Cuil hasn't had an easy start to life. First it was born with a silly name. As with many online startups, no one knows how to pronounce it correctly (it's meant to be pronounced "cool" in case you are wondering). Then came the spectacularly bad launch day. Despite Cuil’s own self-promotion as a would be Google killer, Cuil’s launch resulted in less-than-satisfactory search results, and was widely panned. Despite being initially overwhelmed by traffic, Cuil … read on »

Not long ago there was very little choice when it came to using images online for web sites. You could either pick GIFs for solid/graphic elements, or JPEGs for photos. That was pretty much the entire story for the 90s and much of the early 2000s. So what has changed since then? Not much. The PNG format is gradually becoming more mainstream, but it still hasn't taken off. No doubt this is because of its lousy support … read on »

Unlike traditional marketing, or even other forms of online marketing, measuring the success of a SEO (search engine optimisation) campaign is no easy thing. With a banner marketing campaign or even a pay-per-click-campaign, it’s very easy to get a cut and dry figure: X amount of impressions, X amount of clicks and X amount of conversions: costing Y amount. Since search engine optimization leverages a whole range of services including design, … read on »

Ooyala has launched a new video/steaming analytic tool for its service technology called “Backlot Analytics” (not so hot on that name myself, surely they could have thought of something better). Although I’ve only watched the tech demo video, it does seem to do some nifty things. While the web analytics arena is now quite mature and very crowded – with a host of competing services and applications – video analytics is something that’s still largely untapped. … read on »

It doesn't take long for the average website owner to want to move away from a static HTML site to something that allows more functionality and complexity. Indeed today, most new webmasters would even start with a content management system straight out of the gate. Static HTML pages are great for simple brochure-ware type sites, but as soon as you want to add in any sort of interactivity (forms, commenting, … read on »