Conduct are very pleased to announce that Nawlz Interactive iPad Comic has been selected as an Official Honoree of the 16th Annual Webby Awards in the Experimental & Innovation category.

This award can sit proudly next to the FWA award taken out late last year!

We are very honored to have been apart of this project and to have worked with such an amazing talent the one and only Stuart Campbell.

Well done team!
For more Nawlz visit -- http://www.nawlz.com/hq/

Paypal to strengthen their market share within m-commerce with the release of the Square competitor mobile card reader.

The credit-card reader, which PayPal will give away free, targets smaller merchants. PayPal will charge a 2.7% fee on credit-card and debit-card transactions, compared with Square’s 2.75% fee. PayPal will also give 1% cashback to merchants who later use a PayPal debit card to purchase items for their business.

Merchants can also snap pictures of credit cards and even checks to process those payments. Square doesn’t process checks.

Further Reading

https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/credit-card-reader
https://squareup.com/

The much anticipated apple iPad 3 is here better and brighter than ever! It’s been less than two years since the iPad first landed in our studio and apple have continued to push the much loved device forward. We can expect some exciting apps to follow this release as the pure processing power of this baby is very exciting!

The new iPad sports a beautiful screen which is powered by a high performance A5X chip with quad-core graphics and maintaining a whopping 10 hour battery life. The 5 megapixel iSight camera with 1080p HD video recording capability will be sure to impress and prove useful for all those aspiring app developers. Apple also today introduced to the world the iPhoto app, along with major updates to iMovie and GarageBand, completing its suite of iLife apps for iOS. Like always, the latest iPad is available in black or white. It comes in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities. It will be available on March 16th.

By my estimates the evolution of the man cave throughout the ages and up to this point has gone a little something like this:

1. Cave

2. Teepee

3. Tent

4. Shed

5. Media/TV/Computer room

What is a man cave?

Wikipedia aptly categorises a man cave as a “… mantuary or manspace, male sanctuary, such as a specially equipped garage, spare bedroom, media room, den, or basement. It is not a cave but rather a metaphor describing a room inside the house.”  The man cave arose as a space specifically adapted for male hobbies and sensibilities. The man cave can be imagined as a married man’s fortress of solitude where you can play as many video games as you like, watch action movies to your heart’s content and be as loud as you please. Alongside the man cave is the woman cave which women choose to escape to. Regardless of which gender the cave is geared towards, the ultimate goal remains the same. To have a place to disappear to and relax.

The modern man cave wish list

Depending on your interests, budget and space available the style and design of your modern man cave may vary significantly. Music lovers may have microphone stands and amplifiers in theirs, with perhaps a guitar or set of bongos in the corner. If space is available many might choose a sporting or social related furnishing such a ping pong table or billiard table. Some are happy with a couch by the window to read on and listen to music, whilst others spend thousands of dollars on their mantuary. For some extreme examples of different manspaces visit oddee.com or look at the pics below of the Star Wars man cave. Obviously due to modern living conditions, lack of space, budget and good taste, most do not take their caves up to this level.

For many who do not have the space for a private getaway room, a simple solution is to get a portable tablet computer such as an iPad, Kindle Fire or Galaxy Tab. These devices coupled with a set of headphones can isolate you from the world anywhere in the house quite easily for a couple of hours whilst you read, play games and browse the internet.

If you can manage to find an unused space in your home, whether it be in the garage, shed, storage room or under the stairs there are a few aspirations for the modern day tech savvy man cave.

These are:

1. An HD television (the bigger the better)

2. A dedicated gaming console such as a Playstation or Xbox

3. Wireless internet (the higher the bandwidth the better)

4. Blu Ray player

5. Surround sound system (louder the better)

6. Comfortable Couch or chair (the larger the recline the better)

7. Finally a Bar fridge (fully stocked of course)

]]> http://www.conducthq.com/blog/the-modern-man-cave/feed 0 http://www.conducthq.com/blog/self-healing-iphone-case http://www.conducthq.com/blog/self-healing-iphone-case#comments Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:00:50 +0000 fred http://www.conducthq.com/?p=5443 Automotive giant Nissan has crossed into the communications accessory market unveiling the worlds first self healing iPhone case. The technology, already available on the Nissan 370Z and X-Trail car models was first developed in 2005 allowing fine scratches to quickly heal themselves.

The Nissan Scratch Shield iPhone case is being trialled in Europe in collaboration with Japanese communications leader NTT DoCoMo.

The iPhone case itself uses robust and high impact strength ABS plastic. The ‘magic’ coating of self healing paint dubbed ‘Polyrotaxane’ has a chemical makeup that is able to react to a changes in its structure and revert back to its original shape. The healing process takes between an hour and a week depending on the severity of the damage. The case is reported to have a gel-like feeling when held in the hand, which is easier to grip than conventional cases.

The first batch of Scratch Shield iPhone cases has been released to selected journalists and customers across Europe. With a warm market reception we can expect to see Nissan put the Scratch Shield iPhone cases on general sale later this year.

Cellulon a Korean company specialising in portable input systems has attracted a lot of attention from the online community after showcasing their newest gadget the Cellulon ‘Prodigy’ at the latest CES conference in Las Vegas.

Cellulon previously released the Magic Cube as an added attachement to Smart Phones, computers or tablets which projected a laser image of a keyboard onto almost any work surface. Users can use the same work surface for both data entry and mouse functionality.

The Prodigy

The ‘Prodigy’ extends on the Magic Cube idea even further by incorporating it into an iPhone case which also doubles as a stand.

The success and functionality of the Prodigy is met with varying opinions. Cellulon affirms that with correct keyboard technique speeds of 50 words per minute can be achieved .On the other end of the spectrum Gizmodo argues that the unit is still quite inaccurate and slow to pick up fast finger movements, and obviously does not have the same tactile feedback as a conventional keyboard.

The Prodigy may still need further improvements, but I am sure that it would be preferable to using the iPhone interface for long blocks of text when there is no computer or laptop in sight. Hopefully with further tweaks and adjustments the Prodigy will become even more user friendly. Maybe in the future with further newer models, iPhone developers can incorporate the Prodigy idea into future models.

The Prodigy was seen in both black and white models and was reported to cost approximately $221 AUS whilst the Magic Cube retails for $162 AUS.

Fortunately for us, a similar amount of pool and beach related incidents must have been occurring in sunny California giving birth to the company Liquipel.

Liquipel specialises in waterproof coatings for electrical devices. Their technology was recently showcased at the CES convention in Las Vegas resulting in an overwhelming influx of orders to the Liquipel website, forcing the company to halt orders to meet demands. Normally priced at US$60 per treatment the company is offering a %15 discount code on their website for those who have to wait to place their order.

The coating can be applied to any electrical device, making it a solid investment for all the smart phone and tablet owners the world over.

What makes Liquipel so awesome is that unlike bulky waterproof casings, their treatment is not visible to the naked eye, is virtually undetectable and does not hinder your device in any way. 1000 times thinner than a human hair the coating is non conductive, meaning you can still charge your device, use headphones and do everything with it that you could before. The coating will not effect your speakers either or damage the microphone. In fact in most cases it will prolong the life of these functionalities.

Although it is not recommended that you take your iPhone surfing with you after the Liquipel coating, you can stand next to the pool with slightly more confidence than before, reassured by the fact that although you may end up soaking wet at least you know your phone will be fine. Hopefully in the future with further iPhone and Android development we will see Liquipel as a common feature on these store bought items.

How does Liquipel work?

MySpace was eventually overtaken by Facebook as the most popular social networking site in 2008. Since online social networking and online social media’s early beginnings there have been a number of off shoots that have their own unique niche markets. The most popular of these has been compiled into a list by socialmedianews.com.au.

