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Love this awesome Halloween themed infograph making fun of social media “zombies”. Very creative! I definitely know some victims of this apocalypse, do you?
Brought to you by Confused.com.
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Apple and Google, when the companies first started no one would have expected them to be rivals. The companies run in different sectors, which should work together in unison, not compete. However, as the Internet and technology continue to evolve so do the companies that rule them. In today’s society, both Apple and Google have become brands that rule the world, so much so that they have worked their way into language as more than simply brand names: i.e. – Google becoming a verb or Apple becoming a globally recognized logo.
Obviously, with both companies becoming such an integral part of everyday life, it is no surprise that they have finally started to become more competitive. Honestly though, I had no idea that there was tension or overlap between the two until a few weeks back when I updated my iPhone.
As I waited my 30 minutes for the new iOS6, all I was expecting was a few new pages of emojis that everyone had raved about. So after I checked them all out I started to scroll through my phone and apps to see what else was new. As a frequent commuter and traveller, one of my biggest concerns was that Google Maps was replaced. I depend on Google Maps as frequently as I depend on Oxygen, okay maybe that’s slightly dramatic but it certainly feels that way. Anyway, I assumed that Apple had created a new and better map, which is why they replaced the old app, unfortunately that was far from the truth. Upon deeper exploration of the update I came to realize that the Google and Apple’s relationship must be completely disintegrated as YouTube was also removed. YouTube was an app that was integrated into iPhone’s from the start, and it was not replaced with an Apple video-playing app. I still don’t know why Apple made this dramatic cut from Google, but it drastically affects how the public views its product.
More recently, I noticed that the competition has become quite tangible between the two companies. The big rivalry that has sprung up is between the iPad Mini and the Google Nexus 7. As with any new product release, people have started to analyze and critique the iPad mini. I was genuinely surprised when the comparison was not the older iPad, which for Apple is typical to be compared to itself, but the Google Nexus 7. With Apple venturing over into Google’s territory and Google doing the same to Apple, it shouldn’t be long until there is an all out battle between the tech and Internet giants. I personally don’t know whether to be excited or terrified for this day. What do you think is going to happen?
It’s not easy becoming a recognised brand. If you’re a startup or if you feel your brand just needs a revamp, have a look at our branding services in London!
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Hi Digital Snowball readers, my name is Lydia Jenkins and I am the new intern here in East London.
Although I am a British citizen, born in Wales, after living in the United States for the past 13 years, I still feel like a foreigner in London. Even more so, I feel very out of place in East London, where the Digital Snowball office is located. On my first trip out to Hackney Wick, for my interview, I stepped off the train and had to check that I was in the right place. London is a city notorious for royalty, excessive wealth and snobby old people. East London, has none of the afore mentioned, in fact, this area reminds me of Brooklyn, NY. For those who have never been to Brooklyn, it is the artistic epicentre of New York. Hackney Wick is filled with ‘hipster’ people doing creative things. Everything from the hairstyles and clothes to the buildings are unique and expressive. I, on the other hand, have an intrinsic belief that I am the least creative person on the planet, which I have been told multiple times is untrue.
(View of the Olympic Stadium from our office)
The office of Digital Snowball is in a converted warehouse, with a view of the Olympic Stadium, it is very funky. My time so far in London has consisted of the major tourist sites, aka Buckingham Palace. In comparison, East London seems far more real and progressive. Although graffiti and broken billboards are usually seen as signs of poor or rough areas, here it feels appropriate and artistic. I had heard plenty about East London being an up and coming area during the Olympics, but now I truly see it for myself. The selection of iCity as preferred bidder for Olympic Park space would boost East London even more into becoming a hub for the technological and creative industries. If you have not heard of iCity yet, check out the press release here: iCity Press Release. I am so pleased to be able to be a part of the evolution for a short while, and hopefully return once it has fully developed, maybe even move to London and feel that I fit in again? Here’s to hoping, but for now, I will just need to start dressing a little cooler.
(My walk to work every morning)
Keep up with my blog updates during my time in London and here at Digital Snowball, and feel free to comment!
I will be working a lot with the search engine optimisation in London, see the service here.
When looking at top web designs, I recently stumbled across wwwaste.fr, a site designed to create awareness of the impact that Internet usage has on the environment. It creatively calculates how much CO2 you emit, by measuring the amount of emails you send, MSN chats you have, Google searches, tweets per week, number of YouTube videos you watch per day, and amount of time you spend on Facebook per day.
Is this website trying to tell us that we need to send less emails and use Facebook less? The Internet is an irreplaceable asset, stepping away from digital would be taking a step backwards from what the world has achieved. There must be some other way to help the planet? This got me thinking about the amount of times I have to change the batteries of my mouse. Surely there’s something I can do differently. So I had a look around for a few cool eco friendly gadgets:
1. Mobee’s Magic Charger
If you use the Apple Magic Mouse, you will know how many batteries it actually goes through. It is never too long after I have replaced the AA batteries that it starts acting up and telling me the batteries are low, at which point I have to rummage around in the “everything-drawer” for some new ones. This little piece of technology saves you from constantly having to replace to change the batteries. The charging pad comes with a special Mobee battery pack, making it unnecessary to use regular AA batteries. Not only is the charging pad USB powered, but it is also made of recyclable materials!
