2009 was definitely an exciting year in the web world. At least it has been the most exciting since the prominent emergence of Google. 2009 saw the unleashing prominence of two new browsers; IE8 and Google’s Chrome (lucky us, we get more browsers to support!). A new search engine’s attempt take on Google, was tried by Bing. And of course it wouldn’t be a good year if Microsoft didn’t just unload a new operating system, for the sake of washing the Vista taste right out of its mouth. With that being said, lets take a sneak peek at some of the things we might see for 2010. Keep in mind this is just the opinions of a lowly, lowly, lowly web developer who just happens to see it all, all the time. Did I mention lowly?

1. Twitter goes tweet tweet out the door. Thanks Twitters. Its been real, its been fun; but it hasn’t been real fun. To me, Twitter was an online chat room when you have nothing else to do. While it won’t really go away for good, its value added to the social community has been obviously overshadowed by Facebook, which is not going away just in case you were wondering. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see this site go the same way as MySpace. Speaking of Myspace, those poor fellers just don’t know what to do with themselves. Every three months, I log in, only to see something they added that Facebook added 12 months ago. I digress….

2. You guessed it, Facebook gets even bigger. Not much of a prediction really, but you have to admire the possibilities Facebook can offer… not only to social stalkers of the world, but businesses as well. Very few businesses are capitalizing on the opportunities Facebook has to offer. While many are hell bent on just generating fans by giving away a cannoli to the next 100 fans, there is still so much potential to use Facebook as an extension to promotions, advertising campaigns, and many other facets of reaching out to one’s customer base. As these secrets get unveiled and lowly, lowly web developers and marketeers get creative, FB might actually begin to find a way to get profitable.

3. Bing peeters out. I just don’t see Bing being able to complete with Google. The only thing that is going to keep it alive is the fact of who is backing it, but ultimately there just isn’t room for another player.

4. Internet via your TV. Ok, I just had to pick something big that no one else is talking about. This currently exists in small doses through gaming systems, but I am predicting standard couch potatoes of the world will get their daily dose of Y&R with the exact same remote and couch position to browse the Internets, all of which to become quite commonplace before year’s end.

Ok, take this for what its worth and check back with me in 365 days to see if I am right. Mark your calendars…thanks for listening.

Inevitably, as the calendar turns to December and we get closer to closing out another year, our attention turns to one of our favorite pastimes – making lists.

We’ll have the “top athletes of the year,” “the top movies of the year” and even the “top celebrity scandals of the year,” but what about the Internet?

Fortunately, we have a really simple way of measuring what the top “buzz” on the Internet was for 2009 – search engine terms. Each of the top search engines just published their top 10 lists for the Top 10 Searches of 2009. Let’s take a fun look at the lists published in Business Week that might give us a little bit of insight into the modern human being’s head.

Google’s Fastest Rising Search Terms (Global)

1. michael jackson
2. facebook
3. tuenti
4. twitter
5. sanalika
6. new moon
7. lady gaga
8. windows 7
9. dantri.com.vn
10. torpedo gratis

Yahoo’s Top 10 Searches

1. Michael Jackson
2. Twilight
3. WWE
4. Megan Fox
5. Britney Spears
6. Naruto
7. American Idol
8. Kim Kardashian
9. NASCAR
10. RuneScape

Bing’s Top Trending Topics

1. Michael Jackson
2. Twitter
3. Swine Flu
4. Stock Market
5. Farrah Fawcett
6. Patrick Swayze
7. Cash for Clunkers
8. Jon and Kate Gosselin
9. Billy Mays
10. Jaycee Dugard

What are the trends? Well, one thing is obvious – nothing created more of an Internet stir in 2009 than the death of the King of Pop. No person or thing was searched for more than Michael Jackson. In fact, the Internet probably played a fairly unique role in the whole saga as millions of people got the news from either a Facebook post or someone’s Tweet on Twitter.

The next thing that is obvious is that Internet users love celebrities. Just take a look at these names that showed up prominently in all three lists – Lady Gaga, Billy Mays, Patrick Swayze, Farrah Fawcett, and Jon and Kate Gosselin. People love reading about celebrities especially when they die or are involved in something controversial. (This list was published before the Tiger Woods news broke so you can bet he’ll be high on the list as well!)

You can also gauge the hot topics by looking at this list – swine flu, stock market and cash for clunkers all made their way onto a list of the top trending topics for 2009. With the world becoming as “wired in” as it ever has been, it’s not surprising that the same hot topics that frequent the evening news broadcasts and the daily newspapers also top the search engines as well.

It’s always interesting to see what’s on the minds of the average Internet user (other than World of Warcraft and Porn, of course) and these lists give you a pretty good idea of that for this past year.

All of this is to basically say that, hey, our society has become intertwined with the Internet. You can’t separate one from the other any longer. Armed with this knowledge, you might ask, what’s going to be the hot topic for 2010? Bring up your favorite search engine and you just might find out!

