We hope you have had a great bank holiday weekend, here is our latest Digital RoundUP!

PUSHON PRIZES

This month we’re beginning a new series of posts that we’re calling FocusON. Each month we’ll focus our posts on a different aspect of digital marketing.

To celebrate the launch of FocusON, we’re giving away a Google Chromebook to one lucky reader. Simply visit the PushON Prizes app over at the PushON Facebook page and follow the three simple steps to be in with a chance of winning. HINT: You may want to read FocusON: An Introduction to PPC Marketing first!

GOOGLE GLASS REVIEW

This week saw in depth reviews emerging for Google Glass. The most detailed review was from engaged – Google Glass Review (Explorer Edition)

The review highlights the big price you have to fork out if you want to get this gadget and at $1,500 I don’t think many casual gadgeteers will be getting the chance to try these out. Here are the key points from the article if you don’t want to read in too much detail:

On the train yesterday, I had my regular glasses on. Things were smaller, reality a little more wobbly. Objects flatter, field of vision narrower. After three days, I finally didn’t have to venture out with contact lenses on and augmented reality headgear.

It felt nice. Glasses are my personal protection, a sense of identity I hide behind. Google Glass inevitably becomes a little part of yourself. And my face having undergone that many transformations in a single week unnerved me. Now, with my regular glasses on, sitting on the train and typing on my iPad, it felt nice to be invisible for a little while.

I was myself again

Google Glass – SNL Sketch

Saturday Night live did a hilarious sketch about Google Glass over the weekend:

INSTAGRAM TAGGING

Instagram have enabled photo tagging this past week via their Android and iOS apps. Similar to Facebook (who own Instagram) any photo that you are tagged in will display in a new tab on your Instagram profile.

This feature is called ‘Photos of You’ and when a photo is uploaded to Instagram you will be asked if you would like to tag the photo, if you are tagged much like Facebook you will receive a notification.

A good facility within the tagging feature is that only the user of a image can tag it which prevents the spam tagging that appears on Facebook.

Instagram want to make photos more accessible, so if you tag yourself at a location such as your local pub. When you visit the pub’s page it will show you photos that were taken at that location.

LINKEDIN NEW FEATURES

Last week LinkedIn launched visual profile options. This will allow members to expand their current profile to show photos, videos and presentations.

LinkedIn product manager Udi Milo wrote on the LinkedIn blog

For the first time, you will now have the ability to showcase your unique professional story using rich, visual content on your LinkedIn profile. This means you can illustrate your greatest achievements in the form of stunning images, compelling videos, innovative presentations and more.

This is LinkedIn’s foray into being more a of one stop shop for almost all your online needs. With the acquisition of Pulse and the addition of multiple features, LinkedIn is trying to become a site that is as used as Facebook.

Milo went on to say

This is just a glimpse of what’s possible. We look forward to finding new ways to bring this type of rich media across your LinkedIn experience. Stay tuned, there’s more to come.

That’s the end of our RoundUP for this week - we will leave you with this site we liked.

See you again next week, please feel free to comment or tweet us @pushonltd

The post Digital RoundUP 07/05/2013 appeared first on PushON Ltd.

LAUNCH OF TWITTER MUSIC APP

On Friday Twitter’s long awaited music app released, so what is it all about?

First of all this app only allows you to preview songs, if you want to play full tracks then you would need to connect  with a Spotify, Rdio or iTunes account.

The layout is slick and the app is user intuitive. On the left hand side you can see what was trending at a specific time and you can click on the picture which will allow you to ‘preview’ the track.

It is a good way of listening to the upcoming songs and the way it is displayed makes it easy to follow.

I did like the suggested artists feature which for me was fairly accurate. I can only speak for myself and this could be due to the fact I follow a few artists on Twitter itself.

My personal opinion is that if you already have a Spotify or iTunes account it makes sense to use the service. However, if you have not signed up with iTunes, Spotify or a similar service before it is unlikely that you would sign up after using this.

Let us know your thoughts

WHATSAPP IS ‘BIGGER THAN TWITTER’ ACCORDING TO THEIR CEO

WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said the app was now larger than Twitter in terms of monthly users. It has been reported that there are over 200 million monthly users of the app at present.

The messaging app now sees around 8 billion inbound and 12 million outbound messages per day. Obviously Twitter and WhatsApp are different forums for communication, but social network growth has stagnated as users move over to other services such as WhatsApp.

After turning down Google’s $1 billion bid WhatsApp is going from strength to strength and is going to start charging a yearly subscription of $0.99.

1 OUT OF 5 LOOKED UP ADVERTISED PRODUCT WHILE WATCHING TV

Nielsen released stats on what consumers are doing on their tablets while they are watching TV. Social networking sites and shopping websites were the two most interacted forms whilst TV was being watched.

