Anyway, back to the matter at hand and I decided that while I might be a little bit geeky, that doesn’t mean I understand all tekkie jargon. So, I thought that once in a while, I would take some tekkie speak and translate it into plain English for those of you who like to read about geeky things but might not necessarily be a geek!

Today, I want to talk about HTML5. It’s being talked about a lot at the moment and if you read the post ‘Web design and the iPad’ you would have come across it.

To give you a bit of background, HTML ( which stands for HyperText Markup Language and is the predominant and universal markup language for web pages) was developed by the W3C  (the World Wide Web Consortium) until 2004, when members of the HTML working group became unhappy with the direction the W3C was going with HTML. They felt that the W3C was not paying enough attention to the real-world development needs of the language and focusing too much on XML and XHTML. So they formed a new group called Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) devoted to evolving the Web. They started by working on a new specification of HTML – HTML 5.

HTML5  incorporates features like video playback and drag-and-drop that have been previously dependent on third-party browser plug-ins such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and Google Gears. This is important because, as you may have heard, Apple is no longer compatible with Flash, choosing instead to adopt HTML5, CSS and Javascript.

Here is a brilliant explanation in the form of an infographic…

Graphic Alliance – specialists in eCommerce for luxury goods and fashion brands – seeks a bright allrounder with a passion for the internet to help us extend and optimise our clients’ social media strategies.

This combined role involves a mix of editorial, social media, SEO and PR, and is primarily intended to help our clients’ marketing teams to improve the merchandising of its products in the digital space. This is a great opportunity to work with A-list clients like The Conran Shop, Vivienne Westwood, Silver Cross and Temperley London. Perks include a competitive salary, offices in Covent Garden, health insurance, monthly nights out, the legendary summer party, cookies of the edible variety, beers on a Thursday……

Day-to-day tasks

• Blogger & journalist communication
• Influencer engagement
• Social media management
• Reputation monitoring and management
• On and offsite community engagement
• Editorial / production tasks
• Press release writing and distribution
• Website content and copywriting
• Strategic SEO initiatives
• Measurement and analysis of results

Candidate requirements

• Excellent writing skills
• Attention to detail
• Passion for the internet
• Understanding and experience of SEO, PR and social media networks
• Excellent communication skills
• Ability to work autonomously
• Commercially astute
• Able to work in Central London
• Sense of humour
• Experience in online PR, SEO or social media role
• Digital marketing expertise
• Solid grasp of Google Analytics
• Onsite optimisation experience / knowledge
• Production skills (Photoshop, Word, Excel, multimedia etc)
• Experience of blogging
• Copy editing / proof reading skills
• Entrepreneurial flair
• Statistical analysis skills

Brownie points

• Relevant degree or higher
• Retail / merchandising experience
• More than three years experience in the internet industry
• Graphic Alliance facebook fan / twitter follower

Salary: £25-£35k depending on experience
Contract type: Permanent
Country: United Kingdom
Location Details: London WC2
Start Date: August 2010
Application Deadline: 8th August 2010

Please email CVs to Alison Young – alison@graphicalliance.co.uk

PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO THE AMOUNT OF APPLICATIONS RECEIVED IT IS NOT ALWAYS POSSIBLE TO REPLY.

Ford has been using the Ford Explorer Facebook Page to drum up excitement in anticipation of the launch day event. The automaker surpassed its goal of 30,000 fans prior to the reveal, which means that the company will be giving away an Explorer to one random fan!

However, just bear in mind that while Ford have done a great job, launching on Facebook only will not necessarily work for all brands – it really depends on your product or service. Nevertheless, do take note of Ford’s marketing activities and try taking a gamble – it could pay off if executed correctly.

For more photos from the night, click here to visit our Flickr account.

Apple is currently soaring on the sales success of the iPad, and the consumer technology giant has smashed Wall Street expectations after profits surged on strong demand for new products – including the iPad.

The company, which sold almost as many of its new iPad tablets as Mac computers, said revenues jumped 61 per cent to $15.7 billion (£10.3bn) in its second quarter. Profits rose 78 per cent to $3.25bn. So far, it has sold about 3.3 million iPads during its first three months on the market.

While it remains to be seen if the iPad’s initial success can be maintained, it is possible that this nifty device has the potential to be a game changer in computing, and the way in which we browse and design for the web.

