There's been some recent noise from users and several Not-for-Profits (NfPs) that they've started seeing a significant drop-off in the reach of their posts/ activity on Facebook. What seems to be happening is that Fb is cranking up the monetising effort. What effect this has is still unclear (could this be a turning point in our rose-tinted love-affair with Facebook?) but it does highlight how Facebook views, uses and exploits people.
Dries Buytaert (founder of Drupal) has written a 'viewpoint article' for the BBC Business section. It's a biased article but it's interesting on several levels nonetheless - not least that it's Drupal the BBC Business section invited to write the article (as opposed to WordPress; Concrete5; Joomla; SilverLight etc).
We're only a few days away from when the EU 'cookie law' is due to be implemented and (as with the last update we posted: 'Cookie Crumb of Relief' ) it still looks like no one is really any clearer what the actual implications of these regulations are going to be. There's a huge amount of background detail, yet despite that (or maybe because of that) there's also been a significant amount of vague and shifting information (not least from the bodies tasked with leading on how to comply with the directive). Also ahead of the deadline, solutions from some big brands have begun to appear. Whilst some of the solutions are quite awful, there is also a fair bit of hope and a general expectation that there's a lot of noise being generated which will settle down and a reasonable approach to the directive and general cookie compliance will win out.
With just over a month to go until the EU 'cookie law' is due to be implemented, it's looking like we're no clearer what the actual implications of these regulations are going to be.
Of the three approaches to compliance most commonly being talked about - modal dialogue, status bar and warning bar - none of them look particularly attractive or satisfactory from a UX point of view.
For many of our clients Facebook has become an important referral site and for many it's the number one social referrer. As a result of their efforts - posting regular, engaging updates, responding to comments and creating conversations - most of our clients see a good return in terms of increasing the number of FB fans and increasing levels of engagement.
Mobile is a tricky and talked about subject at the moment. We've put together a mobile presentation to help us share our ideas.
We had a very inspiring time at the AMA Conference in Glasgow recently. A consistent thread throughout the conference was user experience - the emphasis on creating real value through experience. This resonates with the view that whilst traditionally marketing was all about the 'last mile', now it needs to be the whole relationship end-to-end. Whether marketers in the arts/ cultural sector are really up for the change of focus is another matter of course but at the conference there was a lot of enthusiasm from grasping the moment not just as a necessity but more as an actual opportunity. More thoughts on AMA Conference and user experience from Ben's blog post.
It's been interesting to see and feel the growing awareness of clients to not just the importance of SEO but also the requirement for them to engage in order to achieve good results. The importance for them to not just understand but also for them to do.
The doing of course can be quite a task - establishing an SEO strategy and implementing it is no small task - but there is no magic bullet than guarantees you good results and high SEO rankings.
We're pleased as punch at having launched the new War Horse in London microsite for the National Theatre: http://warhorselondon.nationaltheatre.org.uk
We recently came across the popular Wibiya 'webshare' bar recently on the WDM website: http://www.wdm.org.uk/ and thought a quick water-cooler review was in order.