This article is highlighting MintTwist’s proposed ‘Social Capital Model’ for delivering continuing and sustainable growth of its business.
The proposal was introduced to people working within the business at the MintTwist Annual General Meeting on 30th November 2011.
This article is written so that people working within the business and other interested parties may use this area to facilitate discussion, questions and comments on the proposal.
What do MintTwist want to do?
MintTwist aims to be the most successful supplier of Digital Agency company services for businesses in Europe by 2016.
How?
MintTwist is aiming to do this by developing and further growing its network of clients and by adding more value to their businesses by devloping and further growing its network of highly skilled people working across the organisation and together, with well defined process methodologies.
How will the growth be funded?
MintTwist have been seeking a sustainable growth model that accurately represents the key value drivers for the existing growth that MintTwist has experienced to date and one that will incubate, encourage and reward the key value drivers for future growth of the business.
MintTwist’s Proposed ‘Social Capital Model’ for facilitating sustainable growth of its business
MintTwist’s proposed solution is a key component for facilitating the continuation, development and expedience of its market/service diversification growth strategy … MintTwist have termed it ‘The Social Capital Model’.
social capital model
The social capital component represents a portion of the company that cannot be bought, sold or owned.
Access to the benefits of the social component is for people who are working within the business.
Key elements may include:
1. A share in governance with direct representation
MinTwists’s August meetup debated the benefits to businesses of creating a mobile websites or mobile applications to communicate with their target customer groups in a manner optimised for mobile platforms.
In essence should a dedicated mobile platform be created, or should businesses simply allow their mobile users to be served up their ‘normal’ website in whatever way the browser software on the given mobile platform chooses to do so?
It’s a tough question and one which the group mostly debated from an ROI perspective. Given that mobile usage rates in the UK are still fairly low (5% of a websites traffic may come from mobile users), one might be tempted to conclude that for typical small and medium sized b2b businesses the answer is no.
However, it is not that clear cut.
Firstly, there is the issue that mobile usage is growing incredibly quickly (see article : What will Smart Phones Do to our Websites? for more on this) and there may well be material benefits for ‘getting in quick’ (including SEO benefits).
Secondly there is ‘how mobile users are behaving issue’. The data is not entirely accurate at the moment – but early signs are clear: mobile users do not use the internet in the same way on their mobiles as they would do on their PC’s or laptops. Usage is driven by factors such as location (users accessing their mobile devices to find information on ‘where they physically are at the moment’) and impulsivness (users accessing their mobile devices to find an answer to a fairly immediate question/problem). Factors such as these all feed in to the ideal way in which the information should be presented to the mobile user, i.e. b2b businesses could have a ‘mobile optimised homepage’ that clearly presents a clickable telephone number link and clickable interactive google map so that visitors to the business can quickly get the information that they may be after if they are accessing the website from a mobile device.
A difficult topic for business oweners and marketing manager to grapple with; here are MintTwist’s high level thoughts on the subject …
Mobile is an important consideration, however, it is not necessarily a vital immediate concern for ‘most’ small businesses (because well designed website designs will render correctly already).
The trend towards increased mobile usage is growing.
The differing user goals and usage habits of users on mobile platforms needs to be properly understood on a case by case basis for a useful and quality mobile solution to be delivered.
The group felt that businesses that should be immediately addressing mobile users (because they could potentially see a real ROI) are:
Other groups of businesses may want a mobile solution (even if it won’t provide them a clear ROI) for other reasons (e.g. to get ahead of the competition, brand identity etc).
Two main categorisations of mobile website solution exist, these are outlined by the information chart below:
Solution
Useful for situations like …
Ballpark Costs
Useful for businesses like …
Mobile websites (extra pages that are specially built to be auto-delivered to mobile users)
Making a ‘normal’ website have a dedicated set of page(s) that will show up (in a manner optimised for small screens) when a user goes to the website on a mobile phone. Principal Benefit: Increased conversion rates from mobile users.
From £3k
e-commerce / Retailb2b businesses with very high visitor numbersb2c brands
Mobile Apps and/or Web Apps* (Android, Apple, Web apps that are downloaded)
Information that can be delivered in a potentially highly functional and potentially highly interactive way. Principal Benefit: Increased engagement levels/brand identity.
£5k++
Any big brandApplication/Web service vendors
Thoughts and feedback on this post are very welcome
What effects will smart phones have on websites in 2012 and beyond?
All the data coming out of the researchers suggests that the trend towards smart phone/tablet usage and away from desktop/laptops is taking hold. E-Consultancy are reporting that 57% of US professionals say that they will use a smart phone or tablet device as their primary source of internet usage (vs a PC). They are also predicting a rise in the proportion of online spend that is dedicated to Mobile, today in 2011 it is 15%, in 2015 it is predicted to be 64%.
What does this mean for our warm and snuggly websites?
Maybe not that much. As is the way with things, they tend to evolve rather than spontaneously transform (albeit at a speedy pace in the digital world). The same E-Consultancy data appears to show that the focus of mobile spend is around 3 areas – the mobile web, mobile search and social networking.
Some more examination of these phenomena reveals that they are all in fact evolutions and in some cases the same animals as those faithful ‘old’ websites that we know and love so well.
What does this mean for my business?
Mobile Search
Mobile Web
The vast majority of updated websites will be compatible with Smart Phones, HTML5 based websites are entirely supported.
Moving forward, it is worth considering creating a mobile version of the existing site, this means presenting the content in a way that is ‘mobile friendly’, i.e. short, concise with a focus on contact information. This need not be an expensive addition to your brief – correctly put together it would be an extension of the existing website system.
Mobile Search
Again, if you are engaging an SEO or Web Marketing agency, Mobile search will be partially covered by the traditional SEO work that is taking place.
Moving forward, if the website system has been designed in a manner in which it supports both platforms as mentioned above, the job of specifically optimising for mobile platforms should be a natural extension to the SEO campaign work and mean only a minor increase in budget.
Social Networking
The Social Networks have been quick to capitalise on the Mobile Web and have extended their systems intelligently to support mobile platforms. They have designed new front-ends, optimised for the mobile experience that leverage the same application and database systems that power their PC and laptop interfaces.
In order to be successful here, businesses need to engage in a progressive Social Network marketing campaign that is integrated with the SEO (the Social Networks will make the technology work). By doing this, businesses will be able to leverage their website and SEO plays to improve the outputs of their social endeavours. It’s all about good old-fashioned strategy and correctly done it results in more potential customers engaging the website via online channels – from the mobile, PC and the of course the real world also
The United Arab Emirates has undergone a profound transformation since 1973, seeing tremendous growth and achieving an incredibly high income per capita. It is widely recognised as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with industries such as tourism, manufacturing, real estate, financial services and trade playing a major role alongside oil.
