Some mind blowing statistics

So is this one of the reasons Apple has been holding back on Flash for the iPhone?  Does Apple see CSS3 as a long-term replacement to Flash? Tough question, but the Apple seems to generally dislike Flash and on the iPhone is could provide app-like functionality.  It’s also a battery killer.

The demo shows what the will soon be possible, however currently only Safari implements Webkit specific CSS Transforms.  The specs have been submitted to the W3C by Apple, hopefully they will become adopted and become a standard across all browsers.

You can try this out straight away with basic functionality using Safari 4, Mac, or with full functionality in the latest Webkit nightlies.

Via Cocoia.

In a surprising move, the Obama administration have created a Flickr account and have uploaded their first set, Delivering Change.

The pictures give a fascinating perspective behind the scenes in the White House, they contain fun and games, business, a few intimate moments and some surprises; regardless it’s great to see both these scences and the changes going on in the newly transparant the White House.

Check out The Daft Punk’s Console, or better yet.. Work it, do it, make it..

It’s interesting to see the thinking behind this, and the process they went through.

Part two is also available.

I decided to take a look for myself, and searched Ask using the keyword “stocks“.  I have highlighted the adverts with a yellow background and the actual search results in blue. Also highlighted is the “Find a Stock Quote” section in red and the news results in green.

The first thing you may – or may not – notice is the large number of “Sponsored Results” at the top of the page, all 10 of them. Unlike Google, Yahoo and MSN, Ask doesn’t differentiate between their inline adverts and the search results by using a different background colour; they are labelled in very small text as “Sponsored Results”. This means many users won’t realise the item is a paid for placement – and not the most relevant site – and will often click the link. This doesn’t help to make their site user friendly, but probably increases their search revenues dramatically.

On the page there are a 10 adverts above the search results and a further three adverts below search results – 13 ads on a single page, compared to just eight search results – a very high figure. Perhaps this is just a one off, a search term with many adverts on it? Afraid not. Searching for “dogs“, “cats” and “hats” also all display 13 adverts, 10 above the search results and three below.

Note that there are so many adverts at the top of the page that actual results (what the user is looking for) are below the fold of what is visible on the screen without having to scroll. This means users can’t go straight to what they are looking for without having to scroll down.

Compare this to Google:

Google – like MSN and Yahoo – has one paid inline advert above the search result. This “Sponsored Link” is labelled and highlighted using a background colour to draw attention to this fact. The remaining adverts are removed from the flow of the page so that they are unobtrusive, but still present by being located in the sidebar.

No wonder Ask is losing market share – it’s making it difficult for its users to find what they want to find as easily and quickly as possible; their search engine has become an advertising platform. Perhaps this is what Ask feel they have to do to be able to compete with the Googles and Yahoos of the world?

What should they do?

Limit the number of adverts on one page. Differentiate the adverts from the search results more – highlight them using a background colour (this has become and industry standard) and move them to the sidebar. By having less adverts above the content you can charge more for placement there, too. Finally, make your search engine as useful as possible so that people can use it.

Jeeves never would have stood for it.

I find myself watching an increasing amount of video online, such as the video above.  I think this is due to the increasing volume of high quality video available online.  When video first appeared on the web it was mostly poorly produced and at very low quality.  Standards have improved dramatically over the last two years.  Vimeo is still the place to find the best videos online.

Very dark, exceptionally well edited.  Genius.

Turn on HD on the right if you’re on a fast connection.

Rarely are political videos this slick.

An interesting perspective on hurricanes from The Big Picture, a site well worth keeping an eye on – it constantly delivers stunning photos of current news stories.

Strange to think that we wouldn’t have been able to see this fifty years ago.

Found on Flickr, uploaded by Rosemary Travale.

Beautiful ligatures by Ginger Monkey Design.

Glastonbury is now over but the BBC coverage is online. It includes videos of many of the acts, although sadly The Killers’ set isn’t online.

Although there was some controversy over the number of people they took to Glasto (around 280, compared to the total 137,000 paying attendees), the coverage they provided was watched by millions, it was well executed and more than justifies this number.

In addition to the videos, the BBC are also sharing some of their photos from the event on a special Flickr account they have created. It’s interesting the see the BBC sharing their content on Flickr, most companies/organisations try to fiercely guard their content. Hopefully they’ll eventually share their videos, too.

As usual, the BBC is breaking new ground: I can’t think of many other big organisations that could, or would be able to do something like that. One step forward..

Usability at its finest.

This poster sums up what many people on the Internet are feeling about piracy:

Why on earth are people who have legally purchased a DVD, or who have paid to go to the cinema forced to endure tortuous anti piracy trailers? Surely they are just helping to alienate a large part of their remaining audience?

Good luck to them.

Sorry if this appears to be a rant, but they need to get their act together: they are the gatekeepers to vast amounts of media that wants, and needs to be free.

• test on IE (done! just need to fix the png’s)
• insert content to see how: layout of pages, page spacing, whitespace etc
• write proper msg’s such as about
• edit archive page it doesnt make sense
• Dates of posts
• “Type and Wait to search” – in livesearch.js.php
• theloop.php: the 404 msg
• livesearch in a small box and not entire page?