The launch of the iPad can be seen as a significant step towards the advancement of consumer computing, locking away the complexities of a powerful operating system beneath a streamlined, polished user interface. Although the iPad is a fully portable device, it’s totally different from a laptop, and boasts a large touch screen and 10 hour battery life. This makes it the ultimate tool for enjoying the web. So, with the iPad being different from everything that has come before, how should you approach designing for it?

Should conventional design for desktops apply? Or should designers draw on insight provided by mobile projects? We predict that from the launch of the iPad will emerge a new design hybrid, one which combines aspects of desktop and mobile design.

However, whether the iPad is able to change the world or not, is not the issue of this article. The fact of the matter is that the iPad is here and that, with 3.3 million of them already sold, we must design for the web whilst keeping it in mind. So, what do we need to consider?

Bright screen

The iPad is so bright that long term use can fatigue users. Therefore designers should consider colour contrast. Perhaps use light greys instead of white and dark greys instead of full on black. The backlit iPad screen is not ideal for long term textual consumption, so do your users a favour and mix up photos and video to make for a less strenuous experience.

Pixel density

The device’s pixel density, combined with screen dimensions that lie somewhere between a desktop and mobile phone, mean that neither downscaling desktop sites nor upscaling mobile sites is ideal.

Links and Hover Effects

Most important is the fact that the iPad is a large touch screen device. This is a fundamental long term difference and a move from mouse to finger. Just think, there are a number of complexities in rendering an interface that defines hover and mouse in/mouse out features on a device that has no pointing mechanism!

As the primary method of user interaction with the iPad are the fingers, all those hover effects that were favourable for pointer-based devices will be a hurdle in user experience on the iPad. As, when using a finger and touching the screen, you loose the hover state.

Also the links can no longer be concealed in a text and left for the user to dexterously click upon. Therefore you might want to resize the links so that the user experience does not suffer. Also consider the concept of mousing (and Fitts’ Law). Will users be as accurate with their finger as a mouse cursor?

The Fold

The iPad changes the nature of the fold. The ability to change orientation makes the fold exist twice – and in two different places. Hopefully, this will stop people worrying about whether users will scroll because, if there ever was a device that makes people want to scroll, the iPad is it.

Device orientation and fluid width design

As some iPad apps lack consistency between modes (sometimes only some features are available in landscape mode) it would not be advisable to have different designs for different orientations. Two designs may also confuse users when they switch modes. It’s also worth thinking about how a user might hold the device and the fingers they may use to navigate a site.

As the iPad has no right way of viewing websites, you can view pages either in landscape or in the portrait mode. But for the designer that means two completely different layouts for which to design. It is for this specific reason that the iPad highlights the need for smart fluid width design. Using a smart combination of CSS and Javascript the User Experience can be made to improve drastically.

HTML5

Every new Apple mobile device and every new Mac (along with the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser) supports web standards including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. The iPads strong support for web standards may also benefit designers in another way, especially with the release of the OS4. Apple’s iAd platform is based around HTML5, which offers opportunities to anyone well versed in the technology. Revealed by Jobs last April, iAd aims to provide media rich in-app mobile advertising that (according to Apple) will provide the emotion of TV with the interactivity of the web. With Google openly adopting HTML5 for Youtube, it is only a beginning of the things to come with HTML5.

Additional benefits

Although unconventional in interface terms, the iPad is a good citizen when it comes to webs standards. Safari for iPad is one of the most advanced, standard compliant browsers around. Also, WebKit (an open source web browser engine and also the name of the Mac OS X system framework version of the engine that’s used by Safari) is the only browser engine. WebKit is appealing to designers because they know exactly what they are designing for and don’t have to worry about how a design may appear on a range of different browsers. This allows for more focus when creating an iPad specific site.

Two sides of the argument

Designers are not united regarding optimisation for the iPad. Some say that there is no need unless iPad users are your core audience. However, if you can make something look good on the iPad, it is likely that it will look good on a desktop too.

Others say that designing specifically for the iPad will mean that users are not left in the lap of the Gods. Removing the need to zoom to read text, or ensuring that text links are large enough to be easily ‘clicked’ by a finger will remove a barrier between the users and your content. You don’t want uses to have to constantly adjust viewing behaviour because your content does not arrive formatted for easy consumption.

