Whirlpool, do you mean like a jacuzzi? Why yes, indeed I do. Or is it Jacuzzi, which is what the spellcheckers says it is but that doesn’t look quite right, somehow.

See here’s the thing – and I didn’t know this actually – Jacuzzi is actually a brand name which has come to mean more than the brand itself. It is an example of an eponym.

The Wacky World of Brand Names

In Ireland and the UK kids eat jelly and ice cream, but in North America jelly means jam and they call it and jello, which should actually be written Jell-O. Sometimes brands enter the public lexicon as words to describe the product itself. Ireland’s most famous example of this is Tayto crisps. (Best explained here [slyt nsfw] by Irish comedian Dara O’Briain.)

When we went to the shop after school we’d always ask for “a bottle of coke and a packet of Taytos”, even if it was the really fizzy cheap stuff for 30p and the shop had another brand of crisps. I guess we could have been more accurate, but asking for crisps and a fructose-based soft drink would result in getting a lot of funny looks.

The humble office is, in reality, a treacherous minefield of these genericised words; you might find yourself looking for some Sellotape, or some Tippex or a pack of Post-it notes and a Biro to copy someone’s name off the Rolodex.

These, by rights, should all take capital letters, whereas if you wanted to delete some spam emails that’s fine, unless they’re from someone trying to get you to buy canned ham over the internet, in which case it would be a Spam email. (More on why in a moment.)

If you’re in an office State-side you might need to get something Xeroxed, then again you might need to Photoshop something or do some quick even Googling. Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, the work day’s already nearly over and the cleaners are coming in to do the Hoovering and wipe down the Formica in the canteen.

It’s enough to make your brain implode.

This is the result of the collision between the rules of the English language and the finicky, wacky world of international trademark law. English grammar rules state that when a word references a person directly, e.g. Draconian laws, Machiavellian politics or Herculean tasks, the name and name only is capitalised.

Trademark law, meanwhile, states that when a brand name is used, the brand name must always be capitalised. …So far so good…

Perhaps if the Earl of Sandwich had the foresight to copyright his invention every deli counter on the planet would have to write sandwich with a capital S on their menu for fear of being sued by the Sandwich estate. The word sandwich only gets a capital S when discussing the title of Earl of Sandwich or the district from which the title derives. This seems contrary to the Draconian/Machiavellian rule, which only serves to make things even more confusing.

For this reason most publications have specific rules dealing with these and take them very seriously.

The Times (UK) style guide states that existing brands such as Formica, Hoover, Jacuzzi and Jeep, amongst others, all receive capital letters because:

There is a risk of legal action for failure to do so.

For businesses, therefore, its advisable to avoid using genericised brand names as much as possible, even if four-wheel drive vehicle and whirlpool spa are far more of a mouthful than Jacuzzi or Jeep. If you feel you must use those words, however, then always use the capital letter, just to be on the safe side.

The golden rule, of course, is that, when in doubt, always seek legal advice.

In the example of spam emails, the word spam takes a small S because it is not directly referencing the Spam brand of tinned ham. (Though oddly enough email spam gets its name from a Monty Python sketch which references the brand over 100 times.)

Another example is coke. By rights both Coke and Cola should receive capital C’s, however cola, like sandwich, has also come to be a widely accepted generic term to describe a specific type of food. In this case a soft drink, and the term is now used differentiate it from, say, lemonade, rather than directly referencing the actual Coca-Cola brand.

Whilst Coca-Cola did not trademark the word cola, which is why you also see other products using the name in their brand such as Pepsi Cola or RC Cola, they did trademark the word Coke. So you would write:

“Tony was thirsty so he bought himself a can of Coke” – but only when referencing the brand.

The word coke itself has other uses. One could just as easily be referring to a by-product of coal, used for smelting, in which case it takes a small C. It has come to be used in the vernacular as short form for cocaine.

So, unless Tony is hooked on fizzy drinks, you would write, “Tony was addicted to coke.”

Heroin and Aspirin.

Ironically enough, cocaine was, once upon a time, a generic pharmaceutical name used in various tonics and potions and, rather famously, in Coca Cola itself. It is from the now-banned ingredient of coca leaves from which the brand derives its name.

Heroin, too, was once a legitimate and regularly available pharmaceutical, though in this case it was, believe it or not, an actual brand, rather than a generic name, and so would have originally taken a capital H.

Once its long-term health risks were discovered it was banned and became a generic word for the now-illegal substance.

By that time, Bayer, the company who manufactured it, no longer maintained the brand for a couple of obvious reasons, and so they let it expire, so now heroin now takes a small H.

The reason for this is because copyright law states that if a brand name expires, such as with heroin, the name no longer has to be capitalised. A more benevolent example is aspirin. In many countries, such as the US, Bayer’s trademark is no longer applicable so you can write it with a small a, like any other genericised product. But if you cross the border, into either Canada or Mexico, Bayer’s trademark is still in effect in which case you have to write it with a capital A.

In other words, Asprin would give itself a headache.

And as if all of this wasn’t confusing enough, any pharmaceutical drug that is put on the market today is given two names; the trade name and the brand name. Therefore fluoxetin and sildenafil citrate don’t require capitals but their brand names, Prozac and Viagra, do. This is of particular importance for anyone involved in medical writing.

Transcription firms, for example, will always have specific guidelines for medical transcribers regarding the proper use of capitalisation and the difference between trade and brand names. These are people who transcribe, amongst other things, from recordings of doctors during operations, describing the symptoms and procedures into a Dictaphone. (That’s another one by the way.) If the doctor mentions a specific drug the transcribers will often have to go online to research whether the doctor is referencing a trade name or the brand.

As for diseases and other eponymous illnesses these follow the same Draconian/Machiavellian rule. Examples include Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. These denote and directly reference a person, so they get an apostrophe before the S and the first letter. The word that denotes the actual name is always capitalised whilst the following word, such as disease or syndrome, is not.

Another example of the Draconian rule, and it’s a strange one, is diesel.

