TAKA DESIGNS

At UCLA Happenings, we are constantly trying to improve our site and keep our users engaged. A while back we integrated comments for every event via Facebook’s social plugins. Facebook also makes it very easy to integrate these plugins with little work. In most cases, only a few lines of HTML code need to be added and you’re ready to go. We’ve seen activity and usage steadily grow as many users have begun actively engaging with our site.

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YouTube recently rolled out a newly redesigned layout to the cringe of many users. However, what was interesting was their new review ratings. They’ve moved from a 5-star ratings system to a like/dislike system that most users have probably seen on Facebook.

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If you were one of the lucky fans who scored tickets to Conan O’Brien’s upcoming sold out tour, you were probably following him on Twitter, or heard about it from someone who did. How do I know? Because the only advertising was through a post by Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien) on his Twitter account. No other form of traditional advertising was done, and within a few hours after his post, most of the dates had already sold out.

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URL shorteners have recently exploded in popularity with the emergence of Twitter. One of the most popular services bit.ly recently launched a free service called bit.ly Pro that creates custom branded short URLs. Companies such as Facebook and Google have also created their own using fb.me and goo.gl. So what’s the big deal?

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As applications continue to migrate toward the web, mobile devices are an even more integral part of our everyday lives. According to The Mobile Internet Report released by Morgan Stanley in December 2009, the mobile internet will be twice the size of the desktop internet. More users will connect to the web through mobile devices than desktop computers within 5 years. With the emergence of the iPhone and Google’s Android platform now able to create quality user experiences on the web, these findings shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

At UCLA, we recently launched a mobile version of the UCLA Happenings website, our campus events calendar at http://m.happenings.ucla.edu. If you haven’t thought about it already, then it’s only a matter of time before you’ll need to consider what you’re mobile strategy will be. Here are a few things to consider.

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