Mid week breaks blog http://midweekbreaks.co
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Mid week breaks blog http midweekbreaks co
http://distributedresearch.net/status/mid-week-breaks-blog-http-midweekbreaks-co/
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April 4 2012, 6:27am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
theatre breaks blog http usefulwiki com londontheatre with…
http://distributedresearch.net/status/theatre-breaks-blog-http-usefulwiki-com-londontheatre-with/
theatre breaks blog http://usefulwiki.com/londontheatre/ with floating share buttons
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March 6 2012, 2:32am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
WordPress London #7
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/11/18/wordpress-london-7
I went to WordPress London meetup number #7 last night, hosted by Headshift at their office near Shad Thames, along the south bank of the Thames, east of Tower Bridge. Nice to have something on the East side for once, although south of the river, I wouldn’t normally mention the general location but for Londoners, having different travel options is essential and I was pleased to be able to exit the Transport For London system at a zone 2 tube station, Bermondsey. WordPress London is not really a mainly social gathering like some of the bloggers meetups, it’s a business learning event and last night there were three sections, each packed with fast moving presentations full of detail, actionable insights and deeply understood data. First up, a round up of news from the world of WordPress from Chris Adams of Headshift with a peek at the new drag and drop file upload interface for WordPress 3.3, out very soon. There was also a heads up for the ManageWP service launched this month, a service which I use myself and would also heartily recommend for anybody who maintains more than one self-hosted WordPress installation, in fact it’s brilliant if you have dozens or more. WordPress London Meetup Then David Bain delivered a comprehensive briefing about SEO for WordPress, including an outline of a hub and spoke structure for content based on using pages for the main parts of a site, supported by posts All based around keyword targeting, which, while possibly on it’s way to becoming somewhat old-school, is after all what search engine optimisation is all about. One or two plugin tips to be followed up there. Finally, Keith Devon a WordPress developer explained how and why to use WordPress Custom Post Types. Custom post types are not types of posts at all, but other types of content alongside of posts or pages. The example given was that of a real estate property rental site, for which the element “Property” needed to be a thing of itself, with it’s own display template in the theme, neither a post nor a page but with it’s own “add Property” section within the dashboard. This gave me some great ideas for how I might have designed one or two of my existing sites much better had the concept been around a few years ago. Keith showed us how to implement custom post types by dropping in chunks of code into functions.php “because it’s easier” but discussion from the audience suggests that using specialised plugins for the purpose may be the way to go if you want to be able to keep your site up to date with new software releases. Time for some brief discussions and an optional visit to a Samuel Smiths pub afterwards, so I walked back along the south bank and over London Bridge back to dry land. Hashtag: #WPLDN Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogWordPress London #7
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November 18 2011, 2:31am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Andy Roberts blog powered by sweetcron as a…
http://distributedresearch.net/status/andy-roberts-blog-powered-by-sweetcron-as-a/
Andy Roberts blog – powered by sweetcron as a lifeblog http://andyrobertsblog.co.uk
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November 17 2011, 4:21am | Comments »
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I posted to actionlogr.com
Action Log August 2011
http://www.actionlogr.com/action-log-august-2011/
August was the month of the Action Log Project, an attempt to try and get one big idea off the ground and near a state ready to be shipped. So it was an exercise in balancing the trade-off between shorter term daily actions – getting the little bits and pieces done and out there, which are necessary to sustain any general progress at all, and on the other hand devoting a sizeable chunk of time each day to working on something which may or may not pay off well in the longer term, but has little or no immediate consequence. Then at the end of the month I suffered from a major maintenance event which threw everything out for several days on end. Such is the unpredictable nature of life really, we make plans – and then something different happens. The plans still come in handy though. The Action Log that I keep personally, on my own internal wiki page for now, has developed somewhat. In order to track progress on the project I introduced the category “P” for project. Mostly these log entries would not count as Actions in the sense that I have defined previously, since they are not completed, shipped, concluded actions, but merely steps towards a longer term goal. If the longer term goal is never reached, then those steps will have turned out not to have been progress at all, except in the sense of helping to test the viability of the project with a negative conclusion, getting it out of the way so I can move on to the next one. So the number of category A actions for August is down to 27, an average of just under 1 per day, while the number of P actions reached 19. The project got stuck a couple of times with less than the one daily progress recorded. So that would be 46 items which divided by 31 equals 1.48. I also failed to take a full day off every week during August, and I do wonder if the overall level of accomplishment might have been somewhat higher if I had done so, we’ll never know.
