These are my links for November 18th through November 28th:

  • Understanding Bounce Rates Infographic – Lovely and helpful inforagraphics from Think Vitamin on average industry bounce rates and tips to improve the dark curve of the ‘bounce’ (website visitors who visit one page of your site then leave). Average across all sectors is 40.5%, 4.6 page views per visit and 190 seconds per session. I never knew that!
  • How to Make Your Website Mobile Friendly (And Keep Your Readers Happy) – Great tips for making your website work for the predicted 1.7 Billion global mobile internet users including minimising big images and flash design.
  • Have Click Rates Finally Stopped Declining? – Good news. Perhaps. Global online ad effectiveness have levelled their freefall decline down to 0.09% in the last year. What this pitiful statistic shows to me is that a staggering 99.91% of online adverts are ineffective: advertisers, brands and B2B need to find more effective ways of building their own audience through online engagement.
  • Facebook Messages – some say it’s an “email killer,” others disagree – Interesting stats on how US teens communicate: shows texting growing in popularity and landline calls declining, but just about all others communications means (including social media and email) more or less flat in the last 3 years. Although email has limited use (11%) it still has a plays in teen communications.
  • 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web – Nice little illustrated e-book which brings together the not very interesting topic of web browsers and how these are evolving (including security and HTML5).
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These are my links for November 1st through November 4th:

  • How to write for the web: 23 useful rules – Some no-nonsense rules from tech journalist Chris Lake on how to develop compelling writing for the web. Light on the SEO, more about how to communicate your message using good layout and structure.
  • Social media and internal communications: Interview with WebJam – Article on how to use social networks (or socially enhanced intranet) for internal communications. Crucial to succcess is taking a user-centred approach to design and having clear user guidelines and a policy.
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These are my links for July 23rd through July 27th:

  • The Subjective Web: Semantic Evolution – A nice, easy to understand article on what the Semantic Web will mean for searching and finding information online, by Raymond Bentinck.
  • International SEO – An informative 26-page e-book by Hallam Internet which gives some great advice on considering your options for an international website – considering different trends in search, findability and language.
  • Facebook to launch PayPal-style ‘Credits’ in September – I'm sure we've been here before but it seems that Facebook will be launching their own credit system, going head to head with Paypal to allow users to pay for physical and virtual goods within the network. If anyone can take on PayPal it's Facebook – but the jury is out as to how many of it's users will adopt it. If this works well for micropayments this could be a big step in allowing all kinds of transaction models.
  • Companies Throw Their Weight Behind Online Video – State-side, we're seeing more and more growth in online video, with the vast majority of Top 50 retail companies now using video for product advertising and video blogging. The growth of video for marketing looks set to continue onwards and upwards.
  • Reality Check: Just Six Percent Of TV Viewing Is Non-Linear – As us people of the future wax lyrical about time-shifted TV and video-on-demand, the stark reality is that although many people do watch VOD channels, it only accounts for 6% of TV viewing time. It seems people are happy, after all, with scheduled TV.
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These are my links for April 30th through May 3rd:

  • Wooshii – the new place to buy, sell and view rich media and online video – Another 'marketplace' service where you can specifically buy video, animation, music and rich media services for web. Looks like there's a good spread of international producers active here – couild be useful if you're producing rich media product on a tight timescale and budget.
  • Emotional Interface Design: The Gateway to Passionate Users – Another super articles from the web development gurus over at Carsonified (a rare example of an international, outward facing UK digital co) looking at how personal branding and positive emotional connection can be made through good design, including examples like 'Feathers', the tweeting bird that changes colour as your reach your character limit. Relating online user needs to Maslow's Hierachy of Needs, we need to be reaching not just functional but pleasurable services for users.
  • Audio Hosting Sites for Web Series Producers – Audio doesn't have that one stop 'destination' feel like video has with the mighty YouTube, which makes it hard for audio producers to know where is the best place for them to host (or podcast) their audio. Storygas gives their view on the benefits of several audio hosting services with demo videos (the irony!). It seems far more nowadays that audio producer have to create their own audiences, although there is still demand on YouTube for audio only streaming (or 'radio with pictures' as I heard one radio producer call it).
  • What can TV’s Embarrassing Bodies teach the healthcare industry? – Here's an article I wrote for the Healthcare Engagement Strategy e-journal about the Channel 4 TV show and website Embarrassing Bodies, which was extremely successful at engaging TV and web audiences in important medical issues. I interviewed Channel 4 Commissioner Adam Gee and Maverick Television's Jonnie Turpie.
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These are my links for April 8th through April 11th:

  • The Collapse of Complex Business Models – Author and academic, and writer of "Here Comes Everybody" Clay Shirky write a good piece on simplifying bureaucracies and business models, using the example of user generated video and 'In The Motherhood', a small hit online drama that failed as a conventional TV series.
  • Forecast: TV, Internet Will Lead Advertising Back Up As Print Wanes – Predicted stats for advertising from 2008-2012 globally, showing that TV (after a fall) is set for growth to return to 2008 levels this year, and internet advertising will continue strong growth, whilst print, cinema and advertising are set for a slight decline in spend. Of digital, the strongest growth will be in paid search followed by display advertising.
  • Digital Economy Bill: Quick Guide To All 45 Measures – Great summary of the Digital Economy Bill, due to be passed as law this Monday, showing all 45 measures, and which have been withdrawn. Interesting to see that Channel 4 now have a remit of distributing film and supporting 'innovative content' and children's programmes as part of their public service remit.
  • What Social Media Will Look Like in 2012 – Insightful article by Freddie Laker on how social media will grow to become an intrinsic part of the digital experience by 2012, as the semantic web and user recommendation seemlessly interweaves with search, ecommerce and other web experiences. I like the idea of seeing aggregated realtime updates of users before you put in a phone call, and ratings as a core part of the e-commerce experience.
  • Bebo’s friends desert it – Business Analysis & Features, Business – Yet another social networking giant looks set to bite the dust.. as MySpace hangs in there, Bebo looks set to have its doors shut by owners AOL. Failure to invest and understand the needs of its youth demographic, particularly in failing to support social gaming, have led to the downfall of the fun site. Big shame as Bebo were once investors of online TV programming such as Kate Modern, and this gap, coupled with Endemol's recent annoucement of scaling down their digital team due to limited online tv investment, heralds the death-too-soon of pureplay web television.
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