talk about shortening the funnel and making Google richer.
Users can be your best friend and your worst enemy. Guessing when they’re friend or foe requires an understanding of what users do and do not know about online. And therein lies the challenge.
You no longer need to guess which A/B test might have produced better results.
I’ve argued it for a while, though apps are not the future. The web is… as always.
We wrote it off. We put our eggs in the social media basket. Seems we were wrong.
Wiliam has been through the Middle East, the States and most of Europe. Now we’re back in Asia.
Optimising your website for search engines is important, though not at the cost of your customers and conversion.
The benefits of Facebook’s Facepile on your website are tepid at best. It promotes Facebook and hogs the space of an MREC on your homepage.
We spend hours sitting around thinking about how to optimise our eCommerce websites. Maybe we should ask the people using the website, the customers.
Get pinning. Pinterest could be very relevant to your business, in terms of content, audience and especially, referral.
Two great links showing how adaptive design works.
Microsites are often misunderstood and poorly executed. A proper strategy and a good implementation can yield great results.
We’re only a month in, though a few trends are staking themselves quite clearly.
Amazon gives you $15 to buy from them; screws local stores in the process.
It wouldn’t be Christmas without the Wiliam Christmas t-shirt. (And eggnog)
Vladimir Putin is my favourite leader at the moment. He is the gift that keeps on giving. Fighting bears and crocodiles, riding horses and motorbikes, shirtless. What next?
If the estimates are true, almost a third of high-value clothing will be sold online by 2016.
It’s as if people are shunning their fixed PCs at home and browsing on their mobiles and tablets. Oh wait, they are. And in taxies, on buses and while waiting for a beer at the pub.
If you don’t have a mobile website, 25% of your potential customers can’t engage with you.
100 customers come to buy a pram on your website. 3 do. Where did the rest go and how many left in the cart process? (Statistically, 75% of people in the cart process bailed from it.)
We’ve just launch the Develop My Skills website and the end-result is excellent. A really good looking and intuitive website with some clever user-targeting functions to improve leads to the business.
One of our Experience Designers, Queron, does not like iPhone one bit. Its more about Apple and their policies and attitudes rather than the phone itself, though he does regard the locked-down OS inglorious and behind the innovation of Android.
We’re pretty excited to announce the launch of Winkiwoo, a Facebook application we’ve been developing for a client for the past few months.
If you are not considering mobile as part of your retail strategy, you’re really going to kick yourself if due course.
We’ve worked closely with Woolworths on key websites including Dick Smith, Big W and Dan Murphys for the past few years. The effort has been rewarded including Online Retailer of the Year for Dick Smith; best eCommerce website in Australia.
You website is only part of a successful online strategy. Getting customers is not as important as keeping customers, and good customer service has enormous long-term return. Failing to understand the importance (and costs) of online customer service can be detrimental.
The speed of your website has a direct correlation with its success
Users statistically click RHS calls-to-action more than LHS ones
Understanding your website’s stats in key to understanding its performance.
The idea that ‘less is more’ couldn’t be truer than when it comes to marketing emails.
We go out of our way to avoid and destroy SPAM and yet we’re glued to our Inbox looking for that email confirming our purchase. This is the perfect time for marketer’s to strike.
Getting the timing of your email right is pretty central to its success. Timing really boils down to common sense.
Get the “Launching Soon” page on your website, and you can launch with a veritable number of emails and interested users.
Is Quora a fad? Answer: Unless you know what Quora is – which is unlikely – the answer is yes.
Every business needs a model. And every business needs to make money, eventually. Online business is no different.
Online retailers will all tell you how important Christmas is to eCommerce; no different to traditional retail. This article in econsultancy.com illustrates the point. And the growth….
Try as you might, think what you like, you're stuck with your web developer.
A good and brief article picking the trends in Web Development in 2011.
The bigger your website and the more users it expects, the more important the load testing to make sure it can live up to its expectations.
"It was the best of times, it was the ‘blurst’ of times"?! (Simpsons Episode “Last Exit to Springfield” (1993)… If that quote from the Simpsons any sense to you, you’ll understand the paradigm of being a Web Producer.
