The prototype looks great but I would just like to make a small change to the header.
A common problem amongst financial services is the angst between the internet marketers and the brand managers. Brand managers are interested in preserving the emotive, raw feeling a brand has developed over many years and translating that online..
With more and more Internet users spending the majority of their time on social networking sites, e-commerce providers are looking for ways to integrate this into their own sites.
HTML forms have always been a secret little enjoyment of mine. While many user interface designers die a little inside every time they have to turn 300 questions into a simple two-step online form, I relish the opportunity.
Online documents have come a long way in recent years. Day to day, we have relied on the humble PDF – the rock of the publishing industry which has remained virtually unchanged since the early 90’s.
Picking the right design / development company is essential to ensuring quality work is delivered.
Just as Google lets/requires its advertisers to manage their own ads, so too is Twitter moving in this direction.
Look up next time your on the train/bus and just see the number of people interacting with their mobile phones and hardly anyone reading the traditional print media.
There are three key variables to a website project: scope; budget and; timeline. Understanding this will make your project run a lot smoother.
If you think social media is just an overrated bewildering fad that will go away, here are some trivia’s to consider.
Last week I installed the beta version of Googles new operating System on mac via VMware. The installation was extremely fast; I initially thought I had done something wrong.
Fan pages have become the next big thing for small and large business, but have come with mixed reviews. Facebook has overtaken other social medias sites such as MySpace who believed Facebook wouldn’t last. But it did and now as a business owner you cant ignore the impact having a fan page will have on your business.
The social web and it's little $5 perks. A quick look at Fiverr.com
Wiliam are proud to announce a new website launch! Yopinion is a website for sharing your opinion on politics, social issues and other prevalent issues in society.
Just when we were convinced that Senator Conroy had a monopoly on Internet Policy Crazy, along comes American politician Joe Lieberman with his proposed “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010” bill.
Many people have more than one social media account out there. With so many services offering different features and/or geared towards different facets of your life why restrict yourself to just one.
For any decision maker considering investing in a new or upgraded website, avoid the following common mistakes.
his week, Wiliam is making a presentation to the students of Billy Blue School of Design to help explain the importance of user testing and user research. In the presentation we used the subheadings ‘why, who, what and how’ in regards to implementing user research and testing.
When it comes to web design, usability testing is very important. Whether it is in pre-production, during production or looking at the final product, user testing can help make small but big changes to how your target audience views and uses your site.
Many legal websites are unreliable. Below are listed three websites that have reliable information, but also have other positives and negatives for the Australian (NSW) user.
Designing a touchscreen application is much different to how you would design a website.
There has been a long tradition (and expectation) of agencies, (advertising, web, marketing, whatever) to compete against each other in a competitive pitch. To win big clients and to prove it is worthy, there isn’t much an agency can do about it. Either pitch, or move on.
As economic conditions seem to improve many businesses need to consider the next steps. Taking advantage of the improving conditions is obviously being deliberated across Australia.
A small rant looking at why it is important to be upfront with your request for proposals when starting a web project.
A quick look at how automated support responses can be annoying, even by the big boys.
Once you get into the habit of subscribing the number of feeds quickly starts to build up. Then there is just not enough time to read all the information.
James Mitchell-Clark @ Wiliam work experience talks about web development in a school environment
There are plenty of stories of businesses that have created social networking profiles, displayed a flurry of activity for the first couple of weeks, and then, when they didn’t get instant results, abandoned those profiles. Just as it takes time to develop social relationships with new friends, so, too, does it take time to develop business relationships with new customers.
Word Press is a very popular platform for hosting your blog. While Word Press offers a wide range of publishing features out of the box, there are numerous free plug-ins available to extend the platform. Here are several you may want to consider if you are want to get the most out of your blog
As 2008 comes to a close the focus shifts to 2009 and all the possibilities this year holds. While no one knows what the future will hold with 100% accuracy there are several trends that you are likely to see in the near future.
The New Year is here. You may have made resolutions in your personal life but have you made any resolutions for your business? Here are a few you may want to consider adding to your list:
Forums can contain a smorgasboard of information that is otherwise difficult to find elsewhere. User opinions and experiences with different products and services can help business reprutations and hence increase sales.
