The convergence of digital signage and Twitter:
Like many industries, digital signage is seeing an increased presence on the social media site Twitter. Just by searching the term “digital signage” or the #digitalsignage hashtag, users are exposed to candid conversations about trends, news and products that previously only occurred in one-on-one phone calls and tradeshow floor chatter.
Check out the article on Digital Signage Today here.
A collection of 27 visualizations and infographics to understand the financial crisis.
I recently read an article that introduced a new concept called attention maps. An attention map is basically a list of goals for a page that basically assigns a point value of importance to sections of a website then distributes those areas onto a page. The most important areas are larger and also fill up more dominant sections while less important areas get pushed down and/or to the right.
From a designers perspective, this is something that is often done without the use of a map. Generally, you put the navigation up top then bring in a fantastic photo and put a catchy slogan in there followed by a link to convert the viewer into a buyer. Pretty simple formula that has proven to be effective.
However, what if your client has multiple areas of expertise and they are struggling internally to decide which areas carry more importance than others? Maybe the board of directors needs a tool or diagram that demonstrates how a reorganization of priorities may look? This is where an attention map comes into play.
First establish a point value for all goals.
Example point distribution:
-20 points allocated among four goals
Example result:
* product photo and description : 10 points
* features : 6 points
* Other products: 2 points
* News: 2 points
Translated into design this is what would happen. The 10 point item is obviously front and center taking up the majority of the page. The features could fall to the right of this product section since it holds a value of 6. The other items: Other Products and News would fit in below. This is an effective distribution of space that should translate into a good web page.
In another scenario, the client puts a value of 4 on his main product but then spreads the rest of the 16 points evenly across 8 items. This breakdown divides his page into small parcels which will translate into a boxy and ineffective design.
In a nutshell the Attention Map can be a useful way to map out the screen real estate. Additionally, its a great way to show your client that there is logic involved. To create an effective website it takes more than just good design. An effective website is a combination of great design and logic.
OK, so I’ve trawled around the internet to bring you all some snippets of useful data and awesome figures dealing with social media and their related statistics.
Just so you know, all this information is likely to be out of date in six months or so – but until then, they’re reasonably recent facts and once again I feel they demonstrate the meteoric rise and importance of this rapidly evolving area of online.
In no particular order:
* Social networks and blogs are the 4th most popular online activities online, including beating personal email. 67% of global users visit member communities and 10% of all time spent on the internet is on social media sites.
* If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populated place in the world. This means it easily beats the likes of Brazil, Russia and Japan in terms of size.*
* 80% of companies use, (or are planning to use), LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees during the course of this year. The site has just celebrated reaching its 45-millionth membership.
* Around 64% of marketers are using social media for 5 hours or more each week during campaigns, with 39% using it for 10 or more hours per week.
* It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The internet took four years to reach 50 million people… In less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users.
* Wikipedia currently has more than 13 million articles in more than 260 different languages. The site attracts over 60 million unique users a month and it’s often hotly debated that the information it contains is more reliable than any printed Encyclopedia.
* The most recent figure of blogs being indexed by Technorati currently stands at 133 million. The same report into the Blogosphere also revealed that on average, 900,000 blog posts are created within a single 24-hour period.
* It’s been suggested that YouTube is likely to serve over 75 billion video streams to around 375 million unique visitors during this year.
* The top three people on Twitter (Ashton Kutcher, Ellen DeGeneres and Britney Spears) have more combined followers than the entire population of Austria.*
* According to Socialnomics, if you were paid $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia, you would earn $156.23 per hour.
* The online bookmarking service, Delicious, has more than five million users and over 150 million unique bookmarked URLs.
* Since April this year, Twitter has been receiving around 20 million unique visitors to the site each month, according to some analytical sources.
* Formed in 2004, Flickr now hosts more than 3.6 billion user images.
* Universal McCann reports that 77% of all active internet users regularly read blogs.
Although these statistics look impressive, it needs to be remembered that no single piece of data can be used to base strategy or objectives upon, let alone be used as a forecast for future growth of a specific area of social media. To really drill down into a sector of interest, you need to fully aggregate and analyze all available data before making an informed decision or conclusion.
When you consider that in 2007, Google brought in over 14 billion dollars from Adwords alone, it was only a matter of time until Microsoft invested big bucks and completely redesigned their flagship search engine. The result is Bing, and it has been getting a lot of attention lately. The world of searching now has three main options: Bing, Google, and Yahoo, but which one really provides the best results? As it turns out, it depends on what you are searching for and what kind of answers you want.
On the surface, you can tell that Bing’s home page has been heavily influenced by Google. Even though most of us visit Google’s snow white and stunningly empty home page every day, it still causes many to do a double-take at the lack of ads, the paltry number of links, and the complete lack of graphics. With Bing, instead of pure white, you get a stunning photograph, a search bar, and a handful of links placed around the search field. Even the links provided appear to have been Google-influenced, with images, video, and maps all appearing in plain view. To the first time user, it remains to be seen why anyone would use Bing over Google when the newcomer appears to be trying so hard to copy what Google is doing.
Once you have performed your search, the differences between Bing and Google are made a bit clearer. With Bing, you have three panels of display: a left panel which offers refinements in your search, a center panel with your search results, and a right panel with paid advertisements tailored to your search. The display isn’t all that different from Google, and after trying a few searches, the left hand panel seems a bit tacked on and unnecessary. Here is to hoping that Microsoft uses this space for something a bit more useful in the future.
The add-ons like Microsoft Live Maps versus Maps.Google.Com are a toss up. Microsoft’s maps program provides better clarity, but the interface is jerky and more difficult to use compared to Google’s. The image search on Bing does come with a Safe Mode that can be turned off just like on Google, although Microsoft’s interface here is smoother and less obstructionist.
In the end, Bing is a vast improvement over Microsoft’s previous browser, but Bing has a long way to go to differentiate itself from Google enough so that people will use it. Currently, it feels like a rip-off of Google’s entrenched product.
What do you think?
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