Eight great User Experience Diagrams visualising the science behind users, their needs, wants and aspirations… and subsequent behaviour
The tide is turning. Page views will be down as a result, though only to their true level. Another commercial website ditches auto-refresh.
The fewer options and choices customers have, the happier they are.
In this age of high-resolution monitors – for designing and viewing websites – surely we have more room to design? Not yet.
The more pragmatic, cold and unemotional you are, the better your website will perform.
You’ve seen here everywhere promoting free Akai Berry trials through to deeply discounted iPads. The only problem is that not only are the ads and offers a scam, so it the girl behind them.
With the launch of Internet Explorer 89, Microsoft can finally launch its own HTML5 demonstration website
There is plenty of cool, unique, fun and damn impressive stuff online. This viral piece for a Nintendo Wii game – now almost 3 years old – still takes the cake for me.
Here’s to our client Cudo – they’ve cracked the Hitwise, fast moving search terms, under the ‘Shopping and Classifieds’ category – Week Ending September 11 2010
These statistics, pulled from some recent online automotive advertising research, are useful for anyone advertising online.
It is fair to say that the slow transition from HTML4 to HTML5 has begun. It is slow and without a clear direction, though more and more glimmers of HTML5 are appearing. It’s time to get your head around it.
Twitter’s URL shortener – t.co – will not only give incumbents such as bit.ly a real run for their money – it could mean much, much more for Twitter and its users.
Don’t leave your message or form to chance. Let users make the decision for you.
SPAM is no laughing matter, except when it’s funny.
If you’re not collecting email addresses and building your email list via the double opt-in method, don’t expect to email your list anytime soon.
#Hashtags allow you to be heard beyond your list of followers. And following terms on Twitter allows you to hear past the people you’re following.
HTML5 is coming, though when do you pull the trigger? Turns out, it all depends on who you're pointing at.
The inclusion of customer ratings and reviews in Vodafone Hutchison Electronic Direct Marketing (EDMs) improved the click-through rate of their emails by 40%.
As soon as you suggest Geo-IP as a ‘solution’ for identifying the whereabouts of a user (browser), the invariable question arises: does it work, is it reliable? A look into Geo-IP targeting..
I’m another month or so into FourSquare and it has certainly become an app I “use” at least once or twice a day. My blog however, questions why..
We’re in the process of scoping some different games and applications for a large, media client. As you can imagine, Twitter is going to play a role...
I spoke yesterday at the annual Photo Marketing Association (PMA) conference in Melbourne on ‘Maximising Your Business Online.’ It was an eventful day: my first flight was cancelled, my second flight was delayed and my return flight was hit by lightning.
A very good and succinct article in the Sydney Morning Herald today, pointing that News Limited strategy of “paywalling” their newspapers is a doomed strategy.
New Matilda – a superb and long-lasting, Australian independent news and commentary website – has announced that its closing its doors.
A handful of the websites are for large retailers that have never invested in eCommerce, and so really have no idea of what to expect in terms of eCommerce revenue. Offline, they know their margins...
Two separate clients asked me this week if we would be building their websites in HTML5...
I’ve listened to quite a few podcasts recently debating the merits of Twitter’s new Promoted Tweets, the concept that advertisers can essentially sponsor targeted tweets.
The advent of mobile applications – especially on the iPhone (which I’ll refer to for purposes of this blog) – has certainly been exciting for mobile users, app developers and the developers of the mobile devices themselves.
I downloaded Foursquare to my iPhone a month or so ago. I sort of knew what it was, though it is usually through using these things that you gain a fuller appreciation of what they are and how they work.
“Content is not just king, it’s the emperor of all…” – Rupert Murdoch
Mumbrella have a good article this morning breaking down Australia’s online traffic for the first quarter of 2010.
I know our blogs are meant to be anything but about Wiliam, though for sake of this blog, I am going to argue that by pitching the different jobs we’re hiring, we’re painting the ‘state of the nation’ in the Sydney/Australian web strategy/development/design market.
Search advertising rolls on, and a recent report confirms this. While not altogether surprising, the most expensive keyword terms in Google, Yahoo and Bing are interesting.