How often have you seen a major corporation use name.wordpress.com or name.blogspot.com as a location for their blog?
When you need to increase your search engine optimisation, few strategies can ensure a wealth of frequently updated content like user generated content can.
You have probably heard the term Widget used more and more these days, but are you still left wondering what a widget is or why you should jump on the widget bandwagon?
You’ve probably heard of tags being used on websites and blogs. In case you’ve never noticed them, you’ll find a list of tags at the bottom of each of our blog posts. You may wonder what purpose these tags serve.
If you maintain a website, blog, or other content source that can be syndicated via RSS feeds then you have probably kept a watch on the number of subscribers your content has at a given time. There’s little doubt that no matter how many subscribers you have presently, you can always use more.
Is social bookmarking more than just a convenient way to access your bookmarks from any computer or can it be harnessed to drive huge amounts of traffic to your site?
Are you among the majority of Australian small business owners who have no web presence at all? This post highlights several factors unique to the small business market and addresses the key myth surrounding online sales.
Have you reviewed your web site lately? If your site is at least a year old you may want to consider updating the design of your site. There are several reasons to consider an update:
Online sales during the Christmas season have increased significantly from year to year. Unfortunately, so have the number of competitors. Have you developed a plan to stand out from the crowd? If not, now is the perfect time to design and implement your online strategy.
Is your marketing strategy reaching its full potential? On the surface your strategy may appear comprehensive including TV commercials, print media and outdoor advertising. Perhaps you have expanded your efforts to include a well designed corporate website. Although the expectations of an online presence were high, the results are less than impressive.
As part of Wiliam’s ongoing work for the City of Sydney Council, we recently worked on the Zero Waste website. Zero Waste is an exciting initiative that aims to give people ideas on how to consume less and really think about how waste can be a valuable resource.
Wiliam is always looking for strategies to drive more relevant traffic to your site. Have you considered using affiliate or referral programs to drive conversions?
Whenever we kick off a website project with a new client, we ask them to identify their online competition. The response we get is almost always a list of local or Australian companies. But given the international audience provided by the Internet, the reality is that the contenders for that customer pool may be located in New Zealand, China or even London.
Email subscriber lists are powerful marketing tools. They allow you to get your message to precisely to your target audience. But with customers becoming more and more leery of spam, the challenge has become how to get people to sign up.
Sometimes it’s not what you write about – it’s how that presents a big challenge. Finding the right tone, approach, and style to attract the right audience is part science, part art.
It’s amazing how often you’ll be given a business card and find that the company’s website address isn’t included. An online presence is an integral part of a brand;in fact, for a growing segment of the population, the website is theprimary source of information about a company so it is critical that it’s highlighted on all company communications.
Google’s blog is written by staff throughout the company. Could your company do the same? Could your product manager or brand manager be the best source for articulating the products they work with?
Readers who subscribe to your website’s RSS feed are not just opting in to its updates, they are self-identifying their interest in your company. By tracking this list, you are building an invaluable list of contacts. Here are 10 reasons you should activate one for your new corporate website...
We were asked by a client recently to evaluate Urchin vs Google Analytics and provide analysis of each application. Both are web statistics programs owned and presented by Google, and discerning which is the right fit for your company can take some digging.
This is the story that Seth Godin tells in his book, Purple Cow; you’re driving along and the countryside is lovely. Look! There’s some cows, bucolic and charming. And over there, some more cows. Eventually, you just don’t see the cows anymore. They fade into the landscape – which has gone from pretty to pretty boring. But imagine driving past a purple cow. Now that would recapture your interest in a big way, wouldn’t it?
Running a competition is a quick way to drive traffic to your site. Prizes can be as varied as one of your company’s goods and services to something incredibly lavish. Assuming the marketing is well done, the larger the giveaway – the more traffic you’ll drive to your website.
How often have you gotten to the end of an ecommerce transaction, seen the box for entering a coupon code, and realized you don’t have one? If you’ve cancelled the sale, or worse - been the vendor who has had the sale cancelled, then you know how important coupon codes are becoming as incentives to close the sale.
