Online networking software

A quick post to mention a new piece of software that is close to be launched over the next few months. Basically it is an online networking tool where as a customer you can pay to attend certain virtual events. The tool is basically an online chat room where you have the chance to meet people and find out about their business with the view to building up contacts and hopefully selling business.

Intraverts out there will benefit from not having to deal with people face to face and may enjoy the virtual networking world. The program will also undoubtedly put you in touch with people who otherwise you wouldn’t usually cross paths with…..For example, for many people it is unfeasible to attend international conferences / networking meetings due to travel expenditure and accommodation. The concept does have the potential.

However, one important factor is lost when meeting people online and I am in two minds as to whether it will completely kill the online networking concept or only slightly detract from it. The personal touch. One of my colleagues is very gifted at building strong relationships with the people that he meets – others simply feel at ease in his company. When people start to befriend you and enjoy your company they like the idea of working with you and before you know it you have their business. I can’t see this ever happening in the online world – I don’t think you can get that same kind of connection.

Some may argue that a lot of business is done online nowadays – maybe through forums and similar internet applications. In my experience, whilst posting on forums certainly generates leads it doesn’t reassure the customer – it is only when talking to us (as a service provider) do potential clients feel reassured that we will offer them a good service. So maybe the online networking application will be a lead generator at best.

It remains to be seen whether the cost benefit ratio stacks up. Payments for this service will be made on a per meeting basis, but charges are as of yet unknown. I’ll be trialling the service and hopefully it will pay off.

Good luck to the creators.

Arsenal 2 – 1 Manchester Utd.

What a game!

This has to be the best football game I’ve seen this year…. The first ten minutes set the pace of the match, and it didn’t slow down for the duration of the game.

Arsenal deserved the victory, they played well and hats off to them, especially after their knightmare against spurs 10 days ago!

Chelsea still top of the table, which makes me a happy guy!

Cheers,

Paul

First post from my desktop blogging client

This is my first post using a desktop blogging client (free) from Raven Software.

You can download this software from http://www.zoundryraven.com/

It’s worth doing if you can’t be bothered to logon to the site every time you want to add a new entry!

Cheers,

Paul

Utility computing – not just a possibility…

I’m going to put my neck on the line here. My statement:

I am certain that in the foreseeable future computing over the internet will be a commodity similar to electricity and gas; charged by the RAM hour and billed for how much you use.

You can expect the internet to be like one machine. You will upload applications to the net, be given an associated URL, RAM hours from the application will be measured and you will be billed on a monthly basis at a cost much less than what you would have to pay for the same service under the current pay for hardware plans. There will be no resource constraints – scaling will be seemless and you will have complete control over your online applications / web sites.

Companies that provide such a service will be able to charge less as hardware will be used much more optimally (current studies show that current server efficiency is often as low as 25%) and cost savings will be passed onto the end user.

The “cloud” that supports such a structure will offer greater redundancy to the point that any downtime is an increasingly rare occurrence.

Webmasters should be pleased with where the industry is going…

I am waiting for feedback from the sceptics!

Cheers,
Paul

Planned trip to the Adriatic and through the Balkans

Just watched an episode of Michael Palin’s New Europe, a journey to Eastern Europe into territory once forbidden – the new Europe previously shrouded behind the Iron Curtain.

It has enlightened me to the delights of what these countries have to offer and I am therefore planning a trip alone through Slovenia, Croatia (Zagreb), Bosnia (Sarujevo),  Serbia (Belgrade) , Albania (Tirane), Bulgaria (Sofia) and Turkey.  This should take me a good couple of weeks and will be a lot of travelling, but I’m looking forward to meeting people from this region and finding out how life is today in comparison to a little over 10 years ago when the Balkans area was subject to massive conflict following the break up of former Yugoslavia.

Map of my journey....

Looking forward to this trip!

In the meantime, good news on the business front:

1) Our UK Hosting Company Krystal is doing well and has sold two dedicated servers today.
2) My Film Forum is not doing so great – a massive drop in the Google rankings and a lot less traffic is the inevitable result of not giving it enough attention. I’ll rectify this shortly.
3) New web site up and comings shortly for IT training. Snipits.co.uk – keep a look out for it!

Until next time!
Paul

Best song ever written

He apparently wrote the lyrics in a café in about 20 minutes. Little did he know at the time that the song would be the most important in his career giving him his first hit.