With such opportunity and competition it is extremely important for new and existing companies to make effective use of modern marketing strategies. Internet marketing is now a major multi-billion pound industry and a method suitable for the progressive nature of the UAE business community, particularly for the two major Emirates; Dubai and the capital Abu Dhabi.
Internet penetration in the UAE is on the rise as regular web usage has reached 67% of the population, with 55% of the population using it on a daily basis. Currently, the web is used primarily for emails and searching for information, with a smaller percentage accessing the internet for business or for making online purchases. The internet is inevitably changing the dynamics of how we structure our business, culture and society, with the UAE being no exception. As internet penetration in the UAE grows, businesses must respond by developing high quality Arabic web design.
A modern well-presented website is now expected for most businesses and organisations. With good quality website design, Dubai and Abu-Dhabi based companies can benefit from improved information distribution and an expansion of reachable markets. It is an effective way of winning new business and retaining existing customers, while responding quickly to new competitors.
With competition becoming more demanding and search engines more concerned with the user experience, the web business owner should consider the importance of web development. A UAE company immediately commands respect from web visitors with a professional Arabic web design. In order to compete amongst the ever-increasing market in the UAE, it is wise to invest in a well-constructed website with a strong logo, a harmonious colour scheme, simple and professional looking graphics, and effective navigation options. UAE consumers have high expectations from companies, expecting high levels of service from them.
As internet use in the Arabic world has grown faster than anywhere else since 2000 and access costs have shrunk, businesses should now increase investment in web content in order to gain a place in the highly competitive world market.
Have you ever found that you are just growing apart from some of the people you are following on twitter? Maybe you followed them at first because they were popular, powerful, cool or just damn sexy?
When they followed you back you were a rush with emotion. Digital acceptance into their inner circle meant you were connected, accepted and had one very cool ‘follower’, earning your digital self that bit more kudos.
But over the months and years things change. Your digital avatar has grown up, moved on from an adolescent obsession with popularism and found it’s place in the digital world – with like minded individuals from whom they can garnish and share genuinely relevant information.
Get divorced on Twitter
That popular connection of yours is still uber cool and successful but somehow their musings just don’t do it for you anymore.
Eventually you decide that clogging up your timeline with randomised, automated ‘quotes of philosophers’, ‘links of the hour’, ‘daily funnies’ and the occasional interaction from a low paid intern feigning coolness is just not worth the kudos…. So you resolve yourself to unfollow your childhood sweetheart!
But how do you do it, how do you get divorced on Twitter!?!? How will they feel, what will they do and most importantly will their auto-unfollow script kick in, meaning one less follower for you and one very cool one too!?!?
I was faced with exactly this dilemma recently. Having followed the eminent Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki) since the very early days (he was a tweeting pioneer) I had felt a special bond of kinship… I was sure he held me in high regard amongst his 360,000 loyal followers. I used to wait, tweet-deck at the ready on his every word – but after the years and much to my dismay his tweeting just doesn’t do it for me anymore
And so I give you; ‘How to get divorced on Twitter’ …
And that was it – it was done! No tears, no drawn out discussions, he accepted it, duly un-followed me ( ) a few hours later and we’ve both gone our separate ways … with no hard feelings … none at all … I’m in a good place right now …
I only hope that somewhere deep down Guy Kawasaki still wants to follow me.
Facebook recently reached the momentous landmark of having 500 million users. When you consider there are close to 7 billion on planet earth this means that 7% of the world’s population is on Facebook.
In certain countries such as the United States, the UK much of Europe and Japan almost everyone between the age of 15 and 29 has a Facebook account. However in these countries the internet has existed for a several years and young people are now growing up with the technology.
But this does not show the full Facebook picture. There are lots of countries where the internet is a much more recent phenomenon and it is changing the way young people in particular interact and share information.
For example the UAE perhaps does not have the world’s fastest most reliable internet service but the Facebook penetration is very high. It could be argued that because the population is much smaller in comparison to the US and the UK it is not a fair statistic.
On the other hand, it could be argued that the high Facebook penetration shows just how much of an influence the social networking site has. If people have access to the internet, depending on their age and other demographics, they will almost certainly have a Facebook account.
The UAE has become an important region of financial investment and infrastructure growth. It is now home to the world’s tallest building the Burj Khalifa. Dubai is a city which has emerged from the desert as a leading centre for a wide variety of businesses and industries.
In Europe and America nearly all businesses now have websites and the standard is always climbing. Businesses are now putting a lot of effort and money into web marketing and SEO because they understand that in such competitive markets and advantage or opportunities must be exploited to the fullest.
The car manufacturing giant, Ford revolutionised personal travel by implementing mass manufacturing to produce the Model T which really opened up the car market to a much wider group of people.
In 2010 Ford again revolutionised the industry by launching its new Explorer model only on Facebook. More and more businesses are looking to social media for marketing opportunities as it offers businesses the chance to interact with customers and to gain valuable insight into products and services.
Over the last couple of decades the Internet has become a huge worldwide phenomenon. Latest global figures show that the number of internet users (also known as ‘Netizens’) now stands on the verge of exceeding 2 billion!
Of that total a whopping 64 million of them are in the Middle East, accounting for a staggering growth rate of 1825% over the past decade. Amazingly this growth rate is 15x that of what was seen in North America over the same period.
As more and more people are gaining access to the Internet, it is the perfect opportunity for companies to move their business to the Web.
At the start of the Internet age Europeans and North Americans were by far the largest users. However, this is gradually changing as other continents embrace the World Wide Web. In recent years there has been a big increase in Internet users in regions such as Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Since 2000, the number of users in Africa and the Middle East has increased by around 1,800%. Meanwhile, Asia has gathered 704 million users – over 300 million more than any other region, encompassing about 42% of worldwide users. This can be attributed to large population in Asia; a staggering 3.8 billion of the 6.7 billion people on earth (that is 56%) live in Asia.
Another change is that Europe has overtaken North America as the second biggest user of the Internet. In terms of percentage of their population Asia is still quite far behind, with North America having the highest figure. Only 18.5% of Asians use the Internet, while half of Europeans do and three quarters of North Americans do. In the Middle East, 30% of people use the Internet today, however, this reach is rapidly increasing and as it does the importance of businesses being well presented online becomes ever more apparent.
Computers and the Internet are modern inventions which therefore effortlessly fit into modern life of Europeans and North Americans. Many Africans and Middle Easterners have very different lifestyles and this is reflected in the figures. Asia is a mixture of old and new, but modernising all the time, thus the increase in Internet users. As developing nations like Asia, Africa, and the Middle become more technologically advanced this trend is likely to continue.