If you want to fill your car with diesel that’s not a problem, because you’re talking about a type of fuel, but if you describe the engine itself you have to say the Diesel engine – yes apparently so, the English language is nuts!

That’s because the engine was invented by a man called Rudolf Diesel.

As a German, however, Rudolf Diesel wouldn’t have had to worry about the mind-melting effects of eponymic grammar rules because in German all nouns are capitalised. That’s not to say that German doesn’t have some demented grammar rules of its own, it has plenty – and if you don’t believe me just ask Mark Twain.

The Chinese Domain Name Scam.

I first came across these three years ago, so this is hardly new. Plus there’s already plenty of information on the internet about these scams already. Thing is I started getting a few more of these recently so that means they’re obviously doing the rounds again. That’s why I decided to write this post again as a fresh new warning to those who may not be familiar with the type of scams involved.

The format of the Chinese Domain Scam is simple; you receive correspondence from someone claiming to represent some domain registration agency somewhere in Asia, China or Hong Kong usually:

Dear Manager/CEO/Director/Whatever

We are a domain registration company based in China/Hong Kong/Asia….

The email/letter then informs you that they have been contacted by some made-up company, ABC International, Won Ton  Holdings Hong Kong Limited, whatever, the company names all sound pretty vague, so that they could, potentially, be relevant to your company, or indeed any company, regardless of what your domain name or company name might be or what your line of business is. The idea is to invoke a sense of urgency that some other company (or possibly a competitor) is snapping up variants of your domain name and are therefore muscling in on your brand – GASP! :O

Luckily for you this nice company has decided to contact you first and inform you of this crisis and give you an opportunity to buy these domains yourself before the other company does – isn’t that nice of them?

But you need to act urgently in order to secure your domains and protect you brand! Fair enough if you run a huge multinational, the likes of Google or Coca Cola let’s say, then you might want to own a domain for every country on the planet, but to do so otherwise goes way beyond overkill.

Thing is, because these letters are so cleverly crafted a lot of businesses still end up getting scammed. As with many classic scams the Chinese domain scam works on a formidable one-two sucker-punch combination of ignorance and fear. Ignorance because they seek to take advantage of businesses who may not be so well-versed in internet jargon by deliberately clouding the distinction between trademark and domain before then pumping them full of fear. The very compelling fear that a competitor, or worse some unknown shadowy company somewhere in the Orient, could essentially steal their corporate identity. The idea is to solicit a knee-jerk reaction from the mark to protect their investment at all costs thus blocking out the rationality centres which would, in this case, normally be asking, “But I don’t have any business in Asia, so why the hell would ever need a domain name there?”

Domains & Trademarks.

Whilst trademarks are universal, some domains are not regulated at all whilst others are.
For example anyone can own a British .co.uk domain, even if they are not British or based in the UK. For an Irish domain – .ie – the applicant or company must firstly provide evidence that they are either from, or can prove they have a substantial connection to, the island of Ireland (North or South) and provide other documents such as proof of their own name, in the case of an individual, or proof of the company’s name from the Irish Companies Registration Office.

As far as a .com is concerned anyone is free to purchase one. The same goes for .net, .biz and .info domains amongst others. Though you may need to meet restrictions on other domains, as long as you meet the criteria (if there are any) and as long as your desired domain is not already registered by someone else, you are free to purchase any domain name you want from from whichever hosting company you choose.

You can check if a domain is available by going to whois.net and entering your desired domain. If you cannot find your desired country/domain in the list, type “whois” followed by your country name or desired domain name into a Google search to find a whois service relevant to your region. Here is a list of all domain names, here is a whois service for .uk domains, a whois for .ie domains and a whois for .eu domains.

Trademarks are a completely different thing entirely and it is, as always, recommended one seeks professional legal advice regarding any trademark-related issues. Suffice to say that, if you can determine that another website is using your trademarked name, logo, slogan or any other trademarked material, copyrighted content or other intellectual property belonging to your company or organization there are procedures which one can use to force its removal. Generally the first step would be that your legal representative contacts the offender (by regular mail if possible) with a Cease and Desist letter. Which essentially says, “remove this or else” where or else is invariably the initiation of legal proceedings.

Cybersquatting.

I was once asked for advice on this by a large company, who, following a Chinese Domain scam email, became concerned that someone could potentially steal their brand and “trade” as them. Whilst it is true that, in theory, one could indeed do this, a quick whois query is all it should take to find the perpetrator, or at the very least, know which hosting company the perp is using and act accordingly. As laws vary from country to country it would be best to seek legal advice in such a situation, though following numerous high-profile cases in the United States, Britain and elsewhere, this behaviour, known as cybersquatting has become universally illegal and the last thing any reputable hosting company wants is to be seen as an accomplice.

One famous example of cybersquatting occurred back in 2000 when a porn website was launched with the name Bertie Ahern.com, the name of the then Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland, Bertie Ahern, with the intention of blackmailing him into buying the domain for an enormous amount of money. (They obviously thought the guy had suitcases full of cash just lying around the place, no idea where they got that idea from.)

Domain Parking and Domaining.

More often than not, however, the only thing a person will do with your desired domain will be either one or both of the following:

1. Park the domain – a.k.a. “What You Don’t Need, When You Need It” syndrome:

Anyone who’s ever used the internet for more than one hour has, at some point, invariably come across a “parked” page. They will, for example, proclaim to have What You Need – When You Need It – without any hint of irony – as these sites are always about as much use as a wind farm on the moon.

Thing is, as more and more people take their first tentative steps online they invariably get duped by sites which are parked and click on the links on the page. These links are based on keywords related to the domain name and every time someone clicks on one of those links they are redirected to another page whilst the owner of the parked domain makes a small amount of money (generally only a few cents, but it can add up).

2. Try and sell you the domain for an enormous price:

Every commodity has its speculators and web domains are no different. Speculating in domain names is called “Domaining” and the people who engage in it are “Domainers”. These are people (or companies) who build up a large portfolio of names, buying them up from cheap hosting companies or snapping up expired domains. They then park the domains, in order to generate pay-per-click revenue, and try and sell them off to people for exorbitant amounts of money.