What happened with the project itself was that one of the daily tasks turned into a major diversion for me, going down the route of outsourcing. I spent about week’s worth of time and money experimenting with Odesk, advertising, recruiting and briefing to get a fairly small task done. The result was not useable, but the experience will stand in me good stead for getting the larger task done when the time comes. Then I managed to get the small thing done for less than a tenth the price on Fiverr which was an altogether much happier way of doing business. Perhaps it was all down to good luck and bad luck though, finding or rather choosing the right people. And then I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to enrol in a video course on Udemy which is directly project related, and is going to help me with prototyping and user experience design. Back to the Action Log, I mentioned setting up a new code for Project but in fact I set up several and starting using or possibly abusing the system to begin monitoring various life goals as well. This is something to be quite wary of, I think. Let’s call it category proliferation, and be aware that it may be related to definition creep. I have a feeling that these kind of goals, you know, going to the swimming pool more often, avoiding the fish and chip shop, doing some tidying in the house etc etc are really not wanted to be cluttering up the action log which has the purpose of focussing attention on a quite narrowly defined set of positive business actions. A better place for them, I discovered is a very simple little web app called Joe’s Goals. Joe's Goals - Free Online Habit Tracker What is Joe’s Goals? Joe’s Goals is a simple yet powerful tool to make tracking your goals the easiest part of accomplishing them. Use the simple single page interface to setup daily goals and track them with just a click. Watch your daily score to gage your success and use negative goals (or vices) to confront and overcome bad habits that finally need to get the boot. Share your success with your friends and family or post your personal score badge to your blog or MySpace page. Add as many Goals as you want and update them all from a single interface.
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September 4 2011, 1:42am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
London Bloggers – Heather Cowper
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/09/02/london-bloggers-%E2%80%93-heather-cowper
London Bloggers Meetup last night featured a talk by Heather Cowper from Heather and Her Travels about travel blogging in general, and in particular How travel bloggers make money from their blogs.
An interesting and thorough presentation, but the thing that intrigued me was the makeup of the attendees at this long established London Bloggers meetup. Very few reconisable faces amongst the eighty odd people there at The Long Acre, and if you got the chance to talk to anybody, for the most part they turned out not to be bloggers at all but people from corporate marketing departments and even one so called “blogging consultant” who doesn’t blog and never did! Have the real bloggers left the building, content to post their valuable unique content into Facebook Twitter and Google Plus (or just reshare others) or is it just because it’s August, the silly season?
Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogLondon Bloggers – Heather Cowper
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September 2 2011, 4:53pm | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
London Bloggers – Heather Cowper
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/08/24/london-bloggers-heather-cowper
London Bloggers Meetup last night featured a talk by Heather Cowper from Heather and Her Travels about travel blogging in general, and in particular How travel bloggers make money from their blogs.An interesting and thorough presentation, but the thing that intrigued me was the makeup of the attendees at this long established London Bloggers meetup. Very few reconisable faces amongst the eighty odd people there at The Long Acre, and if you got the chance to talk to anybody, for the most part they turned out not to be bloggers at all but people from corporate marketing departments and even one so called “blogging consultant” who doesn’t blog and never did!Have the real bloggers left the building, content to post their valuable unique content into Facebook Twitter and Google Plus (or just reshare others) or is it just because it’s August, the silly season? Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogLondon Bloggers – Heather CowperRelated posts:London BloggersLondon Bloggers new venue, competition and pubsLondon Bloggers presentations
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August 24 2011, 4:52am | Comments »
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I posted to flickr.com
Getting kids to eat vegetables | Organic Boxes
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aroberts/6006819680/
AndyRobertsPhotos
organicboxes.org.uk/recipes/getting-kids-to-eat-vegetables
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August 3 2011, 5:05pm | Comments »
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I posted to actionlogr.com
What is an Action Log?
