Have you got bored of saying Happy New Year in emails yet? This may well be the last new year related article you read so I will try and make it a good one. 2011 was another bumper year for digital but like IE6, that's dead now. What does 2012 have in store?

Social Commerce

Conversion optimisation will be the SEO of 2012 (if it isn’t already). Ranking and traffic are crucial starting points but are irrelevant without conversion. Aside from applying user centric design, inspiring content and products we can greatly support conversion with social proof.

The weight of the opinion of our peers in commercial decision making is immense. Social proof is the theory that we look at what others are doing to reassure us we’re making the right decision. To date almost 50% of shoppers have made a purchase based on a recommendation through a social network. This will only increase with moves by Google to bring search results and social networking more closely aligned with Google+ data influencing rank. In 2012 brands will begin to invest more in taking a sophisticated approach to social commerce and harnessing peer power.

Location Based Marketing

Although Foursquare and Facebook Places have trail blazed location based marketing, uptake is still not that great. However targeting consumers by location is a sophisticated way to engage people in a way that’s personal to them.

Google recently announced it is working on new products that make use of its location based services. Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of product management, said during a session at LeWeb in Paris that they were exploring monetisation of check-ins. In a similar way to mainstream mobile web I can see this prediction hanging around for a while before it really takes off, but it will.

Mobile Payments

UK smartphone adoption is forecast to tip from 40 to 60% this year and for many the relationship with the phone will become more intimate than ever. 83% of millennials already sleep with their mobile. With large storage capacity and creative apps in abundance everything we need is on our mobile. In 2012 so will our wallets.

Roughly 170,000 UK shoppers a week are already using eBay's mobile app. PayPal saw mobile transactions multiplied by almost 6 times in 2011. Google Wallet should be launched in the UK for the Olympics. Near Field Communication (NFC), which enables data exchange between two devices will become a standard smartphone feature. This in turn will create opportunities for mobile operators and brands to engage with consumers in convenient new ways.

Gamification

The number one buzz word of the previous year was gamification. 2012 will be the year this evolves as brands embrace the concept, following early successes of Get Glue and Badgeville. Gamification will see brands integrate this technology into their own products and services, offering more sophisticated points and rewards systems.

Convergence of platforms

In 2012 we will see a greater emphasis on single build development projects that encapsulate all digital platforms into one single code base. HTML 5, JavaScript and CSS3 will form the foundation of all these builds with minimal native coding. This will be partly to save budget but mostly to create a consistent, real time user experience across all digital touch points.

In order to achieve this developers do require the widespread adoption of standards compliant browsers by users. Thankfully smartphones already use pretty sophisticated and up to date browsers. The acceleration of the innovative browser chrome, which is only 3 years old and already holds 26% market share, shows that we are beginning to see the stranglehold of IE, at 40%, loosen.

Social platforms to look out for

You might think its all about Facebook, Twitter and Google+ now but you might want to look out for these up and coming (mostly mobile) platforms in the next twelve months:

• path
  
• pinterest
  
• instagram
  
• ifttt

Going Public

The latest forecasts suggest that Facebook will be worth as much as $100 billion on its Wall Street debut, creating at least a thousand millionaires. The expectations for the Facebook IPO are very high. Many internet firms, including Groupon and LinkedIn, went public in 2011, but the response was mostly underwhelming. However investors have big hopes for Facebook and as regulators enforce the public disclosure of figures in the build up we will be learning a lot more about its business model and their future vision for the social web.

Did I miss anything? Please let me know in the comments below.

So rather fortuitously (or not, depending on your point of view) Third Thursday this month has fallen slap bang in the middle of perhaps the biggest controversy to affect the internet since it’s commercial release (1995, for any budding geek historians out there). I think we can all agree that since then it’s done nothing but grow, the clear principle being that the more people who have access to it, the more the amount of content generated constantly rises.

