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Open Source evangelist and Mozilla employee Christopher Blizzard has spoken out against Apple’s latest iteration of its Safari web browser for its “brash and misleading” view of HTML5 and open web standards.

Blizzard points to an Apple demo, which states “this demo was designed with the latest web standards supported by Safari” and goes on to say that this message telling users that requiring Safari to use an open web standard such as HTML5 is misleading.

“The demos that they (Apple) put up are just filled with stuff that Apple made up, aren’t part of HTML5 and are only now getting to the standards process,” he says on his blog.

“A huge percentage of the world does have access to standards like HTML5. Today. In fact, given the page says HTML5, you might ask, who has the best HTML5 support across the browsers right now? Not Safari. Not Chrome. The browser that also happens to have a lot of market share – Firefox,” Blizzard explains.

Google and the open web

The open source evangelist goes on to say that Google is also to blame when it comes to misleading the public perception of open web standards: “Of course, the big problem is that HTML5 has come to mean a lot of things, mostly thanks to Google. They’ve basically been riding that and flogging it and making it their own,” he claims.

Microsoft gets it

Blizzard then says that “stodgy old Microsoft” understands how HTLM5 and the development of the open web is not about new things like video as Google has promoted, but rather about interoperability and that Microsoft sees that “HTML5 represents the chance for browsers to work together and find common ground”.

By Marie Boran – Silicon Republic

Apple’s iPad tablet computer doesn’t come out until April, but that hasn’t stopped the release of wild tales about the restrictions imposed on developers who have received test units.

Rumour has it that developers who will be able to test their apps on the iPad have been required to sign a 10-page confidentiality agreement that includes requirements to prevent unauthorised access to or removal of the iPad in their possession.

The requirements reportedly include keeping the iPad isolated in a room with blacked-out windows and continuously tethered to a fixed object. Another piece of gossip reports that Apple won’t send out a test unit until the developers supply the company with photographic evidence of compliance.

Source (Silicon Republic)

It’s official: Google has just announced Google Buzz, its newest push into the social media foray. This confirms earlier reports of Gmail integrating a social status feature.

On stage revealing the new product was Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president for product management. While introducing the product, Mr. Horowitz focused on the human penchant for sharing experiences and the social media phenomenon of wanting to share it in real time. These two key themes were core philosophies behind Google Buzz.

“It’s becoming harder and harder to find signal in the noise,” Bradley stated before introducing the product manager for Google Buzz, Todd Jackson. Source Mashable

There are now some 354,000 mobile broadband subscribers in Ireland, up 90pc year-on-year.

Mobile broadband accounts for the fastest-growing segment of the Irish broadband landscape, representing 354,000 subscribers out of 1.6 million subscribers across the country. While the benefits to consumers are clear, mobile broadband represents the ideal mechanism for businesses to ensure that workers on the move are equipped to report real-time and interact with business systems.

The devices – little white dongles that attach to the USB slot of netbooks and notebooks – themselves can range in price. Typically, each connection costs between €20 and €30 a month and some operators provide a prepaid as well as billing service.

The coming year will see businesses begin to unlock the value of mobile broadband for versatility among executives.

“The value of mobile broadband is it allows employees to work from any location nationwide as productively as if they’re in the office,” explains Anne O’Leary, head of business at Vodafone.

“This degree of connectivity has not only ensured that customers get the best service possible, it has also created a new level of flexibility for staff who can give more time to simply getting the job done.

“With real-time data at their fingertips, workers can liberate themselves from the office, cut down on paperwork and take up more customer-facing roles leading to more sales and, ultimately, increased customer service. Most importantly, there are clear advantages in having employees out in the real world, engaging with customers, bringing back to the business customer feedback and first-hand experience of market dynamics, especially in these difficult times,” she says.

Eircom is the latest entrant into the mobile broadband space. Niall Feely of Eircom says that many businesses are deploying mobile broadband for agility purposes.

“Mobile broadband allows businesses to be flexible about where they access their email and other business applications. As competition continues to grow, mobile broadband enables businesses and customers increased freedom and flexibility to use broadband when and where they like outside the office or home. Certain industry sectors have very high requirements for this, in particular companies with a field force that spend quite a bit of time away from the office.

“Eircom Mobile Broadband is about giving our customers the freedom to access vital information on the go. We see it as part of our suite of fixed and mobile solutions, providing the ability to communicate, share data, access applications and respond to requests while away from the office,” he says.

Ronan Whelan, head of enterprise and corporate at Telefónica O2 Ireland, agrees: “Mobile broadband gives employers and employees the flexibility they need to adapt to how they need to do business, which is particularly important in a more challenging economic environment – be it by being on the road more to make sales calls, while remaining connected, or reducing certain overheads such as office rent by having a fully mobile workforce.

“Not only can mobile broadband make the workforce more efficient, productive, and agile, but it is also cost effective. Furthermore, mobile broadband allows near real-time teamwork with team members who may be geographically miles away from each other. The competition in the marketplace today is also such that it is crucial for businesses to remain responsive at all times.”

Source: Silicon Republic

Welcome to Google SEO 101! An in-depth study of user behaviour during Google searches reveals that users pay little attention to ads and are only interested in the first three results to come back.

The study, commissioned by Mulley Communications and carried out by the National E-learning Laboratory at the National College of Ireland, focused on 27 users ranging in age, gender and usage experience.

The users’ behaviour was observed and analysed using Begaze eye-tracking technology.

Two infra-red cameras located next to the computer screen scanned the users’ eye movements. After a short calibration phase the software determined the exact gaze position. The gaze position was then matched against content on the screen.

The first thing that 70pc of the users looked at in the result page was the first result presented.

However, users paid more attention relatively, to the highest ranking result rather than sponsored links at the top of the page.

Most users ignored the sponsored link on right-hand side of the results page. The participants’ main attention was focused on the top three results only. The results show that participants paid very little to the sponsored links, recording only 1.58pc of all fixations.

The further down the result was presented on the page, the less likely the user was to look at it.

If users did look beyond the first three results, then it is likely they would explore the bottom of the page also.

If the “solution” was not included in the top two results, users were more likely to fail finding it.

Neither age nor prior interest had significant influence on search behaviour.

Generally, gender did not have a big impact on search behaviour, though females viewed results in more linear manner than males.

When asked to go to Bebo or YouTube, many users preferred using the Google Search engine to navigate to these websites rather than typing in the Google URL in the address bar.

Damien Mulley, managing director of Mulley Communications, recommends the study should be read by businesses hoping to get to grips with SEO.

“Everybody knows how important Google is for being found on the internet,” he explained.

“Until now people were satisfied that if you were at least on the first page of Google that was fine and maybe an ad off to the site would sort it out. Now it is clear that if you are ever going to get noticed on Google you need to be in the top three search results.

“If you are good at search engine optimisation (SEO) you’ll be okay. Before it was competitive to be in the top ten, now it is hyper-competitive to get into top three.

“The worrying result for Google, which makes US$32bn a year on advertising, is the percentage of people who glance at the ads is very small.”

But with a growing proportion of marketing spend shifting online, what is the future of marketing. “Well, this study shows that there will be an increased focus on getting into the top three search results,” says Mulley.

“But the other alternatives that are emerging like social networking sites like Facebook where users are likely to pay more attention to ads that appear on their pages. Twitter’s potential as an ad delivery vehicle hasn’t been tested.

“As a businessperson the one thing I take away from this is that you should always be looking at alternative means of marketing and getting attention,” Mulley concluded.