The World’s Facebook Relationships Visualized [PIC]

Cool?
Geeky?
Gimmicky?
I don't know, but where, oh where has China gone ;-)?

Social Media Click throughs peak at beginning of week

Quite an interesting piece about click through rates on social media ads by day of week - do while users are on Facebook all week, Monday- Wednesday are the best for CTRs. But I do wonder how much that is effected by what day of the week campaigns go live on?

http://vitrue.com/blog/2009/09/08/vitrue-srm-findings-social-click-through-rates-for-facebook-are-highest-on-tuesdays/

The Joy of Stats

I wouldn't normally go anywhere near BBC 4, but as I was channel-hopping last night, the 'Joy of Stats' caught my eye. And no, I didn't just mis-read the title...

BigMouth 2011 digital marketing predictions

Here are Big Mouth's predictions for 2011 - some interesting reading covering views on the imapct of HTML5, 'three-screen strategies' (your site being browsable via small mobile screens, laptop/PC screens and TV screens - a term I hadn't heard before, but like!)

I'm hoping Sarah Curds is right about the increased focus on usability, getting the basics right.

Nothing shocking in here that I can see, but the local focus is something we probably need to really think about?

.....

2011 promises to be a landmark one for the digital marketing industry, with the predicted arrival of a raft of legislative, technical and economic changes that look set to make a fundamental impact on the sector. This year’s predictions document, which for the first time includes input from the LBi team, details the challenges to look out for and is packed with insight as to what companies will need to do in 2011 to stay ahead of the competition.

You can download your free copy now - please feel free to circulate to your friends and colleagues. At bigmouthmedia we are always happy to encourage debate, so if you have any comments or questions on the predictions please either speak to your account team or send them through to predictions@bigmouthmedia.com

A way to improve the digital knowledge throughout Macmillan?

As we start to think about how to improve the digital knowledge throughout Macmillan, this article has already coined a phrase for it.

Perhaps one thing to consider as a result is to target those in the organisation that are already 'digital natives' (in a bottom up appraoch) and use them as mentors/reverse mentors/advocates on our behalf as well as us evangelising ourselves...

Industry Bodies, Operators and Retailers Unite to Form MCJIC

"It was great to see the launch of MCJIC. As acronyms go, it's not the snappiest, but the body's mission, to ensure that retailers make the most of the mCommerce opportunity, is a laudable one." ...so Mobile Marketing News tells me ;-)

Communicating Errors

From UserFocus.co.uk, an excellent article on writing good error messages.  Very useful when you need to design those pesky 404 pages.

Communicating Errors (UserFocus)

Usability review of charity sites

This is a bit old, so people may have already seen, but some interesting things highlighted in this article reviewing charity websites (including ours) which have successfully developed their online brand using modern and creative ideas"

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/26/usability-review-of-charity-websites-taking-the-lead/

Some interesting challenge for us, including "A large usability error on the Macmillan sign-in form is the lack of labels within or next to the appropriate fields." One for us to consider?

one tool to control them all...

http://www.dialecticdoubleclick.net/
http://www.slightlychanges.net/


Photo by Ikea_Riot

What If Google Stored All Our Medical Records?

An excellent article that takes a common-sense approach to the discussion of Medical Records storage.

One has to wonder: how many texts is the average teenager actually capable of sending?

Some almost current stats on mobile trends by age group

3000 texts/month = 100/day = 6/waking hour
I think this figure can still go a lot higher ;-)

Interesting stats on mobile internet usage up from 40% to 49% among teens between Q2 2009 and Q2 2010.

The maturing mobile market

This article starts to delve into what people want when mobile markets mature (as is the case in the UK).

Essentially, it's stating that users in the UK tend to prefer web-type experiences, over app-based experiences. However, it does also presume that the web-type experiences are already optimised for mobile.

What does this mean for Macmillan?

Perhaps that we need to increasingly scope mobile access into the way we build, maintain and develop our online communications, focussing on ensuring content is readily digestible for people accessing it on the move...? But perhaps most importantly, (how) do we join up our online communications so that they can easily be accessed via mobile?

