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How to optimize images for web

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:14:59 +0000

Summary: Here’s how to optimize images for web, with quick and easy-to-use, free tools. Hint: Optimizing images for your blog is very simple, it can even be automatic.

Optimizing images for fast loading is one of the image optimization tips every blogger should put into action. When you know this stuff, and make it a part of your image uploading process, it doesn’t take any extra time on your part, but it’ll improve your blog in more ways than one.

Intro

This post is a part of my WordPress Speed -series, helping to make blogs load faster. However, these image optimization tools can and should be used for any blog and any image you upload to the web.

If you have tested how fast your blog is, you might have noticed that the images on your blog take a decent chunk from the loading time. Luckily, making images load faster is one of the easiest thing you can do to increase your page loading speed.

Image optimization for web

Image optimization was very important on the early days of the WWW, when people didn’t have broadband connections. BUT unlike many think, it is EQUALLY important today. Why waste resources and time, when you can make the images load faster by making the images smaller, without losing the quality?

Optimizing images for web means making the images smaller (in size, not necessarily quality) so they load faster. This can be done losslessly (without losing the quality), by:

stripping meta data from JPEGs
optimizing JPEG compression
converting certain GIFs to indexed PNGs
stripping the un-used colours from indexed images

(Source: optimizing images at Yahoo’s Exceptional Performance series).

A dating site just for Apple fanboys and fangirls

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:18:45 +0000

As silly as the idea is, it’s almost amazing it took this long to come about. Three self-professed geeks in San Fransisco “with backgrounds at Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!” are working on starting up a dating site just for the Apple-obsessed called — wait for it — “Cupidtino.” The site itself is still in development, though the concept is in place: “a beautiful new dating site created for fans of Apple products by fans of Apple products!”

Twitter is the New CNN and no longer a social network

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:15:57 +0000

A new study paints the popular micro-blogging service Twitter in a whole new light and sets it up to take on traditional news media.

Here’s something I’ve always known about Twitter: It’s about information not socialization. Twitter’s called a “micro-blogging” service, after all. If it were all about social interaction, perhaps it would be described as a micro-social network. Of course, with millions and millions of users, Twitter is anything but micro.

And now, my Twitter hypothesis has some academic support. A group of Korean researchers recently completed and presented the results of a unique quantitative study that paints Twitter, in fairly stark terms, as the likely future of news.

Here are some of their more interesting findings:

Twitter isn’t like a social network because it’s not “mutual.”
On Facebook, we have to friend each other to really engage. On Twitter, people will follow you if you’re interesting and they get something out of it, even if you never follow them back. That sounds a lot like the reasons why people buy The New Yorker, subscribe to a newspaper, or watch a particular television news program.

Following equals subscribing.
Is there any clearer signal that Twitter is an information and news service than this? My Twitter stream is, for all intents and purposes, a feed. I wonder if I should rename my followers “subscribers.”

5 New Studies Show Facebook a Marketing Powerhouse

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:17:02 +0000

When you hear that Facebook is yanking Yahoo from its ranks and inching up on Google’s traffic throne, you can’t help but pay attention.

And if you work for a business or own one, it’s likely that social media marketing is on your radar. More and more marketing dollars are beginning to shift toward social media marketing and this trend only continues to climb.

Here are 5 studies that show how Facebook is undoubtedly a leading online social contender and a key tool that is continually changing the landscape of online engagement and fan loyalty.

5 Fantastic Facebook Fan Page Ideas to Learn From

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:12:58 +0000

So your business is on Facebook, and brand engagement is up thanks to some savvy social media strategy. You may even be interested in further distinguishing your brand by building a custom landing page for your account.

But what kind of value does a custom Facebook Fan Page offer? What are your fans looking for on a social network that they can’t get from your business website? For some insight, let’s check out how some big-name brands have stepped up their engagement by investing a little more TLC into their Facebook presence.

Interactivity

Social networks are not passive, so your Facebook landing page shouldn’t be either. It’s nice to have a great looking “Welcome” splash, but users are going to want to do something when they arrive.

Facebook is all about sharing, and The Gap has an ingenious promotion on the Baby Gap tab of their Fan Page. The simple splash image has a link to one of their photo albums where fans can upload pictures of their babies wearing their favorite Gap denim gear.

This kind of campaign provides a wealth of free, user-generated content that displays Gap products, and best of all, the functionality of photo uploading is already built into Facebook — no development necessary. This is an interactive idea that any small business could implement.