Social networking can be a powerful medium to create brand dialogues - as has been proven by iconic Aussie brands such as Tim Tams, Breville, Vegemite... A business must identify the fit between their target audience and their chosen method of communication.
Once a customer launches a website, the first question is usually; “How do I know it’s successful?”
One of the requests we are receiving more and more is to engineer the ability for our clients to have their web generated leads directly added to their Microsoft Dynamics CRM(Customer Relationship Management) software, Salesforce or other CRM
Twitter.com, as we’ve said, is the tactic of zeitgeist. It’s the technological equivalent of haiku: tiny fragments that stimulate immediate interest in a greater picture.
One of the biggest problems customers can face with designing their website is the desire to have it all. From LinkedIn and Facebook profiles to Twitter updates and photo streams, employee blogs and charity microsites. The result is sometimes a cluttered jumble that doesn’t resonate with the online audience – in fact, it can drive them – and their business - away.
With the recent launch of Apple’s 3rd Generation (3G) iPhone, many of our customers have been interested in discussing in-house applications for it. With download speeds that near those of WiFi and several design enhancements, using the new iPhone as a way to engage customers with free content is a very attractive marketing option – and companies want to be quick to take advantage.
PowerPoint is the leading business software for presentations. It has become ubiquitous in most corporate meetings. But why keep such an extraordinary wealth of information locked inside the conference?
While the attention is on Facebook, another social networking site has been growing faster and gathering a powerful community of users. LinkedIn has distinguished itself as the Internet gathering place for professionals.
There is a marketing adage that says that people don’t want to be ‘sold to’ – they want to be ‘communicated with’. A blog is the perfect platform to have this conversation with both existing and potential customers.
Building social networking strategies is necessary for successful online marketing. However, as many companies are finding – one size doesn’t fit all.
The most successful clients are those that start planning their traffic strategy about 75% through the web development. The strategy can have many moving parts, depending on the goals of the site. Here are some ideas that can help.
What is the current goal of your website? For some, it is to increase the conversion rate. For websites that sell advertising on a CPM (Click Per Thousand) basis, the goal is to increase the number of impressions per user.
Web 2.0 is the business revolution that is making the World Wide Web the platform for information sharing, collaboration and creativity. As businesses look to make this evolution a reality, spending is expected to reach nearly US$5 billion by 2013 on social networking tools.
Ask an experienced website designer which comes first - content or design. The answer will be clear and decisive; in the online world, an effective website’s design will always serve the content.
The web designers at Wiliam are often called on to design the “look and feel” of corporate websites, even with companies that have in-house development teams. Why? And is that kind of outsourcing for you?
A great way to add value to your customer’s visits to your website is to offer content in the form of .PDF files. The acronym stands for “Portable Document Format” and represents an Adobe PostScript file.
Want to show customers on your website exactly where you’re located? You can, with a customized map from Yahoo™ or Google™!
So what makes your Real Estate website different to the next? Here are fivegreat ideas to increase traffic, bring in new clients and find new staff.
There are typically three scenarios under which content is made available to a web design and development firm during a website project.
Search is important on the Internet, shouldn’t it be important on your website or intranet? The Google Mini has been deployed on a wide range of websites built by Wiliam providing the best search in the world.
Like a newspaper or magazine gathers articles for readers, Internet denizens have taken to using programs that collect dynamic content of their favourite sites. This allows them to do create a single page that scans a list of websites to either previews fresh content or even provide entire articles.
A website marketing plan is your roadmap to long-term success. It’s a highly detailed, well-researched document that sets goals, provides directions, and defines the website’s strategy over time.
Earth Day and other initiatives build awareness of how we can work to save resources, reduce waste, and recycle what is already in use. As you build and develop your company’s website, here are some ideas to ‘Go Green’.
However, frustrating as it may be for most of our clients before they come to Wiliam, so few people in this industry, let alone generally, have any idea about how to use content, link building, SEO and targeted copywriting strategies together to take their website and subsequently their company to the next level online.
We are starting to see a convergance between Content Management Systems such as Sitedock and Blog systems such as Wordpress driven by a need to leverage social networking to achieve a greater market share.