How the whole User Interface thing started

This 1982 Byte Magazine article describes the design process behind one of the first computer user interfaces.

I find the article so interesting because these guys were amongst the first to consider metaphors for visualising computer tasks.  They originated the Graphical User Interface.

10 Things to do with points in your community

http://www.gloerich.com/

Interesting article about using points system in community - it's worth debating pros/cons!

Digital Britain

This heartwarming video tells a very real story about how digital technology is shaping the everyday lives of people who live in Britain. It's a salutary reminder too of how essesential broadband has become for so many people, personally and professionally.

The film is an entry for the Digital Revolutions competition, the closing date for which has just been extended to 21 October.

Facebook infographic

For those in the team that like Kevin and I, love infographics!




2010 Facebook stats


Too strange a shape to embed in this blog so you'll just have to open it up. Sorry!

Best Techy Gag Of The Week

The prize this week goes to Nigel Green (@mrnigelgreen), a Project Manager here at Macmillan, for this beauty:

Campaigns for social good

Some interesting things here - I really like number 4, if we could have a corporate partner agree an action on the basis of what we can get fans to do? That would be cool! And are we brave enough to ask someone to donate their facebook status for a period (no.4)?

http://mashable.com/2010/09/30/creative-social-good-campaigns/

Who needs Government IT costing millions when you've got such talented 16 year-olds.

"During the week of Young Rewired State 2010, I decided to design a website which takes the energy consumption figures from each individual Government Department and puts them in one place in order to compare usage and to monitor the Government’s pledge to reduce its carbon footprint. This, GovSpark, is the result."

Isabell Long - Age 16

http://issyl0.co.uk

World of online communities

http://www.mindmeister.com/29862531/online-communities#

Online community resources

Here's some useful online community and social media resources that I've found.

The confusing(?) mobile market

Came across this infographic (I know how we all love 'em!). Thought it might give an illustration of the complexity of the mobile marketplace...

The Discipline of Content Strategy

We, the people who make websites, have been talking for fifteen years about user experience, information architecture, content management systems, coding, metadata, visual design, user research, and all the other disciplines that facilitate our users’ abilities to find and consume content.

Weirdly, though, we haven’t been talking about the meat of the matter. We haven’t been talking about the content itself.

Read the article

Strategic Content Management

"Trying to fix an organization’s content problems by installing a content management system (CMS) is like trying to save a marriage by booking a holiday. We know that a successful web project needs a content strategy—but when it comes to the CMS, we stop thinking strategically. Despite all the talk about user-centered design, we rarely consider the user experience of the editorial team—the people who implement the content strategy. We don’t design a CMS, we install it."

Read the article

Visual of mobile access to social tools

I loved this graphic for illustrating quite how many people are accesing social plaforms via mobiles

http://mashable.com/2010/08/24/the-state-of-the-geosocial-universe-infographic/

Mini-Survey on the effect of Social Media on some UK Charity web sites

Mini-Survey on the effect of Social Media ( incl Twitter and FB) on some UK Charity web sites, suing analytics in an interesting way.

Conclusion: visits from social media sources are growing but from a very low base.
Around 1% of all visits come from Social Media. More details here:
http://bit.ly/9vuP3K

Photo/Graphic: deanmeyersnet

https://www.finerday.ie/

Sent by Katie via Email:

Really like this concept which has been nominated for a digital inclusion award ….
https://www.finerday.ie/

Social Good: Charity and Technology in the Online Universe

I love Infographics.  So, here's another; this time looking at charity and technology in the online universe.

http://mashable.com/2010/09/18/social-good-infographic

I particularly like the icons for the different generations (goes totally sci-fi) and the caption for the 5% of people who were repeat-donors.