If you publish a blog or manage a forum, you’ve worked hard for the revenue you generate. Although there are numerous ways to generate income, you are probably receiving at least some part of your revenue through ads. While this has been a lucrative option in the past, an increasing number of users are finding ways to block ads, potentially diminishing your returns.
Your passwords are your virtual key to your online assets. Yet too often, these aren’t given a second thought. Anyone who obtains your password can essentially become you. In a matter of moments someone with ill intent can destroy the reputation of your business.
By now you’re probably familiar with the latest Internet Explorer security issues. If not you can review our previous post on the topic. Over the past few years there have been an increasing number of vulnerabilities in Internet browsers. When these issues occur the blame is always placed with the browser itself. However, there is another party that shares some responsibility.
No matter what industry you are in your website should be designed with specific goals in mind. Even if some high level goals, such as attracting new clients, are similar your approach should be tailored to your specific industry. How is a legal website different from others? What should it contain to ensure it is as successful as possible?
With the current economic climate looking somewhat bleak for 2009, companies are starting to shift their investment from traditional mediums to the web, where the cost per acquisition is lower and the results of the effort are measurable. By carefully planning their online marketing strategy, companies can realize large ROIs.
Given the current economic climate, companies are thinning their workforce. Yet the need to capture new customers through a dynamic web presence has never been greater. If you are looking for a way to do more with less then you should consider the benefits of outsourcing.
The upcoming presidential election in the United States is the first since Web 2.0 technologies have become widely used. Although both candidates have embraced these features, Barack Obama’s online success has been unprecedented.
Landing page design will ultimately affect cost-per-click and the conversion rate. Google also analyse the landing page to assess quality score. Here are some advice for you to consider when marketing online.
Google recently released a beta version of their new Internet Browser called Chrome in more than 100 countries but how does it compare to the cunning Firefox or the popular Internet Explorer?
Video content provides that fresh, interactive experience visitors are looking for. Additionally, video adds a lot more punch to promotions and marketing campaigns.
Dismiss any beliefs of what makes the best website. While there are no rules, in order to build the very best websites, your website should enhance users brand loyalty – your organisations online presence should compliment your offline endeavours.
One of the first Web 2.0 styled applications that has the capability to improve our social networking lives has arrived - The Blog RSS Feed Reader.
Fairfax Digital's Drive have launched research tracking the steps customers take towards buying a new or used car. And the media that influences their decisions along the way.
Engin, Australia’s leading broadband phone company, today launched its World 20 Plan enabling home and business users to make untimed phone calls to 20 international destinations for just 20 cents anytime.
Shocking fact for the guys!!! The survey conduct by Oxygen Media shows that woman are equally interest in technology as man.
Podcasting is no longer fringe marketing. Quite the opposite.
The power of blogging is now set to reach the mainstream press with the launch of BlogBurst, a blog syndication service from tech company Pluck.
“property executives now see the need for a useful Web site to streamline the rental process. Today, consumers can go online to apply for apartments, pay their rent, sign up for utilities, submit work orders and communicate with fellow residents.”
"As online job boards gain more volume, consumers will gravitate to them in even greater numbers. It's the kind of thing that, taken as a whole, hurts overall print newspaper sales, where you don't look in the Sunday classifieds anymore for job listings", said Murray.
An article in this week’s Sydney Morning Herald stated that “Online spending by Australians grew by over 30 per cent in the December quarter in the wake of businesses using the internet as a cost-effective selling tool”.
It was a matter of when, not if the Internet would develop legs. Development of - and Australian revenues from - mobile content are expected to utterly explode in the next three years, lead by entertainment, enterprise and productivity applcations.
The new HP.com homepage is colourful, creative and exciting, and achieves a lot with a little.
It seems that we're only scratching the surface when it comes to broadband. According to the Weekend AFR, ADSL2+ promises an experience like none other, and if adoption rates are anything to go by, an experience that is not too far away.
Globally, Travel is among the most positively Internet-affected industries, the benefits flowing to consumers and online operators equally. Traditional travel operators have experienced little benefit on the other hand, and according to an article in Technology Weekly, like never before, there exist tough and non-negotiable challenges for the likes of Flight Centre, Harvey Norman and Thomas Cook (among many, many others) in the new world of travel.
