October 2009 Archives
October 30, 2009
Ecommerce Expo: Part 1 - "How little changes made a big difference at BA.com"
Last week I made my annual trip to the Ecommerce Expo in London. Although in my current role at The Guardian I don't generally deal with Ecommerce day-to-day, I've done plenty in the past for people like Sony. The exhibition had a four-track two day programme of free seminars running alongside it, and if you can pick your way through the more blatant software and service sales pitches, you can find some really interesting case studies from some big (and...
October 29, 2009
Windows 7 overtakes Linux usage on guardian.co.uk in just 4 days
Windows 7 overtakes Linux usage on guardian.co.uk in just 4 days
On the first Sunday after release, Windows 7 usage eclipses Linux for the first time.
October 28, 2009
New interactive Flash photo gallery on guardian.co.uk
When I recently did a reader survey, writing about the work that I do at The Guardian proved to be one of the more popular topics for blog posts. However, it can be quite tricky. The things that I have spent most of my time on have tended to be strategic longer term projects that are still under wraps. On other things, very often my contribution consists of chipping in to a couple of meetings very early on in the...
October 27, 2009
Paid search and politics - still some learning for the parties to do
A couple of days ago Peter Moore wrote an interesting post about politics and paid search, pointing out how Channel 4 had used Google AdWords to catch some of the search traffic generated by the BNP appearance on BBC's Question Time. He pointed out that: "Paid search has the potential to make an enormous difference [in an election]...It’s possible to carefully study and collect keywords, to manage and monitor huge campaigns that include short and long tail terms as well...
How to make friends and influence people in The Guardian office this morning...
...use the nice new Oystercard wallet that The Times were giving away outside Kings Cross station last night....
October 26, 2009
Live-blogging the BNP on Question Time across the web
Live-blogging the BNP on Question Time
A look at how newspapers and political blogs covered Nick Griffin's BBC appearance online.
October 23, 2009
Twitter - dangerous hunting ground for paedophiles. And The Sun's football correspondents
Given that today's front page article described Twitter as 'a free and easy hunting ground for paedophiles seeking to lure kids for sex', was it the best timing for The Sun's North East football correspondent Steve Brenner to be opening lots of new accounts on a service where his paper says 'pornographic pictures of young girls are also freely available'?...
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"Collect the set" - Cambridge University Museum trading cards
As part of a trip to Cambridge earlier this year, I visited the Fitzwilliam Museum. It is always a good place for a quick stop since, amongst other stuff, it has a great collection of Egyptian funerary artifacts. The previous time I visited it, it formed part of a ghost walk around Cambridge, on account of the fact that: "The lions that decorate the outside of the Fitzwilliam Museum are said, at the stroke of midnight, to come to life,...
October 22, 2009
5 unintended digital consequences of having a baby
I knew that having a baby was going to radically alter my lifestyle, but I didn't realise what a difference it was going to make to my digital habits. Here are 5 things I've noticed since Emma Rose arrived. The return of Facebook Back in the day, when my daughter was born I would have put a classified announcement in the local paper and left it at that. In 2009, I had to work out which of my family, friends,...
Times 7am offer short-changed by odd marketing short-code?
If you've been on the tube in London recently, you'll probably have noticed a big marketing push by The Times going on at the moment. One of the components is an opportunity to get the paper delivered to your door before 7am if you live within the M25 area. One thing I noticed about the campaign - they have an easy to remember URL for the offer: timesonline.co.uk/7am. There is also a SMS shortcode, which asks you to send the...
October 21, 2009
Stephen King 'Under The Dome' novel snippets invade the Internet
I've been quite intrigued by the promotional campaign for the new Stephen King novel, "Under the dome". The book has been broken into 5,196 pieces, and a game is running to try to piece them together. What I like about it is that the audience can either play as 'hiders' or 'seekers'. If you sign up to 'hide' a piece you get sent a chunk of text, and then need to leave clues on Twitter, Facebook or a map as...
October 20, 2009
What Jan Moir can teach us about handling an Internet brand crisis
What Jan Moir can teach us about handling an Internet brand crisis
How prepared are you for finding yourself in the middle of a perfect Internet storm?
October 19, 2009
Guess which Jan Moir article is missing from the Daily Mail's search results?
Funny old world, the Internet, eh? If you search the Daily Mail website today for the most recent articles by or about Jan Moir, there seems to be one missing. I wonder if you can guess which one it is? I think it must just be one of those weird coincidences that looks more suspicious than it is when your site is under intense scrutiny on the web. If you click the 'All by this author' link the notorious Stephen...
Has Jan Moir hastened reform of how the PCC handles 3rd party complaints?
Has Jan Moir hastened reform of how the PCC handles 3rd party complaints?
In the face of over 21,000 complaints about Jan Moir's hateful Stephen Gately article in the Daily Mail, can the PCC really maintain their usual stance that third party complaints do not count?
October 16, 2009
Thank you - currybetdotnet survey results
I wanted to thank everyone who took part in my recent survey about the blog. I had nearly 100 responses, over half of which were from people who said they had read the blog for two years or more. The bottom line was that most of you enjoyed most things most of the time. Only my infrequent and incongruent write-ups of ghost walks proved really unpopular. Video and the linklog entries were the Marmite issues. The majority of people who...