Just one sale can be enough for them to pay for a large domain portfolio whilst still making an enormous profit.

Protecting Your Domain Name.

Let’s take the example of an auto dealer in Cardiff, let’s call him Mike Jones, who owns the company Mike Jones’ Autos. Mike has just had somebody create a website design for his company with the domain www.mikejonesautos.co.uk. Mike also sees that www.mikejonesautos.com* and www.mikejonesautos.net are also available. In this case it would be a clever idea for him to buy both of these domains and simply have them redirect back to his co.uk site. This way he not only protects his name from being used by others he will also catch all those people who accidentally type in his address with a .com or .net extension and would have otherwise not have found his business and would, instead, have been looking at a 404 page not found error.

Since people generally don’t ever type in .info or .biz, and since .org is generally for non-profit organisations, there isn’t much point in Mike owning any of these. Nor, for that matter, for him to own any domains outside the UK. All Mike needs to do, to protect his name and web presence, is to keep a careful eye on when his registered domains expire and be sure and renew them when the time comes.

Even though most hosting companies or registrars will send out regular email reminders to inform clients that their domain registration will soon expire, many businesses still loose their domain names, generally due to procrastination or lack of a communication within the organization. It is common for the registrar or host to temporary hold these domains within a so-called grace period, where the original owner can still buy the domain(s) back. After which time they are released for sale. When this happens it is common for domainers to swoop in and purchase the expired domains in bulk in a bid to ransom them back to the original owner at a hugely inflated price.

You can prevent this by doing two things; firstly, as mentioned, by ensuring that you keep a careful eye on expiry dates and also, that you register the domain for as long a period as your registrar will allow. This not only pushes out the domain’s expiry to a far-distant date it will also influence your site’s search engine ranking. Search engines prefer sites with domains that are registered for longer periods, as it shows them that you are not a fly-by-night website but rather in it for the long haul. Believe it or not this actually counts for something within many major search engine algorithms.

Finally, whatever you do, make sure you have your domain name secured first before you start putting the URL on all your marketing materials. This might seem like an obvious step, but it wasn’t to 20th Century Fox when, during the promotion of their then-upcoming movie 28 Weeks Later, hired a company to run a guerrilla marketing campaign in the UK plastering the URL www.ragevirus.com all over London before they’d actually bought the domain itself with hilarious results.

As for trademarks these are well outside the remit of this blog and, as mentioned previous, it is therefore strongly recommended that you seek legal advice on this matter with a specialist in trademark law, particularly if you wish to use the trademark internationally.

*Note: The name Mike Jones and location Cardiff were picked at random. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. At the time of writing the above example domains were not in use, we are not responsible for, nor do we endorse, any content or company that may reside at these domain names in the future

From Ennis, in County Clare come the Pantaloons, who have just celebrated the tenth anniversary of the popular annual Ennis pantomime.

Their latest panto was Aladdin, which ran between Christmas 2010 until January 2nd 2011. You can see photos from Aladdin, or check out other previous pantos in Ennis by checking out the new website or connecting with them on Facebook.

This week also saw the launch of a second website, West Limerick View, West Limerick’s premier web portal. The site contains a wealth of information on the West Limerick region including West Limerick News, West Limerick Events, Local Business in West Limerick, West Limerick Bars and Restaurants, West Limerick Tourism, West Limerick Hotels & Accommodation and more!

When Ger Sweeney was looking to launch his new website he had no hestitation in contacting Brionglóid Media to handle the website design.

We had worked with Ger in the past by providing web design and online promotion services for past events of his which included hosting some of the biggest names in entertainment from the UK and Ireland.

Ger Sweeney is already a familar voice to many. Beginning his career in broadcasting on local radio when he was just 14, Ger’s journey has taken him from his native Ireland around the world, electrifying the airwaves in both Britain and the United States.

Now Ger has begun to embrace new social technologies to help extend his audience even further. His exciting new GSFM project is a free daily podcast series that manages to pack in quizzes, requests and various fun facts into a daily 2 minute show. It is availble for free on iTunes, via RSS, Youtube or from the www.gersweeney.net website.

Ger is also continuously involved in various other special projects such as his new Ger’s Audio Gift service; mini shows that are researched, produced and presented by Ger as a special gift for someone. You can contact Ger for more information on this and other services. You can also send your requests, feedback and answers to the GSFM teasers and mystery voice competition direct to Ger via Facebook or Twitter.

Special thanks to Conn from Edgecast Media for providing podcasting support.

…And lo, the grateful townspeople watched as Windows XP struck a match, lit a half-smoked cigar, tipped his hat and rode off into the sunset. Roll credits, cue theme music by Ennio Morricone…

You know it’s funny how things change. When XP first arrived on the scene I’d recently just finished a Windows networking course. I was used to working with Windows 2000, 98 and NT4. XP, with its shiny new look and Fisher Price Start bar didn’t appeal to me, nor did the OS itself when I started using it. After Service Pack 2 things started to settle down and I began to appreciate its merits more and more.

The greatest improvement XP provided was its plug and play functionality. Back when I started off in the internet cafe business, my first business, the majority of client computers were still running Windows 98. Windows 98 SE was a lovely OS for its time but as technology moved on its shortcomings were becoming more and more apparent. At the time floppy discs were still the most common media but then every so often a customer would arrive with a USB stick or a digital camera and a good portion of time was wasted installing drivers, rebooting the computers and generally battling to get 98 to recognise the devices we all now take for granted. Simply being able to plug in a USB device and not have to muck around in device manager and reboot every two minutes was an enormous plus for XP.

I’ve been running XP myself for five years and can use it blindfolded. I’ve implemented numerous XP networks with ease and repaired countless XP systems in several languages including Polish, Russian, German, Norwegian, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. Yes, Arabic; I know XP so well I can literally use it backwards.

