by Martin Dower

Devoted as I am to Safari it’s finally time to say goodbye and move over to the latest shiny toy in the box, Google Chrome. I’m not sure how I am feeling at the moment as I do love Safari for it’s integration into OSX but it’s just losing too much ground to Chrome. So, in a fanfare and a hail of bullets I quit Safari for the last time today.

Google’s Chrome just seems to run so much better on my MacBook and has a fantastic range of add-ins that I use a lot. In fact I would be tempted to say that Chrome has improved my productivity and certainly cuts down on the number of sites I have to visit and tabs I have to have open.

Being a huge 37Signals product user I’m able to slick-away the operation using Autosave, time and graphing, Campfire as well as more commonly used extensions such as Evernote clipper, Dropbox and Wikipedia.

Key headlines

• We are not gathering any more information – we are changing the way we gather and apply this information
• We are synchronising and unifying how we use information across all the data platforms including our core platforms as well as third-party
• The revised policy is being implemented on May the 1st
• We’ll never sell or pass-on your information without your permission

Privacy policies are updated on myBookingWizard.com and on Connected-uk.com

Since the last privacy ruling in 2003 the key change is:

• OLD : You must provide the option for users to opt out of cookies being stored on their device, changes to
• NEW : You must obtain consent for cookies to be stored on a users’ of subscribers device

It is interesting to note that the original ruling has been in place for over 8 years yet almost no site actually complied with this ruling. The ICO and EU have not provided specific processes for companies to follow, nor have they really provided much in the way of solid guidance.

What areas are going to be affected?

Most web assets make extensive use of cookies for a number of key functions.

• Analytics, conversion and performance reporting
• Function of the web-site
• Split testing

Exceptions

Not all cookies will require explicit consent.

• A cookie to remember goods and services for the purposes of “checking out”, ala e-commerce.
• A cookie that is used as part of the 7th Data Protection principle which states “Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.”
• Cookies that speed the loading of the page up by distributing the workload amongst a number of web-servers.

It should be noted that there is very specific reference to “Cookies used to recognise a user and give them tailored content”. This is NOT a permitted exception.

Timeline

The initial position is that everyone must be 100% compliant by May 25th 2012. This has, however, softened over time with the recent statement “There will not be a wave of knee-jerk formal enforcement action taken against people who are not yet compliant but trying to get there” coming out of the ICO

Misinformation

A whole industry is springing up around this date and most (all?) are using a fear/uncertainty/doubt close that entails a lot of scaremongering. Ignore most of it. With 4 months to go some are scaremongering with headlines like “Websites face £500k fine for breaching ‘cookie’ law“.

It is worth noting that there are larger fines available to the ICO, but this applies to all outbound marketing activities covered by the revised Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations and that definitely effects other activities covered by most organisations in such areas as unwanted emails and text.

Be also aware that some sites who initially (over)reacted to the new privacy rules have now softened their stance, presumably as it was having such an adverse affect on business.

It is also worth noting that hosting and operating outside of the EU won’t get round the problem if you want to supply goods and services into the UK (wow, that sounds like a minefield!). And finally, there are some differences in how this will apply in different EU states but the difference are far less than the similarities.

Effect on third-party systems (reporting and analytics, mostly)

It is also to be noted that the only site (of note) using the explicit system is the ICO site and they have seen a dramatic drop in the number of recorded visitors to the site. This drop has come about as less than 9% of visitors agree to the policy.

This is not to say that the overall traffic has fallen, far from it. Some reports suggest that the traffic to the ICO has tripled since the announcement.

This is, I believe, an issue that the various analytics and reporting providers should be providing a solution to now. We are already starting to see the effects of privacy as Google now scrambles around 30% of search terms, making them invisible to the web-site and therefore analytics and reporting.

The simplest answer is to adopt a cookie free tracking system with some hybrid cookie solution to sample user information. It’s pretty easy to do and provides, in most cases, a lot information. This can be done via Javascript or Apache log analysis.

However, for some, the user journey, mapping and conversion requires a way to recognise visitors and this is mostly provided via a cookie. It doesn’t have to but many folks are seduced by the allure of recording every (?) customer journey. Not really sure why they need to record every person’s journey, a 10% sample should probably do the trick nicely.

Effect on first-party systems

I would suggest the following should not directly be affected:

• Any system that can conclusively show it need cookies to provide data security, this should include login systems and services that store personal information.
• Transaction-based applications that require the use of a cookie to store data in between stages, much like e-commerce or online booking. A system that would be rendered inoperable by the absence of cookies.

Cookies are typically bad:

• in profiles to recognise different users
• in testing different content to different users
• to pre-popolute fields on the site based on previously entered information
• in remembering logins into secure systems (including forums)
• in taster-type applications that show user-journey specific content
• in sales stages display applications
• country selectors

So what now?

So there is not a threat of legal action if you are following the advice to achieve compliance. Interpreting the guidance, this suggests that by May you should have:

• Audited your current use of cookies.
• Updated privacy messages on your site to reference use of cookies.
• Implemented or be working on implementing a method of offering opt-in to cookies.

