theEweekly Wrap: bids, bloggers and blunders

dotScot demand

The Scottish government has asked for support from the UK's communications minister Ed Vaizey in establishing a unique Top Level Domain (TLD) for companies and organisations in Scotland. The domain - known as .scot or dotScot - has been the objective of not-for-profit company Dot Scot Registry for over two years, and is endorsed by the Scottish government. Now, cabinet secretary for infrastructure and capital investment Alex Neil has written to Mr. Vaizey, asking for the UK government's backing when a bid for the domain is made. The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently announced an overhaul for TLDs. ICANN will be accepting bids for new generic TLDs (gTLDs) for three months in 2012, starting on 12 January. Many cities, cultures and groups are considering putting in bids, with proposed new TLDs including dotLondon, dotGay, dotSport, and dotCymru for websites in the Welsh language.

Freedom of blog

Italy's blogger community is rallying against a controversial new bill that would subject blogs to the same rules as news websites. The bill's first purpose was to prevent the media from publishing transcripts of conversations recorded by wiretapping or bugging for the purposes of criminal investigations. However, it also included a clause on the 'right to reply': the legally enforced right of anyone who believes they have been misrepresented or wrongly criticised to respond via the same platform. If the bill passes, bloggers will have 48 hours to allow the subjects of their posts to publish a reply, or else face a £10,000 fine. Leaders of opposing parties have called the bill 'fascist' and argue that the measures have been put forward in an attempt to save face for Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, currently embroiled in a prostitution scandal.

Not the real IRA

ITV bosses have apologised after using graphics from a PC game in a documentary. Exposure - exploring links between Colonel Gadaffi and the IRA terrorist attacks - aired on Monday, showing a clip of masked men shooting down a helicopter with the caption 'IRA film 1988'. However, gamers soon spotted similarities between this clip and Arma II, a 2009 PC shooter game based in the fictional land of Chernarus. ITV intended to broadcast footage of a British Army helicopter being shot down by the Provisional IRA in South Armagh in 1988. And in their defence, it seems the clip in question was actually a YouTube video entitled PIRA Shoot Down British Helicopter 1988. An ITV spokesman said: "It would appear that during the editing process the correct clip of the 1988 incident was not selected and other footage was mistakenly included in the film by producers. This was an unfortunate case of human error for which we apologise."

theEweekly Wrap: endorsements, adjustments and patents

Pay Per Celeb

Searchers will soon be able to see what celebrities think of products and brands. Speaking at the SMX conference in New York, Google's head of social advertising Christian Oestlien revealed that celebrity endorsements will be appearing under PPC ads in search results. The service combines AdWords with Google+, allowing celebrities who use the social network to +1 a website or product that they want to endorse. Searchers will then see the star's profile picture and the 'has endorsed this product' tagline in PPC ads - so it's a step further than a +1 recommendation from a mere mortal. The example Oestlien showed at the conference was US department store Sears being endorsed by the Kardashians, who have apparently already signed up to the service. Also this week, Google chairman Eric Schmidt appeared before a US Senate subcommittee in Washington. The hearing was to investigate claims of Google's anti-competitive behaviour, and abuses of power. One such claim was that Google is 'cooking' search results to favour its own products and services; however, Schmidt said "I can assure you we're not cooking anything".

Facebook's f8

Facebook is gradually unveiling a series of updates to coincide with the f8 developer conference in San Francisco. Earlier in the week, the basic design was given a facelift while a real-time news ticker was added to the right hand side. The News Feed homepage - which was previously arranged chronologically - was also tweaked to give more prominence to 'top stories'. Designed to make the social network more like a newspaper, the stories and updates deemed by Facebook to be most important or relevant are now being given priority; a spot on the front page as it were. Exactly how relevance is calculated remains a mystery. Last night, meanwhile, Facebook unveiled its new music and video service. Some kind of media-driven overhaul was widely expected as one panel entitled The Future of Digital Music includes speakers such as Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and MTV founder Bob Pittman. Meanwhile, Facebook employee Ji Lee tweeted about a feature allowing users to listen live to what their friends are listening to. The tweet was later deleted. But just how important are these changes? Well, ahead of the official announcement, Mashable's Ben Parr said: "I have seen what Facebook is launching on Thursday, and it’s going to change the world of social media."

All your iPhones are belong to us

We might have to wait a little longer for the long-awaited iPhone 5, if reports are to be believed. A source 'close to the company' told Reuters that Samsung is considering taking legal action against Apple. The injunction would block the sale of the iPhone 5, or any other new devices, as Samsung believes they will contain technology that it holds the patents for. However, it could simply be retaliation - earlier in the year Apple succeeded in blocking sales of the South Korean company's Galaxy Tab across Europe on the grounds of patent infringement. Speaking of the iPhone 5, Apple has scheduled a media event for the 4th of October, which many believe will be the unveiling of the new device. The event will be overseen by new CEO Tim Cook following the departure of Steve Jobs last month. Rumours of two devices being released - the iPhone 5 and a more affordable version of the iPhone 4 - were further fuelled by Apple board member Al Gore, who referred to "new iPhones" in a talk at a leadership summit on Wednesday.