Of course I’ve had to wipe my own XP installation and reinstall twice during those 5 years. Not due to any cataclysmic failures like I’ve had with other Windows systems (95, NT4 and 2000 I’m looking at you) but because of Windows’ tendency to slow down with age as more and more programs are installed and its registry gets all gunked up.

When Vista arrived I, like many others, was reluctant to upgrade. In fact I done a brisk and lucrative trade in “retro-fitting” new laptops and PCs that had sold with Vista pre-installed. I wiped them, installed XP, drivers and software and charged a nominal fee. It was great for my business, though a disaster for Microsoft. Microsoft was trying to push Vista as hard as it could but it ended up blowing up in their face. It wasn’t just customers who shunned XP, vendors too, started to revolt, most notably Dell, who were instrumental in keeping XP on sale.

Vista had been a problem child from day one. Beginning in 2001 with the codename Longhorn, the system suffered from delay after delay, finally getting released in late 2006/early 2007. By then Bill Gates had already announced his retirement from Microsoft. Steve Ballmer would later admit that Windows Vista was “incomplete” and many internet pundits were quick to blame Ballmer for Vista’s failings. (as if)

Following Windows 7′s release last year the reception from customers and suppliers has been much warmer than that of Vista. Though with the spectre of Vista still looming large in the background 7′s uptake hasn’t been quite as high as Microsoft were hoping and Windows XP still retains over 50% of the global operating system market [source] [source].

As different metrics are often used it’s not easy to get a 100% accurate assessment as to how many XP boxes are out there however as the above links show, both XP and Vista usage is declining, albeit XP more slowly and Vista much more rapidly.

Because Vista users are clearly more inclined to jump ship than XP users are Microsoft has had to use other methods to wean them off the system and get them to upgrade to Windows 7. One of the most obvious examples of this came with the recent announcement that Internet Explorer 9 will not be XP compatible.

Four more years! Four more years!

The final blow came with the news that, as of last Friday, Windows XP will no longer be on sale. But there’s an important caveat there, which leaps out at you.

Even though we are ending the sale of Windows XP on October 22, 2010, we still plan to provide support for Windows XP until April 2014.

2014!!!? Wow! People must really love XP! Think about it, using Windows XP in 2014 would be like me using the aforementioned Windows 98 up until April next year. It’s actually amazing how well the OS has stood the test of time. (Which is more than can be said about the IE6 browser which was originally bundled with it)

With the extended support that will give the OS a lifetime of 13 years, not including the 2 years of development which would make it 15 years old in total. Is XP the Volkswagen Beetle of operating systems or what?

Conspiracy theorists and the Mayan calendar will have you believe that the world will end in 2012. It’s great to know even if it does we’ll still have XP support for 2 more years, that softens the blow considerably.

And what about me? Well, obviously a guy in my position has to keep current which is why I recently upgraded and got a new desktop with Windows 7 sitting (thus far) pretty next to Ubuntu Studio so I can dualboot and enjoy the best of both worlds. I still got XP on my laptop, however, and I’ve no intention on changing it any time soon. It works, it boots up quickly, I know where everything is and it suits me just fine.

Whenever I do migrate entirely from Windows XP I’m sure it will be the same way everyone else does – reluctantly.

The field of journalism and publishing in general has never really enjoyed a cosy relationship with the Internet. The Web, with its enormous user base, free content and open-ended architecture, where people can comment on content, and in some cases even edit existing content or create their own, is seen as an enormous threat to their business model.

One of the most vocal opponents of this is media baron Rupert Murdoch. Last year Murdoch announced that he would charge people to access online content from his large portfolio of publications, such as the Wall Street Journal Online, and that he firmly believed that people would be happy to pay for quality content.

Around the same time Murdoch accused Google and Yahoo of being content thieves who steal news content from him and that he would be henceforth blocking them from indexing his content. Google were quick on the rebuttal and said whilst they understood the challenges that faced the publishing industry, the search giant was not directly responsible for their problems.

The general buzz around the web at the time was that Murdoch was shooting himself in the foot by blocking search engines, that the pay-for-content model would never work and that the newspaper and publishing industry, much like the music industry, was doomed.

Contrary to Newscorp’s decision other news sources, such as BBC and Time Warner, continue to create content and videos specifically for the web, firstly to increase their reach and influence, but also so that they can continue to remain relevant within an ever-changing media landscape.

Time Warner, in particular, provides a wealth of free, interactive content for many of their flagship brands, most notably Time magazine and news network CNN. They are also at the forefront when it comes to leveraging the web to interact with their audience. CNN anchors, for example, never miss an opportunity to mention their Facebook or Twitter accounts.

Social media and blogs have, in recent times, beat the press to the punch and revealed many breaking stories. Blogs have played an enormous role in the democratisation of news, often covering stories which they mainstream media may be reluctant to. (Iraq continues to be a prime example.) Once again Time Warner has been quick to capitalise. CNN’s iReport encourages amateur journalists to submit their own content to be featured online or on the CNN iReport section of their TV broadcasts. Other networks also regularly use user-generated footage, even camera phone footage, on their news reports.

In addition to raw content, the mainstream press also owes much to blogging and social media in helping them to better cover stories. One example where user-generated media played an enormous role in informing the mainstream media was during last year’s demonstrations in Iran, where the only sources of information came in the form of Twitter updates and videos from YouTube. Whilst the validity, reliability and objectivity of much of this content was questionable, it none the less provided an insight into the on-the-ground situation in a country where the Western press did not have free and open access.

Many in the field of traditional news media will therefore readily admit that not all blogs are created equal and that social media can be a great sources of news and information, however it has always maintained that blogs can never compete with proper news organisations with professional journalists, editors, photographers and support staff. (Not to mention proofreaders.) Many bloggers and champions of social media are quick to dismiss such claims as sour grapes though it may surprise you to know that I do not agree them.