http://www.actionlogr.com/what-is-an-action-log/
Action Log Back in 2008, I came up with the idea of starting an Action Log. The idea was simply that I would jot down on a daily basis, a list of the actions I had taken. I had it in my mind that by actions, I meant visible external steps, intended to have a positive effect. Something that adds to a movement in the direction I’m headed. For example, publishing a blog post, joining a forum and posting an introduction, tweaking a theme or plugin to improve usability, uploading a picture, publishing a video, leaving a useful comment somewhere, these are all considered to be actions for the purposes of Action Logging. On the other hand, doing google searches, reading RSS feeds (without responding), learning and observing are not considered to be actions. Read more: http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2008/04/29/keeping-an-action-log-for-1st-person-research
May 30 2011, 12:55pm | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Talk About Local Unconference 2011 gets under way in Cardiff
Tweets and news from the first Talk About Local unconference to take place in Cardiff, Wales – looking at issues around local publishing 2011
This article titled “Talk About Local Unconference 2011 gets under way in Cardiff” was written by Hannah Waldram, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 2nd April 2011 13.53 UTC Community publishers met in Cardiff today to talk about issues surrounding promoting your local area online. The first Talk About Local Unconference to take place in Wales, roughly 80 people met at the Atrium in Adamsdown for a day of tea, coffee, tweeting and sessions on all issues which affect local bloggers. Sessions, organised ad hoc in an ‘unconference’ style, looked at hyperlocal bloggers and councils, elections, law, issues around content, making money and supporting each other in a community were all discussed throughout the day. Attendees included Twitterers, bloggers, web publishers, photographers and anyone with an interest in producing content online about a place important to them – travelling from Edinburgh, Leeds, Isle of Wight, London and across the UK. Session topics were pitched and then posted onto a day schedule to run throughout the day. Networking and chatting among hyperlocal publishers will continue into the evening at Gwdihw Cafe Bar. The event was supported by Guardian Local and Rightmove. We’ve been tweeting from the event today along with others on Twitter using the hashtag #TAL11. Scroll down this Storify to follow tweets from the beginning of the day. Also see this live blog from Talk About Local here. If you went to the unconference or have any comments about it – feel free to leave them in the comment box below.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogTalk About Local Unconference 2011 gets under way in Cardiff
Related posts:Talk About Local Unconference to take place in Cardiff Pub of the year award goes to a London local for first time Why would councils want to exclude bloggers and tweeters?
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April 2 2011, 3:00pm | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Aggregators: if we can’t beat them, let’s join them
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/28/aggregators-if-we-cant-beat-them-letsjoin-them
Arianna Huffington’s sale of her website The Huffington Post to AOL shows there’s still money to be made from content aggregators if you know what you’re doing.
This article titled “Aggregators: if we can’t beat them, let’s join them” was written by Dan Sabbagh, for The Guardian on Monday 28th March 2011 06.00 UTC Arianna Huffington’s sale of the website that bears her name has not been without controversy; there are plenty who say she made a fortune from the sale to AOL on the back of aggregating other people’s content and exploiting bloggers who contributed for no pay and none of the highly rated equity. It is easy, of course, to argue that it isn’t fair, and, in addition, that life isn’t fair either. But it is also worth bearing in mind that this is the nature of the internet too. Facebook, for example, isn’t offering to share the advertising revenue it generates with the half a billion people who supply profiles (although come to think of it, income from one’s own site might be somewhat disappointing). Why should it? The skill is corralling so many people in one place, not in writing a Facebook profile. Whatever next? ITV paying viewers to watch the final of Dancing on Ice so they can get more advertising revenue? It’s not like there is any skill in watching telly after all. Meanwhile, the open nature of so much web content means that traditional boundaries of authorial ownership – they’re my words not yours – have been pretty much erased. It’s so easy, for example, to scrape a blog’s RSS feed and post the headline and teaser on another site. Newspapers, meanwhile, cheerfully copy tweets wholesale (one of mine on the merits of Rebecca Ferguson once made the Sunday Mirror) – while in the era of the live blog it has become not just possible, but increasingly common for media organisations to cite tweets from reporters employed by rivals. Think about it like that for a second and the scenario looks scary if you are part of an established news organisation – there is nothing to stop two blokes in a bedroom with BBC News and al-Jazeera on, and a fast eye for what else is popping up online, from coming up with their own “Libya live blog”. On this thinking, all that is preventing professional news sites being ripped off is copyright law, which is meant to stop other people copying and pasting sizeable quantities of text. Mind you, there are plenty of celebrity news sites that come perilously close to nicking whatever they see in the morning’s tabloids and running it as their own. Huffington – visiting the Guardian last week – also argued that there is a distinction to be made between professional journalists and bloggers. This isn’t necessarily a distinction of quality (because there are so many good bloggers out there) – rather the difference is between those who are paid to report professionally, and bloggers who are not. A handful of bloggers, of course, generate enough money to make the jump into full-time writing, but most can’t. Which is also the other reason why there aren’t two blokes in every third bedroom running their own Libya live blog – there isn’t enough money for a regular supply of biscuits and whatever else daily life requires. In truth, come to think of it, even those who write for traditional newspapers wouldn’t be able to make a living on the pay-per-click model. As Matt Wells notes in the cover feature, live blogs with no single author account for 9% of traffic to guardian.co.uk in March. The hit-driven nature of internet content means that a handful of stories and subjects dominate rankings, and by implication dominate online revenues. Paying writers on the basis of the traffic they get would turn a newspaper into a record company, where a handful of the artists are rich, and the rest become social workers in three years’ time. Aggregation, in short, is necessary to survive all round. Before the internet, there were generations of newspaper interviewees who were never paid for their contribution. Now the game is different – about providing destinations for people to share and discover news and content. And if Arianna Huffington was good at that, then it is wise not to complain, but probably to try and copy her.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogAggregators: if we can’t beat them, let’s join them
Related posts:Olympic Games 2012 medal haul will beat Beijing, promises UK Sport iPad 2 queues start 33 hours early as demand expected to beat supply London Bloggers
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March 28 2011, 5:01am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Why would councils want to exclude bloggers and tweeters?
