Digital UK Design Blog
The internet is big, as as this illustration proves, it’s growing faster than the Solar System. It’s amazing when you put all these figures down in one place, it makes you feel quite inadequate in comparison. 210 billion daily emails is staggering, if I just try a little harder I’m sure I’ll be able to increase that to 211,000,000,000 emails. Simply leave your email below and we’ll get the ball rolling 
Created by Online Education
Design by committee is a coined phrase to describe a collaborative approach to designing and, as I experience way to much, is bound to produce suboptimal results. Best described by the maxim “A camel looks like a horse that was planned by a committee”, I firmly believe this approach is severly handicapped. To illustrate it better let me regale you on a fictional example from the web design world, roll the tape Jack!
A tried and tested approach to efficient, time saving, quality controlled design.
Luckily the designer chose C and Susan was the designated first contact
I think by this point to see it’s not the ideal situation for any designer to be in. They can set out a strict spec, claim a deposit before the work is started but there’s always this middle grey area that can very easily go out of control. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and it takes a strong and experienced person to manage feedback. Some are changes, some are just ideas but at the end of the day it’s just not a situation a cherish being in.
There was a really funny exchange between Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington on his podcast the recently. They started talking about Chinese proverbs and quickly devolved the conversation into Noah’s poor decision to let similar animals onto the Ark.
This is paraphrasing, but you get the idea…
Ricky: “One of my favorites is, ‘A camel is a horse designed by committee.’”
Stephen: “Carl’s already wondering who’s on that committee.”
Karl: “I was just thinking why would you request the hump bit, cause that’s just gonna get in the way, innit?”
Ricky: “Ok, Karl. I’ll give you an animal, and you tell me where it has gone wrong. The Octopus.”
Karl: “It should have some bones. I never understood why it would like to get in a jar anyway.”
Ricky: “A Giraffe.”
Karl: “Noah should have seen some of the animals coming in and said, ‘Hold on. Just saw one like you.’ and then throw it out.”
Not sure if I captured the humor there, but, regardless, I like the premise of the initial statement. Design-by-committee is bound to produce suboptimal results, and I recommend to every designer to think carefully before accepting such projects, they can be more trouble than they’re worth.
Did you know 95.1% of users connected to the Internet in the UK are on broadband connections, according to Weboptimization.com. Here’s a quick roundup of some other interesting technology based statistics.
Eurostat ‘ICT Usage by Enterprises 2008′, ICT Statistics, December 2008
IAB/PwC, ‘Online AdspendStudy H2 2008′, April 2009
Eurostat, December 2008
Websiteoptimization.com, December 2008
Net Imperative, December 2008
TechCrunch, January 2009
Enders Analysis, March 2009
QuickPlay Media Inc., February 2009
eMarketer, December 2008
eMarketer, March 2009
eMarketer, March 2009
eMarketer, March 2009
eMarketer, March 2009
MobiAd News, March 2009
Deliotte, April 2009
Times Online, February 2009
Internet Retailing, May 2009
NMA, March 2009
Enders Analysis, February 2009
The Floating Frog, October 2009
Being an Apple fan boy and owning pretty much everything Apple branded, it came as a shock when I read on TechRadar that Apple have released their new range of iMac computers, with the largest being an incredible 27″ beast! I was so excited I bought one within 20 minutes of hearing about it.
“The iMac is widely praised as the best desktop computer in the world and today we are making it even better,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With brilliant LED displays and the revolutionary Magic Mouse, the new iMac delivers an amazing desktop experience that we think customers will love.”
…what sorry did you say something? Sorry sorry I must of been somewhere else, like in the world of beautiful 27″ iMacs, fluffy clouds and red bank statements. Thanks again Apple for plunging me deep into my overdraft again.
Quietly, and almost overnight, Google have moved into another market. At the time of writing there is not yet any announcement on the Official Google Blog but it looks as though Google have begun the process of unveiling maps based on their own data.
The Google Maps product that we have all grown so used to was driven by data from Tele Atlas, a Netherlands-based company, as witnessed by the map data copyright notice that appears in the bottom right hand corner of a Google Map.
But now Google Maps, in the US at least, have started to replace these with Google map data copyright notices. We should probably expect to see these changes rolled out elsewhere in due course too.
Although Google have not revealed the sources of their map data, the suggestion is that it is a by-product of the work they did in building Google Street View with additional data coming from other public domain sources, such as the rather poor quality TIGER data in the US. Interestingly, Google did blog about the introduction of the Street View Trike in the UK and how they are being used to reach those parts that they cannot easily reach by car – they even invite readers to suggest locations that are poorly mapped.
