Week 18 : Curated Shorts

It’s been a funny old week. We’ve managed to complete the migration to Amazon AWS servers this week and we’re pretty happy. It was a tougher task than we thought as we had to unlearn all our old UNIX server knowledge (we have a lot of legacy knowledge) and learn a whole new set of technologies with interesting names such as Elasticache, Cloudfront, Beanstalk and the fantastically named Mechanical Turk. Nuts.

The move to the cloud also sees the end of our 10 year direct relationship with Rackspace. We still look after a handful of clients using Rackspace but it’s the end of the road for us. Cost savings are looking pretty good, our hosting and server bill is around 50% less albeit at the expense of learning resource now.

It’s also the week that saw the UK fall back into recession with the famously predicted double-dip moment occurring on Wednesday. Can’t say it’s unexpected. I largely think that this is just how it’s going to be from now on, this is not a bad thing. On with the week round-up of interesting stuff on the web.

The Psychology of Why Sexy Websites Suck at Sales. Did you know we trust attractive people more than unattractive ones? Illogical, but true.

We like people who are nice to look at—and we want to say yes to people we like. Not only that, but we actually think beautiful people are smarter, kinder, and more trustworthy.

Personally speaking, I was once suckered into paid membership with an organization I’m ideologically opposed to because the young woman selling subscriptions was, well….let’s just say I bought it. True story. On the other side of the coin, I was pretty suspicious of famed internet marketer Bob Bly when I first saw his photo. [read more]

Minnesota state campsites can be booked online soon — but, please, not all at once. Welcome to the new new-and-improved Minnesota state parks reservation system.

After an embarrassing, system-crashing launch March 1, the Department of Natural Resources will try again starting 10 a.m. Thursday, March 22. Emphasis on “starting.”

State officials and the company that runs the system have created a phased rollout over eight days, and they’re asking the pent-up masses waiting to book travel plans to do their “homework” to avoid spending too much time making reservations. [read more]

Google Is Forcing You To Change Your Thinking. If you run a Search Engine Optimization business it is time to close it down and do something else (not before time I must add). Google is about to change the game dramatically. But if you don’t run a SEO firm, you still have to change. The shift in what Google is doing is of seismic proportions and will require anyone doing business online to radically re-think what they are doing.

For several years Google – and other search engines – have been tinkering away on the whole notion of “semantic search”. This is the “holy grail” of search. [read more]

What is a Travel Reservation System? Global travel is a complex business. At its backbone, sophisticated systems interface to make it possible for millions of travellers around the globe to walk into their travel agent’s office, or go online and book travel to exotic destinations. Reservation systems make the magic happen.
So what is a reservation system? In this post we hope to demystify the different types of travel software packages [read more]

A Golden Era For The Advertising Industry? Oftentimes when people ask me what I do for a living and I tell them I work in advertising, they ask, “Don’t you wish you got to be an ad man in the golden era, like on Mad Men?” I usually smile and respond with “What makes you think the golden era was 40 years ago? We are living in the golden era right now–the most exciting and unpredictable time in marketing history.” We are witnessing a complete social transformation. The entire industry has been flipped on its head.
So what’s changed? [read more]

Week Shorts is a curated compendium of interesting news articles compiled at Connected and published for those interested in the new media world. All the articles are taken from third party sources and links are provided back to see the full article after minor editing and formatting changes. Connected acknowledges the owners of the work and respective copyrights. The article is provided, as-is with no warranty as to its accuracy. Connected cannot control and therefore will not be held liable for the content of third-party web-sites.