Can you be a blogger and respectable at the same time? I hope not.
This article titled “Why would councils want to exclude bloggers and tweeters?” was written by Dave Hill, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 11th March 2011 15.00 UTC Local government minister Bob Neill MP (Con) recently wrote to local authorities as follows: “Bloggers, tweeters, residents with their own websites and users of Facebook and YouTube are increasingly a part of the modern world, blurring the lines between professional journalists and the public. There are recent stories about people being ejected from council meetings for blogging, tweeting or filming. This potentially is at odds with the fundamentals of democracy, and I want to encourage all councils to take a welcoming approach to those who want to bring local news stories to a wider audience.” Excellent advice. But some councils have been slow to get the message. These notably include the famous Tory “easyCouncil” of Barnet in north London, whose leader Lynne Hillan told the Barnet Times: “The current advice according to the constitution does not allow filming in the council chamber … The only thing we will do is consider responsible media requests, and they are the only thing we would allow at this stage … I do not think we would consider a request from bloggers. Only respectable media would be considered.” The statement raises an array of questions. What defines some parts of the media as “respectable” and “responsible” and others not? Who does the category “blogger” include? Can you be a blogger and respectable at the same time? I’ve a hunch that Councillor Hillan had a certain person in mind. His name is Roger Tichborne, publisher of a blog called Barnet Eye. The Eye campaigns tirelessly against her administration. Its author’s greatest triumph was successfully complaining that a Tory colleague – the quite astounding Brian Coleman – had breached the council’s code of conduct by sending him an abusive email. Tichborne networks with fellow local online citizen journalists – some of theme dissident Barnet Tories – in one of London’s best-blogged boroughs. Following Hillan’s remarks he attended a council committee meeting as a member of the public and filmed it until another Tory councillor ticked him off, unimpressed by the unrespectable blogger’s protesting that he had legal opinion on his side. But the law shouldn’t need to be dragged into this. Neither should those increasingly meaningless distinctions between citizen journalists and the professional media, not least because plenty of the latter are far less “respectable” or “responsible” than plenty of the former. Little love may be lost between Tichborne and the Tories responsible for emptying his bins, but Barnet town hall should still welcome him. It should welcome anyone prepared to sit through deliberations in its democratic chambers and convey these to a wider public either live or later and whether by blogging, tweeting, audio recording, filming or standing on a street corner waving semaphore flags. So should every town hall in the land. In recent weeks public galleries in London and elsewhere have been filled with hecklers ritually denouncing Labour councils in particular for passing on “Tory cuts” in their budgets. Many of the outraged were ignorant, boring and stuffed with cost-free piety, but at least they were there. Mostly, those galleries are close to empty. The same often goes for the press seats. Councils slammed for publishing their own freesheets often plead that their local papers take little notice of what they do. Often, they have a point. Citizen journalists can help to fill the void. Councils wary of licensing the amateur hordes should look to the top tier of local government in the capital. At London’s City Hall, the Thames-side glass bauble that contains London’s mayors, the main debating chamber enshrines in its very seating plan the non-recognition of any amateur-professional distinction. There is no special section for the press. Instead, anyone at all – the Guardian, Mayorwatch, Adam Beinkov, CyberBoris a school student on an educational trip – can liveblog or tweet, and lots of people do. Still photography is discouraged after the first 20 minutes of each session and the use of flash banned, but in both cases the restraints are simply to prevent noise and other distractions. All proceedings are webcast, but if I wanted to point my digicam at Boris Johnson or the assembly members I’d be as free to do so as BBC London’s camera crews so long as I created no disturbance. I’m told a simple principle applies: “It’s a public meeting. It should be public.” Town halls should take Bob Neill’s advice, and do the same. Who knows, the more open their policies, the more numerous, civil, varied and well-informed those in their public galleries might become, to the benefit of the voters they serve. How could they lose?
