Bob Browning's blog

I just received two newsletters in the last two minutes:

The Dark Side of Twitter: What Businesses Need to Know
Driving Traffic with Twitter

OK so twitter is hot. 

I have been tweeting, but frankly is anyone really interested that I just scratched myself? If I had the time and talent to generate witty and interesting tweets on an hourly basis (i.e. if I were called Stephen Fry) I can see that it would work.  But for the average punter it is just more spam into the ether.

So with all due regard to those who are trying to generate business with twitter, I tweet my last.

I have been twittering but is anyone really interested.

Stare here  and check out Doonsbury this week (keep pressing next) .

We had a website developed by a web designer some years ago.  I just received a bill from Getty Images for £1,700 for the use of one of the images on it.  It came via a debt collection agency Morenton Smith.  Their notification looked very much like a Phishing message and it is by chance that I opened it.  

It seems that Getty Images have software trawling the web for images, and have been doing this since 2005.  

I don’t condone Intellectual property Theft in any way but the tactics of these guys looks pretty dubious to me. 

If this happens to you check out this posting for the full SP:

http://www.fsb.org.uk/discuss/forum_posts.asp?TID=1106

Once netbooks take off (they will), we have a problem with the typical 800 x 480 screen and websites designed for desktop screens.  One option is to vary the style sheet depending on screen size.  An example here.  

However a designer needs to design for both sizes of screen.

Netbooks are small cheap laptops with built-in wifi (Around £150-200).  They are about the size of a Filofax and perfect for whipping out in your local Starbucks and checking your mail or surfing the web. They have been based on the Intel Atom chip, and run Windows XP. They won’t run Vista but will run the next version of Windows.

Later this year however you can expect netbooks with the ARM chip that normally powers mobile phones.  These have big advantages.  The chip has been designed to use less power and the batteries will last up to four times longer than the Intel chip.  Because it uses less power it generates less heat so the case can be thinner.   The chip is also significantly cheaper.

The downside is that they will not run Windows, but these devices will run Linux which is going to give it a big boost as a consumer operating system.  

These are going to be A BIG DEAL.  Watch this space.

We have been using our tracking system more and more to manage our work.  This uses an online form to request fixes/changes to the website, and as we work on it the ‘ticket’ is updated and finally closed by the client.

We just released a complex ecommerce site for user testing, and we gave the end user access to the tracking site.  This meant that changes went directly from the tester to the developer, bypassing the agency project manager.  It significantly reduced the load on the project manager, without losing control. In fact the development was much more under control than earlier projects.

We have another client who we do time and materials maintenance.  Every month they now get an invoice with a list of tickets closed (by them) that month, and timings to the nearest minute for each.  It makes it very hard for them to argue with the billing.  It also gives them control over their budget as they have access to a real-time cost analysis during the month.

Now, at the suggestion of a partner, we are using the system to control all quotes.  Each quote is a ticket with the brief and every version of our proposal attached.  It keeps a record which we all have access to.

Answer.  It is a gadget that appears on your TV screen that allows you to show internet content on your TV.  You control it with your remote.

• Provided your TV is connected to the Internet
• Provided your TV supports them.

Which your TV will do both pretty soon.  More here: http://connectedtv.yahoo.com including a demo which makes it all much clearer.  Yahoo is the leader in this and it has deals with Samsung, Sony and LG. 

Is this the end of the rented DVD, when you can download and watch direct from the rental company?  Share photos from Flickr directly on your TV. 

However as Mary Lojkine points out in regard to the Sony Internet Video Link (which is a sort of preliminary version of this):

“So it’s the Internet, on your TV, with no need for a PC. Except it’s not the Internet, it’s just on-demand video from selected providers. And it’s not on your current TV, because it only works with the new models. And let’s be honest, you do have a computer, and it isn’t hard to connect a PC to a modern LCD or plasma, so you could quite easily have the actual Internet on your actual TV.”

I take her point, but Idon’t know about you but when I am in couch-potatoe mode it is as much as I can do to lift the remote, let alone start messing with my PC.  Personally I think the future is a set-top box that is a real computer, but which doubles as a Blu ray player, PVR and Internet access device.  It will have an advanced controller that includes a small qwerty keypad – the size and shape of a blackberry.  That way you can do all this from your sofa without having to find a place for the keyboard and mouse along with your six-pack.

You may not have noticed, but the stores are starting to get shipments of webbooks.  These are notebook computers that are small, light, and above all cheap.  e.g. £170 each.  They run Unix or Windows XP but have built in wi-fi  and a web browser.  So you can whip one out in Starbucks and surf the net, get your emails and so on with a real computer with a real keyboard and screen – albeit a small one. You can’t run Vista on most of these, but Windows 7 will apparently run on one of these devices. 

What with cloud computing coming into its own, people are going to be using this sort of device to write documents, keep their diary and so on.  Clearly a GOOD IDEA.

They are such a good idea, that I can see them becoming pretty unbiquitous.  So ???

So – remember when you had to size your web pages for 600×480 screens.  Well these little blighters are not much better. Maybe 800×480.  These won’t count as mobile devices so a separate style sheet will not do the job.   Most web pages are sized for much higher resolutions that this. 

We have a  problem Houston.

Question. What is my position on Google for some keyword? 
Response: Who are you and what have you been doing on the web lately

Check out the fascinating interview with Bruce Clay.  The future of search engine optimisation looks different – very different.  Google will change the results based on your history, your location, and even what other sites you have been visiting. So two people searching for the same keyword will get different results.  If that is the case what does search engine position mean? 

Bruce predicts this for Q1 next year. 

He also predicts a return to the google dance, which has been moribund for some time, as Google starts experimenting.  He thinks that will start including new factors in its search related to how interesting your site is, measured by things like video on the site, Flash and so on.  So some Flash may even help your positioning in the future – if there were some way of giving meaning to the word position.

Watch the interview – 10 minutes well spent.