We all use link shortener’s in social media as it cuts down on the amount of text, especially with twitter where we have a limited amount of text. So this raises the question about “link juice” getting through these shortened URl’s, well Matt Cutt addresses this issue in a video.

This is not new information, but I still asked about it when I discuss SEO with clients and other web designers who want some SEO advice. So Google’s Matt Cutts addressed the issue in a video posted to Google’s Webmaster Help YouTube channel.

“Custom URL shorteners are essentially just like any other redirects,” he explains. “If we try to crawl a page, and we see a 301 or permanent redirect, which pretty much all well-behaved URL shorteners (like bit.ly or goo.gl) will do, if we see that 301 then that will pass PageRank to the final destination.”

“So in general, there really shouldn’t be any harm to using custom URL shorteners in your SEO,” he continues. “The PageRank will flow through. The anchor text will flow through, and so I wouldn’t necessarily worry about that at all.”

“Now, just to let you know, if you look at, for example, Twitter’s web pages, many of those links have a nofollow link,” he adds. “So those links that are on the webpage, may not necessarily flow PageRank, but we might be able to find out about those links through some other way – maybe a data feed or something like that. But just URL shorteners, as far as how they relate to SEO, are not necessarily a problem at all.”

So this gives us SEO experts and Web masters confidence that social media can play an active role in your SEO and helping improve your website/blog visibility on the internet. We would recommend using reputable URL shortening websites, and have a go at using Google’s goo.gl . We find it useful because when you are logged into your Google account (everyone should have a Google account!) it keeps a good record of your URL that have been shortened, and it can also track how many links it has had etc.

Well I hope this has provided some useful info on SEO for Gloucester & Cheltenham Businesses and Web Designers

Adam
Web master & SEO Expert
AS Design

Apologies for the delay in writing up about SEO on our blog, it is a very popular subject in Gloucester & Cheltenham at the moment and I have the pleasure of working on some really cool, websites, and great local business people to boot. I have been guilty really of not passing on some valuable information and keep SEO at the forefront of peoples minds.

So I am going to try to post at least one blog post per week about SEO…..

Let me start with the “panda” update from Google which some of you may or may not have heard of, anyone who in SEO should certainly have heard of it due to the impact we have seen on search results. I guess the first thing is to assume that those reading this blog post do not know much about SEO at all, to be fair that is who I intend my blog posts to be useful for. If you consider yourself an SEO expert your comments and valuable opinions would be welcome below, however I am not interested in getting into any serious debates.

Let me first explain in simple terms what a Google update is and what it is intended for:

Google is based on an algorithm which is just how Google works out the best search results to provide the user with from the keywords they have searched. The algorithm looks at many factors to determine what it thinks is the best websites to fulfill the users request, in SEO we work towards “ethically” getting your website listed highly for certain keywords through this algorithm process. Google must keep the search results of high quality and to provide the user with the best content, products and services when they search, after all it what will keep Google as the No1 search engine. So to keep the search results fresh and to stop poor quality content from getting the top results Google updates the algorithm which then tweaks what it looks for when listings the search results. Still with me?

So the Panda update was aimed at “content farms” websites which takes information from other sources and websites and looks to get high rankings in the search engines. Google did this update because websites with copied information was getting above the original source for the information in the search results, also these websites were just huge information stores and provided little value for many users. However when Google makes changes to the Algorithm the effects can be felt either positively or negatively on many websites. For example we thought nothing of getting a blog post and using it as an article, also as a PR release making the most of costly time consuming information. This regurgitating of information is now not worth the risk!

A few considerations:

• The Panda update was released in the US first but has now been rolled out across all English based searches
• Google say 12% of searches will be affected by this update
• Google really wants to target website quality

More information can be viewed here at the Google blog

The emphasis now is quality of content, and having unique content which in my opinion is not such a bad thing. It might mean expense in terms of hiring some copy writing professional but the benefits in the long term will outweigh the cost. We can help with copy writing so give me a shout if you want to chat more about it.