What determines where yours or any website ranks on the search engines can often seem like a confusing, complex and frustrating list of variables and factors – then add that each search engine has its own rules and ways that it ranks all the websites out there. The algorithms are the Holy Grail of the search engine world and web designers, webmasters, SEO specialists and web marketing people can sometimes look like Monty Python’s band of merry men stumbling over each other as they embark on their own search for the algorithmic Grail. None of us know exactly what Google and Yahoo and the others use to put one site above another – we have figured out the critical factors but there remains many nuances that the major search engines use to rank sites.

As for some of those critical factors, the way that your site is structured matters quite a bit and that’s the point of this exercise. Site structure, studies indicate, matter between 30-40% of the total equation for how search engines rank your site. The remaining 60-70% is based off of what happens away from your site (backlinks, social weight, etc).

So, what can be done to structure your site in a way that the search engines will look favorably upon it?

Search engines send their spiders out every so often to crawl your site. The spiders or robots are undercover agents of Google, Yahoo and the rest. You don’t know when they’re coming, you just better hope they like what they see when they arrive.

They come to your domain name first (kind of like the street address or your house number). The more relevant, descriptive and easy to understand your domain is the better it is for SEO. If your domain includes an important keyword about your business and/or industry then you’re making the job of the secret agent that much easier.

Tags!! One thing crawlers and the general public can both see is the Title Tag – the short descriptive sentence at the very top of the browser bar. It probably includes the name of the company, location and a few important details. A well-written Title Tag is very important. Underneath the public’s eye are meta tags that include the Description Tag and Keyword Tag – the keywords are less important today than a few years ago but the description is important because it’ll give the search engine user a quick summary of what your site is all about.
Design the site so that the crawlers can report back to the engines about all the content of your site. They don’t like Flash because they can’t take notes on what the Flash graphics show and they don’t like images unless they’re tagged with descriptive text. Also, using headers (kind of like headlines in magazines/newspapers) help the robots understand your pages better. Headers (H1 and H2) keep things organized and help emphasize important sections or content.

Make sure the site flows smoothly without broken links or dead-end pages. You don’t want this to be the case for the public when they visit your site and you definitely don’t want these errors when the spiders crawl your site. Going page by page and checking all links should also entice you to optimize these interior pages just as much as the homepage is optimized. The search engines are indexing each page of your site and the more unique and interesting these pages are to the spiders the better. Use different titles, tags, content, etc. and think about ways to link internally from page to page within your site – the more internal links the better.

While adding keywords within the HTML code of your site doesn’t have much important nowadays, using those keywords within your site is very important. Keywords should be integrated into navigation, page titles, and especially the written content. Having keyword density throughout your site will pay dividends for you from an SEO perspective.

Structuring the folders and file names that exist for your site will help search engines better understand and rank your site. Try to avoid long and confusing URLs like http://www.yourwebsite.com/pages/1nnx/esc_a12600599.htm and use something more descriptive for your folders and file names.

This list of 7 key factors for structuring your website for the search engines is not perfect and it isn’t comprehensive. But it should give you a good idea of what may be missing on your site. We’re all at the mercy of how search engines rank site, but thankfully, we do know enough to control what is on our own websites and be ready with a welcome mat and cup of coffee for when the secret search engine agents come to visit.

As we approach the best time of year, everyone’s getting in the spirit in their own ways. Whether it be decorating the house with Santa’s and snowmen, hanging the mistletoe, dressing the dogs up in ridiculous jingle bell outfits, or putting antlers on the family car, there are so many ways to kick start the holiday season and begin getting into this blissful time of year. But as we add a little fa-la-la-la-la to the house, and spoil the children with candy canes, are we taking everything into consideration when adding that holiday touch to our lives. What about your website? They have feelings too, right?

What better way to dive into the hearts of your users than to give them a warm seasonal welcome when they come to your website. And you don’t have to go into over-kill mode with the green and red, balls of holly, and stockings. Something subtle will do. Tidy up your logo with a fresh holiday look, add a few presents, or simply change out a few images. A little bit of touch up work could go a long way and quickly turn your site into a winter wonderland.

Here are a few companies that have gotten into the spirit and made their websites festive for the holidays.

Let’s start with one of our own. Mom and Popcorn, a lifeBLUE designed website, here in McKinney Texas, went seasonal with a logo makeover and a Santa hat incorporated into their vintage look. These 2 very subtle features really give you a warm holiday welcome.

Even the biggest names in the industry change up their sites. Google and Yahoo are two that are notorious for logo changes.

Even something as simple as changing your main background can give your site a nice touch. Old Navy uses a nice Christmas collage as the background, as well as ornaments for displaying prices. Michaels took the very clean approach by adding snow flakes to the main background, with a touch of green and red accents throughout.

Then there’s always using your favorite seasonal characters as a way to get in the spirit.

And if you still need ideas, simply replace graphics, or add a few holiday images throughout. Some snow, a couple presents, or a Santa hat. No matter what your idea is, just one graphic could change the whole feel of your website.

