Coast Digital Blog

Google have unveiled their foray into the world of social bookmarking, a step that keeps them up with the likes of StumbleUpon, Digg, Furl and Del.icio.us.

Shared Stuff works by allowing you to share your favourite pages, push them to other social bookmarking sites, or email them. Feeds are also auto-generated, thumbnails are auto-attached from the site, and visit stats are tracked.

Essentially, the service adds a social element to the existing Google Bookmarks.

It will be fascinating to keep track on the progress of this feature, and to see if Google develop a community social element around it.

Google has launched - with launched functionality - a new ad format that will run on its rapidly growing content network. The difference between gadget ads and the regular array of ads on Google Adwords is that these ads are interactive and they can be developed in HTML and Flash.

These ads can be placed on any site on Google content network - including iGoogle - and offer Google’s extensive range of targeting options, including geographic, demographic, contextual and site targeting.

What about cost? Well as with the other ads you can use on the content network, these ads work on a cost per impression or cost per click basis, which makes them very versatile.

Reporting on Gadget Ads, as with other ads, is made simple. As these ads are made to be interactive, Google allows you to track a whole range of different “interactions” to make the reporting experience even better. You can see a full list of trackable interactions here.

I’m looking forward to seeing these ads hit our screens over the coming months; my only worry is we will be flooded with those annoying “swat the fly and win” style ads (as if there isn’t enough of those already!).

For a preview of some of the new gadget ads that are already performing on the content network, take a look here. I particularly like this one; it’s a great exploitation of the power of rich media advertising.  

The New York Times has decided to drop its TimeSelect subscription service, which allows users into certain parts of the website.

What’s the reason for this? Search engine optimisation.

The TimeSelect service has produced over $10 million in revenue for The New York Times since 2005, so why drop it?

Well, if they continue with a relatively small amount of subscribers, they can continue earning a similar amount of money per year. But if they open their pages up to the public, and more importantly, the search engines, then the volume of traffic will increase dramatically.

They can then use this extra traffic to generate extra ad revenues on the site. As Vivian Schiller, senior vice president of The New York Times points out “our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising”.

This is a smart move from The New York Times, perhaps we’ll start seeing other big subscriber sites follow suit in the near future if it works out for the better! 

“I want all my content to fit on the screen without having to scroll” is a demand that web designers still hear all too often. It’s an ever-present in the design spec that still exists even though it’s as out of date as VHS video recorders and cheese & pineapple on sticks!

So why is it that people still insist on cramming content into the visible area of the page, otherwise known as “above the fold”?

What is the fold?

The phenomenon of the “page-fold” stems from the early days of the web, when the user experience was completely new, and there were no previous user patterns or experiences to draw on for comparison. This meant that the idea of scrolling was an alien one.

Now with the huge growth in internet use, the concept of scrolling is very familiar. Frequently users are more than happy to scroll down a page of content, digesting as little or as much as required.

This is mainly due to the fact that users tend to “scan” web pages rather than actually read them. Taking scanning into account removes the need for navigation to further pages of content, which in reality only serves to create additional page load times.

But of course a web page can still be too long if content isn’t well organised. Text should always be presented in short sentences and paragraphs, using clear titles and sub-headings.

Where is the fold?

After establishing what the fold is, the issue of finding the fold is far more difficult. It is in fact not a precise object or value, but more of a mythical being!

The page fold will in fact be different for each user. Its location will be determined by screen size, window size, browsers, toolbars and browser add-ons. This obviously means that designing for the page fold is in some ways like a game of pin the tail on the donkey! Or trying to score a bullseye on an ever shifting target.

In conclusion

A web page is not a book or a sheet of A4 paper, so why try and make it act like one?

Each medium has its advantages and disadvantages, so why not embrace the advantages and try to use them to greater effect?

• Don’t try to squeeze your web page, users will naturally scroll down
• Make life easier by dividing pages into sections for easy scanning. This will make your content much more digestible and users won’t feel they have to attempt to read everything

Still not convinced? If you would like some facts and figures and pretty charts to illustrate my thoughts then take a look at blog.clicktale.com.

Email marketing can offer a substantial amount of monthly revenue if managed correctly. Customers will regard your emails as valuable if they consider you to be a trusted source.

Most B2C websites can earn this trust if the services and prices they offer are appealing. But as online retailers move and shift their prices so often it’s vitally important to keep up-to-speed with your competitors, particularly if you’re considering email for the first time. And to ensure the ongoing viability of your list make sure you always use permission-based email marketing.

Here are 6 top tips to make sure you’re getting the most from your email marketing:

1. Get people to your door

To develop an email list you need to maximise your visibility in the natural search arena. Natural search results are free, so if you can increase traffic from Google, Yahoo!, MSN and the other search engines you stand more of a chance of building traffic to your website, building orders and building an email database.