Today's generation of high-earning professionals maintain that their personal fulfilment comes from their jobs and the hours they work. They should grow up, says Thomas Barlow of The Financial Times.
Online advertising continues to grow and grow, and now it is within striking distance of its cousins, Radio and Magazine.
Australians are protected by a number of consumer laws at both the State and Federal (Commonwealth) level. International organisations looking to conduct business within Australia are have no fewer legal obligations than their Australian counterparts. Just ask the Regulator.
Being a super high mobile phone user, slaving away every day just to pay my exorbitant mobile phone bill every month, it is safe to say that I am eagerly awaiting the launch of the new Netgear Skype WiFi phone.
If the ABC's Triple J FM Station is anything to go by, 2005 was the year of the podcast.
10 years after the first online booking, the travel industry claims that 400 million people a year turn to the Internet to book their flights. The Internet also effects other sectors of the travel industry.
Smoke and mirrors, search engine marketing is a powerful, though often expensive and unrewarding mistress. The Top 5 myths of Search Engine Optimization and how to avoid a painful divorce.
2005 marked a turning point in online advertising, according to an article in ZDNet. 2006 looks even better.
Online shopping has grown expotentially in the twelve months between 2004 and 2005, with 2.3 million Australians now actively avoiding Christmas queues.
Google is a threat to basically just about everyone online, and in some cases, offline. Video, Classified, eCommerce, the list goes on. It could even mark a turning point in the Internet - the industry has been looking for the next generation in Internet thinking, adoption and development.
Pay Per Click Advertising vs Organic Search Results. Search engines are rapidly becoming an important part of a companies marketing mix and for some time there has been the question of the performance difference between Pay Per Click advertising vs Organic Seach Results.
The Internet has always been an American institution. But if Europeans their way, not for long.
Websites can drive business success, even for traditional businesses. Look at Ryanair, where a clear strategy and focus has delivered results, even in the tough airline industry.
Advertising and marketing have always been reliable barometers of economic activity, the first and fastest to soar, and the first and fastest to return. The Australian advertising marketing is expected to grow 5.5% in 2006; and Internet advertising a staggering 35.0%, the fastest medium, followed by Pay TV on 32.5% and Magazines at 4.5%. More interesting is that Internet advertising expenditure is now only $140m behind radio.
Podcasting is the next force in marketing and promotions. And measurability is the next force in podcasting.
The ringtone market continues to grow, much to the irritation of those that consider Silent too loud.
Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 1 is now available for download off the Firefox website. This is the first release candidate of the next generation Firefox browser scheduled to be released later this year. The Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate is being made available to the developer and testing community for compatibility testing and to solicit feedback.
Nobody questions that Public Relations is an important part of the marketing mix. But, argues Neil Shoebridge, the current crop of PR firms and specialists are poorly equipped to provide value, and in many instances, are actually a disservice to their clients,
Australians are spending more and more time online, and the faster our connections, the more time we spend.
The Nokia N-Series Mobile Phone microsite is an excellent example of modern, colourful website design with subtle animation and magazine quality imagery.
The new SecureTelecom Private IP microsite (Frame Killer) is an excellent example of how targeted microsites can be used as part of the marketing, promotions and advertising mix.
Google's technology delivers more relevant advertising. Users click on more ads, more of the time. Advertisers spend more with Google. Google invests more in its technology for delivering relevant advertising. You get the idea.
Peak Internet and Multimedia Development Body, the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) together with leading online Australian publishers have launched the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) to promote and further develop the Interactive Advertising and Marketing Industry.
Two recent studies have found that people are becoming tired of the impersonal nature of web-communications, and less trusting of online transactions.
Matt Cutts, a Google Engineer who has been at the search engine for over 5 years is considered the main liaison between Google and Webmasters. Matt who some regard as the Google Guy has been writing on his blog recently about last weeks updates called Jagger1 and Jagger2.
They are the group that Yahoo and the Neo Group claim will drive a boom in online purchasing in the next two years - 61 per cent of them have purchased over the internet, compared to 25 per cent of the general population.
Google Print aims to bring the world's books together in a single, indexed, searchable database. But its plans are are far from assured thanks to a number of lawsuits from publishers. CEO Eric Schmidt lays out Google's quite compelling case in favour of their plans.
