Do you Social by Mobile??

Neilson-Netrankings have released a news release about the number of people in the UK using social media sites via their mobile phones.  The big players are all represented with Facebook dominating with a 9% mobile internet reach.  As a Facebook user and an iPhone user I can vouch for the ease of getting around that site especially using the dedicated iPhone interface.

Although I am still trying to get my head around these stats:

(1) 44% of mobile subscribers belong to a social media site. One in four of these use their mobile phone for social media activities.
(2) 1.7% of mobile phone subscribers visited a social media site each month in Q1 this year.

- Isn’t (1) saying that approx 10% of mobile users access social media sites, while (2) is saying that only 1.7%, but  I am sure those stats guys know what they are talking about!

The travel social network site WAYN showed the biggest discrepancy with PC internet, jumping from the 27th most popular PC web based social site, to be the 7th most popular mobile internet social site.  Must be a lot of backpackers facing big international roaming charges when they get home...

I can only see the use of mobile social growing as people feel the necessity to update the world with every little moment of their life - I already see too many 'train from Reading delayed' kind of status updates as it is!

Old computers to be turned into fuel

The boom in computers and the high turnover of equipment in the last decade has created a massive environmental headache around the world. The circuit boards in computers contain high levels of pollutants such as heavy metals that can potentially harm humans.

A group of Romanian and Turkish researchers have come to the rescue and developed an ingenious way to recycle printed circuit boards into environment friendly raw materials. The process involves exposing the boards to a combination of high temperatures, catalysts, and chemical filtration.  The processing method, removes almost all the toxic substances, resulting in oils that can be safely used as fuel or raw materials which in turn could be used in fuel, plastic, and other useful consumer products.

With the price of petrol reaching ridiculous levels and the rapid turn over of computer equipment this news can’t come at a better time.

Read all about the recycling process. You need to be warned, it isn't exactly light reading.

What to do when rankings fluctuate

Like they are now!

For those of us who watch the search engines more than is probably healthy in decent society of late we have noticed a lot of fluctuation in the rankings. Even more than usual, and even that was more than usual compared to the time before that!

Something is going on and as always we have no timeframe on when it will end. And in the meantime if like us you are seeing sites rank highly one minute, then lower, then a new site will pop in and then you will be back where you were previously it can all be a bit disorientating!

And being control freaks, well we are, we want to be able to stop it and get things calmed down. But we can't! So we think, OK, lets make some changes to the site as this may help. But actually this will probably not help either. There are possibly so many factors affecting rankings that by making a change you may inadvertantly make things worse.

Or if you think, OK, I made a change last week and now I am 5 positions higher so if I do more and roll that out across the site then I will get even higher, and on more terms - right? Er no, unless you know exactly what has affected your site then during any period of fluctuation the best thing you can do is carry on as normal. Do not over react one way or the other.

This can be hard, doing nothing or little when you see your rankings move around can be really tough! But believe me, it's the best way forward. Wait until things settle down and take stock then. Only when things are back to nromal is it best to asses the way forward.

Of course, Google may not settle down, the 'everflux' now seems to be the 'alwaysflux' but we may have to deal with that if it ends up being a permanent fixture.

Google and Baidu launch sections for Sichuan earthquake

Google and Baidu Launch Sections for Earthquake in China

On the 12th of May a violent earthquake shook Sichuan in the Wenchuan County in South West China and has killed more than 10 000 people. The toppled thousands of homes, trapped students in schools and the tremors were so strong that they could be felt as far away as our offices in Shanghai and also in Beijing and Bangkok.

Google and Baidu, the two most successful search engines in China, have both launched earthquake related sections on their sites to help the victims of the disaster. You can donate money, get up-to-date information, and pray for victims.

Google has created a news update with their Google Maps. A user can view news and see exactly where it happened.

And Baidu, has themed their logo and adopted a very gloomy design, and by clicking on the logo you will be taken to a site with the latest updates about the earthquake and join other browsers in prayer.

 

Google Alternatives

Even though there is absolutely no doubt that Google dominates the search engine market, this doesn’t prevent other companies from targeting a small piece of the big search engines pie.

Visual Search Engines might not be able to provide the accuracy and the quality that Google offers, but they put forward a more enjoyable experience. If you are tired of the typical search results lists you can try out the following

• Search me: Lets you review the pages quickly to find the information you are looking for. The results are pictures of the web pages that match with your keyword search.
• Kartoo.com: Metasearch engine with visual display interfaces. It gathers the results, compiles them and represents them in a series of interactive maps through a proprietary algorithm.
• Quintura: Lets you enter a keyword and builds a cloud of words to help you focus your search results.
• Ms. Dewey: Search engine with a touch of humour that plays pre-recorded movie clips of a female actress to entertain you while searches are being performed.

The majority of these visual search engines are metasearch engines, which means that they are using the major engines to provide the result, but they are doing so in their own unique way.

Tamar continues to search out new innovations in search, and endeavours to keep you at the forefront.

Microsoft launches rival to Google Sky

Ever dreamed of going to space? Haven't we all? Well the dreaming is over, Microsoft launched its WorldWide Telescope yesterday and it is rumoured to be similiar to Google Sky. Google Sky is of course part of Google Earth that allows users to explore space and other galaxies and it is powered by photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Microsoft's new offering however allows users to see the same images as scientists at NASA because the images you will see are from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey among others.

Even the scientific community is excited about the new software. According to Roy Gould, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "Users can see the X-ray view of the sky, zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then cross-fade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from 1,000 years ago." He also stated his enthusiasm about the implication of the software in a statement saying : "I believe this new creation from Microsoft will have a profound impact on the way we view the universe."

Bill Gates explained the importance behind the WorldWide Telescope in a statement : "The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe.Our hope is that it will inspire young people to explore astronomy and science, and help researchers in their quest to better understand the universe."

Why not go ahead and see what all the hype is about!