Areatrade
Our thoughts, rants and inside knowlege of web design & development!
Our thoughts, rants and inside knowlege of web design & development!
Nov 5th
As we reported previously, Bekko the new alternative search engine platform that uses slashtags assigned to websites to removes spam websites when searched has as we predicted forced Google to respond.
In an update to the Google blog this morning Google is prompting it’s users to report spam websites. They have recently released a Chrome plug-in which makes reporting spam websites much easier.
Spam websites will always be a frustration when your searching online, seems Bekko idea is a good one but will all websites adopt the slash tag method or will Google just increase their spam algorithms?
Either way it is good news for the end user.
Let us know what you think?
Nov 4th
Popular social network Facebook announced a torrent of updates to its mobile products, namely four things: single sign-on, opening up its Places API, allowing businesses to attach deals to their Facebook Place page, and updates to its iPhone and Android apps.
Single Sign-on
Facebook are seeking to limit the amount of typing of long passwords and usernames that a user has to go through inside mobile apps by allowing integration with Facebook in a similar way to what you may see on many websites that you visit. People with the Facebook app installed on their smartphone will be able to log in to other mobile apps using their Facebook account, no giving up of private credentials necessary.
The Places API
Developers can now access the popular Places product to utilise in their own apps and websites. Places is a location based tools that allows Facebook users to ‘check in’ at locations and tag their friends, in a similar vein to location based social networks like Foursquare and Gowalla. The API allows developers to link their own products to this tool so that, for example, Foursquare check ins could be duplicated to Facebook Places. Developers will be able to read data from the tool, write More >
Nov 3rd
The search engine technology company Google has found to be in ‘significant breach’ of UK laws regarding data protection and privacy.
Whilst collecting images for its ‘Street View’ service last year, Google supposedly inadvertently collected ‘payload data’ from unsecured wireless networks as part of its efforts to improve location services that work off of nearby wi-fi hotspots.
‘Payload data’ contains snippets of data transferred over unsecured wireless networks. This may include snapshots of email addresses, passwords and other such data.
Google claims the code was left in the software accidentally and has promised to dispose of the data as soon as legally possible. It has consulted local governments everywhere that it has contravened the law to ensure the legality of such an action.
The ICO had previously ruled that no breach had occurred but the rulings in other countries such as Canada have prompted a U-turn. The Information Commissioner says no charges will be pressed but the data protection practices at Google will be audited.
Google has since appointed a ‘Head of Privacy’ to enforce better practice across engineering teams within the company.
Do you have a wireless network? Google may not be the only one listening in. Your network is secured if you have to type More >
Nov 3rd
The new mobile browser SkyFire has been approved by Apple and is due to be released tomorrow in the App Store priced at $2.99.
SkyFire converts Flash videos into HTML5 on SkyFire’s servers making it possible to view flash movies not previously supported on iPhone. Due to the conversion there will be a slight delay while it is processed.
Skyfore itself has been around for a few years in test mode and had been released for Windows Mobile, Symbian Devices and Android. However it does not support Flash games.
Nov 1st
Blekko a $24 million venture backed project which has been in the making for over 3 years has been launched its pubic BETA version. With this initial roll out Blekko are also releasing several new features for both mainstream and the sites super users.
Blekko is designed to eliminate spam searches using its proprietary slash tag technology. Basically the search engine checks all queries to see if they fall within one of seven main categories, health, colleges, autos, personal finance, lyrics, recipes and hotels. Every search that is made that is recognised to be in one of these categories Blekko technology will assign the correct slash tag and display only results that are relevant to the search.
Webmasters and Blekko super users are able to apply slashtags to their URL’s so that Blekko can read them , this is aimed at stopping spam results such as huge link farms and bad neighborhood sites which are not maintained.
Don’t panic if your business does not fall within the initial seven categories, like our main keywords: ‘website design’, ‘Ecommerce Web Design‘, ‘social media’, ‘search engine optimisation’,etc… Blekko has plans to release more as time goes on, they are just starting with the biggest traffic sites More >
Oct 30th
This touching, amusing, feel-good advert was posted on YouTube a few days ago and has spread like wildfire through social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. A great example of social media marketing done well, it joins the ranks of the Liverpool Street ‘flashmob‘ and the ‘sing-along‘ in Trafalgar Square which featured celebrities like Pink and Vernon Kay. Clever and original marketing is looked upon favourably by online users and will stick in the minds of consumers, raising brand awareness.
Have you noticed any particularly memorable and innovative methods of marketing online recently? Tell us about them in the comments section below.
Oct 30th
Social Media Location Service FourSquare have rolled out ‘Super Duper Swarm’ and ‘Epic Swarm’ badges for people who convene in the same location in massive quantities.
Previously the biggest quantity badge was ‘Super Swarm’ for groups of 250 in the same place. In major cities like London this has occurred many times prompting the new and improved milestones.
“When we made the original Swarm badge we thought, ‘What are the odds of ever getting 50 Foursquare users together?’ And then we did the same with Super Swarm for SXSW. ‘Will anyone ever even unlock these?’” explains Foursquare co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley. “And now they are unlocked on a regular basis — baseball games, concerts etc. So we needed bigger.”
When asked Swarm badge would exceed the 1000 mark, Foursquare had no answer…
“In our internal badge meetings, we’re thinking, ‘What’s after this?’ We have no idea,” says Crowley.
Although these badges are pure fun it does go to show the growth of the FourSquare buzz and the use of smartphones to interact with others via social media channels.
Do you use FourSquare and what name would you call the next milestone?
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.
Oct 29th
We are proud to highlight one of our latest website design projects for the Soho Design Agency FTP that specialise in packshot photography for products. We recommend their services to our ecommerce web design clients that need professional images of their products for their online businesses. Having good images on your ecommerce web design makes a huge difference in the overal impression your browsers get when visiting your website making the products more inticing.
The guys at FTP had a very specific brief as the majority of their clients use big 30” screens so the reolution had to be right and the website had to fill the biggest of screens aswell as the smallest.
We acheived this by a clever piece of coding which created a scaleable background image so what ever size monitor the images look good. We also added a nice touch when you go into the website, which ever image is currently being shown as you click ‘enter ftp digital’ will fade to a blurred version and become the websiet background image.
We also implemented an advance technique to re-write the font so we could stylise it to exactly hiow FTP wanted it without the need for the user to More >