What’s wrong with Facebook?

Facebook is in trouble; or so it might seem from stories in the specialist press, such as New Media Age and subsequent mainstream follow-up coverage. It seems that in the UK, Facebook has started to lose users; it is down by around 400,000 over a month. That might seem a …

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Word of mouth is still important on the Internet

Many Internet marketers would like to have us believe that success online is all down to various bits of technology. They tell us you need this kind of ecommerce software, or that kind of autoresponder, or a specific piece of unblockable pop-up advertising service. But none of these are really …

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You can sell anything online

People often ask me if their business could operate online. Many business people fear that their service or product would not translate well to the online world. But I tell them that I can’t think of anything that is impossible to sell online. After all, if just a few years …

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Positive people do best on the Internet

The other day I was at a meeting sitting near a family doctor. Up on the stage popped another doctor (and it wasn’t a medical meeting…!) who said he intended to make as many people as possible happy. Why? Because, he told us, that in his experience as a general …

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People rate links more importantly than Google

Trust is an important issue in all our lives. If we trust the person telling us something we tend to believe them. The same is true online; if we trust the web site we are looking at, we believe what it says. If someone you meet recommends a product or …

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Sad shoppers flock to the internet

Retail therapy is often “prescribed” for people who are in a bit of a fix. Someone who is worried or anxious often finds solace in shopping. Now new research shows us why and it has important implications for online retailers. It seems that people who are “self focused” are prepared …

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Woolworths gets defeated by homeworking mum

Woolworths have big red faces over an entry in their Big Red Book. This is their catalogue shopping service that also features online. The problem is that no-one at Woolies realised that the word “Lolita” had sexual connotations when they started selling a bed with that name. Worse still, the …

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Here’s a special offer: “Scam Awareness Month”…!

Today sees the start of the British Government’s “Scam Awareness Month”. Councils across the UK are backing the Office of Fair Trading’s campaign to make us all aware of “scams” that cost us dear. Shame the OFT doesn’t know about it – or at least doesn’t appear to. According to …

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“A Levels” from McDonalds? A lesson for Internet marketers

McDonald’s is one of the first companies within the UK to start offering qualifications deemed to be the same standard as at A-level. Whether you actually need such a high level qualification just to flip a burger is debatable. However the idea is that different companies start offering a variety …

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Societie Generale and the missing £3.6 billion

You would think that it would be easy to find the £3.6 billion missing from one of France’s biggest banks. After all it’s not a small pile of money. Somebody must be able to spot it. So where is it? What most people seem to have ignored is that if …

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How to dramatically increase your online productivity

Xobni is one of the most fantastic applications I have seen in goodness knows how many years of looking at computer software. Never before have I reviewed a piece of software either for myself or for a computer magazine and have been so bowled over so instantly. Xobni is actually …

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The Internet isn’t global – it’s local

People tend to work not very far from where they were born — indeed, in the UK, the average commuting distance to work is just 8 miles. Most people in the UK, live within about 10 miles of where they were born. We don’t actually travel as far as would …

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