TheWayoftheWeb

I’ve been a bit busy today, and I’ve promised myself some sleep tonight, so I’m going to throw out some quick half-formed thoughts – rather than my usual long and rambling half-formed thoughts!

• I have put up two good interviews on 140char.com. The first is with the creator of the Posty microblogging client using Adobe Air, Cesar Rocchi, and the second is with the co-founders of micro-review and recommendation site Blippr, Jonathan Cottrell and Chris Heard.
• I’ve also been having a bit of fun helping out some colleagues in moving forum users over from an old location, which for various reasons required some subterfuge and some co-ordinated communication. I know a few bikers crossover with my social media audience, so it’s www.pbmagforum.co.uk. It’s been quite good fun playing with something new, as all the forums I’ve moderated or admin’d before have either been fairly small, or on corporate software, so I’m learning some new things about Invision. The big challenge is trying to estimate the server space we’ll need, so if anyone has any experience in that area, give me a shout.
• I spotted the BBC reporting a ‘crackdown on suicide websites‘ earlier and wondered how effective it will be to update a UK law when most of the sites will probably be UK hosted, or incredibly easy to move to new hosting etc. I’m glad to see the Justice Minister state that the update won’t be a magic bullet, especially as I recall The Tipping Point looking at rises in suicides after straight reporting in mainstream media. But bearing in mind the concern is about search returns promoting suicide websites over those offering help, surely they should be working with search engines (like, maybe Google), rather than ISPs? And what about providing SEO advice and help to charity and anti-suicide sites to ensure that any suicide websites will be buried down the search listings regardless of whether they’ll be eventually banned by their ISP or not?
• I love the reporting of Stan Schroeder on Mashable regarding the statement that social networks are killing porn sites because Bill Tancer at Hitwise has noticed searches for porn decreasing, and social networking increasing. Stan’s answer? Maybe people are able to find the porn they want more easily and more quickly as they’ve become more experienced!
• Apologies to the blog which originally published that the UK is lagging behind in broadband speeds, but I seem to have misplaced my bookmark. Here’s a bit from Computer Shopper. At the same time, a UK gov report recommends not getting involved in trying to implement next gen broadband, besides monitoring the progress of industry. I can understand the reasoning behind the report, particularly if people are leaving high speed connections unused in favour of cheaper deals – but more and more services are now coming online to make use of higher speeds, and broadband is still too expensive for a decent service in many cases. More importantly, it might not be for everyone, but the high speeds are definitely for the early adopters and innovators who will continue to invade the economy of the country.
• I forgot to include Dave Cushman’s contribution to ‘The Best Practices in Social Media Marketing‘ meme when I compiled it all, as we were simultaneously tagged. So he’s gone for revenge by tagging me in the ‘Measures of Engagement‘ meme. I say revenge, because in my daily work I spend a lot of time thinking about the best measures and then spend a lot of time monitoring them, so if I don’t come up with something worthwhile I should probably be shot.
• And now for the heartwarmingly funny tale that ends daily news roundups. Matt at Signal vs Noise has a stunningly brilliant example of how not to describe and market an offer, as Jetblue turn their special deal into a ‘chronological date riddle’

That’ll do for now….if you’re after more of a window into what I share, I’m mainly using a combo of Google Reader for interesting RSS items (Shared Items Page here), with Delicious, and Stumbleupon also making an appearance. At some point I’ll try and aggregate all my various storage applications into one stream which will overwhelm us all?