We are The Machine
Small, cleverly made and grandiose Web 2.0 ‘propaganda’ video that captures the excitement of the internet past and present.
How the web is changing the way the news is written
The art of writing news headlines is changing due to SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques. There will be less ‘Gotcha‘-style headlines and more literal lines like ‘British Navy sink Argentine warship’ that search engines can understand. This exposes a deep difference between print and television’s strong visual/design element and the string reliance on text on the web. The visual element of news would be a shame to lose on the web after it’s long history offline. It will be interesting to see the future of search in terms of video and photography, and a better understanding of meta-data so it can rely less on the blunt instrument of headlines and pure content text.
Scaling web communities
Bradley Horowitz of Yahoo! discusses how web communities scale. Yahoo! should know after all, as they’ve spent a fortune creating and buying a plenty of social sites. Found via Subtraction.
How MySpace grew
Most companies will never have to deal with the kind of traffic MySpace gets – they now get up to 40 billion page views a month (although the meaning of these numbers are contested in various quarters). This is the story of how they technically dealt with such growth.
Provokateur blogging
Our friends at Provokateur have started blogging – they’ve even managed to get Gordon Brown to leave a comment. Maybe.
“I want the iPod of websites”
Business Week discusses the influence of Apple as a design standard for other companies. See Nintendo, Motorola, Microsoft, BMW, Adidas, Lacie… and most companies we come across.
The inevitable iPhone post
Everyone else is talking about it, so we will too. Here are our 12 initial small observations…
- It appears that it has a beautiful, flexible and refined UI.
- It makes all other phones look clunky, awkward and unrefined.
- It makes the iPod’s interface look clunky, awkward and unrefined.
- That said, in reality, making a call, starting a text message and entering my calendar on my Sony Ericsson k800 is efficient and fast. It will be interesting to see how fast the iPhone will be to do the same.
- The iPhone doesn’t offer any actual features that other phones don’t already offer. Will the interface and ease-of-use sway people to switch to the iPhone. It worked with the iPod, but lots of people bought Motorola’s RAZR despite its’ interface.
- Your fingers are going to be moving and tapping a lot, rather than sticking mainly to a small area like most phone’s joystick. Will this become annoying?
- The virtual QWERTY keyboard used for typing looks possibly awkward without real buttons.
- In the future I’d like a tiny Apple phone that does the basics well, and an iPhone without the phone element (i.e. a very slick iPod).
- Developers should be given a clear path for making applications for it. Apple is currently saying that this won’t happen, but a range of games, VOIP and Office-type applications immediately spring to mind as great features they may not deign to make, but would be a natural fit for the iPhone.
- While much of the functionality and interaction has been patented – it will be interesting to see how Nokia, RIM, Sony Ericsson, etc. will react to this. Can they in time before the iPhone launch? This is much bigger, richer and arguably better competition than the iPod’s original competitors.
- The iPhone’s web browser illustrates how well mobile interfaces are beginning to deal with pages that are larger than their screen. Designing a website for all shapes and sizes is not necessarily something we will always need to do.
- We want one.
10 January, 2007
The internet vs. your brand
Brandchannel has some suggestions for how brands should deal with bad publicity online in blogs, forums and elsewhere.
Thanks for a great 2006
FoxLand has had a fantastic first 5 months. We’d like to thank all our clients, friends and anyone that has helped, advised or warned us. We’ve done a whole pile of work, had very little time to work on our website, met a load of great people and been generally surprised at how much has happened in such a short time. In particular we’d like to mention Provokateur, Daikin, Current Biodata, Zebra Crossing, Faculty of 1000, Olivant, Itochu, Attiva, NHS Alchemy, Macmillan Cancer Support, Spy Design, Fortismere School, Copper, Coochi, Olly Blackburn, Chloë Lederman, Fiona Campbell, SU, Martin Beckett, Scholz & Friends, Leslie Mello, Jack Dunning and anyone else we may have forgotten (apologies). Here’s to the next (already very busy) 12 months.
29 December, 2006
Brand vs. Advert
The question of how branding and advertising overlap and therefore can cause fractious relationships between different client agencies is discussed by Johnson Banks (this link is not permanent so apologies if it does not work). The article discusses a situation that arose with Wolff Olins (a company I have worked with extensively) creating an ‘advertising concept’ that the client’s ad agency feels treads on their toes. While I worked with Wolff Olins, this happened all the time as brand development does not sit in an easy corner – but is all encompassing. More importantly, good ideas should come from anywhere, and similar situations could be applied for an internet-based agency, like ourselves.
Daikin Reefer Container Refrigeration site goes live
Daikin Industries Ltd are one of the world’s leading producers of air-conditioning and refrigeration systems. The Japanese company asked FoxLand to develop the website for their latest product – the Daikin Reefer Container Refrigeration machine. This unit maintains the internal temperature of cargo containers using the latest in Japanese technology and quality. So if you’re exporting frozen fish (as one does) from Iceland to Australia or bananas from the Philippines to Britain the Daikin Reefer will keep them fresh. The website went live today.
4 December, 2006
Peanut Butter Manifesto
The problem with companies, such as Yahoo!, spreading themselves too thinly is discussed.
Installing the Zune (usability is a brand issue, part 2)
I’ve refrained from mentioning the Zune (Microsoft’s wannabe iPod competitor) before as much discussion about it has been often very partisan guess work, but this post at Engadget about the nightmare of installing the Zune software (the iTunes equivalent) changed matters. Microsoft undoubtedly now understand why iPod/iTunes worked for Apple, hence the Zune vertical business model, but it sounds as if they are not looking after the fine details. Coupled with the Zune’s draconian licensing restrictions, the Zune, as a brand, has had a disasterous first few weeks. Microsoft’s very expensive advertising push for the Zune could be a huge waste, as these real usability issues threaten to engulf the brand. Update: The comments to the original post indicate that many people in contrast have had relatively simple installations of the software. Also, Ars Technica have some interesting points to make about the Zune’s future.
14 November, 2006
The Guardian covers Web 2.0
Featuring the web’s favourite alpha geeks in fashion photography mode, The Guardian covered Web 2.0. Significantly, this was the cover story in the ‘lifestyle’ magazine section, and not in a business or technology section. It convincingly covers the concept and has smaller interviews with a few of the key players. Take a look at the special page at The Guardian website. Update: The Guardian have now added a video report too.
Usability is a brand issue
“Three quarters of RAZR users would not buy another Motorola handset because they are difficult to use”. A bad thing for the users becomes a very bad thing for the brand. It’s one thing to work to have an attractive device, such as the RAZR, but if the interface does not live up to the exterior then the whole effort will ultimately fail. A simple lesson, but still one being learnt.
Take a look at the article including results for this Motorola survey by Mobile.
2 November, 2006