Hang on a minute. Wasn’t this predicted for 2011?

What about 2010?

2009?

Yep.

Good content attracts visitors. Nothing new. I think people know this by now.

Creating a new tab in Chrome this morning resulted in me seeing this:

Previously I would see something like the below, a useful screen providing one click access to the websites I visit most regularly and the last few tabs I had closed.

It looks to me as if this new “new tab” screen has been rushed out to promote Angry Birds without much thought given to its usability.

This page now has three tabs. The central tab branded “Apps”- set as the default – contains the not particularly well branded Angry Birds advert on the “App” tab. The the “Most visited” tab features now significantly more blurry screenshots of webpages I regularly visit – with access to recently closed tabs now a step further away, hidden behind an expandable menu rather than the previous one-click access. And the third “Bookmarks” tab? Well the Google Gods haven’t even made that yet “Bookmarks coming soon…” it reads.

So now without warning I get adverts in my browser, slower access to recently accessed tabs and an incomplete non-functioning “bookmarks” page. Thanks Google.

The cause was an arson attack on a big pile of tyres which led to quite spectacular plumes of smoke rising from waste land adjacent to the Worcester – Birmingham canal.

The tyres, which were presumably due to be used to support embankments around the Selly Oak Relief Road, were ablaze for quite some time and judging from the number of tweets could be seen from miles around.

High population density, many of them students aware with social media led to a flurry of messages, photos and videos being posted online as the story developed.

From my parents house 100 miles away I was able to follow the tweets of those who had spotted the smoke, read as they tried to pinpoint its source and read updates from people going to see what was happening. I saw a video of fire engines trying to access the site and lots of photos uploaded to twitpic and yfrog.

Here are some of the best photos I have permission to post here [click any to view full sized]:

Just a small case study as to how news can quickly spread through social media… Apparently our house in Selly Oak stank of rubber, so glad I wasn’t there!

The size of the transaction was obviously flagged as an unusual spend by NatWest as it triggered a fraud alert.  The fraud system is automated and I had to confirm the last 5 transactions made with my card.  The computer voice (which said my name in an incredibly bored sounding tone) listed the most recent transactions with suitable vagueness.  For example one of transactions could have been something like “£30 at a supermarket in Birmingham” (a Sainsbury’s shop).

The Amazon transaction came up as ”£350 at a bookshop in Luxembourg”.

They have a ‘Yellow Card’ promotional scheme where students can purchase a credit card sized discount card for £1 which saves you money on some drinks.

Today Scream Pubs asked their 26,000 Facebook followers “How much d’you reckon you’ve saved with your Yellow Card?”. Over half the responses are currently negative!

Quite the opposite from the Sarah Palin delete negative comments strategy!

It will be interesting to see if they leave these comments on or delete them.

The first is the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign, a website in favour of the Alternative Vote system for electing MPs.  Does the homepage even mention the AV system – no.  Does the site explain what AV is or give examples of how it is fairer than the existing first past the post system –  no.

There are some obviously fake hotel reviews on a local WhatsIn[InsertNameOfTownHere].co.uk site. You will need to click on the reviews tab to see them. All the reviews give the hotel in question 5 stars, all of them are highly positive with no criticisms whatsoever and the first 5 reviews are all posted by ‘anonymous’ within 12 minutes of each other.

The last example is perhaps the most surprising given it comes from a well known high street brand.

It involves the Boots store locator, accessible at the following SEO and user unfriendly URL: http://www.boots.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreLocator?requiredAction=displayStoreLookupPage&displayView=StoreLookupView&langId=-1&storeId=10052&catalogId=11051

So I do as suggested and enter my home town Watford into the search box and hit enter. Up comes the following page.

Three things are wrong with this. First it is screaming “error” at me – why? I entered the name of my town as I was asked to, it isn’t my fault that Boots doesn’t know where I mean. A user friendly “Sorry, please clarify which town you mean” or similar message could easily be put up to address this nicely.

Second – the message states that fields containing “errors” have been “marked in red”.  No fields are red.

Third – I entered the exact text it suggested on the search page! If the case they recommend works this badly it doesn’t bode well.

Only once I’d reached this screen and was trying to work out how I was supposed to confirm my selection of the correct Watford from the drop down list did I notice the expandable form area, marked with the universal symbol for making something bigger –  a subtraction sign.

The manual search button (which was also on the first page) I needed to press to advance to the next page  is located so far away from the point of data entry that until now I had not seen it.

I have seen the ad on the left several times over the past few days linking to the recycling section of the council website.

Why?  I don’t live in or anywhere near Medway.  Facebook profiles contain lots of demographic information to which advertising campaigns can easily be targeted so the fact that it is showing to me seems unforgivable.  I did once visit Chatham Docks though and watched as the Tour de France passed through!

The houses are pretty affordable though and Ebbsfleet International to St Pancras is a 20 minute train journey. I’ll remember that.

The idea is great (effectively a cross between iTunes and last.fm which I used in the early 2000s and notice has become more popular over the last couple of years). You can find most music you want on it from current hits to the things my parents like and children’s TV themes.

One thing that began sometime with in the last month which I find immensely annoying however is a prompt to “share Spotify” with my “friends and family” every single time I load up the program (i.e. every day). It appears I’m not the only one annoyed at this.

I opted for a $50 bid and made the payment via PayPal from a different location than normal and it its wisdom PayPal decided that the payment was suspicious and the transaction was put on hold. I went through the verification process as requested which required me to re-enter my bank details and take a call from their computerised voice but the payment has now been on hold for two and a half weeks.

“Inquiry by PayPal Temporary Hold” and “Being Reviewed by PayPal” are not things you would like to see in your account. “Documentation received from seller” has appeared four times in the event time-line and I have given PayPal everything they have asked for so I have no idea why they are still holding my money.

I wouldn’t mind if they refused the transaction and gave me back the funds so I could go elsewhere or if they let the transaction through but this limbo does no one any good. My project is on hold, the freelancer and Guru have been messed around and worst of all they probably both think this is down to something I have done wrong.

Naturally when they didn’t receive my payment Guru suspended my account (I suspect they get a fair amount of chancers using hacked/stolen/fraudulent payment accounts).

The last action from PayPal was over a week ago. Pathetic, yet PayPal is so widely accepted that I will have to continue to use it.