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Think Visibility 3 Review (March 2010)
March 17, 2010
This past weekend I packed my bags and headed down to Leeds for the Think Visibility 3 conference, as the name indicates, this is the third such event and the first of two in 2010. The whole idea behind these one-day conferences (organised by Dom Hodgson and his team) is that they cover “the things that usually get left behind in the web design process” and therefore typically covers topics such as SEO, social media, affiliate marketing and branding.
The venue itself remained the same as that used for the Think Visibility 2 conference in Sept 2009; the Alea Casino (near the Royal Armouries museum) in a very smart and clean Clarence Dock area of Leeds. Upon arrival to the event we received our ID badges and just from that you know that you’re in for an event with a bit of character – the organisers had only gone and created our very own “Twitter Top Trumps” from the statistics of our Twitter accounts! These made for a great talking point during the whole event as you met up with different people that you already knew and even more importantly with people you didn’t – this was a great way to break the ice I thought, so well done to the Think Visibility team for coming up with that idea!
Continue reading »BAFTA Video Games Awards 2010 – Watch The Live Stream Online!
March 17, 2010
Doesn’t seem all that long ago that we brought you the nominees of this year’s gaming BAFTA awards (in two thrilling parts – Part 1 and Part 2) but two months on and the day is nearly here: this Friday (19th) at 20:45 in a convention room in Park Lane (London), the biggest names in the video gaming business will gather to see who will win some of the highest accolades there are.
And although the public voting has already closed for the BAFTA Video GAME 2009 award you will still be able to be part of it as over at the website you will be able to watch a live stream of the awards as they are given out – there’s even a nice little countdown timer at the top which at the time of writing stands at 2 days, 8 hours, 51 minutes and 19 seconds!
Continue reading »Google Street View Now Covers Whole Of UK (Almost)
March 10, 2010
Initially, Google Street View was fairly controversial with many people complaining about invasion of privacy and such issues. However, those concerns have not stopped Google from expanding the service, because as of tomorrow (11th March 2010), you lucky (or unlucky depending on which side of the fence you’re sat) people in the UK will have access to a total 96% of all roads, streets and avenues across the isles.
The infamous camera cars have been out and about over the last year busily snapping up everything from busy city streets to little lanes in the middle of God knows where, there’s even been some Google Path View images captured using specially equipped trikes.
In some parts, such as the village of Broughton, the journey of the car has been somewhat treacherous with outraged protesters lining the streets creating human blockades preventing the car from snapping their streets. None the less, Google got their way in the end and we’ll all be able to go spotting more strange Street View sights in the UK with all these new images.
Continue reading »Google Buzz – Do We Need Another Social Network?
February 21, 2010
Well Google recently released Buzz (didn’t Yahoo do that a few years back?) upon GMail users and anyone else who wants to sign up for a Google account, but the question is will it be the thing to beat Facebook and Twitter? I’m sure Google now hopes so, but I’m yet to be convinced.
Besides, I already use Twitter and Facebook, do I really need another social network? Don’t know what I’m talking about? You can read all about it in this Google Buzz features review.
I’m really not sure about Google Buzz, it seems strange for a company who keeps services in beta for years upon end (like they did with having Google Mail in beta for around 5 years), to release a previously unheard of product onto the world…and one that seemed to care little about your privacy of the contacts that you email regularly, but that perhaps just says more about a bunch of engineers creating and testing Google Buzz and their naivety over how it could be used for more malicious activities, take a look at our most recent technology roundup for more information on that.
Continue reading »SeeSaw TV Review (UK Online TV Service)
February 19, 2010
SeeSaw is a combination of already popular online TV services from BBC, C4 and FIVE. I believe this idea to have a great amount of potential when it comes to attracting visitors. With some good publicity and strong marketing, I’m pretty sure people would be swayed towards it for the simple reason that everything is in one place.
