I had a phone call yesterday from a free business magazine that I receive in the mail each month. They wanted to know if I was happy with my subscription (?) and whether I wanted any additional copies for our office. When I told her that we’re only a small company, she offered to send me five more copies each … Read More
Stop torturing your website visitors
Remember when 468 x 80 banners were the big thing? I do. In fact I used to sell advertising on some of our websites using the format, as did most websites at that time. Then we hit ICO – Inevitable Cycle of Overuse. Stage 1 – the format takes off; now “everybody” is using it. Stage 2 – we see … Read More
Google and China – the bigger issue
Yes, yes, we know. Google China users are being automatically redirected to Google Hong Kong. But more importantly, why is the Google Hong Kong homepage so much funkier than everywhere else: Google.com: Google.com.hk: When are we going to be upgraded?
Google hypocrisy reaches new levels
According to a post on the Google Analytics blog, Google are developing a “global browser based plug-in to allow users to opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics“. The writer explains that this is in the interests of “protecting use data privacy“. Sorry? This has the potential to cripple the accuracy of Google Analytics data, and will effectively be … Read More
Major labels to allow the over-90s to bypass DRM
On March 13th, YouTube are stopping support for older browsers. The following browsers will be impacted by the change: Any browser older than Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 Any browser older than Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Any browser older than Google Chrome 4.0 Any browser older than Safari 3.0+ Note that users of these browsers will still be able to watch YouTube … Read More
Google facts and figures – data for the obsessed
Many thanks to Dirk Paessler for sending this my way: “Google has perhaps more than any other company become “The Internet Company.” It’s grown hand in hand with the internet and its entire business model has from the start been totally focused on the internet as a delivery platform. And let’s face it, Google is a pretty interesting company. In … Read More
Track ANY website changes (for free) with Google Reader
Google Reader is one of those tools that I like, understand, but don’t really use. At least not until now. I’ve been using FeedDemon longer than I can remember; certainly long before most normal people had ever heard of RSS feeds. And that’s the root of the problem with RSS: Most people have never heard of it, many of those … Read More
Google vs. Google
Ever since Google settled onto their throne as the undisputed King of the search engines, people have been predicting their demise. History has taught us that no King will rule forever, and at some point, even the mighty Google will fall from grace. Yet a pattern appears to have emerged in the online world. Interesting new services and products emerge, … Read More
Why won’t website visitors do what I want?
Pulling-in targeted visitors to your website is relatively easy. There’s Google AdWords, AdCenter, press releases, twitter, blogs and hundreds of other opportunities for jumping in front of the right people and waving your arms around so they don’t forget you. Getting them to stay, however, is more difficult. Many small and medium-sized companies make the mistake of too many assumptions. … Read More
Plagiarism, theft and business – why are so many companies stealing our content?
We all work hard to create and fine-tune our website content. And an unfortunate reality is that there are a lot of people out there who are quite happy to steal our content for their own purposes. Take this page on our own website, actually I should rephrase that. Take a look at our Google AdWords Management page: In particular: … Read More
