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What’s the Plus?!

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 11:28:00 GMT

March wasn’t a great month for Google. First came an ex-employee’s scathing blog-rant about their supposedly slipping standards, which may have gone under the radar if it weren’t for the fact it was posted on competitor Microsoft’s blog site. Then just this week the search giant came under fire over privacy issues, UK MP’s demanding tighter controls over contentious content.

But it looks like they could be ending the month on a high, two Google+ related developments having just been announced that hope to help bring the platform back from the brink of obscurity. Firstly, Google+ this weekend launches its debut TV advertising campaign, and secondly that the platforms Hangouts feature will have its API released to third-party developers.

Hangouts had looked initially like it might have been the platforms ‘killer app’, the run-away feature that Google+ needed to break Facebook’s grip over the masses. However, when Facebook responded with its Skype partnership it all but killed the excitement around their video chat exclusive. By releasing the Hangouts API (Application Programming Interface) though, we’ll hopefully see a raft of fresh new ideas and uses for the feature – then all they’d need is the users, and that’s where the ad campaign nicely slips in.

A World Web So Wide

Going under the strapline of ‘That’s A Plus’, the advert beautifully ties in Shakespeare’s ‘All the world’s a stage...’ monologue with the story of a man’s family life as played out through his Google+ account. One man in his time really does play many parts, and that’s where the Circles feature comes in (how prophetic of the bard). And that whining school-boy, with his satchel and shining morning face? Hangouts was there to share his first day of school with the grandparents.

The advert focusses almost entirely on video-sharing, a clue as to where Google currently see their strengths, and coupled with the API release, it’s beginning to look like Hangouts may well become a threat to the Zuckerberg empire once again.

Facebook Timeline for Pages – What You Need To Know

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:45:00 GMT

The news of Timeline’s availability to brand Pages has seen an almost inverse reaction to that of profile accounts, the biggest concern being the loss of ability to choose a landing page. Users having to adjust and update their profiles were quick to complain of this extra hassle, but with many brand Pages being administered by companies, the benefits have been quickly spotted and so it’s nothing like the supposed thorn in the side of the lay-user.

So what’s changing, what are we going to be expected to do and what is Facebook now saying we can’t do? Here’s the break-down:

The Biggies

Pages are allowed an 851x315px banner image at the top of their profile. Your Page’s Profile Picture still exists, but is separate to this and is shown overlaying the bottom left-hand corner of the top banner. As such, it’s possible to use the two separate images to clever effect, as seen on Fanta’s page.

At the core of the changes is, of course, the timeline itself. Your feed of Updates is no longer just a history of your postings to Facebook, but is expandable to pre-date the network and chronicle your brand’s history. Coca-Cola, ever eager to be seen as an early-adopter, have done a great job with there’s here.

In something of a watershed moment, Facebook are now allowing Messages between brands and their Fans. Though the exchange needs to be instigated by the Fan, once initiated it allows brands access to the coveted user Inbox and should bring a brands Customer Service offering along leaps and bounds if used correctly.

The Smallies

You’ve spent thousands on a new iFrame landing page, and now clicks are going to your main page first, disaster! Not exactly, as you can still just direct your off-site links through to the applications page as well as sending Facebook adverts here.

These applications are now given a stronger positioning, in a row under the top banner, as well as the option to upload thumb images to the buttons. Only 4 are viewable from the timeline, but with up to a further 12 applications allowed within an expandable sub-section this is a great place to increase on your offering to users and increase retention rates.

Due to the redesign, your existing applications and associated graphics can now be slightly increased in their size. Though not an essential, it’s worth double-checking to make sure they’re looking as good as they can.

Ever have one of those fantastic days of engagement where a Status Update (now called Stories) really hits home with your Fans? Well now you’ve got the ability to Pin these Stories to the top of your timeline for up to a week. With this feature maximising the Reach of strong content, it’s sure to prove a hit with small and large brands alike.

The No-No’s

The top banner image CAN NOT feature any advertising spiel (e.g. “50% off”, “SALE NOW ON!!”) or CTA’s, and as contact details are given a section elsewhere on the page these are also not permitted within the image.

There is, of course, much more to be found in way of smaller or innocuous changes, but hopefully with these main ones in mind you’ll find making the switch to Timeline not only easy but also incredibly beneficial.

