For everyone frustrated by the changes in MS Office 2007, tearing their hair out at features they loved and lost!
Here’s a link to a MS Word 2003 UI mock-up. Hover over the menu options and click specific features to see where it went in Office 2007.
Have fun!
Google are relaxing their rules with regard to bidding on trademarks.
They will no longer investigate accusations of trademark violation in 190 countries, extending a policy that previously applied only to the US, Canada, Ireland and the UK. Read more here.
PC Mag recently posted their list of ten Twitter accounts worth following it included Wholefoods and Starbucks…are you kidding! The rest of the list was pretty pathetic too, too limp to warrant further comment. So, here’s a few (slight geek influence) suggestions from me
1. BBC Technology - @BBCTech
2. BBC Breaking News - @BBCBreaking
3. Wall St News - @Wall_St_Journal
4. Insights from the Google Webmaster Blog - @GoogleWebMaster
4. 10 Downing St - @DowningStreet
5. Digg Tech News - @Digg_TechNews
6. ZD Net - @ZDNetBlogs
7. Aaron Wall (SEO Legend) - @AaronWall
8. Top SEO Blogs - @TopSEOBlogs
9. Matt Cutts (Google Legend) - @MattCutts
10. Oh and you can follow me on Twitter @SearChat
Eat your heart out PC Mags!
A random selection of regularly updated Twitter feeds you may be interested in keeping up with….
Boris Johnson, Mitch Kapor, Al Gore, CNN Breaking News, The Onion, BBC Breaking News, BBC Click, BBC Technology, 10 Downing St, The Wall St Journal, Google WebMaster Insights, TechCrunch, Tim O’Reilly
Anyone still doubting this is a social platform that needs to be taken seriously?
We launched a credit crunch beating website in October 2008 (yes, we know the timing is off, but who knew). iTriggers.co.uk re-purposes Planning Applications lodged by the British public as hot sales leads. Businesses large and small always need sales leads, no more so than now!
For readers that don’t know…you can’t commence a residential or commercial construction projectin the UK without lodging a planning application and obtaining planning permission from the local authorities.
Anyway, people who plan to build (home extensions, garages, conservatories, converting a barn to an office) don’t just need competitive quotes from construction companies, they may need finance, flooring, kitchen & bathroom equipment etc etc, so planning applications are hot sales leads.
Commercial construction sites (olympic village, roads, offices) need demolition services, decorating services, plant, scaffolding, site security, raw materials, carpeting, cat5 cabling, office equipment….etc etc, so planning applications are hot leads for all sorts of commercial contracts too.
Internet Marketing Guru Challenge
Ok, so here’s the challenge for all you internet, SEO & marketing gurus out there. We are a typical start-up, no big budgets in fact a shoe-string budget, how does iTriggers.co.uk get famous bearing in mind most of our core construction audience are offline and other non-construction businesses who may be online looking for leads are not aware that planning applications can be used in this way?
Anyone got any experience with precisely this issue? Anyone, know anyone in construction or any other market that can help?
So, guys and gals answers below please…………or if you want to keep it private just email me on Jan@iTriggers.co.uk
Thanks in advance 
Google is to kill of it’s print ads program, not surprising as print publications are struggling with subscriptions, circulations and proving the value of print advertising, especially when compared to the higher ‘footfall’ and sophisticated metrics associated with online advertising.
For additional comment see this SearchEngineJournal post.
New Media rules OK …..er, except when you want to sink into a comfortable armchair with a good book!
This article on Wired.com A Plot to Kill Off Google proposes that there is some kind of conspiracy building to bring the giant down, I’m not convinced. I am impressed by their (Wired) ability to weave The U.S. Department of Justice, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Dolly Parton into the same conspiracy story!
Bearing in mind how much good Google must have done for Dolly sending her site new visitors, I’m not sure she has much to complain about. I’m not disputing there’s likely to be a long queue of people complaining at Google’s every move but that doesn’ make a conspiracy just jealousy and fear, the fear possibly justified. See my previous post.
