review

Blekko promises user-friendly search experience

Plucky new search engine Blekko has launched in private beta , inviting a handful of testers to sample its unique search offering that hopes to take on the likes of Google and Bing before its public release later this summer. The Californian start-up must be well aware of the tough market it’s entering, where other wannabe ‘Google-killers’ such as Cuil and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales’ ill-fated Wikia Search have dramatically failed to make their mark in a market where even silver medallist Yahoo! has begun phasing out its search platforms to Bing. However, according to Tech Crunch, the new search engine may succeed in holding its own by offering “new types of searches” to users. What Blekko may currently lack in index size, relevancy and crawling speed compared to the mighty Google , the search engine will reportedly make up for with “an unprecedented level of access to the algorithms and data that Blekko uses to determine relevancy.” The primary way this is achieved is through slashtags, which will allow users to expediently narrow down their search queries depending on the type of page they are looking for - whether it’s ‘/news’, ‘/amazon’ or ‘/blogs’. Users can also add customised slashtags of their own to deliver more targeted results - which can be as straightforward as a site search (e.g. /bigmouthmedia) or to collate favourite tech sites or similar blogs. These slashtags can also be made public to reach a wider audience

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Blekko promises user-friendly search experience

review

Windows 7 mobile phone platform earns reserved approval from reviewers

Reviews have been streaming in of tech titan Microsoft’s new mobile phone operating system Windows 7, and the general consensus seems to be a guarded optimism concerning the latest offering from the smartphone platform underdogs. Microsoft, once a ubiquitous force in the technology sector, has seen its products put to the chase in recent years, with upstarts Google and Apple carving out bigger pieces of the tech pie, even losing ground to companies or platforms like Mozilla and Linux. As for their jab into the smartphone operating system melee - where Google and Apple have been duking it out with the Android and iPhone platforms - Engadget recently reported a positive experience with the Windows 7 software, provided on a prototype Samsung device. “We were extremely surprised and impressed by the software’s touch responsiveness and speed. In fact, this is probably the most accurate and nuanced touch response this side of iOS4,” the review read. ZDNet also had a ‘preview’ version of the software, describing the OS as a sort of minimalism-for-smart phones approach.

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Windows 7 mobile phone platform earns reserved approval from reviewers

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Brand Management – Four Options for Focusing Your Newsletter

Recently, our blog took a look at the basics of newsletter writing. We covered some material that we’ve stressed time and time again: make sure the content is well written, pay attention to presentation, and tie it into the brand without going by rote. This is part of our message that quality always matters, and that every venture put forward should return to the same basic principles. Building on these lessons, this article highlights specific ways that a newsletter can be turned from a seemingly redundant tangent into a valuable marketing tool that speaks for itself while supporting the organization’s core mission. The basic function of the newsletter is of course to be informative. Information needs to reach a large number of people, and a newsletter is a great way of making sure people are on the same page. Yes, in theory an email can be CC’d and BCC’d to everyone on the relevant lists, but there is something psychologically distinctive about the release of a physical publication for wide review. The trick then is to make sure the information contained in the letter goes beyond the basics and into actually targeting its audience.

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Brand Management – Four Options for Focusing Your Newsletter

review

What Strategic Link Building Means To You

Strategic link building can gratify your desires to make it big online. Despite the fact that you might find that even a minor tweak in your site can get you enough traffic through search engines, there are other more sensible procedures to use your time and money to ensure a high influx of target traffic. For one, you could incorporate your link building campaign with competitive intelligence and see the change. Achieving this will not only double, but triple your conversion rate. Strategic Link Building: How To Use It? We all know that link building is related to SEO. This is why many web users also fail to see that link building can have a separate strategy away from search engine optimization as well. By itself too, strategic link building can get you a lot of traffic for your website

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What Strategic Link Building Means To You

review

Yelp cedes to small businesses’ complaints

Consumer review website Yelp has decided to review its policies in response to allegations of favouritism lodged by small businesses featured on its pages. The site, which originated in San Francisco, allows users to anonymously rate and review local businesses - from eateries and pubs to major attractions - and has come under fire for allowing advertisers to choose their featured review on the results pages. In response, CEO Jeremy Stoppelman has stated that Yelp - which lists businesses throughout the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Ireland - will no longer allow such practices. Changes to be implemented will also include allowing the site’s visitors to view content weeded out as suspect by specialised software. The decision is in direct response to the several small US businesses from across the nation who banded together for a class action lawsuit against the company, alleging they were extorting money through advertising. In an effort to maintain impartiality, Yelp has discontinued the practice to “make it even more clear that Yelp treats review content equally for all businesses, with no connection between advertising and reviews,” according to Stoppleman.

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Yelp cedes to small businesses’ complaints

review

Barcode reader spells out success on iPhone

An application which infuses the iPhone’s barcode-scanning utility with price comparison software has been announced as selling 25,000 downloads in the past week, making it the most in-demand paid-for application for the device. Sccope, which was released to the public last Tuesday with a further marketing push on Saturday, has drawn high marks from users with an average app store rating of over four.

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Barcode reader spells out success on iPhone