We love a good Internet investigation, so we got a real kick out of Gawker’s look inside a smear campaign. Things we learned this time around:

• 4channers don’t all like electro-pop. Apparently they’re 50/50 split heavy metal and indie.
• 4chan got their site’s founder voted Time magazine’s most influential person.
• On a related note, Time thinks 4chan invented LOLCats. There’s published books of cat pictures with funny captions from the 1960s, at least.
• There’s a website called ‘refreshthing’ that automates Google-bombing. Or at least (if you’re reading this a few days from now), there was.
• 4channers can’t hack for a damn.

This is a good time to look at web culture. It’s the street we do business in; being streewise is a good thing. It’s important because we’ve seen this scary glimpse into Internet mob mentality, and what basically amounts to Internet street gangs, and that tells us things about the future. It tells us that even greater control of the web frontier is in the future. As always happens, the hooligans of today will age into the uptight, conservative nannies of tomorrow. Coupled together with the moral panic over Internet bullying, we’re going to see a future where the overkill of the cure is worse than the disease.

We’re also fantastically misguided. Everyone reading this right now should consider Reddit.com, and not 4chan, as the source of the threat. Reddit is just as anonymous as 4chan – it won’t challenge the name you enter, not even to demand an email – and most of 4chan and Reddit membership has an overlap. But Reddit is actually where the campaigns start, and since, unlike 4chan, posts on Reddit stay there indefinitely, one can trace the mob’s path through Reddit before it comes to 4chan. Furthermore, you’ll discover than many of the acts of petty web vandalism are actually financially motivated in the first place. Viral marketing – fighting dirty!

But really, the whole web mob is a moving target. Their name, after all, is Anonymous.

One trick to SEO is that you have to have your own original content – and then get credit for it! It can really bum you out when you slaved over your site’s content, only to see a higher-ranking site scrape it and use it to appear in search results ahead of you!

While the point isn’t to police the web for copy-pasta, we loved this clever little trap set by Graywolf’s SEO blog. By inserting a sentence containing the word ‘?constagagulation’ repeatedly, he was able to wait a couple weeks and then find out where it went.

Similar methods are used by map designers, who insert deliberate errors in order to catch copy-cats. We aren’t saying you should do anything but what Graywolf recommends – insert some links to yourself in the content and let ‘em have it! But it’s always nice to know where it’s popping up.

Just stumbled upon this listing of 15 Unconventional Uses of WordPress in Action. WordPress really has grown to fill a larger pair of shoes then we originally thought!

The examples link to demonstrations of Wordpress in use for everything from a Twitter page to a Wiki to an e-commerce store. And while we’re on the subject of WordPress, here’s some trivia about the software:

• Version names come from famous jazz musicians.
• It was forked from an original project called ‘b2.’ The original b2 team also continued with a new project called ‘b2evolution.’ Though it is said to be in active development, its usage is a tiny niche and development seems stalled.
• In 2008, they released a WordPress app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
• Some controversy surrounded the themes directory in 2007. WordPress ditched themes that use sponsored links, and have since stressed that all themes have to be GPL licensed (the way Wordpress is itself).

Web designers, please brace yourself. You are about to click a link, which will hit you where it hurts. Be prepared to see a very unflattering version of your work when you visit If It Looks Corporate, Change It, Jeff Atwood’s latest hilarious rant about corporate website design culture.

Worth the price of admission alone was the link to Headset Hotties, a blog dedicated to cataloging all the stock-photos of models with wires growing out of their heads that appear to be mandatory on every e-commerce website.

Now, if we can get the image of that picture of the stock-photo five beaming serenely at the monitor out of our heads…

Loved this post at 37Signals asking “Do Americans have bad taste?” What, was that a question? Let us consider the things that America made popular:

• McDonalds – True, we all have our gross fast-food stands, but they started it.
• Walmart – Biggest retailer in the country, richest family in the world, cheapest, tackiest China-import junk you ever saw.
• Velveeta – No one had better ever criticize Vegemite again. At least Vegemite is organic.
• FOX News – Gah! The US government just came out denouncing FOX News as a wing of their Republican party, and everybody’s reaction is “Yeah, so?”
• Disneyland – Fake, cloying, saccharine, brutally capitalistic, and dumped in the middle of a slum.
• “Football” – At least that’s what they call it.
• NASCAR racing – When football is too intellectually demanding.
• Las Vegas – This, to them, is decadent and hedonistic.

We could go on, but let’s just say we stopped there. Know your market! And of course other countries have their downsides too, but Americans are number-one in tacky with a capital plastic lawn flamingo.

After the four destination websites just mentioned in the title, can you think of any other places to look something up on the web? Internet marketers tend to fasten their attention on these four, with most of the focus going to Google, of course. But the fact is, there’s dozens more out there that are virtually unknown to the general public. While these sites aren’t going to replace the Big Four, they have their niche – and deserve consideration.

1. Stumble Upon – StumbleUpon is a popular social bookmarking site, with hand-picked links sorted by subject. Their search turns up limited results, but those results are always the “best of show”! Continue reading »

I was just browsing a post on the digital divide in the business world, by one of my favorite deep-thinking bloggers. It’s a long, thinky post, if you have the time. He starts with picking up a copy of USAToday delivered to his hotel room’s doorstep, and reflecting that what with browsing the news by RSS feed on his iPhone, reading a printed newspaper is almost charmingly quaint.

Then goes on to observe how in the business world today, there are definitely those who have progressed… and those who haven’t. He concludes: “There are those organizations holding on to the past, but they will be made irrelevant as we move further into the future and the divide grows. Being afraid is not an option.” Continue reading »

Without a doubt, the most popular blog software is WordPress. And just like with Microsoft Windows’ being the most popular desktop operating system makes it the number-one target for attacks, WordPress is the blog software that most spammers and security crackers target.

So here’s a little link list for getting your WordPress blog in shape. At least if you put all of this information to use, you’ll be as secure as anybody who uses WordPress.

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There are certain guidelines on W3 about web content accessibility which are aimed at making using websites easier for people with disabilities. These guidelines should be taken into consideration by all web content developers and designers. The primary goal is to promote accessibility, but other advantages also are present. It makes your page easy not only for your customers with some disability but easier to use for the ones with no disabilities. It does not discourage from using video and audios but they can be used such that it becomes more accessible to a wider audience.
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Never overlook the importance of colour if you are planning to revamp your website or design a new website. Black text on a white background is the traditional combination that is used for websites, though you may experiment with bolder colours too. For instance, dark blue, black, and gray also make great background colours. However these colours should be avoided if you are using them as a background for product promotions, as any colour other than white would be distracting. For chromatic harmony, you must use an average of three different colours that can be used consistently on your web pages.

Peter Brittain
Perth Digital Agency