The problem is that traditional journalism has large overheads, and the larger the organisation is, the larger those overheads have become. Traditional forms of website monetization like banner ads often fall well short of the mark and, as mentioned on my Google TV post, people have a far lower tolerance for online video ads than ads on TV. Even a five second video ad can precipitate a mass exodus towards YouTube.

People have also come to expect free, fully-interactive content right at their fingertips and so newspapers and periodicals wishing to charge for it, if just to cover traditional journalistic overheads, risk loosing their audience. Web audiences also tend to be far more fickle than newspaper readers or TV viewers with a much, much lower attention span. Even when you provide the content freely there is just so much out there these days that people tend to bounce around from one site to the next, rather than trusting any one individual news source.

News Media meets New Media

Rather than seeing this as the End of Days, however, the traditional news media should instead view it as a new, wild frontier which needs to be tamed. Instead of networks battling for ratings and publications over circulation, they need to think in terms of Diggs and Facebook “Likes”. And if they wish to save their industry then they need to remember a phrase which has without a doubt become the most hackneyed maxim in the field of online marketing – that “content is king”.

It has to be dynamite content, however, content so good that people cannot drag themselves away from it. Remember, too, that people tend to spend the most time on social sites. Facebook is a prime example. People cannot drag themselves away from Facebook, even when they’re supposed to be working.

Spurned on by the continuing growth of smart mobile devices and new products such as Amazon’s Kindle and the Apple iPad, new publishing models are being devised which seek to combine the best of both words, by taking the simple joy of sitting down to read and slowly digest the Sunday morning paper (with all its various supplements) and synergising it with all the best dynamic content and features of the Web.

I believe the future of news lies somewhere in between the largely-unexplored middle ground between the traditional and the online media camps. The membrane where professional, neutral journalists and editors provide compelling content – full multimedia content – that can then be further augmented by user-generated content, mashups and multidirectional commentary.

One perfect example is one which appeared on a video of Google I/O conference back in May. It shows an app developed for sale in Google’s soon-to-open Chrome app store for Sports Illustrated, a leading American sports magazine published by Time Warner.

Whilst I’m sure Time Warner brands like Time and CNN will continue to offer free content, the Sports Illustrated app shows that they are also thinking the Murdoch way, by offering a premium service which will provide additional content and value to their users. And it is this very content which adds the value to the users.

It is true journalistic content, with professional articles, photography and videos, combined with all the best the web and social media has to offer. It also offers many new ways to gleam much-needed advertising revenue by allowing those who advertise on your publication to connect with people in the same social, multi-faceted way, as the video also shows.

For those in printed media industry, be you the editor of a local town or regional newspaper or the head of a vast global publishing empire, if you’re concerned about the Web and how it’s impacting the industry, don’t be. Watch the video below.

This is how it’s done!.

How to become Google’s number one “drunken moron”.

One recent and topical example is that of Ireland’s current leader (though indicators suggest not for very long) Brian Cowen. Ireland, whilst having a large diaspora throughout the world, is a small island nation of 4.2 million with limited global influence when compared with Britain or the United States. Those living outside the Emerald Isle probably would never have heard of Brian Cowen until a couple of weeks ago. So, if you don’t know who he is already, all you need know for this example is that he recently became the centre of controversy over whether or not he was drunk whilst appearing, incoherent and slurring his speech, on a nationally broadcast radio interview to discuss the economy. The result was an already abysmal approval rating, 18% in July 2010 [source] dropping further to 11% by the end of September [source] following the scandal.
(To compare, George W Bush’s lowest, the lowest of any US President, was a comparatively-high 19%.)

In other words, this was a political and public relations meltdown and it would be hard to imagine how it could be made any worse. Enter Google Instant.

Let’s imagine, in the above example, that I was searching for “Brian Cowen DCU speech”, but by the time I type in “Brian Cowen” I can already see the autosuggestion field with “Brian Cowen Drunk” and related queries, and when I type in the D that seals the deal and I get dozens of results automatically for “Brian Cowen Drunk” appearing in the main Google search results.

Now, as far as the world’s most popular search engine is concerned, the name Brian Cowen is permanently affixed to the word drunk and worse still, the search term has gone viral. Suddenly a man who, lets be honest, most of the world didn’t even know existed the week previous, became a viral phenomenon appearing on sites like the hugely popular tongue-in-cheek news aggregator Fark (playing the drunken Irish stereotype angle) as well as countless Tweets, blog posts and YouTube videos.

Now I might sound like I’m contradicting some of the points I made in my last post about Instant, having already said that generally people, when they have their minds set on finding a specific piece of information, are unlikely to get distracted when Google suggests something else. Thing is, if ever there was something that just might distract the searcher it’s a funny video or nice juicy scandal. And as for both rolled into one, well…

So, getting back to the DCU speech example, whilst the end result will invariably be that I’ll continue my search and eventually find the speech I was looking for, there’s a also very high chance it will be after I watch the parody YouTube video.

This should serve as a dire warning for anyone who still doubts the power of social media. Firstly, companies should be acutely aware of how much influence social media has on search engines in general and Google results in particular. Secondly, that it is these very trends which now also dictate much of the content in the mainstream media. Television is prime example. When stuck for material or content researchers will often go online to find out what is popular and “trending”. The result? The man hardly anybody outside Ireland ever heard of is now famous throughout America as a “drunken moron” thanks to Jay Leno.

Thus begins a vicious circle as the Jay Leno video appears on YouTube (a Google-owned company) and also goes viral. With millions searching for the video “Brian Cowen Jay Leno” becomes a top Instant search term shortly after, and the wheels of Cowen’s PR nightmare keep on turning.

Brian Cowen’s name currently appears top of all results on Google.ie for the term “drunken moron”. He appears on all but the last result on page one and continues to appear throughout the results, right up to page 63 out of 66 result pages. He also tops results on Google.co.uk and elsewhere. Now, knowing what we now do about Google’s Instant/autocomplete technology, we can predict a strong possibility that Google Instant will autosuggest the term “drunken moron” every time someone searches for the name “Brian Cowen” and display those results in real time.

