Under the hood of every successful website  there is invariably a database or more likely a whole cluster of them. It is quite literally the driving force in website architecture, and  probably the most important component in managing and delivering content efficiently to the pages of your website. So whether your website is a Mini or a Hummer its time to talk DB’s.

BUT (and its a big but), the learning curve can be steep particularly for the first time database user  - there’s nothing quite as mind boggling as the complexities of Database topology.  And there is no getting away from them –  if you want your website  to perform well and be able to manage content yourself,  it obviously makes sense to have some rudimentary understanding of what is going on in the background.

So which is best?

Migrating to MySQL

Eureka moment

And finally…

Facebook DB architecture:

Development of youtube architecture vid:

                          

The latest news that an Italian court has convicted three Google execs has sent a reverberating shudder around the social networking community.

3 Google employees, Peter Fleischer, David Drummond and George De Los Reyes, all received suspended six-month sentences and were accused of breaking Italian law by allowing a video relating to a bullying incident involving an autistsic teenage to be posted online.

The fact that any court has been able to secure a prosecution may well send out a message to other online companies that allow videos to be uploaded without being being moderated has to be a landmark ruling.  But what effect will it have in relation to the control and censorship of online video content?  While the employees were obviously not involved in the incident itself, does the ruling infer that the online company bears a degree of responsibility and therefore is party to the offence by providing the service which allowed it to be viewed online?

By virtue of the way they operate (and therefore make money), most online video ‘repositories’ offer a free and unregulated upload service.  This also means that there is very little control over the videos that can be viewed online, other than length and size of video along with advisory guidelines on content. All complaints usually have to be made through a lengthy online form on the video website. So  unless an individual makes a complaint and it is then upheld, any video can can be aired without restriction unless the company are informed otherwise. However this ‘passive’ system of moderation now faces a serious challenge. This latest ruling  is an attempt to redress the balance, effectively making the company itself responsible for its own content (which sounds kind of obvious really).

But what are the implications for other social media websites that operate in a similar way?  Or is this just an isolated incident and likely to be overturned on appeal?  And in broader terms how will it affect our own FOI on the web?

See full news story

                          

No content – BUT high listing

The second surprise in My Googling  this week came right out of the blue, and it was one I should have perhaps been aware of. The scenario : when you can actually do a search for a key word/phrase and you’re ousted in the position listings by a site that not only does not have the key word or phrase on their page, they don’t even have their site indexed by Google.  Please feel free to contradict me at this point because  (in the words of V. Meldrew) I didn’t really believe it either. There was no actual site page content in the Google listings excerpt either.

The person that actually came across this was scratching his head over this one as well. Could Adword keywords perhaps be affecting the natural rankings perhaps?

If you haven’t already guessed the answer by now here it is – backlinks or inbound links, external links or whatever other terms are used to describe a link to your site coming from an external site’s page.

More surprisingly perhaps was the ‘potency’ of the anchor text, i.e., the textual key word/phrase being used in the  link itself.  Further investigation revealed that the external links pointing to the site numbered in their thousands.

Now two  interesting implications follow:

• A site content doesn’t even have to be actually indexed to be ranked highly in the natural listings, furthermore:
• A site can have its robots text file configured to ‘no index, no follow’   – in other words specifically telling the search engines NOT to list the site, and yet it still appears in searches, (albeit minus any content)

Mmm…. is  there something discrete in the Google algorithm that enables sites to be ranked regardless of page content? Is it configured in such a way to place to simply ignore content and carry on regardless and use the backlink anchor text instead? The example in my next post should hopefully go some way to restoring my confidence in natural listings.

Am I stating the obvious?..  in the meantime feel free to add your pearls of wisdom

(all comments are moderated BTW)

                          

Social Networking Logos

If businesses haven’t yet woken up to the potential of SN they certainly need to.  To quote Bill Gates, its the way we are all communicating with each other these days…

We can all think of 1001 reasons why we could well do without the extra hassle of yet another foray into the mysteries of online marketing.
But if all you do is take a  moment to read some of the stats below, then maybe it might be convince you its time to ask your kids for a few tips on where to start.

