Our thoughts, rants and inside knowlege of web design & development!
Social Media
A Tale of Friendship: Facebook Unveils ‘Friendship Pages’
Oct 29th
Popular social network Facebook has recently announced a new feature called ‘Friendship Pages’. The new pages will allow you to view a well presented overview of the interactions between you and a friend. Blogs have lauded the ‘human’ aspect of friendship pages which summarise wall posts, photos, events, mutual friendships, comments and ‘likes’ shared between two users. The potential for the highlighting of old and fond memories is huge and will help to cement the websites position as a ‘go-to’ social hub for not only current and future events and social interactions, but also for the snapshots it can provide of the past.
Some have criticised the ever more ‘intrusive’ nature of Facebook and the increasing complexity of its navigation. Will Friendship Pages exacerbate this problem? Or are they a great opportunity to increase the value and usefulness of social media? Tell us what you think in the comments section.
Staff Member Employed Via Social Media
Oct 29th
We have received great reviews from existing clients on her professionalism and conduct and are very pleased with the way she has settled into our website design agency in Enfield, North London.
We understand that our clients are the most important element of our business and regular contact with them is paramount to enable us to enhance the website design and ecommerce web design services we provide them. Jan will also be managing the quarterly search engine promotion / statistic analysis meetings so we can educate our clients on what their clients are doing on their websites, where they come from, which keywords they use and how this information can help improve their website to return more enquiries.
Due to this success we are now looking for another member of staff to help with website design page layout, website amends More >
Social network Myspace to debut redesign
Oct 28th
The dwindling social network Myspace has revealed a massive redesign as part of it’s efforts to survive through rebranding. A few weeks after revealing it’s controversial new logo, Myspace has posted a video reel giving the first glimpses at its significant shift in functionality and focus.
The video reveals a strong change in focus to content sharing and discovery, with clear links to other social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. It is a clear cut and intriguing move for the social network which has seen massive drops in traffic since the rise of Facebook and its buyout by News Corp.
Gowalla Set Up Guide – Social Media Business Location App
Oct 28th
Stamps: Your Passport is a collection of stamps—both everyday and extraordinary—from the places you’ve been. Check in with Gowalla on your phone to stamp your Passport at each place you visit. It’s pretty much like stamping your passport in real life. Only without the jetlag and customs forms.
Connect With Friends: Gowalla makes it easy to keep up with your friends and family. Connect with your favorite people from Facebook and Twitter then enjoy the places they go and the photos they share—both online and from your phone. You can also invite friends to join in your journey from your address book. It’s super simple to set up.
Explore: Enjoy trips created by National Geographic, USA TODAY, CNNMoney and others that guide you to restaurants, through parks and gardens, or on historic walking tours. Of course, you can create and share your own trips with your friends as well.
Pins are added to your Passport to remind you More >
Firesheep Hijacks Facebook, Twitter Cookies
Oct 27th
Did you think you were safe when logging into your social media accounts? Think again.
A free Firefox extension called Firesheep was released this week that exploits a hack known as sidejacking to help users gain access to the social media accounts of other people on the same network. The creator, Eric Butler, developed this extension “to demonstrate just how serious this problem is.” The exploit, which hijacks the unencrypted cookie files sent between the user and the website, can be utilised on a large number of popular websites including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr.
Most websites encrypt the username and password you use to log in when they are transmitted to the server. However, they often fail to encrypt other data including the aforementioned cookies, which, if obtained by a hacker, can be used to ‘spoof’ a log in session and access your account fraudulently.
We believe that this software has been written to raise awareness of the problem and compel the faulty sites to fix the issue as possible. However, many have noted that fully encrypted all communication between the user and the server can increase the required bandwidth by up to 20 times, making full encryption very costly.
Are you More >
The Present Future of Link Building
Oct 26th
The number of people who tried to get their posts to go viral (by writing list posts and publishing images) increased dramatically and, at the same time, Twitter and Facebook REALLY took off. People that wanted to ‘share good stuff’ found these services easier to use for sharing than having a WordPress or Blogspot blog. The result? If you create linkbait and it goes popular, then you should expect a lot of re-tweets/stumble thumbs-ups/Facebook ‘likes’ but a very small number of links from different unique root domains. Do these links from Facebook/Twitter carry any special importance?
Matt Cutts once said in a YouTube video that they rate links from Facebook and Twitter just like any other link! Yay!
One recent lesson I’ve learned about ‘niche’ link building is that you can get viral in your niche community. Take SEO and this blog, for example. I’ve witnessed how different SEOs follow each other and, in case someone has something interesting to share, then other people in the industry re-tweet him and the chain goes on. This is not the case for every niche market unfortunately.
What’s the Future of Natural Link Building? Is it DEAD?!??!Okay, 3 points here:
- Many people who link ‘naturally’ have switched to More >
Hey, Entrepreneurs – $250 Million sFund For Social Media Entrepreneurs
Oct 22nd
Facebook, Kleiner Perkins, Zynga and Amazon have launched a $250 million sFund their message for all entrepreneurs: our help could be yours.
The sFund is designed to provide support to companies in the social media space. Investments can be as low as $100,000 or as high as $100 million. In addition to Zynga, Amazon, Kleiner Perkins and Facebook, Comcast, Liberty Media and Allen & Company are also committed investors. On top of funding, these companies will provide guidance, advice and “relationship capital” for anyone funded by sFund.
The sFund lead manager, Bing Gordon pitched to Entrepreneurs with a poem – see below.
Hey, Entrepreneurs
We are convened in the “House that Friends Built”, Where the tipping point is in full tilt, Where brilliant devs are told to be bold but rash, And everybody likes to Flash.
I never thought I’d be on stage With Zuckerberg, Pincus, Bezos & Doerr. It sounds more like the name of a law firm, Than where the Internet (Internet) is going toward.
I don’t have Zuckerberg or John Doerr’s genius, Pincus’ intensity or Bezos’ laugh, Hey, entrepreneurs, their help could be yours, If you add them to your company’s social graph.
We’re sitting on a quarter of a billion George Washington’s, And More >