We have not seen much of an impact on our clients websites because we have always been careful on the SEO tactics used to ranking well, we believe that you should be ethical in your approach and trying to trick the search engines or taking short cuts by using other peoples information is not a good SEO policy anyway. eHow managed to escape the U.S. roll-out of the Panda update, and actually come out ahead, but the site’s luck appears to have changed, based on the SearchMetrics/Sistrix data. According to the SearchMetrics data, eHow.co.uk took a 72,30% hit in visibility. eHow.com took a 53,46% hit. Sistrix has eHow.co.uk as its top loser with a -84% change.

Check out search metrics list of the top UK losers in search traffic since the update:

Search metric link

So my conclusion is many small businesses should not be affected by the Panda update, if you have noticed a serious drop in search traffic since the Panda update came out then please let us know your experience and importantly why your website has been penalised. I can help Companies look at an SEO strategy that incorporates many ethical methods and uses quality content which is probably not bad thing for the search results.

Adam

Web master (SEO expert)

We offer a leading Gloucester & Cheltenham SEO service we do have client across the UK

In the last few days I have been watching more and more people around me talk, interact and post their stuff in many different forms on the web. In particular the social media arena. This all resonates with me as an NLP fundi and my company after all is about communication, branding and marketing in the social media world. I tend to read peoples language patterns and see things that other people have not noticed where their ‘communication’ is concerned and there is one thing that needs to be addressed quite seriously: Your online Reputation management (ORM).

What will happen to the web in the next 5 years or so will show you that YOUR online reputation and personal branding is out there forever. What is this I hear you say, well let me give you a very brief outline about ORM. This article can be found on Wikipedia and is the most comprehensive and the simplest outline of it.

“Online Reputation Management (ORM) is the act of monitoring, addressing or mitigating SERPs (search engine result pages) or mentions in online media and Web sphere content. ORM primarily involves tracking what is written about a client on the Internet, then utilizing sophisticated online and offline techniques in promoting positive and neutral content, while at the same time pushing down those links the sponsor (in most cases business or individuals) may not want to show when their name is searched.

Rather than working to raise link results with a particular search term in order to (ostensibly) generate more commerce or page views, the goal of ORM is to push already highly-ranked negative posts off the results pages so that they are seen by fewer people, thus creating a more positive results environment for the sponsor of the effort. ORM is the specialization in prevention and repair of online reputation threats, and has less to do with directly promoting businesses.

The term arose from a recognition of the importance that influencing how someone or something is perceived based on an internet search has to a business. As the amount of user-generated content on the internet grew, it began to affect internet search results more meaningfully, and the desire to change those results naturally followed.”

(Link to the full article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_reputation_management)

Now, there are plenty of tools out there to counteract anything negative about you, but is this the real you then? Shouldn’t you be managing this at a base level of communication to ensure that what you see is actually who you are and what  you are communicating out is the good, positive side of you and using anything negative that gets said as an opportunity to stand out from the crowd, correct it or deal with it.

In NLP there is a great line that says: There is no such thing as failure, only feedback. In other words, use the feedback as a positive tool.

I love to use the analogy of human life where social media and reputation is concerned. I see it like a mirror image of who we are when you take the technology away.

Imagine this real life scenario:

You walk into a bar to meet friends, you start chatting and enjoying your evening, occasionally other people walk over who are friends of friends and you get introduced. The conversations gain momentum and the excitement of meeting all these people bubbles all around. Then all of a sudden somebody says something you don’t agree with and you get angry, you are rude to the person and everybody gets upset with you. The most of them leave. That little incident will get talked about to various other people about what an aggressive angry person you are and so your personal reputation in that particular circle is damaged. It is locked into their unconscious forever, if anyone mentions your name again, that memory is retrieved instantly and a bad picture pops back into their minds. Not a pleasant picture is it??