The other big map data provider is NAVTEQ who provide data for roughly 85% of the world’s in-car navigation systems as well as for portable GPS devices from Garmin and Magellan and for Bing, MultiMap and Yahoo! online maps. Last year NAVTEQ was acquired by Nokia and Tele Atlas was acquired by TomTom. I would imagine that both NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas are now feeling rather relieved.
One of the first indications of a change was that users had noticed a sudden degradation in the quality of Google’s maps. Roads that used to be mapped no longer appeared on the maps and roads appeared where buildings had recently been built. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the quality seems higher in those areas that have been visited by a Street View car and lower elsewhere. Google has started to aggregate data from a number of public sources and to combine them with their own map data, in particular, US land parcel data is now also visible on the maps. Some users have observed that buildings which had previously been unlabelled, for security reasons, are now clearly labelled.
Google have introduced a link at the bottom of the map inviting users to report problems that they spot. They must be aware that the map quality is not as good as it used to be but they must also be confident that any failings can be rectified by their enormous user community. Perhaps this early lack of quality is the main reason why the whole process has been kept quiet. Rather hypocritically, for a company that started the Data Liberation Front whose mission statement says:
“Users should be able to control the data they store in any of Google’s products.
Our team’s goal is to make it easier for them to move data in and out.”,
Google don’t provide a mechanism for users to retrieve the map corrections that they have submitted to Google. I wonder if that will change.
All of this is probably very good news for users of mobile map devices. The licence that Google had previously signed with Tele Atlas precluded the use of the map data for turn-by-turn applications. Such navigation applications are often expensive because of the extra cost of purchasing such a licence which has to be passed on to the end user. Google will now be able to move forward without being tethered by such restrictions.
An advantage to Google of owning their own data is that a mobile Google Maps application will now be able to pre-download map data to the device, enabling the maps to work where either there is no reliable mobile signal (such as in the Lake District in the UK) or in places where the cost of downloading the map data over the mobile network could be prohibitively expensive (such as when travelling abroad with a mobile data plan). Currently, on the iPhone at least, this kind of offline mapping is only available at no cost to applications that use the excellent OpenStreetMap data, such as the OffMaps application.
The value to Google of the flow back of data from mobile devices that are using Google Maps is enormous. Feedback from Android phones and other devices that allow background processing will almost certainly be used to enhance map data. As an example, consider a GPS enabled mobile device travelling in a vehicle along the road network. The Google Maps application running on the device will be able to feed back to Google not only information about the likely locations of new and unmapped roads, about one-way streets and permanent and temporary speed restrictions, but also information about the average speed at any given time of day on any road. This kind of information can be used to provide accurate and optimum routing. And once you know all of this information, it is not difficult to see how, by comparing it with new real-time data, it can be used to spot traffic incidents and hotspots as they occur. Nokia and TomTom already have agreements in place with mobile phone providers that allow such data to feed back but Google will be cutting out the middle man.
If you haven’t already contributed towards the construction of the map of your own town or city you should really take a look at OpenStreetMap and contribute at least a little of your time to enhance the excellent free and open map of the world whose data belongs to everyone.
OpenStreetMap is the Wikipedia of the mapping world. As other Wikipedia-like sites prove there is really only room for one such successful system at a time (remember Google Knol, Citizendium, and the late Encarta). Both Knol and Citizendium still exist, but how many times a year do you refer to them? The ease with which ordinary people can contribute towards the construction of accurate maps of the world and the effects of such crowd sourcing is evident in the surprisingly high quality of the OpenStreetMap maps. It is still a work in progress and some parts of the world are better covered than others. But at the current rate of improvement it has been estimated that within a year or two, OpenStreetMap will also contain enough good quality routing data to start to compete with the commercial offerings from Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ.
OpenStreetMap is possibly already the biggest threat to Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ but now that Google has entered the mapping market other large companies may be persuaded to lend their support to OpenStreetMap. Yahoo has already allowed OpenStreetMap to use their aerial imagery for the purposes of tracing map features. What if Microsoft or Apple were to get involved? It is likely that within a 12 to 24 month time span Microsoft may well re-enter the mobile market with a competitive operating system. It seems unlikely, however, that they will be happy to display the Google logo on their maps.
