It’s hard to miss the ramp-up of political posturing in the media as election year starts to wind up into full flight. More than ever this year, it appears that political parties are embracing the Web as an easy communication medium to get their message and often their branding across to voters.

Helen Clark has her own site as the incumbent Prime Minister of New Zealand as does John Key who even has a page on Facebook.

National have their own National Party website a Flickr account and even a YouTube page while Labour appear to be basing their campaign mostly around their main Labour Party website. The Greens have a popular website and the, Maori Party appear to be building their online presence too.

The increasing use of online video from politicians to get their messages direct to the public brings in a new era of political party posturing online.

A recent survey looking at usage of the Internet by young Brits has found that the Web is replacing television as the entertainment of choice for young people - no doubt the same would be true if New Zealand users were surveyed.

The survey, ordered by social networking giant MySpace, found 25% of people aged between 18 and 24 had reduced their television watching and were now more likely to be networking or socialising online. Not only are they turning from the lure of TV, they’re also giving up video games in favour of Internet browsing.

When online, users are visiting social networking sites (in Australia, time spent on MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and other social sites avereages between 21 and 27 minutes per day), as well as sending emails and instant messages to friends.

So, what’s the crux of this? Young people are choosing socialising online over television and other forms of entertainment… and maybe, over socialising in the real world. It seems that the Web is the new television, so if young Kiwis are following the global trend, they’d prefer to be superpoking on Facebook than watching New Zealand TV. The collaborative virtual world of online networking sites is now officially a phenomenon, but where will it go to from here? How reliant will we become on making social connections in cyberspace?

Last month, the New Zealand government released a new website which provides free public access to online versions of all New Zealand Acts, Bills and Regulations.

This may sound like something which should have been in existence for some time; however, it’s never been done before in New Zealand and is a large step forward for providing open and easy access to legal material for the average New Zealander.

The New Zealand Legislation website is the culmination of the Public Access to Legislation (PAL) project.

One of the key factors in building a site like this is how often it is updated and therefore how correct the details are. In their About Us section, they say new Acts will be updated within five working days of Royal assent; new Regulations on the day after the date they are notified in the Gazette; and new Bills introduced into the House, on the day after introduction.

So, if you’re interested in finding out all the controversial requirements in the Electoral Finance Act 2007 that was recently introduced, you can read it all yourself and you can even download a PDF copy of the Act itself.

Image from Flickr.

Latest super 14 results from this weekend’s competition (week 2, Feb 22 - Feb 24):

• Hurricanes beat the Reds; 23-18 in Wellington
• Cheetahs lost to the Force; 15-16 in Bloemfontein
• Bulls lost to the Crusaders; 19-54 in Pretoria
• Chiefs beat the Warratahs; 20-17 in Hamilton
• Brumbies beat the Highlanders; 22-20 in Canberra
• Sharks beat the Stormers; 12-10 in Durban
• Lions lost to the Blues; 10-55 in Johannesburg

Stay tuned for more Super 14 news…

Image from Flickr.

It’s the time of year when Hollywood celebrates the making of good movies, awarding Oscar statuettes to top movie stars and film makers.

The lights of Tinseltown have been somewhat dimmer in recent years, with political and economic turbulence hitting the US and ongoing strife in Iraq. In fact, the Oscars 2008 were almost a non-event thanks to the cinematic nightmare of the Writers Guild strikes - which caused actors to threaten a total boycott of the event. Now settled, the strikes are already fading into distant memory as the red carpet is rolled out in preparation for glitz and glam, Hollywood style, to recognise the best movies of 2007.

Best Picture Oscar nominations

2008 nominations have failed to draw cinema crowds - together they total the second-lowest box office total in 20 years…

• Atonement - Set in 1935, telling the story of sisters Briony and Cecilia Tallis who are caught up in a series of tragic misunderstandings and mistakes.
• Juno - A smart, opinionated 16-year-old falls pregnant and decides to give up her baby for adoption, only to find herself in a complicated situation with her child’s adoptive parents.
• Michael Clayton - An attorney at a corporate law firm experiences a breakdown that threatens an important deal. When ‘fixer’ Michael Clayton is called in to tidy the situation, he finds himself forced to make difficult ethical decisions.
• No Country For Old Men - Another winning film from the Coen brothers, telling the tale of a man who witnesses a drug deal gone wrong - sparking a chase by a murderous sociopath.
• There Will Be Blood - Set in the early 20th century, this film follows the path of a cruel oil prospector who will stop at nothing to gain power and wealth.

Find a full list of Oscar nominees online, including Best Actor and Best Actress nominees, or head to your nearest movie cinema for a peak at nominated films.

Image from Flickr.

If you’ve been looking at SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) keyword suggestions to put the icing on your search engine optimisation cake, you may have come across the idea of incorporating misspelled keywords to capture a slice of the search market.

But is bad keyword spelling really useful or does it just make your website look unprofessional?

