Start-Up Businesses use of Social Media

On July 17, 2011 in Business, Internet, marketing.
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According to a recent survey, performed by Market Research company ‘Opimium Research LLP’, less than half of small businesses use any form of Social Media. The broken-down stats go something like this;

  • 28% of small businesses said they used a corporate Facebook page
  • 18% own a LinkedIn Profile
  • 8% have a company blog
  • 6% use YouTube or similar video-streaming service
  • 2% own a corporate Twitter account

With over 2 million enterprises in the UK alone (according to the governments ‘Office for National Statistics’) that’s over 1.4 million businesses which don’t utilize Facebook, the world’s largest social media / networking website (with over 750 million users!).

Seems crazy, given the focus and publicity of these potential market avenues! Sure some businesses wouldn’t find all of the options necessary, but with such a high volume of service based business in the UK I can’t help but think some of the 1,000,000 businesses with no social media avenues are missing out.

Ultimate Hairdressing, Wolverhampton Case Study. Read More »

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Home Screen Worthy Apps for the iPad 2

On May 14, 2011 in Apple, New Technology.
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I’ll admit, the previous article regarding the iPad 2 was a little rushed. Why? Because I was busy playing! Now I’ve had 24 hours to fully intergrate the iPad into my life, I think it’s about time to talk a little about the apps that have made it onto the first page on the home screen of my shiny white new tablet!

iPad home screen - With ApplicationsFirst up, Spotify! Iv’e gone for the 16Gb WiFi model, largely due to already owning an iPhone (with constant internet connection). The Spotify app is actually the iPhone version, but why re-make the wheel? Creating a playlist (‘for the iPad‘) allows me to control and constantly update which songs are synced to the device from my phone, computer or directly. Jump onto a wireless connection and hay presto, instant music library updates! In my opinion Spotify is one of the best (if not THE best) application on the iPhone, and it works well on the iPad. I just wish they’d make an iPad specific application.

Next is DropBox. There are a load of reviews about the magic of DropBox, so I’ll keep it brief; If you haven’t got DropBox yet, go and sign up. Then download the DropBox app for your iPhone and iPad and never be without your much needed documents again! It’s also a great way of wirelessly transferring content from/to your devices.

CoolPapers: It’s basically what it says on the tin: An archive of beautiful wallpapers to really customise your iPad experience!

BBC iPlayer: Wonderful! Watch all the BBC iPlayer content on your beautiful device. Perfect for bed-time catch-up! Really nice interface too, very 2.0, and looks amazing on the iPad’s shiny screen! My only gripe here is that some of the programs don’t quite fill the screen (due to aspect differences) and an over-scanning option would be nice.

Friendly. Until Facebook get’s on-board the iPad specific Application revolution, Friendly will be your best bet. It works and interacts well (after a little getting used to). That said, it did have some time-out issues this morning. However, it’s generally been quite reliable (according to a couple of friends).

mBox Mail. This is only really going to be of much use if you have a Hotmail E-mail account. Unfortunately the native ‘Mail’ app doesn’t sync all the folders (due to POP3 / Push / etc) of a Hotmail account. Something Mbox Mail overcomes seamlessly. Dear Apple, please add this functionality to iOS5. Regards.

Skype. I’ll be honest, I haven’t used this yet. But I have used the application on the iPhone. Seeing as how it’s ported directly from the iPhone to the iPad, I can recommend it. Although FaceTime put’s up a good fight against this. I guess it depends on personal preference, and weather your contacts are Apple-esk or not?

Twitter. Facebook should definately take a leaf (preferably one without bird poo!) out of Twitter’s book! A beautiful app, full of features and perfectly laid out! This is how the iPad expereince should be! Even if you don’t have a Twitter account, download this app! 10/10!

Flipboard. A very good, intuitive and modern approach to news reading. With the ability to customise the ‘contents’ page, you read the iPad like a book, with articles appearing in a digital 2.0 magazine style. (Page flipping transitions included!).

iPad running WordPress with Wireless KeyboardWordPress. Much like Twitter, this is a beautiful application. Purpose built for the iPad, in addition to the easy-to-use keyboard, this will soon become my preferred way of blogging. Look, I’m even using it to write this blog (with addition of my wireless keyboard, just to test out the bluetooth connectivity!).