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogWhy would councils want to exclude bloggers and tweeters?
Related posts:London Bloggers Flu bloggers validated London Bloggers new venue, competition and pubs
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March 11 2011, 9:25am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Talk About Local Unconference to take place in Cardiff
Are you a Local blogger? On April 2nd Cardiff is to host an Unconference event for Talk about Local. Including hyperlocal sites such as Splott Online.
This article titled “Talk About Local Unconference to take place in Cardiff” was written by Hannah Waldram, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 28th February 2011 13.11 UTC Cardiff people with a passion for promoting their local area are invited to the first Talk About Local unconference to be held in Wales. The event invites bloggers, Twitterers, web publishers, photographers – anyone who publishes online about a place important to them – for networking, sharing ideas, thrashing out problems and debating issues around local blogging. This time Guardian Local is teaming up with the lovely folk at Talk About Local to hold the first event in the city – which is free. Make sure you put Saturday 2 April at the Atrium in your diary and sign up for your ticket online here. Don’t worry if you see you’re on a waiting list – tickets are released in batches depending on demand so just add you’re name to the list. The ‘unconference’ style of the event means there’s no formal programme or set schedule – attendees can pitch discussion topics or session ideas and then dip in and out of workshops as they please throughout the day. They’ll be some food and time for chatting – and we usually decamp to a local pub afterwards for drinks, more chatting, and maybe even another round of the celebrated Talk About Local unawards. We hope to see a really good representation from the Welsh blogosphere there – and especially all the great hyperlocal sites which have been developing in Cardiff. We’ve a got a public RSS feed of the Cardiff hyperlocals we follow – including Splott Online, Llandaff News, My Whitchurch, Living Mags, and We Are Cardiff, among others – but you can also leave details of your site in the comments section below. Hyperlocal doesn’t have to be a local news website either – if you run a local food blog, arts and culture Twitter feed, photography group – whatever it is about – there’s so much everyone can share by coming together. Even if you don’t publish content on the web anywhere and you’re just interested in the hyperlocal scene or you’d like to publish online and would like some support it’d be great to see you there. William Perrin, the founder of Talk About Local, said: “It’s great to be coming to Cardiff. Talk About Local loves to help people share their passion for writing or publishing about places that are important to them. “Some marevllous places in Wales are celebrated online by outstanding writers and prhotographers and with Guardian Local and the Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries we want to provide a chance for people to get together at the Atrium on 2 April. “We also welcome along people new to blogging or publishing online or tweeting but want to find a voice online.” The last Talk About Local unconference held in conjunction with Guardian Local was in Leeds last year – we ran a liveblog from the event here.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogTalk About Local Unconference to take place in Cardiff
Related posts:Pub of the year award goes to a London local for first time Ferry between Ilfracombe and Swansea, Minehead and Penarth by 2008 Online Learning and Collaboration event
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February 28 2011, 8:34am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Google demotes ‘low-quality’ websites in search overhaul
What’s becoming of the online world when The Guardian writes about Google algorithm changes?
