Coast Digital Blog

Yesterday Google took another step towards controlling the internet with the launch of yet another free service, Google Public DNS – and I can’t help but wonder why it has made this move.

First a little background on DNS.

Domain Naming System (DNS) is effectively what allows the World Wide Web to work. Your computer needs to know the address on the internet where a website is located. After all, the internet is nothing more than millions of computers connected together by public networks. 

Every time you want to visit a site like www.coastdigital.co.uk your computer does a DNS lookup. This means it will translate the domain into an IP address such as 62.89.145.199.  

Once your computer has the IP address it can go to the correct server. Usually your ISP provides this service as part of your broadband package. If your internet is slow to find web pages, then a slow DNS service could be to blame

There are several free alternatives such as OpenDNS. These often have drawbacks such as advertising and may redirect you to an unwanted page if it can’t find the right address. For example, if you make a spelling mistake and type www.c0astdigital.co.uk, you may land on a page full of adverts.

Google has an impressive infrastructure. Perhaps the biggest on the planet. As a result it can offer a super-fast DNS service that will leave other providers in the shade. Rather than taking 3 or 4 seconds to find that critical IP address, it takes 0.1 seconds. Suddenly your browsing experience is faster. Teamed with the incredibly fast Google Chrome – you have a better overall experience.

Additionally Google is not going to dump users on an ad-laden web page if it cannot find the IP address, searching for www.C0astdigital.co.uk will now produce an error message from your computer – ‘DNS error – cannot find server’.

Does there have to be something in it for Google? Can’t it just offer something for free with no strings attached?

Yes, but in this case it’s a very clever move. Google has an index of billions of web pages and it might like to know how often people access these sites without using a Google search. If you want to go to a website such as www.coastdigital.co.uk and you know the URL, you simply type the URL address in your browser and – bingo! - Coast Digital appears.

Until now Google couldn’t track this traffic unless Google Analytics was installed on the domain in question, or you were using the Google Toolbar on your browser. But now Google can track that a Google DNS user is looking up www.coastdigital.co.uk, allowing it to calculate the popularity of a website without having to rely on Analytics.

The next question is whether Google will use this information to refine search results. It’s certainly hard to believe that it wouldn’t.

If you would like further information regarding Google Public DNS, please head to http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/12/introducing-google-public-dns-new-dns.html

Well, I had almost given up hope of receiving a Google Wave invite when - lo and behold - a good friend of mine emailed me. Subject line – “Want a google wave invite?”

It turns out he had beeen chosen in Google’s lottery to get an invite, and he was given a few more to give out. Luckily he was generous enough to hand one of those on to me (and not just stick them on ebay - http://shop.ebay.co.uk/i.html?_nkw=google+wave+invite&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=)

So I’ve been playing around with it a little this afternoon, but I’ve not really had enough time to figure out what it can do. I’m hoping to get a bit more involved with it at the weekend, so may have some more feedback next week!

First impressions are good. The interface is slick, and easy to use. I’ve managed to pull my Twitter feed in, watched the 8 minute video on the potential uses (which I must say looks very impressive) and had a play around with a few waves and some of the apps, as well as dragging images into waves from my desktop (which is very nice!).  

One thing I’m very keen to investigate more is Wave’s ability to integrate into other sites as a publishing tool. The intro vid shows it being done, but doesn’t cover how...

I think there’s definitely some great potential here. Collaborating on a document is nothing new admittedly, but it’s the way wave handles being able to add notes, diagrams, images, videos (and whatever else you might want to add) that makes it stand out. I can see it being used a lot for brainstorming sessions becuase you can chuck anything in it and everyone can see it. (Stinky white board pens will soon be a thing of the past!) .

It would also be beneficial in conference call situations. All conference call attendees could be in on the wave, which would initially contain an agenda. This could then be built out with notes, and files that need to be shared, a map to a location (if you’re arranging a meeting) and so on. 

Anyway I feel like right now I need a colleague to share this experience with to make the most of it, so I’m hoping that Google sees this and gives me an invite or two to send out to my fellow Coasties. *HINT HINT*

Google's continuous algorithm tweaks have hit the headlines today.

The Guardian have published an article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/17/google-search-baffles-internet-firm) about the Foundem.co.uk website and its continuous struggle to rank. The husband and wife team that run the foundem.co.uk site are said to be “baffled” as to why they’re site won’t rank.

