Who says that mouse and keyboard are the only ways to interact with a website. I found an interesting website project today that had interaction via a webcam. It was a small game for Criss Angel.

Heres how it worked. You print a page off hold it up to your webcam and then, you could use it to move a projection that is on the website. You probably need to go have a look at it. Here the video from the guys who made it.

Criss Angel Augmented Reality Game from Circ.us on Vimeo.

It show that thinking outside the box can produce some interesting results. It’s worth thinking about how other interactions could be used, for example speech or sounds, or other webcam video methods.

To have a look or play the link is: http://www.aetv.com/5-lives-of-criss-angel/5-lives-augmented-reality/

An article about how the Google algorithm works. A useful post on SEOmoz explains some of the way Google works using charts to explain the link between links and rankings.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-algorithm-pretty-charts-math-stuff

An article on imediaconnect about how to improve your seo on youtube. The article points out that youtube is now the second biggest search engine in use after google.

Being a video sharing website, there are some other things to consider different than thinking about a website or even a corporate video. For instance, Drew (the author) says:

“For example, if you sell construction equipment, you could produce videos of stunt drivers doing freestyle tricks in a Bobcat. Or perhaps a clothing company could create video fashion shows of embarrassing styles that were once popular. You don’t have to create traditional TV commercials to get people talking about your brand.”

When optimizing your youtube upload it is not the video itself but the text for the video that matters. Youtube builds the metatags for the page based on:

Name on video -> becomes title tag
Description (more info) -> becomes description tag
Youtube tags -> become keywords tag

Drew mentions CocaCola as a good example of video optimization http://www.youtube.com/user/cocacola

To read the full article click below

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/24745.asp

We all need some motivation some times. I have been watching some video lectures on the website www.ted.com, and on it a Tony Robbins talk.

We all need some pick up talks sometimes.

Youtube today celebrated ‘1 billion views per day’. Thats a lot of bandwidth! There is probably over that amount but this shows just how many people use the video sharing website.

If you are not on youtube yet, then you really need to get on it! I have been doing work for Keymas recently updating their youtube with mini videos showcasing the services that they offer.

In a first, the England football match against Ukraine is to only be available on the web only. Hearing on the radio how upset everyone is about it, I have to agree as much as this is the future I am not sure that it is a good thing this time.

First off the main reason for non of the the big TV companies to buy the game was the fact that there is a ratings war between BBC and ITV on Saturday nights and no one wants to point potential viewers to away.

For now though, with quality suffering who wants to sit round a compter to watch a match? Maybe with the greater integration between the internet and tv like services like iplayer this will become a more normal way of watching programmes but for now most people who want to watch it would have to watch a computer screen, which would be more time staring at a screen.

I have had what seems like a problem with so many companies technology and support systems recently. First I could not find out how to move a telephone number, then could not sign up for BT Tradespace as it kept throwing up errors, then Microsoft Adcenter would not let me reactivate my account after it was so long since I had used it and needed my new card details.

Come on guys, get your websites and support systems working! If companies want us to use their services over their rivals then it needs to work, and be reliable.

I think that in a lot of cases small is beautiful, I switch our main hosting in our company to a smaller provider and now get great support. It just helps most to be able to get a straight answer. So if you want a straight talking company that can work with you for your digital and web solutions then my companies response is so much better so talk to us.

Our company is updating stock box and packaging products website boxesdirect2u.co.uk we built the ecommerce website last year and after the shop has taken many successful orders we are planning to build the search rankings and improve the conversion rate of the website.

The site uses sagepay as the payment gateway which fits seamlessly into the website so that the customer does not have to go leave the website to pay and is reminded of the security on the website.

The websites aim is to attract both b2b and b2c customers and to build up a steady stream of repeat customers using online marketing at the heart of the strategy.

I have today been playing around with the Google insights website, which lets you see the trends for keywords that you put in.

http://www.google.com/insights/search/

Here is google’s post on it http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-predictability-of-search-trends.html

One of the statements from the research is that over half of the most popular terms were found predictable in a 12 forcast. There are also more predictable categories such as health, food and drink and travel. The least pradicatble categories are for the more rapidaly changing entertainment and online communities and social networks. So I guess they cannot predict who will be the next facebook yet.

A good way to use this tool is to look at how search trends change, an example is the terms, Buy movies online and Buy DVD online which cross as people become to consume movies by different methods.