April 2014 – Digital Tsunami

Type and image considerations in responsive design

Posted on 24 April, 201421 April, 2023 by Andrew Morse

Today, typefaces are no longer the sole province of print media, but are read on a plethora of screen-based platforms; desktop and laptop computers, phablets, tablets, smartphones; as well as a diversity of specific e-Readers (including Cybook, Icarus, PocketBook, Pyrus, Nook, Kindle and Kobo)*

People view Internet sites on handheld devices and read e-books on computers as well as mobiles. This variety of ‘delivery mechanisms’ adds a dimension of complexity to the job of the designer.

Ilene Strizver, typographic consultant, designer, writer and founder of The Type Studio, addresses this in the Fonts.com blog.

“Legibility and readability of the content are key to engaging and holding the reader’s attention.

So, which category of typeface is the better choice: serif or sans serif?

While sans serif designs have in the past been the “type style of choice” for live text on the Web .. the high resolution of much of today’s digital media, coupled with advanced font technology, has increased the clarity and legibility of fonts used for screen-based media.”

PayPal Here! secure card reader and app

Posted on 23 April, 201421 April, 2023 by Andrew Morse

Since it was introduced in March 2012, the lightweight triangular PayPal Here^TM cardreader device has been a simple way to accept mobile credit and debit cards and PayPal via an iPhone.

PayPal Here is a payment system which uses an app and a portable Bluetooth chip and PIN card reader to easily accept debit or credit card payments.

Read about the original device

PayPal Australia has announced the next generation of Here, which offers increased security and mobility, to give businesses greater flexibility when processing payments.

The secure, chip and PIN credit card reader has been specifically designed for Australia. Chip and PIN technology will soon be mandatory for all ATMs, cards and payment terminals, as signatures for credit card transactions will no longer be accepted.

The card reader turns a smartphone into a complete payment solution. The purchase price is entered into the PayPal Here app, the customer inserts a card and enters their PIN into the card reader, which connects to the app via Bluetooth. The app notifies the vendor that the payment has been processed .. and the transaction is complete!

This convenient e.commerce solution is an innovative technology solution aimed at both small enterprise operators and customers who (according to Reserve Bank of Australia data) are increasingly using cards over cash for low-value transactions.

Security benefits both vendors and customers, as the transaction can be conducted on any location (with an Internet connection), and the card does not need to leave the customer’s sight, preventing card ‘skimming’, where card data is read surreptitiously and later cloned.

The card reader will be available for RRP $139 and each credit card payment will incur a fee of 1.95 per cent. Invoicing will cost 30 cents plus 2.4 per cent, and payments using credit cards keyed into the app, rather than using the card reader, will cost 30 cents plus 2.9 per cent. The Here device will be available later in 2014 and will require no monthly fees or long term commitments.

A waitlist is online Here!

Read other articles about mobile solutions

Sources:

PayPal Here!
RetailBiz

Pinterest second only to Facebook in web referral traffic

Posted on 22 April, 201421 April, 2023 by Andrew Morse

The image sharing site Pinterest, has become second only to Facebook in terms of importance for referral links. In the first quarter of 2014, Pinterest drove 48.36% more traffic than it did at the end of 2013!

This fact was revealed in the “1st Quarter 2014 edition of the Shareaholic Social Media Traffic Report”, published on April 21, 2014.

Shareaholic, (maker of “share” buttons) collated data from over 300,000 blogs, publisher and e.commerce sites, which receive over 400 million unique visitors each month.

Over the four month period to March 2014, Pinterest’s share of traffic grew to 7.1%, which is greater than the total figures for each of the six remaining social networks (Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn).

A Business Insider chart demonstrates the massive gaps between referral link leader Facebook (21.25%), Pinterest (7.1%) and the rest; Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn (all around 1% or less).

In this chart, the month columns show the percentage of overall traffic that sites received from each network, and the change lists how much each social network’s share of visits gained or declined.

