Web Design Brisbane

We're big fans of Web 2.0. In fact we were doing it before it was called Web 2.0. What's that? You're not sure what Web 2.0 is? Not the only one.

ComeOn is an independent organisation that intends to run  "mainstream" political campaigns over the Internet. It has some similarities to GetUp, but a different point of view.

This morning they did a soft launch of their site. This should be a momentous event in Australian eDemocracy. For a long time it has seemed that only the political left "gets" the relationship between the Internet and politics. Now there is an organisation trying to do the same from the centre and right. We're proud to have built their site for them.

Social media can be a better way for authorities to broadcast messages than traditional media. In this post Glen Gilmore gives 10 reasons why social media is important in a real crisis. But how many organisations can actually take advantage of these media.

According to Greenlight BP has bought-up big on Google and Yahoo search terms in an effort to improve its public relations after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Greenlight is an independent specialist SEO and PPC consulting and technology firm, the largest of its kind in Europe and the fastest growing - well that's what their public relations blurb says.

Never heard of Wilbing? Well I'm not sure the word has really been coined, it probably still dwells as an acronym in some sort of linguistic limbo, but Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing (WILB) is good for your productivity according to Melbourne University research.

Kerry McGovern is based in Brisbane but specialises in advising sovereign governments on governance, and asset and financial management. Her clients are spread in a half-belt across the world from the western Pacific to the eastern Mediterranean.

While Kerry had an existing site she had changed her logo and branding. She also wanted to improve the presentation of her web presence. But this had to be achieved on a site which would cope with dial-up internet speeds - many of the countries where she works have limited infrastructure.

There is a woman that haunts the Stones Corner Hotel, my local watering hole. She is a blow-up doll version of Marilyn Monroe. Not to be taken seriously. Perhaps even pitied.

One of our client sites was recently hacked to promote pharmaceuticals - the so-called "pharma hack".

There's a cyclone bearing down on Queensland's coast at the moment. It is unlikely to hit Brisbane, (and as it is maybe 1500 kms away and covering 96 kms per day, could be some time before we know), but if it hits land some insurance companies will suffer large losses.

There is probably more money wasted on search engine optimisation (SEO) than any other aspect of website design. We all know there is no such thing as a free lunch, but for curious reasons, many of us are actually prepared to pay for one.

The Internet is forcing its way into the mother of parliaments with both sides in the UK proposing to require parliamentary debates on epetitions which gain more than a certain number of signatures.

Tory Leader David Cameron is promising that any epetition that gains one million signatures will allow members of the public to introduce a bill on which MPs are required to vote.

Any epetition that gains 100,000 signatures will be eligible to be formally debated in the House of Commons.

Labour's promise is to introduce a trial where selected epetitions will be debated in the Common's second chamber.

We've just completed work on an epetition system for a major local government authority in Queensland, and it will be interesting to see how the epetition system is used, although there is no hint that it will be used in the UK way. (But we'd be happy to hear from other legislatures with more radical ideas).

Accountability and transparency means that most government agencies are fastidious (at least in theory) at recording as much as they can of interactions between them and the public. Ideally you will have detailed and accurate records which are readily available to the client citizen. So social networking sites pose a particular challenge.

We're big fans of open government at Internet Thinking, but I don't think we'd advise any of our clients to go as far as they have in open.alabama.gov.

Australia ranks fourth in the world for business Internet service after USA, Japan and Singapore, but before Hong Kong, England, Canada and Korea according to a survey by serviced office providers Servcorp.

A long time ago, in a far off inner city suburb, I used to run a boutique (read small) advertising agency. We were constantly advising our clients on how to measure and analyse the responsiveness of their direct marketing efforts - as all good agencies should. Absolute, irrefutable return on investment was and still is the holy grail but actually achieving that is harder than you may think.

Being a Twitter newbie I am still going from "what is the big fuss" to "I would rather die than not have Twitter" (which is apparently my eventual fate ever since setting up my account). So it was fascinating yesterday to see that as the Liberal Party went into meltdown, Twitter was ahead of even the online news services presumably because the same journos that send news back to the online service were tweeting it as well. Being that Twitter is virtually live I guess it bypasses the upload stage at the online media outlet.Thanks to the likes of @leighsales for making us feel like we were there, because I think news is so much more exciting the closer to real time you get. So is this the future of news broadcasting? Virtual real time reporting from multiple sources (that you have chosen) and opinion aplenty to go with it.

One of the paranoid, or perhaps not so paranoid, conspiracy theories doing the rounds is that the US Republicans manipulated election results through the use of Diebold voting machines.

I say "not so paranoid" because while I don't accuse Diebold of committing any fraud, one of the problems with such voting machines is that they lack adequate auditing procedures.

If your job was relating your clients to the public you'd think that you'd be all over the newest uses of the Internet. Some of my recent experience suggests not. Like every other industry, Public Relations professionals are resistant, or even oblivious to, the way the Internet radically alters how you can and should spread your message. This article isn't about those PR professionals.

Good as it is, there is one thing that Google can't do - find material that isn't on the Internet yet. Which is why sites like On Line Opinion do well. Publishers are in the business of guessing what readers might be after, sourcing a writer to provide the content and making it available. Search engines can access that material, but only after the publisher has done its work.

So you think you know what Spam is? Maybe you do but I was also sure I had a good understanding of the Spam Act of 2003 until recently. Have a look at the ACMA site (who administer the Act) and see what you make of these little goodies:

I am currently trying to sell an investment property and was given a copy of the Gil Davis book "Sell for More" which aims to teach you how to sell your residential property for a higher price.

It's official. Google does not use keywords for search, although she reserves her right to change her mind. Writing on the Google Webmaster Central Blog Matt Cutts writes:

At least for Google's web search results currently (September 2009), the answer is no. Google doesn't use the "keywords" meta tag in our web search ranking.

Really effective web design incorporates usability research. That is research that tests how users react to your site in a real environment. Seven years ago we offered this research as a service, but at that stage no-one was convinced enough of the need to do it - unless they had huge budgets.

"To tweet or not to tweet?" is a question we're constantly being asked by clients. There's no definitive answer, although those who say it is just a fad are mistaken. How different organisations use it and how they integrate it into their websites will be highly specific to what your aims are and how many resources you have.