Price: currently £39.95 on the Apple store
2. Mobee’s Magic Bar
Mobee has also come out with The Magic Bar, a great companion for your Apple Wireless Keyboard or Magic Trackpad. A rechargeable battery cylinder replaces the AA batteries. This USB powered charging station provides your Keyboard and Trackpad with juice by subtly allowing you to slot your Wireless Keyboard or Trackpad into the inductive charger (granted, it does look better with the Wireless Keyboard than the Trackpad).
Price: currently £39.95 on the Apple store
Not only are all the Mobee products good to the planet, but they also look great! If you are like me and love the Apple look, this will fit right in!
3. iZen’s bamboo keyboard
iZen has created an Apple compatible keyboard, which is 92% bamboo! It may not look as sleek as your white and silver Apple Wireless Keyboard, but it is recyclable and definitely more eco friendly. It comes with a rechargeable built-in USB powered battery. This keyboard gives your desk an earthy yet stylish look!
Price: currently $99 (£63.15) on izenbamboo.com
4. XDModo’s (now XDDesign) Solar Window Charger
We all know how fast an iPhone eats up your battery, and we are all familiar with that moment when you take out your phone to make a very important call and realize the battery died. Not only is this charger good to the planet, but it also saves you from having to buy that unwanted cup of coffee from Starbucks just so you can use a power socket.
This innovative, nifty little gadget uses solar power to charge your phone, all you need to do is plug in your USB cable. It’s as simple as that!
Price: currently €49.90 (£40.11) on gadget-o.com
The EU has decided that in an attempt to protect users, all companies must acquire consent from visitors before storing cookies, and provide clear and coherent information regarding the cookies used. The law was actually passed a year ago, but it was difficult to implement so will not be enforced until 26th May 2012. If you just went “YIKES!” then read on!
Well, we can all argue the merits of the law and whether it benefits us at all, but lets first try and understand it. We are not lawyers and after speaking to a few that are equally as baffled, we thought we would venture out and try and get to the bottom of this. At this point our lawyer would be very happy if I advised, You, the reader, to get proper legal advice regarding Your options.
The legal part
The law requires all website owners to get consent from their website visitors before they can store or retrieve any information on their devices including computers, tablets and mobile devices.
The website must obtain explicit clarification before they can store information about users on their devices.
So if you, like many others, have grown tired of constantly being advertised to, fear not. The law is here to set everyone straight.
So what is the law trying to achieve?
After having lengthly discussions with everyone on our team, we felt that something had to happen. Data tracking and subsequently its usage to force feed the user, has on occasion gotten out of hand. Who knows what else the data may be used for.
The law is rather vague, and in our opinion that seems to be on purpose. It allows for everyone in the industry to try and work together and find an adequate solution.
Can I have a cookie?
We have established that cookies store your data, they are also crucial to the user experience when browsing the web. Take an e-commerce site for example. If I am shopping, I want Ocado, Amazon, ebuyer, and so on to recommend offers, alternatives, things I may have forgotten, or didn’t need until I saw it. My basket contents need to be stored, although I may not be asked to login straight away. If I do login, its fairly straight forward that I would then accept what that brand/shop/business wants to do with my details. This may be information such as personalisation options, search history, purchase history, log-in information, and browsing history.
Cookies are usually needed for a website to function. You can of course do without cookies but some are essential in todays world. The main issue at the moment is that the law does not make many exemptions, it only states that only cookies vital to the website may be exempt. Who knows what that means! Its does however make a lot of other things illegal. If you’re using website analytics software like Google Analytics, advertising networks, or e Commerce software then your site will most likely be using illegally crunchy, and scrumptiously yummy cookies to store user information.
But I love cookies, what now? 
Make a cup of tea, you may need one. Lets take a look at some of the issues with this law and use popular services such as Youtube embeds, and Google analytics which virtually all websites use. If a user has already explicitly accepted that those individual services use cookies, our website would still need that same user to accept our policy on cookies as well. Now what if that same user is now instead a family computer with multiple users … Houston we have a problem.
The bottom line is however that we need to comply. Someone out there will be made an example of and we dont want that to be any of our clients. Needless to say, the fines will most likely be massive. The main culprits on our site are third party components such as social media widgets like Twitter, and site admin tools such as Analytics.
What we hate about this law is that if we comply, we WILL LOSE BROWSING USERS. It’s a simple fact of life, people do not like change. People are definitely not used to messages on websites asking for consent. The messages are ugly, and scare people away. Especially when they can hit the back button on the browser and go to another site that doesn’t comply. On top of all that considering that it is only an EU law, the world is your oyster and there are many websites out there that will not have a big, bold, ugly, and partially scary message that the average user knows nothing about.
How do I do it?
Well, if you are using WordPress, there are a few plugins that you can download for your site. Ones that we really like, are the EU Cookie Directive and Cookie Control. These plugins will help you configure a notification to display on your site, requesting users to accept cookies.
If you are using Joomla, there is also an EU Cookie Directive plugin that you can download. For the sake of not turning this into a long list, call us if you are using a different platform than WordPress or Joomla.
We would recommend
If you are not one of our regular web design clients but would like help figuring out how to get your site ready for the 26th of May, feel free to give us a call anyway!
Here at Digital Snowball, we have helped quite a few businesses launch new websites or re-launch existing ones. Using our experience, we’ve come up with some basic tips for website designs.
People are very impatient when browsing the Internet. If they don’t find what they are looking for right away, they will most likely move on to the next thing. According to Jakob Nielsen, a usability guru, the first 10 seconds of each visit are crucial.
It is within these 10 seconds that most people decide whether they will stay or leave your website. Those that do stay after those initial 10 seconds are still likely to leave within the next 20 seconds of their visit. It is only those that stay after the first 30 seconds that are likely to spend two minutes or more on your website.
So what can you do to make sure that they stay just a little bit longer?
First of all, make sure that your design is consistent, captivating, and not cluttered. For example, if have too many bright colors on one page, it becomes harder to navigate because there are too many different things being thrown at you. It gets confusing, and most people will quickly label your website as not containing anything important.
You also want to be careful of asking people to register before giving them access to the site, as most are fearful of spam. Very few people actually want to register for something before looking through it thoroughly, so don’t force it on people. Let them look through your site and choose for themselves whether or not they want to register.
An intro video is also a risky thing to choose. Again, most people are impatient, and will leave within 10 seconds if you don’t give them what they are looking for. So forcing your readers to watch an intro video before getting to the actual content will put many people off. If you decide that having an intro video is absolutely crucial, make sure that the “skip intro” button is easily accessible.
And lastly, the single most important thing you need to focus on is good content. Getting people to your site is only the first step. Keeping them there can only be done by providing something that interests them.
Your visitors will form an opinion of you very quickly. Too much meaningless content will make people think that you don’t really have much to offer. So be precise, and get your content looked at by a third party.
If you want a good website, start by figuring out how you want others to see your business and work from there. Your web designers will help you create a design that best communicates that.
You only have 10 seconds – use them wisely.
Related services: Web Design London
Social media has changed the way the world communicates – friends, family and new potential customers are merely a click away.
Today, there are over 30 million Facebook users in the UK alone – that’s roughly half the population. Imagine if you could tap into those millions of users.
Using social media for marketing purposes is cheap, and it allows you unprecedented access to your customers. It’s practical, efficient and engaging.
Unfortunately, the adoption rate is still low. Many small and medium businesses still fail to fully take advantage of the opportunities presented by social media. In fact, half of the small and medium sized enterprises in the UK feel that they do not even have the need for a website, and only a third of all small businesses are actually on Facebook.
Considering how many opportunities are out there, you’ve got to ask yourself if your business can afford to avoid having a web presence. The opportunity costs could be enormous.
It’s not that traditional marketing strategies will go extinct of course – there will always be a place for advertising and marketing. But with more and more people on the Internet, it is inevitable that businesses will have to start reconsidering their approach.
The key to understanding social media is that it’s about genuine interaction. As a business, you have to think about the people who make up your customer base, and find some way of genuinely interacting with them.
Have a look at this video that we found. We think it does a great job of illustrating the value of social media marketing.
Social media marketing is part of our digital marketing services. Click here to read more about digital marketing London.
We have finally finished the music video for 1986 by Turnpike Glow!
Making this video has been tons of fun – it’s an incredibly catchy song, so we knew the visuals would need to contain some real eye candy.
The philosophy behind the video is, of course, to make it look like it’s something that was filmed in the 80′s, and on an older camera. We think it looks sweet!
The band is super pleased of course, and, perhaps even better, major music magazine NME have decided to feature the video on their website! WOOHOO!
Digital Snowball completely took the reigns on this project. Resident film guru Mazin Power sourced the crew and locations, directed the shoot, and oversaw the edit and colour grade using Digital Snowball’s own post-production facilities.
These are the kinds of projects we love! More please! See our video production services!
Sometimes, we see videos that are so cool we can’t help but share them!
Such is the case with this video – an amazing time lapse of traffic and movement in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
The video was made using DSLRs shooting in stills mode, taking over 10,000 RAW images.
At Digital Snowball, this is our preferred time lapse technique. While many modern video cameras do have decent settings for these kinds of images, in our opinion nothing ever looks as good as a series of stills taken on a full-frame camera.
Enjoy and read more about our video production services!
Indie band Turnpike Glow are gonna be big!
We love their music, and love their style, so Digital Snowball have decided to make a shiny new music video for this band.
We’ve come up with a very cool concept that fits their style – it’s all about memories and nostalgia. More on that soon.
The video is set to begin production in January, so watch this space for updates – and of course, for the finished product in early February!
Check out more about the band here! Read about our video production services in London here!
Hire our fully equipped video editing suite. Perfect for tapeless workflows, wether it be post production work for music videos or for corporate videos.