NOW.. the internet and any form of online communication takes this a step further, it is stored forever. Yes.. I said FOREVER. The tools that people use to manage this more often than not it is implemented incorrectly and they don’t work fast enough to counteract it or in an average person case, they don’t have funds to purchase such tools. There are also monitoring tools that can bypass this and they capture information in a nano second! A brilliant example of this was Russell Brand tweeting a picture of Katy Perry first thing in the morning. A screen shot was captured within seconds of it hitting the net. It went viral in a few hours, even though the tweet was only up for a very short time. To prove this point, I give you a link to just one the articles that was run about it:

http://www.inquisitr.com/94352/katy-perry-no-makeup/

If you search it, it still brings up a lot of articles on it. I have to admire them in a sense as there doesn’t seem to be any online reputation software cleaning up after them. It is who they are and they are people too. In retrospect considering their position in society as celebrities somebody should be guiding them as to the damage they do their reputations sending out stuff like that.

In the future and when we achieve Web 4.0 status everything you put out there will influence people around you and your life will not be a secret in any way if you interact on the internet. A lot of this is already happening although it has yet to be a norm. A good example is the recruitment industry where in a few years a possible employer will profile you off the internet before an interview. A few do it already, although when it reaches its peak, you won’t have a choice but to be found.

My suggestion is: Search yourself on Google or any other platform.. are you there? How do you look? If you aren’t at this point being seen and you do not come up in any search results, not even for your facebook page, may I congratulate you for having brilliant security ‘saviness’! In the future, it won’t be so easy, make sure you are putting out the BEST of you now because people around you will want that information on a daily basis, you won’t really be able to do anything without a good online presence.

Dave’s online presence is in the spotlight now and this will be captured forever. Just Google him – David Wood Ebay – to see for yourselves!  Congrats Dave! I hope you find that dream job!

Hi there everyone, I can’t believe that it has been such a long time since my last post, which was 3 months ago. I apologise sincerely for such a long delay, I was quite busy with my internship, working on a web user interface for a surveillance camera, using jQuery (the ‘famous’ javascript library). I assure you that, this post would make it for such a long wait.

That is that, and getting back to the post, yes, you have read it right that the smartphones and tablets are going to outnumber the number of PCs, at least in the sales being predicted, if not in total numbers (present usage) and yes it is going to happen in 2011.

This bold prediction is made by Deloitte Canada, the largest private professional services organization in the world, in their “Deloitte’s TMT Predictions 2011” report which could be found here in PDF format.

Few years ago I was told that the internet usage in mobile peripherals is quite more than the actual usage on the PCs. With the above prediction, it seems, now, we do not need to doubt it anymore. This prediction might not be surprising to many and quite amusing to others, but I can say that it is quite inevitable just by seeing the sales of Apple iPads (hopefully they did not lie on their sales numbers) and also the number of tablets which were introduced (I should rather say ‘showed off’ at the CES 2011 at Las Vegas (Jan 6 – 9) around more than 80. If you are interested in checking them out, you can go here.

One more reason for rise of the tablets can be attributed to the development and openness of the android OS, I agree that I am biased towards Android OS, but, you cannot ignore the fact (as seen in above engadget link) that most of the tablets launched at CES 2011 are based on Android OS.

Many people (some analysts) say and believe that the tablet industry (or most of the market) is created by the launch of Apple iPad, I opine it the other way, I would agree that iPad, did add to the push of the tablet market, but not that it was solely responsible for everything in the tablets market.

Deloitte’s TMT Predictions event, which explores emerging trends that will have an impact on Canadian businesses in 2011, can be viewed here or in ustream.

Deloitte’s top 10 predictions for 2011 include:

1. Smartphones and tablets: More than half of all computers aren’t computers anymore
2. Tablets in the enterprise: More than just a toy
3. Operating system diversity: No standard emerges on the smartphone or tablet
4. Social network advertising: How big can it get?
5. Television’s “super media” status strengthens
6. PVRs proliferate! The 30-second spot doesn’t die!
7. Push beats pull in the battle for the television viewer
8. What’s “in-store” for Wi-Fi: Retailers roll-out Wi-Fi
9. Getting to 4G cheaply: Will many carriers opt for 3.5G instead? The proliferation of new computing devices doesn’t mean that we need new networks
10. Wi-Fi complements cellular broadband for “data on the move”

More details on each of these can be found in Deloitte’s report (PDF) or via a livestream online.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/302719#ixzz1BchFMl8x
Source for image : http://www.digitaljournal.com/image/82810

p.s : I knew that Apple is quite huge and that it is highly profitable but I am surprised today to see their quarter and general profits being in excess of few $ billion, which is quite high.

