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

Google denies Google+ death reports

Google+ was supposed to be a "Facebook killer". Some now say it's already dead - but the search giant says it is just getting started.

The online tool gained 10 million users within the first 16 days after its private launch, and 40 million within the first 100 days, making it the fastest-growing social network in the history of the web. Facebook and Twitter both took more than two years to hit the 10 million user milestone. But web analytics firm Chitika reported in October that excitement appeared to have waned for Google+ one month after its public launch, with traffic down 60% after spiking to 1,200% of pre-launch levels.

Google+ Logo

Meanwhile Facebook, which now boasts more than 800 million users, has unveiled features similar to those that once set Google+ apart - such as the ability to lump friends into groups in order to separate who sees which content.

Bradley Horowitz, vice-president of product at Google+, says the service aims to be more than simply a social networking website.

"Google+ is a foundational element for identity, relationship, interest across all we're doing at Google. So the concept of Google+ dying, is a misunderstanding of what we're doing, he says. We have not even begun, let alone these reports of premature demise."

Google+ users can recommend links, videos and other pieces of content to their friends by clicking "+1" on a small widget, Google's version of the Facebook "Like" button. This +1 is then used to help inform Google about how to list results from search criteria for each user.

John Abell, New York Bureau chief of Wired.com, agrees with Mr Horowitz, but adds that Google+ could conceivably grow alongside Facebook, rather than in competition with Mark Zuckerberg's empire.

More information on how to set up a Google+ account

Information posted by Giraffe Design: Monday 28th November 2011

28-Nov-11 09:31

The New Version of Google Analytics

Google Analytics logo

Google Analytics will be imminently launching a new version that provides three significant enhancements:

  • A redesigned Google Analytics platform to enable major new functionality
  • A streamlined interface to make it easier to get to the information you want
  • Improved report performance for faster reports

New Features

In addition to a redesigned interface that makes it even easier to explore your data, you’ll also notice some significant new features including:

Google Analytics Real-Time

Real-Time reporting shows you what’s happening on your site - right now! The reports are updated continuously and each pageview is reported seconds after it occurs on your site. You’ll find Real-Time reports in the ‘Home’ tab.

Google real-time reporting

Multi-Channel Funnels

See which channels your customers interacted with during the 30 days prior to converting or purchasing. Conversion path data includes interactions with many media channels, including clicks from paid and organic searches, affiliates, social networks, and display ads.

watch video demo

Mobile Reporting

More and more, visitors are using mobile devices to browse the web. Mobile reports in the new version of Google Analytics help you understand how mobile visitors are interacting with your site. You can even see which mobile devices your visitors use and optimize for those devices.

Google mobile reports

Flow Visualization

Flow Visualization is a beautifully designed and highly sophisticated tool for graphically showing how visitors navigate through your site. Google have completely re-imagined and redesigned the navigation tools available in the old version of Google Analytics.

Google Flow Visualization

For further information and step by step guide on how to navigate the new version of Google Analytics go to Google Analytics Help Center.

Information posted by Giraffe Design: Tuesday 22nd November 2011

22-Nov-11 09:41