I recently read a wonderful blog by Bret Victor about the lack of ambition shown in a futurology film on You Tube. The futurolgy film showing concpt digital interaction is at: http://www.youtube.com/user/officevideos#p/u/0/a6cNdhOKwi0

What has amazed me since the start of this recession is the rate at which large retailers are now looking differently at their e-tail strategies. Perhaps 5 years ago an acceptance surfaced that tarding online was a neccessary chanel for growth and for meeting new customer expectations. However off-site selling through the likes of e-Bay, Google products and Kelkoo was often viewed by some as down-market. I had a number of discussions with SEO clients of mine while working at bigmouthmedia about the value of a strong eBay precense often to the response "Our brand is not looking for 'car boot sale' fulfillment." Along with eBay's share price their acceptance by mainstream brands has grown enourmously. I look forward to seeing what 'added value' eBay will offer blue-chip retailers is years to come. Below - House of Frasers eBay shop:

In looking at African domain name options for a new digitalAim client who has asked us to build SEO optimised microsites across Africa and India I found the spectacularly expensive domain suffix .ng from Nigeria. Significantly more expensive that the co.ng domain the .n domain is listed at $50,000 per year. Perhaps Nike and Pepsi may consider paying that sort of fee for premium branding in Africa's most populous country, too rich for our blood however.

Working on multi-lingual webmaster duties for Kellogg's European Foodservice operation does oftern have me jumping from Google.fr to Google.es and Google.it. So I have gotten into the habit of making the same search across the territories by just changing the domain suffix. I'm not sure what I did but I stumbled on a page that is very rarely seen. Google, despite building an empire from captalising on the ease of users making multiple searches, also follow the best practice of having a friendly, well designed "Page not found" HTML replacement page. If you don't have this in place on your site I'd speak to your agency and ask for a design that reflects your brand's tone of voice.

Google last week announced that the most major changes are being made to their search engines since the addition of adverts to the search results in 2002. Google instant uses 15 new technologies on top of the current search algorithm to show content as you type. Google suggest that helps with typing has been the forerunner. Google are confident that this will further raise the bar on their dominance of the search engine market. 

I had to share this from www.newtoyork.com. It is once of the finest addresses to usage of Internet Explorer 6 I have ever seen:

DigitalAim's first alpine French client has gone live following scoping and SEO consultancy. Tadpole Holidays are a tour operator that provide accommodation for skiers and snowboarders in the resort of Serre Chevalier in the Southern French Alps.

Is the market too crowded and dominated by Microsoft and Apple to have an operating system take on the Windows monopoly? Would you invest your life savings in this business? In marketing terms finding a unique and compelling sales proposition for any product is hard work. It is yet harder for the complexities of software selling and even more so for 'operating systems'. I suggest however, that the time is now for Google's move.

No question about it. Having been recruiting 2 posts for the last few months and been in contact with numerous web design and web development agencies over the last 6 months it is clear that this recession is growing digital again. While the run up to the recession proper had many clients stuck 'in the headlights' movement once again is shifting toward the digital player who know how to 'Do it Right'. Clients need transparency, the ability to question the technical and user experience assumptions made and have support is demonstrating the value of customer activity happening online. An agency confident in meeting these expectations and happy to be questioned on their scoping assertions has no reason not to grow in strength over the next year.

The Daily Mail has always had a difficult relationship with technology and the Internet. It is never long before an article that describes 'evil-doers' online threatening the safety of our children surfaces with accompanied 'ban the internet' undertone. NMA recently debated the digital industry's lack of experience in understanding its responsibilities when launching mass communication media in a web 2.0 era. The discovery that prostitutes and pornographic actresses are asking fans to 'follow them on twitter' is a little shocking but hardly surprising. The debate about protecting children from possible exposure to these corners of a social interaction website is both a valid and an urgent discussion. The debate about whether Twitter's owners should have pre-empted this is also valid. However the gutter press is mentally invalid in suggesting that the digital sphere is somehow the creator of all things lucid.

There was a bit of a mishap at the weekend with Google results.

Due to a human error Google flagged all search results with the message "This site may harm your computer"

Google labelling suspicious websites with this message is normally really helpful and can stop you accidentally visiting a site that can install malware on your computer.

Of course content and regular content refreshment remains king. However this web 2.0 aspiration is not always readily available to all corporate brands. This may be due to the nature of their brand, the level of consumer passion in the product area or a restrictive / compliant nature of marketing work such as in financial services marketing.

However there is no reason why any organisation can not be considering their customer issues and use web technology to communicate more effectively for better customer experience both on and offline. The screengrab below is, I believe an excellent example of this:

The industry has taken down their decorations and is now back in full flight. Now the hard work begins again. All clients need to be seen to be spending their budget more wisely this year. In digital marketing and web development this highlights an existing problem for a number of clients - that (dare I say it) many clients do not know what exactly they are buying. Great web experience is like a beautifully considered and crafted piece of architecture or engineering.

What a terrible piece of brand strategy planning for Microsoft. This is in part a defensive response to Apple's advertising that highlights so of Windows and specifically Vista's weaknesses in a "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" format. When Apple have consistently given Microsoft their best R&D innovation (right back to 1984 and the invention of the Window and commercialisation of the mouse), why does Microsoft find this David and Golliath relationship so threatening to do defensive TV advertising (even featuring Gates himself!). Perhaps Bill Gates efforts through the Gates Foundation attempting to cure Malaria will be more successful. 

A true victory for the power of quantitive user research. We would like to commend FT.com for sending their new website design to their online subscribers. Inevitably the design has already been user tested with a usability testing house, but this shows a level of confidence from FT's web marketing / IT team and a hunger to ensure that their new website hits the spot in their competition against the likes of the Economist and the BBC.co.uk. You can review their development site at: