Pod1 Blog

A funny advert from Google

See what happens when a photo loving coffee cup is let loose on the tourists in New York City. Video for the Verbatim portable hard disks featuring an evil coffee cup.

Read more about Social Media Marketing

Want some facts and figures on the state of the Internet? This ‘infographic’ from Focus gives an idea about who exactly is using the Internet at the moment. While equal numbers of men and women go online, it seems that Internet usage can also be determined by your age, educational background and income level…

Great interactivity with this new collection site for Wrangler Blue Bell Jeans Spring/Summer 2010. Visitors get to interact with each model taking drag interactivity to a new level. Produced by Swedish interactive production company Kokokaka.

We’re happy to announce the launch of Chic Outlet Shopping the latest phase of our work with Value Retail, owner of 9 designer outlet villages around Europe.

The launch of Chic Outlet Shopping finally ties the whole group of 10 sites together with a portal that will act as the gateway for the organisation’s international visitors.

Available in 11 languages, the site will be the primary destination for shoppers who want to visit one of the nine villages.

Main features of the site include descriptions of the nine villages and the discounted brands available at each destination; various guides and competitions; travel information and details of the various memberships available to shoppers.

When a site visitor wants to access any of the nine villages, it’s simply a click away.

The 10 sites have been developed using Epifony, Pod1’s proprietary open source Content Management System (which is based on the Symfony web application framework).

Click below to visit one of the sites:

Chic Outlet Shopping
Bicester Village
Kildare Village
Maasmechelen Village
Ingolstadt Village
Wertheim Village
Las Rozas Village
La Vallée Village
La Roca Village
Fidenza Village

What is duplicate content?

As websites grow, they tend to include more multiple URLs returning the same content. Taking ecommerce websites as an example, these issues may be a side effect of having the same product in different categories – many URLs for exactly the same product.

Why is duplicate content an issue?

Simple because search engines spiders find it harder to crawl and index duplicated content. Search engines can also potentially assign a lower PageRank to the preferred version of the page.

How to fix duplicate content issues?

1. Find duplicate content on your site.
   Copy a unique block of text from a page and to Google it. Remember to limit the results to pages from your website – site:www.example.com.
2. Decide on your preferred versions of URLs.
   Once you identified all duplicate content issues, determine which URL would you prefer to use for that particular page?
3. Redirect all other URL versions to the preferred one using 301 permanent redirects.
   If it makes sense and is not going to confuse users, pick one URL and use the 301 redirect appropriately from the others.
4. Apply the rel=”canonical” link element on all pages featuring duplicated content.
   The rel=”canonical” link element is supported by major search engines such as Google, Ask.com, Bing and Yahoo. Once implemented it will ‘tell’ search engine spiders what the preferred version of the URL is.
5. Configure the URL parameter handling tool in Google Webmaster Tools.
   Extremely useful if the website’s duplicate content comes from URLs with query parameters, e.g. www.example.com/category?page=2. The tool notifies Google (and Google only) about important or irrelevant query parameters in page URLs.

According to this article, Google have withdrawn support for the browser most web developers hate: Internet Explorer version 6.

The latest versions of Gmail and Google Docs, which are very sophisticated interactive websites using lots of Javascript, will no longer work 100% with IE6, according to the announcement.

We are seeing a slow reduction in overall IE6 usage on our clients’ websites, and we’re keen (as are many digital agencies) to move into an IE6-free world.

This short augmented reality film by Keiichi Matsuda is the perfect vision of the future.

Here is the ultimate list of top 5 free press release distribution websites which you won’t waste your time with. In fact, you will know within 1-2 days if your submission has been approved or not.

1. PRlog.org
2. BigNews.biz
3. Pr-inside.com
4. Newswiretoday.com
5. Pr.com

They let you include the link to your site and, once approved, will show the snippet in news aggregator websites like Google News, Ask News or Bing News.

Additionally, if your press release is well optimised and really newsworthy then it may even get displayed in search engine’s universal search result, see below. This will increase website’s exposure, increase the number of quality back-links, and contribute to the increase in the total number of visitors.

Read more about benefits of online PR.

“What to do on a cold December day to celebrate winning Pod1’s “Above and Beyond” award?”  Said Robin

“Why not go to Winter Wonderland and see what the top rides are?” Replied Artur,

“If we’re lucky, we may even get to see Santa.”

Five hours, numerous rides, much mulled wine and a meeting with Father Christmas later, Robin and Artur emerged with the following evidence:

Best ride:

Power Tower (2:08)  – 66metres of vertical ascent, followed by one of the best views of London I’ve seen in a while, completed by a rapid descent. And then up. And Down. And Up. And Dooooooooown.

Worst Ride:

The Black Hole. (2:48)  It was a rollercoaster. In the Dark. Where’s the fun in not seeing where you’re going?

Honourable mention:

The Spinning ride thing. (1:32)  Too much fun for something which basically whisked you round in circles. It’s the simple things sometimes, no?

Best moment:

Meeting Father Christmas. He’s real! (1:56)

“Have you been good little boys? … Why aren’t you at work today?”