As I’ve said before, it seems like Google announces something new almost every day or so. With all the excitement of Google Wave’s initial invitations going out, it could be easy to miss a few of their less prominent launches.

One interesting new innovation that could impact website owners is the Google Sidewiki. This new Google toolbar component allows anyone to add comments which can be viewed at the side of the webpage.

The idea is hardly a new one: we’ve seen many similar services launch – and sometimes fade – before. The difference may just be that Google’s ubiquity will show a much more substantial take-up, and hence the idea will finally find its time.

As a website owner, your main concern will be what kind of comments users may write for others to see. It seems that the Sidewiki is largely conceived as a public service utility; in the visual example given by Google, visitors to a tourism website add tips about the weather and things to see. Google’s algorithms will ensure that spammy, offensive, or less useful comments will be driven down by more popular or relevant content.

Naturally, there will be abuse of such a service. Presumably Google has measures in place to deal with this if needs be. You may also find that, if your website does get commented on at all, Sidewiki provides useful insight into what your users are thinking; what do they perceive not to be on your website that your other users might need, for example. As with most Google products, Sidewiki could work hard for you.. so long as you know how to use it.

Well, we had a great time on Friday, hosting a coffee morning as part of Macmillan Cancer Support’s World’s Biggest Coffee Morning.  It was great to see so many people!

We caught up with old friends as well as meeting quite a few new ones. But of course, there was a serious side to the event – raising money for a worthy cause.

With all the help and support received by so many, we raised the incredible sum of £214.84!

So a big THANK YOU to everyone involved.

Word spreads fast on Twitter, and how does it spread best? Through the power of the ‘retweet’.

To retweet (or ‘RT’ as it is called on Twitter, due to its defining character-limit) is simply the act of repeating someone else’s post. It implies a desire to spread news, admiration for, or appreciation of the original tweet.

It’s when a single tweet gets picked up and retweeted by thousands of users that you find why Twitter is regarded by some as the holy grail of marketing: word spreads, fast, and for free.

If proof were needed that business is sitting up and taking note of the power of Twitter, look no further than an in-depth analysis from Dan Zarella. A recent blog post from Fast Company scoured his report for just nine of the qualities most likely to get you retweeted – and pointed to his 22-page work on the same.

Who would have thought a mere 144 characters could be researched so thoroughly? Read these nine pieces of advice – and, if it gets your interest, the full report – and you’ll begin to understand why.

These are wise words indeed from Mahtma Ghandi:

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.

It is certainly an ethos we believe wholeheartedly in and one we strive to maintain at Notting Hill Internet Services.

How can anyone not in these hard economic times?

Unfortunately, having had to make calls recently to some well-known service providers, I realised that there are some businesses out there who are sadly not familiar with Ghandi’s great words… shame.

We are joining in with the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support and would like to invite you, your work colleagues, your friends and family to come and join in too!

The event is open to the public and will be taking place at our offices on Friday 25th September, starting at 8.30am and finishing at 12.30pm.  So why not pop in for a coffee before work?  Or take a break whilst shopping to get a reviving cup of tea?  We will also have a wonderful choice of pastries to tickle those taste buds – ignore the diet, this is for charity!

To let us know if you can join us, and receive more details, contact us today.

See you there!

Notting Hill Internet services and The Pollen Shop last year announced the launch of spiritualcapital-cardiff.org.uk. The website, funded by the Department for Communities and Local Governments Community Development Foundation, explores the issue of how faith groups contribute to the work of Cardiff.

Spiritual Capital Cardiff was the first website produced jointly by The Pollen shop and Notting Hill Internet Services. It was designed to meet the needs of public sector clients that require flexibility and affordability as well as high standards of accessibility.

Fari Peyman, Managing Director, said:

This partnership will build on our core strengths and enable us to offer great value to new and existing clients. Notting Hill Internet Services already has a proven track record in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Producing sites to a high standard of accessibility uses very similar processes. By combining both practices we will now be able to bring a new dimension to our managed Internet services.

If you are interested in discussing an accessible website, at an affordable price, contact us today.

No doubt, by now all you techno buffs out there have heard of Bing, the new search engine by Microsoft, which went live on June 1, 2009.

