Hi everyone,
I haven't posted any articles since 2009 as I was too busy working on other projects. I will leave this blog online but will officially end all activity on it. Hope you've enjoyed my articles.
Cheers
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DASH - The Real-time Career Management Tool
Twitter has been a revolution in many aspects. Not just a new mean of communication between friends, it is also a way to follow influential individuals or companies and stay up to date with industry news. As I've written in a past article, Twitter has somehow replaced RSS feeds in many ways for many people. One of these ways is to stay up to date with job opportunities matching your criteria of search. With the release of Twitter lists, people organise their contacts in different groups and online recruiters have widely benefited from this update.
Desktop clients such as Seesmic desktop or Tweetdeck let you organise the different feeds of updates from Twitter and Facebook in one single user friendly interface. However, there is a new player on the market, and it is called DASH. In this battle for status updates, it seems like Linkedin has stepped in a couple months ago letting everyone post a status easily to all of its professional network, including an option to "tweet" it. With DASH, you can easily stay up to date with all job related statuses on both Linkedin and Twitter. Using Adobe Air technology as well as the Linkedin API, DASH ressembles other Twitter desktop clients but focuses on career opportunities. You can use it to follow industry related news, recruiter twitter accounts, as well as a real-time Twitter job search (with filters). If you are looking for a job, especially in the digital industry, then you should definitely give it a try!
Geico.com Caveman commercials
I will still include a short compilation of several of these ads below, just for those of you who have never seen them before. This video made my day!
Apparently, these TV commercials had a big success, at first. In 2007, ABC decided to produce and air a short TV sitcom featuring the cavemen but the bad ratings led the channel to discreetly cancel the show. The next series of commercials apparently focused on spoofing the unsuccessful TV series! Interesting way to bounce back after a flop...
Wikipedia article about the Geico Cavemen Read the full post
The (never ending) Battle of Status Updates!
MSN Messenger and other chat programs probably didn't know at the time they would initiate such a massive trend when letting people add a short personal message next to their nickname. Yes, I do believe they're at the origins of this.And now, it just seems like every major website is releasing an "Update your Status" option! The battle for the What's on your mind? between Facebook and Twitter has been going for a while now, but it has now expanded to nearly every social/networking site. Although I have been using several of them for different purposes, the concept remains the same: Telling something to people around you. Wow, what a revolution! I don't want to be critical. Mostly because I have been using them myself for a long time and find them very useful. I use Facebook updates to tell my (real) friends what's going on in my life. I used to do the same on Twitter but now I mostly use it to share interesting links with people (that I know in real life or not) with the same interests.
But beyond Twitter and Facebook, are other status updates really useful?
Facebook Status Updates
Twitter Status updates
As far as I'm concerned, I rarely use the Linkedin updates service but I can still see why this could be a good thing. We're in 2009 and the way people approach each other, even professionally, has drastically changed. I see people update their status to tell their network they're looking for a job while others might be looking for someone. Yes, it does make it easier. (Linkedin also introduced the "Update Twitter at the same time" option as you can see on the screenshot below)
Linkedin Status updates
Another example, Google Latitude's status updates. There again, I can still see the concept of letting people around you know exactly where you are and what you are doing. But this is definitely too intrusive for me and I don't want people to know where I am all the time, especially if I forgot to switch off my Latitude automatic location updates. This definitely raises privacy and security issues. Moreover, I don't think I know A-N-Y-O-N-E who actually uses Latitude on a regular basis, if ever! If you are a regular user, let me know, I'd be interested!
Google Latitude Status updates
Some of you might not even have heard about Yahoo! meme. The difference with Twitter is that you can easily post not only text, but audio, video and photo files. As much as I like Yahoo! and the simple/easy-to-use aspect of this website, I still think it is nothing more than a copy of Twitter and sadly, I don't like copycats! I therefore ask the same question, does any of you actually use Twitter memes or know anyone who does? I have tried once, wrote two updates, and never signed in again! I just don't know anyone and don't feel like building a 3,819th network.
In conclusion, I think Facebook/Linkedin/Twitter might stay for a while as they are the most popular and bring the most value to the online users. But I personally think Yahoo memes have no space in the new online world and will never take off, a bit like friendfeed which, to my eyes, won't succeed in the medium/long term. As for Google Latitude, I think this service might work, but in a couple of years from now. It is too soon and even though more and more people have smartphones with GPS antennas, they still represent a minority in the population.
I have only showed you a few examples and I am certain there are many more out there. But honestly, who has the time to manage all these different channels?
Do you think this is just a trend that has been going on for a couple of years now, but that will end within that same date range from now? Read the full post
"Assassin's Creed Lineage" series
Tomorrow is the Australian release date of the Assassin's Creed sequel on Xbox 360. I have played the first game and absolutely loved it. The graphics were impressive and the gameplay/storyline clearly different from what I had seen before. I was slightly disappointed by the repetitiveness of the missions but this did not stop me from wanting the much anticipated Assassin's Creed II.In order to promote the new game, Ubisoft released 3 high definition episodes entitled "Assassin's Creed Lineage", setting up a synopsis probably close to the game's storyline. Although it is happening during the Italian Renaissance and not during the Crusades like the first one was, the atmosphere remains very loyal to the game. I am quite certain that this sequel will be a total success and I cannot wait to get my hands on it! The episodes below are also available in HD on Youtube. Enjoy!
Do you know the SEO rapper?
The SEO rapper has been posting videos on his Youtube channel talking about SEO/PPC and other related topics. He has definitely reached a niche audience but went viral via a several now-famous videos, some of which are over 2 years old. If you don't know him, have a look at some of the videos below. I actually did learn quite a few things from his SEO tips :)Paid Search 101
Social Media Addiction
Page Rank
Design coding
Link Building 101
Bonus: MSN versus Google rap battle (without the SEO rapper)
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Grooveshark and Internet Music Streaming Sites
Internet radios and online music libraries have been at the center of my interests in the recent years. I have been using many services such as Pandora, Last.fm, We are Hunted and the French Deezer just to name a few. All with libraries containing millions of tracks, it is easy to find the streaming music you like and create your favorite playlists that you can listen to over and over again... Earlier this year, Spotify (which I sadly can't access from Australia yet) and moof have made a lot of buzz as the new trendy online radios.However, I came across a new site several weeks ago called Grooveshark. Since then, I haven't been using any other online music streaming site. Their library of over 15 million songs gives you a wide variety of artists and styles to listen to. Although their service is probably not as complete as others (no smart radio per gender for example), I still find it to be one of the most easy to use and fastest ones out there. Moreover, building playlists has never been that simple with an easy drag and drop. Deezer already had this function but their site is rather slow. Then again, I'm talking from Australia, I know it is very fluid in France.
Another tool they offer are the widgets. They've set up an easy and very customisable way to display your playlists or one-off songs on your own site or blog. Below are two examples of what you can do with it.
Like several others, you will soon be able to download a Grooveshark app on the Android market (and probably on the iPhone too) as they've announced it on Twitter.
Two examples of widgets you can add to your site/blog.
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