Industry News

Did you know that your internet access is under serious threat?

If you use the internet for work, study or pleasure, big changes are afoot. Not everyone is aware that our online freedom is being eroded every day.

Too dramatic? Read on and make up your own mind. Media coverage of the issues below has been patchy at best, so we’re bringing to your attention seven of the internet’s worst enemies – some you may already be aware of and some may come as a shock.

1) Theresa May, UK Home Secretary

Tuesday May 1st is “CC all your emails to Theresa May Day”. Why? Because the Home Secretary wants to pass a law that will mean every email we send will be stored in a huge database by the government. If you think this is an outrageous breach of privacy, check here on 1 May when her email address will be revealed. Copy it into the CC field every time you email someone. If she wants to read all of our emails, so be it!

How you can help: share the link with everyone you know and help create 24 hours of spam at the home office. It’s only a small step but the campaign could potentially generate media coverage if everyone takes part.
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Here at Zeta we’re pretty confident that our skills are the best around when it comes to all things design and digital – so we decided to put this to the test by entering an official league table.

This is the first time we’ve put ourselves up for scrutiny by the Drum Design 100 top agency register, so we’re pretty chuffed to have been ranked as no 71 in the UK. The Drum 100 list recognises industry leading agencies and is compiled according to fee income – so we’d like to say a very big ‘thank you’ to all our clients for being part of the Zeta success story and helping us make the listings.

We’re looking forward to being able to make some really exciting announcements later this year so watch this space to discover how one of Zeta’s own apps is about to hit the big time on the Spotify platform!

To experience how Zeta’s down-to-earth, results driven approach puts us in a different league, call us today on 01202 912416.

Do you like Facebook? If you have a business, personal preference shouldn’t matter – the fact is that if you ignore the world’s biggest social networking site, you are doing your brand a mega disservice.

On 30 March, Facebook will be rolling out its new Timeline feature for brands, but you now have the opportunity to get your business’ page looking excellent ahead of the compulsory change. The Timeline layout has the potential to be a really useful asset in your marketing toolbox, so it’s well worth investing a bit of time to make sure you get the most out of it.

In fact, it’s a surprisingly quick and easy way to build brand loyalty and tell your company’s story to customers. It’s also fun – engaging positively with staff to add important milestones to the Timeline is a sure fire way to create a buzz in the workplace.

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Having travelled to South Africa to research health and fitness, I have stumbled into Cape Town just as most people are building up towards the biggest sports event of the year.

It’s early spring, and that means that the mountain is besieged by thousands of cyclists panting uphill and then whizzing down with fixed grins, making you feel inordinately lazy as they train for the upcoming Argus Cycle Tour. The Argus is a 110km race event which attracts over 35,000 people to cycle around the Cape peninsula.

As a technophile, I can’t help but be intrigued by the tracking technologies that are helping to ensure that the race is as safe as possible. Here’s a brief rundown of the apps currently being used:
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Do you agree with the government’s Workfare scheme? If you’re against it, you’re in a tiny minority of ‘loony left’ activists, according to number 10’s half-hearted smear campaign to discredit its opponents.

Despite the Department for Work and Pension’s attempt to make us think only a small minority of extremists are against Workfare, there are people all over Britain from varying backgrounds who oppose the controversial scheme. Something isn’t working…

A Revolution from Below
Whether Workfare is good, bad or just plain ugly, it has highlighted two significant issues. The first is the shortsightedness with which the government, Tesco and other large companies embarked upon a scheme which was almost guaranteed to get people’s backs up, seemingly with no strategy in place to communicate the scheme positively.

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Recently I wrote quite a scathing blog post about how Google is evil for tinkering with search in order to get its own social networking site higher up in results; thus ruining the internet for everyone.

The world’s favourite search engine has caused mass outrage again with its latest announcement  -  this time about changes to its privacy policy. My reaction to mass outrage is usually to take the opposite view because it’s fun to do so and also because it makes for a much more interesting read. So today I am going to argue that all these people up in arms about Google’s privacy rules are wrong. more…

Your photos, your friends, your stuff…

According to Google, its service has been made even better “by including photos, posts, and more from you and your friends”. The changes are supposed to bring a personal touch to search – Google claims that results are now more relevant and personal to the searcher because they include content such as pictures, posts and videos from the user’s friends, family and colleagues. more…

Trends are telling us that there is a great probability that Google’s Chrome will overtake Microsoft’s Internet Explorer half way into 2012. Chrome overtook Firefox last year and is now aiming for the no 1 spot.