Social Media Exchange training

In case anyone is interested, this could be interesting - can mix and match the workshops you want to attend....

http://socialmediaexchange.org.uk/

Trends about 'social good'

Thought this was really interesting, especially the micro volunteering

http://mashable.com/2010/09/15/5-trends-social-good

Google Instant

Email from Maddy at Big Mouth about the impact of Google Instant launching - seems like the most relevant thing for us is that we may start to see part-words (eg 'can' or 'fundr') coming through as keywords generating traffic...

As you are probably aware, Google Instant was announced yesterday, which means search results will now update as users type their queries. 


The key features of Google Instant are summarised below:


Official Google Blog
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html

• Dynamic Results - Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
• Predictions - One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that we predict the rest of your query (in light gray text) before you finish typing. See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you’re looking for.
• Scroll to search - Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.
• Google Instant is starting to roll-out to users on Google domains in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia who use the latest browsers (Chrome v5/6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8). Please note, users on domains other than Google.com can only access Google Instant if they are signed in to a Google Account. We will continue to add new domains and languages over the next several months.

Google AdWords / PPC
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-more-innovative-approach.html

With Google Instant, an impression is counted if a user takes an action to choose a query (for example, presses the Enter key or clicks the Search button), clicks a link on the results page, or stops typing for three or more seconds.

Google Webmaster Tools / SEO
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-impact-on-search-queries.html

With Google Instant, you may notice an increase in impressions because your site will appear in search results as users type.

Matt Cutts / SEO
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/thoughts-on-google-instant/
Q: Does Google Instant kill search engine optimization (SEO)?
A: No! Almost every new change at Google generates the question “Will X kill SEO?” Here’s an video I did last year, but it still applies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQArUFRb4Is&feature=player_embedded

Q: Will Google Instant change search engine optimization?
A: I think over time it might. The search results will remain the same for a query, but it’s possible that people will learn to search differently over time. For example, I was recently researching a congressperson. With Google Instant, it was more visible to me that this congressperson had proposed an energy plan, so I refined my search to learn more, and quickly found myself reading a post on the congressperson’s blog that had been on page 2 of the search results.

Google Analytics
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-and-google-analytics.html

With this change, you might notice some fluctuations in AdWords impression volume and in the distribution of organic keywords. For example, you may find that certain keywords receive significantly more or fewer impressions moving forward.

mobile websites review

Terence Eden reviews his favourite ad agencies' websites... as viewed on a mobile: http://narrowdesign.com/future

Photo: kozumel

3 ways to organise staff for digital media success, Article on Because It's Good

Following Unicef UK’s report on digital media marketing in the third sector and the presentation at our last team meeting, please fin underneath a link to an article by Joe Downie (Water Aid) explaining the best way to structure teams for successful charity digital media campaigns:

http://www.becauseitsgood.org/articles/102

If anybody comes across the original Unicef report, please post a link here!

**********************************************************************************

Pressure on Apple to allow charity apps 'revolution'

(From Louise by email)

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/channels/Fundraising/Article/1027787/Pressure-Apple-allow-charity-apps-revolution/

Wired Article: The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet

(Sent by Caspar via email)

Two articles on one page: one article on the www's slow death and the rise of the app usurper, the other article on the changes that different models of economic control bring to internet development. Essential reading for anybody working in digital media who  would still like to do so in 10 years time.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/

Converting video files...

FYI, you probably already know about these but should he need help converting the files he can use the WinFF/FFMPEG combo:

http://winff.org/html_new/

http://ffmpeg.org/

Arcade Fire and location based marketing

With Facebook Places launching in the US (http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150257497405484) location based marketing is set to go mainstream and it will be interesting to see which brands capitalise on this in an engaging and useful way.

I think there will be lots of back lash for any brands seen to be 'stalking' consumers. The brands which will be most effective will be the ones to offer users an experience or something useful.

Arcade Fire have used street view and google maps to a great effect with this stunning music video. Just type in where you grew up and see it transported in to their new video...

http://thewildernessdowntown.com/

(View in Chrome for best view)

Google launches online calls service

From Jiten via email:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11092212 - you guys may know about this already?

