Got a few minutes to spare? Check out America's National Science Foundation's nifty site, documenting the birth of the internet.
It goes from the first time two computers communicated cross-country in 1962, through the arrival of the personal computer in the '80s to future possibilities such as quantum computing. Just shows how a handful of people with some good ideas can inspire others and result in something amazing.
Brands, advertisers and marketers can no longer go into blogs or online forums and big up their products or services without being open and honest about who they are.
We've had a few clients ask us how the recent legislation (part of the European Unfair Commerical Practices Directive) has affected the Online PR and Social Media Marketing activity we undertake for them.
The simple answer is that it hasn't. Not being honest about who you are when engaging with any online community has always been a bad idea, with or without a law.
Good Online PR and Social Media Marketing is about building genuine relationships with people who have an interest in what you're talking about. If you're not being honest with them, they'll realise quickly enough and the damage to your brand could be devastating.
'Internet users tend to avoid fixing their eyes on anything that looks like advertising', New Scientist reported last week – and the phenomenon has been dubbed "banner blindness" by Nidhi Mathur of Hewlett Packard's research lab in Bangalore, India.
Obviously, this poses a massive problem to advertisers – especially if the stats New Scientist quotes are correct: only 3 people click through for every 1,000 ad impressions.
How are online advertisers combating 'banner blindness' – by putting ads onto the pared down 'print this page' versions of their clients' websites. Sounds like a good idea at first – and initial studies show web users do remember ads they've seen on their printouts more than those online.
But many, like psychologist Joanna Bawa, believe this effect will be ephemeral: 'people are increasingly resistant to ads generally, and will soon figure out what's going on.'
Here at Qube, we're seeing a growing trend: clients are starting to realise that a smarter way to spend their online advertising budget is to take an approach that doesn't interrupt the attention of their potential clients.
By assigning quite a small percentage of their overall advertising budget to search engine optimisation, social media marketing and online PR, they are generating more engagement and click-throughs from people who are already showing an interest in their goods and services. And that means more sales.
Best of all, all this activity is fully trackable – just a thought for those of you deciding where you can most effectively allocate your budget.
Check out the article on the New Scientist website >
This week Facebook have released Facebook Connect, the newest version of the Facebook platform which, for the first time, allows users to connect almost any aspect of facebook to their own website.
Facebook Connect will allow any third party website to introduce a number facebook features, in the same way that third party applications have been available on facebook since the first Facebook framework was introduced.
“We opened Facebook Platform with a belief that community innovation can give people the tools, and the power, to share and communicate in ways that Facebook can't build on its own. We’re humbled by what our developer community has accomplished... We’re confident that the changes we’re presenting today help developers build more meaningful social applications that enable users to share more information.”,
Mark Zuckerberg, Source: Facebook Press Release
We are excited about getting involved in the Connect community and about the great opportunities that this technology presents for making the web an even more social place.
According to Google's findings the web now consists of over 1 Trillion ( 1,000,000,000,000 ) unique sites. That works out at roughly 165 websites for everyone in the worlds population..
To put the webs growth into prospective 10 years ago, in 1998, Google estimated a total of just 26 million...
So what can we expect for 2018? Whatever happens I expect that we will be doubling our trillion sooner rather than later.
Many of us here at Qube have our roots in copywriting and web content, so we appreciate a well structured, properly punctuated sentence, with accurate grammar. Attention to detail shows you have high standards and are professional.
Recently we've run some workshops and have been putting together writing style guides to help our clients with their online writing. We love to be helpful, so we've decided to share some of our hints and tips with you - and point out some common stumbling blocks!
Watch out for jargon
Using technical language or jazzy product names can alienate your audience. When you write, remember people in general may not be aware of the latest industry buzz words or in-house terms and acronyms. Call a spade a spade, not a hybrid wood and metal digging device.
Be active, not passive
Use active verbs when describing your company. They convey energy and confidence whereas passive verbs can suggest a lack of conviction. For example: 'Projects are managed by our team' becomes 'Our team manages projects'.
Plan before you write
You wouldn't set out on a journey without planning your route. Writing is the same. Know where you're going or you may get lost. Make a bulleted list of the points you want to make and structure it clearly, before you flesh your writing out.
'I was sat'
This is a bugbear of ours. Use of the phrase 'I/she/he was sat (on the floor)' is increasingly common. However it is grammatically incorrect. You would not say 'I was ate a biscuit' or 'She was ran a mile.'
The correct form is: I was sitting (on the floor).
However, depending on the context, you could also use 'I was seated on the floor' – past imperfect implying a continuing past action, or 'I sat on the floor' – past perfect, implying an action that was completed in the past.
Think you could benefit from one of our writing workshops? Get in contact - 01273 689672
We're over the moon at Qube that we've been chosen to develop the online marketing side of West Sussex County Council's year long drive safety campaign.
Alongside Zero Fifty One, who are providing the offline advertising and creative, Qube will help West Sussex to communicate to the hard to reach 17-24 age group with a number of online and social media marketing campaigns throughout the year, focusing on drink driving, using a mobile while driving and seatbelt use, amongst other things.
A belated welcome to Graeme Benstead, who joined Qube this month in the role of online marketing executive.
Graeme was formerly one of the director's of Heavenly Media, with an excellent track record in search marketing and social media. He also comes with a host of analytic, design and technical skills and is already proving a valuable member of the team.
So say hello to Graeme, everyone :-)
PS. Graeme has just asked me to add something to this post about his charming smile. So consider it done, mister B.
The online world was a very different place back in 2004 when the last US election was underway. The word blogging was only recently starting to slip into society's vocabulary, YouTube had yet to delight us with its thousands of online video's on demand and twitter was not even a twinkle in Jack Dorseys' eye.
This time round everything has changed. my.barackobama.com has the democratic candidate using every social media tool in the book. Read his well-tended blog, sign up to get live news and events near you, follow him on twitter as he tours the country and even make friends with other Obama supporters.
But it's not just the candidates and their campaign teams engaging our attention using these tools. This year anybody that has an opinion and an internet connection is sharing their opinions and even hitting the headlines.
Issues which may have been downplayed, or even wilfully ignored in the past, are now dragged into the spotlight in all their gory detail by amateur bloggers. The controversial remarks made by Obama at one of his fundraisers would probably never have been mentioned again if it hadn't been for 61-year-old 'citizen journalist' Mayhill Fowler whose report rocked the delegates campaign.
Effectively Social Media has created a decentralised press in which our reporter's perspective is not influenced by the threat of losing a wage. It’s a distributed medium that can't be manipulated by even the most powerful of individuals.
The industry press is full of speculation and scare-stories on a predicted downturn in online ad spend this year.
Even given it comes to pass (and some are saying exactly the opposite) – should the wider world of online marketing be worried?
I don't think so. The credit crunch might have brands carefully scrutinising their ad budget, but an increasing amount of money's been making its way into other areas of online – social media and search engine marketing etc – for a while now.
While the general internet audience has become more apathetic towards banners and pop-ups, the younger media of SMM and SEM are now recognised as being both measurable and effective.
Even if cutbacks are on the way, it's less likely they're going to be in areas of marketing that are engaging customers and reaping rewards.