Businesses and organizations in the Middle East that want to capitalize on everything the Internet has to offer should look no further than the web design and development firm, Mint Twist. Originally based out of London, Mint Twist has successfully created websites and marketing strategies for a wide variety of companies over the past eleven years. They are now entering into the foreign marketplace with the opening of Mint Twist Dubai. The growth of business and Internet seen within Dubai and the Middle East could not be better supported and facilitated than by the experts at Mint Twist.
34 years ago, in a galaxy far far away, an epic trilogy was born.
If you were old enough, you may have seen the teaser trailer when it first came out. The trailer makes the film out to be quite dark with omnious music and threatening voice over. According the to the trailer it is “The story of a boy, a girl and a universe” and “A big spralling space saga of rebellion and romance”. It is also “Ahead of it’s time” (cue cut to C3P0).
One notable omission from the trailer is John Williams’ score. Presumably it had not been recorded at the time.
At MintTwist it is almost mandatory to be a Star Wars fan, and memorabilia encouraged at all desks:
Chewy and Boba play nicely
Some MintTwist team members bear more than a passing resemblence to characters in the series:
A considerable portion of my consulting time has recently revolved around the optimization of corporate blogs (or the addition of blogs to revamped sites). As usual, I find a pattern emerging in the strategies that need attention and the pitfalls that must be avoided. So, rather than charging $400 an hour to give advice on the subject, I thought it would be valuable to share many of the most common pieces of advice here on the blog (business part of Rand fights with open source Rand, but loses, as usual).
Choose the Right Blog Software (or Custom Build)
The right blog CMS makes a big difference. If you want to set yourself apart, I recommend creating a custom blog solution – one that can be completely customized to your users. In most cases,WordPress, Blogger, MovableType or Typepad will suffice, but building from scratch allows you to be very creative with functionality and formatting. The best CMS is something that’s easy for the writer(s) to use and brings together the features that allow the blog to flourish. Think about how you want comments, archiving, sub-pages, categorization, multiple feeds and user accounts to operate in order to narrow down your choices. OpenSourceCMS is a very good tool to help you select a software if you go that route. -
Host Your Blog Directly on Your Domain
Hosting your blog on a different domain from your primary site is one of the worst mistakes you can make. A blog on your domain can attract links, attention, publicity, trust and search rankings - by keeping the blog on a separate domain, you shoot yourself in the foot. From worst to best, your options are – Hosted (on a solution like Blogspot or WordPress), on a unique domain (at least you can 301 it in the future), on a subdomain (these can be treated as unique from the primary domain by the engines) and as a sub-section of the primary domain (in a subfolder or page – this is the best solution). -
Write Title Tags with Two Audiences in Mind
First and foremost, you’re writing a title tag for the people who will visit your site or have a subscription to your feed. Title tags that are short, snappy, on-topic and catchy are imperative. You also want to think about search engines when you title your posts, since the engines can help to drive traffic to your blog. A great way to do this is to write the post and the title first, then run a few searches at Overture, WordTracker & KeywordDiscovery to see if there is a phrasing or ordering that can better help you to target “searched for” terms. -
Participate at Related Forums & Blogs Whatever industry or niche you’re in, there are bloggers, forums and an online community that’s already active. Depending on the specificity of your focus, you may need to think one or two levels broader than your own content to find a large community, but with the size of the participatory web today, even the highly specialized content areas receive attention. A great way to find out who these people are is to use Technorati to conduct searches, then sort by number of links (authority).Del.icio.us tags are also very useful in this process, as are straight searches at the engines (Ask.com’s blog search in particular is of very good quality). -
Tag Your Content Technorati is the first place that you should be tagging posts. I actually recommend having the tags right on your page, pointing to the Technorati searches that you’re targeting. There are other good places to ping - del.icio.us and Flickr being the two most obvious (the only other one is Blogmarks, which is much smaller). Tagging content can also be valuable to help give you a “bump” towards getting traffic from big sites like Reddit, Digg & StumbleUpon (which requires that you download the toolbar, but trust me - it’s worth it). You DO NOT want to submit every post to these sites, but that one out of twenty (see tactic #18) is worth your while. -
Launch Without Comments (and Add Them Later) There’s something sad about a blog with 0 comments on every post. It feels dead, empty and unpopular. Luckily, there’s an easy solution – don’t offer the ability to post comments on the blog and no one will know that you only get 20 uniques a day. Once you’re upwards of 100 RSS subscribers and/or 750 unique visitors per day, you can open up the comments and see light activity. Comments are often how tech-savvy new visitors judge the popularity of a site (and thus, its worth), so play to your strengths and keep your obscurity private. -
Don’t Jump on the Bandwagon
Some memes are worthy of being talked about by every blogger in the space, but most aren’t. Just because there’s huge news in your industry or niche DOES NOT mean you need to be covering it, or even mentioning it (though it can be valuable to link to it as an aside, just to integrate a shared experience into your unique content). Many of the best blogs online DO talk about the big trends – this is because they’re already popular, established and are counted on to be a source of news for the community. If you’re launching a new blog, you need to show people in your space that you can offer something unique, different and valuable – not just the same story from your point of view. This is less important in spaces where there are very few bloggers and little online coverage and much more in spaces that are overwhelmed with blogs (like search, or anything else tech-related). -
Link Intelligently
When you link out in your blog posts, use convention where applicable and creativity when warranted, but be aware of how the links you serve are part of the content you provide. Not every issue you discuss or site you mention needs a link, but there’s a fine line between overlinking and underlinking. The best advice I can give is to think of the post from the standpoint of a relatively uninformed reader. If you mention Wikipedia, everyone is familiar and no link is required. If you mention a specific page at Wikipedia, a link is necessary and important. Also, be aware that quoting other bloggers or online sources (or even discussing their ideas) without linking to them is considered bad etiquette and can earn you scorn that could cost you links from those sources in the future. It’s almost always better to be over-generous with links than under-generous. And link condoms? Only use them when you’re linking to something you find truly distasteful or have serious apprehension about. -
Invite Guest Bloggers
Asking a well known personality in your niche to contribute a short blog on their subject of expertise is a great way to grow the value and reach of your blog. You not only flatter the person by acknowledging their celebrity, you nearly guarantee yourself a link or at least an association with a brand that can earn you readers. Just be sure that you really are getting a quality post from someone that’s as close to universally popular and admired as possible (unless you want to start playing the drama linkbait game, which I personally abhor). If you’re already somewhat popular, it can often be valuable to look outside your space and bring in guest authors who have a very unique angle or subject matter to help spice up your focus. One note about guest bloggers – make sure they agree to have their work edited by you before it’s posted. A disagreement on this subject after the fact can have negative ramifications. -
Eschew Advertising (Until You’re Popular)
I hate AdSense on blogs. Usually, I ignore it, but I also cast a sharp eye towards the quality of the posts and professionalism of the content when I see AdSense. That’s not to say that contextual advertising can’t work well in some blogs, but it needs to be well integrated into the design and layout to help defer criticism. Don’t get me wrong – it’s unfair to judge a blog by its cover (or, in this case, its ads), but spend a lot of time surfing blogs and you’ll have the same impression – low quality blogs run AdSense and many high quality ones don’t. I always recommend that whether personal or professional, you wait until your blog has achieved a level of success before you start advertising. Ads, whether they’re sponsorships, banners, contextual or other, tend to have a direct, negative impact on the number of readers who subscribe, add to favorites and link – you definitely don’t want that limitation while you’re still trying to get established. -
Go Beyond Text in Your Posts
Blogs that contain nothing but line after line of text are more difficult to read and less consistently interesting than those that offer images, interactive elements, the occasional multimedia content and some clever charts & graphs. Even if you’re having a tough time with non-text content, think about how you can format the text using blockquotes, indentation, bullet points, etc. to create a more visually appealing and digestible block of content. -
Cover Topics that Need Attention
In every niche, there are certain topics and questions that are frequently asked or pondered, but rarely have definitive answers. While this recommendation applies to nearly every content-based site, it’s particularly easy to leverage with a blog. If everyone in the online Nascar forums is wondering about the components and cost of an average Nascar vehicle – give it to them. If the online stock trading industry is rife with questions about the best performing stocks after a terrorist threat, your path is clear. Spend the time and effort to research, document and deliver and you’re virtually guaranteed link-worthy content that will attract new visitors and subscribers. -
Pay Attention to Your Analytics
Visitor tracking software can tell you which posts your audience likes best, which ones don’t get viewed and how the search engines are delivering traffic. Use these clues to react and improve your strategies. Feedburner is great for RSS and I’m a personal fan of Indextools. Consider adding action tracking to your blog, so you can see what sources of traffic are bringing the best quality visitors (in terms of time spent on the site, # of page views, etc). I particularly like having the “register” link tagged for analytics so I can see what percentage of visitors from each source is interested enough to want to leave a comment or create an account. -
Use a Human Voice
Charisma is a valuable quality, both online and off. Through a blog, it’s most often judged by the voice you present to your users. People like empathy, compassion, authority and honesty. Keep these in the forefront of your mind when writing and you’ll be in a good position to succeed. It’s also critical that you maintain a level of humility in your blogging and stick to your roots. When users start to feel that a blog is taking itself too seriously or losing the characteristics that made it unique, they start to seek new places for content. We’ve certainly made mistakes (even recently) that have cost us some fans – be cautious to control not only what you say, but how you say it. Lastly – if there’s a hot button issue that has you posting emotionally, temper it by letting the post sit in draft mode for an hour or two, re-reading it and considering any revisions. With the advent of feeds, once you publish, there’s no going back. -
Archive Effectively
The best archives are carefully organized into subjects and date ranges. For search traffic (particularly long tail terms), it can be best to offer the full content of every post in a category on the archive pages, but from a usability standpoint, just linking to each post is far better (possibly with a very short snippet). Balance these two issues and make the decision based on your goals. A last note on archiving – pagination in blogging can be harmful to search traffic, rather than beneficial (as you provide constantly changing, duplicate content pages). Pagination is great for users who scroll to the bottom and want to see more, though, so consider putting a “noindex” in the meta tag or in the robots.txt file to keep spiders where they belong – in the well-organized archive system. -
Implement Smart URLs
The best URL structure for blogs is, in my opinion, as short as possible while still containing enough information to make an educated guess about the content you’ll find on the page. I don’t like the 10 hyphen, lengthy blog titles that are the byproduct of many CMS plugins, but they are certainly better than any dynamic parameters in the URL. Yes – I know I’m not walking the talk here, and hopefully it’s something we can fix in the near future. To those who say that one dynamic parameter in the URL doesn’t hurt, I’d take issue – just re-writing a ?ID=450 to /450 has improved search traffic considerably on several blogs we’ve worked with. -
Reveal as Much as Possible
The blogosphere is in love with the idea of an open source world on the web. Sharing vast stores of what might ordinarily be considered private information is the rule, rather than the exception. If you can offer content that’s usually private – trade secrets, pricing, contract issues, and even the occasional harmless rumor, your blog can benefit. Make a decision about what’s off-limits and how far you can go and then push right up to that limit in order to see the best possible effects. Your community will reward you with links and traffic. -
Only One Post in Twenty Can Be Linkbait
Not every post is worthy of making it to the top of Digg, Del.icio.us/popular or even a mention at some other blogs in your space. Trying to over-market every post you write will result in pushback and ultimately lead to negative opinions about your efforts. The less popular your blog is, the harder it will be to build excitement around a post, but the process of linkbait has always been trial and error – build, test, refine and re-build. Keep creating great ideas and bolstering them with lots of solid, everyday content and you’ll eventually be big enough to where one out of every 20-40 posts really does become linkbait. -
Make Effective Use of High Traffic Days If you do have linkbait, whether by design or by accident, make sure to capitalize. When you hit the front page of Digg, Reddit, Boing Boing, or, on a smaller scale, attract a couple hundred visitors from a bigger blog or site in your space, you need to put your best foot forward. Make sure to follow up on a high traffic time period with 2-3 high quality posts that show off your skills as a writer, your depth of understanding and let visitors know that this is content they should be sticking around to see more of. Nothing kills the potential linkbait “bump” faster than a blog whose content doesn’t update for 48 hours after they’ve received a huge influx of visitors. -
Create Expectations and Fulfill Them
When you’re writing for your audience, your content focus, post timing and areas of interest will all become associated with your personal style. If you vary widely from that style, you risk alienating folks who’ve come to know you and rely on you for specific data. Thus, if you build a blog around the idea of being an analytical expert in your field, don’t ignore the latest release of industry figures only to chat about an emotional issue – deliver what your readers expect of you and crunch the numbers. This applies equally well to post frequency – if your blog regularly churns out 2 posts a day, having two weeks with only 4 posts is going to have an adverse impact on traffic. That’s not to say you can’t take a vacation, but you need to schedule it wisely and be prepared to lose RSS subscribers and regulars. It’s not fair, but it’s the truth. We lose visitors every time I attend an SES conference and drop to one post every two days (note – guest bloggers and time-release posts can help here, too). -
Build a Brand
Possibly one of the most important aspects of all in blogging is brand-building. As Zefrank noted, to be a great brand, you need to be a brand that people want to associate themselves with and a brand that people feel they derive value from being a member. Exclusivity, insider jokes, emails with regulars, the occasional cat post and references to your previous experiences can be off putting for new readers, but they’re solid gold for keeping your loyal base feeling good about their brand experience with you. Be careful to stick to your brand – once you have a definition that people like and are comfortable with, it’s very hard to break that mold without severe repercussions. If you’re building a new blog, or building a low-traffic one, I highly recommend writing down the goals of your brand and the attributes of its identity to help remind you as you write.
Best of luck to all you bloggers out there. It’s an increasingly crowded field to play in, but these strategies should help to give you an edge over the competition. As always, if you’ve got additions or disagreements, I’d love to hear them.
p.s. Note to self – starting long blog entries at 11:30pm is not conducive to a good night’s sleep. At least Angela got kicked off Project Runway tonight.
Before embarking on re-designing and re-building your marketing website it may well pay to do a little ‘website planning’ first. Assuming that the primary purpose of your business website is to market the products and services of your business to potential and existing customers there are two main questions that you will need to be clear on before proceeding.
1. What do you want your Website to say?
Normally, you will want your business website to clearly spell out the main benefits of your products and/or services. Ideally this will be done in a language and style that will engage the types of customer groups that your business serves.
2. Who do you want your Website to say it to?
The marketing website is for your customers. What types of people are they? Can your customer base be categorised into distinct groups? Are your customer groups buying the same or different prducts and services? Do they buy for the same or different reasons?
Identify target customer groups and associated products and services
What do we do next?
Well, there is still more planning work to do. Beyond these two questions there are further steps in a website planning process (see the article ‘Planning the Perfect Website‘, by MintTwist, for further detail on this subject), however the process becomes far easier and the end result will be far more effective with clarity on what we want to say and who we want to say it to.
How does planning help design?
A website homepage will push the core messages in a design that will enage our core customer groups. However it’s most important function is to quickly and clearly direct the website visitor (potential customer) to the product or service page that is most relevant for them.
By breaking down the products and services by customer group and at the same time having a good understanding of the benefits that are most relevant to each group we will be able to design product and service pages that will enable us to focus our communication towards the needs of our potential customer, increase engagement and ultimately increase sales leads and revenue.
This article is based on the “MintTwist Method” for Website planning. MintTwist is an International Web Agency with offices in London, Dubai, Switzerland, Italy and Portugal.
Though the collapse of the bubble has led to a difficult period for the bits-and-bytes industry, it has now returned to stable and sustainable growth coupled with vibrant innovation in many departments. The coming years promise to be exciting as the software industry, once again, reinvents itself to reach a whole new level.
According to Software Magazine’s Software 500 Survey, the revenues of the top 500 software companies total $394 billion, a growth of 3.5% from the previous year. Today’s biggest contenders include IBM, Microsoft, HP, Oracle, SAP and Apple.
The convergence of multiple point technologies wireless, pervasive broadband, and online collaboration generates a whole new level of interactive applications. The heralded Web 2.0 revolution with its innovation in content (e.g., blogs, wikis, user editing and tagging), tools like search, and services like content hosting brings about a much larger opportunity to transfer the new developments in the consumer side to the corporate environment.
According to McKinsey & Company / Sand Hill Group, two major business models
are competing for a growing share of software spend: Software as a Service and Open Source.
Software as a Service has become increasingly relevant to both large corporations and SMEs and is likely to impact the entire IT landscape. Software as a Service has already gained momentum in number of application areas including payroll, human capital management, CRM, conferencing, procurement, logistics, information services, and e-commerce) and is expected make gains across a much wider cross-section of applications over the next 3 years.
On the other hand, Open Source continues to upset packaged software business models. Major open source projects have expanded across nearly all layers of the stack, including web browsers (Mozilla Firefox), application servers (JBoss, JOnAS, Geronimo), web servers (Apache, Tomcat), mail servers (Sendmail, QMail), databases (MySQL, MaxDB), operating systems (Linux, BSD, RTOS), and programming languages (Perl, PHP, Smalltalk, Java).
translation services
As the competition in this sector heats up, businesses are realising that the need for language translation services for associated marketing material as well as the website localisation services is becoming paramount. “By their nature, web services are international, and firms who intelligently employ translation services to open up their offering will be sure to profit.”, stated McKinsey.
A recent McKinsey survey of CIOs shows that experimentation with open source software is now relatively mainstream, with 43 per cent mentioning the use of open source applications of some sort and 41 per cent the adoption of an open source infrastructure like Linux.
MintTwist are excited to announce the launch of the revamped Serious Stuff website. Serious Stuff specialise in providing high quality sports apparel to schools and local sports club. Serious Stuff approach sporting gear with an emphasis on quality and style.
MintTwist’s redesign of Serious Stuff and the implementation of an online shop was complex but we think the website and shop look great and works even better!
Support the Herts Air Ambulance and enjoy an evening out that you won’t have to persuade the other half to attend!
MintTwist is keen to lend our support to this worthy cause. Air amblances really can make the differrence between life and death. There is no doubt that countless lives have been saved by their incredible skill and dedication.
In aid of the Herts Air Ambulance – ‘Petrol Heads and Pampering’ will be held at Porsche Centre Hatfield on Thursday 14th April between 7pm and 10pm. Ex-Top Gear Presenter and Sunday Times Columnist, Jason Dawe, will host the evening; with new and classic Porsches to admire and a rare opportunity to have a guided tour of the Porsche Workshop by highly trained technicians.
Michelle de la Bertauche, Fundraising Manager for the Herts Air Ambulance, said: “This will be a fantastic event with so much going on – we’ve already had lots of interest. We will be raising vital funding for the Herts Air Ambulance, which costs £130,000 every month to enable it to continue to fly its life-saving missions. We can’t thank The Porsche Centre enough for giving us the exclusive use of their showroom for this event, it is such an exciting opportunity. We’ve also had huge support from other local businesses, it looks set to be a great evening we are all really looking forward to it.”
Date: Thursday 14th April 2011
Time: 19:00 – 22:00
Location: The Porsche Centre, Hatfield Business Park, Hatfield AL10 9UA
For more information please contact Hannah Ashby, PR & Marketing Coordinator on:-
MintTwist are proud to announce the re-launch of SmoothRed – an epic site that organises wine tours in France. SmoothRed offer bespoke, tailor-made wine holidays and trips. Whether you’re interested in a short break or a luxurious, 10 day tour – SmoothRed cover it all!
MintTwist were tasked with redesigning the website and bringing a fresh feel to the website. It is now also integrated with a CMS to make it easy to edit for the client. MintTwist are also excited to work with SmoothRed on a web marketing campaign to promote them through SEO and online marketing.
For those working in the web design industry, browser choice is often a topic filled with debate. For anyone who surfs the net browser choicer can also be a very personal matter and recent data suggests that browser choice is increasingly diversified.
In the beginning there was Netscape Navigator. However by 2002 the browser had all but disappeared. This was primarily down to the growth in Internet Explorer, and the dwindling development efforts by the Netscape Corporation.
Internet explorer is a bit like Ghenkis Khan and the Mongol Empire. Perhaps not the most obvious comparison, but give me a chance. So, Internet Explorer was launched in 1995 and by 2003 had a market share of close to 95%. Between the year 1206 and 1280 the Mongol Empire grew to stretch from Korea to Moscow.
The rapid expansion of the Mongol Empire is much like Internet Explorers rapid growth in popularity. The development of Internet Explorer was also fairly rapid and progressive. The Mongols were also progressive and introduced new technology and new thinking into a medieval Eurasia.
However like all Empires, over time cracks begin to appear. For the Mongols, their days of power were numbered and to make matters worse the epic trade routes that were built up now helped spread the Black Death which decimated both Mongol and other populations.
In 2010 Internet Explorer had a market share of 60% which is a long way of its 2003 peak of 95%. This begs the question, what happened? The answer is quite straightforward. Mozilla happened.
Mozilla created the web browser Firefox and it really came into its own with its 3.5 and 3.6 versions and now their latest version, Firefox 4 is available to download. The browser is currently competing with Internet Explorer for top spot, but right now it has a market share of about 30%.
Internet explorer was never going to maintain a market share of 95%. Competition from Mozilla, Google’s Chrome and Safari ensured this. In my own experience having started with Internet Explorer, then on to Google Chrome, I am now using Firefox 4 and have found it to be an excellent web browser.
In my field of SEO and web marketingI believe Firefox offers me the best web browsing experience. It is well designed, easy to use and highly customable. The amount and variety Firefox Add-ons available is exceptional and definitely provides me with very important data and information.
It was recently announced by MasterCard that online shopping is a growing trend in Dubai. According to the company, the percentage of people who use the internet to carry out their shopping grew from 29 per cent in 2009 to 42 per cent in 2010.
The MasterCard study showed that the most influential group are those between the age of 25 and 44 and within that group, those between 35 and 44 will use online shopping more frequently. There are a number of explanations for this but perhaps the most obvious and logical is that those aged 35 and above will have more disposable income.
Furthermore, the study also showed that online shopping is becoming increasingly popular for women in Dubai and the wider UAE. The data suggests that 7 per cent more women are using the internet for shopping compared to last year.
The market research carried out by MasterCard involved 8,500 consumers in the region. This has provided rich data which has generated some useful information. For example it showed that the leading categories in the UAE in 2010 included airline tickets, hotel bookings, home appliances and electronic products, clothing, restaurants and home food delivery.
As the online market continues to flourish in the UAE, the key to maximising its effectiveness is to ensure that there is strong internet penetration. After a slightly slow start the UAE now has approximately 75% of its population online which is a very healthy figure.
So what does this mean for web design in Dubai and other parts of the UAE? It suggests that as the internet becomes even more popular in the region the more demand there will be for web design, web marketing and SEO from business community.
As a relatively young online market, the UAE provides excellent opportunities for businesses as the level of competition is still quite young and relatively small. If for example you want to dominate a keyword in Google.ae it is important to invest in SEO and web marketing now rather than wait a couple of years only to find that a competitor has pulled out a massive lead.
The UAE has become an important financial location in recent years having attracted billions in investment from businesses around the world. Dubai is a key location within the UAE and projects such as the Burj Al Arab and the Burj Khalifa along with a host of other modern architecture projects are synonymous of the city and its ambition.
Sadly though this does not mean that Dubai is free from global economic forces and so in 2009 the GDP contracted by 2.4 per cent. This was due to a plunge in the property and construction market which was, and still is, crucial to this Arab emirate.
However property and construction is not all that Dubai has to offer. International trade and tourism play a big part in Dubai’s economy. It is thanks to this that the Dubai Statistics Centre can state that they expect GDP for the whole year to increase by about 2.2 per cent, having increased by 2.4 per cent so far.
The other key economic sector for Dubai is tourism. In fact with limited oil reserves it could be argued that tourism is the future for the country and therefore the priority. Judging by some of the construction projects you would assume that Dubai’s leadership is acutely aware of this.
What does this mean for web design in Dubai? Well, web design Dubai is in fact a young part of the economy but as the number of businesses and organisations increase so will the demand for top quality and professional web design. Be it internet projects or intranet projects, big business or small business, all will require web solutions.
The infrastructure in the UAE region has improved significantly and will continue to improve. Projects such as the Dubai Metro have had an excellent response from commuters. Other digital projects such as Dubai’s e-government site are an example of the kind of integration between government, businesses, public services and people which will all contribute to the continued success of Dubai.
Since the internet was developed digital content has come a long way. If you look at web pages of the mid to late 1990’s you will find that they are much more simplistic, both in terms of appearance and functionality.
Fast forward to 2011 and the internet, some might argue, has become the eighth wonder of the world. The difference between the internet in 1996 and 2011 is integration. Today the internet forms an integral part of our lives and even forms part of our identity.
For half a billion people at least, there is a site which allows you to share with the world your life and everything about it. Yes the Facebook generation is here, they are here to stay and content is king. The Facebook generation has grown up with the modern glossy internet which has evolved to become incredibly technical and capable with lots of potential.
However, content is not universal. Different people in different countries will interpret content differently. Different languages are spoken in different countries and the way people will read will be vary across regions and countries. Therefore the design of a website and the content within are the two most important factors for success.
Showcasing digital content gives web designers and developers from around the world the opportunity to raise their profile. Events such as the World Summit Awards allow web design Dubai to compete and showcase its work amongst the best.
The WSA competition sets out to determine the world’s best and most innovative e-content and ICT technology. Winning this competition gives tremendous international recognition which is why web designers and developers from around the world are so keen to win this prestigious prize.
Web design UAE is pushing hard to meet the deadline of March 17th.After last year’s competition there was a lot of interest following the success of the ‘Hesabi –My Math’ project. It was judged to be a great product for children because it makes learning more enjoyable and more like a game which maintains children’s attention levels.
Innovations and success such as this has paved the way for technology in the region. The web design and development market along with web marketing and SEO is progressing at a rapid pace in the UAE as is the demand for such services.
On 1st March, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) extended its CAP Code to regulate non-paid for online marketing communications. This covers a company’s websites and other websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, where a company’s marketing messages are being communicated. The ASA already has the power to regulate paid-for online advertising such as banner ads, pop-ups and pay-per-click.
Why is this happening?
Over the last three years, the ASA has received over 4,500 complaints about non-paid for advertising. They were unable to act in these cases. A government review last year on the sexualisation of young people highlighted how more and more messages to this group are communicated online but the existing Code could not protect them. The ASA have said that it has the “protection of children and consumers at [its] heart”.
What do the extended regulations now cover?
Any non-paid for marketing communications where a product or service is being promoted, such as the company’s site, are now included. Crucially the marketing messages you send through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are part of these regulations.
Are any websites exempt?
This applies to all UK websites, even if the domain is not .co.uk.
What should I do?
You may want to review your company’s website and non-paid for advertising. The CAP code has been developed “to ensure marketing communications remain legal, decent, honest and truthful.” Ifyour marketing communications reflect this (online and offline) then you have nothing to worry about.
What happens if someone blogs or Twitters about my company and what they say violates the regulations?
The CAP Code calls this “user generated content”. The ASA cannot regulate what people say about your product or service. However, it would be subject to the regulations if you were to use what they have said in your marketing communications.
What will the ASA do if it finds a company in breach of the code?
The ASA will do one or more of the following:
• “Name and shame” the company on the ASA website
• With the co-operation of search engines, remove paid-for advertising links to the page that has the offending marketing message
• Place ads online that brings attention to the company’s non-compliance
Where can I find out more?
Check out the ASA’s Digital remit advice. They are also running seminars and offer a website audit service.
The future…
It will be interesting to see in the coming months how the ASA discovers non-compliant sites and messages, and how realistically it can deal with marketing messages going out via social media. Given the thousands of websites in the country and marketing messages thrown at us every day, it is impossible for them to police each one. They will need to rely heavily on the public to complain about adverts and messages they think are misleading.
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This post was written by Victoria (Operations Manager at MintTwist). MintTwist are a leading web design London agency offering a full web service that also includes web marketing and SEO London.
The name Tommy Flowers probably means very little to just about everyone which is a shame because without Tommy Flowers it is more than likely I would not be here writing this blog.
The genius of Tommy Flowers was obvious from a young age and he eventually earned a degree in electrical engineering from the University of London. The very concept of electrical engineering was relatively novel in the 1920’s but Tommy Flowers knew it was the future.
Tommy later gained experience working on telephone exchanges and by 1939 became convinced that a completely electronic system was possible. At the very same time, Europe was descending into the chaos of war which would soon drag the rest of the world and Tommy Flowers into it.
Alan Turing, another technological hero, was working for the British government breaking German codes. He developed the world’s first algorithms and was literally years ahead of the competition. Eventually Turing heard about Tommy Flowers and asked him for help.
The reason he asked him for help was because the latest code breaking methods being used at the time required large amounts of data input which by hand would be completely impractical. However if an electronic machine could be made which could break codes by inputting large quantities of data then any German code could be broken.
The key for Flowers was valves, lots of them. To put things into context, at the time the most complicated electronic device used about 150 valves. Flowers proposed that his machine which he names ‘Colossus’ would use 1800 valves. Sadly the British government and the Ministry of Defence were yet to be convinced and rather than offering their help told him to make do on his own.
Undeterred Tommy poured every ounce of energy, every second of concentration and every penny he had into his ‘Colossus’. After eleven months, Flowers and his devoted team built ‘Colossus’. The world’s first computer was born and immediately set about breaking German codes. Later the ‘Colossus Mark 2’ was built which used 2400 valves.
German intelligence became British intelligence immediately. The Allies now had a massive advantage over the Germans and with their new intelligence were able to dominate the war at sea, the war at air and the war on ground. The D-day landings, which marked the beginning of the end for Hitler, used vital information gathered by ‘Colossus’.
The Supreme Commander of the Allied forces, Dwight D Eisenhower went for a meeting at Bletchley Park, the home of ‘Colossus’ and the code breakers, on the 1st of June 1944. There he was handed a decryption made by ‘Colossus’ which showed that Hitler did not want additional troops to be sent to Normandy. Eisenhower turned to his staff and said “We go tomorrow.”
Without the work carried out by Tommy Smith and the code breakers at Bletchley Park it is quite possible that the outcome of World War 2 would have been different. Tommy Flowers is my technological hero because he built the first computer which broke the German codes which won us the war and brought freedom to Europe and the world.
For a long time Google has been the undisputed heavyweight in search. Ever since it was first launched more than ten years ago, it has won over fans with its simple interface and focus of returning the most relevant results in the quickest time. Google has definitely helped the Internet’s association with the fast, almost instant, availability of information.
When Google first launched, there were a number of competitors vying for the lion’s share of online search – Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Ask, Alta Vista, Lycos and many more. Google seemed to arrive and blow everyone else out of the water and show no signs of slowing. It’s now almost impossible to imagine using the Internet without Google – it ranks as the number one website for many countries according to Alexa. Its market share of search is as much as 85% globally and it continues to provide new services such as Maps, Places, Gmail and Docs. Google has now even become immortalised in the English language with the verb ‘to google’.
What happened to the other search engines then? Yahoo continues to be a key player in the US especially. However, its usage seems to be slowly losing ground to competitors. Microsoft’s newly re-launched search service, Bing, is expected to leapfrog Yahoo in the next 12 months to be the second largest search engine. Check below to see a table showing the top search engines in the US for December 2010 (according to comScore):
As you can see, Google totally dominates the US search market. But what about globally? Based on Net Market Share data for 2010, we can see that Google performs even better worldwide than in the US:
Google has an unprecedented market share – no other search engine even comes close! Interestingly, you can see that Chinese search engine Baidu ranks at number three. This is an amazing achievement considering the narrow demographic it caters to (bearing in mind Baidu is largely only used in China whilst Google is global).
What next for the online search industry? Well, it is hard to imagine any other search engine being able to dislodge Google’s strong hold but let’s look at some hypothetical contenders:
1. Bing
Yes, Bing! Although probably not going to beat Google, many people forecast it to become the second most used search engine soon. Coupled with the merger with Yahoo and it is easy to see how Bing will become more of a competitor for Google.
2. Baidu
Baidu is arguably the most significant contender to Google. Whilst it may only reign supreme in China, China’s population is expected to grow and its economy recently dislodged Japan as the world’s second largest – arguably whoever can crack the Chinese Internet market is in for a good future. What will be key though is if Baidu can branch out to other geographies. Interestingly, its ranking in other neighbouring areas is less significant. According to Alexa it is the 7th most popular in Hong Kong whilst only being 9th in South Korea and 15th in Taiwan. Baidu’s growth overseas will be the most important factor in determining whether it will be a genuine competitor to Google or not.
3. YouTube
Yes, I know it is not technically a search engine but you do search on it! Interestingly, YouTube recently become the second largest search engine in terms of monthly searches performed. This represents a huge shift in the way people are searching for information. As broadband becomes the norm and advertisers continue to embrace online media, media-rich content is becoming standard. YouTube (which Google owns) highlights two things about the Internet. Firstly, Internet users enjoy communicating and secondly, text is no longer enough. Neither is animated gifs. For SEOs, web marketers and anyone associated with the web world – ignoring the power of YouTube and multi-media search may prove to be a mistake.
4. Facebook
Last but not least, a small website you might not have heard of yet. Facebook’s growth has been unparalleled – adding hundreds of thousands of users daily. At the moment, Facebook is still very much centred around users and people. You can’t search for information in the same way but more and more information is getting uploaded to Facebook pages for people to ‘like’. Additionally, Facebook gives companies and individuals the ability to speak directly to visitors in a way that is not often afforded to them on websites and traditional media.
So there we have it! Google is probably going to continue to be the undisputed search behemoth but there are numerous contenders vying for second place. What will be most interesting is to see how traditional search engine alternatives develop. As Facebook gears up to launch its new communication platform (including emails), does this signify Facebook’s intent to become the new Google? We will have to wait and see! What are your predictions for the online search industry?
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MintTwist are a leading agency for web design in London. We are also a leading company for SEO and web marketing in London. Colin is part of the web marketing team and you can contact him here: colin@minttwist.com.
The start of 2011 has been an eventful to say the least. At the centre of this activity has been the Middle East, in particular Tunisia and Egypt. The highly respected BBC correspondent John Simpson compared the events in Egypt to the fall of the Berlin wall.
Watching a revolution unfold on television is a fascinating experience. What’s even more fascinating is that the internet and social media in particular were key components of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. An army of bloggers and tweeters in Egypt and Egyptians around the world were at the heart of the uprisings.
Tahrir Square was the epicentre of the revolution and once the protesters took control of the square and organised it, at the very centre were the bloggers. The job of blogging was made much harder as Egypt’s internet service providers were forced to shut down in an attempt to make it harder for demonstrators to get organised and limit the flow of information to the international community.
By the time Egypt’s internet was largely shut down the news of the demonstrations had already gone around the world and back again. The speed of information thanks to the internet and social media is what ensured the news of the protests went global in minutes.
Sadly, as is the case with most revolutions, it cost lives. It is estimated that at least 300 people died and hundreds more were badly injured in the Egyptian revolution. If free and fair elections can be held in Egypt within six months, as the military which now controls the country has promised, those who died will not have done so in vain.
One individual really caught my attention during the Egyptian revolution. Wael Ghonim is Google’s head of marketing for the Middle East and Africa. Such is his influence that he was arrested on 25th of January and not released for twelve days. Upon his release and following an emotional interview on television thousands of supporters joined a Facebook page in his honour which states “We authorise Wael Ghonim to speak on behalf of the Egyptian revolution.”
Wael Ghonim is not a politician. He is not a man who seeks power or accepts that he at all special. However, because of his position in Google he was seen as a major threat to the ousted president Mubarak which resulted in his arrest and it could be argued this made him a political prisoner.
For the revolutionist, the demonstrator and the protestor, Facebook, Twitter and blogs are their voice to the outside world. To a dictatorial regime Facebook, Twitter and blogs are powerful weapons that must be contained. The only problem is that the internet and social media has taken root and digging it up is impossible.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol is essentially the dialogue that allows distribution and collaboration to take place across the Web. While its technological creation can be considered a modern venture, there were several precursors to the concept, which arguably has its roots in ancient times.
The desire to categorise and organise information is almost second nature, and has existed for centuries. Reference works such as dictionaries and encyclopaedias, index annotations such as the Dewey Decimal Classification, and even pre-printing press texts such as the Talamud were accompanied by annotations and symbols that would guide the reader/follower/surfer around the text. These systems were separate to the process of documentation – they were concerned with the connections between texts, and the ease of information retrieval.
The springboard for the etymology and electronisation behind HTTP came in the 1940s, when Vannevar Bush – an engineer associated with the analogue computer and atomic bomb – created the term Memex, based on the words “memory” and “index”. Memex was proposed as a compressed store of documents that could be indexed numerically, with the aim of making it a more efficient mechanical Rolodex. It was described as “an enlarged intimate supplement to one’s memory” (Lev Manovich, New Media Reader).
The Birth of the Internet: Vannevar Bush
In 1963, Ted Nelson – an American philisopher and technology pioneer – coined the phrases hypertext and hypermedia, which imply an overcoming of the constraints of written or tangible media. The terms refer to things displayed on an electronic device with references (hyperlinks) that lead to other text/media that are instantly accessible. Nelson’s IBM-funded research project at the time was the Hypertext Editing System (HES), which sought to organise data into two categories: links and branching text that could easily be pinpointed and recalled using labels.
The flexibility, immediacy, and collaborative nature of these ideas made them an ideal basis for creating the World Wide Web. It was Douglas Engelbart, while working on a rival to the HES, who became the first person to publicly present what is now known as “The Mother of All Demos” in 1968. This showcased the computer mouse, video conferencing, email, hypertext, word processing, and real-time editing – things many of us consider to be ultramodern.
Tim Berners-Lee (the inventor of the World Wide Web) carried out a breakthrough in hypertext development when he integrated it with the Internet. He created ENQUIRE, a hypertext-style database of unique identifiers (what we now refer to as Uniform Resource Locators – or URLs) in a customised language that would become the basic building blocks for links and branching text (Hypertext Markup Language – or HTML), which could then be transferred between servers and computers through “conversation”. This was the first example of what we now refer to as the Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
The World’s First Web Server – Tim Berners-Lee’s workstation.
This epic article was guest written for MintTwist by Shreena from Anastrophe and Cheese. Check out her Twitter here: http://twitter.com/shreenas. Thanks very much Shreena! This article is awesome.
For more information on web design in London please visit the MintTwist website!
Gold Matrix launched in October 2010 to buy scrap gold and now sells gold bars, gold coins, silver bars and silver coins. The site also has a gold calculator, allowing users to work out how much their gold is worth before selling. Gold prices are updated twice daily through a simple admin system.
MintTwist have continued to work with Gold Matrix on their web marketing campaign, optimising the site for SEO, as well as managing its social media activities.
MintTwist provide web design and web marketing strategy solutions for medium and small sized product and service businesses who want to get more sales from their UK, European and Middle Eastern markets.
Over the last couple of decades the Internet has become a huge worldwide phenomenon. Latest global figures show that the number of internet users (also known as ‘Netizens’) now stands on the verge of exceeding 2 billion!
In 2010 Internet Explorer had a market share of 60% which is a long way of its 2003 peak of 95%. This begs the question, what happened? The answer is quite straightforward. Mozilla happened.
Since the internet was developed digital content has come a long way. If you look at web pages of the mid to late 1990’s you will find that they are much more simplistic, both in terms of appearance and functionality.
Tahrir Square was the epicentre of the revolution and once the protesters took control of the square and organised it, at the very centre were the bloggers. The job of blogging was made much harder as Egypt’s internet service providers were forced to shut down in an attempt to make it harder for demonstrators to get organised and limit the flow of information to the international community.