As I have said before when it comes to SEO content is king. Google loves unique, fresh content, and there just isn’t any on the foundem site.

The first page I stumbled across was the LCD TV page which looks like this –

This page may look fine to a user (my usability alarm is on red alert… but that’s another blog post!), to a search engine, the content on that page would look like this –

Found 704 Models Sort By: #Stores Price Make Model
Samsung LE32B450C
32" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£299.09 to £599.99
from 35 stores
Samsung LE19B450
19" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£175 to £269
from 32 stores
Panasonic TX-L32S10
32" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£437 to £849.99
from 31 stores
LG 37LH2000
37" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£439.05 to £649
from 31 stores
Toshiba 19AV615DB
19" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£179 to £275.94
from 30 stores
LG 32LH2000
32" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£309.1 to £499

This is only a small snippet, the page actually lists all 704 models available on the site. To the search spiders, this is going to look terrible, and the rest of the site is much of the same: Very little REAL content and lots of links.

I took a further look through the site and found this page.

This just shows the same paragraph of content over and over based on the different tariffs available to the user. I then searched for the first sentence of the paragraph and have found the same paragraph pasted all over the web, on a variety of different sites.

I (and SEOs across the industry) would never expect this to rank. It’s amazing that these people are blaming Google for not ranking their site when the amount of information that it provides for users is minimal, and to be harsh (but fair), of poor quality.

I then spotted the crowning glory of this story.

This is essentially a big rant about the "ordeal" that the foundem team have gone through, and how Google is "stifling their innovation".

I was shocked to discover though, that they do know how to write content. There's an awful lot of it on this site. Unfortunately it’s all very F.o.G (fear of Google)-esque, and that’s something I haven’t seen for a long time!

A thought for the foundem team: If you would have spent that time writing content for the foundem site rather than wasting time blaming Google for your own shortcomings, Google might actually be taking your site seriously and not just for a poor quality list of products.

Take a look at this YouTube clip. It's amazing.

I spent ten years living in London, and whilst I got to know the centre, the East End and chunks of Islington and Camden very well, I'd always get lost in the West and South of the capital. An iPhone application like this would have been a godsend, and a lot less bulky than a pocket A-Z.

I moved out of London in April, but I like this iPhone technology so much that I've been thinking of other uses for it. I thought it would be brilliant for self-guided trails - a tactile, attractive project that civic societies or local councils could use to pull in visitors to their town. Brilliant digital marketing for the heritage sector.

Similarly, I reckoned it would be great for restaurant guides, utilities companies that wanted to map manholes and fire hydrants, newsagents wanting to attract customers, theatres and ticket outlets. The possibilities for using GPS to give people directions in this way seem limited only by imagination and development costs.

However, the idea that most struck me was creating an application to map the country's pubs. I'm always ending up in unfamiliar towns and villages (I like cycling), not knowing where the nearest good watering hole is. An iPhone application like the one above could surely help me out?

Things are never as simple as they seem, though, so I asked Fancyapint's Gordon Butler whether the technology could help his company's directory of UK pub reviews. His answer: yes - if it worked much better than it does now.

The video looks like a great idea and one that would work very easily for our kind of information - the biggest drawback, as far as I can see, is perceived accuracy versus the real accuracy of the app.

Handheld devices are notoriously inaccurate where you need them to be most accurate - in built-up areas. GPS accuracy is likely to be 30-50 metres in cities with current technology, mobile cell triangulation is a few hundred metres, and the compass will be influenced by metallic objects around it. (What kind of case does your iPhone have, does it have a magnetic catch?) 30-50 metres sounds good, but in a place like Soho, you could be way off the mark when it comes to finding your way around - you could be a couple of streets off.
 

And that's not good. You could mean to visit the Red Lion in Crown Passage, just off Pall Mall, and instead end up in the Red Lion in nearby Duke of York Street. They're both good, but you might well miss out on one of the nicest pubs out there.

I've also spotted another problem that might happen. If you head out into the countryside, the GPS can place you a good mile or two from where you actually are. This afternoon I stopped in a small Essex village and checked my location on Google Maps. It seemed to think I was a mile over the border in Suffolk, in a hamlet that I know has no pub. Thirsty travellers can't afford a mistake like that, so it looks like the hospitality industry would do well to wait for the technology to catch up with the ideas.