theEweekly Wrap: Chips, apps and trolls

Google and chips

Intel has announced that it will release a range of smartphones at its annual developers conference. The devices will include the powerful Intel Atom chip and run using the Google Android mobile OS, in a development partnership between the two tech giants. So far, Intel has lost out on the smartphone chip market to ARM Holdings, a Cambridge-based company whose systems are used by Samsung, Microsoft, Apple and many more. ARM has suffered a 4.5p drop in the stock market since the announcement. Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini said: "By optimizing the Android platform for Intel architecture, we bring a powerful new capability to market that will accelerate more industry adoption and choice, and bring exciting new products to market that harness the combined potential of Intel technology and the Android platform." Android currently powers a huge chunk of the smartphone market. With the addition of Intel smartphones and the recent purchase of Motorola Mobility, Google could soon have a monopoly. Intel-powered smartphones are expected to be available in the first half of 2012.

Troll trapped

A man was jailed this week for posting offensive messages, images and videos mocking teenagers who died tragically, a practice known as 'trolling'. Sean Duffy, 25, will serve an 18-month sentence and has been banned from using any social media sites under a five year Anti-Social Behaviour Order. He did not know any of his targets, but posted vile messages on Facebook tribute pages in their memory, defaced images of them and sent messages to family members. Duffy was jailed under the Malicious Communications Act, which was introduced in 1988 to deal with threatening or obscene letters, and updated in 2001 to include reference to "electronic communication". He is only the second ever troll convicted in the UK, after Colm Coss was jailed in 2010 for posting obscene messages on a Jade Goody tribute site.

App-alling

Apple has removed a pair of controversial applications from its App Store this week. The first was Phone Story by Molleindustria, a video game parody of the smartphone industry. Players had to catch workers leaping from a factory building, supervise child labourers, then distribute the finished products to crazed westerners flocking to a shop with a white pear on the front. Apple initially approved the app, but having later noticed some similarities to incidents in the company's past, removed the game from the App Store and banned it. The second banned app this week was Jew Or Not Jew? by J Soft, which weighs up the evidence to decide whether or not a celebrity or public figure is Jewish. However, the app has only been banned in France, and only because French law forbids publishing some personal data, including religious affiliation, without the individual's consent. The app is still the number one most popular download in Belgium and number two in Luxembourg. Johann Levy, the game's (Jewish) developer, told Le Parisien: "For me, there's nothing pejorative about saying that someone is Jewish or not."

How landing page optimisation can improve a mobile campaign

Another step forward for mobile advertising

The emergence of the smartphone has resulted in a huge cultural shift as people now browse the internet on the go, and do so on a significantly smaller screen. This alternative way of surfing means that websites and their adverts must adapt in order to keep up with the new category of users.

Google Adwords is continuing to focus on mobile browsing by introducing mobile optimisation as a key factor in determining the landing page quality of mobile campaigns, which in turn is used to decide the overall quality score. A high quality score for your keywords effectively means that your ads will appear higher and have a lower cost-per-click. It will consider a superior mobile campaign to be one that is properly designed and optimised for mobile phones. Google AdWords has taken steps before to improve mobile browsing as in November it limited ad serving on high end mobile devices if the landing page had flash heavy content.

What is Google looking for?

Google will look at a range of different details to determine the landing page quality of mobile campaigns. Firstly, the content must be tailored to the bandwidth limitations of smartphones, so avoid any excessive advertising, videos, pictures and banners that will result in browsing becoming slow. Also ensure that you use punchy content with a stringent word count to fit the smaller screen.

In addition, Google will be looking at the design of a site and how well it is suited to mobiles. Avoid overcrowding the screen as this will hinder the user journey. Only use pictures and videos when necessary, and avoid the use of banners as these will prevent people from navigating around your site quickly. Having a sleek clean layout will allow mobile browsers to digest information quickly.

It should also be easy to browse using the touchscreen provided on certain mobiles. Ensure that all buttons are big as people will have to use their thumbs rather than a small cursor. Spacing buttons well apart will prevent people from pressing on a wrong button and ending up on an unwanted page.

Adhering to these guidelines should ensure that a site is optimised for mobile users, providing them with a better browsing experience and you with better returns on investment.

theEweekly Wrap: Arrington, advertising and anorexia

Arrington's Den

TechCrunch founder and editor Michael Arrington was in the spotlight this week after apparently relinquishing editorial control of the popular blog. There have been hints for a while that Arrington would be launching a venture capital fund - initially of $20 million - for web start-ups. Many were quick to point out that both blogging about and investing in tech companies could be a conflict of interest. AOL acquired TechCrunch in September 2010 and is partially backing CrunchFund. However, in what was possibly Arrington's last post for TechCrunch, he claimed the blog had lost its editorial independence, something AOL promised to safeguard during the acquisition.