With feedback from mobile applications and the input of ordinary users OpenStreetMap could well be the map data source of the future. But there is clearly going to be a lot of competition from all of the data providers to gather a good deal of accurate and useful data and to offer it at a reasonable price. In the meantime, for those of us who are mobile map users, I think we are in for a good time.
According to Net Applications and their Top Browser Share Trends, Googles Chrome browser has increased it’s global browser market share to over 3%, a 285% increase in just a year. Comparing Chrome with Apples Safari browser there’s not alot between them with Safari currently holding just above 4% of the global web browser market. Still ahead of the competition is Internet Explorer with a collective share of around 65% but as the following figures show they have lost a sizeable chunk of the market.
Graph shows Internet Explorer is still way ahead of the competition but is slowly losing it’s dominant market share.
Mozilla Firefox
Firefox is actually the biggest winner in the web browser wars in the last 12 months taking another 2.54% of the global web browser market, a yearly change of 112%.
Google Chrome
In the last 12 months Chrome has increased it’s global web browser market share by 285% from it’s position 12 months ago. It currently holds 3.17% of the global web browser market, a 2.06% increase.
Apple Safari
Apples Safari browser has also had a great year and has seen a 137% increase in it’s market share from this point last year. Safari is now the third most popular web browser with a 4.24% market share.
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer is still the dominant force in the web browser market but hasn’t had the best year, losing nearly 6% of the market share to it’s competitors and having just 92% of the market compared to last year. Collectively Internet Explorer holds 65.71% of the market.
Internet Explorer is still number one in the global web browser market but has lost 6% share. Firefox has made the biggest gain and now holds almost a quarter share of the market. Google Chrome is the best performer with a year increase of 285% and now holds 3.17% of the market with IE, Firefox and Safari only holding more of a share of the market.
Today is Blog Action Day 2009 and this years hot hot hot topic is Climate Change. Bloggers all over the world are talking about Climate Change in a joint effort the raise the profile of the issue all on one day, all for maximum exposure. The Floating Frog is proud to be part of this years Blog Action Day.
Oh yes, the tree hug! A Green Peace demonstrators most famous act explained in graphic detail to us mere ‘beginners’. The easy and comprehensible guide to tree hugging; identify common hug types and try them all!
Thanks to Threadless you can now buy this t-shirt. Simply signup to their Threadless 12 Club and you can choose this t-shirt as one of the 12. Brilliant!
Do your bit and spread the word, share this post with everyone you know. Why not Tweet about it on Twitter or drop a link to it on Facebook or Delicious. All in a good cause
It’s time to get excited! Many websites are speculatively reporting the release of an Apple tablet in January/February time of 2010. Cnet, Engadget, Arstechnica and Gizmodo are all on the bandwagon. The question “why should we care about what is essentially a 10 inch iPhone?” comes to mind, which is what this post focuses on.
The growing hype surrounding a device that has no official confirmation of existing is typical of an impending Apple release. Reading speculative articles on a tablet from Apple can induce copious amounts of Apple-fan-boy drool. It fuels an alterative reality that asks ‘what if?’ and promises to change the world as we know it – forever! Then, when the day finally comes to watch the Apple keynote that tries to enthusiastically launch the new product, we either yawn while exhaling “saw that coming” in a dismissive tone, or end up disappointed as the device doesn’t live up to our speculative fantasy.
When you think about it, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. But thinking about things that way takes the fun out of this article, so I’ll continue pretending I didn’t say that.
I’m not going to lie. I’m one of those Apple-fan-boys. Now that’s been admitted, I can follow the steps to rehabilitation. But there is another thing to disclose. No one has a single lick of information on Apple’s presumed tablet that can’t be attributed to something we may have misunderstood.
The reports that we do have come from manufactures who are tentatively dangling precious information in front of us, like Michael Jackson holding his baby over a hotel balcony to eagerly watching fans. We want to be involved, we want to know everything, but at the same time we all understand that it could all come crashing down in a fragile and disappointing mess.
So rather than focusing on speculating what the Apple tablet hardware might perhaps be, we are going to focus on a reality distortion field of our own. Why should we care about Apple’s (perhaps fictional) tablet?