This week, Microsoft released a new search engine called Bing. Its purpose is to revolutionize the way we use search engines.

Well, that’s what they hope.

Every now and again these new products enter the market, causing a bit of a stir and hoping to give Google a run for its money. Last year we had Cuil, and there’s now a constant stream of talk about the way social networking sites will become our hub for searching.

To be honest, Google is still pretty unscathed.

Bing looks interesting, mainly due to its ‘back to basics’ homepage.



Even when Google updates its front page artwork, people take an interest. Bing is almost certainly going down the same route with these photos.

When you start using Bing, the subtle differences introduced to the search pages are quite good. I like the extra content that gets dragged in when you hover over the orange dot that appears to the right of individual results.

Bing still manages to keep the results pages clean, clear and simple. Based on Google’s success this is clearly the recipe for getting people to use a particular search engine.

That said, I do wonder how long Bing expects to stay on a search engine page? The system is built to deliver lots of information on just one search and keep you on the page as you dig around and use different videos, images and posts. Realistically most of us using a search engine will simply go for the result that looks most relevant and – bing! – off we’ll go.

Research show there’s incredible dip in visitors for results below position 3 in organic or paid advertising, so if Bing is looking for you to spend more time analyzing the results pages then I can see its success to be short lived.

Google are much cannier because they keep you using all the products in their armoury, such as Google Maps, Gmail, Google Shopping and Google News. Unfortunately Bing doesn’t have this, if you click ‘Shopping’ you get farmed off to a partner product, not ‘Bing Shopping’.

Wrapping up, I think Bing’s success – or lack of it – will boil down to two factors.

• The quality of results – this will be more to do with algorithm rather then pretty pages. If visitors start to trust the results and value it for its quality then this will help it compete with Google.
• Brand recognition – I can’t imagine any other search engine taking any of Google’s market share without heavily investing in online and offline adverting to push the product.

It’s best if Google doesn’t monopolise the search engine market, so I am happy for newcomers to compete and make it interesting. Unfortunately, I feel that Bing still looks and feels like MSN live – even if it is much prettier.

Take a look at this.

I've always been sympathetic to the art for art's sake approach, and in the same way I adore technology that's impractical and imbued with a major 'wow' factor.

For me, the new Razorfish Touch Framework (RTF or 'Razorfashion') falls squarely into this category. The touch-screen looks gorgeous and fun to use, like a supercharged iPhone the size of your torso. But one awkward question lurks at the back of my mind: is it really going to revolutionise clothes shopping?

No. I don’t think it is. Certainly not in-store. I think it’s a great innovation that’s been developed in the wrong market.

Listen closely to the video voiceover stating the RTF ‘brings inventory in-store to life.’ Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I can’t think of anything that brings shopping more to life than going to a store, handling the clothes, inspecting the quality of cut and fabric, asking advice from well-informed shop assistants and - with luck - haggling a few quid off the bill.

It doesn’t make sense to me to go to a shop, spend 10 or 15 minutes playing with a very stylish computer, and then returning to the real world to use up additional time inspecting the threads that are hanging on the racks.

That said, I can imagine myself sitting in front of a touch-screen home computer, playing with something just like the RTF and - if I liked what I saw - making the all-important decision to visit the store for a spot of in-person shopping. That's where I think the future of the software lies.

RTF is a fine and exciting development, but its real place is in the home, not in a shop. Unless, of course, it can be used to sample digital replicas of the goods sold in-store. I wonder what the music retailers think?

Recently, we had to analyse how users were interacting with a series of Flash videos. Data we need included the identities of videos that people were watching, the time they spent viewing them, and whether they reached for the pause button at any point.

In the past, lack of suitable technology has made it almost impossible to track user interaction in Flash. Luckily Google has now developed its own analytics tracking code which you can add to your flash movies.

When we added the Google actionscript code, we were able to catch any user-initiated actions and relay them to Google Analytics, along with the relevant movie name. In this way, we could get a complete analysis of the most popular videos.

As well giving us better understanding and more robust statistics for the success of our clients’ websites and features, the new technique is a major step forward when it comes to assessing the 'stickiness' of Flash interfaces and objects. Along with the development of sitemapping and history frameworks for Flash sites, the new Analytics code can be applied to larger projects to create fully searchable, bookmarkable and trackable Flash projects.