Good blogs update their content at least once a day, and great blogs even more often - or so it might seem. But the truth is that it is quality more than quantity that builds and keeps a blog audience.
When thinking about the design of your company’s site, one of the components you may consider is a Namesqueeze page. It’s a device meant to capture opt-in emails for future marketing campaigns.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) expand the volume and quality of website traffic to a web site via search engines. The key to this is in understand how search results are created; the algorithms and phrases that form a site’s relevance and rank.
The buy-in for Google Adwords can be very low and yield massive results. This is the allure that has made their Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign so overwhelmingly popular.
A focused online advertising plan is designed to take full advantage of the global Internet audience. The goals are to build your company’s brand awareness, to attract potential customers to your site, and ultimately to increase your company’s sales.
When engaging a web designer for your online presence, there is certain information you can gather that will help build success.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) expand the volume and quality of website traffic to a web site via search engines. The key to this is in understand how search results are created; the algorithms and phrases that form a site’s relevance and rank.
Could a microsite be right for your company website? They provide a powerful online advantage when used well.
While marketing firms hunt for new methodologies to target specific demographics, the members of Facebook almost obsessively self-define. This results in an abundant, well-articulated and international pool of potential customers.The question is how to reach them. The answer is by building a Facebook application.
Your website is your corporate presence to the online word, available any time from anywhere. It’s critical that it makes the impression you want to give.
Choosing the best domain is something that our clients constantly ask us about. Here at Wiliam we regularly work on both new product sites and new web start-ups so having the right domain name is essential. So, with that in mind, here are some recommendations and things you should consider before clicking the purchase button on your next domain name.
Irrespective of what sort of business you're in, it pays to know as much about your current and potential competition as you can.
Vince from our web development team noticed that our Facebook Application was being used by Daft Punk.
The best plugins for the jQuery JavaScript library for your websites.
Creating a website requires a customer-centric focus and a strategy that works towards ensuring your customers maximise their time on your site.
As one of just a handful of Australian few web agencies specialising in Facebook Application development our technologies team were glad to see this morning’s announcement by Facebook that they will be opening up the platform even further.
We’ve mentioned it a couple of times in previous blog posts, Search Engine Optimisation is the sum of many parts. In order to generate the maximum results from your SEO campaign, it is very important to streamline certain aspects of your online presence. Here are the top 10 SEO factors according to Wiliam’s Melbourne search team...
In any creative job, whether it’s copywriting or web design or whatever, you can find yourself lacking instant inspiration. Ask any web designer or creative artist, they’ll probably have a couple of “hit the wall” stories.
Successful search engine optimisation is the sum of many parts, and touches on many aspects of the web development and design process. Increasing findability is key.
Ever since Facebook flung opened its doors to developers, the social networking portal has added over 7,000 applications. Introducing the latest kid on the Facebook Application Platform – The Gossip Girl Facebook Application.
Email marketing, email deliverability is the term used by eMarketers for describing all the issues involved with getting your email delivered to the intended recipient.
Wiliam was a-buzz this afternoon when a great article about our web design company and Managing Director- Robert Beerworth, was published on SmartCompany.com.au.
In a bid to dominate the social networking neighborhood, plans have been announced this week that sees Google and over a dozen other leading social networks team together in a bid to overtake rival Facebook. OpenSocial, the new joint social media venture with MySpace in addition to a collective of companies led by Google, will introduce standardised tools to allow software developers to write programs for the global social network.
Facebook and Microsoft today announced a deal that could potentially revolutionise social networking. Software goliath Microsoft has signed on to invest $240 million into the social networking portal – currently the ninth most visited website in the US (according to Hitwise).
The Search Marketing blogosphere is abuzz with all kinds of theories and assumptions as to why that little green Google PR bar has suddenly dropped overnight - in most cases not just by a factor of one, but even by two or three. However, this is not the first glitch with the PageRank metric this month.
Networking is an essential skill for business managers, leaders and especially for entrepreneurs. Online lead generation is no different - encompassing all of the web’s functional applications. A basic online lead generation campaign has the ability to drive a torrent of traffic towards your website and has the potential to generate and dramatically increase your revenue.
