Safer Internet Day 2012

Safer Internet Day (SID) is organised by Insafe in February of each year to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world.

Whether you are 5, 40 or 75 years old each person has something different to bring to the table that can help shape our online experiences and our understanding of online competences and safety.

Today our offline and online worlds are strongly connected, from families communicating via webcam with relatives and friends abroad to children doing their homework online.

Tech savvy youngsters can teach their elders how to use new technologies, while grandparents can draw on their life experiences to advise younger generations on how to stay safe online, as they discover the digital world together.

Did you know that..?

  • 26 per cent of children report having a public social networking profile
  • Children of all ages are lacking digital skills – confidence is often not matched by skill
  • 12 per cent of European 9-16 year olds say they have been bothered or upset by something on the internet
  • However, 56 per cent of parents whose child has received nasty or hurtful messages online are not aware of this
  • One in eight parents don’t seem to mediate their children’s online activities
  • 56 per cent of parents take positive steps such as suggesting to their children how to behave towards others online
  • 44 per cent of children think that parental mediation limits what they do online, 11 per cent say it limits their activities a lot

Helping each other stay safe online:

  • Teachers’ engagement with children’s internet use is least among 9-10 year olds
  • 36 per cent of 9-16 year olds claim that they definitely know more about the internet than their parents
  • 73 per cent of children say their peers have helped or supported their internet use
  • 44 per cent of children claim to have received some guidance on safe internet use from their friends, and 35 per cent say that they have also provided such advice to their friends
  • Yet, children say they receive most online safety advice from parents (63 per cent), then teachers (58 per cent), other relatives (47 per cent), then peers (44 per cent)
  • Parents get internet safety advice first and foremost from family and friends (48 per cent)
  • 87 per cent of children use the internet at home

Further Information

You can follow Safer Internet Day on Facebook, or download resources from www.saferinternetday.org

Information posted by Giraffe Design: Tuesday 7th February 2012

07-Feb-12 10:14

Web economy in G20 set to double by 2016

The value of the web economy in G20 countries will nearly double by 2016, and this will be driven by the increased use of mobile internet access.

The study, supported by web giant Google, assumes that in four years 3bn people will be using the internet, or nearly 50% of the world's population.

The research suggests that the UK is one of the most advanced e-commerce economies. Right now, every year about 200 million people are going online for the very first time. Whilst the rapid fall in the cost of smartphones - with cheap versions now costing about $100 - means that by 2016 about 80% of all internet users will access the web using a mobile phone.

The rise of the ‘New’ Internet

The Boston Consulting Group researchers speak of the emergence of a "new internet" where:

  • Web access will not be a luxury any more
  • The majority of web users will live in emerging markets (within four years, China is expected to be home to 800 million people using the internet; that is more than the United States, India, France, Germany and the UK taken together)
  • About 80% of all internet users will access the web from a mobile
  • The internet will go social, and allow customers and companies to engage with each other

 

According to BCG researchers say that every household already researches about $3,000 worth of goods online before buying them in traditional stores.

Who will prosper?

Google, who supported the research, is obviously one of the companies set to gain most from the rapid growth of the internet.

However, the report suggests that Google will not be the only winner. The researchers identify several "internet ecosystems" that will try to tie users in to their customised part of the internet, among them Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Baidu and Tencent in China and Yandex in Russia.

Source: BBC News website / Technology 27th Jan 2012

Information posted by Giraffe Design: Monday 30th January 2012

30-Jan-12 16:04

John Lewis Christmas trading 2011

John Lewis Online

John Lewis trading update for the five weeks to 31 December 2011. Online sales were 27.9 per cent up on last year. Online sales have now exceeded £600m for the year to date. Total sales were £596m, 9.3 per cent up compared with last year.

John Lewis Online record sales

Andy Street, Managing Director of John Lewis, said: 'The strength of our online operation was very much in evidence during this key five week period, confirming our strength as a pre-eminent multi-channel retailer. Sales at johnlewis.com broke through the £600m milestone during December and our Click and Collect operation, giving customers the flexibility of buying online and collecting from 129 John Lewis and Waitrose branches, continued operating right up to Christmas Eve in John Lewis and saw a 90 per cent increase in usage.

Source: John Lewis Partnership - Press Release 4th Jan 2012

Information posted by Giraffe Design: Wednesday 11th December 2011

12-Jan-12 15:15

WordPress 3.3 - See the new features!

Wordpress update released

The latest and greatest version of the WordPress software — 3.3, named “Sonny” in honor of the great jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt — is available for download or update inside your WordPress dashboard.

WordPress has had over 65 million downloads since version 3.0 was released, and in this third major iteration we’ve added significant polish around the new user experience, navigation, uploading, and imports.

Features include:

  • New media uploader
  • Improvements to the dashboard
  • User experience improvements
  • Improvements to content-related tools
  • Under the hood improvements

New media uploader

This version introduces a new media and file uploader with drag and drop uploading, this makes life a lot easier if you’re having to upload a lot of files.

Improvements to the dashboard

The mix of the admin bar and the admin header, have been combined into a single admin toolbar. Of course, now that there’s just the single toolbar, the option to turn the admin bar off has been removed.

More and more people are wanting to manage their WordPress-based sites from their iPad or other tablet or touch devices, and there’s now better support for these. This includes better handling of touch, as well as a few responsive enhancements to ensure everything scales nicely on the smaller screens these devices have.

User experience improvements

There are now feature pointers which provide tips around the various WordPress admin screens when there are new features added. These help highlight what’s changed in the new version and give an idea of what the new feature does.

Improvements to content-related tools

If you run a WordPress site with multiple authors, co-editing could sometimes be painful with WordPress locking a post to a particular author and leaving it locked for too long. No more! In 3.3 this has been improved and content locks are now released immediately for a smoother co-editing experience.

Under the hood improvements

Wordpress now has performance gains, plus several new and improved APIs and external libraries have been updated to more recent versions. WordPress will now clean up after itself when theme and plugin files are uploaded to be installed.

For a full list of features in Wordpress 3.3 click here

Information posted by Giraffe Design: Friday 13th December 2011

09-Jan-12 10:33

Google Chrome moves into second place in web browser usage

Google's Chrome browser has become the second most popular, overtaking Firefox and becomming a rival to Micosoft's Internet Explorer.

According to web research company StatCounter, Chrome took a 25.7 percent market share in November 2011 while Firefox fell to 25.23 percent. Just two years ago, the Google Chrome browser was barely over 4.5% and was tied with browsers like Apple’s Safari and Opera. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer surprisingly maintained browser share and hovered around 40 percent of all browsers across the globe.

The rise of Chrome is due to the resources Google has invested in the browser and has come at the expense of Firefox, which is run by the Mozilla Foundation that was created by developers who had worked on Netscape Navigator. In 1998 Netscape made the browser code an "open source" project called Mozilla, allowing anyone to help develop the software, and so Firefox emerged which has become a favourite choice of the technology community.

Net Applications is predicting that Chrome will overtake Firefox by March 2012. Google’s rapid release cycle is typically credited with the rapid adoption of the browser. Using a six-week revision cycle since the launch of the browser, Google has been able to roll out speedy updates and improve the speed at which users can browse the Web. Due to growing competition, Mozilla recently ditched yearly updates to adopt a similar speedy release cycle.

Stats taken from Times Business article on 2nd December 2011, and www.digitaltrends.com

Information posted by Giraffe Design: Tuesday 6th December 2011

06-Dec-11 09:57