beta testing facebooks hyperlocal augmented reality:
Met up with some interesting intruiging and exciting peeps last night in Cardiff #cdfblogs meetup with @getgood @hrwaldram @carlmorris @stuherbert @GlynTansley Am excited again about the concept of local online. 
Might even do something like a “secret swansea” facebook group.
Went to get some cash at lunchtime and the cash machine swallowed my card, and started a Windows load sequence, and then hung. Shame it didn’t give me loads of free money, maybe next time!
click on image for more detail.
The past 6 months I’ve been elevating the importance of landing pages in my projects. Typically it’d only be the homepage that I’d paid substantial efforts on. However, with my increased efforts on pay-per-click campaigns, and SEM, I wanted make sure the page that visitors first see continues the experience of where they’ve come from and removes barriers to them actioning either first contact or a sale.
So here, I’ve brought together some of the real world examples of psychological tricks people use in the real world attention locations that translate superduper well to landing pages, and are things that you should definitely consider on your landing page design.
Recently I’ve been looking for an idea for an iphone app to develop. Apple have announced they’ve had over 1 billion app downloads, which makes it a recession busting industry, and one that it’d be very nice to be a part of. Here are some of the ideas that didn’t make my final cut:
Ever wondered why you tweet pictures of your cat, tweet about the cost of organic food, or tweet about your social incompetence? Help is at hand, this app will punch you every time you twitter; not just when you do lame, naval gazing tweets.
Useful if you are stuck on an island based reality tv show with 12 muppets and a conflict-baiting camera crew.
Thought I’d post a few of my less-written-about ecommerce tips for your eshop. There should be some superfly marketing ideas here for even the most maveric eshop owner, all helping you maximise your business in this crappy economic climate.
I thought that I’d do a post on how I made www.lightweightlaptops.co.uk number 1 in Google’s search results for a niche, and as such it generates me up to £200 a month in revenue. I take you through the steps so you too can create nice little side revenue streams. Which should be welcome in this economic climate.
I’ve been questioning some local small business owners and hearing how they are changing their products and communication methods, to retain existing customers and gain new ones, in this upside down economy. Hopefully, there will be some inspiration in here for you.
I’ve just got back from a 2-day Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) E-business consultants’ briefing. I’m now happily up-to-date on the consulting products that we are going to use to help businesses, from an ICT perspective (Information & Communication Technology) throughout the glorious country of Wales.
Apart from meeting some really hot (technically) consultants, some clued-up (and friendly) WAG staff, and having a few beers (at our expense, rather than the tax payer), I’m stoked and ready to move from my role as a consultant and delivering agency, to an objective E-business consultant.
My first impressions are that the E-business WAG team headed by Michael Groves, have really got their onions together. It’s out with all the multiple confusing funding brands inside the Welsh Assembly and they’ve bought in 3 shapes of ICT product that will help business in Wales, in a Flexible Support for Business (FS4B) package:
Ask yourself this: How would your business be doing without some of the baggage that you are hauling along from day to day? If you could dump some of those crazy monthly outgoings, or ditch that real pain in the ass client, or do work a different way from the because-we’ve-always-done-it-like-that way?
With this topsy turvy economy it’s useful critical to go back to basics, and assess everything in your business.
The simplest way to do this is to take time out, go for that walk in the woods with your notepad, and ask yourself: If I was starting my current business, today, how would I do it?
In this article, we look at how you can make lovely revenue streams from putting clients and colleagues together.
As a web designer I meet regularly with colleagues in sister industries; I have print design buddy, a PR/copywriter buddy, and an ecommerce buddy. A twice yearly Starbucks or lunchstravaganza is enough to catch up and work out what the crossover is between our businesses.
Paolo - glorious leader of South Wales web empire Refresh Creative. Paolo also reviews cheap laptops for his other website.
Andy - runs a web consultancy based in the sunny city of Bath. He has been working in the online industry for 13 years. His mission is to get his clients to "improve their business, achieve the results they want and not get suckered into spending money on things they don't need!".
