Mathew Browne

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Mattel and Hasbro, the owners of Scrabble, have decided to sue the developers of the enormously popular (and addictive) Facebook application, Scrabulous. This has caused quite a furore. I, for one, would be sad to see Scrabulous go. On the other hand, let’s look at the facts: the developers have taken the concept of Scrabble - an intellectual property protected by copyright - and ripped it off shamelessly. They’ve distributed it for free via Facebook, which gets them the sympathy vote from Joe Public - “I’d never played Scrabble until I found Scrabulous” is one of the most common responses.

What many people don’t consider is that the developers are creaming off huge advertising revenues from the app. If Mattel and Hasbro have any business acumen they won’t kill Scrabulous; instead they should claim the share of the advertising revenues that they rightly deserve, and enjoy the benefits of the offline Scrabble renaissance fuelled by the runaway success of Scrabulous. Or will Mattel and Hasbro follow the steps of the recording industry - fail completely to embrace a new technology that could rejuvenate their business, and try to sue innovation out of existance.

I had a positive and enlightening meeting at the RNIB this morning. I’m going to be helping them launch a Facebook application in the coming weeks - nothing too clever, mind you. They’re less concerned about such an app being a money generator as they are increasing brand awareness. They recently rebranded themselves from this:

to this:

I didn’t understand this move at first but figured it was yet another organisation attempting an unnecessary rebranding exercise. Once it was explained to me, it seemed quite sensible. The old logo featured a man with a white stick, which reinforced the presumption that the RNIB only helps blind people; they actually help blind and partially sighted people, as their new motto confirms.

The RNIB are quite concerned that their logo and their cause do not enjoy the recognition that, say, cancer research or animal charities do. Hopefully the introduction of a Facebook app will help address this, if only in a small way.

I then spent another hour discussing the finer points of web accessibility. It’s surprising how little larger companies think of this, especially when one realises their legal obligation to do so. I suppose it’s simply because no-one has been sued over web accessibility in this country. The only high profile case was not, as you might guess, in the sue-happy United States, but in Australia. I wonder what impact that had on the web design/accessibility industry over there?

I found it very interesting to find that the early adopters of web accessibility standards now enjoy huge brand loyalty from blind and partially-sighted people; the main example being the always ubiquitous Tesco. Every little helps.

I hope this is some bizarre viral campaign, but it probably isn’t. A guy at a “world leading” UK-based web marketing firm - so “world leading” I’ve never heard of them - loses his rag after making what I’m guessing is one too many unsuccessful telemarketing calls to the U.S. If this guy was working for me he’d be fired and out of the door before he could think”George W. Bush” let alone say it. What makes this worse is that this isn’t some impatient jobsworth, he claims to be the director of the company! Absolutely shocking.

Have a listen.

As part of my job at UCL, I’ve spent the last two weeks working on some Flash-based gimmicks for the sites I’m putting together. Very whizzy and Actionscript-laced they are, too. Except I have a meeting with my boss later and I only have one-and-a-half SWFs to show off.

How come Flash programming eats up my time so much? My problem is I get caught up in unnecessary details - turning the slightest movement into a carefully-described variable, rather than just tween an instance from A to B (you know, just in case…) or defining dynamic text boxes and filling them out via Actionscript rather than - you guessed it - just writing it in a static box and forgetting about it. Granted, these examples only illustrate a workload increase of seconds rather than minutes or hours, but over the course of a fortnight these really have stealthily gobbled up my time.

I’m approaching my work too much like a programmer and not enough like a designer.

I’m receiving an ever-increasing influx of emails asking me to link to Site X in exchange for a link from some crappy subpage of Site Y - a twist on the old reciprocal linking model. I must get about 50 of these every day. Today, however, I’m in a bad mood (and a little bored) so I replied to one of them inline. Enjoy.

Hi,

I came across your website and was wondering if you would consider a link exchange with me. In return I am willing to place a link to your site on our PR7 site here: http://www.scienceonstage.net/top-hits.html (I can put your link in the perfect category match for your site)

YAY another generic directory. Doesn’t look like spam at all - sign me up!

I understand that you probably get 100’s of spam emails everyday asking the same thing, but I am a real person and not a spam bot.

“I understand that you probably get 100’s of spam emails everyday asking the same thing. Here’s another.” <- fixed.

If this is of interest to you simply reply to this email and I will put your link live first. (Please send me your link details along with a short description of your site)

Title: SEO Services

URL: http://www.doneseo.com

Description: DONE! SEO Services is a leading Search Engine Optimization Company based in California, USA. Call us at 1-888-372-8335. Founded by Internet Entrepreneur Ben Padnos.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Kind regards

You have got to be joking.

Firstly, your “Science on Stage” site is a dropped domain you’ve picked up. Smart move - toolbar PR still shows 7 and you still have backlinks from CERN and the European Organisation for Astronomical Research from back in the days when it was a legit, useful website and not another piece-of-shit spam directory.