Job Interviews – The Facebook Question

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:05:00 GMT

Going for job interviews is amongst the most stressful of things we’re all likely to do in life, mostly down to that pressure to present the best possible image of ourselves to prospective new employers. So what would you do if confronted with a request for your Facebook login details at an interview?

Instances of this very practice first started surfacing last summer, once again reminding us that our online lives had real-world implications. The companies involved were quick to change their policies once the wider world caught wind of it, but stories are once again appearing of this most dubious of interviewing practices, rekindling the debate around this contentious issue.

Examples thus far have all been Stateside and the reactions overwhelmingly negative, but with the discussion once again being had, should those currently job-seeking be tightening up their profiles?

Unwritten Rules

Whilst employers, carrying out basic web searches on potential employees, are nothing new, this latest development over-steps both written and unwritten rules. From an official standpoint, it’s Facebook’s Terms and Conditions which opponents of these measures are clinging to, but truth be told it’s that violation of a supposed privacy which is raising more feathers.

What many are now suggesting is a Social Media Privacy bill to protect the rights of users in the face of these maverick corporate demands. But what if you’re faced with this scenario before such legislation passes? Unfortunately it’ll come down to the individual as to whether they go with the request or pass on the job opportunity, but with such tactics up to now being restricted to American companies hopefully this will be a choice we’ll be spared.

Fourth Generation Mobile Browsing (4G)

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:43:00 GMT

You’d be hard pushed to read any of the major technology news sites without spotting at least one article about an emerging mobile device. Be it speculation or confirmation, smartphones and tablets command headlines as the celebrities of the technological world, and it’s no surprise given the increasing dependence we have on these devices. However, whilst these products continue to evolve at startling rates, the elephant in the room has remained the UK’s lacklustre mobile internet.

Whereas home broadband connections have continually improved over the past decade, that horrid dial-up tone now thankfully a thing of the past, mobile users have had to settle with the stagnant 3G network. An infrastructure that’s been in place since 2003, its age has increasingly shown flaw as our mobile devices have grown in capability. But salvation in the form of 4G may be imminent if a recent application by mobile operator Everything Everywhere is successful.

All Tech’d Up With Nowhere To Surf

Though Ofcom had previously suggested a 2013/14 roll-out for this next generation of connection, the application for use of this infrastructure has started tongues wagging of a possible 2012 launch. Whether this actually happens, only time will tell, but it has definitely gotten us excited about the prospect of using our snazzy smartphones to their full potential.

Even though 2011 was heralded by many as the Year of the Smartphone, sluggish networks alongside restrictive tariffs have meant the online mobile experience is a definite compromise. With the previously vague “unlimited data” tariffs expected to switch to actual unlimited allowances this summer and the promise of 4G on the horizon, these awkward early years of mobile internet could almost be behind us.

Facebook’s Timely Facelift

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 09:12:00 GMT

There’s much to be said for the Rip Off The Plaster approach to implementing change, and when it comes to social media it’s something of a golden rule. Site developments are essential for keeping abreast wider technological progressions, but we’re increasingly seeing this logic lost on users who “like things the way they are”, highlighted beautifully by Facebook’s recent Timeline roll-out.

Facebook has been no stranger to derision in the aftermath of usability and layout changes, indeed almost every new development over the years has been met by a chorus of disapproval. The addition of last September’s seemingly innocuous Ticker Feed proved yet again that users were unwilling to consider progress a positive thing, but these complaints look set to be dwarfed by reactions to Timeline.

Slow Uptake

Announced at last years’ f8 conference, with this being the most prolific of changes in the platforms short life it was always destined to set the cat amongst the pigeons, but an incredibly staggered launch didn’t help its cause. Since the feature debuted as a Developer-only opt-in last September, Facebook have been consistently vague whenever talking compulsory roll-outs, potentially due to the lawsuit they found themselves embroiled in with website timelines.com. Two months later New Zealand’s users were treated to the first non-Developer roll-out, the rest of the world pencilled in for “the near future”.

This near future transpired a mere fortnight later, with the Timeline feature being offered to users worldwide on an opt-in basis. Depending on how you viewed the changes, a compulsory roll-out was threatened or promised for “shortly”, which evolved to “a few weeks” by February this year.

