In that time we’ve not lost a recording. We’ve not had to reboot our Sky+HD box. We’ve not had to power-cycle to overcome memory leaks and buffering problems rendering our TV recorder unusable. In fact, the software has been, frankly, a delight to use (and no, we’re not getting paid to say that!) and we don’t fancy returning to the previous version any time soon.

That said there are inconsistencies and issues – the guide can seem ‘empty’ as you scroll through it though generally arrowing left or right through the day causes the screen to redraw but, for us at least, this is fairly inconsequential.

As triallists are reporting bugs on a closed forum it would be a little disingenuous to document issues and Sky’s responses here – though threads on the public Digital Spy site provide a decent flavour. Reports of crack teams of engineers being dispatched to the wilds of North-East England to investigate replicable problems are not uncommon… how’s that for service?

In recent days Sky have updated the trail software and provided a list of which issues it addresses and which will feature in later versions. There’s also evidence that Sky are taking onboard more general niggles (notably the software now tags recordings date, month, year rather than the less-than-useful day/date in the previous guide.

In fact, as a case study in how to run a successful beta trail, Sky don’t seem to be putting a foot wrong. It makes us wonder just how thoroughly Sky tested the software internally so as to manage their reputation externally…

Sky+HD’s new TV guide now boasts an 8-channel HD view and makes use of a richer colour palette.

Anytime+ brings a wealth of downloadable content to
subscribers who connect their box to broadband.

The new Sky+HD EPG makes better use of genres and content types to organise content.

It’s a brave company who exposes their pre-release software to the general public so kudos to BSkyB – they’ve long tested new set-top box software with willing employees and, in recent years, through their internet support forums have opened up the ‘testing’ (albeit a little further down the line) to a much larger ‘opt-in’ group.

Following a post on Sky’s community forums a week ago, today willing participants received an over-the-air download of the latest beta software – Picasso – and are urged to feedback their comments via a closed forum.

The update itself, though largely cosmetic, is mooted to pave the way for further service improvements later in the year.

Benefits include a speed boost when browsing TV guide data and “quick links” to different types of content. There’s also greater use made of programme genres to aid navigation and clearer flagging of content included in your subscription as opposed to rentals. Sky have provided testers with a list of known issues and state their aim is to garner “honest, constructive feedback”.

Would your organisation and your development team be quite so brave? Are you ready to let the public peek behind the curtain? Is their feedback worth the potential pain? It’s certainly worth thinking about when you next embark on a big project…

Addendum – It’s now been some weeks since we first got our hands on the trial software and Sky have recently updated the software yet again – read our updated post on the 2012 Sky EPG for more details.

Its nine months since Google+ launched as a private beta and – until now – Google have remained tight-lipped about how many active users can be found on the service.

CEO Larry Page let slip in a letter to investors last month that the network boasted over 100 million users:

In the last few days Google have upped that figure to 170 million – a remarkable achievement for a social network barely a year-old and still in beta. Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Google said:

The word on end users has been accompanied by a significant overhaul of the Facebook-killer/companion (depending on your point of view). Unlike Facebook’s roll-out of Timeline, the new Google+ layout isn’t too far removed from what went before – but it is much cleaner and simpler. The video takes you through the changes…

Where Google+ differs from Facebook – in Circles and Hangouts – is being pushed harder than ever. It’s now easy to see which of your friends are currently online and initiate a group video chat session or see what specific groups of people are up to through Circles. Hangouts mean you can find people to join or watch much more easily. There’s even an ‘Explore’ button to take you through the changes, find people to follow or see what’s setting the wider web ablaze.

The new-look and a growing audience may well mean it’s finally time to take another look at that page you created a few months ago and see how you can develop it to its full potential…

While expert knowledge and practical experience count for a lot – there’s loads of powerful tools available that, when used appropriately, can help propel your site to the top of Google’s search engine results page.

Here’s some of our favourites…

Google Analytics – One of the best available web analytics packages – yours, for free.

Google Webmaster Tools – See your web health and search engine optimisation the way Google see it. Google’s tools offer ranking-related data and insights into how your website appears to users.

Google Keyword Research Tool – Part of Google’s AdWords package, this keyword tool helps you find potential keywords to optimise for alongside a host of metrics including search volume estimates.

howgoodisyourseo.com – A free tool built on the Google Analytics API. Enter basic domain details and you’ll receive a simple and free report on the effectiveness of your search engine optimisation endeavours.

Microsoft SEO Toolkit – While Microsoft’s toolkit is a little fiddly to install, it’s worth the effort.

Hubspot’s Marketing Grader – Fairly new to the scene, this tool analyses a range of aspects of your website including SEO, social media and likely impact on sales.

Ubersuggest - Generate long-tail keyword suggestions with Ubersuggest which mines data from Google Suggest.

The new iPad, literally called the ‘new iPad’ lands on 16  March 2012 will have retina screens, a better camera, but most importantly, it will support 4G through the LTE (Long Term Evolution) standard. This will be the the first major consumer device designed around 4G LTE, the next generation mobile broadband system which offers superfast downloads – so long as you don’t live in Britain. You will be able to use it in much of the USA, Taiwan, Sweden, Norway, Japan, South Korea, in other words places you’d expect to be ahead of the curve when it comes to technology and mobiles. But you can also use it in a lot of places you wouldn’t expect such as parts of Kazakhstan, Ghana, Panama and Peru. Expect the UK to come belatedly to the 4G party once the analogue TV signals get auctioned off to the telecos.

The new iPad prices start at £399 and run to £659 with the iPad 2 (the not new iPad) remaining on sale at a slight discount. You can compare the models on Apple’s site.

Timeline will be familiar to those with a personal Facebook profile – your page is divided into two columns with posts attached, justified left or right, to a central timeline.