With breast cancer rates increasing dramatically from 5,000 a year to 12,000, Wiliam staff felt it was vital that we band together for Wiliam’s Pink Ribbon breakfast - to demonstrate our continual support and raise funds for crucial funds into breast cancer research.
Why RSS advertising? Users are subscribing to RSS Feeds thick and fast - making RSS advertisements easy to track and effective in enabling organisations to measure success. It’s reasonably low-cost and can generate higher click-through rates than most forms of online advertising.
Over the last 8 years, Wiliam has worked hand-in-hand with the National Breast Cancer Foundation as their digital agency. Wiliam will continue to support the NBCF, who strive to shed light on this serious epidemic that affects one in 8 women before the age of 85.
More than 50 percent of Facebook users return to the site each day, providing unparalleled distribution potential for applications and the opportunity to build a business that is highly relevant to people’s lives. Undoubtly creating your own business branded Facebook Application is an extremely powerful online marketing commodity.
The massive growth of Web 2.0 has transformed the internet into a 2 way user generated phenomenon - and is now host to new wave of interactive election coverage.
When a web development agency approaches a new website implementation on behalf of a client, they must bring a surprisingly wide set of expertise into play. Web site development is not just about programming or visual design
Database development is a significant part of contemporary web design and development. Web sites that contain significant functionality – such as membership profiles and dynamic personalisation – often require data-design know-how.
Lead generation continues to be one of the main concerns for B2B (Business 2 Business) websites. According to statistics, users spend just 8 seconds scanning a web site landing page before leaving or deciding to explore further.
Pay Per Click is an online advertising format that that allows you to buy your way to the top of search results pages. This tactical form of advertising permits you choose keywords or phrases you would like your site to be associated with when a search is performed.
There are several factors you need to consider when choosing the right web developer for you. Look at the web developer’s capability to construct the right web site in-line with your product, technical and artistic talents and coding skills that allow for search engine optimisation.
Welcome to the next era in social media – social search. Social search is a basically a search engine that generates results corresponding with other users' interests based on social bookmarks, voting, tagging, news, pictures, videos and basically any activity of other likeminded users.
Statistics state that 45 percent of users online have created content. Web 2.0 has revolutionised the internet, highlighting the importance of user generated content because it essentially allows users to have a substantial input to your organisations branding.
Wiliam recently designed an educational platform to provide interactive learning for Skwirk Interactive Schooling. We combined our skill, knowledge and understanding of the importance of education and used it to build an innovative solution.
When people hear the term ‘SEO’ they immediately shift in their seats. It sounds awfully technical. Is it just ‘super-highway mumbo-gumbo’ created by tech’s to confuse us mere mortals? Or is there a scientific art to it?
As a great selling point, organisations can use a creative, cleverly marketed video package to demonstrate and display your product or service. Optimised content entices users to your web site and increase the average time spent browsing your web site.
Trends are fantastic and the internet has taken hold of the iconic web 2.0 phenomenon like the drop-shadow of an e-Fish to Water; luckily for web design firms across the world, a new era of web 2.0 design and web 2.0 development has ensued.
There has been growing acceptance and awareness of the terms blogs and blogging. An article on Tech.Blorge.com revealed that 80% of Americans are aware of blogs and visit blogs on a regular basis.
A report from eMarketer outlined the predicted increase in advertising revenue generated by social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook. MySpace recorded an annual profit of $440 million for the year ending on June 30th.
Optimise your web site using the top 5 tips for Social Bookmarking.
Featuring User Generating Content on your website strikes a direct connection with your target market.
Developing Facebook applications is amongst one of the many Social Media Optimisation services Wiliam can implement to extend your business brand.
An article published on The Register ‘UK eCommerce breaks the 4 billion a month’ detailed the 80% increase in online sales in the month of July compared to last year, according to a study by IMRG.
In today's competitive marketplace, standing out from the crowd is raher difficult, so how do you stand out from the crowd? Go back to basics and look at how you communicate with your customers more than what you communicate to them
Online video content offers great opportunities for companies to deliver to users a rewarding and engaging experience. With the continual uptake of broadband users it is a known fact that online video streaming and online video viewing will continue to rise.