Facebook Example…

So lets have  a look at some stats first of all. If we take a look at one of the fastest growing SN sites Facebook and have a look at their stats for a moment:

• they claim to have 350 million active users.
• Each user has on average has 130 friends and is a member of 12 groups.
• 700,000 local businesses have active pages on Facebook.
• Facebook’s average of 55 mins for each user visit

The trivia argument often levelled at SN sites now starts looking a bit weak in business terms. If you have have ever taken the time to look at the stats for your own site to see how long visitors are staying on pages, compare this to Facebook’s average of 55 mins for each user visit and you begin to see the  potential.

Sharing Vs Selling

The one thing that is radically different is in the way users interact with content. Perhaps our own carefully crafted websites were built on the assumption that we should simply present information as  a ‘one off’ without necesarily elliciting users responses (after all, it took us long enough to write the content in the first place).  But if we want to really engage potential consumers we have to allow them opportunities to express their thoughts, opinions etc., in a way a static page of text on a website cannot hope to do.  In so doing we are gathering valuable market research and feedback; our web pages are also ‘enriched’ by the extra (free) generated page content, which is all good news when MR Google pays our site a visit .

Content for free?

Businesses are certainly getting the message and eager to tap into the huge potential. Facebook  are actually keen for businesses to leverage content within own sites if we want to do this via their integration tools like Facebook connect . facebook also does all the hard work by actively prompting and encouraging members to join groups and add friends with similar interests. And not forgetting all this generates all important extra  content +  backlinks to our site – and its free! . (cf. Huffington Post -a news aggregator website which actually thrives on ‘pulling’ the majority of its content from other sites)

The youtube example:

Youtube stats? Oh just watch the clip!

Suffice it to say that user numbers are now in  billions and still growing (14.5 at the last estimate.)   You tube also enables us to test out the market very quickly and efficiently – whether you want to publish your own movie, slideshow or even embed the content on your own site, Youtube has  to be dream come true in terms of free advertising –  the tools are all there free to use for you to make it happen i.e., creating engaging user content easily without having the overhead costs. (e.g.,check out Capri Sun’s channel on Youtube )

Summary thoughts about Youtube:

• … is available universally and is free
• …frequently outperforms conventional media channels
• …provides feedback via viewer stats and comments
• … offers (free)embedding/agreggating  of content
• rapid and easy publishing and editing for more flexible marketing strategy
• huge viral marketing possibilities

A word of caution

Yep -there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  We can’t just think of SN sites as free advertising. They do have to be engaging (c.f. Facebook page visit time of 55 mins) so be prepared to offer something that is of real interest and benefits to the user – don’t just think of this as one way traffic.  Put yourself in the place of somone who is  SN savvy – they will very see through any sales ploys (however subliminal) to market your product.

Summary:

Remember any good viral marketing has to be user- driven also  so:

• Be prepared to share information, even offer free services or benefits(go on – dangle the odd carrot!) give feedback and encourage comments about products/services.
• Get up to speed – draw on your staff expertise and knowledge of blogging twittering etc discuss which are the best SN sites for your business and how they could be best utilised
• Get involved/become members of other related groups(e.g. follow in Twitter)
• Don’t be afraid to fail – review  and discuss your strategy as you would any other marketing campaign
• Don’t forget to switch on your Stats (Google analytics preferably) to monitor popularity of product/service/topic interest

Perhaps next time you are reviewing your marketing strategy perhaps Social Networking will move high up your ‘must do’ marketing agenda.

                          

The lack of public consultation has angered Labour A.M. Lorraine Barrett who has openly expressed her opposition to the cull, but the increased financial implications has forced a knee jerk reaction from the Assembly Government.  Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has ruled out the need for culling and favours  a more scientific programme of vaccination  in  England, which is likely to go ahead from 2011.

Despite the recent protestations it now looks unlikely that anyone outside the Assembly building  will have any say this matter.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7962285.stm

                          

As Steve Jobs unveils the latest Apple creation (or re-creation) the sceptics are out in force ’slating’ the iPad (no pun intended) before it even goes into full production. But where will this reincarnation sit amongst all our other techno- gadgets, and is it likely to be one step too far in an already overcrowded marketplace?  Will its niche in the market remain just that – a niche market composed mainly of Apple junkies?