Thanks hope you enjoyed the read comments please!

Prash

Why choose us for your Cheltenham web design?

No 1 Reason

We are cost effective as our average hourly rate is less than comparable Cheltenham web design Agencies at the same standard and level of work. This means you can either get more for the same money or the same for less, either way it is a win – win situation.

No 2 Reason

Many Cheltenham web design agencies also have minimum charges for websites which can be thousands of pounds, this leaves many small businesses spending way more for a basic good website than warrants the results or going to cheaper Cheltenham web design agencies and not getting the same level expertise. At AS Design we cater for the small basic website as much as we do the larger corporate or e-commerce website. So we are good choice for all small businesses in Cheltenham.

No 3 Reason

Gloucester has more people, more homes and more businesses than Cheltenham and as web designers we often have to target all of Gloucestershire. This means we are skilled getting local results on-line for all of Gloucestershire and surrounding areas, rather than limited to Cheltenham.

So for Cheltenham web design we say check out the talent in Gloucester, cheaper just as good and highly motivated for all business.

Happy New Year 2011 message from AS Web Design

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our clients and associates for a great 2010, we have all enjoyed working hard keeping our clients at the top of the internet game. From excellent  design work from John & Yugo, web development & online marketing from Adam and content writing and blogging from Matt & Prash we look forward in raising our efforts and results in 2011.  The internet is evolving fast and we all find it exciting at AS Design keeping at the front. This is only possible working for our clients, so again thank you.

Happy New Year Message from AS Web Design in Gloucestershire

AS Design Team

We are really busy leading up to Christmas which is not something any of us expected, in some ways we were looking forward to a relaxing wind down of a turbulent year for some of our clients and us to a lesser degree. Being honest we are in the right type of business because even though we have faced and are facing tough ecconomic times the online World is buzzing more than ever.

The topic I would like to talk about today is Google Ad Words and Facebook ads, both very different but together can boost profits. The trick as always is in your preparation of the advertising and the whole campaign from impression, click to order to email.

Google:

Google is very much about finding the search terms that pay, if you advertise on too a generic term like say “printer” as you sell printers then you will get click from those searching for inks, parts, servicing, reviews and others who are not interested in what you offer. This will cost you a lot of money and more than likely lead to a wasteful unsuccessful campaign. You need to use longer search terms that will reduce volumes of people searching but those that do use the search term are more likely to be interested in what you do. It is much better to have quality over quantity in Google.

For example if you sell HP printers then effective search terms could be “HP printer best prices” or “HP colour printer prices”. For our clients we use the Google keyword Tool and others to work out where the most cost effective traffic will be for our client, the holy grail is finding relatively low competition search terms but well targeted leading to low click costs but good conversion results!

Your advert needs to have a call to action, it needs to make the potential customer click. We always set up a good few adverts to see which adverts performs the best. Anyone with a little experience will think this is obvious but we have seen many trying to take short cuts or thinking they somehow know the best thing to say!

PLEASE BE AWARE:

Many of our clients have been contacted by Companies on the phone saying they can guarantee getting them on the first page of Google. They make a big thing about and say they can do it for only 60 – 120 pounds a month. I have to explain to my clients that it is not good and here is the reason why:

“They are talking about Google Ad Words because Organic results can not be guaranteed, what they do is quite simple, get you near the top for the first few weeks which will cost them at least some of the money you give them. Then they drop you down to position 6-8 on the right hand side, still on page 1 of Google like they said they would. Only now the month advertising is costing them less than half of what they charge you. What a great money earner. You will be lucky to recoup your money back.”