If you are a developer planning to add Google Analytics, one of the best tools in your armoury will be Firebug, a Firefox add-on that allows you to monitor any traffic passing out of Flash and into Google Analytics, along with the variables and commands you have given it. If you’re not familiar with it, give it a try!

I can hear the mob down at the other end of the street. "Down with IE6! Death to IE6!" 

I wish.

Calls for the death of IE6 have, in certain circles, been mooted almost since it was first released. That's because Microsoft's browser from August 2001 was prone to crashing, it was insecure which made it a veritable virus magnet, and it didn't even do what it was supposed to do properly: it never fully supported official web coding standards.

Along with IE5.5, Microsoft had at least 85% market share for the best part of 5 years. With this high penetration Microsoft got complacent and it took a full 6 years until it's replacement, IE7, was launched. IE7 and now IE8 have gone a long way to righting the Redmond's wrongs but the IE6 legacy is still being felt by web designers and developers the world over.

As a reaction to IE6 new modern, robust, stands-compliant browsers like Opera were being built. And Netscape evolved into what would become what is now the second most used browser, Firefox.

Writing HTML that renders correctly in IE6 can often require custom lines of code. This takes development time away from the project. As time passes, supporting Internet Explorer 6 has simply become a drain on resources and, some say, with some developers sticking to relatively 'safe' HTML to ensure an acceptable browsing experience in IE6, it has become an inhibitor to progress and development on the web.

So amazingly, as a result of the continuing popularity of IE6, and in a world full of spam, worms, viruses and other nasties, 18 percent (as of March 2009, according to Wikipedia) of web users are still surfing using a browser that's nearly eight years old. Why is this? And why, typically, is your client one of this number? There are many reasons.

The largest proportion of IE6 users are those with no other browser on their PC at work. They generally work in larger organisations who may rely on a old but still used piece of software that is tied into IE6 (this is because IE6 itself was tied into Windows) to do invoicing, accounting or timesheet input.  These organisations often tend to have IT security policies which prohibit the installation of any software, leaving the user an IE6 hostage.

Other instances could include people using old versions of Windows: Windows 2000 and NT only support IE6. Some simply do not know any better.

And finally there's the PC-novice parent who insists that even her very web-savvy son leaves her computer well alone: "Don't touch it! It works just fine as it is, thank you. I can pick up my email and I know what all the buttons do".

If you had the guts you could choose to stop all development for IE6. But I believe for an agency like ours that serves a broad range of clients, including many public sector organisations (notorious IE6 users), support for IE6 is going to be necessary for quite some time - perhaps until its usage falls below 5%.

So what help can we offer to web designers and developers who choose to continue support IE6?

As a designer you'll probably be developing using IE7+, Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari ... oh go then, and Opera. And because you can't generally have IE6 and IE7 installed on the same machine, the first hurdle is to find a way of checking your site in IE6 - and the secret is to start the testing early in the development process because leaving debugging until the end will cause you more grief than a sleaze-writing cabinet minister. Short of using multiple virtual machine sessions, a remote desktop connection to a legacy PC on your network still using IE6 or a visit to your mum every evening for a quick spin on her squeaky old IE6 browser, you'll need some way of testing in IE6.

We have recently discovered a great piece of freeware called IE Tester (bit.ly/ie-tester). IE Tester is a very accurate IE emulator. In our experience you can choose to develop in any one of Firefox/Chrome/Safari/Opera and use IE Tester for checking in IE6/7/8.

Of course you can also evangelize about the benefits of upgrading to a modern browser. But blog posts on a digital agency website are essentially preaching to the converted. So please spread the word - tell your friends and family, and also the government’s Chief Information Officer. Tell them to get with the program, the program called IE8.

Are we calling for the death of IE6? Not really. We tend not to have too much trouble supporting it. We seem to be quite good at balancing creativity with good clean code. We're pragmatic about it: for most of our clients it's still their main browser. And if we want to keep them, we need to keep IE6 and let it die a natural death.

I’ve just got back from Technology for Marketing and Advertising 2009. Here’s a round up of some of the highs and lows from a slightly jaded online marketer’s perspective.

What was interesting was how busy the show was. Olympia was really very busy. If visitor count alone were an accurate measurement of the health of the industry, I would suggest we are on track for fruitful times ahead.

But it could be that more offline marketers are coming around to digital. Or perhaps the good turnout signifies a lot of worried marketers desperately looking for other avenues and ways to cut costs.

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