Image search see a downfall

This week we saw an article released from Barry Schwartz on SearchEngineland, claiming that Google Images referrer traffic drops 63% since the upgrade. The study was part of statistics released from Define Media Group based on 87 different website searches on Google Images. On average they saw a decline of 63%, with the Fashion and Lifestyle, Entertainment, News and Photo photos sing a 78% decline in traffic.

This is the graph showing the weekly image search traffic from the Define Media Group study:

The categories of the image search traffic:

Google will likely say the decline is due to a decline in “phantom visits” where publishers counted impressions in the old design even when the searcher did not click through from Google to the website. When we asked the founder of Define Media Group, Marshall Simmonds, he said “we actually never saw any instance of the ‘phantom visit’ phenomenon and none of the publishers we work with and data we reviewed revealed evidence of it occurring.”

Has anyone else experienced this huge decline in Google Image Search traffic to your site?

That’s the end of our RoundUP for this week- we will leave you with firstly this useful resource for handy chrome extensions.

Also we have all used Excel and we thought we would share this article we came across.

Please tweet us @pushonltd or write a comment below, see you next week!

The post Digital RoundUP 22/04/2013 appeared first on PushON Ltd.

This past week Google announced that it will give its users a ‘digital will’ option for their online data. The premise behind it being that users can decide what happens to their online account after they die.

It has been dubbed “data-after-death” and lets users tell Google what to do with emails and other data if their account becomes inactive.

Google email and YouTube posting can be deleted after three, six or twelve months of inactivity. Alternatively they can choose to give access to the data to specific people.

This got me thinking, what happens to all your data when you have gone? What about your Facebook page or Twitter? Social media usage has been increasing at an exponential rate but no one has considered the implications to the data on there.

Both Twitter and Facebook have policies in place to allow users to request that an account be deleted in the event of users passing. Twitter users can obtain a permanent backup of all tweets from a designated account.

What if you do not want to close your Social Media accounts? How about carrying on your social media activity even after you have died?!

Here are a couple of options;

Dead Social

Dead Social enables a user to send out messages after death from various social media accounts.

The key features are;

• Send messages directly to your private Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin account
• Send out a final message and / or series of scheduled messages
• Release unseen video and audio messages

DeadSocial covers all the post-death social media options, scheduling public Facebook posts, Tweets and even LinkedIn posts go out after someone has died. The free service will publish the text, video or audio messages directly from that person’s social media accounts or it can send a series of scheduled messages in the future, say on an anniversary or a loved one’s birthday. For now, all DeadSocial messages will be public, but the company plans to add support for private messages in the future.

LivesOn

This caught my attention because I read about the service and watched an episode of Black Mirror that contained very similar themes.

Essentially LivesOn analyse’s a user’s tweets and learns about what is frequently tweeted and the style of tweets. The idea being that in time a tweet from LivesOn would be identical (or as close) to what the original user would tweet. Tweets will begin to populate on your LivesOn feed. A user has to nominate an executor for the account and they can decide whether to keep the account live.

LivesOn’s slogan is;

When your heart stops beating, you’ll keep tweeting

Legacy Locker

The previous two examples specifically dealt with social media accounts, Legacy Locker deals with your online presence as a whole. Legacy will manage your Facebook, Paypal, Linkedin, iTunes and Gmail to name but a few.

There are different levels of accounts from free to $30 a month. The free account will store and hand over 3 logins to one beneficiary and send out a farewell message to your loved ones, the top tier account has unlimited access.

Would you be interested in any of these services? It would be great to know your thoughts.

Please Tweet us @PushONLTD

The post When life logs you off, how to stay online appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Facebook Home

This past Thursday Facebook Home was announced as a new app for Android. The idea behind Home is to make the Android phone a social experience. ‘Home’ is akin to a skin on the phone with the Facebook OS constantly running.

In effect the user would be constantly on Facebook and every action is pushed from Facebook. For example ‘Chat Heads’ (seen on the third image above) shows the friends that you have had or have most contact with recently. The idea being that you can tap on the picture and start a conversation instantly.

How will Home impact on the app use on the iPhone? Will there be more adverts as a consequence? Lets us know your thoughts.

Twitter cards

Twitter introduced its new feature called Twitter cards, they richly represent photos, videos, songs and everything between.

There are three types of new Twitter cards:

App: Will show information about an app such as the name, price and rating.

Product:  It shows products by showing an image and description its aimed at retailers. Every time a user shares a product, the card will display the product in an image accompanied by a description.

Gallery: This represents an album or collection of photographs via a preview of the photo gallery. This indicates a gallery has been shared by the user.

Using 5 or More Social Networks? You are a top employee!