This was confirmed when I went and gained a new client who had a 100 a month fee paid monthly for 5 search terms, we both checked over several days and his listing didn’t even come up! A waste of money – DONT DO IT!

Get in touch with a Company who knows what they are doing, someone who can meet you.

Facebook:

Facebook is different as you do not target specific search terms from people searching, you are targeting geolocation, age, gender and other options you find in Facebook. This means you are advertising to people like an electronic bill board on one of the most popular social networking sites in the World.

The way you advertise is different from Google and should be treated as such for example lets say you offer training for a new career. In Google you would find good search terms and base your adverts text around those search terms. In Facebook you can promote “start a new career” or “Want a new career?” – You also have an image you can upload in Facebook which should be designed professionally. Visual impact counts.

You can also use Facebook advertising to promote your facebook page, increase your social media presence, although we recommend you start by gaining business first.

Using both facebook and Google ads together can be a powerful online advertising & marketing medium. You have researched both and constructed variations of Ads, both provide a good click volume with users spending at least some time on your website. Job done?

No

Your landing page must try to capture the person who has clicked (thanks Michael), showing them exactly what they want. For example if you get a click from someone looking to buy a HP printer (everything about your ad has lead to a high probability of this) then the page they come to must show them the HP printer they were looking for or the type of printers they will be interested in, for example if they searched colour your landing page should only show colour printer options. Do not kid yourself people will spend lots of time trying to find what they want from your home page!

So here is a little crib sheet you should always think about when using Google or Facebook advertising:

1. What is your advertising aim (sell, promote get emails?)
2. What cost is acceptable to gain 1 x your focus (e.g. you would pay more per conversion for higher valued sales)
3. What is your initial budget for a campaign (normally per day)
4. Google – list and research search terms to find search terms that get results
5. Facebook – write down your target audience (using Facebook profile info as a guideline)
6. Setup both campaigns using your researched information (check other ads)
7. Create a minimum of 4 ad variations – 10 is better!
8. Facebook get a professional creative ad designed
9. Create or get your web designers to create  a landing page specifically for your adverts (one for Google & one for Facebook)
10. Have an incentive, discount code so you know if from Google or Facebook
11. Make sure your landing pages are focused on your aim (at the begining)
12. Get a few people to check out the process before going live to proof to make sure you are happy you have done all you can
13. Make your campaigns live

If in doubt always get a professional in, we for example set up the campaigns for our clients, doing the research, ad text, ad images and the landing pages. We then instruct the client on what we do how we do it and provide some training. This then empowers our clients to understand better what is involved and to get involved themselves.

Our web page on Google Ad Words and Pay per Click

I welcome any comments below especially from any one else who has good experience with Google Ad Words and Facebook and would to share some other useful info!

Thanks for reading

It is about time we blogged some more, it is true about getting so busy with client work we forget about spreading knowledge and keeping those interested in what we do informed, we shall try to do better in 2011!!

Well I am going to write about some web development that will eventually help us designers in easier styling and basic animation using CSS. There have been many articles written about whether flash in websites will die a death and CSS will take over. It amazes us that this conversation is even raging considering CSS3 is not supported in many browsers, and IE the most used browser still (change if it you have it please!!) does not support CSS, the IE 9 new broswer is better – but still building websites that are not supported with IE is dangerous to say the least.

Also flash animation provides a much better stable platform for brand animation in details CSS will never achieve, certainly not in the next 5 years. Being honest Apple should “get a grip” and support flash so certain bias developers who are “in bed” with apple stop condemning flash. Indeed android and windows based mobile technologies are supporting flash, so apple should stop there ring fencing it is a real bore.

We have to point out that we moved away from developing full flash websites several years ago as they are too bandwidth dependant, not great for SEO and generally were too interactive meaning the message of our client could be easily missed. We do however like some professional flash animation for top banners or areas where images are dominant as it really enhances a website done well.

Back to the subject!!

HTML 5 is supported in the new IE9 explorer and most other major browsers however there is still differing support for various elements of HTML5 which web developers need to understand so they do not leave web surfers or clients customers with a mess of a website.