Secondly, you expect me to provide link to your SEO company and in return I get a link from some crap linkdump, sharing a page with about 200 others? No deal.

Thirdly, thanks for the personal touch - addressing your enquiry to root@ rather than the email@ address I have posted on my site. Now I know you’re not a bot, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Keep wearing the ever-darkening grey hat.

Mathew

Irritating as this approach is and however questionable the ethics, it’s probable that - at least for now - this stuff passes under Google’s radar. Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, no recriprocal link, everyone’s happy. It’s not an obvious paid link for Google to investigate either, which is how many of us fear Google is investing it’s time.

I’m really interested to know if Google have anything in the works to combat this sort of spammy approach. I’m looking at you, Matt.

Google have been frustrating SEO watchers for a couple of months now by putting off updating toolbar PR for most sites, although they’ve annoyed a lot of pro bloggers by downgrading PR en masse for a whole heap of blogging sites.

Presuming you weren’t one of these unlucky few, I’ve found a way to check your current Pagerank, as long as your site is in the Google Directory. As most people realise, Google gets their data from Dmoz, so if you’re in one directory, you’re almost certainly in the other one. The difference between the two is that Google Directory sorts it’s directory listings by PR.

My web design business, MB Web Design, currently displays PR4 in the toolbar (and has done for months and months). However, check my listing in Google Directory and it shows PR6. I’ve seen a couple of other sites with different toolbar PRs versus their PR in Google Directory. So, go and have a look. You may be pleasantly surprised.

I think that Google’s sudden demotion of PR value for leading blogs is a way to deter such sites from selling links purely for the link juice. Some evidence supporting this theory follows:

• Autoblog’s toolbar PR dropped from 6 to 4. Interesting that in Google directory it’s a 7.
• Engadget’s toolbar dropped from 7 to 5. In Google directory it’s still 7.
• Andy Beard dropped from 5 to 3. Nope, in Directory he’s still 5.
• Search Engine Journal dropped from 7 to 4 and… you guessed it.

Interestingly however, ProBlogger went from Pr6 to PR4, but according to Google Directory, has no PR at all…

Feel free to contibute any other discrepancies between Google Directory PR and toolbar PR.

My fiancee’s laptop finally gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago - in exactly the same manner as mine, the power socket broke and the cost of fixing it was a bit much. I figured that money would be better spent invested in a new laptop. The Missus wanted a pink one, to go with her pink phone, pink iPod, pink Nintendo DS, etc… it’s a girly thing, I don’t get it. And Apple have a lot to answer for: remember when gadgets were silver or maybe black?

Anyway, I use a Dell laptop these days and I couldn’t be happier with it. It’s robust, it’s expensive but value for money and it’s lasted. So, having found out they do a pink version of their Inspiron laptops I figured, why not? So I ordered her the pink Dell laptop thinking it would be an average laptop with a gimmicky colour but hey, it’s a Dell so it’s not a complete waste of money.

And then it arrived. It’s beautiful! OK, personally I’d prefer it in another colour - they do 7 others - but this is really a nice machine. Guys, buy one for your girlfriend/wife/mistress and she’ll love you forever.

The best of the rest

There are other laptops on the market with a pink or “choose your own colour” gimmick. The specs of the Dell are great, the price is reasonable, but the only thing some buyers might find disappointing is that it isn’t pink all over, i.e. it’s just the screen over that’s pink, the rest is silver. But actually, that looks a lot better than the other models where the whole case has been sprayed a hideous shade of bubblegum pink. The Dell is classy. If I had to get a different one, here’s what I’d go for:

VAIO CR Series Notebook VGN-CR290EAP Make a unique fashion statement with the with the drop-dead gorgeous VAIO CR notebook dressed in Cosmopolitan Pink. Featuring a stunning 14.1″ widescreen LCD with XBRITE-ECO? LCD technology, this thin-and-light style icon is an astonishing sight to behold. Backed by the Windows Vista operating system and Intel Centrino Duo processor technology with Intel Core? 2 Duo processor, this lightning-fast, super-powerful mobile notebook is packed with entertainment and design extras. From a built-in web cam and AV controls to its unique color and comfortable, easy-to-clean keyboard, the remarkable VAIO CR notebook delivers entertainment, power and pizzazz. Computers VAIO Notebooks VGN-CR290EAP

My web design business, MB Web Design, recently moved from position #3 to #2 on Google.co.uk for the term “web design”. Since then I’ve been inundated with enquiries and click-through traffic from Google has nearly doubled. Doubled! All because I’m one position higher, it’s really quite remarkable. How long I’ll stay at #2 is anybody’s guess - the top few contenders maintain constant and aggressive online marketing and link-building campaigns. For now, at least, it’s nice to feel like Mr. Popular.

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