There’s been a few interesting developments and further discussions on some of the topics we’ve been covering recently, as well as the odd bizarre web-related story in the past few days, all of which I’ve decided to compile into this bumper miscellaneous post. It might be somewhat of a scrambled mish-mash of incongruent pieces – or a perfectly digestible round-up of key opinion and news from the past few days: I’ll let you be the judge…
First up, it’s worth mentioning that the massive gaming expo that is/was Gamescom 2010 went off this weekend with excellent attendance figures, leaving the blogosphere buzzing with anticipation about some of this autumn’s forthcoming titles. By the looks of it, the last quarter of the year, as well as the first one of next year should be pretty solid for the industry – with some sure-fire releases drafted for the Christmas run-up. For some top-notch summaries of all that you missed (if you weren’t able to make it down to Cologne over the weekend) be sure to check the Guardian Tech feature on the event.
Next, I just wanted to draw your attention to a post on Techcrunch today by MC Siegler, on the way Facebook Places might change the way people approach their social graphs on the network. Some readers may remember that this was something I was discussing last week, in relation to the question of users becoming more selective about their Facebook ‘friends’ now that Places has been launched. Well, MC Siegler raises an excellent point on the same topic – and one which I hadn’t considered last week: the possibility of introducing a two-tier ‘friend’/’follower’ system to Facebook’s social graphs, so that you don’t have to cut off all ties completely with people you only know a bit (but wouldn’t like to engage with via Places). This sounds like an excellent idea to me, and I’ll be following with interest whether or not Facebook agrees (and implements such a system).
Now, after all that serious stuff, here’s a mildly entertaining SEO story (I know that phrase sounds odd – but it’s true). Basically, UK newspaper, The Daily Mail, has recently advertised for a new SEO technician for their online content. The interesting part is the fact that they didn’t put the ad in any of the places you or I would look for it – but instead in their website’s robots.txt file (which, in theory, only uber-geeks would be frequenting – exactly the skilled types that the Mail is after for the position). It’s not often that SEO generates curious little headlines as this episode has done, so if you have any interest in the subject – be sure to check it out.
Anyway that’s your little round-up for now. Before I finish, one serious warning: anyone that uses Paypal should check out the info about a recent large-scale phishing scam, which has seen users robbed of thousands of dollars. Despite initial fears that Apple’s iTunes was to blame for the breach, it seems that this is now not actually the case – either way, check your security and beware the phishers!
