Wolfram Alpha Bologna Conundrum

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Like many people over the last couple of days, I’ve headed over to Wolfram Alpha to see this new engine that will supposedly provide definitive answers to factual queries. An ‘answer engine’ as it were, as opposed to Google’s search engine. It’s early days, and perhaps unfair to start hitting out at the results provided […]

Problems setting up your own WordPress contact form?

Friday, May 15th, 2009

Stumbled across this problem recently and thought it worth sharing, for anyone who’s trying to set up a form on wordpress and on submission gets a 404 error. Recently we set up a contact form for a client on their wordpress blog. Many people simply use one of the numerous plugins available to achieve this, […]

Matt Cutts is a big fan of Google’s ‘Spellmeleon’ – should you be too?

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

The head of Google’s web-spam team, Matt Cutts has been talking about some features that are already in google’s search results, though you may not have noticed them. In particular he’s been talking about the google spell-checking features – giving us a glimpse into the internal workings by revealing two different features and their inhouse […]

Twitter users target Twitter with their anger

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

It’s a web 2.0 irony, that the biggest social networking platforms find their biggest pr nightmares occuring through the use of their very own structure. It happened recently with Facebook when users started setting up facebook groups demanding a return to the old design, after Facebook changed the layout of user profiles (to give public […]

Twitter retention rates are worth considering

Monday, May 11th, 2009

The plot is nearly always the same – social networks start off with a technologically clued in vanguard using them, then thanks to word of mouth their user base starts to grow, until that magical moment when the media starts latching on. At that point new users signing up skyrockets alongside hyperbolic predictions about how […]

Learning a lesson from Facebook’s localisation into Hindi

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

Localisation is the over-technical term used by software developers to describe the translation of their programs into other languages. It serves a purpose, though, to stress that translation is far more than simply substituting words from one language to another. For a program to work in different markets different cultures need to be taken into […]

Understanding some Web 2.0 fundamentals (with the help of Tim O’Reilly)

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

There’s a great conversation up on Fora.tv between Tim O’Reilly – the publishing guru who was at the forefront of coining and defining the term Web 2.0 – which we recommend to anyone who’s thinking about setting up a website.  For those of you who are up to date with online trends and developments it […]

Moderating Peril – The telegraph twitter trap

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

There were a lot of smug faces in the twittersphere (can you say that?), and abashed techies over at The Telegraph when they decided to publish live tweets posted to the tag #budget during the week, without thinking the obvious – without moderators you’re basically giving an open space for all – including the malicious […]

Overoptimistic about Twitter search

Friday, April 24th, 2009

There was an interesting article last month about twitter search, which raises questions for any prospective webmaster – given that search engine optimisation is, rightly, a major concern in the design and upkeep of a site. The article, published in twitip.com, will have pleased twitter executives as it – with more than a little hyperbole […]

Myspace have new CEO – Van Natta

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Former Facebook COO Van Natta, who is currently involved in playlist.com, a tool for sharing music on various social platforms, is apparently set to take  over the role of CEO for MySpace. Various tech sites have reported the news that Van Natta is to take over from MySpace founder Chris DeWolfe, including the Wall Street […]