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Mancini: More to come from Aguero

magician — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:44:44 +0000

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini issued a warning to the other clubs by stating Sergio Aguero will not be at his best for another “two to three weeks”.

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HTC updates Sense for Android with more interactive features

magician — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 06:07:20 +0000

HTC updates Sense for Android with more interactive features
HTC, one of the top manufacturers of Android smartphones, has told All Things D that it has some new tricks in store for the Sense user interface that it installs on Android phones. The new version of Sense, expected to appear with the HTC EVO 3D this summer, will offer more interactivity with the home screens and make launching certain tasks easier. The new lock screen will present more …

Gerrard demands more from Liverpool

magician — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 10:38:19 +0000

Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard is not satisfied with the team’s position in the table despite their recent recovery.

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More shoppers doing their browsing via smartphones

magician — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:08:02 +0000

More shoppers doing their browsing via smartphones
One quarter of Americans who own smartphones plan to use them this year to look for gift ideas, compare prices and find items in nearby stores.

Why newspaper websites should be more like blogs

magician — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:28:13 +0000

Newspapers are in trouble and paywalls have (so far) been a flop.Whilesome people say this heralds the end of real journalism, maybe newspaper websites just need a rethink. Perhaps they could really learn something from blogs.

Figures leaked to Beehive City this weekend point to a slow start for Rupert Murdochs Times paywall in the UK. Meanwhile, another story at the Guardian talks about how rival newspaper the Daily Mails website is well on its way to turning a profit without a paywall in sight. Its also the most viewed newspaper site in the UK. How does it achieve this? Id say its by being more like a blog than an actual newspaper.

Lets take a look at the MailOnline front page today and see what theyre doing to think web:

Different headlines from the paper version. MailOnline opts for the kinds of stories that might not be the biggest of the day, but that will get people talking and sharing. In this case, a story with shock value.
Celebrities. MailOnline is heavy on celebrities fluff stories because theyre a big draw. While they wouldnt work so well in the paper version, online you can pump out these types of posts quickly and generate lots of traffic with relatively little effort.
Lots of images. Many newspaper websites try to recreate the look of an actual newspaper. MailOnline forgoes that with images strewn all over the place, giving it more of a magazine feel.
Talking points work well online. Man ordered to pay 1,500 after being found guilty of drowning a squirrel is the kind of story you might see on a Gawker Media blog. It may be a serious story about animal cruelty but as we said in point 1, its a talking point story. It may only warrant a small mention in a print newspaper but it gets frontpage treatment here because MailOnline knows that web users have very different priorities.
Different editorial staff. Most newspapers staff work across print and web. Not at the Mail, here its two separate teams. This isimportantbecause web writing is very different to writing for print. Web articles generally work better when short and concise while print articles can spend longer telling a story.

Many successful blogs follow the guidelines above, albeit tweaked as necessary. Technology bloggers know that Twitter and Facebook are their celebrities that drive lots of traffic, which is why youll see lots of mentions of those companies on tech blogs; just as celebrity blogs will mention people like Justin Beiber a lot he drives traffic.

Can newspapers be more like blogs without losing their quality?

The Daily Mail is a tabloid and doesnt have to worry too much about losing a quality journalism reputation by changing its output for the web. How about those newspapers often seen as high quality news outlets? In those cases, they could probably drive more traffic, get more advertising and avoid the threat of a paywall by simply tweaking their output for the web.

Not every newspaper can overload its site with celebrity gossip and shock stories as the Mail does. However, they could likely boost their traffic by thinking web a little more. For example, they could:

Include more internal links. This common tactic by blogs links within the text of a story back to relevant news from the past, thus driving more pageviews.
Use Retweetable headlines. As weve noted before, Twitter is hugely important for blogs. By carefully crafting headlines that beg to be retweeted youre increasing the chance of a hit story.
Write short, concise stories. Not everyone has time to read a 2500 word interview. It could be summarised in a 500 word blog post style piece, highlighting the key, newsworthy points perhaps with a link to the full thing for people suitably interested.
Know their celebrities. As I noted above, the celebrities of tech blogs are currently Twitter and Facebook; stories about them drive traffic. Newspapers need to know their celebrities.

Boosting traffic without losing site of what makes a newspaper unique is a difficult balancing act, but I cant help thinking some newspapers could prosper by thinking web before they think paywall.