And so we land in the here and now, a time at which the internet is no longer populated with reems and reems of text but also video, audio, images, satellite data, pointless conversation, pretty much anything you can imagine exists online (which is both fantastic and terrible at the same time). But hold on a second, isn’t that much the same as the real world? There’s good and bad, there’s philanthropy and there’s greed, those who give and those who take. In those terms surely it’s simple to think, we should police the internet in much the same way as we do the real world, right? Catch the criminals, and allow innocent civilians to go about their day to day business and innocent companies to carry on trading.

This is the of view I want to talk about SOPA and PIPA from, as someone who works in the tech industry I feel I have a pretty decent understanding of the internet and this is how I believe it should be viewed, as another (virtual) world in it’s own right, much like the “real” one in which we live. The opinions being bandied around by politicians and corporate execs don’t seem to recognise this fundamental fact but instead they think of the internet as a system, probably due to “technology” being involved. The internet is a living thing, a representation of billions of living beings (that’s us by the way) and therefore can’t be controlled, it will refuse to be, as we would refuse.

It’s this fundamental misunderstanding of the internet that is causing these IP owners to try and wrestle control of what we’re able to see and do online and it’s the fundamental lack of knowledge in the legal establishments that is letting them get so close to achieving it. For example, if I were to go out into the local community and look around for seedy criminal types, then go and chat to those people about their various activities (for the purposes of the metaphor I achieve this without being brutally murdered or robbed) then that would be entirely my own choice. It might not be a smart thing to do, it may even mean I have an implicit knowledge of illegal activities that makes me a person of interest, but it’s my own choice to do so.

Now imagine I do the same thing but instead what I find is the community (housing estate, street, town, etc) in which those people live, has had a 50 foot wall built around it, unfortunately cutting me off from visiting the poor innocent locals as much as their shadier neighbours. This is basically what rights owners have been arguing for with the presentation of SOPA and PIPA. Rather than targeting the criminals who steal, duplicate and distribute content, they want to take down entire sections of the web so these people can’t communicate with us regular folk and spread their ill gotten gains.

The more worrying aspect of the two bills is that don’t even operate on a “suspicion” basis rather than a “proof” basis. So if a site is reported to be under suspicion it could potentially be blocked somehow.

Up until this week the creators of SOPA and PIPA were suggesting achieving this through alteration of the DNS, or Domain Name System. A fundamental foundation of the internet that allows sites to be identified by names like www.google.com, instead of purely IP addresses, like 209.85.147.103

They wanted to be able to remove (on suspicion) a domain name from the internet registry, if that site was in any way associated with illegal sharing. This would potentially give them complete rule over the web space. So you’d either play by their regulations or have your site’s domain name removed. Fortunately, due to opposition from the Whitehouse this section of the bills has been dropped but that doesn’t mean the concept is gone. Discussions in the senate recently have been around how to block sites like this anyway, even without using the DNS.

Now as an every day internet user I have to ask some serious questions:
Firstly, what exactly is considered illegal behaviour, constituting a block on that site? They certainly haven’t gone into much detail regarding this but surely it should be incredibly well defined. I can’t be arrested in the real world without a damn good explanation so why should my online presence be impounded without a clear description of the precise charges relating directly to sections of the bills I’ve contravened?

Secondly, who’s going to police this and enforce the blocks on sites? It’s obvious that the movie and music industries want the power to do this themselves but in the real world don’t we call that vigilante justice? Surely a system based on these kind of “site blocks” needs to be run by a third, independent party, who are not on the payroll of the very companies seeking to exert more control.

Lastly, how will this affect social media? We once lived in a time when the majority of online content was created and owned by news agencies, corporations and private companies. We now live in a time where most of the content is, in fact, user generated. A lot of it may be utter rubbish but the internet is now a social space, a prime are for exchanging everything be it useful or the aforementioned utter rubbish. I’ve seen plenty of people tweeting or posting on Facebook about how to access football matches or movies online, some if it legal, some of it not so much. Would these industries seriously purport to block social media platforms because they contain normal human conversation, some of which is less than law abiding. That’s like shutting down a pub because someone once sold something shady under a table there.