Pinterest has grown dramatically since its launch in March 2010, and in October 2013 was valued at US $3.8 billion. Worldwide, over 70 million curators now satisfy an innate human desire to collect, by pinning images, text and videos to topic-specific ‘boards’, for no cost but their time.

The ability to easily search, source and pin items of interest, has assumed the scale of an addiction, as some self-referential images attest. In one, a father says to his children: “I am about to introduce you to Pinterest. But first, take a moment to say goodbye to your family and friends”!

Brands looking to promote a product, are recognising the value of building boards by and for enthusiastic Pinners, who are focused on their particular product; whether it is avocado dip, timber floorboards or diamond engagement rings. Currently, about half a million brands have Pinterest accounts.

Women reportedly comprise a substantial proportion of Pinners (80%), and in the US, are likely to have on average, 67 followers each. This constitutes a massive digital ‘village square’ where personal referrals are exchanged.

Referral links are only a portion of website traffic, (comprised of direct traffic, social referrals, organic search, paid search, and more). However, they are often valued highly, as they are the product of individual advocates using social media to generate positive messages to global networks.

Many brands are attempting to drive traffic on the web, by posting content to multiple social sharing sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, without necessarily being aware of the comparative impact or benefit.

Piqora, visual, interest-based network marketing & analytics specialist, states that on average, the value of a pin is USD 0.78 in sales.

Brands wanting to engage with their markets need a social media strategy.

Digital Tsunami can help you plan yours.

Sources:
Shareaholic
Business Insider
Piqora
Digital Marketing Ramblings

The price of online security? Eternal vigilance!

Posted on 11 April, 201421 April, 2023 by Andrew Morse

On Monday 7 April 2014, a widespread issue in a central component of Internet security was disclosed.

Registered in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures system as CVE-2014-0160, the vulnerable code, called ‘Heartbleed’, had been adopted for widespread use upon the release of OpenSSL version 1.0.1 on March 14, 2012.

The vulnerability, could allow attackers to gain access to privileged information on any site running a vulnerable version of that software. The vulnerable versions were OpenSSL 1.0.2-beta and OpenSSL 1.0.1 – OpenSSL 1.0.1f.

Conduct an online test of your server/s

On 10 April 2014, The Huffington Post reported that “Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks, two of the biggest creators of Internet equipment, announced that their products had been affected by the Heartbleed bug. Routers, firewalls and switches … have all likely been affected by the bug, leaving your personal information at risk of being stolen by hackers.”

Another Huffington Post article explained: “Every time you log into a website, your login credentials are sent to that website’s server. But in most cases those credentials aren’t simply sent to the server in plain text — they’re encrypted using a protocol called Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL. As with most protocols, different software makers have created different implementations of SSL. One of the most popular is an open-source implementation called OpenSSL, used by an estimated two thirds of currently active websites.”

“Heartbleed is a bug in OpenSSL. Hackers can exploit Heartbleed to get raw text from emails, instant messages, passwords, even business documents — anything a user sends to a vulnerable site’s server.”

The article continued in an ominous tone: “And the scariest part? The Heartbleed security flaw existed for nearly two years before it was discovered,” by ‘white-hat’ researchers.

Respected authorities deemed Heartbleed ‘catastrophic’. Forbes cybersecurity columnist Joseph Steinberg described the bug as potentially “the worst vulnerability found (at least in terms of its potential impact) since commercial traffic began to flow on the Internet”.

A fixed version of OpenSSL was released on April 7, 2014, (at the same time as Heartbleed was publicly disclosed). By that time, around half a million (approximately 17%) of the Internet’s secure web servers certified by trusted authorities, were believed to be vulnerable to the attack, allowing for the potential theft of the servers’ private keys and users’ session cookies and passwords.

After Digital Tsunami became aware of the issue, we checked that our private clouds were running non-vulnerable or patched versions of the Open SSL software. As intercepted security logins could potentially enable hackers access to databases, it is advisable to update passwords on any potentially vulnerable site. By changing a password on a site which may have been vulnerable between 2011 and this month, when servers began using the updated patched version of the OpenSSL software, removes the potential risk.