Amongst the most popular but perhaps unknown to some are sites such as: Google Plus, LinkedIn, Flickr, Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, WordPress, Blogspot and Tumblr.

Google Plus is a social networking site, LinkedIn is a business related social networking site, Flickr is a photo sharing application, Reddit and Digg are social news websites where users can view and  upload content,  StumbleUpon is a discovery engine that finds and recommends web content to its users based on the users interests, Delicious allows you to bookmark your favourite webpages and content into a ’stack’ which can be shared and viewed by your social network.

Finally, WordPress, Blogspot and Tumblr are all blog hosting platforms.

The list below is sourced form socialmedianews.com.au and indicates Australia’s most popular social media and networking sites from December 2011.

1.   Facebook – 10,721,020 users 13,000,000 UAV

2.   YouTube – 11,000,000

3.   Blogspot – 3,500,000

4.   LinkedIn – 2,000,000

5.   Twitter – 1,800,000

6.   WordPress – 1,600,000

7.   Flickr – 1,000,000

8.   Tumblr – 1,000,000

9.   Google Plus – 570,000

10. MySpace – 560,000

11. Reddit – 160,000

12. StumbleUpon – 150,000

13. Digg – 83,000

14. Delicious – 48,000

Socialmedianews’ graph below makes a comparison of Australian traffic between these popular websites throughout the year of 2011.  It is easy to see that Facebook  remains popular with a steady increase. Youtube enjoyed a huge rise in numbers during the month of March and continues to rise in popularity. Australian Twitter and LinkedIn users have grown nearly two fold over the year.

Reddit, Flickr and Tumblr also increased their user base significantly whilst MySpace and Digg dropped in numbers. Facebook is predicting to reach one billion members in August 2012, for a breakdown of memberships and Facebook activity visit http://checkfacebook.com.

As Social Media becomes ever more prevalent, a number of new marketing  strategies become open for businesses to expand into. According to the above data it would be appear feasible for businesses to open up and invest some time in creating a business profile on some or all of the social networking sites.

A recent survey of 500 US businesses by Webmarketing123 indicated that  47% of participating companies generated leads from Facebook, 34.8% from LinkedIn, and 33.8% from Twitter. Social media  however, is not the be all and end all of creating Lead Generation for businesses. According to the same study only 21.4% of Lead Generation was from social media marketing. Search Engine Optimisation ranked higher with (SEO) generated 49.2% of Lead Generation (See Graph 2)

A few good rules of thumb for companies that haven’t signed up to any of the social networking sites are to:

1. Share your content

2. Listen to your audience and tailor your webpage accordingly.

3. Post good content only. Good content will bring regular visitors and your content is more likely to be shared and interacted with.

4. Build relationships with other people, companies and professionals.

Learn more about Search Engine Optimisation click Here.

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Panda is the latest search algorithm rolled out by Google to ensure valid and relevant webpages are generated by its users when they enter a search term. Google Panda is designed to reduce spam, fight content farming sites, improve scraper detection and filter low quality content. In fact Panda was originally labelled “Farmer” because one of its main objectives was to  tackle content farming sites, the name changed to “Panda” in honour of a key developer of the algorithm.

How can you ensure that your website is not penalised by Google Panda and climbs higher up in the search results? The problem is two fold and requires a basic understanding of what Google Panda has been designed to do, and an understanding of basic search engine optimisation (SEO).

The basic rules of thumb for SEO

Good Content

First and foremost is writing good content for your webpage. Good content means relevant, well written, grammatically and factually correct information that connects with your target audience. Why is this important? Good content will be ReTweeted and linked to by other websites. This is fantastic news for your search engine ranking, especially if those links and ReTweets are from sites with a high ranking and have a large audience.

Another aspect of good content is good spelling. Some extra thought may need to go into spelling depending on your target audience. If you are targeting US audiences key words such as ‘optimisation’ need to be spelt ‘optimization’ and vice-versa for Australian and UK audiences.

