The Times LIVE new-look website does not please

The Times re-launched its website, with a new-look and feel and has called it Times LIVE. The research into the design process was taken from Scandinavian countries, which have the highest internet penetration rates, as well as the highest number of online news consumers. It therefore made sense that the new-look would be successful in [...]

Multimedia’s growing appeal to Gen-Y

We recently published a story about the launch of The Times new-look website and noticed a few interesting trends based on our interviews with The Times Editor, Ray Hartley and Avusa GM, Elan Lohmann. The new-look website is using a new content management system that will integrate more multimedia content not only on the website, [...]

Let MiWay know whether they are going your way or not…

While MiWay insurance was previously among the leagues of local companies that received commentary on HelloPeter and Getclosure, the company has since decided to take a big, brave step forward and enter the social media arena, by creating a space on its website, where customers are free to have their say for all to see.
Named ‘compliments and complaints’, [...]

Google News and YouTube invite news groups to share videos

On 28 June, Google paved the way for professional news organisations to share their video content online in order to build bigger audiences for their video content. Google News and Google’s YouTube video-sharing website are inviting news publications that are already sourced in Google News to join the YouTube partner programme.
News sites that allow their [...]

Mobile web usability is a contradiction in terms

According to Jakob Nielsen, in user testing, website use on mobile devices scored very low, especially in cases where users accessed regular websites not designed for mobile use.
Nielsen describes the mobile user experience as “miserable” and says the phrase “mobile usability” is an oxymoron as it’s neither easy nor pleasant to use the web on [...]

Have you tried blerping yet?

Media Update has recently subscribed to Blerp – a social networking website that allows you to start discussions right on top of your favourite websites. Unlike typical web comments, you are in full control and you can post on any webpage you choose, regardless of whether it permits user feedback. In other words, Blerp transforms [...]

The Witness gets site upgrade

On 3 June, Ryan Calder from The Witness announced that a new-look Witness website, launched with help from the team at Bluebox.
The focus of the new site is now a graphic and picture-driven package to make news more accessible and more entertaining to read.
The classifieds page has been redesigned to make it more user-friendly.

Rocking the local scene – for free

Mahala is a free South African mouthpiece that strives to report and represent “what’s really happening along the fault line and in the trenches of South African culture”. It’s available online, on your mobile and in print, and will always be ‘free, gratis and Mahala’, because you deserve quality information, opinion and entertainment for free!
The [...]

Are you a man or a machine?

Have you noticed how more and more websites are including puzzles presenting a string of distorted letters and numbers when you sign up for their services or log in? These puzzles are called captchas and are supposed to be easy for humans to read and retype, but hard for computer software to figure out. Captchas [...]

The US government sets a great online example

Search Marketing Gurus last week blogged that President Obama (in his 50 days in office) has been changing the way that the executive branch of the government does business online.
SMG goes on to list how America’s ‘first Social Media president’ got his team to revitalise the official US government website, whitehouse.gov, which is regularly updated. [...]