While Bing’s core index is the same as Microsoft Live Search, Bing comes with some notable additions including:

§         the listing of search suggestions in real time as queries are entered

§         a list of related searches, called ‘Explorer pane’ which display on the left side of search results

§         instant previews of websites and videos

§         automatic categorisation of search results

§         ‘Best Match’ results with deep links

§         Save & Share’ search histories via Windows Live SkyDrive, Facebook and e-mail

There has been much debate in the media and online about how Bing compares with Google and other search engines and if Google now has competition for the top spot.  A quantifiable way to measure this is being worked on by Michael Kordahi of Microsoft.  He has developed and is refining a blind search engine that displays results in three columns with identical formatting representing actual results from Bing, Google and Yahoo where users can vote for the best results. 

Even if Bing turns out to be the better search engine, the question still remains if Googles’ brand loyal followers can be lured away.  Not to mention that Google’s search tools are commonly pre-installed in new PC’s and that Google is the default search engine for Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox.  Bing certainly has an uphill climb but perhaps it has anticipated the ever increasing wants and needs of today’s sophisticated Internet user.

Website design: it’s a fine art these days. You can study it at degree level. There are awards for it. The man on the street has opinions about it – and we all pretty much agree what makes a good website design, and what doesn’t.

Don’t we?

Screenshot of the Havenworks homepage

Hmmm. Looking at the Havenworks website,  it seems just possible that there’s one small corner of the world where the niceties of web design have not yet been fully thrashed out. White space, for example: these days, many of the websites we visit most often – Google, Flickr, Facebook – recognise that blank space is just as important as text. It’s restful; it allows the user to concentrate on what really matters (in the case of Google, that means the search box, of course).
 

Then there’s ease of navigation. The very best websites let you navigate through their pages and hardly realise you are doing so. The moment you have to stop and think, or search for the link you need, is the moment the navigation has scored – in the modern online parlance – a big, fat fail.
 

Web designers seem to be coming, en masse, towards the conclusion that Less is More. Havenworks is a great indictment of this, showing quite clearly that the opposite is also true: More is Less. Indeed, More is Utterly Confusing.
 

The question is, with so many talented web designers around, why would you publish out a site that looks like this? I can’t say I know, but I do notice that there is a little wink after the site’s name in the top browser bar. Might it be that the site’s owner knows exactly what he is doing? Think of it this way: I’ve just written a blog post and linked back to the site: one valuable inbound link for him. You’re reading this and maybe you’ll be amused enough to pass the link on to a friend. One more visitor to the site. It’s just possible that this is a complex ploy.
 

On the other hand, I don’t think many visitors would stay long, nor would they return, so from that point of view there’s little to gain. I’ll leave it up to you to decide what you think – but meanwhile, let me just mention that if your own site is looking a little more Havenworks than you’d prefer, we can help. From off-the-peg templates to bespoke designs, we have a number of website design solutions that will get you linked to for all the right reasons.

No, I am not talking about British politicians… I am talking about Google.

Yesterday, Google managed to direct a small proportion of its web traffic through Asia, as you do, resulting in 14% of Google users finding the service slow or interrupted. Aparently even Google’s home page was inaccessible for a time.

Google promptly apologised and explained the error away in a fairly humorous way on their blog site. Citing something to do with re-routing planes…. right… ok then….

However, this is not the first problem to befall Google this year.  A few months ago there was quite a large disruption to their service, which went on for many hours. This caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Net and the media were all over the story like a rash.

So even the best of us make mistakes but we will always forgive Google as they provide such a good service.

Unlike British politicians….

This question was posed to us in respect of our free website offer to local start-ups and charities/projects. We were proposing a new website for a small business in the W11 area and had been trying to stress that our offer had no strings attached and, that once the website was complete, they were not beholden to us in any way.  

So how do we make our money from this offer?  

Simple answer is – we don’t.

This brought about the next question – “So why do you do it?”

Well….

1. We genuinely want to give back something to the local community – honestly!!

2. We belive that if we provide an excellent service now, then when the local business or charity project expands in the future, we hope that we will be called upon to help with their online needs.

3. We have a valuable link-back to our website on each of the sites we produce.

That’s it. 

Nothing more.