Tom Doyle :: TALK

Came across this amazing optical illusion today…..

Most of you will probably see this woman spinning in a clock-wise direction. But if you focus on the shadow for a few secs, you’ll see her go in the opposite direction….. very cool!

The artist formerly known as Prince is planning to give away his much anticipated new album “Planet Earth” FREE (yes free!) with The Mail on Sunday.

What seems like another outrageous (but courteous) gesture from Prince is an obvious backlash at the record companies that controlled him for so long. However, I’m disappointed with the music industry’s response.

In a response to Prince’s publicity stunt, Entertainment Retailers Association spokesman Paul Quirk said, “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday.” He went on to say that it would be an insult to record stores if this goes ahead.

How rich is that? The guys that wouldn’t be around without people like Prince think that they own the artist and can tell them what they can and can’t do…..

Personally, I think Prince is just cheaping himself by doing this, but hey, he has try anything to get people interested in him again!!

Google has finally released it’s desktop search tool Google Desktop for linux users.

Haven’t tried installing it myself yet, but I’m sure it would be pretty straight forward!

For those of you in the industry, you have probably already heard that MSN are no longer allowing the use of advanced query searches “link:”, “linkdomain:” and “inurl:”. But we have recently been asked quite a lot about this, hence the post!

What this prevents us from doing for our clients is accurately reporting on how many links back to their website, MSN has on it’s search engine.

MSN LiveSearch team say they have blocked this because of automated usage for data mining purposes. They have stated on their blog, that they expect a new service to be live pretty soon.

For the official blog article visit http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/archive/2007/03/28/we-are-flattered-but.aspx

Could this spell the end for YouTube?

The hugely popular social networking website, MySpace have today launched a new service called MySpaceTV.

MySpaceTV is on the same model as YouTube, allowing users to post their videos online. YouTube have reportly doubled traffic in the last eight months, but this upsurge could be dented by MySpaceTV’s entrance to the market……. Only time will tell!

There is so much hype about search engine optimisation that everyone seems to know a little about how it works. The problem here is that the “little” is usually outdated information that someone found on a website from years gone by. I’ve got so bored with the “I read this” or “this other company said this” that I’ve decided to put together a list of DO’s & DON’Ts when it comes to SEO.

Now I do agree that SEO is a black art. There are no definitive wrongs or rights, but there are definitely techniques that help and there are of course the ones that don’t!!

So here goes and please feel free to add to this list by commenting below!:

DO

• Spend Time Researching Keyphrases
  A lot of people ignore this most fundemental stage of SEO. I cannot stress how important it is to develop strong keyphrases relating to your business. But it’s more than just selecting the most obvious keyphrases, you need to be more strategic and specific when choosing your phrases. A sex shop in Athlone is never going to be top of the search engines for the word “sex”.
• Make Your Website Easy to Navigate
  Not only will this make a users experience of visiting your website more enjoyable, it will also work wonders for search engine spiders. If a user can access every page on your website within a clicks reach, so can the search engines!
• Create Interesting Content (A lot of it!)
  I know most people “browse” text to find what they are looking for, but you can’t assume that everyone does. Make sure your message is clear and concise and keyword rich. And the golden nugget is…… search engines love content!
• Build Strong Links from Other Websites
  Everyone seems to know now that links from other websites is one of the key elements to search engine optimisation. However, you cannot simply approach this with a semi-automatic weapon approach. You must build strong links from quality websites or else you are just wasting your time!
• Submit Your Website to DMOZ
  It hasn’t been updating a lot lately and even if it does, it’s usually months down the line. But it’s definitely worth the effort. Make sure you choose a category that has a good Google PR rating to maximise its worth.
• Utilise Your Title Tag
  It’s still probably one of the most important HTML techniques you can utilise…. make sure you do it! AND PLEASE use a different title for every page!
• Hire a Good SEO Company
  Always check an SEO companies credentials before hiring them. Get references from their clients and see how well they did for them!

DON’T

• Leave Optimisation Until After The Site Has Gone Live
  A lot of people make this mistake. They go to a fancy web designer, get a nice design and only think of optimising the site after the web site is complete….. BAD IDEA! Your strategy for online marketing should be part of the design phase!
• Bother With…..
  a) Companies who promise you a number 1 place on Google
  b) Companies who offer to submit your website to thousands of website directories for €50.
  c) Companies who offer to build thousands of links to your website for €50
• Target Hugely Competitive Keyphrases
  As per a point above - it’s pointless… be specific with your keywords to start building traffic.
• Spam
  This is a very broad statement, but generally this is what you should not do:
  a) Include lots of keywords at the footer of your website in the same or similar colour font colour to your background colour.
  b) Create doorway pages or pages just for search engines
  c) many more….
• Use More Than One Domain Name
  You should avoid at all costs the same site using more than one domain name. Different addresses are different websites to the search engines. When it figures out that the website is actually the same one, it will penalise you for duplicate content. Use only one domain and for the others use a 301 redirect!

