Tastes Like Digital – This week in Digital

This week in Digital – w/c 14th December

Facebook & Google release URL shorteners

URL shorteners weren’t such a big deal until Twitter’s 140 characters came along, now it’s big business. Google and Facebook have just released their versions of the service: goo.gl and fb.me respectively.

For now the 2 services are pretty limited in availability. Fb.me is only currently rolled out for mobile link publishing, and goo.gl is only currently active on the toolbar and Feedburner.

Bit.ly is currently running the show when it comes to link shorteners, with a powerful analytics service and wide integration with web platforms and apps. Fb.me and Goo.gl will both find their feet in the arena, and while Bit.ly may be safe for now, the potential for Google to fully integrate it’s already outstanding analytics service with its URL shortener, and Facebook using Fb.me as an automatic link conversion asset on it’s sharing portals; Bit.ly will grow nervous. (Read full story…) via Search Engine Land

Twitter Launches ‘Contributors’ feature.

Twitter made its first move this week of its intention to segment user and business accounts with its new ‘Contributors’ feature. This basically involves the ability for a business, corporate or artist Twitter account to have a number of ‘contributors’ attached to it, who are able to Tweet on the Twitter account but using their normal identity.

Access is controlled by a new top dashboard which allows users to switch between profiles. Two different permissions can be set – ‘Enhanced’ and ‘Partial’ access.

This is a nice new development, it adds a personal flare to a company’s Tweets, something Twitter is all about – putting a face behind a message to enrich trust, conversation and identity on Twitter. With brands and corporations being a fundamental element of the micro blogging giant’s 2010 revenue model, this is one of many additions Twitter will be rolling out for Beta testing in the coming months. (Read full story…) via Twitter Blog

Facebook’s redesign

Screenshots leaked last month of a Facebook redesign, and the tech community braced it’s self for either a change which could see community uproar, or another feature duplicate of Twitter.

This time round the changes are more subtle, and the core feed remains the same; with notification areas moving being the main difference. Search will be a more focused function as Facebook’s dependency on the area is increased after the privacy and search inclusion announced the other week. (Read full story…) via Mashable

Wordpress release 2.9 ‘Carmen’

It’s been just over 6 months since Wordpress released it’s major upgrade, and over the hundreds of improvements made since then; 2.9 includes features which makes posting and development much easier on one of the world’s favourite open source CMS.

Read more on the Wordpress Blog, and check out the video below. (Read full story…) via Wordpress

Google announce new phone – ‘Nexus One’

After months of speculation, and tweets and leaks last week of Google employees rockin’ something new; Google’s new Nexus One.

Being the big daddy in web won’t be enough to make the NO an automatic success though, and although mobile is becoming more and more online engrossed, so is user’s expectations of what makes a great handset. Google will no doubt have the phone’s function-ability set well, but if the phone’s going to succeed as an arch enemy of something as solid as iPhone, it will have to get it right, first time.

Details and pictures are leaking gradually about the device, we already know it will be sold online and unlocked, running the latest Andriod, fast and sleek, thin, but with no multitouch.

It’s still questionable if this will start to pick away at iPhone’s market, especially when the device still reigns king in so many ways; and Apple will no doubt respond with a new mobile offering sometime in 2010. (Read full story…) via Tech Crunch

Amazon MP3 heading in the coulds with iTunes?

Speculation rose last week that upon Apple’s purchase of online music streamer LaLa, the digital retail giant was going to ‘cloudify’ its service towards what would essentially be having your iTunes online.

Amazon seems to have the tools to follow suit, read Bruce Houghton’s article on Hypebot to see how. This to me seems to fall in line with Amazon’s new approach to product delivery, especially with it’s launch of ‘Disc+’ earlier this month, shifting it’s film purchases to both physical delivery and on demand playing. (Read full story…) via Hypebot

Google’s new website display analyser

Google released a neat little tool this week as part of Google Labs. Google Browser Size shows how much of your web site a visitor seems in respect to their browser size. This is handy for web developers to see what content shows above the fold, an important asset for determining Ad and key visual placements.

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