Given the amount of websites still cluttering up the place with flashing pop-ups, rainbow text in Comic Sans and hit counters boasting 000139 visitors (rising to 000142 when you return six months later) this new competition from Freelance Switch can’t come soon enough.

The challenge was to take an outdated 90s website and bring it into the 21st century, a bit like the classic Oatmeal cartoon in reverse. OK, so the site in question, Mario’s Catering, is fictional, but it’s an attitude to be encouraged!

Read More »

This month, the company associated with one of the world’s most popular blogging platforms took its first, quiet step into the realm of for-profit content aggregation. FoodPress, a human-curated recipe blog, is a collaboration between blogging giant WordPress.com and Federated Media, a company that provides advertising to blogs and also brokers more sophisticated sponsorship deals. Lindt chocolate is already advertising on the site. Read More »

When PR agency Webber Shandwick recently launched a ‘crisis simulator’ called Firebell, it made me think about the effectiveness of damage limitation strategies deployed by companies facing negative feedback from social sites like Facebook.

There’s been many a time when I’ve seen people ask why there isn’t an ‘I don’t like this’ button on Facebook. There are some two million plus Facebook users who ‘Like’ the idea of having one, and it illustrates the weight of opinion which the community can create. Read More »

People think it’s this veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
- Steve Jobs

What is user experience?

User Experience (UX) is about designing technology so that it meets the needs of users. It ensures products are efficient, easy to learn and satisfying to use. UX is a way of thinking about technology – which is what I’d like to discuss in this post – and also a set of tools for putting its principles into practice, some of which I’ll introduce in future articles. Read More »

I’m a lucky guy: I’m just back from Vegas sun and the Word-of-Mouth summit where it became clear from the opening speech of the conference that the big boys want to claim the WOM domain. McKinsey recently published an article about measuring the business value of WOM. Next to that, the latest edition of the Harvard Business Review is covering the topic as well.

Once these kind of organizations are claiming a domain, you can be quite certain that the hype is over. The hype is now a trend. In 2011 companies will (more than ever) acknowledge the power of word-of-mouth. However, most of them will still suffer with the ‘how’ question. How can we manage this. Read More »

What has Apple got cooking this Friday? There is enticing notice on its UK and US stores telling people to get ready for a “special one-day Apple shopping event” on November 26.

Does it mean a big sale? Apple has done this before in the run up to the holiday season and with Apple products high on a lot of shopping lists this year it could seriously boost sales of the most wanted gadgets like the iPad, which has already racked up sales north of 4.1 million as the tablet market heats up.

Read More »

If there is one thing worse than so called “blood-sucking social media gurus” it’s ranting journalists. A perfect example of which is on display at the Telegraph today.

Milo Yiannopoulos argues that “social media consultants are an inexcusable waste of money”. Maybe. Maybe not, but what is really inexcusable is if you are going to say such things give us some examples of the work these people who are apparently beyond parody. Read More »

Lots going on with tablet computers, with Apple upgrading the operating system for iPad and reports on Samsung sales figures for its Samsung Galaxy Tab.

iPad: new operating system

Read More »

Reports are gathering that, Groupon, one of hottest online services around is about to be sold for a very large sum of money with  Google willing to pay as much as $5bn.

Bloomberg reports that Groupon is considering whether to sell itself to Google or go it alone for a little longer and raise fresh cash, which could value the daily coupon company at more than $3bn. Read More »

With so much being said in the last few weeks about the value of social media to news groups, by the likes of The Guardian and The New York Times its very interesting to read the News Corporation’s Australian titles will not follow the anti-social media paywall approach adopted by The Times and The New of the world in London, which locks away all content and allows nothing to be shared.

It is further confirmation if ever you needed it that News International in London got it wrong and that its paywall is an anomaly not to be repeated in the US or Australia where different, more open, paywalls will or will soon operate. Read More »