Facebook Home hits 1 million Users 

Facebook Home has hit 1 million downloads one month after being made available for Android. Despite this number it appears that demand is on the wane, with 500,000 downloads achieved with the first 10 days of release. However it took twice as long for another 500,000 downloads.

Home has also attracted negative attention in the form of reviews on the Google Play page with over 16,000 two star reviews.

It is perhaps too early to write off Facebook home but with a user base of 1 billion and only 1 million users signed up,the signs do not look good. Have a read of our Facebook home review here.

Matt Cutts – Taking down network of links  

Matt Cutts the head of Google’s webspam team said this past week Google had taken action against several thousand link sellers that were part of a link network.

In fact, we took action on several thousand linksellers in a paid-link-that-passes-PageRank network earlier today.

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) May 15, 2013

Twitter CEO resignation

Dick Costolo has resigned as Twitter director of the UK arm of Twitter. This is due to Twitter UK being struck off companies’ house after failing to return any accounting data.

Tweetdeck, a Twitter subsidiary, was also struck off on May 7^th and due to these irregularities Costolo felt it necessary to leave his post.

In reality being struck off from Companies House will not impact on Twitter’s overall business but the restructuring of the company in the UK points to a possible relisting with Companies House in the near future.

European Search Awards 2013

PushON had fantastic news last week after being shorlisted for the European Search Awards for Best Use of Search in Retail for Defib Shop – putting search at the heart of the campaign along with ChillFactore hit the slopes. Our third nomination was for Thomson Al Fresco – making holidays personal, in the Best Use of Search Travel & Leisure category.

Google I/O 2013

Google Wallet - 

On Wednesday we saw Google I/O 2013 getting underway with Google unveiling a host of updates and features to their current services. A new Gmail feature allows users to send up to $10,000 via an email message using Google Wallet.

Will this be able to compete with Paypal?

Google+ Redesign -

Google also introduced a new design layout for Google+, with a similar layout to Pinterest, having stories spread across your timeline featuring photos from that story.

At Google I/O 2013, the company announced 41 new features for Google+, the most important being related to design, messaging, and photo sharing.

Google+ has taken a step towards the focus of the photo and video content similar to Pinterest, improving visibility of stories, and creating an addition to Hang Outs by introducing the stand alone app that can be used for chat.

Automated hashtags have also been introduced, which work similar to those for Twitter, by suggesting a topic for you to include in the hashtags. Google have suggested that it will provide better chances of finding the desired content by adding trending tags.

Another feature is the addition of photo hosting and sharing. The images that are uploaded onto Google+ using the Auto Backup option, now use higher resolutions (up to 2048 pixels) and allow for editing – Autofix, Add Text and Rotate. Autofix allows users to edit with a single click the image saturation, brightness, or contrast. Auto Highlight and Auto Awesome will provide automatic options for Best Shot or creating animations form consecutive photos.

Before:

After:

Google Glass potentially illegal in UK

John Lanchester who writes for London Review of Books, suggested that the technology breaches basic data protection provisions, adding that the recording facility is a breach of ECHR privacy laws.

“In the UK anyway, many or most of the recording functions of Google Glass seem likely to be illegal,” Lanchester said.

“The 1998 Data Protection Act defines data as ‘information which is being processed by equipment operating automatically in response to instructions; or is recorded with the intention that it should be processed.’ I don’t speak fluent lawyer, but it seems clear that definition encompasses the recording function of Glass.”

Google announce Voice Search 

The way we search as we know it could be extinct in a few years if Google’s bold new idea becomes widespread. Google has announced it is bringing voice search to the desktop, via apps such as Chrome we could go about our business without having to type a key.

Although it has been announced details are sketchy about when and how it will all work, watch this space!

That is the end of the RoundUP this week, we will roundoff with a site that we have recently discovered and had alot of fun with. It is called Geoguessr and works using Google’s Streetview, check it out and let us know what you think.

Until next week, farewell

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The awards ceremony, held in London last week, was a fantastic event featuring some of the most well-respected agencies in the industry. Our category in particular featured a very strong shortlist, so we’re extremely pleased to have come out on top.

Congratulations to all of the other winners on the night – we look forward to next year’s event!

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PushON are up for the Long Term Marketing prize for client work which has seen them manage Little Greene’s expansion into mobile, as well as their SEO and pay-per-click strategy.

The Drum nod marks the second time PushON’s work with Little Greene has been acknowledged, following on from a 2009 win at the Big Chip Awards.

Kieron Hughes, PushON Online Marketing Manager, has worked closely with Little Greene. He said: “It’s great to once again be recognised for our work with Little Greene, after previously picking up a Big Chip award back in 2009. They have a fantastic range of products, and our strategy over the past four years has helped them to reach a bigger audience online, helping their business to grow in the process.”

The Drum Marketing Awards takes place at the Emirates Stadium on May 9th.

Wish us luck!

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The conference or “ideas” strand covers 2 days and 3 rooms. Covering topics such as infographics, online alter egos, the internet of things, online journalism and hacking culture brought to you by visionary people such as Meg Pickard, James Bridle, Kars Alfrink and Chris Speed. And being the geek I am… I can’t wait.

The “art” strand of FutureEverything features artists exploring data visualisation in the main exhibition, “The Data Dimension” and includes an award for the most inspirational digital innovations.