2. Set expectations

If you’re running an e-commerce store clearly state what customers are likely to receive when they opt-in/tick the box to receive your email communications. Make sure you have their buy-in to membership of your list by stating exactly what they will receive, i.e. monthly newsletters, exclusive offers, discounts etc. And in all communications, from sign-up to newsletter, offer a clear unsubscribe option in line with permission-based marketing concepts.

3. Give reasons to sign-up

Customers don't have to make a purchase in order to sign-up to email marketing. For example, fickle customers may only want to hear about discounts initially, so consider having a call-out on your website for email newsletter sign-ups, clearly stating all the benefits. Think about offering additional reasons to register such as latest information, incentives, competitions and other offers.

4. Use word of mouth

Get your customers to tell their friends about your website. A great way of doing this is to offer an incentive to existing customers, such as 'receive 5% off your next order when you tell us about 4 friends who may want to hear from us'.

5. In-house data vs rented lists

Seriously consider the pros and cons of purchasing email data lists. Buying second-hand data can be a risky business, make sure you thoroughly research where the data has come from and the quality of the referral.

6. Keep your data fresh

Manage your list effectively. It is vitally important to keep your email list fresh and up-to-date. If you are running a busy e-commerce store using a sign-up process, the data is likely to change from day-to-day. Use professional email marketing software to filter, clean and re-organize data for the next mail out.

Remember to look after your list and consider that each contact could lead to a potential new sale or response.

The adventurer Steve Fossett has been missing since 3 September. Searchers of the vast area of the Nevada Desert, where his plane vanished, have come up with a novel way to increase the chances of finding him.

Google has updated satellite imagery for the area on Google Earth with the result that hundreds of people are now scouring hi-resolution images looking for potential wreckage in an area that is approximately 17,000 square miles.

Coordination of the project has been enabled by Amazon. They’ve created a collaborative search scheme which is being delivered by their Mechanical Turk system. The Mechanical Turk is a website which pays people to complete tasks that computers would struggle to do, for example, assessing images.

Those taking part in the online search can flag images – it has been suggested the crashed plane would appear as an object about ’21 pixels long and 30 pixels in wingspan’. Flagged images are then passed on to the live search team.

I hope that digital technology may have a positive part to play in a scenario that is looking increasingly unhopeful.

In recent years the search engine formerly known as Ask Jeeves has struggled to compete with the likes of Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Why? Because Ask Jeeves made searching frustrating. Initially their Ask Jeeves a question and he will give you an answer system proved popular with those who weren’t very internet-savvy, but users soon realised that the results returned were not that relevant.

At this stage Google was already way ahead in terms of relevancy and they continue to be so. Users could easily find what they were looking for and Google quickly established themselves as the leader in delivering relevant search results.

Ask 3D launch

With Web 2.0 and user generated content in mind, Ask.com re-launched their new style Ask 3D search engine in June 2007. Visually its simplicity is similar to Google but it has some powerful new features.

The new-look homepage offers customizable backgrounds that let people choose from a variety of skins to personalize their search experience. Later this year individuals will be able to upload their own personal images to customize their backgrounds even further.

Ask.com also now features bold icons on the home page to make it easier for people to search for specific content such as images, news and blogs. Additionally, Ask now offers search suggestions to help people find what they need more easily.

Search results pages

Ask.com has really pushed the boat out with their new look search results pages. You can now see video previews, listen to music clips, or even search through specific content such as images and news, all from the main results page.

If you hover your mouse over video thumbnails, you can now preview video clips without having to navigate away from the page. You can listen to a music clip by simply clicking on the name of a song within the Ask results page. Also, Ask offers an image rollover feature, which enlarges an image so that you can see it in more detail.  

Don’t get me wrong, Ask.com is far from perfect but the point is that they have done their research and delivered what users are looking for. Gone are the days when users were happy with a page of text. Today users want audio, video and up-to-date results and the concept that Ask.com have come up with is a good move forward.

Although Ask still have a long way to go before their search engine is perfected, I predict that they will soon be knocking on the door of the bigger search engines.

Social networking giant Facebook has made most of its users’ profiles potentially open to the public. The addition of a profile search bar to the homepage of the site now allows anyone to browse users’ profiles.

They don’t stop there though. Within the next month Facebook will allow search engine spiders to index their profiles, meaning your Facebook profile could be found not only by someone using their new search box, but you could also be found via Google, MSN, Yahoo and the rest of the major search engines.

This will undoubtedly cause huge controversy amongst the Facebook community. But this is something Facebook seem to enjoy. It was only yesterday I saw an article on Facebook’s “F**k Islam” group and the 50,000 or more people who have joined a group to protest its being.

However, if you're already a registered Facebook user, you do have the option to alter your privacy settings. Read more on the Facebook blog.

With 30 million active users, Facebook seem to be doing something right. But it will be interesting to see how these changes go down with the community.