UK gets Promoted Tweets

More than a year after the US launch of Promoted Tweets, the social media advertising platform is set to become available to UK brands, according to Marketing Magazine. Companies will be able to pay to have their tweet appear in a user's Twitter feed, or in their Trending Topics list, targeted according to the other accounts they follow. Rumours of UK companies who have signed up for Promoted Tweets began circulating as early as September last year. In other news, Twitter and Bing used their official accounts on the micro-blogging site to announce they had extended their search deal. The partnership means that tweets can appear in Bing search results - something Google can't do since their deal with Twitter expired and the Google RealTime Search function disappeared in July 2011.

Spain versus anorexia

The Spanish Ministry of Health will be asking the European Union to take action against social media pages and profiles that condone anorexia and other eating disorders. The government initially asked Twitter to regulate its own content and block such messages, but the site refused last week. A company spokesperson said: "Twitter firmly believes in the importance of freedom of speech and works to guarantee that that freedom is maximized." Minister Leire Pajin will now be raising the matter in a meeting with other EU health representatives in October, and petition them to make a joint request, hoping it will be taken more seriously by Twitter and other social media sites. Spanish data protection authorities demanded earlier this year that Google delete nearly 100 links from its search engine results leading to articles deemed libellous.

Copywriting and the overextended truth

To embellish or not to embellish?

While adverts must persuade consumers to purchase a product, should they do so by extending the truth that little bit too far? The copy within adverts, it seems, can either attract customers by highlighting the best features of a product or service, or simply by using fictitious claims.

Commercial content can sometimes overstep the fine line between enticing and misleading, as Motorola found out last week. The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has banned the new Motorola Atrix after complaints from Galaxy Samsung users. While Motorola stated that its Atrix is "the world's most powerful smartphone", Galaxy fans have claimed that the Samsung smartphone is in fact the most potent processor.

Other phone companies have also exaggerated their products and services in the past. An iPhone 3G advert was removed by the ASA as it overstated the speed of its mobile browsing and a TalkTalk advert was also banned after it claimed that the company could save potential customers more money than it actually could. It seems that within the competitive phone market, adverts will sometimes contain copy that overextends the truth in an attempt to get ahead of the opposition.

Honesty is the best policy

As over-exaggerated terms are policed by the ASA, it seems that honesty is by far the best policy when it comes to writing copy. Any text that is misleading or overly excessive will only have a short time on air and in publications before it is banned.

Copy that is likely to keep an advert on TV, on the internet or in a magazine will be honest as well as enticing. Truthful advertising will ensure that consumers are provided with a product or service that lives up to the claims found in its advertisement. This type of commercial copy will make sure that a company has a customer base that is loyal as the consumer will be able to trust what the brand writes about in the future.

theEweekly Wrap: Google Blogger, Groupon and a lost iPhone

Pimp my Blogger

Google's popular publishing service Blogger has had a makeover. Gmail, Docs and search have all had a revamp recently, but this redesign is the most dramatic yet; especially as it has been a few years since Blogger was last updated. Blogger product manager Chang Kim said in an official blog post: "We've rewritten the entire editing and management experience from scratch so it's faster and more efficient for you". So, the post editing box has been expanded, and page views and comments are visible in the Overview tab as soon as you log in. However, the actual functionality doesn't seem that different, and the most noticeable change is in the look and feel of the user interface. The redesign was based on user interviews and feedback - but judging by the layout and the sparse, almost-monochrome interface, it seems what users really want is very close to WordPress, Blogger's main competitor. Many users can now switch to the new interface by logging into their Blogger account.

Groupon grumbles

It seems the bubble may have burst for group buying service Groupon. Stats from HitWise showed that traffic had fallen by a huge 50 per cent over the summer, perhaps due to the launch of rival services including Google Offers and Living Social, which saw its traffic climb 27 per cent over the same period. Meanwhile, the ASA revealed that out of all the complaints it receives about voucher sites, half relate to Groupon. 32 adverts have been banned for being misleading, for not having enough of the product/service for the number of deals available, or for imposing an unrealistic time limit on a deal. Another voucher scheme also came under fire on Wednesday, this time one run by the Department of Health. The Change4Life voucher booklet aimed to combat obesity by offering discounts on healthy foods. However, the Children's Food Campaign group criticised the plan by revealing that to qualify for the £50 of savings, the consumer would have to spend over £275. They also pointed out that in most cases an own-brand product would be cheaper than the branded version even after applying discount.

Prototype panic

History has repeated itself in the run-up to the release of the iPhone 5. According to CNET, an Apple employee was apparently testing a prototype of the new device in a Mexican bar in San Francisco, when suddenly, they lost it. Unfortunate, seeing as Apple described the device as 'priceless', but perhaps suspiciously unfortunate as the same thing happened to an iPhone 4 prototype in April last year. That device was sold to Gizmodo technology blog for $5,000, with images leaked online ahead of the official launch. Apple enlisted the San Francisco police to help track the device, CNET reports, which led them to a family home where the inhabitants denied all knowledge of the phone. It was later reportedly sold on Craigslist for $200. However, Apple has the ability to remotely turn off the device, as it apparently did to last year's lost prototype, so it's unlikely the buyer will be happy with their purchase. Whether or not you believe CNET's report, or that Apple employees really are that careless, is up to you...