A recent article on techdirt Shocker: School Boards Notice That The Internet Isn’t Dangerous outline that much of the political hype and the passing of the new Deleting Online Predators Action (DOPA) is an exaggeration of the threat the internet poses on school children.
Last week Wiliam Web Design and the Gadget Guy launched Gadget Guy TV, featuring a comprehensive archive of all appearances of the Gadget Guy and special online only videos this website is an example of the growing trend of online videos and online video advertising.
Web 2.0 is shaping the next generation of Consumer. Meet Citizen 2.0 - the most connected multi-taking generation ever.
A recent article Button Vs. Links: Which Is The Call-to-Action Hero? interpreted several different online surveys and queried top online retailers in an attempt to draw conclusions between the use of buttons or links in an email as the primary call-to-action.
An article on BBC News, Social sites reveal class divide illustrated that just like the real world, social networking websites are showing signs of social divide, class and societal values.
With the hot news of Apple releasing Safari For the PC, we take a look at how this new browser performs against the market leaders.
A recent article Online Travelers Bargain-Hunt on the Web detailed some interesting statistics on internet-using travelers and their behaviour online.
In the past 6 months Wiliam web design (Sydney) has noticed a trend amongst Australian politicians. Many have come to realise the benefits of blogging and Web 2.0 technologies. Why is that?
There is no doubt about it, 2007 is set to be a monumental year for Automotive online, a year that sees the end of the traditional, a year that sees the crowning of a new king.
A recent article in the SMH titled It’s web take 2.0 confirms what we have been telling our clients for a very long time. When considering your next web design project or the upgrade of your current website, it is important to keep in mind the differences and advantages of a Web 2.0 website.
Web 2.0 online marketing and corporate blogging are no longer hit and miss methods; they form a systematic, scientific and sustainable method of growing your business whilst at the same time educating your target market.
<br><br>The best strategies for developing an intranet solution become less and less clear the bigger the organisation becomes. The evitable intranet project that is correctly undergone by most large organisiations in an attempt to improve efficiency, is patched together in a scattered manner with different divisions creating their own areas and little coordination or experience.
What are the latest statistics from the Internet Retailer Email Marketing Survey and the techniques to improve the effectiveness of your next email marketing campaign
Wiliam has just lauched it's new website, built using cutting edge Web 2.0 technology, combined with truly breathtaking designs.
Similarly to many Asian countries, the Chinese audience loves highly interactive websites and web 2.0 functionality allowing them to be more involved in the website. Examples of such features and functionality include blogs, forums and the ability to rate products and send information to their friends.
Gadget Guy wins Sun Microsystems IT Journalism Award for Best New Technology Title 2006
Choice launches its new ‘Food For Kids’ website designed and developed by Wiliam, the Food For Kids website provides reliable, reviews and expert advice on popular foods amongst Australian kids.
For many clients starting a web design and development project is often stepping into unknown territory. This article discuss the keys things to consider before contacting a web design firm to not only save time and but to ensure the overall success of the project.
An article in ZDNet titled Cisco CEO sings praises of Web 2.0 future confirms that Web 2.0 is definitely the future and John Chambers CEO of Cisco is ‘betting his business on it’ (ZDNet).
A recent article Web 2.0 how to design style guide illustrated some very good examples of design elements that form the Web 2.0 design trends. The following articles discusses some the of elements and examples of their application within Wiliam’s client projects.
As manufacturers and dealers alike continue to allocate huge budgets to ‘traditional’ channels of marketing communication, they still fail to notice the writing on the wall. Capgemini reports that reliance on print advertising as a source of information when researching a vehicle purchase dropped by a further 7% to that of 2005 , while online sources of information continued to increase in their significance to the buying process, securing 4 of the top 5 spots in the survey as a point of research. <a href="http://technorati.com/claim/x53dkyjizh" rel="me" class="hidden">Technorati Profile</a>
A recent article written by Jason Prescott Find Your Niche with Specialised Search discusses the opportunities for businesses to find its place in vertical search engines .
It has become common knowledge that part of any SEO strategy is increasing the number of inbound links to your website. However the article A Tale of Two Links Counts truly demonstrates that simply having many inbound links is not enough.
An recent article Email Marketing Still Works referred to a recent Forrester report that confirms that email marketing is still an effective tool.
The new Vista Gadget and Sidebar technologies bundled with Microsoft Windows Vista are available to third party developers to build Gadget and Sidebar offering of their own.
One of the key goals of a website for businesses is to engage users and to maximse the conversion rate. A conversion of a visitor can be many things, some examples include newsletter opt in, sales enquiry or document download.
There are several technologies which work in concert behind the scenes to provide the eye catching enhancements to Microsoft based application and Web site interfaces.
In a recent article in BusinessWeek, reporter Robb Hoff provides a sweeping and well informed overview of the state of Internet advertising as in the hands of Google Inc.
Most frequent Web users are familiar with the Google sidebar and Google Gadgets – even if we have not installed them then we may have seen them.
The new Microsoft Windows Vista graphical user interface (GUI) offers some significant advantages and improvements over previous versions of the operating system. Wizards for performing common tasks and configuring the desktop and its applications are more streamlined and intuitive, and application interfaces are generally better appointed and easier to work with.
In a recent press release, Microsoft revealed that the latest version of the Windows operating system can help reduce power consumption and waste for individuals and corporations.
Search engine optimisation techniques must change and grow in sophistication in proportion to the speed of change and advancement of search engines themselves.
In a recent article published in the Financial Review, Joshua Gliddon reports that Google’s search engine competitors are maneuvering in to gain a footing in the on-line search and directory space. However, are they making any ground on Google in terms of search engine power and know how?
Complacency is a killer when it comes to retaining your competitive position online. The past 18 months has seen a significant increase in the adoption of technologies and techniques that only last year, were perceived by some as “never going to catch on”.
As if to highlight the difficulties faced by handling copyright in the new content publishing frontiers of the Web, and especially Web 2.0, Viacom – the owner of MTV and US cable favourite Comedy Central – is suing Google and its subsidiary Youtube for US$1.3 Billion over copyright infringement1
A recent Sydney Morning Herald article reports that David Kirk, in launching Fairfax digital’s new Brisbane based on-line news service, brisbanetimes.com.au, issued a challenge to the telecommunications industry to make broadband more affordable and better performing.
In a recent article in the Australian Financial Review, the CEOs of two new on-line real-estate advertising websites described new approaches to offering real estate for sale on the Web, as they enter into competition with a swathe of existing on-line real estate portals.
Corporate blogging is where CEO’s, industry experts, politicians and ‘C-Level execs’ meet on-line with industry and political stakeholders, and customers and the public. There is debate in leading economic forums and journals about the implications of blogging for industry heavyweights, but the effectiveness of corporate blogging as a form of indirect or viral marketing – marketing that perpetuates itself based on user or customer interest – seems little in doubt
Truly interesting text-based Web content has to come from an intelligent, human source. Weather satellite feeds and location Web cams not withstanding, text content is still the mainstay of the internet (although video offerings are starting to make a very significant contribution), and inputting it is still a data entry task – even with the best input systems.
What kinds of content will be seen on the Web in the future? What about free face-to-face education offered to every school age child in every society, on-line?
As an erstwhile Web developer and Web software engineer (and now occasional ‘hobbyist’), I can remember some of the content management solutions on offer in the mid to late nineties.
Microsoft already offers free software to many users. Developers have been benefiting from the availability of free software and database development tools like Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition and SQL Server Management Studio Express Edition for some time now.
Thus with continuing growth in traffic, increased revenue from social bookmarking websites and the overwhelming up take of these technologies by consumers, it is clear that social bookmarking will significantly impact the way we source our news into the future.
So, is Internet Explorer a vast improvement, or just another nail in the coffin for Microsoft's browser? A look at the pros and cons of this new browser.
Here is part 2 of my DotNetNuke experience. In part 1 I was moaning about how long things took to get up and running. I have now successfully deployed 3 skins to our client, who has expressed how happy they are with their skins. Tops! Here's my findings on DotNetNuke.
