Archive for July, 2009

Friday Five – Free Edition

// July 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // web thoughts

I’m currently reading Chris Anderson’s new book Free (Buy on Amazon or read online for free @ Scribd) and this has inspired today’s blog post. I’ve highlighted five sites/blogs that offer you something (pretty useful) for nothing!

  1. Creative Commons Imagery via Google Search – This has only just gone live, but Google image search now allows you to search for images that you can use on your site, with your blog posts, etc for free (just don’t forget the credit).
  2. User Testing @ fivesecondtest.com – For free? Well it’s not a massively comprehensive solution, but if you want to check if a design is conveying the key brand messages, this online service might be perfect. Simply upload a concept design and people then have 5 seconds to look at the design and feedback to you what stood out.
  3. Wireframe Tool – The Pencil Project is a great browser-based sketching an GUI creation tool that works inside of Firefox. One simple download and away you go…
  4. Twitter’s taken over the online world, which is probably a good thing. Grab this free Twitter Icon Set made available by the ever-excellent Smashing Magazine.
  5. WordPress templates are easy to find, but quality ones that work with the latest versions 2.7+ are not so easy.  Here are 15 high quality, but still free templates that Noupe have pulled together.

Would love to hear any great resources any of you have found for free recently in the comments?

Friday Five – Michael Jackson Edition 03/07/2009

// July 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // web thoughts

The sad passing of music legend Michael Jackson saw some very interesting online impacts from traffic surges on social media sites, through to chart topping sales of digital downloads. As the dust begins to settle a number of sites have looked at the impact it had online:

  • Social media gurus FreshNetworks look at the rise of Flash Mobs to celebrate the life and music of MJ. Some great YouTube clips on there.

  • Times Online highlights the power of Twitter for real-time news (Every article like this must make Google cringe).

  • Twitter and Facebook had massive usage increases as the news spread, the Tech Blog at the LA Times looks at the numbers.

  • The LA Times looks back at how gossip website TMZ stole the limelight from TV news channels all over the world.

  • TechCrunch reports that the web as a whole struggled to deliver information as everyone rushed online to get the news.