links for 2009-05-13

"They’re constantly reading two things: what the information is, and who’s saying it - and it’s completely part of the story. Just as when I was doing history A-Level [you were taught to ask] ‘which is the source, who’s the source, why are they saying it?’”. Indeed, I've found "Why is this lying bastard lying to me?" to be as valid an approach to history sources as it is to politicians. Unless it is a medieval chronicle written by a monk, in which case you have to ask yourself "Why is this Holy lying bastard lying to me?"

"There are several reports today that Greece has banned Google’s Street View … but Google disagrees. Greece’s Data Protection Authority (DPA) announced on Monday that it’s banned Google from taking photos in Greece".

"Over the next few months, I will continue to monitor RSS signups and the performance of each link. Using this information I’ll test out different variations in copy, calls to action, feed button size and color, and link placement. In fact, my next idea is to add an arrow and “click here” text to my RSS feed button. We’ll see how that affects conversion rates."

"Once upon a time Google provided a nice straightforward page of results that you could quickly scroll through to find the information that you wanted. However, other search engines started to provide blended results, such as the late unlamented Ask with their 3D view, so Google decided to add Universal search, and combine results from different places. Then it decided to get clever and suggest results for the search that it thought you wanted. Then of course there were related searches, blog postings and so on. This has left Google with a real headache".

On balance, I'm coming to think I preferred it when negative UI change feedback was a bit more private...

"The Daily Telegraph’s revelations about MPs’ expenses have done more to boost the paper’s circulation than any promotional giveaway could have achieved, according to media buyers. Unofficial data seen by the Guardian suggests the Telegraph added almost 100,000 extra copies on Friday when the story broke."

"Robin Goard from Hitwise told the group that 54% of Twitter traffic is going downstream to what it classified as media sites – news, entertainments, blogs etc. And The Guardian was winning out with not just the home page featuring in the top statistics, but also the technology and comment is free sections where personality journalists such as Charles Arthur and Jemima Kiss were credited with developing the networks to drive traffic". My social media presentation tomorrow at the International Social Media Summit in London will cover some similar territory - article to follow on currybetdotnet.

"We found that in general, users were more successful and preferred using the mobile sites rather than the standard sites as long as the information they needed was provided. The Times and the Guardian have built mobile sites with plenty of functionality. Their mobile sites were rated better than their standard sites when accessed from a mobile."

"A slight typo from the BBC when the unemployment figures were released a day early". From the D'oh the humanity files. Of course, if this had happened during the next Conservative Government, it would be a blatant example of biased disinformation at work ;-)