There are a number of pointers that may indicate that Apple/Steve Jobs may have the thinking right on this one (again).  We know that there are already a plethora of similar devices all vying for our attention, but with perhaps one big glaring difference.  All the tablets, e-readers, Kimbles and the like have  never quite hit the mark when it comes to simplifying usability.  When the The iPhone entered the mobile device fray it was initially met with a mixed reaction(apart from the Mac devotees who embraced it straightaway) –  yet it has revolutionised mobile phone  ‘architecture’, leaving others slightly lagging  despite all their best efforts.

The iPad incoroporates all the ‘touchy feeliness’  of its pocket predecessors with touch screen, drag, flick, etc navigation but now  in a larger format, which has to be better for typing and thumbing the pages of e-books.
But why (I hear you say) does the paperback  continue to prevail? Maybe its to do with the tactile way we can browse a book And its certainly not through the want of trying by Sony, Amazon et al.
Mr Jobs and co’s philosophy has always been to build devices with the end user user experience in mind rather than fill it full of gadgetry. Exactly the reason why the iPhone became such a hit leaving other devices playing ‘catchy-uppy’.

End our love affair with the mouse?  - Never!

Perhaps we have now become too attached to that little slidey object by our computers and now is the time  to embrace the touch-screen with both fingers. ( If champanzees have mastered it I’m sure we can in time. )
Seriously,  its high likely all the appealing ‘ergonomics’ of the iPhone will work beautifully in a bigger device and entice us even more.

Size matters
I think the iPad’s achilles heel may in fact be its size (I bet they thought long and hard about this). Again it all depends what we use it for, although for a portable its a tad heavy to pop into your trouser pocket, but perfect for a college or office bag, which perhaps indicates the target market.  However I can see major advantages of having a bigger device  for car journeys  - maps, web browsing, watching movies etc .

Conclusion

Will the iPad find a place in our lives alongside the other techno-toys? – too early to say perhaps.   It might be trying to do all things quite well but none really well. And its market share will only ever be marginal. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I still want  one – in the certain knowledge its probably going to be damn good.

Some (stolen) stats

• 9.7 inch display
• Touch screen
• 1.5 pounds, 1/2 inch thick
• 1 ghz apple A4 chip, 16 to 64 GB flash storage
• WiFi 802.11n
• Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR
• Speaker, Microphone, 30-pin connector
• Accelerometer & Compass
• 10 Hours of active battery life, 1 month of battery life on stand by
• Earth-friendly!
• Every iPad has WiFi support, some models have 3G support
• lack of built in camera and 3G support as standard.  There is also
• iBooks store interface just like iTunes.
• Turn pages by swiping, just like a real book
• Interface very similar to the iPhone, but bigger. Flick and touch controls throughout
• New version of iTunes specific to the iPad, flick controls
• iBooks is next. This is where Apple tries to take on the Kindle
• iWorks for the iPad.

• “The gadget is a premium mobile device, not a computer; as such we see some iPod Touch buyers stepping up to the iPad, but consumers looking for an affordable portable computer will likely stick with the MacBook line up,” said Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray.
• Analysts also believe the gadget could cannibalise the e-reader market, currently dominated by Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader.
• A 32GB iPad will cost $599 (£376) and a 64GB will cost $699 (£439). Apple has given no hint about exact UK prices and final costs may be higher than direct conversions suggest.
• Can only run one application at a time – major weakness!

(stats courtesy of BBC technology pages and  others)

                          

Following on from a previous post about the way Google is responding to social networking, Google has included hot topics and hot searches as part of  its  trends service  at: http://google.co.uk/trends , although only hot topics is available at the moment in the UK.