A new Browser was born…

Google’s browser Chrome was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, the day after it was accidently announced prematurely. The beta version was followed by a public stable release in December that same year.
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I travel to work on the train every day and buy the FT at the station kiosk. By the time I get to the office I’ve checked all the articles with a relevance to the Zeta business. I cut them out and place them on the boardroom table for all to see and discuss. At the weekend I carry out the same exercise with the Saturday Guardian, Times, Telegraph and FT Weekend. Old fashioned perhaps, but definitely effective. more…

Last week Lord Sugar fired the one engineer from The Apprentice with the now familiar words “I have never yet come across an engineer who can turn his hands to business”.  Andrew Bounds, the FT Enterprise Editor, fueled the debate with his article “Sugar sounds off”.

Engineers are up in arms, some even appalled at Lords Sugars view.  But it has more than a vague ring of truth to it.  And what is the argument?  If it were reversed would pure businessmen be affronted if they were told that rarely do they make good engineers?  Of course not, business is business and engineering is engineering.  Great engineers should join forces with great business people and not fall into the trap of thinking because they are good engineers those undoubted skills are transferable into the necessary credentials of the successful business person.

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Daniel Pimlot and Tim Bradshaw’s article in Monday’s FT identifies that the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is now using Google to harvest data. Definitely a milestone and should be applauded but with caution. Not as far as the concept is concerned but definitely on the search criteria being used and on the reliability of the information being harvested. The first point will have a direct bearing on the second.

Dan and Tim’s article identifies just two search terms one is ‘estate agents’. That term alone will only yield a fraction of the possible searches. It’s doubtful that many would search simply for ‘estate agents’. When all the possibilities such as ‘houses for sale’, ‘flats for sale’ etc plus the geographic terms are considered the list of relevant key phrases will grow hugely. Has the Bank followed this line? more…

Over the past few weeks Twitter has been gathering news reports like birds sitting on a wire. Whether it is overpowering super injunctions, launching photo sharing services or gaining around 600,000 new users a day, Twitter has been creating a colossal swell of activity recently.

Twitter has proved to have tailored an unbeatable formula which is original, evolving and, as it has proven recently, above the law. This recent hive of press has seen Twitter gain record numbers of sign-ups, from both individuals and businesses alike. But with new companies and businesses joining Twitter every day, how can you stand out from the crowd? Here is a look at a few brilliant campaigns of late… more…

In February 2011 Google launched Panda, an algorithm update that was designed to streamline search results within the US. The aim of this update is to filter low quality and irrelevant sites from search listings and deliver the user trustworthy and comprehensive results.

However, as a consequence of Panda some legitimate sites have seen a fall in their rankings. On the 12th April, Panda was subsequently rolled out to all English language queries, bringing its effects to the UK. more…

The 14th March saw the release of IE9, Microsoft’s latest offering in the much publicised battle of the browsers, and by all accounts they have created one of their best browsers to date. However, IE9’s success was short lived as the 22nd March saw the release of Firefox 4 which promptly left dust in the eyes of IE9 by scooping well over double the amount of downloads on its first day.

Even though IE9 has been wildly hailed as a sign Microsoft are stepping up their game, it still wasn’t enough to fend off the young competition from Firefox 4 which gained 7.1 million downloads in its first day. As well as faster loading, increased privacy and stronger security, the new Mozilla browser includes improvements to HTML5, including WebM video, CSS3 and javascript. It also includes access to hardware accelerated graphics (on Windows) which offers users faster graphic rendering and thus more complex gaming which can run within the browser. Unlike IE9, Firefox can also be run with Windows XP which is one of the widest used operating systems. more…

Originally designed 7 years ago, Quick Response codes have been on the peripherals for a while, yet they have never been able to fully take hold. The past few years have seen them make small steps towards an increase in popularity, but is this the beginning of a snowball or will they continue to drift around the edges?

Quick Response codes can simply be explained as a 2D barcode, which when read with a mobile phone camera or web cam will create a link to a piece of online content such as a site, article or video. The matrix for QR codes was created by the Denso-Wave Corporation from Japan in 1994, as it stands no license fee needs to be paid so QR codes are available more…