Nevertheless, it would be bad practice to develop a website specifically for the iPad platform – just as we no longer create sites specifically for the Mac or PC. Think of the iPad as another step in the evolution of the way in which we design for the web. As with every new device that comes out, we must take into account the subtle differences and play to its strengths and weaknesses.

Facebook is launching an online campaign to celebrate reaching 500m global users.

Facebook Stories will be a visual representation of members’ stories about how the social network has impacted their lives. The site will sit within Facebook, with users able to filter stories by date or theme, such as ‘coping with grief’, ‘finding love’ and ‘natural disasters’.

Randi Zuckerberg, marketing director at Facebook, said:

“As we anticipate our 500m milestone, we wanted to find a different way to announce and celebrate it. In the past it has been all about the numbers and milestones, and we realised we had never taken the opportunity to celebrate users.”

Members can already submit stories in the User Stories part of the site.

Now, six months later, almost half (47%) of 18-24-year-olds use real-time search results. However, just 8% of these users find them useful (according to research by Tamar).

But what about other types of search results?

Interestingly, by looking into the search habits of 2,210 people, Tamar’s report also showed that just 4% of people would choose paid search results over natural search results, down by 1% on 2009 and down 6% on 2007.

The research found that people over 55 were the least likely to trust paid search as a trusted source with just 3% choosing it over natural search results.

Younger people are increasing their use of mobile to search as 14% of both 18-24-year olds and 25-34-year-olds use mobile search every day.

Neil Jackson, search strategy director at Tamar, said, “Consumers have decided that natural search is the route they trust more and this defines the strategic starting point for all brands, which need to focus on being highly visible ‘naturally’ through campaigns that reach effectively across a wide range of media and devices, especially mobile – a huge growth area for the search engines.”

The seat cover is from a design which appeared on the Northern Line in the 1930’s

This got me thinking, a. Because obviously our office is based in Covent Garden and b. As a massive geek, I was naturally quite excited and thought, yes I think it’s true, or in this case ‘tube’.

It’s a way of using traditional tube advertising but making people go online to find out the answer and lots more. An interesting way of making the tube interactive!

The point of the site is to show what a rich heritage the underground has, and what a place for art and design it is as well as providing us with lots of interesting facts. At the same time it gets people online onto the TFL site so it can promote more of the initiatives it’s currently undertaking. It’s a fun little project which I hope has caught people’s eye in a bid to show what history lies below us in London and how the underground, even as the oldest in the world, is moving with the times.

You can play tube or false online now by clicking here.

Chequers – 47 Bedford Street
A sandwich mecca. Buy a huge sandwich of the day and get a cup of soup for free. Watch out for the lunchtime queue that often stretches all the way down the road!

The Master’s Diner – 32 Henrietta Street
Sometimes, only a good old fashioned fry-up will hit the spot. This great little greasy spoon also makes a mean sandwich.

Food For Thought – 31 Neal Street
Something for the vegetarians. Food for Thought makes delicious veggie food – but be prepared to wait. Sharing tables is the norm and the service can be slow, but the flavoursome food is worth it, so try a take-away instead.

Wong Kei – 41-43 Wardour Street
Great food in generous portions. However, this little Chinese gem is famed for it’s rude staff and brash service! Take it all with a pinch of salt and you’ll eat a good, hearty meal.

The Mediterranean Salad Bar – Earlham Street Market
For £4 the friendly staff working behind the Mediterranean Salad bar will give you a big box stuffed full of delicious goodies – from salad to olives, sun dried tomatoes and hummus. You’ll also get a massive hunk of bread to go with it.

Rock & Sole Plaice – 47 Endell Sreet
Voted one of the best fish and chip shops in London, this establishment is always packed full of tourists, luvvies, suits and trendies – but no one cares when they’ve got chunky chips and crisply battered fish in front of them! Outdoor tables come into their own on a balmy summer’s evening.

Itsu – 41-44 Great Queen Street
Yes, it’s a chain, but they do do the best sushi, soups and salads. There’s also indoor and outdoor seating.

For sit down eating try Sophie’s Steakhouse and Joe Allen.

The move will directly rival UK grocery giants Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose, as well as fellow pure-play Ocado.

Visit their beta site for a preview - click here.

Amazon Grocery will also be available via a mobile-optimised site, as well as on its iPhone app. Click here to read more about Ocado and the success of it’s mobile app.