October 15, 2009
Ice Sunday: Part 3 - The death of the ice trade
Over the last couple of days I've been writing about my visit to the London Canal Museum on "Ice Sunday". This was a chance to explore one of Carlo Gatti's ice wells - a remnant of an industry that flourished during the 1800s, but which was gone by the time the First World War arrived. I often write about music and the newspaper industry, both areas where technological advance has disrupted established businesses. In his talk during "Ice Sunday", Malcolm...
October 14, 2009
Ice Sunday: Part 2 - Descent into the ice well
Yesterday I was posting about a trip I made to the London Canal Museum back in June. It was on a special open day called "Ice Sunday". Usually visitors to the museum can only peer down into the ice well that lies below the building, but on this day, guide Martin Sach was leading groups down into the depths. The well is thought to be about 40ft deep. This measurement comes from documents recording that a workman fell 40 ft...
October 13, 2009
'The wisdom of crowds and the folly of lawyers'
I wonder if at The Guardian we still have time to re-print tomorrow's fairytale giveaway?After today's #Trafigura #CarterRuck gagging debacle, maybe we should add the story of the plucky villagers who just wouldn't let the king's courtiers silence the town crier.Or perhaps we could simply change the name of the next booklet in the series to 'The wisdom of crowds and the folly of lawyers'?...
Ice Sunday: Part 1 - The Victorian ice trade at the London Canal Museum
Way back on June 14th I went to the London Canal Museum for "Ice Sunday". This seems to be one of those annual events that was going to happen anyway, but which somehow got co-opted into 'The Story Of London' as if they were actually being put on and funded by the Mayor. The day consisted of a short talk about the ice trade by Malcolm Tucker, followed by an opportunity to descend into this Victorian fridge. Whilst we take...
October 12, 2009
London IA in the Pub on Wednesday...now with added slides
Wednesday 14th October sees the latest edition of London IA in the Pub. We are going to be at the Island Queen in Islington, and this time we are going to have a series of quick'n'dirty presentations in the upstairs room. Lab49 are kindly supplying the kit for that. We hope that on the night we'll have the following talks: Stuart Cruickshank - The UX of search Leisa Reichelt - What I’ve learned about UX freelancing Boon Chew - The...
October 9, 2009
Tweeting a link or a picture? Don't forget to blog it as well...
Over the last few weeks I've had three tweets receive a lot of retweeting action. I thought it worth sharing what I'd learned from it about the relative values of tweeting a link, and blogging about something. Celtic fans at Kings Cross On the afternoon of the Arsenal - Celtic Champions League match at the Emirates, some Celtic fans posted unofficial notices around Kings Cross Underground Station. I thought they were pretty funny, snapped a picture on my phone, and...
October 8, 2009
So was it the Express or The Sun that 'saved' the England game?
I suggested earlier in the week that as part of the marketing operation, the UK's national newspapers might be giving digital sports rights agency Perform an easy ride over their decision to make England's World Cup game with Ukraine available only via pay-per-view Internet streaming. I didn't realise that some of them would be promoting their non-exclusive involvement in an affiliate selling scheme as if it was God's own gift to the England football fan. I'm sure Geoff Marsh...
October 7, 2009
A (re)design for life - the new environmentguardian.co.uk front page
"The redesigned front page reflects our ongoing commitment to news coverage but gives greater prominence to green living, data and multimedia" - James Randerson, environmentguardian.co.uk website editor The Guardian recently relaunched the front page of our Environment section online, and I wanted to take a look today at some of the changes and design decisions that were made as part of that process. You can roll-over the numbers on this screenshot to see a summary of the main IA changes....
October 6, 2009
Revenue share deal spikes newspaper guns about England's pay-per-view Internet World Cup qualifier
The confirmation that England's World Cup match against Ukraine will only be available pay-per-view on the Internet reminds me of 2000, when an away game against Finland was only available on short-lived and obscure pay TV service u>direct. Perform, the rights holders this time around, have made a shrewd move in allowing newspaper websites to sell the game on a revenue share basis. Whilst I'm not suggesting filthy lucre has unduly influenced editorial decisions, it is certainly a lot...
October 5, 2009
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October 2, 2009
UX London redux video: Tom Coombs on Jared Spool - part 3
This is the final video clip of a series I've been publishing over the last couple of weeks. They were made at the London IA mini evening where we held a redux of the UX London conference organised by Clearleft. This bit of video is the conclusion of Tom Coombs providing a redux of Jared Spool's sessions Tom Coombs on Jared Spool The last section of Tom's talk looks at three things that Jared talked about at UX London....
October 1, 2009
UX London redux video: Tom Coombs on Jared Spool - part 2
During August the London IA Mini event was a redux evening that concentrated on providing a distilled version of the recent UX London conference. I've been posting some video clip of the night, including Tom Coombs presenting a redux of the workshop by Donna Spencer. In his talk, Tom also covered the UX London workshop from Jared Spool. Tom Coombs on Jared Spool This clip shows Tom talking about the use of 'cute links' which don't describe their destination,...