The first two items are pretty straightforward but the last one is more troublesome.

This also gives you the opportunity to test some of the solutions in a conventional A/B test environment, whilst you can. This is different to normal testing where we are looking for a (confidence probable) winner but a test to explicitly measure the drop in conversion rates.

However, if the press reaction to the EU Policy is good then there is an argument that overt cookie compliance or overly public displays of privacy (sound odd, I know) could actually increase the effectiveness of the web-site – but that a subject for another day.

We are aware that the outages are too frequent and we are taking this up with our supplier.

Thankfully, we’re not too reliant on inbound calls these days as all existing customers have alternative, and better, means to communicate with the us. We sincerely apologise if you are trying to reach us but normal service will be resumed soon, of that I am sure.

In the meantime you can reach us on 01422-382116 which is our emergency inbound number. Sorry again. Again.

Nope. In July this year he publicly announced the end of search and the death of Microsoft. The video is superbly exciting, well-informed and offers an all too rare perspective on the role of emerging technology.

A self-confessed Apple lover, Flash hater (Ed:ace!) and believer that HTML5 is the greatest thing since Google started to own the web 10 years ago. He’s evangelical about the iPad and iPhone as devices because of their massive adoption rate and where Microsoft once had 96% control of internet connected devices, it now has just 50% because the growth of mobile is replacing the old PC era. That’s a scary number for Microsoft, losing nearly half of your influence in just 3 years.

Google, meanwhile, has captured 80% of the index search business from which it then went onto top controlling the web advertising market. But at a price as ”Google’s success eventually filled the web with crap, so consumers began using other products to search: Wikipedia for facts, Facebook for matters of taste, time or money, Twitter for news, Yelp for restaurants, Realtor.com for places to live, LinkedIn for jobs. Over the past three years, these alternatives have gone from 10% of search volume to about half,” said McNamee.

As the “crap” built up other companies stepped into the space to provide a better, more focussed, search experience which also had the advantage of external branding. Until the birth of Facebook, Wikipedia et al your search results were, in essence, Google branded so big brands struggled to appear over the flotsam and jetsam of spammers and the product of bent SEO companies.

As Roger goes on to say ”As if all this competition wasn’t bad enough for Google, then along came Apple with the iPhone and App Store… Apple has branded, trustworthy apps for everything. If they want news, Apple customers use apps from the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. If they want to know which camera to buy, they ask friends on Facebook. If they want to go to dinner, they use the Yelp app. These searches have economic value and it’s not going to Google, even on Android…When Apple and the app model win, Google’s search business loses.”

But it does’t stop there. Roger goes onto say that HTML5 offers a better experience than Apple’s App model and it far cheaper to develop and deploy so could spell the end of the App Store.

The video is 10 minutes long, the presentation slides are so-so,  I suggest you listen to it when you are doing your expenses, or making a brew.

We’re looking for a couple of bright, keen and hardworking peeps who have a basic knowledge of the web world and want to work in an exciting a cutting edge company. We code using HTML 5, CSS 3 and Perl and use deployment tools such as GitHub and Capistrano all managed under 37Signals rather excellent Basecamp.

We build bespoke and production applications for UK-based companies that dramatically improve on-site conversion rate. We also market and sell our rather excellent myBookingWizard product and we’re keen to take on 2 interns for an initial period of 3 months with the view to extending the internship to 6 months and then potentially offering a job at the end of it.

Our Internship Programme and is designed to ensure the provision of fair, open, high-quality internships as a means of improving social mobility and engaging wider pools of talent. We know times are tough for graduates and 6th form school leavers and believe that internships are a great way to meet in the middle. Internships help young people gain employability skills, such as teamworking and project management, that will be invaluable in their future careers and also a great way for employers such as ourselves to thoroughly assess the skills of potential teamies.

Adherening to the CIPD Guidelines on Internships, the prime purpose of internships is to provide interns with a meaningful experience that enhances their employability and skills. There are clear business benefits for Connected to running a good internship scheme, such as gaining a new and motivated member of staff, bringing new skills and perspectives to your organisation and potentially improving productivity. We feel that the quality of the experience is the most important factor for the intern, as the short-term economic costs of an internship can often be offset by the long-term advantages to the intern’s career.

The selection process mirrors how we recruit full-time team members and, although the positions are unpaid, we expect the same level of work and commitment that we would expect from a full-time member. The 3 or 6 months spent in the intern role we see the successful candidates carrying a wide range of functions to support the business including support, customer services, programming, sales and marketing. This is a fast-track method to evaluating whether the intern will thrive in these environments and, although not guaranteed, a better than good chance of securing long-term employment.

We have a good track record in working with interns, our current head of operations started life out here as an unpaid intern 5 years ago and two other interns have gone onto full-time jobs. Every intern is provided with a dedicated mentor who will work side-by-side with the intern and also have a weekly one-to-one session. Additionally, at the end of the 3 months initial term a full appraisal and reference will be provided.

If you are interested in joining the team then I suggest you drop a 1 page email to Andy Holland outlining why you think you’d fit it well here. Be creative and try to stand out. Don’t send us a conventional CV, no-one reads them these days.