Do you have any seasonal favorites that come to mind?

lifeBLUE Media is about to take a great leap forward.  We are moving out of the historic flour mill in McKinney to a brand new shiny office space at Water’s Creek in Allen, Texas.  While excitement grows over the impending move, we also feel a twinge of sadness in leaving lifeBLUE’s first office space.  So we thought we would share some memories our team has of our time at the Flour Mill.

Quirks and oddities go hand and hand with historic buildings, and the flour mill is no exception.  It has all the creepy corners, dusty upper floors, sinister basements, and wildlife one might expect in such a venerated structure.  One lifeBLUE employee thinks a dead body might be hidden somewhere.

Our first impressions of the old structure were very mixed.  We didn’t quite know what to think when walking up to the green barn style doors.  Were we walking into a horror movie?  Were we about to meet our doom at the hands of serial killers posing as owners of a web design firm?  Our irrational fears proved false (thus far) and the old world charm and organic tones of the brick walls, wood floors and pillars grew on us.  Now at the end of our tenure here some of us feel saddened as we make the move to our new building.  The flour mill simply weaseled its way into our hearts.

At first, the space we occupied left us a lot of elbow room.  Over time things got more… cozy.  Isn’t it odd how situations such as this drive innovation?  As we grew and space shrank, the situation lent itself to more collaboration and a stronger team atmosphere.  We were able to become a close group working together to produce a better product in less time.  In a way, the flour mill played a part in our growth as a company.  We started as just a group of developers and designers, but over the past three years we have become a tight knit group.

For all its quirks, this building served as the backdrop for a great deal of fun.  The small field behind the building staged many “Ultimate Frisbee” showdowns.  The unfinished upper floors became a playground for our afternoon team building activities.  And we can never forget the black cat that had free run of the building and frequently displayed its rodent trophies to us as we came in for the day.

You don’t get to have free run of most office buildings.  The flour mill gave us this privilege.  We were able to play football outside.  We had photo scavenger hunts, treasure hunts, and played sardines.  The unfinished third floor provided a unique backdrop for taking photos of our many themed “dress up” days.  We were all more than a bit scared on the nights we needed to work late as the noises of the flour mill convinced us that ghosts might actually be real.

This week we sat down and shared our memories of our vintage location.  We laughed at the stories of our run-ins with hawks, the pot holes in the parking lot, and our quirky neighbors.  We recounted the frustrating moments, such as injured employees having to navigate stairs just to use the rest room.  Together we all sighed in relief at the thought of never again having to step up two and a half feet to get on to the landing from the west parking lot because there were no steps.

However, with all our excitement concerning our move to a new office many of us also felt a tug on our heart strings.  The flour mill is where lifeBLUE cut its teeth.  The flour mill is a piece of history that is now part of our history.  Those of us who spent time within the aged walls of the old girl will always look back with fond feelings as we remember these formative years of our company.

So goodbye, sweet flour mill.  We now move forward to new horizons, but you will always be missed.

You heard it first here, lifeBLUE investigative reporters have uncovered the facts, fiction, and scandals behind the widely known “Cyber Monday.” Ok, I admit that is a bit dramatic, lifeBLUE doesn’t really have any investigative reporters. However their are definitely some interesting facts surrounding this special day.

Cyber Monday begins…
The term was coined in 2005 by shop.org basing their assessment that this was the largest online shopping day of the year by stating that their research showed 77% of online retailers reported a significant increase in sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2004. You could scour the Internet for thousands of inflated references about the biggest shopping day. Cyber Monday has been widely criticized as a marketing gimmick designed to feed off of Black Friday. I can’t complain, it works so why not jump on the band wagon and promote your website to get a few extra sales? In the end, it benefits both consumers and retailers to take advantage of the discounts offered. More grounded statistics show that the largest online shopping days are actually somewhere between the 5th and 15th of December with the actual number one day being December 12th. This makes more sense because there is no way I am ever going to have any money to spend on Cyber Monday when my significant other has blown my next three months of pay on the Friday before. I don’t know about you but I’m just coming out of my tryptophan stupor on Monday and the only thing I am doing online is crying about the red numbers on my checking account balance.

The bottom line…
1. As stated before critics want to dog on Cyber Marketing as a marketing gimmick, so is Black Friday, but its just had more years to solidify its presence. In the end, it doesn’t hurt anyone and if anything actually benefits the consumers (that can afford some more shopping) and retailers alike. So what if its not the biggest shopping day of the year, no one is going to be able to coin the term or planning a marketing campaign for “Black Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday depending on if its a leap year December 12th”.
2. Retail purchasing, both online and offline, is through the roof in the month of December, go figure.
3. Just my 2 cents for something that might be a better conglomerated marketing gimmick for major online retailers is to solidify the day that packages can be guaranteed by the 24th. That might be a bigger job to accomplish than my paycheck, but if this was a widely known fact and shared by all retailers I bet it could give “Cyber Monday” a run for its money.