The music side of things… well, I’m not so qualified to comment on but from what I can tell FutureEverything have gathered together some of THE most talked about acts from the last year or so including Beach House, Gang Gang Dance, Warpaint, Steve Reich and Das Racist. It’s pretty impressive. And can be booked here.

I’m going to try to get down to most of the Thursday Conference, and if I get the chance I’ll check out some art and music n’ that too. Keep an eye on our blog for live blogs, photo blogs, interviews and what not.

OR, get down there yourself. Book tickets for FutureEverything.

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So it was lovely to get an email from How Do saying that we’ve been nominated for best SEO & PPC agency in the How Do awards. Exciting news! We’ll find out who’s won on the 26th May. Fingers crossed.

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The PushON team winning the Best Use of Search Award

This is something of a slightly belated post, but you know, sometimes “stuff” gets in the way. The “stuff” in question being launching a few websites, the start of the World Cup and an almighty hangover. But to get to the point, last week we won the Big Chip Award for the “Best Use of Search” for the second year running. Not an easy feat if you consider there is a lot of very fine competition in the area. The client in question is Love Those Shoes. The campaign covered a lot of ground and drew on a wide range of skills. Love Those Shoes have a lot of excellent resource in-house and were already trading successfully online. They just wanted help generating better results. The campaign involved technical assistance,  keyword research, conversion analysis and hefty dose of social media. I guess this is an ideal case study as to how an online marketing campaign really should be applied, there is no “one size fits all”. It is a campaign that fit the client like glove. Special mention should go to Sam who ran this campaign immaculately. Three years running? Why not…..

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We’ve finally recovered from The Big Chip Awards.  We had a great night, but the highlight has to be winning the award for ‘Best Use of Search’.

‘Best Use of Search’ is the category which epitomises our work.  We build search engine friendly websites, drive search engine traffic to websites sites, monitor the results and build on the findings… but we also look at the human elements of making sure the content they find is what they need, easy to navigate and encourages them to convert.

I was ecstatic to be shortlisted in this category, and thought we would have a hard time beating Fast Web Media with their work for big brand Bravissimo.

That must have been a great campaign to work on – what opportunities you have for link bait with a site full of big breasts!

Fast Web Media were also shortlisted this year for two categories in the Revolution awards. (I have no idea whether they won though because the results were on revolutionawards.com in a 18MB PDF which made my browser crash).

We were also up against Feather Brooksbank with their search marketing campaign launch for Lakeland Leather.  Another very well respected UK agency with offices in Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Leads.

They have also had recognition for the quality of their work, and won the Star Award at the Scottish Marketing Society Awards earlier this year.

We had a fab time at the Awards – we chatted to our industry peers, the food was wonderful and we drank lots of wine. There is a video of our table at the moment the results were read out, but I think it may be too cringworthy to post.

And Sam was so pleased at our success that he went home early to redecorate his apartment in celebration… he aparently made a very thorough job of it.

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You might already know this… or not: The Big Chip Awards are the biggest digital awards outside London. They are judged by the industry for the industry. They are judged by people who know what they are doing. So these awards are about more than just selling tables; The Big Chips are about quality.

PushON are involved in four short-listed projects. This delights us enormously.

First of all (and closest to our hearts), we have been short-listed for “The Best Use of Search” for the second year running.

Our client is The Little Greene. They make paint so good it’s used by English Heritage. We’ve massively increased traffic to their website and the proportion of visitors who purchase from them.

We also helped out Axon Garside with our mutual client, K3SCS. The Episodic Mockumentary based around the Factory has delivered significant new business for them. It’s shortlisted in 2 categories:

Best Online Brand Development and Best Digital Marketing Campaign

And finally,

The marvelous AHD 168 is shortlisted for best use of animation. We didn’t make it, but along with SKV Communications we made sure that plenty of people knew about it by distributing the campaign online.

The awards are on the 18th of June at the Palace hotel in Manchester. There are still tickets available. If you are involved in digital in any way, you really need to be there.

To try and bring us some good karma for our award shortlisting, we’re offering a free website analysis to you or anyone else you know who trades online. Do you know someone who could use some help with their online marketing from a quality agency? You know what to do.

The post PushON Gorging on Chips! appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Our entry this year is for our online marketing work for The Little Greene Paint Company purveyors of fine paint and wallpaper based in Openshaw, Manchester.

We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed but always end up enjoying the evening regardless of whether we win or lose.

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As you may have noticed we have been working with Axon Garside and K3(ERP Software Specialists) to promote the video series and advise on strategies. We were bought in to help engage with relevent target audiences and try to encourage people to sign up for further updates. This has led to us trying out a whole range of exciting and innovative strategies and gauge people’s opinions. So far the reaction to the video has been extremely positive and such an approach has only helped strengthen K3′s position in the market place.

K3′s decision to implement such a marketing campaign helps them stand out amongst its competition which is extremely important in such a competitive global market place. People can now associate K3 with being innovative, fun and forward thinking which we think will help establish them as a key market player.

Lets hope K3 add to their recent success at the Queens Award for Enterprise with Axon Garside and The Factory ERP video series.

You can view the latest episode which was officially launched today below or alternatively visit the mini site.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sR9__NZlDk[/youtube]

Good luck guys!

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