Note: Currently interns are classified as volunteers and are not paid a salary but reasonable travel expenses will be reimbursed monthly. Hours are 10am to 4pm, based in our Halifax office.

Google Plus could almost be Facebook Version 2 – which you have to think must be heading our way at some point. You can add me on Google Plus here.

Anyhoo, on with Robert’s useful post.

My tips for newer users of Google+:

1. Learn what circles are and how to put people into them. When I first started out I went crazy with circles, opening up something like 20 of them. That wasn’t very smart, it turned out. Now I’m back to seven. Simple ones like “friends, family, coworkers, geeks, VCs, tech press.” Etc.

2. Learn how to distribute content to circles, or public, or certain people. When you post here you don’t need to send it to everyone. You can send it just to people you’ve put in a specific circle, like “friends” or you can send it to a specific person, like me.

2b: Learn not to use your home feed as your main place to visit. Start a circle called “my home circle.” Now when you add people you can add them to multiple circles, but if you don’t want to see someone everyday you can keep them out of your home circle (unfortunately if you follow people they will always be on your actual main feed).

3. Find a few “seed followers” that you like to follow. Then look at who they are following. You’ll find lots more people to follow that way. For instance, I’m following 3,200 geeks, including most of the execs, tech press, VCs, etc. If those kinds of people float your boat, look through my list and pick and choose who you also want to follow.

4. Remember, posts with photos or video do better than just text posts, so see if you can figure out how to get other media in here.

5. If someone gets too noisy, let’s cover how to handle that.

A. Too many posts. Sometimes you’ll follow someone like +Chris Pirillo who posts a lot. What I’ve done with those folks, is put them into a “Noisy buttheads” circle. That way they don’t pollute all your other circles, although they still will show up on your home feed. Feel free to put me in that circle for now.

B. Too many comments on some posts. Some posts will go viral here. It won’t just happen to me. For instance, it might happen to you now that I’ve pushed you into 33,000 people’s view by resharing your post (more on that in a second). If this happens to just one post, you can click the drop-down-menu over to the right of a post and choose “mute.” You’ll never see that post again. This is a good way to get rid of some things that are cluttering up your feed.

C. Consistently high engagement noise (there are already about 50 people who are consistently getting high engagement, folks like me, Trey Ratcliff, Leo Laporte, etc etc) and for us you just need to segregate us into our own circle. Or just put up with that kind of noise (I enjoy engaging in a lot of rapid-fire comments).

6. Turn off email notifications, or learn to filter them with Gmail’s filters. I have turned them off. Too much email, too fast, especially if you get hit by one of the whales here (sorry for hitting you on the first day).

7. Setup your profile and make sure it’s hyper complete. Look at mine and then go set yours up here (I’ve spent a lot of time on mine).

8. Try to talk about something other than Google+. Try to say what you’ll be doing with this. Post something original. Or, start a good debate about something that you care about. Etc. I’m really trying to do this because I’m getting bored with talking about Google+, but I see a lot of new people coming in here, so wanted to write down my thoughts based on my first 13 days.

9. Try using keyboard. J moves down. K moves up. I’m sure there’s others coming.

10. If you use Google Chrome as your browser, there are a bunch of extensions you should try.

11. Learn how resharing works. For instance, I took your original post and reshared it with my audience. Right now that causes some duplication noise (folks following both of us will see your post twice, once from you, once reshared from me) and there will be separate comments under both. Fragmentation is gonna be a problem until Google fixes that here. But resharing is how things are getting very viral. For instance, I just reshared your item with 33,000 people. Now, what if 10% of those reshared it with THEIR audiences? This is why things get crazy very quickly.

Again, huge thanks to Robert for this post – it made my starting out with G+ much simpler. I’m not sure I’m ready to give up Safari and install Chrome but, hey, time will tell.

Thankfully, we’re not too reliant on inbound calls these days as all existing customers have alternative, and better, means to communicate with the us. We sincerely apologise if you are trying to reach us but normal service will be resumed soon, of that I am sure.

In the meantime you can reach us on 01422-382116 which is our emergency inbound number. Sorry again.

Initially we are looking for 2 freelancers or contractors. Additionally we might consider a very bright paid internship slot. If we get a large response we’ll probably run a Saturday Hackathon and pick two winners at the end of the day.

Connected were founded in 1996 and provide bespoke web development to an impressive list of UK-based organisations as well as developing and marketing our VITES personalisation platform and myBookingWizard.com, our cloud-based online booking offering. Based in the rather lovely Dean Clough Mills, Halifax we encourage an informal atmosphere with little in the way of rigid rules, relaxed dress sense, flat management structure, belief in self-responsibility and home working.

Technically we use XHTML, moving to HTML5 and CSS 2, moving to 3 plus JQuery. Operationally we deliver all projects using Basecamp and our own GitHub deployment environment. If you want more info then ping Andy.

If you get the chance to visit the Hudds Phil (as it is known locally) then do so; it’s the oldest continuously playing orchestra in the world.