As a resident of Bray, Co. Wicklow, I’m absolutely dreading the weekend.

There are plans to close the N11 at the Enniskerry exit in order to facilitate the construction of the pedestrian flyover. Don’t get me wrong, it’s something that’s badly needed. But last November, there was a pipe burst in very close proximity to where the bridge is being constructed and it caused absolute chaos - read more about it here >>

So for those of you that use the N11 on a regular basis, here are the details on its planned closure:

N11/M11 CLOSURE TO ALLOW CONSTRUCTION OF ENNISKERRY ROAD FOOTBRIDGE
Wicklow County Council and the National Roads Authority are advising motorists that a section the N11/M11 - from the Wilford Junction (North of Bray) to Killarney Road Junction (South of Bray) - will be closed to all traffic from 8.00pm on Saturday, 16th June 2007,  to 2.00pm on Sunday, 17th June 2007.

This is in order to allow construction of the N11 Enniskerry Road Footbridge.

Closure will result in major traffic disruption and motorists are urged to avoid using the road unless their journey is absolutely necessary.
For essential travel motorists should carefully follow diversion signposting. Diversions will be in place through Bray town centre and Gardai will be on duty to assist motorists.

Wicklow County Council and the National Roads Authority wish to apologise in advance for any inconvenience which may be caused. Details of the road closures and diversions are as follows:

The following roads will be closed from 8.00pm on Saturday, 16th June 2007 until 2.00pm on Sunday, 17th June 2007:

N11/M11 National Primary Road, both carriageways from the Wilford Junction (North of Bray) on the M11 to the Killarney Road Interchange (South of Bray).

Enniskerry Road R117 from its junction with the Cookstown Road to its junction with the N11.

Alternative Routes

N11 Northbound
N11 northbound to the off ramp at the Killarney Road Interchange, R768, Killarney Road R767, Bray Main Street, Castle Street, R761, Dublin Road, Wilford Interchange to M11.

M11/N11 Southbound
M11 southbound to the Wilford Interchange, Dublin Road R761, Castle Street, Bray Main Street, Killarney Road R767, Killarney Road Interchange to N11.

M11 / N11 to Enniskerry
Follow above diversions to Dublin Road R761, Old Connaught Avenue, Thornhill Road, Ballyman Road, Monastery Road and Knocksink Road.

Fassaroe Area
Castle Street, Bray , Upper Dargle Road to Fassaroe Interchange

Enniskerry to N11 Northbound
Knocksink Road, Monastery Road, Ballyman Road, Thornhill Road, Old Connaught Avenue, Old Bray Road and N11 Northbound at Wilford Interchange.

Enniskerry to N11 Southbound
Knocksink Road, Monastery Road, Ballyman Road, Thornhill Road, Old Connaught Avenue, Old Bray Road,  Castle Street, Bray Main Street, Killarney Road, Killarney Road Interchange to N11.
 

Only five months on and here we are with yet another racism row on Big Brother. Yet again, Endemol think they know what the right thing to do is in a situation like this. After the bad publicity they received from the last celebrity Big Brother, they wanted to come out looking like they really do take racist behaviour seriously. It reminded me of a child in school, they’e just been given out to and not they want to be in their teachers good books by ratting up one of their school mates. Endemol have acted in a completely childish and immature manner. It just shows they haven’t a clue what reality really is.

Let’s face it, the pop charts are filled these days with hip-hip music and a lot of them use the phrase “Nigga”. We’ve had huge hits such as Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” in which the chorus goes “Now I aint sayin she a gold digger, But she aint messin wit no broke Niggas”. One of the worlds most successful hip-hop artists is a white guy we all know, Eminem who can be regularly heard using the word “nigga” in his songs. But it’s never taken out of context in these cases.

The youth of today have become normalised to the use of this word, you just need to spend a minute on any bebo site and you will see someone say “you’re my nigga” and it is said in a way that can’t be further from it’s original meaning. What Emily said is something I have to agree I wouldn’t do and should not be aired for fear of offending those people that are still offended by it. But she is young, ignorant and simply too caught up in her only little “white” world that she doesn’t understand the offence it MIGHT cause someone. I have to stress MIGHT because, Charlie, whom she said it to, took it exactly as it was. A little white girl using her typical “night-out with her friends” talk that never meant to offend anyone.

The bottom line is that Big Borther have used Emily as a scapegoat for the bad press they got last time round. Yet again they had the opportunity to just play this down and let it go. They are of course in charge of what is aired and what isn’t……… Why couldn’t they just take it out and leave it never to be shown??? We all know they don’t show everything that happens on the show anyway!!