Evolution Festival 2010 Set Times (Sunday)

Here are the set times for Sunday Baltic Stage (Wax:On Dance Stage) for the 2010 Evolution Festival

• 12pm - 2pm: People Get Real
• 2pm - 3pm: Jaymo & Andy George
• 3pm - 4pm: Rusko
• 4pm - 5pm: Beardyman
• 5pm - 6pm: Eskimo Twins
• 6pm - 7pm: Filthy Dukes
• 7pm - 8pm: Scratch Perverts
• 8pm - 9pm: Benga
• 9pm - 10pm: Doorly
• 10pm - 11pm: Fake Blood

Enjoy!

Create Friends Lists -Hide Your Online Status on Facebook Chat from Select Contacts

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In times gone by, you could either be online or offline with regards to Facebook chat. This was annoying because what if you wanted to speak to some people but not others?

Now Facebook has an option that allows you to do just that. It's called Friends lists.

Basically you create a list, assign a friend to it & can then set your online / offline status in bulk.

Lets say you have two lists: Friends & Family / Business Contacts.

Want to be online to your business contacts during the day, but not available to your friends & family in case they disturb you? You can be.

OK, I get it ... but how!?

First thing is to create the lists & assign friends to each list.


Log in and click on Account > Edit Friends


Under the Lists heading, click the Friends option.



Then choose Create New List. A new box will appear where you can name the list and add friends to your newly created list.

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Online or Offline? You Decide

Now that your lists are set up and you've assigned contacts to them (don't worry if you haven't you can drag & drop from the chat window. You are now in full control of who sees you as online or offline.

Simply open the chat box at the bottom right of the page. You'll see little sliders, green means online and grey means offline. Simply slide them to toggle whether you appear as online (green) or offline (grey) to that particular group.

Any ungrouped friends will appear in the Other Contacts list.



Adam Gardner is a freelance SEO / Social Media Expert. Follow him on twitter @agseo or subscribe to this blog via RSS.

QR Codes / 2D Barcodes

QR (Quick Response) Codes / 2D Barcodes

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QR Codes, or 2D barcodes aren't new, they've been around for sometime (in fact they were developed by a Japanese company, Denso-Wave in 1994) buy as mobile devices & technology become more advanced and connected to the world via the internet. QR codes will only become more and more important to your marketing effort.




Why is it important for me?

Well, 2D barcodes can contain any information you want:

Use a map location & scan it on a mobile (eg. iPhone) Google Maps will launch and show you where to go.

Use your business card information - Allow someone to scan it & your business information will automatically be added to their address book.

Use your web address - Whether you choose your Facebook profile, LinkedIn account or business URL, scan a code and you will be taken directly to whatever page you choose.

There are tons of other places QR codes can (and should be used) in promotional material, marketing materials, paperless registration for events, paperless tracking of students in schools etc. etc..... Use your imagination!


Take this page, for example. It's a photo of a QR code on a sign. Use your barcode reader app and scan this code (straight from your computer screen) and it should work ... these are super versatily & certainly my new favourite toy!

I have tried a few iPhone QR code readers and can highly recommend QRReader. It's free and scans in real time. I also haven't found a QR code that it couldn't scan yet.

Just search for 'qr code' and you'll find it.

Update: Here are some captures from QRReader app on the iphone. As you can see, none of these are particularly great in terms of clarity or alignment & yet all of them were successful scans!

PLR Articles - Are They Worth It?

PLR articles are private label resell articles. That means that once you purchase the article / content you are free to resell it.

A common belief in SEO / Internet marketing circles is that if you purchase PLR articles you can then spin them (reword them) and make them unique enough to promote as your own without incurring any duplicate content penalties from Google.

The main problem I have with this is: How much of a difference do you have to make to an article / page / piece of content before it becomes unique in the eyes of the search engine?

Plus, if you are only rewriting it purely to get round the duplicate content filter, surely it isn't going to be saying much new that isn't already available ... therefore you're unlikely to get people linking to it ... and therefore unlikely to gain much benefit from it.

My other problem is probably more personal. You see, when I write an article I want it to have value and be genuinely useful to myself (as a reference) as well as a website visitor. Therefore I often find it difficult purely to switch a few words around and change a pre-written article.

Very often I'll end up scraping it and writing my own from scratch anyway .... so there's no huge benefit for me to buy PLR articles.

That said, I'm sure people will continue to buy them & tweak them & they will continue to evade the dup. content filter ... but shame on you! Bring some value to the web & your followers and they'll be forever greatful :)

Adam Gardner is a freelance SEO / Social Media Expert. Follow him on twitter @agseo or subscribe to this blog via RSS.

Phonat vs ATFC - Sleep Talk hits the Fan

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This one is simple, could help but feel that the brilliant Love Hits the Fan by Phonat needed some vocals ... Sleep Talk by ATFC fit the bill perfectly. Enjoy :)



Comments / Suggestions below please!

Google's new Layout : How it Affects You

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Google have just roled out a new layout with more in-depth search options down the left hand side of the page. The choices in this column aren't necessarily new, they've been available for some time.

Some of the options will already be familiar to users such as maps, videos, images & news since they've been available (and still are) along the top of the results page for a while now.

However the new additions to these search options are critical - they have been available for a while, but only if you went looking for them in the sub menus at the top of the results pages.

These new options include Blogs, Updates, and Discussions.

Blog Search

Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com) has been around for some time although people will notice it more now. If you want to find the latest blog post / opinion / review for a product or site then this is surely the easiest way to find it without specifically intending to use the blog search engine from the outset. If you needed another reason to start a business blog, surely this is it!

Updates

The updates option in the Google results pulls data from the real time search results (sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Google Buzz, etc.) It's now more important than ever to be listed in the real time search results - Get a Twitter account!

Discussions

This option returns results from the forums, Q&A sites & help sections. Helping out and answering questions in forums and message boards has always been a great way to get noticed and build a reputation in your industry, but now that there's a dedicated search option ... isn't it essential that you encorporate it into your online marketing strategy?

It's worth baring in mind that each of these options have sub-options to return and sort data by freshness (last 24 hours, last week etc.), length and also by location.

Therefore if you're running a local SEO campaign this could be a potential goldmine of relevant traffic!

Hyphens or Underscores? Which is Best?

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Another age old SEO / webmaster question ... should I use hyphens (dashes) or underscores in my page names eg. my-page vs. my_page.

Matt Cutts from Google states that it does make a difference as hyphens (dashes) are treated as seperators whereas underscores are not.

However he also says not to worry too much if your site is currently doing well, certainly don't go changing all your pages just because of this post. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

But sure, if you're designing a brand new site structure, stick with hyphens - they look better and are easier (IMO) for people to remember and type (and they help Google to recognise seperate words).

A disclaimer: Like everything with SEO - just because this is currently the case doesn't mean it'll stay like this forever ... in fact this video was originally posted in February 2009 ... so they may have included underscores as seperators now too .... but I'd still stick with hyphens.