In a  recent survey by Evolv it was found that workers using social networks, proved to be more productive that other employees that didn’t. Evolv are a start-up agency that monitors hundreds of the Fortune 500 companies’ metrics.

It was proven that the more social networks they were on, the more productive they were in the work they did. Based on hourly time, employees that used up to four social networks, make more sales and answered customer service calls faster than those who weren’t on any social networks.

Based on the 5 social networks, it was found that they were better at sales and answering customer service calls, only slightly higher with 1.5% and 2.8%.

This means that we should all be signing up to as many social networks as possible, here’s a few to get started on: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Path, Instagram, YouTube, Foursquare, Myspace and LinkedIn.

Baidu Google Glasses

China’s largest search engine has announced it will be developing ‘digital eyewear’ similar to Google Glass. Reportedly code named “Baidu Eye”

Although reports are sketchy at present it is currently being tested and an announcement on the release date has yet to be confirmed.

Facebook Charges for Celebrity Messages

Facebook has started charging UK users a fee to send a message to ‘celebrities’. The fees range from 71 pence for a lesser known person to £10.68 for Olympic diver Tom Daley.

The price is determined by what Facebook describe as ‘the number of followers and a secret fame algorithm.’

Will you be using this service to contact someone famous?

That’s the end of the RoundUP for this week, we will leave you with this site which should be of interest if you work within SEO.

The post Digital RoundUP 08/04/2013 appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Google Reader

Last week via the Google Reader blog it was announced that Google Reader would be shut down as of 1^st July.

The statement said;

usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products.If you want to retain your Reader data, including subscriptions, you can do so through Google Takeout.

This has upset and affected a lot of its current users such as myself! It’s clear that Google want us to be using Google + as a resource for any news feeds we have. However at present there is no way to export your subscription list without doing it manually into G+.

I like many users use Google Reader on a daily basis; it’s the way I get all my news first thing in the morning all in one place.  On the other hand, will we really miss it?

RSS feeds have been around for a long time and how we digest our news has changed, these days people check Twitter for the latest goings on, or follow people/ groups on social media.

But what are the alternatives when Google Reader closes?

Feedly

Since the announcement that Google Reader is going to close I tried out Feedly and have not been alone with around 500,000 new users signing up for the service in the last few days.

The best feature is the fact that by signing using your Google account all your Google Reader subscriptions transfer over, which is great if you have a large number of subscriptions. The layout is simple and easy to use and it does what Google Reader does and will satisfy most users.

Flipboard

Currently Flipboard is stricty an app for Tablets and smart phones. It uses RSS feeds much like the way Feedly does however it is presented in an aesthetically pleasing way.

The post Digital RoundUP 18/03/2013 appeared first on PushON Ltd.

PlayStation 4 Announced 

On Wednesday night the worst kept secret in video gaming was finally revealed with the announcement of the Sony Playstation 4. During a two hour presentation the assembled media were told and shown the capabilities of the ‘most powerful platform ever’. However we did not get to see the console and were only shown the  ”DualShock 4″ controller.

Interestingly there was an acknowledgement from Sony that the previous console was difficult to develop for. This time round they contacted games developers whilst the console was being made, hopefully this means that more games companies want to get involved on the PS4.

So what can we expect with the PS4?

• A highly powerful AMD x86-based 8-core CPU, an enhanced GPU and amazingly 8GB of DDR5 RAM. This all means this will be the most powerful games console ever made and would go toe-toe with most gaming PC’s on the market.
• Games will still be on Blu-ray discs but all games will be fully downloadable, and can be played instantly with downloading continuing as you play.
• The PS4 will have an ‘Instant On’ feature which means the console never turns off but rather hibernates. This means that the user can instantly return to whatever was being played prior to turning off the console.
• The controller features a ‘share’ button which means gameplay can be instantly uploaded to Facebook and video streaming sites.
• The “PlayStation App” will enable iPhone, iPad, and Android based smartphones and tablets to become second screens
• PlayStation 4 Eye – 1280 x 800 camera (Xbox Kinect style feature)

Overall the PlayStation 4 is a smart piece of kit, the biggest disappointment was the fact the console was absent from the press conference. However this means it will most likely get shown at E3 in June. We are looking forward to it, now its over to Microsoft.

The PlayStation 4 is scheduled to be on sale in December 2013.

Google Glass

Google have been developing their revolutionary augmented reality head-mounted display for quite a while now, with little being shown apart from the headset over the last few years.

Now they are trying to push the sales in a social campaign by asking the question, ‘What would you do if you had Glass?’. To enter the competition you have to answer in 50 words of less with #ifihadglass using Google+ or Twitter, photos can be used and a short 15 second video can also be included.