The former independent federal member for Wills, Phil Cleary is now the voice of the Australian Electrical Trade Union podcast. Launched last month, the union’s podcast was designed to unite workers. “Podcasting is just a great way to communicate with our members” says Phil Cleary.
Sensis, a directories division of Telstra, has abandoned its Just Listed newspaper after only 12 months. Sensis general manager, Thomas Arthur, said the decision was prompted by “skyrocketing” demands for property ads online.
Yahoo released a white paper on RSS usage, and the findings are similar to other surveys in recent time. According to Yahoo approx 4% of total internet users are actually use RSS.
Yahoo entered the podcasting arena with the launch of Yahoo Podcasts, which is a new service for finding podcasts on the web.
With the rise and popularity of both personal blogs and corporate blogs, Jakob has published an article on Weblog Usability and The Top Ten Design Mistakes for blogs.
Macromedia's Flash technology has sometimes been unfairly limited - in the minds of some web designers at least - to animations. A clever animation at the expense of US president George Bush does not help this perception, though works for a quick laugh.
According to a recent study, a third of British teenagers (those between 14 and 21 years of age) have a blog, website or both. This research doesn't so much come as a suprise, and it reveals the shift in how the youth of today - versus the youth of yesterday - think of technology, themselves and their online identity.
Recently the CPA of Australia - Chartered Practicing Accountants published an article by Ed Charles, a freelance writer encouraging Australian accountants to start a blog and start blogging. The article discusses the basics of blogging as well as the rules of corporate blogging and the differences between a website and a blog. Surprisingly, a critical message from article is the lack of corporate blogs and CEO blogs in Australia
Nielsen NetRatings in New York recently reported that RSS users significantly read more online news than non RSS users, visiting an average of 10.6 news sites compared with 3.4 news sites for non users.
Yahoo who last month claimed that they had indexed over 19.2 billion. Google posed the question as to how many pages it has indexed. Instead of revealing the answers like it usually does on the Google homepage, they have decided to remove this figure and ask users to guess the number of pages it has indexed till date.Mr Schmidt at Google hinted that the index size would be three times the last shown amount (8,168,684,336).
It seems that while the Web is wild for blogging and podcasts, there are lots out there that are at best, indifferent, proving only that podcasting and blogging has a long way to go before it can be claimed as mainstream by any definition.
Internet usage and adoption statistics are hard to come by, though recently released statistics on Australian SME business Internet usage are comprehensive by the Department of State and Regional Development are useful, probably quite accurate, and show broad acceptance of the Internet.
When it comes to the most powerful and influential indivdual Australians, the Australian Financial Review Magazine puts communications technology (pay TV, Internet, mobile) at the head of the Cultural Power category.
Broadband penetration in Australia shows no signs of slowing according to an industry study by the ACCC. This is excellent news given the broad benefits of broadband, and the initially slow uptake by Australians.
Australian businesses are still under-represented at board level when it comes to technology. And as technology and the internet become increasingly important and pervasive, the importance of technology representation at the highest levels will only become more, and more important.
With Rollyo, you can easily create your own custom search engines, and explore and save those created by others. Rollyo uses Yahoo search for results which in my mine is rather skeptical considering Yahoo has a habit of banning legitimate sites.
Setting expectations online is paramount, especially when it comes to privacy. A recent "dustup" between the UK newspaper The Guardian and its readers is a timely reminder of the consequences of poor expectation setting.
Online Advertising continues to grow in popularity as advertisers follow users online. Search-based keyword ads account for almost half of total expenditure, though classifieds at 18% are just as remarkable.
Rogelio Choy, manager of eBay's Live Auctions business discussed Skype on his blog. Rogelio is responsible for marketing, business development, product vision, and the day-to-day operations of eBay.
When Rupert Murdoch stumbles and stutters just to confirm that newspapers are a long term interest of News Corp, there's a problem. When the New York Tims Company cuts 500 jobs, that's a clear sign. But when online newspaper readership comes within inches of traditional newspaper readership, that spells a shift in media loyalty, and media consumption.
