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Interweb into the Dictionary Filed in: Web

August 19th, 2010

The Internet has contributed several new words to the revised Oxford Dictionary of English, which has been released today.

‘Social Media‘, Interweb and netbook have all joined culturally relevant words such as ‘quantitative easing’, vuvuzela and ‘chill pill’.

The Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE) is periodically updated, unlike the Oxford English Dictionary which maintains a bank of words which is continuously updated. An update to the ODE therefore marks a milestone of common usage and cultural relevance.

With language surrounding technology changing so rapidly, it’s easy to fall behind with the latest jargon. Fish.Net strives to speak in ‘plain English’, but here’s a guide to some of the words which have made the ODE!

Social Media
The tools (Web sites, applications) used for online social networking.
Tweetup
A group meeting arranged via social networking service Twitter.
Microblogging
Making short blog entries, typically on Twitter.
Netbook
Small laptop typically used for browsing the Web, email and light word processing.
Interweb
Humourous term for the ‘Internet’ or ‘Web’. Satirises the amount of technology jargon!
Paywall
A restriction on Web sites whereby only paid subscribers can access content.
Viral
Rapidly-spread news or promotion, typically via social networks and email.
Defriend
To remove the status of ‘friend’ from an online acquaintance, typically in social network Facebook. Opposite of ‘befriend’.
Dictionary attack
An attempt to hack into an account by entering complete words as found in the dictionary as passwords.

Are you confused by jargon? Do you know of any other technology words which are creeping into common parlance? Let us know

Competitors exploit airline demise Filed in: Web Business

August 18th, 2010

The travel industry is extremely competitive, so it’s no surprise that the demise of Kiss Flights has led to other holiday and flight sellers scrambling to pick up affected customers.

A search on Google for “kiss flights” the morning after the airline went bust reveals how quickly travel agents’ marketing teams have reacted to the news – take a look at the sponsored links:

We can see three types of adverts here:

“Rebook your flights with us! (Please!)”

First Choice, Jet2, On The Beach and others all want to sweep up customers left in the wake of Kiss Flight’s demise. They (just about) stay on the right side of line between identifying the customer’s needs and exploiting the demise of Kiss.

I can’t help think that some of the ad writers had a feeling of glee when they found out their competitor’s closure, but they are at least channelling this in a way which will help affected customers!

“Book with us – you can be assured that your booking is safe”

Thompson, Co-operative Travel, TVL4U and Fleetway assuage customer concern by mentioning ATOL and/or ABTA in their ad creative.

With Kiss being just the latest UK travel industry casualty of the summer (right on the tails of Sun 4 U and Goldtrail), customers will be seeking assurance that the risk to their holidays is low and that their money is protected, should the worst happen.

Confidence in the scores of travellers who rebooked with Kiss after Goldtrail’s collapse will be particularly low.

Membership to schemes such as ATOL and ABTA can help reassure customers,

“We don’t want our reputation to be dragged down with Kiss, so we’d better make it easy for customers to get a refund.”

Lost Cost Holidays resold flights with Kiss, and their response is to look after their affected customers. By advertising 100% refunds on flights, they’re demonstrating customer care and shielding their brand’s reputation from the fallout of customer complaints about Kiss.

Reacting to Events

Reacting to events is a good way to show that you are aware of and care about your clients’ concerns.

Technology such as email, paid search advertising (PPC – Pay Per Click) and social networking bypass traditional PR techniques and connect you directly with your audience quickly and cheaply.

Fish.Net are experienced in delivering messages in this way – call our Web team on 01457 819600 to find out how we can help you.

Power Search – Know your results Filed in: Web Business

July 26th, 2010

Search engines are indispensable for finding information quickly. Most of the time you’ll find the answer you need immediately, but sometimes you have to delve a little deeper.

Learn the techniques you need to become a power search ninja in this occasional series.

