Here are some blog post and interesting sites I found in December:
The 10 Craziest Offices Around
Ever thought of brightening up your office with a slide? Or perhaps a fairground carousel? Nobody would do that you say, that would be a ridiculous! Well, think again.
The Best Christmas Parties….Ever
The festive season is here and talk around the water cooler has turned to the Christmas party. If all you are expecting is a few curly sandwiches, warm wine and entertainment from the worst behaved employees, come and dream of what could be.
Twisted Sifter
The best of the Web, sifted, sorted, and summarized.
Zane Lowe FM
Zane Lowe Playlists & Tracklisting. Download, listen to or buy tracks that Zane Lowe played on BBC radio 1.
This is a short film co-written and produced by the 99moves copywriter, Rosie Box. It stars Louie Jenkins as a young boy who discovers a stash of money and heads off on an adventure. A heart-warming tale which is in the process of being entered into film festivals.
It’s a story of a boy who finds a large sum of money and does what every other little boy would, find the nearest sweet shop. The boy was played by Louie Jenkins, who did an remarkable job for an adult let alone a 10 year old.
The sweet shop was owned by Keith and Gill Simms at Truly Scrumptious.
99moves have created a short film on video SEO and the benefits of using it. Marketing videos in search engines can be really beneficial and great branding. You can get videos on your own site, Facebook and most video sharing sites to appear in the search engines.
The 99moves video is well made and puts a strong case together for video SEO so I really recommend giving it a watch and thinking whether you should be doing video SEO.
So why do Video SEO?
Video has been a main part of the web for years with users sharing and uploading content, which marketers have latched onto and use for promoting a number of different things.
“20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute” Source: Mashable. But until now Video SEO hasn’t been thought off or even understood. The method of getting videos to rank high in search remains puzzling at best, aggravating at worst.
It’s easy to upload videos to YouTube nearly anyone can do it. With so many videos uploaded it is easy for your video to be lost in the mass of data, this is where video seo can come in. By optimising, building links etc to your video like you would with the SEO on your site you can not only just appear in YouTube for key phrases but you can appear in Google, Bing etc as well. This will increase the exposure of your video and give you maximum visibility.
The benefits of ranking high in Google are obvious but ranking a video in Google can be even more beneficial. If you look at a page of search results and you have your video appearing above the web page results this can be very appealing to the eye and attract a lot of clicks.
Here is an example of one of the 99moves case studies and what benefits it brings:
Magicard is one of 99moves clients and they have a video on a HoloKote Tool they created. They wanted this to rank for the key phrase “ID Card Security” which they don’t target on their site. So 99moves uploaded the video to YouTube applied some SEO optimisation and achieved 1st position for this phrase.
They now have their logo appearing top of the search results and even if you don’t click and view their video you have noticed their logo which is great brand awareness. This is also more likely to be picked up and embedded on sites and shared around the web.
Video SEO could be used in many different campaigns such as:
Its here! The full length video for the new single from Foreign Beggars 'Contact' produced by Noisia. Taken from the forthcoming album United Colours of Beggattron OUT NOW on Dented Records / Essential Music. POW!
Videos are becoming a much bigger part of the web and lots of companies starting to include them in their marketing strategies. One of the big examples of this is viral video which has really taken of in the past couple of years.
We can also see Google changing and is now including images, videos, news and other media types in its main search. So this is giving companies a real opportunity to dominate a search term in Google by having different types of media linking to their brand all over the result page.
The main type of media that has really interested me is video. People tend only to think about ranking in YouTube or Vimeo, but a trick often missed is actually ranking in Google. An example of this would be Ultra Magicard who don't have their site ranking for 'id card security' but have their own branded video which really stands out in the results. View now
The company involved in achieving this result is called 99moves and they only to do Video SEO. We will start to see more companies pop up that specialise in this field during 2010.
I think brands will really have start thinking about video SEO and get ahead of their competitors at this early stage.
Rise Up is the eighth studio album by Cypress Hill, which was released on April 20, 2010.[4] It is their first album of new material in six years, following 2004's Till Death Do Us Part, and their first to be released on EMI's Priority Records, their first venture away from Columbia, who handled all of their previous releases. Buy Rise Up - Cypress Hill
You might be thinking what am I talking about? but Clowncore really is a type of music.
ED COX is a DJ from England who uses an accordion mixed with hard beats like hardcore, gabber and other types of techno. He creates this unique sound which is like a sending an old school raver to the circus tripping on acid whilst riding on a giant gorilla. OK well you have to listen to it and then you can try and describe it yourself.
Download or listen to Zane Lowe tracks as they are played on BBC radio 1.
When Zane Lowe is playing live on radio 1 zanelowe.fm adds the tracks with multiple download and playing options. You can play or download the song from these sites:
Use Google profiles to link all your online accounts so it is easy to find.
A Google profile is a easy way present yourself on Google products to other Google users. You can control how you appear on Google and tell others about yourself.
With a Google profile, you can easily share your web content on one central location. You can include, for example, links to your blog, online photos, and other profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. You have control over what others see. Your profile won't display any private information unless you've explicitly added it.
Help people find the right information
when they search for you on Google.
Create a personal page
that links to your blog and other profiles.
Keep family and friends up to date
with your contact info and photos.
The recent comments made by Tory MP Greg Hands surrounding the new NHS 60th anniversary logo, which cost £12,000 to create, has resulted in uproar in the design industry and has raised issues within the public sector (PS).
I understand the design industries reaction to the comments made by Hands, his comment of;
“Modern graphic design [software] packages surely allow anyone with an average brain to design something as good as, or better than, what we see in front of us here”
first made steam blow out of my ears, but looking at the new NHS logo you can understand why someone of little design experience would think this. If you only look at the finished product of the NHS logo you might also question the high cost for this project. However, if you have ever worked with the public sector you might know of the tedious processes and meetings you have to go through to get a contract started, never mind completed.
Many companies say that when they take on public sector work there is rarely a clear proposal that provides a good understanding of what is required. This is followed by endless drawn out meetings where design ideas are pondered over by people with no relevant qualifications or experience who only know what they don’t like and invariably throw out the best ideas.
I believe the main problem is the projected processes the public sector is chained to which only makes it possible for large companies, that are geared up to cope with the bureaucratic process, to compete for PS contracts.
Greg Hands says; ‘Surely adding two digits doesn’t need to be outsourced at all. Civil servants can do this themselves.’ On the face of it £12,000 for what seems to be a poorly executed logo does seem excessive but what we don’t know is the journey the agency was put through to get to the point of the final design. It could well be that £12,000 doesn’t adequately compensate them for the time and commitment made? We don’t know.
What we do know is that if the Public Sector cleaned up and simplified the processes it uses to award and manage these outsource projects it would bring the agencies costs down. That in its self would make way for a larger variety of providers to have a chance to compete for PS contracts and this could bring considerable benefits.
You might be thinking what am I talking about? but Clowncore really is a type of music.