This morning, Marketing Sherpa has published the results of their 2nd Annual Search Marketing Survey. The survey had over 3,271 marketers participate and Marketing Sherpa is claiming it to be the largest Search Engine Marketing study ever.
As technology, IT and the web becomes more and more important to business, so too does the risk of project and implementation failure. According to a study by KPMG, Businesses are continuing to undertake technology projetcs without an real understanding of technology, nor a grasp on how to align technology with business objectives.
BBC in the UK will shortly be undertaking one of the world’s largest online marketing campaigns ever to promote their website www.bbcnews.com. The campaign and will use live RSS Feeds from the BBC news site and link them in with Instant Messenger services such as MSN Messenger and ICQ. The concept is that if an important news article is published, it will immediately be featured in the rich media ads.
As part of the relaunch of www.wiliam.com.au the team at wiliam have developed our own Australian blog called the Wiliam Reading Room. The Wiliam Reading Room is a service for clients and colleagues of Wiliam, and provides relevant, up-to-date articles, commentary and news on website design, website technologies and the Internet.
"Go to your room. And no Internet for a week." Suspension of internet privileges is the new discipline for badly behaved children it seems, following a six month anthropological study of five British families.
Forbes.com today said it has hired a SEO specialist to help it appear higher in search results, a sign of the increased importance of search engines to news publishers and content publishers. The New York search engine optimisation firm will adjust the code and makeup of the Forbes.com site to make sure search engine spiders catch and index published the pages.
The Microsoft is including, for the first time in its history, open-source technology in one of its operational systems, the Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition, that should be launched in the first semester of 2006. The company already implements Message Passing Interface (MPI) - a library specification for message passing proposed as a standard by a broad-based committee of vendors in the 1990s - in the operational system for servers, which arrived at the first public tests phase this week.
It is only a matter of time before telephone calls are free. And the Ebay aquisition of Skype serves as a timely reminder.
Rupert Murdoch argues that the Internet is the true global medium because unlike any other medium, it allows for local outlets to participate and publish. This argument comes hot on the heels of recent Internet acquisitions by Murdoch worth AUD$1.7 billion.
Telstra faes a significant challenge as it races to fix its technologies and networks to meet demand in emerging areas - broadband, wireless and mobile. And it does this in the face of rapidly declining revenues from its PSTN network.
Viral Marketing can be an extremely effective form of marketing if the right principals are followed. Common sense and planning foremost of these.
Clicking their heels three times, CNN predicts the next 10 years of the Internet - safely precursored with "who could have predicted the last 10 years". Think washing machines with internet connections and online voting among other predictions.
Microsoft has launched a toolbar for IE7 (backwards compatible with IE6), designed for web developers. At first glance, it's a good effort and worth the download.
No hiding here. Sun says it as it is and in doing so, shows that banner ads can be just as cheeky as other forms of advertising.
Microsoft's sneak preview of its Sparkle XAML technology will at the very least keep Macromedia's Flash on its toes.
Less than a week after Skype was purchased by ebay, the VOIP company has released its latest beta version of the popular phone software. As Skype now looks towards revenue growth, these new features come with a price tag with ringtones and and pictures costing E1 each. Each forwarded call to a standard phone number is charged at Skypeout rates, however call forwarding to another skype account is free.
The most interesting feature to be added to iTunes 5 is its ability to automatically download and play podcasts. Apple have developed a Podcast Directory where there are literally thousands of podcasts available on every different topic. For those that don't know Podcasting is radio your way. You can listen to whatever you want, whenever you want either on Itunes or on your iPod - wherever you want. Podcasts are radio-style shows - some from major media, others from passionate individuals - delivered over the Internet to your computer.
Google launched Blog Search which is the easiest way to search for blog content. Blog Search includes content from blogs all over the web including Google's own blog service Blogger.
Apple launched the iPod Nano which is the latest edition to the iPod family of products. The iPod Nano is available in either 2GB (500 songs) or 4GB (1,000 songs) both pencil-thin weighing only 42 grams.
Google has added both RSS and Atom feeds to their popular aggregated news service Google News. There are a handful of predetermined RSS feeds for popular topics like entertainment, sports or businesses; however users can create keyword driven RSS feeds.