Please view our table at the bottom of this post for a cross browser support table of HTML5!

My View of IE – Internet Explorer:

Those of us web developing for clients who`s target audience use mainly IE as their browser find the whole process annoying and frustrating. There will be a few posts about IE explorer and why people should dump it as a browser, but we are looking forward to IE 9 which is supposed to be more compliant and able to utilise CSS etc better than ever before. That along with a much faster browser in terms of flash and frames per second – so we shall certainly test drive IE 9 and provide a detailed report probably by Prash our technology blogger!!

Microsoft and Apple are certainly dominate Companies that influence the internet, how it is accessed and used as they both provide the platforms most people use, this gives them both an advantage when it comes to which browser people use. Many people with a lower degree of knowledge of such things accept what they are given with their new PC or Mac. This gives both Microsoft who like there own direction of browsing and Apple who want everything their own way to make life difficult. I for one dont like either Companies, although when it comes to browsers Microsoft are the worse and no one should use it. Apple is a Company you either love or hate, My opinion is the latter

CSS3 is flash Dead?

There is a buzz right now that CSS3 will allow animation of sorts and will compete against flash (oh I can hear the Apple execs rubbing their designer gloves) to the point that some think flash days are numbered. However the fact is many browsers still do not support CSS3 certainly not those versions that need updating to which there are many! Also CSS3 will provide limited animation which will be great for certain applications (possibly) but could not replace flash animation and what is achieved by those with experience. Such as Yugo for us at AS Design.

I do agree that pure flash websites days are numbered with many of us web developers moving away from that type of website. Using flash animation in place of images to enhance a website will provide a positive enhancement, in our view, but full flash websites are resource intensive, more complicated to use and just not necessary.

So our view is that CSS3 will never replace what flash can do, Adobe can rest easy and Apple should support flash

Well that’s about it I hope this blog post has provided some useful info, please see the table below to show what browsers support what. It should be simple enough to understand, Y = yes and N = no but I am sure that was obvious

As you will notice there is a lot of N for IE!!

Thanks

Adam

	MAC: Chrome	MAC: Chrome	MAC: FIREFOX	MAC: Opera	MAC: Safari	MAC: Safari	WIN: Chrome	WIN: Chrome	WIN: Chrome	WIN: Firefox	WIN: Firefox	WIN: Opera	WIN: Safari	WIN: IE	WIN: IE	WIN: IE	WIN: IE
HTML5 FORM ATTRIBUTES	5	6	3.6	10.6	5	4	5	6	7	3.6	4.02	10.6	5	6	7	8	9
Autocomplete	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N
Autofocus	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
List	N	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
Placeholder	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	N	Y	N	N	N	N
Min	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
Max	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
Multiple	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	N	N	N	N
Pattern	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
Required	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
Form: Step	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
HTML5 FORM INPUTS
Search	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	N	Y	N	N	N	N
Phone	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	N	Y	N	N	N	N
URL	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
Email	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
DateTime	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N
Date	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N
Month	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N
Week	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N
Time	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N
LocalTime	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N
Number	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N
Range	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
Colour	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N
HTML5 EMBEDDED
Canvas	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	Y
Canvass Text	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	Y
Audio	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	Y
Video	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	Y
HTML5 AUDIO CODECS
ogg/vorbis	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	N
mp3	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	Y
wav	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
AAC	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	Y
HTML5 VIDEO CODECS
ogg/theora	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	N
H.264	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	Y
WebM	N	Y	N	Y	N	N	N	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	N

I thought it was about time I blogged!! We always leave Adam to it as we concentrate on clients design work.

I thought a good blog to start with is why I think web design and looks matter!

I feel it is very important to have a good design for your website, after all it is the hub of your online business; it is the virtual representation of your company whether your company exists physically or not. When you are doing business online, people cannot see you physically like how they could if they were dealing with an offline company.

Hence, people do judge you by your covers.

