The Cucumber Team took a bit of time out on Saturday evening and caught up for dinner together. The team have welcomed a few new faces this year, so it was a great opportunity to meet some of the 'other-halves' and family. More pics...
More....
By Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
19/05/2010
Companies using competitor brand names to trigger paid advertising isn’t new. Now a service is available which assists in identifying online trademark and brand abuse. http://www.geo-brand.com/en/ Not sure if the service covers NZ (their world map doesn’t even show us!) at this stage, but if you are interested in monitoring your brand online this looks like a great place to start.
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
13/05/2010
.jpg)
Now here’s a tightly focussed service – measuring abandonment and providing follow up via email and phone. The abandonment tracker service is free, and enables you to quickly understand where things aren’t working, but more importantly follow up while the lead is still hot. Also check out their blog for some interesting case studies, tips and tricks. http://www.seewhy.com/
Image editing for web site administrators – Part 1: Tools
by Matt Hattie - Senior Web Developer
04/05/2010
I considered starting this series with an explanation of why it’s important to have well sized and properly optimised images, but then I decided that I didn’t want my first blog post to be a boring lecture. So here in all its awesomeness is...
Top 4 image editing tools for web admins, and how to use them!
This post is aimed squarely at web site administrators, with the assumpt...
More....
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
20/04/2010
Reviewing public facing sites and Intranets can be hard. Balancing opinion , fact and politics isn’t easy but the Intranet Review Toolkit (www.intranetreviewtoolkit.org) provides a comprehensive set of guidelines for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of corporate intranets. It assists a detailed intranet review to be conducted that focuses on a wide range of functionality, design and strategy.
How Does Your Site Look on the iPad?
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
14/04/2010
iPad Peek (ipadpeek.com) is a nifty tool that lets you see how any website will be rendered on the iPad. Previewing a website in iPad Peek doesn’t offer the “real” iPad experience, but it’s pretty close and will throw up any major issues. The iPad isn’t able to display Flash, if your site relies heavily on Flash you may want to fine tune if iPad users are going to be an important for you.
Landing Pages More Valuable than Homepages?
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
07/04/2010
It’s been long debated, which part of a website is the most valuable. The obvious answer is of course the homepage, but if you’ve had a chance to look at your site statistics lately you may find that the amount of traffic coming through your homepage isn’t as much as you thought. And if you have undertaken search engine optimisation you might find your section pages or lower level pages are getting just as much traffic. Performable gives us More....
The latest device from Apple is launching in the US on April 3 and is due in New Zealand late April, although this is yet to be confirmed.
The Apple iPad combines all the benefits of the iPhone with unique features and new applications including a new ”iBooks” store.
Read MacFixit review of the device as well as RRWs review of their 8 most anticipated Apps for the iPad...
More....
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
16/03/2010
Two standout products which can provide yet another view of your site visitor activities is CrazyEgg (http://crazyegg.com/) and ClickTale (http://www.clicktale.com/). No longer do you need to have the on going debate about whether or not people scroll, you can figure that out easily. These tools enable you unclock all sorts of insights - HeatMap’s show where visitors click, and how far down they scroll, Link Analytics sh...
More....
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
08/02/2010
Here’s the question. As Google moves to more real-time search results how does it figure out what’s relevant to your search and how does it rank these? Well according to the Google folks, the focus is on a Twitter user's overall reputation as a ranking measurement as opposed to simply tallying follower counts.
More....
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
17/02/2010
It’s an old story but one worth repeating. It's hard to imagine a form that could be simpler: two fields, two buttons, and one link. Yet, it turns out this form was preventing customers from purchasing products from a major e-commerce site, and yet with one simple change… ca-ching! Purchasing up by 45%. (http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button/)
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
08/02/2010
Peter Morville runs Semantics Studio, an IA and user experience firm in the US. He’s probably better known for his must have book for web designers on Information Architecture ,(http://www.amazon.com/Information-Architecture-World-Wide-Web/dp/0596527349/findability-20/) this month see the release of his new book entitled Search Patterns...
More....
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
01/02/2010
Lots of tools have appeared over the last twelve months which help organisation engage and measure activities on a variety of social networks. One thing many fail to do though is assist with measuring in a meaningful way for your business. This arti...
More....
I know what you're thinking......but seriously - Cucumber's are amazing!
This information was in The New York Times several weeks ago as part of their "Spotlight on the Home" series that highlighted creative and fanciful ways to solve common problems. I couldn't find the article to link to but have listed the Top 10 below.
1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6,Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium,...
More....
by Maru Ririnui - Business Analyst
18/01/2010
We moved our stuff in on the 23rd of December - our last day of the year.
Up until then, we had seen the work in progress which was all very exciting but you don’t get a clear impression of what it’s actually going to be like on a day to day basis.