Many weeks later and users still have the choice as to whether they use Facebook’s Timeline feature or not, but in a move that’s sure to shake things up the feature is now available to brand Pages. As with regular users, a period of adjustment has been announced for Page admins to get their heads around these changes, but unlike their lay-user counterparts a date of 30th March has been set for the compulsory change-over.

So why all the drama?

The psychological phenomenon of Impact Bias seems mostly to blame, the worry that these changes will somehow have deeper implications. This, coupled with the fact that the facelift has loomed over users for more than 6 months, has led to these unaddressed issues festering in the minds of the not-so tech savvy and the feature being overwhelmingly associated with negativity (even if the reasons for this, such as privacy concerns, as for the most part unfounded).

What can we expect over the coming weeks then? Thankfully, the majority of Facebook brand Pages will be aware enough to not only make the required changes early but to also embrace these changes for the marketing benefits they offer. In throwing themselves behind Timeline, we could well see the feature increasingly normalised within the minds of the lay-user for seeing it all the more on brand Pages, and hence ease its compulsory use for all profiles. This is no-doubt the hope of Team Zuckerberg, but should things go the opposite direction we might see the mass exodus to Google’s Plus offering that has been speculated ever since the platform arrived last summer.

We’ll have to wait until compulsory roll-out’s should have occurred across all accounts to get a clearer picture of how these changes have been met, until then it seems the plaster is still half hanging off and there’s more pain on the horizon.

Taxi for Google Plus?

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 08:26:00 GMT

Though we’ve been careful not to jump on the digerati bandwagon of pronouncing Google+’s premature obituary, recent figures released by digital analysts comScore are painting a very bleak picture for the site. In a round-up of how long users are spending online, the search giant’s underdog platform apparently only holds the average users attention for approximately 3.3 minutes a month, whilst Facebook leads the way with an average 7.5 hour hold.

Nearing 100million Users

Google have been continuously defiant in the face of the on-going critiques, only last month CEO Larry Page proudly announcing they’d broken the 90million user threshold, but this stark data seems yet another nail in its coffin. The figures don’t account for mobile traffic, a fact Google are clinging to, but with such a huge difference between them and their rivals it’s hard to match their optimism.

Yet again, we’ll have to wait and see if Google have that special something up their sleeves to turn this tide of user apathy. But with platforms such as Pintrest continuing to steal the social spotlight with its stripped back approach, it seems Google may have picked the wrong fight in going head-to-head against Facebook with such a similar product.

The Dangers of Ignoring Online Accessibility

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 10:00:00 GMT

The ever-evolving World Wide Web has consistently kept developers and the like on their toes, be it the jump from code-heavy programming to Dreamweaver or Google’s regular ranking algorithm changes. As the internet has grown from fringe interest to everyday necessity so too has its audience, and it seems one of our favourite online pastimes (aside from cat photos) is shopping.

With the UK’s online spending for 2011 hitting £68bn, an increase of 16 perfect on the previous year, people are increasingly taking to the convenience of internet purchases, but this story is unfortunately not the case for all. In a situation akin to No Dogs Allowed signs on the high street, an increasing number of eCommerce sites are failing to recognise the needs of blind or partially sighted customers.

Sight for the Sightless

Whilst software exists to allow this customer-base access to online content, in the face of restricted web development budgets and time constraints this potential revenue stream is all too often ignored. But it’s not just this missed revenue which companies should be aware of, as these marginalised communities grow increasingly vocal in their distain thanks to the Disability Discrimination Act.

Though the legislation lays, for the most part, ignored there have been several cases of the Royal National Institute for the Blind successfully bringing corporations to task in the UK. And in a ruling sure to send shivers down the spine of many a CEO, the acts American equivalent (the Americans with Disabilities Act) was the impetus behind a successful $10m lawsuit against online retailer Target in 2006.

Whether for the sake of compliance or its lucrative benefits, Accessibility Audits could well prove to be the latest in a long list of web development essentials, and not a moment too soon.

Twitter Reaches Half-Billion User Landmark

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:02:00 GMT

Twitter has finally broken the 500 million account landmark – making it only the second social network ever to reach half a billion users.

The five-year old ‘microblogging’ site processes over one billion tweets every week, and is quickly gaining ground on its main rival, Facebook, which recently hit 800 million active users and claims that the one billion user mark could be reached ‘imminently’.