--
Yes I've been trying to get google voices forever, must have sent 5 invitation requests. its for US and Canadian users at the moment so roll on the European release And watch-out Skype...

Mathieu O'Neill: Autonomy and Authority in Online Tribes.

Have you ever wondered about the spontaneous order amongst users as it unfolds in online communities?
Mathieu O'Neill attempted to wrestle the issues of autonomy as well as authority in the digital world, where everbody can be anybody claiming to know everything about whatever.



I strongly recommend this book to catch up on some Mickey-Mouse psychology about the dark and needy side of the people creating havoc in our forums.



The book looks at different well known social online structure, explaining different models of how communities get together and interact online, analysing the meaning and motivation in individuals’ actions. Its especially relevant in regards to peer support networks with elements of self rule and peer moderation, and any form of self-organised online network.



It’s an easy read, as well, even if it doesn’t sound like it!



http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745327969&



http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cyberchiefs-Autonomy-Authority-Online-Tribes/dp/0745327966/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1281100765&sr=8-2-fkmr1

Spots vs Stripes

This article has nothing to do with my penchant for chocolate... honest.   Mmm... chocolate...

Digital Marketing Humour

We work in a strange industry when this is the kind of humour Digital Media people have to put up with:

Stream live on Facebook

Courtesy of Macmillan's Digital Communications and Press Officer, Sam Phillips.

Thought this was pretty cool – you can stream live footage on Facebook.

Designing the address - Guidelines for URI Design

A great article from CSS Tricks on designing the whole user-experience by ensuring you think about the URI (the page address). I like the “speech-friendly” test and dropping the 'www'.

Guidelines for URI Design (CSS Tricks)

 

Microsoft Word annoyances - Horizontal lines

Thanks to Kevin those annoying horizontal lines which plague my Word documents are now history! Here's the how-to for removing them:

http://www.inowebmarketing.com/2008/01/removing-the-hr-line-from-word/

Mocking up a Wireframe

Mockingbird is an online tool that makes it easy for you to create, link together, preview, and share mockups of your website or application.

Mockingbird

Cunning online work of cunning Charities

A great article from Boagworld on how charities nudge you in the right direction when you visit their website.

Nudge Your Users In The Right Direction (Paul Boag on Boagworld)

I especially like the description of charities, borrowed from Blackadder:

...more cunning than a “fox what used to be professor of cunning at Oxford University but has moved on, and is now working for the UN as the High Commission of International Cunning Planning.”

The Unicorn Scene

Okay, that's my Blade Runner reference for the day.  The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) new combined validator - called Unicorn - is a great way of seeing a combined view of all your site-tuning and standards compliance issues in one place.

How to meet deadlines

An interesting article in setting deadlines that can be realistically achieved and tips on how and when to review deadlines

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/07/28/passing-the-holy-milestone-how-to-meet-deadlines/

PDF Cracker

I came across this great tool recently which allows you to upload PDFs. It then emails you them in any editable version you like, for example, as a word doc.

Wireframes

Might be quite useful for sketching out ideas or brainstorming:

• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/03/29/free-printable-sketching-wireframing-and-note-taking-pdf-templates/

Ushahidi

Here’s what I was talking about. Go into ‘What it does’ and you’ll see some great uses.

Update on Google's Mayday update affecting natural search visits

http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/seo/update-on-googles-mayday-update/

Animated Twitter

An agency Annie and I met with yesterday mentioned a feature on the Guardian which animated twitter activity with growing / shrinking circles for each world cup game. I don’t think I’m explaining it very well, but just looked it up, and its pretty cool!

TrendsMap

A local twitter trends map. Could be interesting to see where people are talking about Coffee Morning on Friday.

• http://trendsmap.com

Titanpad

Interesting… I don’t know if we could utilise this for any shared docs we might work on in the future… it allows people to work on a document simultaneously

• http://titanpad.com/

The Yahoo! Style Guide

Writing, editing and creating content for the digital world

• http://styleguide.yahoo.com

Interesting Boagworld articles

Really good stuff on ‘Microcopy’ (does that mean you need to hire shorter Editors?) and ‘Using Twitter For Customer Testimonials’.