Logging into your brand page should give you the opportunity to preview the new look for your page now, make any amends, and then publish to live once you’re happy. Come 30 March your page will adopt the new style, regardless so you’ll need to have some recent activity on display once the change is made.

The cover photo

The Timeline view contains a wide photo at the top of the page – an excellent opportunity to enhance the visual impact of your page – providing you choose carefully!

Facebook dictates that your cover photo shouldn’t refer to Facebook features and shouldn’t contain any calls to action (so you can’t make your own Like button, for example, or ask people to like your page) . Spoil sports!

About us

The ‘about’ section can now be found at the top of your page (it used to appear down the left-hand side). Four app tiles appear above the fold, with the first defaulting to Photos. You can add Likes, Videos, Map, Events and Custom Apps to the tiles at the click of a button.

Think carefully about which apps are likely to be most important (not only now, but in line with campaign objectives which may ebb and flow) and tweak accordingly.

No landing pages

Savvy marketeers who had made use of a “landing page” will be disappointed by Timeline – this isn’t supported going forward. Instead users get to see the top Timeline stories and the last five things the page has “Liked”. With no ability to control that first landing page we expect e-mail and print marketing to become more important as a way of directing new and clicking users to an application. (A competition entry form, for example).

Friends

The top right of your Timeline page is where visitors get a peek at the Friends who like your page and a quote from the latest Friend to ‘engage’ with your page. In Facebook-speak ‘engagement’ includes a page being tagged in a status update or having checked in at a location..

Pin, star and milestone important content

Each post can be pinned to the top of your Timeline by selecting the Pencil icon and ‘pin to top’. Hide and delete options can also be accessed in this way too. Anything you ‘pin’ stays at the top for seven days – an ideal way to highlight the most important message(s) at the top of your page.

Each post also has a star ‘highlight’ button which gives more prominence to key posts – formatting them across two columns for more impact.

Milestones are key moments you’ve decided to highlight on your Page – moments like your founding date, and other big accomplishments. The Milestone option appears above your Status input box.

Customer comments

Timeline allows users to send direct, private messages to your Page. It’s a new opportunity for custom engagement and frees up space ion your timeline for more positive promotional missives. It may also be a challenge for some businesses – who is monitoring the incoming mail for your Page?

Your admin options

Admin options are now integrated into your page – a new panel drops down when you click the “admin panel” button in the top right of your page.

You can access notifications, posts to your Timeline by fans, a list of your private conversations, any new likes, and insight data into posts including total reach and the number of ‘people talking about this’. A great addition is the ability to choose Friends to invite to your Page based on recent interactions.

Timeline going forward…

Brands that constantly create engaging updates, share important milestones, rotate new apps when appropriate, and ‘Pin’ relevant content to the top of their news feed will stay at the forefront of users’ attention. Timeline has changed the game but offers some nifty new tools that it’s worth taking the time to explore.

Confirmation that an Apple event was in the works came as Google’s Eric Schmidt was striding forth onto the stage to start his keynote at Mobile World Congress in Spain – way to ruin the mood, Apple.

The official invite states: “We have something you really have to see. And touch.” While traditionally a come-on in the rough part of town it’s fair to assume the newest iteration of the iPad is just days away. The rumour mill’s been touting March as the likely date for a while now and, coming a year after the launch of the iPad 2, today’s invitation will have surprised nobody.

The aforementioned mill  suggests we could* (*if taken with a pinch of salt) be salivating over the latest quad-core A6 processor and a retina display that’s double the resolution of the current iPad. Other reports have suggested a slightly thinner design and even better battery life. Throw in Robobrain Siri and the improved camera seen on the iPhone 4S and, bar something left-of-field, there’s all your surprises flagged up ahead of time.

Can Apple continue their stranglehold on the high-end tablet space with a new release or are challengers starting to catch up? Regardless, that second screen we keep taking about keeps on keeping on…

A case in point being the ability to block results from particular websites from appearing in Google’s search engine results page.

Let’s say that your day to day life involves you seeking out technical support issues for a particular software package. You want results from the vendor’s own support forum to appear but they sometimes get drowned out by the results on a hobbyist site, the advice from which is often misguided or just plain wrong.

Google now offers the ability to exclude up to 500 sites from your search results. You can set this up via http://www.google.co.uk/reviews/t once you’ve signed in with a Google account.  You may also notice a “block this site link” if you return to your search engine results page after visiting one of the websites returned.

Though Google’s motives may not be entirely altruistic – the blocked sites data will be used to hone search results in future – this could be another one of those nifty services you never knew you couldn’t live without!

Twitter’s about to roll out ‘Brand Pages’ for commercial partners who’ve committed to spending $25,000 on its ad products, including promoted tweets and trends. The pages give advertisers greater visibility for their logo or brand elements and the ability to keep a particular tweet at the top of the timeline, complete with embedded photo or video. Launch partners include Coca-Cola, Disney, Nike and Pepsi.

“A tweet’s only 140 characters,” Twitter’s chief revenue officer, Adam Bain, said last month. “When consumers want to learn more, spend more time, or get deeper in terms of engagement, we think they’ll end up on the brand page.”

While it’s no surprise to see Twitter trying to monetise a service that users pay nothing for, we can’t see many small businesses beating down a path to the blue bird’s door.

While it’s sensible for most businesses to have a presence on social media sites, and a clear idea of how they will and won’t use the channels, smart marketeers should really be ensuring that messages, links and assets all link back to the company website.Here you have ultimate control over how your messages are presented and conversations framed. Externally, it’s Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Google calling the shots… If they don’t want you to tweak something, you can’t. If they change their mind about what you can and can’t do,your approach can be obsolete overnight. Buyer beware!