Insightful articles, opinion and commentary about mobile and web.

Xander Black, Creative Director at HotHouse, discusses why great work online is so much more than specific technologies or beautiful visual design

The internet is a breeding ground for ideas. New ones emerge every day. ‘Memes’ come and go on a daily basis and the good ones linger on… go viral and become part of the language of the internet itself.

Whether it’s Lolcats, the Star Wars Kid, or the history of dance, we’ve all seen them, laughed at them, and passed them on to others to enjoy. The internet has become the best vehicle the world has seen for the genesis of ideas and their proliferation. A single idea can spread across the world in a matter of hours.

These days, when you want your new campaign to be seen, you’re not just trying to stand out from a page of news content. You’re not even just competing against your competitors. Online, you’re competing against the very best that the internet has to offer.

read more

Treat your marketing like a garden and you’ll survive the economic downturn.

Have you seen the classic film Being There? The main character Chauncey (played by Peter Sellers) is a mentally-challenged gardener who through a few twists of fate ends up being a respected political adviser and commentator (I can heartily recommend you getting it out on DVD – a funny film with pointed social commentary that still stings today).

Anyway, when he’s asked his opinion on world events, Chauncey starts talking about the only thing he knows – gardening – and he slowly and deliberately describes the process of planting seeds, watering them, pulling out weeds, pruning, and harvesting. Everyone who listens to him puts their own spin on what he ‘really’ means, and he quickly becomes an internationally respected political guru.

Chris Abraham, interviewed for our recent HotHouse podcast, says Chauncey Gardner’s gardening analogy is particularly apt for online social media marketing today.

Abraham, online PR specialist and president and COO of online consultants Abraham Harrison, based in Washington and Berlin, argues that despite the right-now, viral nature of the Internet, building a company’s brand through social media takes time.

read more

HotHouse content director Ray Welling talks to Chris Abraham, president and COO of online consultants Abraham Harrison, based in Washington and Berlin. Chris is a leading expert in online public relations with a focus on blogger outreach, blogger engagement, and Internet reputation management.  An international pioneer in online social networks and publishing, he works as an Internet analyst, web strategy consultant and advisor to firms across the globe. He specializes in web 2.0 technologies, such as online collaboration, blogging, and consumer generated media.

Chris talks about the ins and outs of social media marketing, which he calls “online conversation marketing”, and why good gardeners make good social media marketers. Listen to the podcast below.

 

 Chris Abraham podcast [34:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Microsoft has added a “standards [in]compatibility list” to Internet Explorer 8. The purpose of the list will be such that when a user visits one of the sites IE8 will automatically switch to “IE7 compatibility mode” (or something to that effect) to render the page. Frequently noted is that “microsoft.com” itself is on the incompatibility list.

Also in Internet Explorer-related news, an exceptionally large list of frequently visited news sites in Norway have begun to display notices to IE6 users that they should upgrade to a newer browser, some even suggesting alternatives to Internet Explorer altogether.