And that’s what I’ve been getting at throughout this whole rambling journey. The internet is a world in and of itself, trying to control it is pointless and would cost (read: waste) billions as it will grow and adapt as it always has. Besides, (outside of James Bond movies) no one has ever tried to destroy the whole world just because it was a bit flawed. The internet is fundamentally flawed… of course it is, it’s populated by us and we’re only human. The biggest thing I’ve been able to read through all the myriad of situational analyses lately in the press though is this; the institutions pushing for these changes have a complete lack of understanding of the internet in its current form. It’s evolved to a point where it belongs to billions and declaring war on the internet just to solve a piracy problem is in fact declaring war on every consumer they have. This is hardly going to endear those consumers to them and gain their support in the war on piracy. Instead declare war on the criminals themselves in such a way that the ordinary users of internet services are not even aware there is a new system in place. It’s probably difficult to achieve but it’s the only solution that won’t cause an enormous backlash, the like of which we’ve seen in recent weeks.

Blimey, it's the first Third Thursday of 2012!

Rachel shows off her rock

Other links referenced...

• TES Games, available on iPhone and iPad
• Flutr (Beta) 

This months Family Guy style light hearted rant is about my irritation of how people have started using Facebook and Twitter statuses as if they were lines in their own personal diary.

The informative nature of the Facebook or Twitter status has been downgraded. Do we really need to know what our 200 plus friends are doing every minute of the day? Do all our online friends want to know what we are doing every minute of the day? I can tell you the answer is NO!

Being part of the Facebook and Twitter generation has been incredible so far. Being able to connect with friends, share photos, and now music through the Facebook partnership with Spotify. Twitter, the social networks micro blogging system has gained over 100 million active users in just 5 years. With popstars such as Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber having over 10 million followers each, it is easy to see that it is a popular platform for fans to get a glimpse at what it is like to be a celebrity on a day to day basis. It gives them a digital friendship with their favourite stars that they never had before. Their followers get to find out what designer dress they are wearing, or what swanky Michelin stared restaurant they are going to for dinner. A far cry from some of the updates I get from my digital friends, who keep me updated very regularly with updates on how their kid just burped, or that they have just eaten a doughnut.

I love social networks, and working in the digital industry when Facebook and Twitter are evolving is great, with timeline for example which could change the way businesses communicate with their customer. Learn all about the Facebook changes in our previous blog post http://codegent.com/blog/2011/10/what_are_you_up_to_the_world_wants_to_know_apparently

I use both Twitter and Facebook every day, they enable me to see what others are doing on other digital platforms, they help inspire me, it could be a Facebook viral like the 'Take This Lollipop' campaign or an article on Mashable being thrown around on Twitter. They have become part of the creative industries modern DNA.

The openness to see and share photos, to communicate with friends in other counties, and of course the occasional stalk, and anyone that says they do not stalk their old friends or partners is a liar. Everyone loves a good self satisfying Facebook stalk.

However, this former pleasant experience has now been tainted by over enthusiastic status updaters. Now 70% of my Facebook newsfeed is clogged up with people telling me that they had beans on toast for dinner, or that they can’t sleep. What do you want me to do about you not being able to sleep, come round, get into bed with you and sing you a lullaby ? You can’t sleep because you are staring at a bright screen in the middle of the night when you should be de stressing and getting away from the technologies you are bound to all day long.

How did this happen? Is it from the influx of younger users on the networks, wanting to show off to their friends about what cool lives they lead? Is it just the users who are bored and just don’t have anything else to do with their free time?
Get out of the house, get some fresh air, go somewhere with no wi fi signal for a while.

The irritation of these insignificant, unhelpful status update is extended further with the use of incorrect, slanged English they are all written in. Incorrect spelling and punctuality is used in all of these ridiculous updates. I’m not sure if this is because of the speed some of them are written, or that some of them are written on smart phones so fat thumb syndrome and auto correct occurs. I have some sympathy for some statuses on Twitter, as there is a restricted 140 max character limit, so abbreviating a few words is acceptable. However, on Facebook you have over 60,000 characters to use, there is no excuse to cut words down, and use slang such as “bby, ppl, da, and bout” you can write a whole bloody monologue in there. It also takes me much longer to read it when it is in slang text like this, it you really want everyone to know and read your status, please write it in a language we can all understand.