An article written by Thomas Baekal on November 23rd 2006 discussed 7 tricks to Viral Web Marketing. The article gave some helpful tips for improving the effectiveness of viral marketing campaigns. By keeping to a few fundamental ideas and strategies viral marketing can prove to be very effective.
I have been working on a proof-of-concept for a client to be installed in DotNetNuke. The new site was designed, cut up into images, HTML and CSS, and given to me to convert into a DotNetNuke skin (template). Having previously only played with the administrative interface of DotNetNuke, I was faced with the task of installing it on my dev machine and setting up the new portal. Here are some of my findings.
With just a few more months to go before the long awaited launch of Wiliam’s new version of Sitecast, I would like to take a few minutes to discuss some of the most common sense, but frequently ignored principles of email marketing.
Since June 2005, Google has created its Google's Sitemaps protocol, allowing website owners to manually submit their pages to Google.
Previously, most web users would only remember the best of websites; put simply, now the best web 2.0 sites remember you.
Technologies such as AJAX, REST and RSS form the technical underpinnings of Web 2.0, the term used to characterize the next generation of Web applications.
Google is slowing development of new software, consolidating what it has, and focusing on the Mac
Pandora Internet Radio works by allowing all of its millions of users to “vote” on a particular song in a playlist, ultimately building a list of artists and songs that you are likely to be into.
Floats are designed to make designing on the web easier, but they can be both a hinderance and a saviour on the web. Once you've learnt how to handle them, you'll never look back.
There has been a lot of hype going around lately with Microsoft’s soon to launch media player Zune, targeted to compete with the ever so popular Apple ipod. So what features will Zune have to offer the market to break the dominance of the Apple ipod?
According to an article called “In web search, business is better than sex” in the Sydney Morning Herald today, Sex and pornography have been trounced by business and e-commerce as the most popular internet search topics.
The Wotif.com (Online travel booking website) founder and director Graeme Wood was quoted to have said "people seem happy to research and transact online as it is the lowest cost distribution channel available: the travel agents who will succeed are those who find niche markets".
With the growing number of Firefox addons we decided to conduct an in house survey on the 5 most popular tools used within the office. Here are the results and some of the reasons why they are the favourites amongst the Wiliam team.
With regards to traditional media, he said that it had yet to figure out the convergence of entertainment, media and communications technology and the shifting of the balance of power from those that own entertainment and media to those that consume it.
As we embrace ourselves for the snow season what better news to hear besides the extra dumping of snow we have received in the last couple of days then the fact that we can stay connected while we are hitting the slopes. Yes, you heard it Perisher Blue (www.perisherblue.com.au), Mt Buller (www.mtbuller.com.au), and Falls Creek (www.fallscreek.com.au) are in the midst of providing us with a resort wide wireless internet connection.
Are banner advertisements effective in gaining the audience attention? A study conducted by Nielson/Norman Group finds Internet users have grown a tendency to avoid banner ads altogether. This has been termed banner blindness.
Above-the-line is effective, but it is a given that the majority of car buyers will access manufacturer and dealer websites (several times), prior to purchase. In fact, the web is cited as twice as important as newspapers when it comes to car buying. It comes as no suprise then that Toyota has started to shift its focus online, delivering enhanced services and content to buyers and customers alike.
This combination of streaming online media, streaming mobile content and television seems to satisfy what has been labeled the “simultaneous media consumption” needs of today’s youth; the habit of watching three things at once
In a recent article in the Weekend Australian Financial Review ‘Ignorance is anything but bliss’, Craig Murray notes that “managers of Australian owned companies have a resistance in general to wanting to know anything about an underlying technology”.
This Pepsi campaign goes one step further in its quest to reach their ever evolving consumer by going viral.
Sun, Google will allow users to download OpenOffice via the Google website and users downloading Sun's java program will be given the option to download the Google toolbar. Will this partnership affect sales of MS Office, or will the usability and the still standing reputation of Microsoft's software draw users to carry on using Office?
A few mouse clicks and you have your order delievered to you door step. Could the internet be just about the best medium for buying and selling almost anything?
"Consumers are hungry for it. Broadcasters are terrified of it. And well they should be - if the internet has its way, broadcast television could soon be tumbleweed in the dust."