Venice Project review
The Venice Project, the latest venture of Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, has been going for a week now and we received an invitation to try it out.
The P2P site aims to deliver an internet TV service which is as near to TV as possible, while adding the sort of social features you would get on YouTube or other video sharing sites. The service is currently being tested by 6,000 people.
StumbleUpon launches video service
StumbleUpon yesterday announced the launch of a new video service that will offer viewers a selection of videos from YouTube, Google Video and MySpace, based on their personal preferences.
StumbleUpon has until now been known for a browsing application which helps Web users discover sites based on the ratings of users with similar tastes. It is now applying the same idea to video. And it's pretty cool.
CNBC launches clunky new website, MSN deal expires
CNBC yesterday unveiled its all new website, after ending its five-year licensing agreement with MSN Money. The site has many new features, with a range of video clips and market updates.
The site features a the usual array of video clips, including market news to extended interviews with business leaders. CNBC.com will show up to eight hours of live video each day, and already has around 15,000 videos for on-demand use.
Google's Matt Cutts' tips on SEO
Google software engineer Matt Cutts has summed up a site review session he did at the recent PubCon in Las Vegas.
In reviewing a few sites, he gives some insight into what site mistakes a webmaster should avoid, and gives some tips on improving a site’s search engine visibility.
Eight second rule for e-commerce websites now halved
Four seconds is the maximum length of time the average online shopper will wait for a web page to load before potentially abandoning a retail site.
In the research by Akamai, poor site performance ranked second only to high product prices and shipping costs as leading factors for dissatisfaction among online shoppers.
Speed matters, according to Google
Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president for search products and user experience, has revealed an interesting experiment carried out by the search engine a few years ago.
The goal of the experiment was to determine the ideal number of results to display in response to a search query. Google surveyed its users, who decided 30 results on a page would be best, rather than 10 or 20.
Web 2.0 design and layout tips
Ben Hunt at webdesignfromscratch has posted an excellent article on current Web 2.0 design trends, giving some recommendations on features that make a website appealing and easy to use.
Ben gives some examples of good Web 2.0 sites, including LinkedIn, Mozilla.org, and Protolize, as well as some tips which we list after the jump...
Google launches new AdWords testing tool
Google AdWords has released a new website optimiser tool for advertisers to test their landing pages, allowing them to choose the best options for their advertising campaigns.
Google announced the new service at the Emetrics Summit in Washington DC yesterday, and it will initially be available for testing to a limited number of advertisers.
IE7 upgrade may cause problems for web developers
According to Microsoft’s IE Blog, the new version of the Internet Explorer browser will be ready this month, and some web developers are concerned about the new version’s compatibility with some websites.
IE7 will be available for download this month, with the new browser being delivered to Microsoft customers via automatic updates soon after.
Marketers in the dark: Visitors vs Concurrent Users - Web Capacity and Load Testing
When your sales conversion is lower than expected - asking the tech team for web performance metrics may not help: visitors per hour is not enough, concurrent users is plain unhelpful.
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