• http://boagworld.com/news/web-design-news-160710

Facebook Changes

I meant to mention Open Graph.  Bullying UK have been using it on their site and were asking for feedback

• www.bullyinguk.org.uk

I like the integration.

Q&A: Gerd Leonhard on why social media beats search

Thought I’d share the following link on Social Media and Search:

• http://econsultancy.com/blog/5968-q-a-gerd-leonhard-on-why-social-media-beats-search?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

Getting started with iPhone and iPad

Web Development For The iPhone And iPad: Getting Started

• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/28/web-development-for-the-iphone-and-ipad-getting-started - Smashing Magazine

PDF Cracker

I came across this great tool recently which allows you to upload PDFs. It then emails you them in any editable version you like, for example, as a word doc.

Online Communities Advice

Hannah Kowszun in National Events sent this to Sarah and me earlier this week – thought some of you might also find it of interest:

New Types of Social Networks

Not sure if you’ve seen this, but an interesting development in Social Networks and the web:

Microsoft Operating Profit by Division

Interesting diagram illustrating Microsoft's areas of profit.  Do these translate to areas of expertise?

• http://www.greatlakesgeek.com/images/misc/microsoft-sales.jpg

The Geek: Not just your son but your gaming grandma

Interesting article on the fear of technology and the stereotypes and preconceptions around it.

• http://www.wallblog.co.uk/2010/04/22/the-geek-not-just-your-son-but-your-gaming-grandma

Lifting Google rank using social conversations

Article from Econsultancy:

• Lifting Google rank using social conversations
• http://bit.ly/brVzeK

Really interesting article which demonstrates that good SEO isn’t just about links and words, it’s also about people and relationships.  (I sound like such a hippie).

JustGiving's digital strategist

Jiten, Bella and I went to see Johnathan Waddingham’s (JustGiving’s digital strategist) presentation at Internet World yesterday. He looked at ‘Charities and the art of digital storytelling’ and highlighted a range of charities’ social media successes - quite a few of which we should steal borrow!

J Waddingham presentation for meeting

Apparently he came here to chat with the press and pr team last year sometime, so he might be willing to come in again for one of our meetings in the future if we’re interested?

Notes from Internet World - 27-29 April 2010

Notes from Internet World 2010.

Interesting take on Microsoft's future

Don't mean to be alarmist, but the odds are increasing that Microsoft's business will just completely collapse

• http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/06/21/businessinsider-microsofts-business-could-collapse-2010-6.DTL

Social Media Brief

This is a really interesting presentation on social networks. It’s very long, but worth reading - real food for thought!

• http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2

Digital Sparks Conference 2010

For anyone interested, here are the presentations from the digital sparks conference I went to the other week.

The one I found most interesting was Bunnyfoot presentation on useability, but didn't cover anything we don't already know. And the Spotify one was fun too:

• http://www.brandhouse.co.uk/digitalsparks

Facebook Statistics

Speaking of audiences:

Facebook has 465 million users worldwide. Gender, age and user stats by country:

• http://www.checkfacebook.com

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg outlines vision for D.I in Government

We are pleased to invite you to watch the New Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg outlining his vision of a Digitally Inclusive Britain at NDI10.

Customer Loyalty and Social Media

In the mood to share today.

3 Keys to Increasing Customer Loyalty with Social Media

Civic Agenda calls on NDI10 audience to join Martha Lane Fox's Promise Campaign

Thank you once again to all of you for your hard work at the National Digital Inclusion Conference 2010 for coming up with our great collective promises.

Are we mobile? Not yet. Is that an issue? Not yet.

Blog post about the use of the mobile web by Non-Profit organisations:

• Are we mobile? Not yet. Is that an issue? Not yet - Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog

AIDA (not the opera)

AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) is a marketing tool to support a conversion, goal-based user journey, primarily on the web.

AIDA describes a common list of events that are very often undergone when a person is selling a product or service: