ABOPRESS

Tweet Google+ is designed to rival Facebook, features enhanced sharing and geo-tagging options Google has launched a social networking website called Google+, designed to rival Facebook. Google has launched a new social networking site, Google+, for field trials. The site is designed to rival Facebook, which has now gathered over 500m users. "We'd like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project," said Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President, Engineering in a post on the official Google Blog. The new social networking site features +Circles, designed to allow users to share what they want with specific groups of people or social circles, instead of sharing with all friends. "From close family to foodies, we found that people already use real-life circles to express themselves, and to share with precisely the ri...

Tweet Apple's fifth generation smartphone is rumoured to be an incremental upgrade over the current generation iPhone 4 The next iPhone will launch alongside iOS 5 Apple is expected to launch the successor to its iPhone 4 in September. Rumours from various technology sites say the new device, which is Apple's fifth generation phone, will be sold as the iPhone 4GS. The smartphone, which some websites say may even be sold as the iPhone 5, is rumored to pack a dual-core A5 processor, which is the same processor used by the iPad 2. Websites also claim that the device will offer an 8-megapixel rear-facing digital camera and will run iOS 5, which is also scheduled to launch in September. iOS 5 offers a number of advantages over the current iOS 4 release (4.3.3), including over-the-air (OTA) updates, which has long been supported by Google's competing Android operating system. Operating systems that that support OTA allow users to download updates over a phone...

Tweet Web logs or ‘ blogs ’ are best known as an easy method of publishing personal web pages which are online journals or diaries. But the power of business blogs, which are created by people within an organization, is often underestimated. Business blogs can be created by individuals, but they are often best with features from different columnists on different types of topics. This way, different columnists can specialize on different features or viewpoints just as for a magazine. If you think this way, they are a means of making an e-newsletter more interactive and more topical. Blogging software is incredibly good value, with many free tools. The following options can be considered when setup your blog: 1-         Moderation : Either open or closed to comments, with or without a moderator. Star rating of posts is a good option. 2-        Frequency : Five to twenty posts per month would be typical for a company s...

Tweet As more marketers have become aware of the benefits of PPC, competition has increased and this has driven up the Cost Per Click (CPC) and so reduced its profitability.   EFFECTIVE PAID SEARCH AD CREATIVE CHECKLIST: 1-        Deliver relevance by including search term keywords in headline and body 2-       Be specific on the offer 3-       Include specific benefits e.g. free delivery, costs 4-       Differentiate – explain what is unique about your offering 5-       Include numbers as appropriate since they stand out when visitors scan the page 6-       Use CAPS (Capitalize first letters and use acronyms where appropriate) 7-        Space can be good – sometimes relatively short text can have a higher impact 8-       Use characters (sensibly): !, ?, :, & 9-     ...

Tweet These are ten copywriting rules from Gerry McGovern ( www.gerrymcgovern.com ). As you read through these, think about whether these rules apply for other media and also whether your organization achieves them on your web site. 1-      Be honest . Paper never refused ink. Web sites never refused hype. If you can ’t deliver within twenty-four hours, then don ’t promise to. 2-      Be simple, clear and precise . Time is the scarcest resource, so never use five sentences when one will do. Avoid jargon. People are confused enough today. 3-      State your offer clearly . What exactly is it that you sell? 4-      Tell them about your products ’ limitations . 5-      Have a clear call to action. If they like what you have to offer how do they go about buying it? 6-      Tell them quickly if they ’re not a customer you can supply . There ’s nothing I find more frustrating than find...

Tweet Research suggests visitors can decide ultra-fast on whether they like a site, not in two seconds, but 50 milliseconds (that ’s 0.05 of a second). Summarizing the research by Gitte Lindgaard ( Lindgaard et al ., 2006 ) of Carleton University in Ottawa, published in the Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology , says: ‘The lasting effect of first impressions is known to   sychologists as the ‘ halo effect ’: if you can snare people with an attractive design, they are more likely to overlook other minor faults with the site, and may rate its actual content more favourably . This is because of “cognitive bias ”, People enjoy being right, so continuing to use a website that gave a good first impression helps to “ prove ” to themselves that they made a good initial decision ’ . E-CONSULTANCY (2007) RECOMMENDS THESE APPROACHES TO TYPOGRAPHY BEST PRACTICE: 1-       Use a consistent typography throughout a site. This will typically b...