Archive for December, 2008

Spotify – internet radio for the terminally lazy and nostalgic. I like it.

Dec 31 | by Sam Deeks | news, review
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Despite the name – ‘Spotify’ – this is internet Radio at its very best, but….

Right now, I’m listening to some old 1980s reggae just as the playlist swerves from Bob Marley into the Sex Pistols ‘C’mon Everybody’. This is what makes Spotify such instant fun.

It’s either a personalised radio station (click the mood you’re in and the decade you’re hankering after and let the software do the rest) or its a ’search for artist / track’ player.

In the ‘oh, I’m feeling dark and punk circa. 1981′ mode, this is great for just creating a mood and putting tracks in front of you that you’ve probably never heard before. This is perfect for those of us who like the sound but can’t be bothered to get all worked up by the band names…

In the ’search’ mode you’ll encounter the limitations soon enough – by failing to find the most well known tracks, tracks that are obviously still making someone else more money elsewhere. But as Spotify is supported by EMI, Universal, Warner, AMG and Orchard (among others) there’s plenty to choose from – particularly if, like me, most of it is still in the realm of ‘undiscovered treasure’.

With a few (relatively) unobtrusive audio and banner ads and options for premium accounts, this is the broadband jukebox for me.

So what’s the ‘…but’?

Well, Spotify is currently in ‘invitation-only Beta’ mode.  This means that you can only get a free (ad-based) account through being invited by someone.  Since (as far as I can see) a free account doesn’t give you any invitation tokens to throw around, I can only assume these come with paid membership.

A good marketing model?  We’ll see.  How much more likely am I to pay £9.99 for a monthly membership because it gives me free invites to give out? Time will tell.

Meantime, you can find out more (and register your interest) here.

The end of Woolworths

Dec 29 | by Sam Deeks | change
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Mrs. Kau snaps the end of Woolworths in Tavistock

Shall I text her back and tell her to bid on the letters from the Woolworths’ name?

Its funny that in our culture, we’re not used to ‘the end’ of things. I’ve often wondered when will this building or that bridge stop being? When will this town no longer exist? When will the last car drive on the last road?

Because, odd as it all might seem to us, it’s all fleeting in the long run.

What’s even stranger is how much it all mattered while it existed.  People gave their lives to Woolworths, got upset about it, lost sleep over it, got angry with people in it…

And now it’s history.

Best boy’s toy 2008: it’s official (in our house anyhow)

Dec 29 | by Sam Deeks | smile
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The Picooz mini r/c helicopter is the best toy of 2008 – according to the boys in our house

Without a doubt. A truly awesome toy. So what if 3 in every 4 pounds spent in the UK goes to Tesco? This is 17.99 of those pounds well spent.

This little flyer has trounced all the other gifts in our house. It is the most satisfying little flying machine ever. It’s a technological marvel – with two motors (front and rear) and a powerful little rechargeable battery in a unit that weighs almost nothing.

The left hand lever on the r/c unit sends power to the main rotors for lift. The right hand level cuts or boosts power to the independent tail rotor to counter or increase rotation.

What it doesn’t have is a control to tip the nose forward to produce forward motion but somehow, it’s so damn satisfying as it is that you can overlook that fact. Launching it by hand with the rotors full on and the nose pointing to the ground produces a wonderful ‘Airwolf’-style swoop, pull-up and return that more than makes up for it.

You must have one. Or two. Or three.

Woolworths clearance: is this going to be a familiar sight in 2009?

Dec 29 | by Sam Deeks | change, news
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How many high-street businesses will follow Woolworths into extinction in 2009?

Tavistock, Saturday December 27th 2008. Woolworths. Just about everything has been sold off – including paint-splattered plastic chairs, shelf units, brackets, pinboards, crap used tools, boxes of random screws – even the store’s christmas decorations.

We visited out of curiosity. It’s not often you experience the end of something like Woolworths. It has an air about it that’s hard to describe. It’s not just that the place is being stripped bare. The people are too. You notice how they look and ask how they’re feeling – and they tell you. To hell with the company and the boundaries of ‘professional behaviour’ and ‘customer service’, they’re all gone. What’s left is people.

And you can’t help notice the things that stubbornly refuse to sell – even now, right at the end; even marked down by 80% – the plastic fake security cameras and the naff wrestling action-figures.

Who will go next in the new year? What will happen to the people who were part of these businesses? And what will fill the gaps they leave behind?

‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ solo – 9yr old shows how it’s done

Dec 24 | by Sam Deeks | WOW!
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9yr old blows parents away with Guns ‘N Roses classic ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’

This is the opening act at my son Theo’s school concert earlier this month. So good I thought I’d promote it here.  What was I doing when I was 9??  Oh….yeah.  I remember. :-)

Bebo and Dud. A modern day Adam and Eve

Dec 21 | by Sam Deeks | smile
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‘Adam’ is Bebo in predictive text. Did you know that?

A few years ago, I was away from home on a personal development weekend. I remember texting Clare from a cold, rainy supermarket carpark.

‘I’m sitting here in a miserable gay pain’ I wrote.

At which point, I collapsed in a fit of lunatic giggling. Ah, predictive text.

Blog comment spam – what does it look like?

Dec 21 | by Sam Deeks | PIGs
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Blog Comment Spam. What it looks like and how it works (a Plain Inglish Guide)

If you write a blog, you’ll get plenty of blog comment spam.

In plain English, blog comment spam is when people visit your site and comment on a post in the hope that your readers will click on the link in their name, visit their site and click on those Google AdSense ads you’ll inevitably encounter there. This will earn them a couple of cents. Not much – but if they have enough sites doing the same thing, this can create a substantial revenue. The fact that it fills the internet with more garbage doesn’t interest them.

So how does it work? The spammer monitors keywords relevant to the ads he is hosting. His software alerts them whenever those keywords have been used. In the case of mattresskings.info (above) the keyword was ‘mattress’ – and I used it in the title of a post I published recently on www.enterprisecafe.tv.

When they pick up a mention of their keyword, they then visit your site (either in person or via a ‘bot – I don’t know the technology involved) and leave a comment.

You can usually tell a spam comment because it tries to sound interested and human – but in a really naff and non-specific kind of way. “Great post, I’ll definitely visit here again – look forward to hearing more of your experiences about this topic” is a good example.

The hope is that you’ll be either be naiive, flattered or careless enough to allow this comment to be published on your blog. Why? Because the commenter’s name is a link back to their site with it’s AdSense ads waiting for your clicks.

Click here to visit this spammers ’site’. Click on the picture (above) to see the components of a typically spammy site.

First thing you’ll see is that the Google ads that earn the spammer his living are always near the top. Google ads means ‘this site is about making me money’. The nearer the top they are, the more about ‘making me money’ the site is.

Secondly, the site doesn’t represent anyone, anywhere – and it isn’t selling anything (except your clicks to the advertising network.)

Thirdly, the copy is clearly junk – lifted from any and everywhere online. It’s not meant to make sense, just so long as it has the spammer’s keyword in it.

And finally, it has an endless list of links to internal pages filled with more crap designed to spam Google and get the site found in the search engine results for the keyword ‘mattress’.

So the quick and simple way to decide whether a comment on your blog is spam or not is to click on the author’s link (before you approve it) and take a quick scan of their site.

Remember: vague comment, AdSense ads on their site, not selling anything and crap content = SPAM.

Ways to create confidence in prospects online

Dec 17 | by Sam Deeks | how to
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Ways to create confidence in prospects online – #1: Have a website and make it good.

This sounds obvious but there are still many people doing business who don’t have a website. There are some who don’t think that their prospects come from web searches, so why would they need one?

The reason is that whether they come from Google or not, prospects will still use Google to research you and your company. That means they will either find your website or they won’t.

If you DO have a website, it had better be good – and confidence inspiring because it will form the basis of their first impression of you (more about that later). If you DON’T have a website, that fact alone will also form the basis of their first impression. That impression will be that you’re either too scared, arrogant or poor to invest in a website.

Unless ‘not having anything to do with computers and the internet’ is clearly part of your USP then NOT having a website in this day and age is going to go against you.

So get one – but keep the following tips in mind:

  • DO NOT fall into the trap of ‘doing it yourself’ to save money. Get a professional web designer to do it!
  • Learn whatever it is you need to know to be able to make good decisions about hiring the right web designer (no matter how much it scares or confuses you)
  • Plan out exactly what you need your site to do for your business and why – with someone who ISN’T your web designer first
  • Take that brief to your web designer

And most of all, make sure you have enough control of your content and understanding about how to maintain your site so you don’t have to run to your designer every five minutes to make changes. People who end up over-dependent on their web designer after their site has gone live usually end up with bad feelings both ways.

A good designer will create a site that will address your basic business aims while empowering YOU to keep it going on a daily basis – and you’ll both be clear and happy about the contract between you going forward.

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