70,000 Blogs Shut Down by U.S. Law Enforcement Blogetery, a WordPress platform, has seen its entire community shut…

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More Windows Phone 7 OS details surface

magician — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:08:02 +0000

More Windows Phone 7 OS details surface
Network World – Information about Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 , and on two smartphones using it, continues to emerge, some of it gleaned from hacking, demonstrations and from the growing experience of developers exploring the radically revamped mobile OS.

Google Gets Smarter & Says There’s More to Come

magician — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:27:00 +0000

Google is rolling out to all users today a number of substantial changes in the way it serves up search results. Search by content type (images, news, shopping, etc.) will now be highlighted in the left sidebar and users will be presented search options that are contextually relevant to the subject of their search.

Search for “shoes” and you’ll be offered links to search in maps, images and shopping. Search for “NFL Draft” and you’ll see options to search in blog posts and real-time updates highlighted. Search refinements like “less shopping,” features like the Google Wonder Wheel and search inside dynamically created timeframes will no longer be hidden out of sight but will be placed at the top of the user’s view by a dynamic relevance algorithm. Google says its internal testers have called the increase in their personal search efficiency “like night and day.” You’ll be able to judge for yourself sometime today.

Jon Wiley, Senior User Experience Designer for Google, told us by phone yesterday that the technology used to determine what kind of search is most relevant is the same that the company uses in Google Suggest and other existing search features, just applied now to a dynamic design of the user experience. The types of search questions users are presented with will change over time, based on aggregate query activity, types of content indexed and news events.

One brand new feature that’s included in the revisions today is the addition of a new related searches box in the sidebar. Whereas Google results have traditionally suggested more refined searches at the bottom of the page, you’ll now also be shown related but different searches. For example, a search for “Rolling Stones” has long resulted in suggestions like “Rolling Stones albums, Rolling Stones concerts” and those suggestions will now be supplemented with related searches like “Pink Floyd, Aerosmith” etc.

The changes all seem very smart, “why didn’t they think of that before” kinds of things. But for a battleship of a website, Google is remarkably adept at changing itself.

Google’s Wiley says a whole lot more change like this is coming, based on testing and user feedback. “Google is no longer just ten blue links on a page, those days are long gone,” he told us. “But this is just the beginning, a designer’s work is never done. It’s an evolution… It is definitely the early days of Google, this is not a solved problem.”

Bing vs. Google In the world of search engines, there are some things…
Google Now Includes MySpace Status Updates in Real-Time Search Results MySpace and Google just announced that starting today, status updates…
Google to Cater Search Results Using Location Google is trying to come just one step closer…

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PATRICE EVRA EXCLUSIVE: Manchester United full back on Fergie’s hair dryer, Carlos Tevez and more…

magician — Sat, 01 May 2010 06:41:28 +0000

PATRICE EVRA EXCLUSIVE: Manchester United full back on Fergie’s hair dryer, Carlos Tevez and more…
One day Patrice Evra will write a book. ‘I already have a title in mind,’ he says. ‘From the street to Ma United.’ If his first major interview is anything to go by, it’ll be quite a read.

Google Just Rolled Out Its New Search Design To More Users

magician — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:30:18 +0000

Were seeing a number of reports on Twitter from people who are now seeing the new Google Search results design.

Google has been testing a new search interface on random people for some time, today it appears a significant batch of users have been given access to the new design.

Search Engine Land were given preview access late last year and have a detailed review, its worth a read if youre interested. Briefly though, its definitely cleaner, bolder and more colorful than the current version but clearly the biggest change is the design of the side column filtering, the sharper logo and larger search field.

If you havent got access and are keen to try it now, there is a hack, details after the jump.

To try it the new Google Search design now:

1. Go to Google.com

2. Once it loads, enter this code into your web browsers URL address field:

javascript:void(document.cookie=PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com);

3. Hit Enter.

4. Refresh Google.com page and now you should have the new Google Search.

Thanks to Lauren and Karoli for the screenshots.

Google Brings Twitter Search Results to China It’s been nearly a year since China first shutdown access…
Google Now Includes MySpace Status Updates in Real-Time Search Results MySpace and Google just announced that starting today, status updates…
Mobile Movie Search Gets the Google Treatment Smartphone users just got an early holiday treat from Google….

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