• BPI research show 75% of downloads are illegal (down from 90%)-without hacking everyone laptop I’d question the acurracy http://ow.ly/3svb6 #
  • Phew, hold your horses bloggers/bookmarkers – Delicious is to be sold not shut down by Yahoo. http://ow.ly/3svqI #
  • Interesting view by @rnadworny on digital jobs at Groupon -what are you aiming for,high growth or scaled job creation? http://ow.ly/3svAQ #
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These are my links for May 22nd through May 26th:

  • Digital strategy is tool every business can use to maximise endeavour – Here's a little interview with me from this week's Evening Post, Nottingham, business section, talking about my work in digital strategy and also a bit about my work with the CreativeNottingham.com project.
  • Q&A: Gerd Leonhard on why social media beats search – Gerd Leonhard, a very smart chap and the author of 'Future of Music Manifesto' (a big source for my recent study of independent music) on why social media will eventually overtake search, and engagement other reputation management, and why paywalls don't work.
  • Guest comment: When TV met the internet – the perfect love-child – Tom Laidlaw from Videojug on the impact of online video, which has 10x the response rate of other online media.
  • Augmented reality: 10 real world examples from the superbrands – Augmented reality is not just science fiction: both iconic and inventive global brands are starting to experiment in ways real products can interact with computers and screens to engage with their product. In most cases it involves connect a printed icon with your webcam (and additional software) so this is a long way from being a mainstream game changer, but a trend savvy marketers will want to investigate. I particularly like the beer that tells you if it's at the right temperature to drink.
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These are my links for May 9th through May 16th:

  • How to create compelling content that ranks well in search engines – A great 29 page e-book by Copyblogger author Brian Clark on how to make great web writing copy that also pushes all the SEO buttons. Some very useful tips, as a long pre-amble to promote his Scribe software which I admit has my interest: you enter your copy and the software gives you tips on how to improve it better for your chosen keywords.
  • The Internet Conference: Powerpoint Presentations – Susan Hallam organised the Internet Conference last week in Nottingham, an impressive collection of speakers and presentations from major e-marketing, e-commerce and SEO experts. Here's are some presentations from the day.
  • Matrix: How Facebook’s ‘Community Pages’ and Privacy Changes Impact Brands – Jeremiah Owyang's review of how Facebook's latest raft of changes are affecting brands: mostly as a negative effect. Facebook strategy is to aggregate the web, including wikipedia style aggregation, which negatively affects brands as well as personal privacy. In other news, web people vote overwhelmingly to say they prefer Facebook's 'fan' to 'like' status – which seems to have had the affect already of diluting loyalty to a Facebook Page. http://polldaddy.com/poll/3183296/ Overall, Facebook's endless tweaking and twisting seems to be having a negative affect on it's community. It's international gathering of staff to discuss privacy issues this week may signal a sea-change in their steam-roller approach to aggregating and connect all user data.
  • Is Your Social Media Strategy Just Digital Flyering? – Good article by Andrew Girvan on lessons from theatre producers on the digital equivalent of flyering – Twitter broadcasting. Some good tips on doing it better: running special promotions, targetting groups of interest, and of course making your Twitter presence be conversational.
  • From Realities to Values: A Strategy Framework for Digital Natives – No great answers here but a useful framework for understanding how to define and consider the needs of 'digital natives' (or the under 28s as this article defines them) when planning a digital strategy including content creation, engagement and advocacy.
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These are my links for April 27th through April 29th:

  • Digital Economy Act: Don’t Forget The Wi-Fi! – More details on the Digital Economy Bill and its potential impact on reducing public wifi, this will be a major challenge area too for public service centres e.g. libraries. To me wifi availability is a major part of the sucess of Digital Britain and mobility of workers.
  • Social Media Strategy Before Tactics – This is an absolute must read article, interviewing some of the good and great in online marketing (including Chris Brogan and Guy Kawasaki) about the relationship between strategy and tactics in social media. Unsurprisingly 90% think it's all about strategy, but some good views on just testing the waters first off, which will work best for a lot of big to small companies.
  • Checkout optimization tips from Dr Mike Baxter – Interesting guide (for members only) about how improving the checkout experience of e-commerce along can create greater retention and less lost sales. Key takeouts: customers want simplicity (not crowded pages, pop-ups or warning messages) so declutter, and the confirmation message is a great place to post other purchase recommendations. Also using analytics is critical and few e-commerce people use them to their advantage: not using analytics funnels and deep analysis will put you at a competitive disadvantage.
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These are my links for April 11th through April 13th:

  • Twitter releases new advertising platform: promoted tweets. – Twitter finally has a business model – and with it we have yet another social platform to advertise on. Twitter adverts will work like Google Pay-Per-Click keywords apearing at the start of search results.
  • Top 10 YouTube Videos About The Web – Here's a bit of linkbait waiting to be linked to…the most popular web video based on viewers – several parodies and homages to social media stars and culture, some fascinating historic videos of the internet and some knowledge enhancing pieces on the history of the internet and the future of publishing. A fascinating collection.
  • Tribal DDB Briefing: iPad – What it is and what it means to your digital strategy – Great summary of the iPad, it's features and how you can develop a content and monetisiation strategy for Apple's shiniest, newest portal web device.
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