The Rebirth of Language, Facebook, and Yahoo – Monday November 21st Roundup

The deluge of winter is upon us and the result is lots and lots of stuff to read, making the round up even longer than usual. So before I head back into the conflation of earth and ocean that are Vancouver streets, I want to update you all on what I’ve been reading this rainy Monday.

This week we have the death of Yahoo site explorer, new info on Facebook Timeline, and a fascinating article on how the internet is changing language.

Attract

• We start the week with somewhat sad news: today is the last day for Yahoo Site Explorer.  Oh link searches, I’ll miss you.
• Social Media Today writes about the new Facebook Timeline. yes, Facebook is replacing the wall with the time line, telling “your story”. It also integrates and replaces a bunch of Facebook features (like photos). Reminds me a bit of Don Draper’s Kodak Carousel speech in Mad Men, to be honest.
• Finally, GetElastic has a post on behavioral targeting and  remarketing.

Analyze

• L3 has some thoughts on new Google Analytics Functions. They’re pretty positive, and I like his comment that real-time isn’t an analysis tool, but rather a monitoring tool. An interesting distinction.
• Google has made updates to Site Speed reports in Google Analytics. Basically it has inserted the site speed code into the basic tracking code, meaning that you no longer have to modify your tracking code to make it work.
• Of course Avinash is on here. However, this time it’s on the new Google secure search and how it has affected keyword data.  This is the kind of post I wish Avinash would do more often, he has a problem, and he outlines his thought process for trying to work it out.  In this case it gives a great look into some of the more brilliant connections he makes between data points.

Optimize

• UX Movement has 6 UX tips for building web applications. I like their insistence that scrolling isn’t bad, and that we shouldn’t worry as much about the fold as about the natural flow of information down the page.
• Next up, UX Matters on design and display of simple interactions on mobile devices.
• Finally, a post that hits very close to home for me, even if it just barely fits into the optimize subheading: From lolcat to textspeak: How technology is shaping our language.  The most interesting point in this comes from David Crystal, who notes that linguistic novelties such as lolcat speak tends to die out as the novelty of it wears out (thank god), and that what the internet does is provide a huge range of new varieties of language and language use. Another note he makes is that the internet is causing spoken language traits to manifest themselves more readily in written language – a prospect scary to some.