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Google+ Grew 27% in March, Logged 61 Million Visits.

Many find it easy to be dismissive and not see the long term strategy here for Google +, but Google CEO Larry Page claimed in a state-of-Google blog post on Thursday that Google+ now has 100 million active users, 10 million more than the figure he shared with analysts in January.

Like all stats, only an indication, but Hitwise is one of the more reliable and realistic measurement options out there. Growth vastly helped by the abundance of Android devices I believe along with the interactive button found on even more sites and services worldwide.

Posted by Stephen Scott

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'Bringing balance to the (Mobile) force'. Cheaper handsets skew smartphone sales to Android.

via smh.com.au

Well, without saying I told you so, Android continues to grow, and develop at a rapid pace.
As said before I use multiple devices on multiple platforms, so no iHating (well only really towards iTunes) but balance and choice are incredibly vital to growth.

All to often in all walks of life, when absolute power is given to one, it corrupts and skews development for others.

Android commanded 48 per cent of the market compared to Apple's 43 per cent, according to NPD.

This news vis the Sydney Morning Herald is ushering in a new age of development, choice and innovation and is a major win for us all.

Told you so : P

Posted by Stephen Scott

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The things you do with your phone in 2011...

via darthambiguous

15,000 respondents x 6 continents = oodles of fascinating data!

78.6% use their web browser daily (I’m 100% - when possible {damn you Vodafone!})
Males like to watch online videos (well derrrrrr)
25-32 year olds use the phone as a map more than any other age group
88% of those surveyed have a Wi-Fi enabled handset
South Americans love to share photos and videos
18-24 year olds mostly ignore podcasts (really?)
Africans make more daily phone calls
80% of females text daily
Europeans couldn’t be bothered with GPS or digital maps
Audio books are not very popular with people over 50 - but they love their RSS feeds
North Americans can’t get enough of music recognition programs
80% of Oceanians use social networks - where making a call is the 5th most popular feature (!)
Asians love new apps and playing games
33-41 year olds send / receive the most email messages (again, derrrrr)
It’s nice to know that lots of other smartphone users use their phone as a flashlight too!

Thank to my brother from another mother darth ambiguous for the share, who you should follow cos he's rather swish.

Posted by Stephen Scott

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How do colours affect purchases? In many psychological ways...

via blog.kissmetrics.com

Sat on this for weeks, but only getting a chance now to post this great info graphic of how colour affects your experience of the web so much.

And you thought you bought that thing cos you needed it! 8D

Thanks to Mrs. 'I am reading every link on the interwebs' Iza B for the share.
If your a web head follow her; http://twitter.com/mr0wka18

Posted by Stephen Scott

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'People often want innovation, but also proof that it works'...

via 5by5.tv

A great quote above from web veteran Jeffery Zeldman, who along with Whitney Hess, discuss (amongst others things) user experience & web design. The quote is so typical of the challenges we face online in meeting often unreachable goals...

This really is an excellently articulated video which covers issues I face every day, so to me this is just gold! The statement from Whitney that:

"The (web) sites that win awards are the ones that are used the least".

So, so true, and as these two web heads discuss, it's all about the user. (Duh!) However, often we nursemaid and become a psychologist in your role these days on web sites with clients and employers as you deal with all these variety of issues, trying to improve the users experience but can easily get stuck trying to please everyone.

The earlier part of the video focuses on a little heavy twitter lust for my liking (enough already!) but overall a highly recommended listen from great speakers. Click through to the site to download the video or mp3.

Posted by Stephen Scott

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Google Analytics Opt-out

Google analytics is without a doubt the most widely used, and possibly one of the best (and free) web site analysis tools there is today. It transformed the market, and provides insights that have helped transform the web in a massive way to everyone. Some have criticised Google for collecting information on them (despite the fact is it is only ever given as anonymous data) without their consent.

Well trust Google to produce some transparency and clarity around this, and silence those critics by providing a very clear and open, and simple way, to opt out of having Google analytics collect any data from you at all. Whilst many will not care, it at least is an excellent PR move, and very fair as an option for those with issues to have a choice. I can't recall any other companies that have been so bold to do this and allow me to remove their tracking as I surf, and there are plenty. Hopefully it sets that standard for others to follow in time. (Here's looking at you facebook)

Visit the Google Analytics Opt-out page.