We strongly recommend regularly changing passwords as a standard precautionary measure. Although this current vulnerability was massive, there is limited information on particular sites which may have been targeted, but all users need to be constantly vigilant in the face of dedicated ‘black hat’ hackers and unknown risks.

Read about the most contagious malware released at the turn of the century.

Even though an outbreak on the scale of The Love Bug or the Melissa virus has not recurred, the potential has not diminished. In many ways it has increased, as malware is far more covert, polymorphic (an encrypted combination of trojan, mutating virus and bot), which is able to constantly modify itself to avoid detection or eradication.

In this case, the risk was not malware, but a vulnerability present in the very core of webserver security technology. Many respected sites using Open SSL were potentially vulnerable.

Now that all will have upgraded to the latest version of Open SSL, it is a extremely sensible security precaution to change passwords on any sites that you use as a corporation or individual, including:

All users should implement the highest level of security, including no less than: individual high-security passwords in a combination of at least 8 (preferably 12 or more) characters, containing at least one lower case character, one capital, one numeral and where accepted, special characters (such as ^+>&*#/%). These should not be formatted to resemble or contain a word and should not be used across all sites. It is exceptionally important that passwords for banking sites not be shared.

If your bank is not yet using two-factor authentication, comprised of a username and password PLUS a ‘token’ (random code generator device) or code sent to your to cellphone, it is time to consider changing banks!

Company and domestic networks, WiFi hubs, and webservers should all be protected with a firewall, anti-spam and anti-virus software, and regular scans to detect unwanted cookies or malicious threats. Using a reputable software, these threats should be quarantined and eliminated.

At least one backup generic email address (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.) should be created, to enable communications in case your domain name becomes infected and email on that domain is blocked or unusable. This email can also be used to retrieve passwords for an email account on your corporate domain.

Digital Tsunami constantly monitors and audits the security of our clients and our private clouds. Only a few days prior to the global awareness of the Heartbleed Open SSL vulnerability, we had conducted yet another security audit, to ensure that we were taking every possible measure to protect our clients’ assets.

Read about some of the security measures Digital Tsunami applies to web hosting and specifically to WordPress site hosting. (For security reasons, some details are deliberately vague and brands / softwares are unspecified).

Talk to Digital Tsunami about security for your web hosting.

References:

http://heartbleed.com
https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/ online Heartbleed tester
http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/07/massive-security-bug-in-openssl-could-effect-a-huge-chunk-of-the-internet/
http://mashable.com/2014/04/09/heartbleed-bug-websites-affected/
http://tif.mcafee.com/heartbleedtest
http://blogs.mcafee.com/consumer/what-is-heartbleed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/heartbleed-66-percent_n_5112793.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/11/heartbleed-routers_n_5132306.html
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/coles-mastercard-myer-visa-card-and-other-ge-money-partners-stung-by-heartbleed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-factor_authentication

Recommended security vendors:

Symantec.com
McAfee.com
TrendMicro.com

Mobile video consumption keeps growing

Posted on 9 April, 201421 April, 2023 by Andrew Morse

Over the 3 years to Q4 2014, time spent watching video on handheld devices has increased by 719%.

The Global Video Index Q4 2013, just released by Ooyala, has revealed record growth of video viewing on smartphones and tablets. As predicted in Q1, growth over the year doubled. In Q4, the time consumers spent watching video on mobile devices exceeded one fourth of all online viewing.

The year-over-year growth represents an opportunity for brands to build and monetize cross-device experiences, and to reach broader audiences as mobile and tablet viewers multiply. It also indicates the power and increasing ubiquity of video as a selling and informational tool.

By 2016, Ooyala predicts that handheld devices will account for half of all online video viewing.

Digital Tsunami proclaimed 2013 the Year of Video, Mobile and Social and has re-emphasised them as critical marketing priorities in 2014.