It’s part of the Irish character to find incidents like this hilarious, even when, in fact especially when, they have potentially-disasterous consequences. Right now it’s not only make-or-break time for Ireland, but for Europe as a whole, and the ECB and the IMF are watching developments closely. Ireland, with a crippled economy and a dysfunctional banking system, has already had several negative bond rating readjustments and is desperately trying to assuage jittery foreign investors. Having a leader who dominates Google search results for the term “Drunken Moron” isn’t going to help matters. In other words, Google, and the web in general, has become instrumental in destruction of Cowen’s political career.

Reputation management for Businesses

For companies, rather than individuals, the issue becomes even more dangerous. It can be bad enough with autocomplete, whereby someone typing in searches for “Joe Bloggs” or “Acme Airlines” might see autosuggested terms like “Joe Bloggs scam” or “Acme Airlines ripoff” but now imagine the person can also see the results of those search terms and read their content in real time – not good.

Very few companies will ever experience the sort of PRmageddon that BP or Toyota did this year, but that doesn’t mean companies should ignore their online reputation. Signing up to Google Alerts is strongly recommend, so as to be notified of new content containing your name or the name of your company so you can be ready to stamp out any dangerous sparks before they become wildfires.

Of course, Instant or not, whatever’s out there, both the positive and the negative, people are going to find it anyway. And to reiterate the point I made last time regarding Instant and SEO, the search engine hasn’t changed and the information on it hasn’t changed, just the interface is changed, making it easier, and faster, for people to find that information.

Therefore the methods used to counter negative press online haven’t changed either; that is to proactively deal with negative press whilst continuing to build your search engine and local search footprint. The game is speeded up now, however, so your company will need to speed up too, or risk being overwhelmed by the web’s ever-changing landscape.

Brionglóid Media can help your company overcome these sorts of issues, as part of an ongoing web maintenance contract. We can help monitor review sites (e.g. Trip Advisor), Local search sites (i.e. Google Places, Bing Local), social networks, blogs, forums and other online communities and, if necessary, engage with customers on your company’s behalf to help mediate disputes or counter libellous claims against your business. We can also help you to diminish the Google search result ranking of articles or pages which may have negative implications for your company and replace them with more desirable articles and press releases, working to positively promote your business online. For more information please contact us today and we can begin an online PR campaign tailored to your specific needs.

In the previous post I gave an introduction to Google Instant and talked about the technology and how it works. This time I want to talk more about how Instant predicts people’s search habits and what effect it will have on those habits and on your business’s website traffic. Finally I want to mention a little bit on Google Instant SEO and debunk many of the myths and misrepresentations that surround Google’s novel search engine enhancement.

So I guess the first thing people will want to know is; what about all those bloggers who’ve been saying that Google Instant marks the end of SEO and online marketing? In a word – bull.

So why say it? Well, clearly these bloggers know the value of link-bait. In the same way scandals and controversy helps sell newspapers, saying something alarmist or controversial is always a sure-fire way to get people to read, comment on and link to your blog post.

Big Names – Big Brands
One of their most alarmist comments is that Google are now “suddenly” giving more weight to large corporations in search. This is complete and other BS. The fact of the matter is Google Instant doesn’t mark the end of SEO any more than the introduction of autocomplete did.

A is for:

B is for:

The above tables show examples of Google Instant/autocomplete information (September 2010). There you will see the big brands & big names based on the most popular searches. No real surprises there (well other than the revelation that so many of my fellow countrymen are still interested in Big Brother).

Yes, when you search you do see a predilection towards big brands and big names, primarily large Internet companies or large retailers and chain stores, as well as airlines, banks, telcos and so on, but that predilection originates with all of us. Google are merely reflecting our own search trends back at us. In other words they’re giving the people what they want. And what they want, clearly, is to buy things, bank online, book flights online, play games online, talk to friends online or check the news, sport and weather. Go to any internet café on the planet and this is exactly what you will see people doing.

In fact, back when I used to own an internet cafe I used to check which were the most popular sites with customers as logged by my Smoothwall firewall/proxy server. When I compared them with those of a friend of mine who ran another cafe the results were virtually identical. Google released their autocomplete functions just I was exiting the net cafe business, however I did have the time to check the logs of both cafes against the Google suggestions and, once again, they were virtually identical. Since Instant and autocomplete are one and the same this is basically solid proof, if ever any was needed, that the results that are generated by Instant are based solely on which sites are the most popular with searchers and not, as some have hinted, motivated by any covert agreement between Google and its advertisers to gain a higher ranking.

Still don’t believe me? Ok, try it for yourself, open two tabs and search for the same thing, one tab with Instant enabled and the other disabled. Because Amazon’s dominating the A’s let’s see if they perform any different on Instant than they would normally. “Books” (I used Google.com US for this) bring up as the top two, books.google.com and Amazon. “Bookshop” brings up a company called “Bookshop Santa Cruz.” However as I honed in on the location, “bookshop [name of town/city - wherever you live]” the results began to change and update themselves according to my searches. When I had my my full search term typed in the bar I then compared my search with that of “regular” Google and – hey whadya know! – they were the exact same. The same companies dominated the top results for the same search term in both regular and Instant.

So whilst Instant uses autocomplete information to help facilitate the search and changes the look and feel of the search engine functionality, the final results for any given search term remain unchanged. Therefore if you’ve already conducted a comprehensive online marketing campaign, with the emphasis on SEO and local search/maps, then you have absolutely nothing to fear from Google Instant.

How will Google Instant change how people search?
Another common anti-Instant argument I’ve heard is that, by providing people with ready-made search terms people will be more likely to go with those search terms than use their own. This simple isn’t true. If the suggested search term is identical to what the person was searching for in the first place – which is all a case of predicting probabilities as far as the search engine is concerned – then that person will, of course, go for the suggested search term. But if Instant throws up suggestions that are contrary to what the user is looking for, they will naturally be ignored.