I am a believer that I am not the only person that gets irritated by this topic. Some websites and blogs have dedicated whole sections to these pet hates about Facebook statuses; here are some of my favourites courtesy of http://failbook.failblog.org/




So I plead to you social network users, make your statuses interesting for your audience. Give some thought to the topic, as well as the spelling, grammar and punctuation, and we will all reap the benefits.

That my friends is what Grinds My Gears.

This month I’m going to be talking about User Journeys: what they are used for and how to do create them.

User journeys – what are they?
It’s not hard to imagine what a user journey might look like if you hadn’t seen one before. We’re talking about how people using your site travel through it: the pages they land on, the decisions they take once there and the impact of those decisions on what happens next.

We’ve all experienced good journeys and bad ones online: some make a complicated process easy and painless, allowing you to sail through to the end with barely a thought, whilst others are infuriating and force you to re-enter details, send you off down blind alleys or simply fail to get you to where you wanted to be no matter how hard you try.

The difference between the two can often be something very simple. It might be something to do with semantics: calling something that we’re used to seeing every day something else, just to be ‘cute’. Or it might be that the logic of every possible outcome hasn’t been thought through properly. Maybe we’re forcing people to give us more information than is necessary. Often, the order with which we ask people information can be enough to send them running to the hills. 

A user journey is a step-by-step diagram that shows each part of the process through the site, using visual sign-posts to group things together and identify the danger areas where particular attention needs to be paid.

If you’re creating a new service or a new product, it really is only by plotting user journeys, that you can be confident that you’ve thought of everything and that your solution is the simplest one you can come up with.

Seven considerations for plotting a user journey
1. Use your Personas

Last month I wrote about creating Personas. This is definitely a good place to start: even if it’s only to work out how existing and potential customers will have different goals. The likelihood is that your Personas will be more complicated than this, you may have a variety of stakeholders who need to achieve different things.

2. One diagram per outcome
We think it’s easier to create a different diagram for each key goal or expected outcome. Within that diagram there might be multiple routes that people take, but essentially you’re looking for a single final outcome. An example might be getting someone to sign up for a free trial of a product (as in the image above from our recently launched Schedule App).

3. Show each step of the journey
Don’t leave anything to chance – we want to try and think through everything that a user might do and what decisions he or she will take.

4. Logical grouping of steps
Deciding whether to go for a free trial or subscribe to a service straight away: they are two different steps, but they should be grouped together to give the people working on the site a shorthand reference that these things are linked. In a user journey with 20 steps, the more you can arrange things logically, the easier it will be to use.

5. Pain points
Pain points are something we talk about a lot when it comes to the user experience. There are some things that will be a joy: choosing which colour of shirt they want. But there are other things that will potentially turn them off: logging in when they’ve forgotten their username, or entering their credit card details. Where there is a pain point – make the box red or stick a big warning sign next to it. This will remind everyone that this needs special consideration and thought. 

If things aren’t working well with an existing site, the pain points are probably the areas that need to be looked at first as they are most likely causing  the problems. It’s much better to spend your time making your pain points as simple as possible than introducing whizzy new functionality, however tedious that might seem.

6. Notes
Finally, make notes across the journey: assumptions, other considerations or 3^rd party functionality that may have an impact on what the user experiences.

7. Workshop
If you’re plotting user journeys as part of a workshop with all the stakeholders inputting their ideas, they can be sketched out in a down and dirty way, the use of Post-It notes on a wall work well for allowing people to consider all the steps and iterate.

Ultimately, it is always good to reproduce that working into an electronic format so it can be referenced by the designers and developers throughout the project.

Once we get into user testing, it’s always good to reference it against the user journey to check that the assumptions we made were correct and things like pain points have been effectively overcome.