In the past couple of weeks I have started to invest a little bit more of my online time in the social media site Facebook. The reason, for my recent affection towards Facebook, was not one of sudden aduration but more to do with news items of which I had read. I’m going to list 3 reasons why I believe that Facebook is taking itself more seriously and why my attention has moved up the gears into believing that Facebook is about to take on the disposition that normally is only meted out to a thoroughbred racehorse.
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I really like Google, I really do, but sometimes it throws out a curve ball, that catches everyone trying to understand how this goliath search engine works off balance. The most recent was the invasion of american .com sites into the Google UK SERP’s (Search Engine Ranking Positions). It lead to many optimising companies and commentators blogging about this update.
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I have been playing with Microsoft’s new search engine, ‘Bing.com‘ and you know what, I like what I see. Its fast, uncluttered and the results are none too shabby either. The left hand pane of the results shows ‘Related Searches’, which I always feel that the typical searcher will turn to more if they can’t find what they are looking for on the 1st or even 2nd page.

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Content sometimes writes itself, ask the best content generators on the planet and they’ll inform you that their job is just a natural progression of placing the correct words in the right order. Writing a headline, however, to grab the users attention and read that tasty content is, somewhat, a different beast altogether.
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There has been a recent campaign in the UK for nigh on a year now for eCommerce merchants to offer 3D Secure along with their payment gateway settings. One of my clients insisted that 3D Secure should be running against his site as he wanted to capture as many payment possibilities as possible (Maestro being the main target.) I obliged and then we watched, amazed as his payment conversions crashed at such a rapid rate.
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Google has launched its first TV advetisment in the States for their Google Chrome Browser. Currently, Chrome has just 1.4% share of the internet browser market, with Internet Explorer still dominating with a whopping 66% then Firefox on 22% and Safari with a reasonable 8%. With Microsoft releasing IE8, its not surprising that Google stepped onto the TV ad platform to invigorate a better browser share.

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You just cannot keep Twitter out of the headlines right now, can you? If celebrities and talk show hosts ain’t mouthing off about tweeting here, there and everywhere it’s Newspapers, crammed with micro-blogging sections in the hope they can accumulate back some of their lost readership and traffic that Twitter has swallowed. Now, hot on the heels that ABC (American Broadcasting Corporation) is launching it’s own Twitter TV slot giving followers of the stations @Nightline account the chance to interact and discuss topical events. But up until now, all that was just picking up speed, because Twitter is about to go stellar…

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A new report released today by The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) focussed on the lack of trust still shown by UK consumers when shopping online. The main factors holding back these potential online shoppers were : lack of trust as the main factor; fears over personal security; consumers did not trust companies that sell online.

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Ok, perhaps I’m showing my ignorance here, I think what’s best to do is play stupid (no change there then ) until someone confirms my inner thoughts on this subject. Yesterday, the 6th of April, I blogged about installing Google Trends on Your Website and when it featured in my iGoogle page it is highlighted by a grey border /outline, as in the image below…

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We all know the tale of the 300 Spartans, how they stood strong, together, moulded as one, against an army 10, 20 even 100 times their size, according to some historians. Well, we at NSM are looking for 500 troops of our own by Christmas. That’s right, 500 Spartans of our very own! If you look over at our current Feedburner account (->) you’ll see we are sitting pretty at a whopping 10. Hey, Bo Derek did all right from 10 as well as Dudley Moore. But, tbh, it’s ok, but not quite right. We want, nay, need, 500 Spartans behind the NSM cause by the time we are all unwrapping our chrimbo pressies. Not exactly, an easy ask, for a small seo ecommerce company situated in the back woods of Ayrshire – Spartan Country – I’ll have you know!

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