Think about it; if I’m looking for “Paris Hotels”, and I’ve just typed in “Paris H” the odds are very high that I’m going to continue typing my search term and I’m not going to be swayed by recommended links to sites about Paris Hilton. But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that I start searching for Paris Hotels and do click on the link to Paris Hilton, one has to wonder how committed I was to booking a hotel in Paris in the first place. It begins to look very much like I’m surfing, rather than searching.

It works the other way too. Say I’m a zoology student researching “Amazonian tapir population decline”. How likely am I, when Google Instant suggests it, to forget about my research paper and buy Dan Browne and Harry Potter books on Amazon instead? Not very.

So, whilst Google Instant does make it easier for people to access the most popular sites and content online it does not mean people are suddenly going to forget what they’re looking for. What it will do, however, is help prevent people from accessing sites they didn’t mean to, therefore improving bounce and conversion rates.

Whilst there have been massive improvements in search over the years, they’re still not all that good at understanding exactly what information we want. Google still doesn’t really know what we want so it guesses based upon what other people have wanted in the past. This helps anyone trying to conduct a search because, whilst they know the answer they want, they may not necessarily know how to best phrase the search query in order to find it. Instant now not only shows suggestions of what people have searched for in the past, it also shows the results in real time. So the user can see whether the search was successful or not. The result is that people find exactly what they want faster and easier and the likelihood of people accidentally accessing sites unrelated to their search term is greatly reduced.

Of course it’s not going to stop false landings completely, as anyone who’s accidentally landed on this page searching for Amazonian tapir population numbers can probably attest. (I aim to please, try here)

How to increase traffic with Google Instant.
Contrary to what the doomsayers say, Instant exposes even greater scope with which to connect directly with search engine users. Most people still don’t understand what a search engine actually does and fewer still understand how search engines actually work. They just know that if they type the name of the company they’re looking for it brings up the company automatically so they don’t have to mess around with all that fiddly www-dot stuff. They also tend to view Google as the oracle of the web, rather than understanding how it crawls sites and indexes content and keywords, they tend to ask it questions; “How do I do this?”, “where can I buy X in region Y?” and so forth. Google has only the most limited understanding of what words and search terms mean, so although it has a better track record than most search engines, it will none the less frequently show results that are irrelevant to what the person was looking for.

There are two reasons why this happens. The first is because the person used a bad or vague search term. This problem will be greatly reduced by Google Instant’s improved autosuggest feature, thus greatly increasing the chances that they will eventually find that which they seek. The second reason the user cannot find a relevant page is because a page relevant to their chosen search term simply doesn’t exist. This problem has also been reduced a lot due to specific question and answer sites like eHow and Yahoo Answers filling in many pre-existing gaps, but it still happens quite often.

Now imagine there’s a Google Instant search term that’s already out there, that’s related to your business or niche, but that there’s no answer or content to satisfy it? There are obviously a lot of people searching for that term, but that demand is going unsatisfied and all the potential is lost. So, rather than trying to go after saturated search terms that your competitors are already ranking high for, why not go all-out to secure this specific search term? Google’s Zeitgiest and Insights pages are a good place to start looking for those terms. Bear in mind, though, there are many words and phrases which Google automatically censor from Instant results.

So, whilst there’s still a long, long way to go before we reach the Star Trek level when we can just say, “computer, how do we do this?” or “show me all the files related to that” and the computer responds appropriately, Instant does serve as a good stop-gap solution by making it easier to match the queries made by users with the content they desire. You won’t have to wait long for other search engines, most noteably Bing, to follow Google’s lead, and for suggestive search to become the new standard.

Google Instant search optimization.
So how do you optimize your business website for Instant-type search? Well, getting back to the “bookshop [town]” example I reccommend, firstly, that your business concentrates heavily on local search, particularly Google Places, Facebook Places, Bing Local and the emerging trends in geo-tagging social networks like Foursquare.

Local search is becoming ever more important these days and geotagging is another rising trend. Search for any busines + location combination on Google, e.g. “Hotel London” or “Restaurant Paris” and the first thing you will notice is that, top of the results are lists of businesses on Google Places complete with maps of their location. Naturally you’ll want to be right at the top and marked on those maps. You’ll also want to ensure that your organisation keeps a very close eye on your listings and deals proactively with any negative comments so as to resolve disputes before they escalate. That way you can rank high on Google and also enjoy high customer feedback.

Other than that the rules of good SEO still apply and have not changed not even slightly. As discussed in the bookshop example the end results of a search for a given term or keyword are identical whether Instant is enabled or not. So you will need to ensure that your site exibits the charactaristics of quality web design, that it is properly designed, coded and easy to navigate. This way not only is it easy for people to find what they’re looking for, it makes it easier for search engine spiders to crawl and index your site also. You should also provide a sitemap for your users and an XML sitemap of your site to help search engines, like Google, index your site’s content more easily. Finally be sure, also, that your site does not have any flash-based navigation or contains frames.

If you are not sure you can always contact us for a consultation. You may also be interested in our link-building services.

For those who don’t know, Google Instant is a new service that’s currently being rolled out worldwide. The idea behind it is that it speeds up searches by suggesting search terms to you as you type. Essentially it’s the same principal as the autocomplete function which has been a familiar part of the Google search experience for some time now, but extended throughout the page.

So, for example, when you type in A the familiar dropdown menu appears showing a number of possibilities for A based on popularity. Usually when teaching the alphabet we say “A is for Apple” but in Google.com (USA), no doubt much to Steve Jobbs’ chagrin, the top of the A autocomplete list is Amazon, based on the site’s enormous popularity. All that Google Instant does (though Google make a huge deal of it) is automatically serve results based on the autocomplete data. So, when you type in “A”, it not only shows the main A-results with Amazon at the top, it also shows results for Amazon at the bottom of the page.

Instant really isn’t anything new or revolutionary, it’s basically the same basic Google search engine with a new front-end tweak that helps speed up searching. At the end of the day Google want to retain their number one position. They want to ensure that as many people as possible use Google and that they all find what they want as quickly as possible. As long as they manage to stay ahead of the posse in terms of the quality of search results and ease of use, they’ll retain it. And from that point of view, Instant delivers.