Let’s start with a bullet-point-in-a-keynote-worthy feature of what the iTablet might do. An ebook reader! Did I hear someone sigh? Stay with me here, it gets better. Imagine, if you will, the Amazon Kindle. It’s a well-received device that has done pretty well for itself. Thanks to Amazon (and Sony) laying groundwork for the digital distribution of books, it doesn’t take a genius to reproduce this in another device. It is typical of Apple to reinvent the wheel in a more desirable and usable way, especially now the major book publishers are in the correct mindset to publish via this distribution channel. Now, imagine that iTunes sells books. Imagine reading a full-colour design-inspiring book with high-resolution pictures, video, audio, links and more, on what is essentially a 10” iPhone. Are you with me so far? I hope so.
Now, imagine that your iTablet has the capability to turn on instantly just like the iPhone and iPod Touch. Imagine that it’s always connected to your WiFi and has a constant Internet connection on the go (just like Amazon’s Kindle). Whenever you want to browse the internet, check your email, watch a YouTube video, post a quick blog entry, check your RSS feeds, you have a handy device that has a 10” LED backlit full-colour LCD screen. No longer is browsing content as restrictive and frustrating to do as it is on your phone’s tiny screen. It wont replace the usage of your phone, but it will cut into the number of times you wait for your laptop to boot up. Perhaps, one day, even replace the need for some people to buy a laptop.
Now let’s talk about apps. Let’s talk about games. Oh, and let’s assume that the iTablet has an accelerometer, GPS, a video camera and a compass while we’re at it. OK, I lied about not speculating on the potential iTablet’s hardware. But are you still with me? Good.
OK, now hold your imaginary iTablet in the air and point it at those buildings ahead of you. Press the icon of a fictional app and you have an immersive experience with augmented reality! Much better than the iPhone or Android phone’s tiny screen.
Now imagine you have bought a car mount, and place your iTablet on your dashboard for a fully intergraded navigation experience! Or pack your iTablet with your bucket and spade and take it on holiday for an interactive tour of your destination!
Don’t snap out of the fantasy yet! Next, use the device at work just like an interactive clipboard (as Star Trek promised us). And, and, and, play iPhone games on a bigger screen with more processing power and better graphics!
Do you want one yet? Yes? No? Maybe? OK, let’s stop there.
Of course, all this speculation is completely made up. It’s fiction. It’s fantasy. But it’s fun to read about details of what the product might be, assuming that it is in fact going to be released. But until the product is launched we have to understand that we really don’t know anything about it. We can only hope that it eventually lives up to the version forming in our minds, and pray that it doesn’t stay in Apple’s prototype lab.
Until that day, we’ll all read speculative articles and hope that we are eventually able to yawn a muted “saw that coming” in a dismissive tone, squarely aimed at an irritated Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller who will be trying to sell it to us during the keynote.
So what do you think? Yes? No? Maybe? Or sick of hearing about it?
Misspelt domain names is a very common occurance, a user speedily types in a domain name and quickly presses enter without realising they have misspelt the web address and have ended up on a bogus website. One of the most common misspellings of domain names is missing the ‘.’ between ‘WWW’ and the domain name.
Unfortunately because this misspelling results in a new domain name there is no way of diverting the user back to the correct website unless you actually register and own the misspelt domain name.
Savvy domain spotters were quick to spot this and have targeted some of the top sites to capitolise in this free traffic:
Here are some other incorrect www addresses:
Clever little squatters trick huh? Personally it’s a dirty trick but one that was waiting to be exploited.
Google Wave is getting a lot of people excited, but if you’re anything like me and have no idea what it is or why it’s making so many people sweat in antipication of getting an invite to test it then look no further. We asked Twitter “Explain what Google Wave is in 140 characters”, we got the following replies:
It’s a communications (email + instant messaging) + social networking tool, with various commun. threads neatly compiled
By EamonSpotlight on Twitter
Google Wave is a rethinking of electronic communication, combining email, instant messaging, status updates & other collaboration features.
By Wabbit42 on Twitter
Think email crossed with instant messaging crossed with forums crossed with chat crossed with rich media… and more
By Aaronrussell on Twitter
I think of wave as email meets IM meets twitter meets facebook wall, perhaps. Will be more obvious when it gets some use.
By Vextasy on Twitter
From what I’ve gathered, it’s the ultimate collaboration tool. Hopefully I’ll be one of the lucky 100,000 testing it.
By Genericsteele on Twitter
Its like a mexican wave but online
By Xobman on Twitter
Googles new shiny toy that makes gmail look boring
and all the cool kids want an invite and the uncool ones have them!
By Tnash on Twitter
I don’t know
By Savamaloy on Twitter
140 characters? Now, that’s a challenge! Srsly, you should watch the video.
By Raph_ms on Twitter
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