Given the choice, I think everyone would prefer it all to be on one site rather than having to flick between separate services from each channel – which was one of the driving forces behind the Kangaroo online TV service which got cancelled before launch, SeeSaw is what has been created from the ashes of that service.
But that’s just an idea, a principle, a basis to build upon. The real question is, how have they executed it? Well, after testing the site for a while over the past couple of days since it’s public release (after previously having tested out the SeeSaw TV Online beta), I have found the site to be an interesting addition to the UK online streaming TV landscape.
Continue reading »Redsave Valentine’s Voucher Code (5% off)
February 8, 2010
We’ve previously covered some of the good deals on offer from this particular online gadget and gift retailer, such as the recent Christmas Redsave voucher code and also reviewed one of their best selling products in the form of the CIBOX C107 Digital Photo Frame, however Valentine’s Day is almost upon us and now is the time for Redsave’s latest voucher code!
Now obviously, just buying your loved one a “gadget” for Valentine’s Day may not be that welcome except perhaps other than the most geeky of people, however luckily Redsave not only sell the regular line of gadgets, but also some of the more mainstream gifts that would be appreciated by non-geeks as well.
Continue reading »Is Society’s Internet Addiction Affecting The Children?
February 3, 2010
This generation of kids (and in fact even the ones before them) have often been portrayed as fat couch potatoes by the media at large, children who are slowly loosing the ability to use language and their legs correctly and who are developing a distorted view of the world based on bad communication skills, the Internet being for porn and mass killings with terrorists in Russian airports.
There will always be people to defend them – mostly a mix of gaming enthusiasts, the occasional scientist and games manufacturers PR departments – but the results of a recent survey are fairly condemning where they show that kids are spending nearly eight hours online every day!
Continue reading »Facebook For Microsoft Silverlight Beta Client Released
February 1, 2010
All the news this past week has been about the Apple iPad announcement, and the exclusion of Flash from the device. We all know that Flash is an integral part of browsing the web, but it faces more competition in the future, with the capabilities of HTML 5 threatening the main advantages of the platform and a certain Microsoft Silverlight, which may not make the news very often, but has certainly come on by leaps and bounds if their latest creation is anything to go by.
I’m an avid user of Facebook, but don’t always want to go to the full website to check the statuses of my friends or update my own. When I first tried out the beta of Silverlight’s Facebook client (currently in Beta), I was wowed by the stunning interface, even if there are some features that didn’t make the Beta.
Continue reading »‘We Live In Public’ Review
January 29, 2010
We Live in Public (15)
Cast: Josh Harris, Tom Harris (and many others)
Director: Ondi Timoner
Running time: 90 minutes
This documentary will make you think. A lot. About how far we’ve come in the last decade and about where we’re headed. You’ll start to wonder what you did before the Internet took over our lives and you’ll pontificate about life before ‘reality shows’. Even sitting on the toilet requires the presence of your precious iPhone. We’re now so consumed by social media that it’s actually quite difficult to spend your waking day alone and connected to nothing.
Or is it?
Continue reading »Think Visibility 3 Preview – Final Speaker Announced! (March 2010)
January 26, 2010
That’s right, Think Visibility is coming back bigger and better in 2010 with the Leeds-based Think Visibility 3 conference that covers “the things that usually get left behind in the web design process”. Therefore, if you’re interested in blogging, SEO, affiliate marketing, PPC when it comes to your websites, then this is definitely an event for you.
You may get the opportunity to attend quite a few of these kind of events if you’re based in the south, especially around London, but obviously there’s less of these available here in the north, so if you’re based up here, then here’s your chance to attend a conference without having to travel so far as you might normally have to, plus it’s also takes place on a Saturday, so you don’t even have to take a day off work! Think Visibility 3 is taking place on the 13th March 2010 at the Alea Casino Conference Centre in Leeds, West Yorkshire and tickets are priced at £119 (cheaper than some other similar conferences).
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