Continue reading "Power Search – Know your results" »

Smartphone Touch Screens Filed in: Systems & Networks Internet Business

July 20th, 2010

Is it me? Probably

I’ve put it off for long enough, the time has come to upgrade my mobile phone. My contract expired 9 months ago (it was an 18 month contract), therefore since then I’ve been making a monthly payment towards the cost of a handset which is fully paid for. I therefore feel I deserve the latest and best phone to justify my monthly expenditure, whether I need it or not. So why haven’t I upgraded sooner? Well, my existing phone does what I want and just keeps on working.

An Electronic Swiss Army Knife

Smartphones are excellent. With a single compact device in my pocket, a Nokia N95, I have access to:

a good quality camera with flash and an excellent macro (close-up) capability
email
Internet web browsing
sat nav
mp3 player
video player
personal organiser

and, of course, a mobile phone with good hands-free capability

The Years BB & BI (Before Blackberry & Before iPhone)

Sadly, most people don’t realise that smartphones have been around for years – they aren’t the new invention of Blackberry or Apple or any other kind of fruit. The first effective incarnations were proprietary – custom developments by each phone manufacturer – then in 2001 along came the first device using the Symbian operating system, and Microsoft has been providing Windows Mobile since 2003.

My first real smartphone was a Nokia 7610. “What do I want a phone with a camera for?”. Well, I had no choice. The other features I wanted came in a phone which had a camera, and actually, it was quite useful but dire quality. Before the 7610 I’d had a Nokia 7110 which with its WAP browser (anybody remember WAP? Fish.Net used to have a WAP site) could possibly be described as having ambitions of smartphone. So when I came to upgrade the 7610 its increasing unreliability meant I didn’t really hesitate and the Nokia N95 provided all the features I wanted, apart from, perhaps, battery life and being noticeably thicker than its predecessor.

So I’ve been reading my email, browsing the web and taking acceptable quality photos (camera, not photographer) for years.

What Next? Bad Ergonomics – everything you touch turns to iPhone

Recently it’s been time for a mobile phone upgrade and the new kids on the block are Apple’s iPhone and Android from Google. Android is now appearing on phones from virtually every manufacturer apart from Apple (no surprise) and Nokia who is still the proud parent of Symbian. What the iPhone and Android have done is shown just how good and effective a touch screen interface can be. So much so, that they’ve thrown away the keypad.

And that’s the problem – they’ve thrown away the keypad. They’ve made you believe that buttons are bad – and they’re wrong.

The touch screens and user interfaces on both the iPhone and Android phones are a delight to use. The creation of a pinch gesture to zoom is a piece of genius. But often I want to use my phone without giving it my full attention, and most of the time the prime role for my smartphone is to simply make phone calls.

I need buttons I can feel, with a tactile response to let me know I’ve successfully pressed them. This is particularly important when simply making a call or hanging up the phone, or when using the SatNav. My phone sits in a cradle in my car and I can handle most of the call and SatNav functions without ever taking my hands off the road – I don’t need to look at the screen to work out which button to press. When I’m not driving I can even text blind most of the time. And all because I know the pattern of the buttons and can feel exactly where they are. The same argument applies to the camera. The N95, among others, has a dedicated shutter button which falls exactly in the right (handed) place when I want to take a photo.

And the touch-screen phones all have a lock button to prevent you accidentally ‘pressing’ buttons with the side of your face while you’re making a call!

My Choice

So what did I look at?

I spent a lot of time looking at the latest Nokias, Sony Ericssons, Samsungs and LGs and the Android phones from most of the above. I decided an acceptable compromise would possibly be to have separate call and hang up buttons and leave the rest to the touch-sensitive screen. But only the early Android phones – the HTC Tattoo and HTC Hero – have these buttons, and neither of these has a flash for the camera. From the other perspective I looked at the Sony Satio and Vivaz as these both have good cameras. Even the impending Nokia N8 unticks too many boxes. Other compromises could have been the Sony Experia X10 Mini Pro or the Nokia N97 both with slide out keyboards. But the latter is now relatively old for a ‘new’ (and expensive) phone and neither provide the call buttons particularly well

So what did i choose?