Seth Godin is an internet luminary, an ideas man, he’s the guy behind squidoo and numerous thought provoking books. He isn’t a contributor to Twitter, that’s ok everyone to their own, trouble is one of his fans appears to have stolen his id on Twitter and had accumulated over 1400 followers most of whom appear to believe they are following the great man himself!
I came across this post by ProBlogger ‘When Seth Godin isnt Seth Godin’
I would argue that Seth Godin is now a brand in his own right and the owner would be able to seek some kind of protection for that brand online. It appears he has and it is interesting to see that Twitter have done something about the misuse of this ‘brand’ they have reallocated the Twitter account to the real Seth and it is ‘locked down’ even though he still isn’t actively contributing, I wonder if they would have done that for someone less influential?
My recommendation is, where high traffic, influential platforms are concerned, get in early register names, brands, keywords you want to protect even if you have no intention of using them.
I use Google Alerts to monitor all (indexed of course) online references to my business iTriggers.co.uk, and other kewords associated with subjects of interest or even competitors wherever and whenever they appear online. As soon as Google indexes the content I get an alert telling me which web page the reference appears on. A useful’push’ of relevant information to me.
In an increasingly competitive economy I would want to make sure my brand image is managed well. If I was concerned with brand management for say Panasonic or Sony or British Airways I would be tracking what people are saying about my company and engaging with them, especially if the feedback was not positive. The smart guys do keep tabs on online activity, see my previous post about Twitter and StomperNet support!
There is no doubt in my mind that social media content can be a powerful influence on brands, so I would want to know if someone’s published a comment about my business online. On the basis that Google will get around to indexing most content sooner or later Google Alerts are a great way of discovering content of interest quickly.
Next paragraph is a massive generalisation I know but full technical explanation not appropriate for this post!
Of course blogs and sites that are updated frequently and contain good quality content will enjoy the frequent attention of the Googlbot(s). The best of these sites are also likely enjoy a decent PageRank, appear high in the organic results, be the most visited and therefore also likely to be the most influential. For these reasons I want to know if information of interest to me appears on those sites.
Don’t believe that social media makes a difference? Panasonic and wearesocial.net media agency disagree.
I’ve been a member of Twitter for some time, just haven’t contributed much. I had nobody ‘following’ me and didn’t see much useful information coming my way. I was putting little in and getting less out. A couple of weeks ago I started Twittering (or is it Tweeting) regularly, I kept my posts to business activities only, I’ve got no desire to let the world know when I’m making a cuppa or playing with the dog…..wait a minute…I haven’t got a dog, what’s that dog doing in here?!
The thing is, as each day went by my posts started to collect useful business related ‘followers’ i.e. people and organisations I would want to follow myself as they provide useful business related links and insights.
In a matter of days I’ve made 20 useful business contacts and they’re spread all over the planet, some local to me in the UK, others from the U.S. and Canada, brilliant, couldn’t have happened any other way in such a small space of time.
These contacts have provided me with access to development resource, networking opportunities and useful online content.
Now here’s a thing…..you will have seen my previous post about StomperNet, a great resource for those keen to make money online. Well, I paid my subs and got the DVD’s and first two NetEffect mags and then ….silence. I emailed to find out what was going on, no response, I checked the blog and members support forum, no recent activity…I started to wonder if I’d made a big mistake handing over my hard earned cash.
Days went by without any response from the StomperNet team, I started to get nervous, frustrated and a little angry, so I resorted to guerilla tactics. I posted a tetchy message on Twitter, named Andy Jenkins and StomperNet, within minutes I got a response from StomperNet support. Impressive, Twitter delivered where all other methods had failed.
So, is Twitter useful in business? A resounding yes, If you manage your ‘following’ and ‘followers’ with descretion, like any business networking opportunity really.
My thanks to Frank Donatone (a contact from Twitter) for the referral to this blog post on the best Twitter tools to install if you’re using Twitter in a business context.