This article titled “Google demotes ‘low-quality’ websites in search overhaul” was written by Josh Halliday, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 25th February 2011 11.51 UTC Google is making a “pretty big” change that will demote “low-quality” or “shallow” websites from online search engine results, in a move designed to tackle so-called “content farms”. The change, which will affect around 12% of Google search queries in the US, follows pressure from the media industry and many of its users. Although Google did not specify which sites would be affected, the search engine has come under fire for allowing content farm sites like Demand Media – which produces thousands of articles a day based on popular search terms – to “pollute” its results. “This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites – sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful,” said Amit Singhal, a Google fellow, and Matt Cutts, head of the company’s spam-fighting team, wrote in a blog post late on Thursday. “At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites — sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.” The move is Google’s biggest yet in responding to growing criticism over the relevancy of the world’s most popular search engine. It vowed to address the concerns in January. Last week Google launched an extension to its Chrome web browser allowing users to set up a “personal blacklist” of sites that would no longer appear in their search results. Google said 83% of the “top dozen or so” sites which most often featured on the blacklist were demoted with its algorithm change. Responding to Google’s announcement, Demand Media’s executive vice president, Larry Fitzgibbon, said: “As might be expected, a content library as diverse as ours saw some content go up and some go down in Google search results. “This is consistent with what Google discussed on their blog post. It’s impossible to speculate how these or any changes made by Google impact any online business in the long term – but at this point in time, we haven’t seen a material net impact on our content and media business.” The move will also be seen as part of Google’s wider attempt to woo news organisations and other “high-quality” content producers. Some publishers’ content had slipped down Google search results as content farms rose in prominence. Last week Google unveiled plans for its One Pass online charging service for newspapers and magazines, just a day after Apple unveiled a rival internet payment offering for publishers.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogGoogle demotes ‘low-quality’ websites in search overhaul
Related posts:Google Suggests a pre-emptive text search At last google reader has a search box This isn’t your Dad’s search engine
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February 26 2011, 1:17am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
WordPress 3.1 Category Bug
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/25/wordpress-3-1-category-bug
I found a bug after upgrading WordPress to version 3.1 , a bug concerning the display of category content which can go unnoticed for a while. The category pages were redirecting to the blogs home page. The category RSS feeds were affected as well. The culprit seems to be a combination of WordPress 3.1 and the plug in “Simple Tags” The solution is either to disable the plugin, or else to go into the setting for Simple tags and uncheck “Active tags for page:”. Then wait for an update to the Simple Tags plugin, which is quite a useful one, I’d rather not have to do without. There may well be some other problems with WordPress 3.1 and some themes compatibility as well, so I’d be wary of automatic upgrading. Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogWordPress 3.1 Category Bug
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February 25 2011, 6:35am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Yahoo! MyBlogLog Closing 24th May 2011
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/24/yahoo-mybloglog-closing-24th-may-2011
It’s a shame, I found the stats facility in MyBlogLog a nice and quick alternative to Google Analytics. We will officially discontinue Yahoo! MyBlogLog effective May 24, 2011. We recommend Yahoo! Pulse as a service for you to see all your social updates from your favorite networks in one place.
Andy Roberts - MyBlogLog Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogYahoo! MyBlogLog Closing 24th May 2011
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February 24 2011, 10:12am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Country diary: Claxton, Norfolk
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/21/claxton-norfolk
Thinking of taking cheap breaks over half term to Norfolk for the countryside, coast, broads and wildlife. Lapwings make a great spectacle.
This article titled “Country diary: Claxton, Norfolk” was written by Mark Cocker, for The Guardian on Monday 21st February 2011 00.05 UTC It may be a projection of my own sense of seasonal change – such as the crocuses in our hedge and the song thrush shouting from the wood – but I cannot help thinking that there is a definite edginess in the birds gathered on the Yare floodplain. It is as if they know themselves that it’s in the air – a kind of pre-migration tension – and it will soon well up and drive these wigeon and lapwings north for their breeding grounds. The mood is stirred further by a male peregrine, who rises above the woods and glides south so smoothly that it feels as if I’m watching a floater pass gently down the curve of my own eye, rather than a distant physical object. The anxiety among all the 5,000 ducks and waders across the marsh wells up in a great symphony of flight. Momentarily their lives are shaped and answer to the beating of one falcon’s heart and I wonder how we should process morally that all this glorious spectacle of the rising flocks is a product of raw fear? Can something so dreadful truly be beautiful? The most compelling part comes when about 2,000 lapwings lift in a single elongated group. As they rise so their upper wings are tilted towards me like a billowing sheet of black. Then, as one, they present their undersides and rise higher in a broken veil of white. From below and almost through the middle of these lapwings blasts a denser flock of wigeon with even greater urgency. They cross. I can hear all the woodwind chaos of their wings. Out of this terror they build upwards into a great momentary cathedral of birds and the peregrine, shining powder-blue even in this flat light, twists down upon them. Yet he fails. They scatter and in sub-groups slowly they simmer back down until all are once again spread across the marsh. Still nothing has happened.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogCountry diary: Claxton, Norfolk
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February 20 2011, 6:29pm | Comments »
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