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I have a regular Google alert search set up for myself and my clients for key words (my name and key brands). This chucks a weekly email to me with a summary of mentions.

Today I read this one from a link in Samepoint.com. In a search for my surname it came up with my Grandfrather, my Great Uncle and lots of me!

So I read about the site. It describes itself as a 'conversational search engine". Neat idea. I have written before (and here) about conversations being increasingly important for online business development. It claims to count negative and positive words in each post logged. More...

Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has shown, yet again, that Government fails to understand the Internet. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph he proposed that web sites should only be published once they have cinema style ratings so that parents would know what was acceptable for their children.

What tosh. Is he seriously expecting that every time anyone wants to publish something online they'd have to apply to some central agency who would then take several weeks to reach a decision? Is he seriously expecting that parents would take any notice? Is he seriously expecting that every nation in the world would follow suit?

He extends his idea by claiming that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) would then be forced to only provide access to material which has been approved in some way. More...

Every year, 19 million Christmas puddings are made at the Matthew Walker factory in Derby. That's an amazing 7,500 tons of plum pudding that serves everyone from the Queen, to soldiers, to school children.

Not only that, but this single factory provides puds for every major High Street retailer and supermarket, with around 70% of all Christmas puddings on sale in the UK being made by the company. But that's not the most spectacular feat they get up to. What's rather staggering is that they are currently making next year's puds.

That's right, before we've even worried about cooking this year's turkey, Matthew Walker are busy stirring ingredients for Christmas 2009. More...

Shoppers are becoming less satisfied with Internet shops. The research company Foresee has shown that consumers are now less satisfied with Internet retailers than they were a year ago.

One in four people are dissatisfied, according to the on-going study. For a site with millions of visitors that could spell disaster as hundreds of thousands of people could then "spread the word" of their dissatisfaction through social networking sites and review sites.

Considering that online retailers knew a year ago that not everyone was satisfied it is somewhat amazing they appear to have done little to rectify the situation; indeed it seems they have actually made things worse. More...

Psychiatrists are in an interesting position; their role is being threatened by the growth in clinical psychologists, therapists and a host of other health professionals who can treat certain psychological disorders. Earlier this week research was published which shows that cognitive behavioural therapy can have a lasting therapeutic impact. The trouble is CBT can be administered by therapists - you don't have to be a psychiatrist to offer this "talking therapy".

So, is it any wonder then that every so often psychiatrists attempt to get new disorders added to their Bible, the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual (DSM)? Earlier this year psychiatrists wanted "Internet Addiction" added to the DSM. More...

Women are more interested in the Internet than they are in sex. In a study of more than 2,000 people in the USA researchers found that almost half of American women would rather give up sex than have to live without the Internet for two weeks.

Men, however, tended to opt for the sex. No surprises there, then. However, what's worrying for those chaps is the fact that almost one in three women were prepared to do without sex for an entire year if it meant they could keep their Internet connection.

But the survey is not all that it seems - nice as the headlines might make it sound. These figures are averages, but when you take into account different age groups you find something we've all known for ages. More...

So was Monday ‘Mega’ for you? Well, apparently it was for 2 million Brits, who preferred the convenience of a few mouse clicks to fighting for a parking space on the high st.

A few Mega Monday facts:

• Online sales were up 14% on 2007
• £320 million was spent at online retailers
• £20 million more than last year
• £13.6 billion is expected to be spent online in total this ‘Clickmas’
• For the first time in 14 years high st sales have fallen for a second successive month

What’s amazing is that ‘Mega Monday’ was only the third busiest day of the year in terms of traffic to online retailers, because the web isn’t just a virtual checkout till, but is also a valuable research tool. More...

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the W3C has finally released the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, after years of haggling over the initial draft versions.

The WCAG 2.0 Guidelines are meant to help web designers and web developers build websites that are accessible to everybody no matter what device they use to browse the web and no matter what level of skill.

 WCAG 2.0 had been contentious from  the start as WAI committee members haggled over the best way to outline their recommendations and define various terms of the document and most people felt that the original draft was unclear and hard to understand - especially as it had a document explaining the guidelines and the a document explaining the document that explained the guidelines - hardly accessible itself. More...

A major survey of over 27,000 people has discovered that blogs are the least credible source of information online. Coupled with similar research on the trustworthiness of blogs, this most recent study suggests the end is nigh for blogging.

According to the study, we believe "word of mouth" over and above everything else. The TV news comes next, then online news with newspapers just a little bit behind. Blogs are way down the bottom, with only one in every ten people believing them.

So, how are you going to increase the credibility of your blog? Firstly - and this is crucial - don't call it a blog...! You automatically enter the territory of the unbelievable if you do. More...

Tyrone is a hapless chap in the British soap opera, Coronation Street. In the latest storyline he is in trouble because he is not telling his wife-to-be the entire truth. She is putting two and two together and coming up with the wrong answer.

If only he told her that he was spending his spare time trying to sell cheap tat in a bid to raise some extra cash so they can have a perfect wedding. Instead, he has invented this cock and bull story about going to the gym. Now Tyrone has obviously eaten a pie or two in his life and so the gym story doesn't convince his fiancée - and now she suspects he is having an affair. More...