I know that I’m a little late on the scene, but I bought Game Dev Story at the weekend and have probably put about 20 hours in to it… that is, after I got passed the error codes. This post will not focus on the awesomeness of the game, nor will it be an attempt at a strategy guide, but it will purely focus on how to fix the common Game Dev Story error code 257.
#Makeamillion: How I am going to make £1,000,000 in less than a year
12th January 2012
Feature by @AndyIanBrown
“The house always wins. Play long enough, you never change the stakes. The house takes you. Unless, when that perfect hand comes along, you bet and you bet big, then you take the house.”(Danny Ocean, Ocean’s 11)
As an amateur ‘just for pocket change’ gambler of over a decade, I have always been a keen believer of this mantra and reaped moderate rewards on the back of it. But what if I went against Danny Ocean, the majority of the gambling world and my previous 10 years of gambling strategy? Can I play long enough, never change the stakes and yet still take the house?
Google: The preference-driven search engine?
When I’m searching for something online, I check a lot of sites. Who doesn’t? It’s called searching for a reason! There will be countless times that I click a page in the SERPS only to find myself heading straight back to Google, at the expense of increasing that site’s bounce rate. However, when I bounce off the site I am presented with this little message:
Now I know this update was made just around the time of the Panda 2.0 update and this blog may be behind the times, however it’s only come to my attention since Google+: before that I had no reason to be signed in to Google all the time. Linking this with the (semi)recent news that Google is going to encrypt signed-in users’ search data (yikes!), is Google helping or hindering client usability in search?
What are your thoughts? Is Google breaking the rules to their own game? (More on this in my next blog post).
Klout’s Perceived Value, and why it’s here to stay
When you mention Klout to someone you generally get one of two reactions; the first is “Klout… what the hell is that?”, whereas the second is “Klout… don’t get me started…”. I read quite an interesting blog post by Bob LeDrew on Danny Brown’s website entitled A Klout Upside the Head, which basically slated Klout for being a waste of space that people are placing too much of an emphasis on. Whilst I agree up to a certain point I believe that even though Klout has many flaws, at the very least it has a perceived value that will keep it around for a long time.
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How to give your Facebook status a unique URL
As we all know, companies that engage on social media favour more prominently than those that do not. Social media is important. However, more important than social media itself is the way you use it; instead of sell sell sell why not try ask, response, engage? (This was summed up rather nicely in point 2 of Gemma’s blog ‘6 Reasons your Social Media Marketing isn’t working‘. Asking a question is easy, but then what about promoting it? Your new question status update will be lost in the midst of your Facebook wall: you need to separate your post from the herd! For whatever reason Facebook doesn’t make this an easy task, so here is a step-by-step guide on how to give your status updates an individual URL.
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How Twitter and Facebook should be used differently
Facebook. Twitter. Both are social media sites, right? So does that mean they should be used in the same way? One of the most common things I see when I read about social media is people saying to engage (I’ve been guilty of this as well – as viewed in my last post!).
The worst thing I see on a Facebook fan page is when Twitter feeds are just replicated straight through to Facebook. For example, it would be acceptable to have 20 tweets a day with links through to relevant news pieces for your company – in fact, your Twitter followers may expect this. Continue reading →
How small companies can engage on Twitter
As someone in the Social Media field, whether a seasoned pro or a newbie to this wonderful arena, I can guarantee you will have come across this word: Engagement. If you go to seminars, read books, blogs or articles you will hear a chorus of people screaming at you “You need to engage” or “It’s all about engagement”. Three things: Firstly, you know this – you’re not an idiot. If you’ve made it this far to this blog then you know about Web 2.0, regardless of whether you know the technicality of what it is about. Secondly, however, they are right; social media is all about engagement. The third thing is something I haven’t come across yet (although I’m certain it will be out there – and if not it is now!). The third thing is how. How do I engage on Twitter? For big companies or companies that are “cool” this isn’t a problem, but what about start up companies or small companies with little budget? In this post I want to share with you how small companies can engage on Twitter.
Twitter: The Social Search Engine?
SEOs (and people in general, really) tend to laugh at the long-tail keywords some users choose when using search engines such as Google. Not to stereotype, but these users tend to be the “older” generation. For example, if my mum wanted to find out what the smallest spider in the world is I could expect to find “what is smallest spider in world (she’s learned to drop ‘the’!)” in the search bar, whereas I would type “smallest spider”… it’s the Anapistula Caecula, by the way. Now we all sit back and laugh at how ridiculous this is. However, has anyone taken a look at Twitter recently? I mean beyond the spambots? It’s quite interesting…
Does white hat SEO even exist?
When I was first introduced to the world of SEO I was told there are three fundamental approaches: white hat, grey hat and the dark side of black hat. White hat is going about your SEO practices in the most ethical of ways, ways that even Google would be proud of. Grey hat uses techniques that may be frowned upon by some, but nothing so serious that you’re going to turn heads. Blackhat, however, is playing with fire – if you purely do this stuff for too long it isn’t going to end well. As I am ever-so-righteous I have been interested in white hat SEO, but the more I look the harder it is to find… does it even exist?
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To automate, or not to automate: That is the social media question!
Social media: the clue is in the name. It amazes me just how many automated pieces of software there are available to make social interactions automatic, and there seem to be more and more each day. As a sociable person and a social media professional I find the idea of automating social media ridiculous… but does it have some merit? Many users have opted to at least try automating their social media activity, so I wanted to explore this avenue and see where it leads.
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