Check out the video below – it is one of my favourite versions of the song.  Heather Hadley really nails this version, so much so you can almost see Elton crying at the end of the video.

At 60 years of age, will he ever stop?  Hats off also to the legendary Bernie Taupin for his inspirational lyrics.

Keep on rockin’ Elton!

Hello from Dubai

Dubai, one of the 7 emirates that make up the UAE, and Dubai City, the main city within the emirate are unique experiences for me!  Having said that, elements of the city remind me of Vegas…I went to a hotel plaza complex next to the world’s only 7 star hotel last night (Burj al Arab) and it reminded me of the venetian without the canal running through the middle of it!  The people are very friendly; my initial concerns over the dress code and complying with local customs (ie, no alcohol, wearing of short t-shirts etc.!) have long vanished – many of the locals are used to Westerners and are very welcoming indeed!

The RIPE meeting itself is great; listening to the cutting edge experts in all fields surrounding the internet is a learning curve and a half…more importantly, though, the partying is great!

Off to ride camels, drive buggies and drink more alcohol again this evening…Met someone last night who goes to 30-40 of these events a year – great job!

Could do with more sleep though!

Currently in a routing workgroup so need to concentrate and stop writing!

Is SEO ruining the internet?

I regularly check a number of forums for the sake of learning, good humour and general banter. Having done this as a means of killing spare time over the past few years, I can’t help but notice the constant increase in the number of worthless posts that are being added. For example “This is a good thread, thanks for that.” or “I agree” or “I think this is a good topic”. These guys clearly add nothing to the debate and have nothing original or worthwhile to say, so why are they posting? The answer is clear when you glance down at their signature; packed with links and promotions to company web sites.

What am I doing right now? Rambling in a blog that no-one ever reads! Why? Well because I can do this: Uk Hosting | Film Forum

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t created this blog solely for the purpose of SEO, but I don’t think I would have started one without this alterior motive. And if I had, it wouldn’t have been packed so full of links if it wasn’t for the backlink algorithm!

Then we’ve got article directories that clog up the net with worthless crap and promotions. A small percentage of those articles are mine – although I do try to at least contribute something more than worthless crap – I regularly fail though. I’m not a writer!

Don’t even get me started on link exchanges and link farms!

Someone needs to come up with a new search algorithm that doesn’t rely so heavily on backlinks. Cuil.com have tried; they don’t seem to have succeeded (yet) and Microsoft’s answer was an algorithm that takes into account the amount of time someone spends on any given web site and ranks them accordingly. Great, now we’ve got facebook and other social media sites dominating search results. God knows what kind of SEO tricks will be implemented as a result of this algorithm!

I’m a moaner today, sorry for that. But it’s true. When you start to look out for it, you really can see it – SEO I tactics I mean!

Have a nice day! By the way, if anyone wants a link exchange, contact me…I could do with more traffic

Enter the Dragon – The Dragon’s Den

Have just read Theo Paphitis’ biography “Enter the Dragon” – it’s really quite a good read and I would recommend anyone who has an entrepreneurial mindset to buy it. In one of the chapters he mentions about the Dragon’s Den, how he was accepted onto the program and what it’s actually like.

The BBC were quite cheeky with their interview in that they didn’t actually tell Theo why they wanted to meet him. He turned up at the studio and was informed that they had some investment opportunities for him. They pitched to him and he responded, little did he know that he was being assessed! It turns out they liked what he had to say and he was given the part.

And a good job, too, in my opinion. He and Peter Jones have a camaraderie that is very enjoyable to watch and Theo’s legendary sayings, such as “I would rather stick pins in my eyes than invest with this” or even better “I hope you don’t take a-fence” (his response to someone who was trying to sell custom painted fencing), crack me up.

I’m already looking forward to next year’s series. The diamondgeezer.com creator has already been on my blog to comment about why he chose not to accept the investment in the latest series. Maybe I can get some insight from some more budding entrepreneurs next year?!

Travelling blog

I have decided to start a travel blog to write about all the wonderful places I’ll go in my lifetime. I expect this will be horrendously boring, so I’ll try and liven it up with drunken nights out, weird and wonderful places, strange activities and other shananigans. Aim: Hit every country in the world. (Won’t happen, but the journey is more fun than the achievement!)

So expect ramblings from Dubai, next week, as I’m heading there for a RIPE meeting with my UK Hosting partners! Camel riding here we come!