Best practice tips for mobile websites
As Patrick talked about on Monday, 2009 may turn out to be the year for mobile internet, and companies need to be thinking about their mobile strategies.
Some websites have already adapted well to the use of mobile internet, but others seemingly have a long way to go. A new ebook (pdf) from dotMobi takes a look at the best and worst on the mobile web.
Here are a few best practice tips for mobile websites...
The Web Week in Review
In a week that that saw a rally in global stock markets and is seeing some of the best Black Friday deals in recent memory, it seems like the world has been able to recapture some sense of normalcy.
Here's the news that caught my attention this week.
BBC launches live streaming TV
Today sees the start of the BBC's online live streaming of BBC1 and BBC2, though this is something ITV has been doing for a while with its four channels.
I've been watching BBC2 through the iPlayer to see how well it works online, and whether the BBC does it better than ITV...
Fight club: BBC Mobile v ITV Mobile
ITV has been adding more video content to its mobile service recently, as well as promoting it between TV programmes.
With this in mind, I decided to take a look at the site and compare it with the BBC's offering, which was upgraded earlier this year...
How can publishers can improve site search?
I spend a lot of time on newspaper and other publishers' sites, and am often amazed at how bad their site search functions can be.
A lot of sites have been redesigned over the past year or so, and have improved a lot, but their search functions can still be patchy.
Here are a few thoughts on how they could be improved...
404 error pages, news sites and user experience
How should a website handle errors? What kind of information and messages should be presented to the user? And will a one-size fits all approach do the job?
Our own 404 page is pretty lame, so we’ve been thinking about the various ways in which we can improve things, as part of our year-long project to provide you with a glorious new E-consultancy website (due in early-2009).
I have also analysed the 404 pages of 10 of the most popular news sites, to see how other publishers are faring.
BBC not passing on link juice?
The BBC just can't get its external links policy right, it seems, and is now denying external websites valuable link juice by the way it links out.
Patrick at Blogstorm has noticed that the site's external links, normally displayed to the right of its articles, are being passed through redirect scripts.
Founder of UK blog network plays the blame game
I discussed the economics of blogging recently, sparking a bit of debate.
And it seems for good reason. The evolution of the blogosphere as a business hasn't been easy for many of its participants.
BBC finally experiments with in-text 'links'
The BBC is experimenting with the idea of linking out to external sources from within the body text of its news articles, in a trial which will last for four weeks.
Obviously this is a good idea, though why it has taken a decade for the BBC to roll out a 'trial' is anybody's guess (though it won't have done any harm to The Beeb's own Pagerank).
However, the way it is going about this is, well, a little bit Noddy...
Does beta mean anything to the average user?
One of the most common words to be found on sites that might be defined as being Web 2.0 is beta.
But does this mean anything to those who don’t work in the tech space and should there be a time-limit on how long a site can remain in beta?
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