Trends

If  you’re not familiar with Google trends, its a powerful tool that gives  a graphical rep of most popular search topics and terms over a 5 year period.  So if you wanted to compare market growth for example between companies, brands etc you can quickly generate a 5 year graph based on their related search terms.  OK,  as a data mining tool it could be argued that using Google’s search entries might return flakey results but it cannot be ignored mainly because of the sheer volume of the empirical data that has been indexed.  Add in the ability to quickly analyse by region, sector and be be able to include Boolean searches for up to 5 terms then this becomes very powerful  market research tool. (There is also Google Insights for more in-depth analysis.) If  its used in conjuction with Google’s keyword tool to identify exactlywhich terms are being typed in the most its not difficult to envisage the benefits for online businesses.  The issue is how this information will influence what we do and how quickly we can respond.

Now add into this mix Hot topics and Hot searches. The emphasis here is identifying the fastest growing trends (rather than the volume of searches overall) However the main difference is in the speed of search data being compiled- hot topics/hot searches  results are compiled daily and hourly respectively whereas  a standard Google search compiles results over a longer period. So essentially Google trends is showing what people are looking for now (i.e., sudden peaks in interest) . (The difference between hot topics and hot searches – the former focuses on the news orientated trends whilst the latter algorithm reflects actual searches)

Google’s  HOT  Topics and Hot Searches

As mentioned in a previous post this  is a response by Google  to the immediacy of social networking ,while keeping the distinction with overall longer term search trends.  Hot topics trawls the social networks etc looking for the ‘most buzz’ i.e. keywords and phrases that are on the ‘up’ in terms of popularity. Its probably best to think about these like the pop charts – for example no 1 in the top 10 Hot topics is ‘haiti telethon’ which reflects what is a happening now.  How does this work? very crudely the data is ‘normalised’ so that figures are not actual search numbers but compared against an average of current searches (a bit like stand dev).  So if there is a sudden peak in interest the height of the peak moves the topic  up the charts

Hot searches by contrast reference the number of Google searches for those topics.  Both of these indexing services operate over a very short time frame (hours rather rather than the ussual weeks or months) making them a very rich data mining resource for businesses. E.g.,  e-commerce sites could make use of the latest Hot topics and searches for latest fashion trends,  music music realtime (well, almost) .

If you try and keep ahead of the game its probably having a play with some of the advanced tools also. While they are kept as a  separate  service from Google’s main web searching  tools it will be interesting to see if they remain that way as other services have  now crept into the listings on to the main search page (shopping, news etc)

What are the opposition doing? Well Yahoo is calling it ‘Buzz’ and Bing has created what appears to be clone –  its actually a ‘mashup’ pulling its data from Google trends and spits out its top results using its own algorithm.  Inevitably results differ considerably as you would expect, although Google as the NO 1 search engine continues to be  the trail blazer.

Remember to log in to your  Google  account to get the most out of Google’s tools. Go have a look and play at:

Google trends

trendy!bing

Yahoo Buzz

                          

The BBC’s article explains a bit more about the politics and the drive for transparency. It looks like its essentially aimed at those wishing to develop 3rd party apps that can process the data into a more readable and searchable format . I suspect there will be great interest by those wishing to develop applications to make sense of the enormous quantity of publicly held data (which is where RDF comes in).

Who will benefit? I’ve no doubt companies will want to develop offer quick access to relevant data (e.g. a way to easily search and access local govt planning applications).  The potential here is enormous but there are one or two concerns – I would hope that the service would come under some sort of license similar to GNU to stop profiteering.  Secondly, its one thing creating an online facility for churning out all this public info, but perhaps questions will be raised about the interpretation and privacy of data if it is so readily accessible.

It could also be argued its better for this data to be in the public domain especially with the mood for accountability in the public sector.  Anyway the site is definitely worth worth a look at, if only to see how  this data could impact on us  as individuals – or possibly as a resource for our businesses.

                          

I came across  2 clips  that prompted me to rethink about the ‘mindset’ of that time.  As always the BBC played a pivotal role in broadcasting the events of a small town in Alabama to the the rest of the world at that time.  It is interesting to watch these two clips which  were first broadcast by Panorama on 13 May 1963.  The first is of Eugene (Bull) Connor, Police Safety Commisioner  in Birmingham, Alabama, and the second is the response by the Human Rights leader:

The political and social changes that have been wrought  by the civil rights movement have now come to fruition  - although I think the question remains whether the words of both still have resonance in many of todays social and global conflicts.