The Home Depot has built a bit on the shareability of Facebook actions with their DIY Gifts app. From Home Depot’s Fan Page, you can grant the app access to share your gift purchases with the recipient and your friends. While this approach may not work for everyone, it’s a step toward increasing consumer visibility on Facebook — a growing trend.

A Full Website Experience Within Facebook

Some companies go all out when it comes to their Facebook presence, integrating fully fledged mini-websites right into their Fan Pages. Adidas sneakers is a good example. They’ve added a multimedia content hub under the tab “Your Area” that offers photos, videos, and events based on your region. The site is built entirely in Flash and isn’t all that interactive, but it offers a rich media experience without ever leaving the boundaries of Facebook.

Dell’s Design Studio page is another example of a full-tilt Flash site inside Facebook. This one lets you browse and tweak custom artwork for your new laptop before linking you over to the corporate site to complete the purchase. You can also share your design choices with friends, all without connecting a single Facebook app to your account.

Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:07:58 +0000

Social media marketing campaigns are proving to be goldmines rich with customer engagement and insight that companies wouldn’t likely have otherwise. Companies like PepsiCo are going to extensive lengths to foster this type of collaboration with fans, and the payoff has been big.

Five Steps for Consumer Brands to Earn Social Currency

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:04:10 +0000

Popularity. You can’t just request it. As companies amass ever-larger collections of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and YouTube audiences, they should ask themselves one question: What are we doing with them? “There is a lot of wasted effort in social media,” says Erich Joachimsthaler, managing director at Vivaldi Partners, an international brand consultancy. “We forget that these programs have to pay into something, a shared value or a social context where the product actually gets used.”

What’s valuable isn’t mere buzz but what Joachimsthaler calls “social currency.” “There’s more to ’social’ than social media,” he says. A new study by Vivaldi Partners and Lightspeed Research, which fielded the data, examines more than 60 companies and assesses customers’ brand affiliations, advocacy, and sense of community, among other factors, for how they create true value for the companies, no matter whether it’s online or off. The results reveal some surprising insights about the limits of social media. Most notably, smug, stunt-driven apps, games, and videos generate buzz but little else. So what does work? We combed through Vivaldi’s data to find the most intriguing lessons. Here are the new rules for the game.

AT&T posts fast facts on iPad 3G data plans

admin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:10:46 +0000

There’s nothing groundbreaking in here, but AT&T has just thrown up a good one-page summary of how this whole WWAN thing is going to go down for new iPad 3G owners come this Friday. As we’ve already known, you’ll be paying $14.99 for 250MB or $29.99 for unlimited (yes, truly unlimited with no 5GB cap) data in addition to free access to AT&T’s comprehensive collection of WiFi hotspots — perhaps the more interesting bits, though, have to do with plan management on the 250MB setup. Basically, you’ll get a warning on your iPad when you get to 20 percent of your allowance remaining, then again at 10 percent, and finally when you run out; at each message, you’ll have the chance to re-up (of course, if you find yourself blowing through 250MB on a regular basis, you probably want the unlimited plan anyhow). Plans renew automatically after every 30 days, and you can check your usage at your leisure from Settings on the device. Sure, you might be cursing the fact that you’ve found a legitimate reason to spend another $30 every month — but at least you’ll be able to set it up and manage it without a call to customer service.

Confirmed: Apple Buys Virtual Personal Assistant Startup Siri

admin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:05:39 +0000

On the heels of the report that Apple purchased chip maker Intrinsity, Apple appears to have made another purchase: Siri, a personal assistant for the iPhone. According to a pre-merger notification released by the Federal Trade Commission, and first noticed by Robert Scoble, the transaction will not be held up by any antitrust reviews. The deal was likely small from Apple’s perspective. Siri is a small startup that has raised $24 million in funding. Update: Siri board member Gary Morgenthaler confirmed the transaction.

10 handy iPad apps for business and sales

admin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:38:35 +0000

There’s no doubt the iPad can be a great alternative to a netbook or laptop for business and sales professionals. And when matched with these ten iPad apps, it might even be the best means of accomplishing the work you need to complete in an efficient (and stylish) way. Check out three of the apps below:

Numbers. Apple’s version of excel.
Twitterific. If you think TweetDeck is too cluttered, this is a great, clean and simple client.
Evernote. Create, store, and sync your notes in the cloud. It’s a researcher’s greatest tool.