We met up at a local hotel, turned off phones, put auto-responders on our email and got stuck in to some bacon buttys.

We discussed everything; what we want to achieve and how we’re going to achieve it. We talked about us as a company, our products, our service, our clients, our office, our pool skills, the list goes on.

And now, we’re all pumped up! The next few months are going to be a very exciting time for both our clients and Giant Peach.

“This is a box…”

Joey and Dan

All the Steve’s

Dan finding something funny!

Why doesn’t my hair look like this?

Job done!

Despite initial excitement, however, 3D fell out of use because of the poor viewing conditions in most theatres and due to the complex equipment required to exhibit 3D movies. There have, of course, been occasional revivals with the likes of “Jaws 3D”, “Comin at Ya!” and “Friday the 13th – Part 3” but until recently the little cardboard specs just failed to inspire and the 3D effects used, simply as a means to an end.

Recent advances in computer animation technology, digital cameras and filming techniques has revived the trend – showcased by the incredible “Avatar” in 2009. Since then there seems to have been a glut of 3D films in the offing and now 3D Home Cinema is becoming a reality.

With the demand for 3D continuing to grow will this trend spill over into the internet with more demand for truly 3D websites?

The only completely 3D stereoscopic website that I’ve come across is

Swell 3D - Stereoscopic Website

http://www.swell3d.com/

You will need the 3D specs to get the best from it but it does work and is fun to browse for as long as your eyes hold out.

Apart from the novelty factor is there much point?

Well, unless the 3D effect can be used to enhance the end user experience, for most applications, probably not – but having said that, consider Architects, Interior Designers and Garden Landscapers; these are sectors where the user could potentially be immersed within a design concept or be presented with 3D examples of previous work undertaken to help get a better visual appreciation of what’s on offer.

With the ever emergent 3D technology being release to market it’s only going to be a matter of time before we start seeing more 3D content in mainstream applications but until the take up of 3D monitors becomes more widespread – for most of us we’ll have to be content with keeping our 3D specs in our back pockets…

It’s a hard life!

Harry and Mum

Harry and Gran

Which countries are are responsible for the most spam? (Between January-March 2010)

1. USA 13.1%
2. India 7.3%
3. Brazil 6.8%
4. S Korea 4.8%
5. Vietnam 3.4%
6. Germany 3.2%
7. United Kingdom 3.1%
8. Russia 3.1%
9. Italy 3.1%
10. France 3.0%
11. Romania 2.5%
12. Poland 2.4%

Others 47.3%

One noticeable exclusion from the list is China. The country has been associated with notorious spam campaigns, but they find themselves out of the Top 12.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, who conducted the report had this to say, “All eyes aren’t so much on which countries are on the list, but the one which isn’t. China has earned itself a bad reputation in many countries’ eyes for being the launch pad of targeted attacks against foreign companies and government networks, but at least in the last 12 months they have demonstrated that the proportion of spam relayed by their computers has steadily declined”

There’s always a chance that if this study were conducted for a different two month period the results would be different. Still, it’s not great to see that the majority of spam (by quite a large percentage) is coming from the U.S and the little ol’ UK coming in above Russia. Will this report lead to provisions being taken to bring the percentage down? I doubt it.

Web analytics are now so much more than just a tool for measuring website traffic. They can be used for business research or market research, they allow you to understand what’s working on your site, and what isn’t, allowing you to fine tune your website to make it even more effective. They can even help you to measure the results of traditional print advertising campaigns by showing how the traffic to your website changed after the launch of a new advertising campaign.

Yes, website analytics are a must for any new website and at Giant Peach we recommend Google Analytics. Google Analytics does everything! It provides you with crucial information about your website, your website visitors and, if used effectively, it will help you to reach great heights in your online marketing efforts.

Below are some of the basic bits of information you can get from Google Analytics (there’s so much more!)

Number of Visits / Visitors

Google Analytics records both visits and visitors on your site. Visits stand for the number of individual hits initiated by all the visitors to your site. This data helps you keep a track of the progress you are making in attracting new and existing visitors to your site.

Number of Page views

A page view is a request to load a single page of an Internet site. An easy explanation of Pageview is the total number of times any page is viewed. For example; if a visitor lands on page X, goes to page Y, and then back to page X, that is counted as 3 page views because there were 3 page loads. This is great for learning what pages are most popular on your website.

Traffic Sources

This data gives you the Source through which a visitor reached your site. There are many ways in which a visitor can get to your site, the main source of traffic being Search engines – predominantly Google – as that’s where most of us start our online experience! From this you can see if your website optimisation is working, or that Ad you placed with that online directory. Is Yell.com really worth the money? Using Google Analytics you’ll know after a month.

Map Overlay

This is section is pretty impressive, it gives a diagrammatical view of the geographical location from where visitors visited your site. It can be broken into Country, Territory and City.