At this point I should mention that, personally speaking, I don’t really like Instant. I’m an incurable geek, of course, a web-veteran who’s been a Google user for over a decade.  I’m used to performing my own searches, using functions where necessary and I’ve picked up a lot of tips and tricks over the years to make information retrieval as swift as possible. So for me Instant serves as an unnecessary and somewhat irritating distraction whereas original Google, with its familiar minimalism, reassures me that I’m the one telling the search engine what to search for, not the other way around.

Website redesigns almost always provoke negative reactions from a significant proportion of users, we don’t like when something we’ve gotten used to using gets changed. That’s why I’m sure the new Twitter is going to provoke a similar reaction and it’s also why I decided to reserve judgement and give myself more time to test Google Instant before weighing in.

Whilst I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had this reaction I am no longer in the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” camp regarding Instant nor do I regard this as Google’s New Coke moment. First of all, if you don’t like using Instant, you have the option to disable it by clicking on a clearly marked link on the right-hand side of the search bar. Secondly, though it may not be for everyone, for most people Google Instant does offer many advantages over regular Google search and the more I used it the more I began to appreciate just how ingenious it really is.

My first business, way back when, was an internet café. I dare say operating such a business has given me an enormous advantage over other web designers and developers. Why? Because it firstly gave me the chance to view (and often times assist) a diverse range of users, of all ages and skillsets, and secondly – and this is the clincher – it allowed me to see how they performed on various websites. When I started thinking in these terms I suddenly I saw how much of a game-changer Google Instant is really going to be.

I’m going to introduce you to a character called Joe, who is the ultimate benchmarker.
Joe is a composite character of various people I came across working whilst running my internet cafe. My café was based in Ireland, but I’d say everyone who has ever worked in an internet café before has had a Joe of their own and when I describe Joe, I’m sure you’ll probably know somebody just like him.

Joe doesn’t believe in calling repairmen and never took his car to a mechanic. The doctor keeps telling him he should slow down a bit but then what does he know? Joe comes from that that hard-working, hard-as-nails generation; fiercly frugal, doggedly determined and self reliant. And he certainly isn’t going to let a thing like mild myopia (it’s not as mild as he’d care to admit) or not having the first clue how to use a computer stand between him and a good bargain. For seven decades of his life computers were non-existent, then he heard about eBay, found some great deals on tools and hardware, and since then got hopelessly hooked.
Getting to the eBay website, however, is a constant battle.

Joe represents all those squinting, one-finger typists out there who can’t see the screen as well as they’d like to and to whom the QWERTY keyboard may as well be the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Now, Joe just clicks on the big blue E which he associates with being “The Internet”. (We’d like Joe to use Chrome or Firefox instead but one step at a time). Internet Explorer opens up with the homepage set to Google. Joe now only has to press one single, solitary key – E – before eBay appears automatically top of the search results. One key press and two mouse clicks is all it takes to bring Joe to his destination.

Both Ebay and Amazon already have an autocomplete function on their site and I’m sure they can see the potential of Instant-like technology and how they might adapt it for their site so people, regardless of their level of computer literacy, can find, and purchase, the items they’re interested in as quickly and easily as possible.

This is the thing that I’ve been telling people since day one and it especially applies to ecommerce sites of all sizes; the easier you make your site to use, the easier it will be for you to sell. If you’re not sure how, Google Instant can help show you the way.

When in doubt, try to think of a Joe-like character you might know and try to envision how that person might perform on your site. How easy, or difficult, would it be for them to locate key information or perform a transaction? Now imagine that, unlike Joe, the person doesn’t have that same determination, and will give up very easily if they can’t find what they’re looking for and go to one of your competitors instead. Now think about Google Instant again, think about how long it took Joe to find what he was looking for. Under one second to find it, under two seconds to get there. There it is, that’s your time to match.

Google already offer a Custom Search Engine service so that you can use Google technology to allow people to search through your site’s content. Although Google haven’t released official Custom/Instant search code yet I did come across this Instant Google Custom Search Engine with information on how it was done here. I’ll be looking into that myself to see how I can adapt it for clients.

So, that’s it for now. In part two I’ll be talking more about Google Instant and what it means for your business. I’ll be going into detail about Instant search results and how to position yourself on them. I’ll also be debunking many of the myths and misrepresentations which have rapidly propigated throughout the blogosphere in the last couple of weeks.

Web Developer
The Firefox Web Developer Toolbar is an indespensible tool for web designers or developers.
It boasts a broad range of options such as enabling or disabling Cookies, Java or Javascript, CSS elements, forms, images and various other page elements. You can also view and highlight various HTML and CSS elements, edit them or validate them, as well as your site’s feed and check whether your site meets W3C accessability standards. Other features include a small screen rendering function to help get an idea how your site might look on a mobile device. With a huge amount of tools and information at your fingertips its the ideal tool for studying pages, tweaking CMS or blog templates, checking for errors or indeed any other web design/development task one can concieve of.

The Web Developer toolbar runs on Windows, Mac and Linux versions of Firefox, in addition to other Gecko-based browsers such as Seamonkey and Flock. A version of the Web Developer Toolbar for Chrome is now also available.

Search Status
The Search Status toolbar is ideal for SEOs or indeed anyone with an interest in their website’s search engine ranking. Available for both Firefox and Seamonkey it shows both the Google page rank of each visited page and can also display the rankings of Alexa, Complete and mozRank. There are also options to view backlinks from Google and Yahoo site explorer, indexed pages on Google and Yahoo/Bing, check the site on Archive.org, view WhoIs information, meta tag information and more.

Noscript
Installing the Noscript add-on for Firefox (or Gecko-compatible browsers) is a great way to keep your browsing safe, secure and private. Noscript blocks various scripts which may be dangerous such as Java, Javascript and Flash and the security vunerabilities which might result from them. You can then easily disable the protection for trusted sites such as your email account or other regular sites.