Bonus Application: Google. I decided to add Google as a bonus application for two reasons. 1: I miscounted the number of non-native apps on the homescreen! and more importantly 2: It can often be overlooked, by default going to Safari and using the search bar. However, the Google App does much more than searching the net (as if that wasn’t enough). Google Goggles (search via images) and really good voice recognition make for a truly rich-media searching experience!

So there we go! The top 10, ahem, 11, applications to download for your iPad!

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twitter changes interface to app style design

On September 15, 2010 in Development, Internet, Website Design.
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Since it’s launch in July 2006, Twitter has rapidly became a household name for almost any surfer (internet surfer that is!) as well as being constantly in the spotlight for breaking news, celebrity rants and thousands of web trends. The micro-blogging platform gets over 190,000,000 hits per month, and generates an estimated $400,000 per quarter! Now that’s “what’s happening”?!

A little birdy told me Twitter is changing. Re-designing. Evolving. It’s been speculated for some time, but last night (September 14th, 2010) Twitter began rolling out it’s brand new user interface to some of it’s users. The 141 strong employee team have been busy, producing not only a lovely looking interface but also an impressive video to demonstrate the new features. Check it out.

The re-design strategy, much like Facebook did in 2006, 2008 and 2010, is a smart move, keeping the top-dogs of the internet fresh and up-to-date. It’s a principle which I like to follow quite closely, re-designing this site quite often! (Could be less as my final year approaches!). Sure, some people will dislike the change, but such is life. You don’t see anyone moaning about Facebook’s latest interface like you did back when they rolled it out in February 2010!

Twitter’s new layout is very interactive. One could say it’s almost trying to resemble a certain mobile device application look and feel? Not that there is anything wrong with this (Just look at the success of the official Twitter App for iPhone!). The smooth glides and efficient persona exuded by the new website succeeds in giving users the concept of a well-oiled machine. A lovely development from the Twitter team.

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Make Facebook status update Twitter via RSS

On May 17, 2010 in Internet, Tutorials, Website Design.
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Picture the scenario; You update Facebook status often but forget about the little bird which is Twitter. You want to update Twitter automatically when your facebook status changes, but Facebook have banned the apps that allow this to occur! Enter TwitterFeed.com, a website designed to pull RSS feeds and post them to other pages such as Facebook or Twitter.

Now, stay with me here, as I spent ages looking at blogs thinking that the Facebook RSS pages have been blocked, but they haven’t. To access your Facebook RSS feed navigate to Facebook and click on your notifications (“See all Notifications”). On the right hand side is a “Subscribe to Notifications” section, and under that is a “Via RSS”. Uncheck all the tick boxes and click on this link. From there, simply change part of the URL from “notifications.php” to “status.php”. This should produce the RSS feed required.

Now, on TwitterFeed.com sign up and add your copied URL for Facebook RSS feed. Authenticate Twitter and set (in the advanced options) your prefixes, postfixes and update schedule.

And that’s it! Facebook will now generate the RSS of your status’, TwitterFeed will pull them in (checking every 30 mins or whatever) and post them to your Twitter for you! If your really clever you could set up an RSS from your website too, and get that to post to Twitter/Facebook whenever you add a new article!

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60secondshout: The meaning behind the tag

On December 1, 2009 in #60SecondShout, Development, Internet.
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#60SecondShout (or #60SS) is a trending topic (established via Twitter), which I designed to summarise lots of my smaller blogs – Those that can be read in less than 60 seconds!

I wanted to produce a type of blog which fell in between a micro-blog (140 characters) and some of my more heavy weight blogs (140 lines!).

Hopefully they will be insightful, interesting and full of techy goodness, while remaining concise and to the point!

If you have any requests for some more 1 minute reviews let me know and I’ll see what I can do!

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Twitter AutoDM Feature: Good or Evil?!

On November 16, 2009 in #60SecondShout, Development, Internet.
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So, after about 4 days of Tweeting I have started to gather a small selection of lovely followers! (If your one of them thanks for taking the time to read this!)

So now I have a dilemma – Should I autoDM new followers? Lots of people see this tactic as ‘spam’, especially when promotional links are included and to be honest so do I. On the other hand a genuine ‘hello’ can go down well and make the tweeter (me) seem more human rather than a bot spamming with promo-tweets every hour or so! (I’m not a robot – Promise!).

Feel free to comment if you use AutoDM to tell me what program you use. Also, if you could retweet this blog (so I can get more results) it would be much appreciated! Thanks guys!

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