Fresh content

By regularly adding fresh content you are encouraging readers to revisit your site and create fresh links and hopefully retweet your most recent articles. Search engine robots (spiders) will also check your site more often meaning that any new content you add will be indexed faster.

Headings and descriptive page titles

Employing descriptive and relevant title pages not only makes the navigation of your site easier for visitors, it also makes it easier for search engines to determine what each page is about. In addition the title page is used to link to your site in search result listings. It is also important to use the h1-h6 elements for headings within your content. This not only breaks up large chunks of text and gives your article structure but it also makes it simpler for spiders to construe and categorise the main points of your article.

Lean and clean markup

High quality, clean markup will aid in SEO as will a high content to markup ratio. Search engine robots can sometimes find it difficult to read through complicated and unclear markup thus reducing your chance of a higher search rating.

Simpler URLs

Simplifying URLs makes it easier for search engine robots and users to find and access your site, this in turn naturally optimises your webpage to move up the list of  search results.

Be patient and don’t try and cheat the system

If you have been doing all of the above correctly you should see your webpage moving up in the search results page. Keep in mind that employing all of the above will not automatically sky rocket your webpage to the top of the list overnight. It takes time for people and search engine robots to find and engage with your website.

Resist the temptation of link farming, keyword spamming and other methods to try and cheat search results. Much like card counting in a casino it may work initially, bringing in large numbers. Eventually your subterfuge will be exposed, you may not have both knee caps broken like in some mob casinos but your site will be removed from the search results listings.

SEO with the Panda

All of the above basics of SEO still remain important with the new Panda algorithm but even more importance has been placed on good content.

Keeping in mind that Panda has been designed to reduce the amount of low quality sites from Google searches, chiefly it is important that your webpage has good content. Panda is achieving this by measuring ReTweets and the amount of social sharing of your content. The bounce rate of your site has been given greater importance therefore encouraging websites to use engaging and quality content. Finally, the amount of adds in your webpage, especially in relation to content affects SEO.

Finding a voice or a platform to be heard used to be a lot simpler on the internet. Although the potential audience has grown significantly over the years, finding a platform to be heard is becoming more competitive. Following the above guidelines is a great place to start for most. If you are not achieving the desired SEO success you were intending consider hiring an SEO consult to help. No doubt that Google Panda’s new changes are necessary and will make relevant websites more accessible to all.  As I am sure is Google Panda’s intention, happy hunting!

Who is participating in the blackout?

Wikipedia has joined the the ranks of Reddit, Boing Boing, WordPress.org, Mozilla and several other high profile sites by shutting down their website for a 24 hour period starting at 12am (4pm in Australia) on January the 18th in protest to the proposed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) Act before the United States Senate.

Those that log onto Wikipedia during this time will be presented with the banner above. The decision for Wikipedia to move to a whole site blackout was reached after a discussion between 1800 Wikipedians voted in favour of the action.

What is SOPA?

SOPA is one of two bills before the US Senate aimed at curbing illegal copying and sharing of copyrighted content via the internet. The bills primary objective is to shut down what the US senate calls ‘rogue sites’ that upload copyrighted material onto the internet.

The majority of SOPA supporters are from the entertainment industry including Electorinic Arts, Sony, Walt Disney Company and Viacom.

Those opposed to the bill argue that it could be used to shut down several legitimate websites on home soil and place responsibility for sites such as Facebook to remove copyrighted content uploaded by their users. Reddit.com expresses “The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables is in jeopardy. Congress is considering legislation that will dramatically change your Internet experience and put an end to reddit and many other sites you use everyday.”

Who else is protesting?

Other major websites that have spoken out against the bills and will be protesting in one form or another include AOL, eBay, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter and Google. For the full list of participating sites visit sopastrike.com.

Australia will not doubt be watching closely what happens in the US Senate as our government is pressured by the entertainment to put in similar measures. While SOPA is not likely to pass the United States Senate it is alarming that it ever reached there in the first place. Let’s hope that if everyone screams loud enough, people will listen.