Google pollutes the air – and knowledge

Executives at Google have been quick to respond to the claims that surfaced this weekend about the harm the search engine does to the environment. According to a physicist, Alex Wissner-Gross, a single Google search produces 7 grams of carbon dioxide – the “greenhouse gas”. Not so, says Google, it’s …

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Get ready for web meetings

Frequent flyers are going to have to make do with fewer points, lower bonuses and less shopping in airports. That’s the conclusion from the latest Hitwise analysis of online searching for flights. Compared with the same period last year, interest in booking flights online is down by more than 42% …

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Pleasure is the key to Internet success

Many Internet marketing “gurus” will tell you that if you are trying to sell something online all your copy, your advertisements, your headlines and so on should lead the reader to realise you can help them avoid pain. Indeed, much of the marketing advice given by many experts is on …

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Internet information overload starts the New Year

Welcome to 2009; never before have you been on the receiving end of so much information. There are more web pages than you could read in your entire life, assuming you lived to 100. More books are published now than ever – and there are more printed magazines and newspapers …

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Did the Internet stress you out today?

Today was, apparently, the most stressful day of the year. Not bad considering we’re only five days in. Allegedly, the combination of a mass return to work, the financial meltdown and the Christmas “overload” meant that we were all doomed from first thing this morning. Well, I did manage to …

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Happy New Year: What will the Internet bring you in 2009?

Happy New Year; I hope you have enjoyed the celebrations and that you don’t start off 2009 with too much of a headache..! At this time of year, of course, it is traditional to look towards the future and set your resolutions for the coming 12 months. Don’t. Resolutions are …

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Do you remember this time last year?

Memory is a strange feature of our brains; it is essential for everything we do (think for a moment if you had to learn every day to walk again as your brain had forgotten what to do.l.!). Yet it fails us so much. Everyone you speak with lately is worried …

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Word order doesn’t matter for marketers internet

Google doesn’t take into account the order of the words that you type into the search box – unless you tell it to by using quotation marks. Now, psychologists from Boston, USA, have found that humans don’t either. It turns out that in familiar word pairs, such as “Internet marketing” …

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Labour doesn’t understand the Internet – again!

Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has shown, yet again, that Government fails to understand the Internet. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph he proposed that web sites should only be published once they have cinema style ratings so that parents would know what …

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Happy Christmas 2008

Have a Happy Christmas. Thank you for reading my articles this year and I hope you have found them useful. Like many people I’m now taking a few days off and so I’m resting my fingers from the keyboard for a day or two (unless something suddenly provokes the writer …

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Will you check your email on Christmas Day?

This time tomorrow you will have opened your Christmas presents, stuffed the turkey and could be onto your second glass of champagne. But will you have peeked at your email account at all? Go on, admit it, you probably will do. Two years ago a survey suggested that a mere …

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Long Tail theory debunked – NOT…!

Chris Anderson’s “Long Tail Theory” has been debunked by two economists who have conduced an exhaustive statistical analysis, according to The Times. If you’re not familiar with this theory, it suggests that thanks to the Internet we will now be able to benefit from millions of tiny business “niches”, rather …

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People less satisfied with Internet shops

Shoppers are becoming less satisfied with Internet shops. The research company Foresee has shown that consumers are now less satisfied with Internet retailers than they were a year ago. One in four people are dissatisfied, according to the on-going study. For a site with millions of visitors that could spell …

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Small business owners are unsure about online advertising

Researchers at Microsoft have discovered that small business owners have a number of fears when it comes to promoting their business online. Nine out of every ten firms with an online presence have never tried to use any form of paid search marketing. Amazing! Google, for instance, is raking in …

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