The answer to this question depends on your point of view. Just take a look at any keyword tool and you’ll see that intentional misspellings account for a significant proportion of searches online. So, including misspelled keywords can be useful, allowing you to:

• Target searches that are commonly misspelled, for instance ‘accomodation’ instead of ‘accommodation’
• Get good search engine rankings for profitable popular search terms that have low levels of competition
• Capture the market for regional spelling variations, eg. both UK and US spellings of words such as ‘optimisation’ (’optimization’)
  
• Help searchers find what they’re looking for, even if they enter a word incorrectly

But along with these benefits, there are also disadvantages to including misspellings or alternate spellings in your website copy - the most obvious being that visitors and potential clients will see your website (and therefore your business) as sloppy, careless or… lacking in basic spelling skills. Even worse, you may end up losing your search engine friendly status if you, or your Web designer, try to fool search engines with invisible text or other keyword tricks.

Find some of the best SEO consultants in New Zealand in the NZS.com directory.

Image from Flickr.

If you were in any doubt as to the importance of branding and identity online, search statistics clearly show that brands matter in online marketing.

The best brands all have one thing in common: they become synonymous in customers’ minds with a particular product or service. Some of the most successful brands today have built their reputation online - and enjoyed flow-on success in the offline market. On the other hand, businesses established in the offline market have had to adapt to the increasing dominance of Internet marketing over other forms of media - achieving varying degrees of success.

According to Hitwise search data, some of the most competitive search terms are brand focused - that is, they’re specific rather than generic. Take the New Zealand fashion industry. The top ten fashion searches over the last six months were:

1. pumpkin patch
2. supre
3. glassons
4. just jeans
5. country road
6. lv*
7. billabong
8. bendon
9. cotton on
10. jeans west

* Louis Vuitton

And Kiwis looking for insurance in NZ are similarly brand focused (save for one generic term):

1. state insurance
2. acc
3. travel insurance
4. southern cross
5. ami
6. ami insurance
7. aa insurance
8. nzi
9. tower insurance
10. amp

Whether you’re thinking clothing brands, beer brands, bike brands, car brands or chocolate brands, never underestimate the strength of brand value online. If you need a hand working out your online branding strategy, get corporate identity services from the professionals.

Image from Flickr.

More than 85% of the world’s Internet users surveyed have purchased something online, according to The Nielsen Company’s Global Online Survey of Internet shopping habits, conducted in October and November 2007. The research company said that more than half of Internet users had made a least one purchase online within the past month.

With an estimated 3.2 million New Zealanders being Internet users, this means that 64% make a purchase online at least once a month - a number that’s high by anyone standards. Research clearly shows that most New Zealanders feel very secure about making a purchase online.

So, what are Internet users buying online? Well, according to Nielsen, the top 5 are:

1. Books (41%)
2. Clothing, accessories and shoes (34%)
3. DVDs, videos and games (24%)
4. Airline tickets (24%)
5. Consumer electronics (23%)

With just over 2 million of New Zealand’s Internet users making a purchase online at least once a month, online shopping is becoming a major player in the retail market.

If you have an e-commerce store, particularly if you’re selling books and clothing then, given current trends, you really need to market your site to take advantage of the boom in online shopping.

NZS.com can help you by providing targeted traffic to your site. For more information, see our online advertising options.

After keeping his cards very close to his chest, Finance Minister Michael Cullen has confirmed that there will be tax cuts announced in the 2008 budget.

Low surplus won’t hold tax cuts back
Despite a lower than expected Government surplus (for the six months leading up to December 2007, our NZ$815 million operating surplus was NZ$1.7 billion lower than projected), Cullen has said planned tax cuts will go ahead. Surplus figures have been affected by the current volatility of financial markets worldwide - mainly investment losses recorded by the New Zealand Super Fund and other Crown entities.

So, what can we expect in the way of changes to tax in New Zealand?
The tight-lipped one remains cagey on this matter, saying only that he is awaiting further information on tax revenue, spending forecasts and inflation for 2008. As many commentators have noted, tax cuts will not increase our wealth in any real terms; to create a stronger economy and greater wealth for Kiwis, we need increased productivity. This can be achieved through greater investment in research and development, product development, high value technology products, and sectors such tourism. While tax cuts won’t solve our economic woes (house prices, inflation and rising interest rates) or do anything to raise our wage and salary level, they’re obviously pleasing to the minds (and wallets) of New Zealanders.

Stay tuned for more updates on Labour Government’s tax cut policy…

Image from Flickr.

Latest super 14 results from this weekend’s competition (week 1, Feb 15 - Feb 17):

• Crusaders beat the Brumbies; 34-3 in Christchurch
• Reds beat the Highlanders; 22-16 in Brisbane
• Sharks beat the Force; 17-10 in Durban
• Blues beat the Chiefs; 32-14 in Auckland
• Waratahs beat the Hurricanes; 20-3 in Sydney
• Stormers lost to the Bulls; 9-16 in Cape Town
• Cheetahs lost to the Lions; 22-23 in Bloemfontein

Stay tuned for more Super 14 news…

Image from Flickr.