The main drawback is that this is only available to U.S residents, meaning we will just have to write our own #ifihadglass tweet:

‘#ifihadglass I would visit the Wonders of the World and compare them using Glass to show the originals compared to 2013’s Wonders of the World.’ – Pedrom Pourkashanian

‘#ifihadglass I would go to a new city where I couldn’t speak the language and try and get a date by the end of the day’ – Jonny Pennington

‘#ifihadglass I could finally be on time for stuff without getting lost for 2 hours’ – James Whitelock

So I pose this question to you… What would you do if you had Glass?

Find more details here – if you are in the US you can enter on Twitter or Google+

interflora DISAPPEARS

Last Thursday, Martin Macdonald broke the news that Interflora had effectively been ‘wiped off the face of the Internet.’ Google hit the flower delivery service with a penalty which saw it virtually disappear from the SERPs for prime keywords it was previously ranking #1 for, including its own brand name. The company was sitting at the top of the search results for search terms such as ‘flowers’, ‘flower delivery’ and ‘florist’, but now finds itself buried in the 5^th or 6^th page.

We can only speculate the full extent of Interflora’s bad behaviour, but it appears a long history of bad link building practices has caught up with them. A quick Link Detox showed over 70% toxic and suspicious links, this includes advertorials, link networks, web directories and paid blog posts on abandoned networks.

Reminder: Google’s guidelines on paid links that pass PageRank also apply to “advertorial” pages. See goo.gl/PhwsY for more info.

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) February 22, 2013

Following this incident, last Friday Matt Cutts posted a polite reminder on Google’s Webmaster Central blog that selling links is naughty and can lead to a penalty. It will be interesting to see how, and if, Interflora recover from this nightmare, whether they move to a new domain or start a long and gruelling recovery process, it won’t be easy.

The post Digital RoundUP 25/02/2013 appeared first on PushON Ltd.

How we consume the news has evolved and will continue to do so, from newspapers to downloading the digital edition on your iPad. There is no need to own a TV as there are apps that allow content such as Sky News that can be viewed from your phone. Then there is the most revolutionary way we acquire our news on a daily basis… Twitter.

For example I am a football supporter (the team shall remain nameless) before every match I am eager to know the line-up. If the game was televised I would wait until the broadcaster released that information.

That has all changed now; I follow football correspondents who get the line-up information as soon as they have it and immediately release it on to Twitter, usually an hour before kick-off. By the time Sky Sports announces the team I would have known this for half an hour.

In years gone by, you would have waited for the nightly news to hear of stories from around the world. Using a social media channel such as Twitter, the news will be reported as it develops, such as the raid on Osama Bin Laden which was first noticed by a blogger in Abbottabad who reported hearing explosions.

Trending topics on Twitter allow information to be spread at a rate that news organisations could only dream of. Although there are news aggregators I think Twitter is by far the best method of getting it.

This brings me on to Saturday Night’s episode of the new series on ITV1 called “Splash”. If you had the fortune (or misfortune) of watching the programme, viewers took to Twitter to vent their opinions on the show. For those who are unfamiliar with the premise of the show it features “celebrities” (I use that term loosely) who are coached by Tom Daley (Olympic Diver) and are judged. Each week a celebrity is voted out until there is a winner.

During the broadcast the hashtag “#splash” was shown so that viewers of the show could tweet as it was going on. This soon turned to into a wave of negative tweets such as:

Omg #splash is just dire!! What the hell have they dressed Vern in and don’t get me started on Jade’s gold bikini. Is this TV in 2013 #fail

— Michelle Eagleton (@showbizshel) January 5, 2013

That awful sound you’re hearing on ITV1 tonight is a barrel being scraped at the very bottom #Splash

— RandomSillyNonsense (@MrRandomSilly) January 5, 2013

#Splash drinking game. 1. Drink every time you see something cringeworthy.2. If you’re still alive by the end of the show, you win.

— Eye Gandy (@EyeGandy) January 5, 2013

UK celeb diving TV show #splash is the end of television as we know it. Drown me now.

— Myf Warhurst (@MyfWarhurst) January 5, 2013

Although there was a large volume of negative tweets, the show was viewed by 5.6 million people which is a 23.6% share. This was more than “Take Me Out” which got 4.5 million which was a 18.6% viewers share.

Previously, when a TV show was being viewed, getting feedback was a fairly arduous process. In December 2012, Nielsen and Twitter announced that they would collaborate to create a new system for TV ratings. The traditional ratings system will be supplemented to take into account mobile and online conversations.

I envisage Twitter refining its system so that when a user logs in there would be a specific news section which would aggregate to show what the breaking news is by showing user interaction via Retweets and Hashtags.

Another reason Twitter works so well is the fact that users divulge information far more freely than conventional means.

How do you get your news? Is Twitter your main resource or is it a combination of different factors?

The post Twitter Makes a #Splash appeared first on PushON Ltd.