Time spent on the site

How long do you think people spend on your site?

Top Landing pages

Landing page is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an Ad or a search engine result link.

Top Exit pages

Exit page is the page from where a visitor leaves your site. It can be interpreted as a page where viewers didn’t find what they were looking for and so went elsewhere.

Keyword typed in search engine

A keyword is an inquiry expressed in the form of a word or words that your visitor typed into Google in order to find what they’re looking for – your website. This is a very important data.

Google Analytics can be put onto your website in minutes… so what are you waiting for?

Our bespoke Content Management System gives Sloanes the control they require. They can simply and effectively edit the content of each page, as well as manage the photography within the wedding and session work galleries.

The result is a beautiful, dynamic website that positions Sloanes well out in front of their competition.

www.sloanesbespokehair.co.uk

Giant Peach design and develop websites and web applications to many businesses within the Salisbury area. We also service a wide range of clients throughout the UK and the world with clients in Ireland, Scotland, Denmark and Australia. For more information on our services go here!

The magnificent CPC464 – dam that loading sound.

The ultimate in dots and lines. - I was probably the best in the world at this…

Invader from Space

I loved these!

A time before computers

The joy of a Joystick

My first and only scalextric - The Escort XR3i – an 80′s icon!

SNES and Nintendo64

Last but not least, my iMac – the first of many.

Looking at the above reminds me that it’s easy to forget how far technology’s come and the pace of that advancement. I wonder what my children will find in my attic in 30 years…

At Giant Peach we only build sites using web standards compliant code (this means XHTML and style sheets CSS). There are several reasons for this, including: readability, accessibility, and speed. But why should you care if your website is built to web standards?

How do YOU benefit from Web Standards?

• Easier to maintain (less code, modular code)
• Cheaper hosting costs (less code)
• Better search engine ranking
• Content can be restyled easily without changing code
• Provides users with customisation ability
• Provides print versions without replicating content
• Improves accessibility

How do your VISITORS benefit from Web Standards?

• Files will download faster (less code, no overall tables, valid code)
• Content is accessible to wider range of users (normal users, blind users, vision impaired users etc)
• Content is accessible to wider range of devices (screen readers, browsers, text based browsers, hand helds, search robots, printers etc)
• Allows users to customise site appearance (style switchers)
• Provides print friendly versions for all pages

Two of the main benefits above in particular, will mean lower future costs. The first is that your site is much easier to update because the content and style (look and feel) are separated. The second is even better. It is possible to completely redesign the look and feel of your site without touching the content.

The real question isn’t ‘Why build your website to web standards?’ What should be asked is ‘Why wouldn’t you build your site to web standards?’

Maximum Ride

Marker’s Mark

asics – marathon sponsor

Tidbits

HopiHari theme Park

WWF Black Cloud

Ella Bache: 24, 000 Peaches

Jobs In Town – fantastic!

Coops paint

And while this is true in many instances, I was surprised to find that there are also some very smart, professional, forward thinking people and businesses using Twitter intelligently.
So what is twitter? Well if you ask Google you’ll get an answer like this:

Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that allows you answer the question, “What are you doing?” by sending short text messages 140 characters in length, called “tweets”, to your friends, or “followers.”

The above description, I think, is now wrong. It may have described what Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stones envisioned when Twitter was first born, however, it is now so much more.

Twitter allows you to connect, communicate and grow your following. But the interesting part is that they, your followers can also connect with you as well as being able to connect with each other. And this is how Social Media is changing the world.

Not be too dramatic, however, what we’re living through is the largest increase in expressive capability in human history. Pretty big claim eh?! Let me back it up. There have only been 4 other periods in history where media has changed enough to qualify as a revolution.

There’s the famous one, the printing press, one way communication that turned Europe upside down in the mid 14 hundreds. And then a couple of hundred years ago there was the innovation of the two way communication device, the telephone.

Then around 150 years ago, recorded media (other than print). First photos, followed by recorded sound and then movies all encoded into physical objects. Finally, about 100 years ago, the electromagnetic spectrum was harnessed to send sound and images through the air. TV and Radio was born.

This was the media landscape as we knew it in the 20th century, and then the Internet came along and changed everything. But it’s not just the Internet. It’s the way social media allows us to communicate using the Internet.

Last May china had a terrible 7.9 magnitude earthquake with masses of destruction. What was different about this earthquake was that it was reported as it happened. People were taking photos, filming buildings shaking, they were uploading these to QQ, Chinas largest internet service. They were on Facebook, they were Twittering and there were people all over the world listening. The BBC got their first wind of the quake through twitter.

Twitter announced the earth quake before the U.S national earthquake information centre. The last time china had a quake of that magnitude it took them 3 months to admit it had happened!

Twitter and all other social media has changed the way we communicate, consume media, share information, basically the world! And a question I always get asked is ‘can Twitter be used for business?’… I’ll answer this question in my next post!