A term you may have heard being thrown around is cloud computing. It is used to describe something fundamental that happens to all high tech. The best definition I could find to describe this phenomenon was:

Cloud computing is a paradigm shift - a disruptive change in I.T. towards online services.

What does this mean exactly? It means the computer is undergoing commodification; it is in transition from being a product to a service. It is moving towards becoming a utility - much like electricity! Businesses will no longer sit down and talk about using IT; they’ll just be using it. In other words, IT will simply be a cost of doing business rather than being of strategic value.

The word cloud is appropriate as it is hard to pin point what stage we’re at. Clearly, if you ignore commodification, your business would be at a competitive disadvantage - you won’t have any of the gains, such as lower costs and maintenance that keep the cloud computing buzz going. For example, using Google Apps could remove the need for a start up to install and maintain Microsoft Office.

On the flip side, the risks of bringing innovative services to market are barriers to adoption. There are certainly concerns about being dependent on third parties for IT services. Recently, T-Mobile stopped production of the Sidekick mobile phone as a technical glitch in software designed by Microsoft caused around one million customers to lose their personal data. Risk management is therefore essential when using web based services, as with adopting any new technology.

Periscope, our online studio management system, is an example of a service using cloud computing. It offers a core service with no limits and no installation; it allows businesses to concentrate on creating value rather than maintaining and scaling a system. Give Periscope a whirl and benefits will soon become clear!

It was announced recently that Microsoft will continue to support Internet Explorer 6 until 2014. With an increasing demand for better looking websites, higher performance web applications and increased security, it was a major blow to web developers globally campaigning for support to be dropped. Currently, 25% of users browse the web using IE6. Whilst it’s important to know that upgrading to the latest version of Internet Explorer is free and recommended, there are still legacy systems designed specifically for this browser, which stops people from upgrading.

Legally, web applications need to be accessible by anyone using any supported agent. The continued support means that web developers will have to continue to work with IE6 whilst that meeting the high expectations that newer browsers perform with ease. No need to panic though, as our development team has been taming  the ‘IE6 beast’ for years.

Accessibility is an important thing at IE, and we maintain to make sure everyone is included.

00:00 on Saturday 10^th January 2009 was meant to be the launch of the new site for Monster, the UKs largest jobs board. I was talking to a friend of mine online last night and they pointed me to the site where there was a countdown to the big launch. I watched the seconds tick down to midnight eagerly awaiting a great new site. Midnight came and went and the countdown was at 0 days 0 hours 0 minutes and 0 seconds and I waited, and waited and waited. No new site just a timer. I finally went to bed confused as to why the new site hadn’t launched on time. Continue reading

It’s that time of year when people reflect and project. Rather than review what has happened in 2008 I am more interested in what is going to happen next year. What will be the ‘next big thing’ and who we should be watching.

After much reading over the last couple of months I have noticed an increase in chatter about Location Based Services (LBS). This is all about providing and aggregating content that is relevant to your location. For instance you may wish to find out where the nearest cash machine is to your current location or to track friends, colleagues and even children! It can also be used by businesses to provide location-based mobile advertising (something which has been done previously with varying success with Bluecasting).

A key enabler of these new services is GPS. Previously the size and cost of GPS receivers had ruled out their use in mobile devices (a rough location could be estimated by the cell site it was connected to) but now that are almost ubiquitous in new devices on the market. And with the explosion of the GPS enabled iPhone 3G and the Apple Apps store have exposed a huge number of people to LBS and created a real buzz. T-mobile’s G1, Blackberry and touch screen Android (Google’s phone operating system) based phones are following closely behind.

Who should we be watching? There are numerous LBS’ out there with huge variations in their usefulness but the following is a pick of what I will be watching: Continue reading

An advertisement for children’s charity Barnardo’s that aims to raise awareness of domestic child abuse seems to have hit a raw nerve. The ad – which depicts a young girl caught in a cycle of violence, underachievement at school and drugs – has led to some 400-plus viewers complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority about the nature of its ostensibly distressing and offensive content.

You only need to watch the ad once to gain an understanding as to why the response was so strong. Yes, the ad is distressing – but what it does manage to do with some success, I would argue – is communicate the underlying message with clarity, which is vital to any campaign with the primary goal of awareness-raising. The ad only airs after 9pm – not a slot ideally placed to be accessible to young children, one of the demographics most likely to be ill-equipped to deal with its content. An issue like child abuse is unpleasant to confront, so why should its treatment in the media be lighthearted? Many of us claim to be virtually desensitised to what we see on our screens. If so, perhaps this ad is an example of when so-called ‘shock tactics’ are necessary if not just.