Have you noticed that you are only seeing updates in your facebook newsfeed from the same people lately? Have you also noticed that when you post things like status messages, photos and links, the same circle of people are commenting and everyone else seems to be ignoring you?

Don't worry, everyone still loves you and nobody has intentionally blocked you. The problem is that a large chunk of your friend/fan list can't see anything you post because the "New Facebook" has a newsfeed setting that, by default, is automatically set to ONLY SHOW POSTS FROM PEOPLE WHO YOU'VE RECENTLY INTERACTED WITH OR INTERACTED WITH THE MOST (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile).
 

So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa - you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!
 
HERE'S THE FIXes:

• on your homepage click 'most recent' (top of newsfeed)
• click on that and then select it again and the drop down will appear
• click on"Edit Options".
• In the popup, click on the dropdown menu next to 'Show posts from:' and select "All Of Your Friends and Pages"
• and then clickSave.
• OR THE LONG ROUTE
• Scroll down to the bottom of the Newsfeed on your HOME page
• click on"Edit Options".
• In the popup, click on the dropdown menu next to 'Show posts from:' and select "All Of Your Friends and Pages"
• and then clickSave.

 
Simply posting an update about it won't do any good because lots of your friends/fans already can't see your posts by default. You'll either have to send out a message to everyone on your list (which I'm not even sure business pages can do and is a rather tedious method) or post an event explaining the situation like this one and invite your entire fan base and/or friend list. You can also tweet about it hoping that most of your fellow facebookers are also on twitter.
 
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS NOTE WITH AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN SO WE CAN TRY AND GET EVERYONE INFORMED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Anyone who isn't seeing your posts right now will never see them until they have changed their settings as explained above.

Year on year we see new developments in the world of web design so what’s on the agenda for web designers in Northern Ireland in 2011? Here’s a few thoughts:

1.     Mobile Web – as our recent m-commerce article illustrated, mobile commerce is on the rise.  This is a subject that has been on the radar of web designers for the last few years.  In the future web designers will be spending more time developing mobile device applications and interfaces.  Mobile web is not high on the agenda for all website owners at present but e-commerce sites like Amazon value its importance.  Over time, more companies will begin to recognise the rewards of making their sites more user-friendly for mobile device users.

2.    Tablet Computing – this has become more popular since the launch of Apple’s tablet computer, the Apple iPad.  The option to view both horizontally and vertically presents a new challenge for our web designers worldwide, who may need to consider designing two completely different layouts for each site.  Websites with a width larger than the iPad screen resolution will be scaled down and zoomable.  Web designers are advised to design for a 960 pixels layout.  They may also have to consider designing simplified websites that are easier to navigate as tablet computers are primarily touchscreen devices.  They need larger clickable areas suitable for fingers, and spacing between clickable areas so that only one can be touched at a time.  This typically results in the use of larger text and the use of buttons over text links.  The iPad runs Safari browser which doesn’t support plug-ins to be installed on this device.  CSS3 and HTML5 are likely to remain the norm for developing page layout for the iPad.  Check out how your website will look on the iPad using iPad Peek

3.    HTML5 – Northern Ireland’s web design community will be getting to grips with HTML5 in 2011.  HTML5 recognises that web pages have a structure, with navigation, body content, sidebar content, headers, footers and so on.   The updated system has created tags to support these elements of the page, adding a lot of great new features to web pages and web design.  Microsoft has stated that they will begin supporting at least portions of HTML 5 in IE 8.  If you want to get started sooner, Opera has had the best support, with Safari close behind.

4.    Web Fonts – The most supported fonts in web design were typically those installed on the largest amount of machines but with so many different operating systems available it’s difficult for web designers to use custom fonts since they won’t render properly in environments without a copy of the file itself.  An option for developers is to ignore physical fonts and work within an online directory.  With cloud computing roaring in popularity we have seen larger developments unfold such as Google code web fonts.

Let us know your thoughtsabout what should be on the agenda for web designers in Northern Ireland this year on info@thewebbureau.com

Figures released so far suggest that online retailers and ecommerce websites have experienced more growth over the Christmas shopping season than ever before. For the first time in history the Christmas online spend goes past the billion mark (volusion). Some of the interesting Christmas stats from 2010.....

Online Christmas shopping in the UK
44% of Britain’s online adult population upped their online spending, pushing the total amount spent online to £2.8bn.
45% of those who shopped online encountered website problems while doing their Christmas shopping, and 32% abandoned purchases as a result. (and the online spend was still £2.8bn)

Internet usage over Christmas
86% of UK consumers logged onto the internet over Christmas Day and Boxing Day
22% of online users accessed the internet on their phones
30% of online consumers used the internet to shop online on Boxing Day, 62% of the  online consumers shopped for sale items and discounted products across the two days.

John Lewis
Online sales at John Lewis reached £500m this year.
Sales were up 42% for the same period last year.

Most popular UK online shopping destinations
On Boxing Day, eBay and Amazon were the most visited e-commerce websites, with 9.96% and 7.02% of visits respectively.
After the two pureplay giants, Argos, Next, and M&S were the most popular online retail sites.

US Holiday season
Online retail spending for the entire November to December 2010 holiday season reached $32.6bn, an all time record. US holiday shopping 2005 - 2010 (Volusion)

(Stats and figures courteous of Tealeaf, eDigital Research via IMRG, Hitwise, comScore, e-consultancy.)