I realised that in every case I was compromising my choice of phone just to achieve an upgrade, none of the options ticked all the boxes that my current phone does. Yes I would like a bigger screen and a thinner case and longer battery life, but…

So I’m moving over to a SIM-only contract. I’m paying less, I’m getting loads more bundled minutes and texts and at last I’m getting bundled data. For my phone I’m going to use a couple of cast-offs from around the office – primarily an N85, but I also have my old N95 and access to another N95.

I’m going to watch and wait. Hopefully in the next 12 months or so phones will come along which put ergonomics back above fashion. An Android with a keypad?. I’m not sure if anything will actually appear. In the mean time I’ll save money and step aside from the upgrade rat-race.

Do you take the Net for granted? Filed in: Systems & Networks

July 2nd, 2010

I’m writing this blog post in Notepad rather than our blog administration interface, because our Internet connection is down. It’s a BT problem affecting just the local exchange, but it’s knocked our operations sideways.

Given that our core services revolve around Web, Email and IT systems, it hits us in a particularly hard way – however, Internet downtime is likely to impact your business no matter what sector you work in.

Despite limited connectivity, our office is still open and we remain productive. So how have we done it, and how can you make sure you can work through Internet downtime?

Continue reading "Do you take the Net for granted?" »

SEO – No Follow Links Filed in: Web

June 21st, 2010

A delegate at a recent Web Marketing Masterclass we held questioned the value of obtaining links from social media sites, especially given that many are tagged as “nofollow”. It was an interesting question which deserved more time than we could give it in a fairly wide-ranging session.

So, is there any SEO benefit in building a social media presence and building links from directories?

Continue reading "SEO – No Follow Links" »

Is Google running scared of Bing? Filed in: Web

June 10th, 2010

UPDATE: It appears that the rotating backgrounds are here for one day only, to promote the ability to change your Google home page background – read this blog entry for more details.

Having used Google throughout today, I’m certainly glad it won’t be like this tomorrow – it’s extremely irritating!

Google is rolling out personalised backgrounds to its home page following Microsoft’s redesign of its re-branded search engine, Bing.

Traditionally Google’s website has been simple and sparse – is the search giant running scared of Bing?

Part of Google’s appeal has been the simplicity of its home page. Presented with a just a logo, search box and a couple of buttons, it was a triumph of utilitarian design – we weren’t bombarded with unnecessary choice or distraction.

Over the last year or so, Google has been experimenting with its user interface. Additional navigation to its vertical search properties – images, videos, maps and so on – have been added, as have pointers to additional services such as GMail and iGoogle.

Recently, Google sought to maintain the perceived simplicity of its home page by only showing this navigation when the user moved the mouse – extra features are “faded in”.

The new background images are an interesting development. The reason for the backgrounds are unclear; they certainly do not add any functionality. Indeed, the page looks busier, is less focused on the search box and the text – despite the text shadow effect – is difficult to read.

The Microsoft Way

Microsoft has implemented background images in a much better way. Using a soft focus and darker colours in areas behind text, text is more readable. They’ve even added a translucent dark black background to the navigation in the “Explore” area to add clarity. There is a sense of organised layout – compare the tight left navigation and the footer signposting to Google’s increasingly cluttered, unorganised links.

Google – a shrewd move or losing its way?

Google may be gambling that users will like the background images. They may also be looking for ways to entice users to upgrade from the antiquated Internet Explorer 6 software to a modern browser (ideally Google’s own Chrome, of course!) – this feature is not available to IE6 users.

Donning a paranoia hat, Google may be banking on users not liking the background images. The only (non-technical) way to change the image is to create a Google account, log in and change your preferences. Of course, you’ll need to stay logged in for the background image to remain changed, allowing Google to track your searches more closely.

(Conspiracy theorists may also think that the “fade in” navigation and busier layout are intended to draw attention away from the fact that you may still be logged in).

Alternatively, Google may be aware that Microsoft has built a good search product with Bing, and do not want to lose market share. Bing’s background image is the biggest visible difference between the two – by homogenising the search market, perhaps Google is expecting that users will stick with what they know.

And finally…

Google has reduced the readability of text, its home page is increasingly cluttered and general usability has taken a hit.

To find out how you can improve your Web site’s usability, call Fish.Net’s Web team on 01457 819600.