Data Defects

Twopcharts, a third party Twitter analysis company announced the 500 million user landmark, but a crucial aspect of the data is that it doesn’t reveal how many of the accounts are ‘active’ – only the total number of registered accounts, which unfortunately may include those that are spam.

Nevertheless, with 14 Twitter accounts added every second, Twopcharts has estimated that 600million users will be reached in just 108 days, and industry experts are predicting that the figure could hit one billion sometime in 2013.

Online Accountability

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:14:00 GMT

It wasn’t so long ago that our online and offline existences were two unrelated places, but thanks to the burgeoning double-headed beast of Social Media and Mobile Internet all this is slowly changing. A mass influx of net-noobs, along with increasingly visible content, is leading to a colliding of worlds as society at large attempts to control that most irksome of internet annoyances, the troll.

Trolling, the act of posting intentionally provocative content, has been around since the internet’s earliest days, and had until now been widely regarded a minor thorn in the side of the internet. But with last May’s super-injunction court case prompting PM David Cameron to state that laws need reviewing to "catch up with how people consume media”, the trolls have been living on borrowed time.

The Controversy of Twitter

Though 2011 saw a slow trickle of Twitter controversies in the news (in particular, the UK’s first successful Twitter libel case last March), the dam seems just about ready to burst for the glut of recent Tweet-related incidents. The ever-contentious footballer, Joey Barton, was stirring things up again over the weekend, this time letting rip with his opinions on John Terry’s court case. Though this raised questions about whether the Tweets constituted a Contempt of Court, it was another footballer, Newcastle United’s Sammy Ameobi, whose Twitter experiences have brought online censorship issues once again to the fore.

Last November the 19-year-old Striker received a racially offensive message via Twitter, and after reporting it to the Police the Tweeters of said comment were arrested. This week the case has been resolved, with the offenders receiving just warnings, but it shows how much has changed in the past few years with trolling now a potentially arrest-able offence.

It’s still unclear how far rulings of this nature will eventually stretch, but the establishing of real-world accountability for online postings could see the sins of the few very much dictate the freedoms of the many in future.

The Statistics of Social

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:46:00 GMT

Over 1.2 billion people worldwide now use online social networks, and you might presume that Facebook is the biggest site in every country, with Americans being the most social-networking obsessed of all – but you’d be wrong. The facts of social networking might actually surprise you.

By and large, Facebook really is the biggest social networking site in the developed world, with 800 million active users and the 1 billion mark expected to be reached in August this year. The United States is home to the largest number of Facebook users – 154.6million in September 2011 – however, that’s still less than 50% of its population. According to Pingdom’s latest statistics, the country with the largest percentage of its population on Facebook is in fact humble Cyprus, with great internet access and an abundance of English speakers allowing 69% of Cypriots to log on.

In terms of sheer numbers of Facebook users though, the second largest number are to be found in Indonesia, a country that can’t seem to get enough of its social networks. Twitter, the world’s largest micro-blogging site, comes second to Facebook in America, Canada and the UK (to name but three), whereas 21% of Indonesians use Twitter, making them the nation that Tweets most of all. Reasons for this are that Indonesians benefit from widespread access to cheap mobile devices and, like Cyprus, have a large English-speaking population.

Social Networking A Social Norm

When looking at user statistics for Facebook and Twitter, the figures for China, the world’s largest population, are incredibly low. That’s because the two sites, along with many others, are actually banned by the notorious Great Firewall of China - or to give its proper name, the ‘Golden Shield’ - yet some users manage to break through.

Does this mean that China is stunted in its consumption of social networking? Absolutely not. Sina Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, dwarfs the site it was modelled upon with a massive 250million users, compared to Twitter’s 100 million worldwide.

What this effectively shows is that social networking sites are no longer a novelty to their users, but a necessity.

Social networking exploded in Egypt and Russia last year, where sites like Twitter were transformed into vital lines of communication and comment for protesters, leading them towards their respective political revolutions.

Of course, not everybody will find such radical uses for social networking, but examples such as this underline the importance of finding the most suitable platform for your needs. Not all sites operate in the same way or appeal to the same audience, but with almost a seventh of the world’s population using Facebook alone, the benefits of social networking are yours to reap.