[A bit like moving in with a partner after having been going out for a long time – you got several looks under the hood but it’s never been parked in the garage night after night]
Now that we’re in the new office, there are 1-2 things I’ve noticed …
Like the wall paper in the men’s...
More....
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
13/01/2010
It’s an important part of design and communication that often gets over looked, left to the last minute and squeezed in at the end. It’s said that content contributes to 50% of the usability of a site, poorly written content making a site unusable and which no amount of good design can rescue. Useit.com (http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/ has some great resources covering many topics, from how to write inverted pyramid style to revealing how little users read.
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
21/12/2009
Whether you are using social media or not chances are your employees or business partners are. One think to think about and put in place are some guidelines around social media usage. There are many ways that social media could damage your business, from the obvious to the not so obvious. Employees chatting about what they are working on or who they are meeting could provide valuable intelligence for competitors. Here’s a great collection of social media polices from around the world to get you started (http://itpromarketer.com/2009/12...
More....
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
08/12/2009
Googles Website Optimizer tool (www.google.com/websiteoptimizer) has been around for awhile but hasn’t been that widely talked about or used. Simply put it helps find those words and images that will help users complete the tasks and achieve the goals you have set for them. Simply pick some variations you want to experiment with and you’re away. Website Optimizer works in the background, dividing visitors into groups and presenting each group with a unique page variation. It’s a great tool to assist post launch measurement and optimisation.
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
14/12/2009
New features in Google Analytics are arriving thick and fast and one of the latest is a nice feature called Analytics Intelligence (http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-feature-spotlight-analytics.html ). Analytics Intelligence constantly monitors your website's traffic. Anytime something significant happens, it adds an automatic alert in your Intelligence reports. If your bounce rate suddenly jumps on one of your referrals, or detects any anomalies in your traffic patterns, Analytics Intelligence creates an alert.
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
02/12/2009
This takes some understanding. The new iPhone 3GS model comes three features, a compass, GPS chip and a video camera, which, when combined, create something truly incredible. These three features allows the iPhone to know where you are and in what direction you are pointing the phone. Applications can be created which associates data with your position and direction and overlays this on real images. And here's one example, the Nearest Tube
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fZk0HaIs4s)
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
26/11/2009
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an area which continues to gain more attention as competition becomes more intense in key industries. Whether big or small all business with an online presence should put some effort into ensuring the site is optimised to some extent. SEMOZ.ORG has put together a Beginner's Checklist for Small Business SEO (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-beginners-checklist-for-small-business-seo). It pays to remember that many SEO activities are not technical but content in nature.
by Maru Ririnui - Business Analyst
19/10/2009
This year’s Usability Week Conference had way more emphasis on the commercial aspects of websites, including sessions on:
- Selling with copy
- The psychology of selling
- Group psychology and how people behave online through various personas
There were many references to psychological studies and how these might play out online.
The sessions were particularly engaging and the presenters came from various companies and disciplines
- ex-journalist Catherine Toole owns a London-based digital copy-writing agency;
- John Boyd is head of User Experience Research at...
More....
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
16/11/2009
Feel like you need to gain more knowledge around aspects of website design and management? Google provide a host of tools to help you get you head round areas such as Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/education.html) and Search Optimisation. The Google videos on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/Google) offer bit-size tutorials of some great insights in almost plain English.
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
There's a bunch of great resources on the net, one only has to Google usability and design. and you are bound to find something useful. One to keep an eye on is Jakob Nielsen. Often controversial and on the wrong side of the design community, he nevertheless covers topics which get you thinking. His site, www.useit.com, this month covers what to consider when redesigning a site, Fresh vs. Familiar: How Aggressively to Redesign (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/familiar-design.html).
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
Two names you may have heard lots about, but this month sees the launch of Facebook Lite (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8249835.stm) which may see the two services look more similar. The short, conversational and importantly simple appeal of Twitter seems to have inspired the folks at Facebook. Only available in the US and In...
More....
NBR Technology
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
This year’s Qantas Media Awards technology journalist (http://www.nbr.co.nz/technology) is Chris Keall, and I’d suggest you keep an eye on his articles. As well as breaking local news he keeps an eye on overseas happenings. It’s interesting to compare local and overseas stories, ours seem dull by comparison, but occasionally there are some high points. Mr Keall’s analysis of our own almost interesting spy story revealed his supreme journalist skills - "How RNZ ob...
More....
by Richard Ram - Digital Strategist
Google and Bing are just two of the raft of the search focussed sites adding real-time search capabilities to their offering. Just how this will change site design and SEO will be discussed for some time to come. In the meantime here are some great resources which provide some background.
New Zealand’s very own Read Write Web has started a three part Real-Time Web series: A Primer while over at
More....