Some recent items which reinforce this:

Ooyala helps broadcasters, cable providers and online media companies by monitoring the global video marketplace through 200M unique users in 130 countries with real-time video analytics. Clever advertisers are utilising the video medium to build brand awareness and social engagement.

Several excellent examples of creative brilliance are videos by Post-It Notes, Air New Zealand and The Sunday Times (UK).

Digital Tsunami has been producing online video since 1996. Company founder Andrew W Morse first worked in film production in 1979, and has worked with globally recognised brands including Mercedes-Benz, Merck, Citizen, Cathay Pacific and Abbott.

While at Essential Asia in 1993, Morse produced and directed television commercials in the style of a computer game, for US food brand Tootsie Roll. He states “We developed a licensed character based on the fruit gummy product, an environment with challenges and rewards which emphasised the nutritional benefits of the product, then used fast moving ‘2 and a half D’ cel animation, with integrated sound effects consistent with those of a computer game.” The spot was produced in multiple languages for terrestrial and satellite broadcast across Asia.

With the expertise to produce a global video or a six-second ‘blipvert’, Digital Tsunami enables you to maximise the exceptional ROI of online video.

To promote your brand effectively with social, mobile and video, across all languages, geographic regions and platforms, contact Digital Tsunami today.

Sources:
Ooyala Global Video Index Q4 2013
Global Web Index
Digital Tsunami on Twitter
Vine
Digital Tsunami on YouTube

1,040% increase in Internet time spent on tablets

Posted on 3 April, 201421 April, 2023 by Andrew Morse

The majority of Australians (82 per cent), now spend an average of 23.3 hours online, each week.

This is revealed in the “2013 Australian Connected Consumers Report” a comparative study of Australian connected consumers in 2003 and 2013, has been published by global information and measurement company, Nielsen.

Cross-Platform Research Director at Nielsen, Melanie Ingrey, stated: “Australians have shifted toward portable devices, affording them greater flexibility and more occasions of online access. More than a third of online Australians today own connected devices that didn’t exist for the mainstream population 10 years ago” including internet-enabled smartphones and tablets.

Business Insider reveals that in just 3 years, the increase in time Americans spent on the Internet via a smartphone has grown by 237% to now exceeds time spent via desktop and time on the Internet via a tablet has grown by a dramatic 1,040%

Related: Mobile video consumption data

In 2014, the number of smartphones in use globally is anticipated to exceed the number of PCs.

In 2015, smartphone worldwide sales are projected to reach 776 million units.

The increased sales, traffic and time on smartphones and tablets merely reflects a global trend in ever-accelerating volume of mobile computing. The increasingly frequent use of handheld devices for timeshifting, second screening, social networking, pre-purchase research, m.commerce and mobile video are all changing patterns of user behaviour.

How does this relate to business?

All enterprises, large and small, corporate and retail, need to focus marketing and operations on handheld devices:

To avoid miniaturisation of a standard website, and adapt to the size and orientation of handheld device screens, the online presence must be built with responsive design
To maximise visual impact and propel your brand forward, videos (of between 1’00” and 2’00” duration) are the most effective. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is also best served with video, as Google ranking is considerably higher for content presented in video, than the identical content in text and images only
To maximise community engagement, client advocacy and prospect opportunities and SEO, social media platforms must be created and curated. If your business does not have the in-house resources to moderate, generate and curate content, an external supplier should be engaged to train or supply this service for your brand

Digital Tsunami can assist in all these. Our executives each have over 3 decades in video production, ALL our online solutions are now built in responsive design, and for many years, we’ve been successfully integrating our client brands in social media.

We listen carefully to your profile, requirements and objectives, propose appropriate solutions which will achieve your goals, and implement online and offline collaterals to effectively promote your brand.

Related: Social Media for business

To maximise the impact of your brand in mobile, contact us today.

Sources:
Business Insider
Nielsen 2013 Australian Connected Consumers Report
Statista