Digital Talanoa : Web Lessons from Supermarkets

REMEMBER Tamagotchis, those odd little Japanese electronic toys that needed to be “fed” and taken care of in order for them to flourish and grow? If they’re mistreated, they “die”, digitally anyway. The product is a perfect metaphor for having a website.

In the past two months, our company has seen a 300% increase in visitor traffic to our website. The majority of our website visitors go directly to the pages listing prices. The second most popular pages are the case studies of our client and project work. Google sends us most of our “search engine” traffic but MSN Search is close behind. In fact, our placement on MSN is actually much better than on Google. Traffic coming from Yahoo! is also increasing every month. This is due primarily to the number of other websites linking to us as well as the fact that we’re updating our site fairly regularly.

Digital Talanoa : The Life and Times of Con Artists

Given the worldwide coverage of Peter Foster’s capture here in Fiji, the life and times of con artists seem to be a well discussed topic around the country.

What is it about con artists that capture (no pun intended, Foster) our imaginations? I suppose it’s understandable that we have an interest in people that live their lives based upon lies and deception. It would be a sorry statement on society itself if lives like that went unnoticed and seemed normal. Foster’s very public apprehension last week has resulted in video footage destined to become an Internet movie classic. Sure, I feel bad for anyone that gets hurt but if that guy is guilty of all the stuff they want him for, he should probably consider himself lucky. As Mr. Rabuka so succinctly observed in his Fiji Times column last Sunday, “Foster should now learn from this latest page in his life that it is much better to be a convicted drug smuggler in Indonesia than to be a "suspected" criminal in Fiji.” I couldn’t agree more.