This is where a good design comes in. Imagine if you are running an offline company. Would you allow your salespersons to be dressed in scruffy clothes when they are dealing with your customers? By making your staff presentable, you are telling your customers that you do care about quality. This works simply because first impressions matter. Similarly, the same case is with your website. If your website is put together shabbily and looks like a 5 minute “quick fix” that you have done from your home pc, you are literally telling your visitors that you are not professional and you do not care much for quality.

On the opposite, if you have a totally professional looking website layout, you are giving your visitors the perception that you have given meticulous attention to every detail and you care about professionalism. You are organized, focused and you really mean business.

On the other hand, you should also have anything related to your company well designed. From business cards to promotional brochures, every little bit matters. This is because as you grow your business, these items become the face of your business.

We understand it matters so when we do design work whether for a small business or a larger client with deeper pockets all our work portrays professionalism.

If you have any comments or would like my opinion on your website or other design work please use the comments below of course you can contact us!

Thanks

John

As always, people want to do and get things done right away and they do not wish to spend much amount of time on any task like browsing, checking e-mail and thousand more tasks, which resulted in the increase in the usage of internet driven mobile applications rather than performing those tasks on the desktop computer.

Mobile applications are not new at all as it appears to be these days and they did not come just with the iPhone (and apps) but they were there all along since Nokia started releasing a stream of smart phones, years ago, built on the Symbian OS.

I would agree that iPhone has created a ‘feeling’ in people to get a smart phone, but it wouldn’t prevail as the best smart phone if it doesn’t upgrade its hardware and software specifications in part with the other android compatible smart phones (ex: from HTC, Samsung..).

Android :

Pros :

- Multi-tasking among apps.

- Large community of developers

- Over 70,000 apps available for Android

- Scope for availability of more applications (with more functionality)  as more developers would be involved, as the applications are mostly developed in Java (which is ‘known’ among many developers). This is        my opinion, and this kind of conflicts with wikipedia’s opinion.

- Recently, Android apps are allowed to be used (sold) in numerous countries.

Cons :

-  Android does not support video calls ( this could be achieved with third party apps).

- The OS does not have full Unicode support.

iPhone :

Pros :

- Excellent touch screen (in terms of sensitivity), which no other phone has achieved, though they claim to be touch screen phones. I believe Nexus one and other recent HTC phones are the only ones which are comparable with iPhone.

Cons :

- locked completely with networks. (recently Apple has considered unlocked versions)

- I feel that the phone is pretty expensive for the features it provides.

- Multi-tasking is not allowed

source for below article : http://mashable.com/2010/10/15/android-iphone-popularity/

In the past six months, smartphone buyers in the U.S. were more likely to choose Android-powered devices over any others, including iPhones.

The Android platform has been strongly challenging Apple’s mobile offerings for quite some time now, and the release of the shiny newFroyo (a.k.a Android 2.2) OS leaves little to be desired.

Software aside, Android-powered hardware is as diverse as it is impressive.

Android phones range from affordable models suitable for families with kids (e.g., Motorola’s Charm, a surefire winner for the teen girl set) to high-powered, 4-inch, 8-megapixel superphones fit to satiate the geekiest of gadget fiends (Droid X and Galaxy S, anyone?).

All of those reasons, coupled with network diversity and relative affordability, have catapulted Android phones to a leading position for new gadget-buyers this year — no mean feat, considering that the iPhone 4 produced the “most successful iPhone launch ever” — which was accompanied by as much media hype as fan frenzy.

Data from Nielsen shows that despite a successful launch for the iPhone 4, Android devices still rose to capture 32% of the market of new smartphone buyers between January and August 2010.

In the end, it’s hard to tell which mobile OS will come out on top, but we’re surprised that the diaspora of Android devices has made such strides in such a relatively short amount of time.

Have you bought an Android phone, an iPhone or a BlackBerry in the past six months? In the comments, let us know what prompted your decision and whether you’re happy with your choice.

Other sources :

http://topnewsbuzz.com/android-triumphs-over-iphone/91648/

www.wikipedia.org

I hope you enjoy my blog like I said leave your comments and view

Regards

Prash Techno Reporter