Whilst doing some research on Google Suggest, we realised that Google doesn’t seem to like religions. See the example on Christianity, you get the same result for Buddhism or any other religion. Ts ts ts… It made made my day for sure…
Last night I watched Dragons’ Den, one of my favourite TV shows here in the UK, where entrepreneurs can pitch to 5 investors their business ideas and request investment in return for a percentage of their company.
In the process of finding real talent or potential investment opportunities and for general entertainment value you often see either ridiculous or useless business and product ideas. The dragons all come from different business areas, such as retail, leisure industry, hospitality. Although one of the investors is meant to have more of a technology background, when it comes to internet ventures, the dragons are slightly overwhelmed.
A couple of years ago Theo Paphitis invested £200k for a 30% return in an affiliate site Gaming Alerts, which I found startling. Amongst the internet industry there was a lot of discussion regarding this outrageous investment. In a later show Gaming Alerts was only mentioned very briefly and it was said that they moved the team of 2 into Theo’s office building, I guess to keep an eye on them and to see where his £200k actually go. I would like to know too!
In last night’s show, Deborah Meaden invested £100k for a 15% stake in the company Mydish.co.uk, a recipe sharing site. Maybe £100k would be a fair investment but the founder of the company already raised £600k investment to date and I truely ask myself what happened to all that money, as the site doesn’t really feature any spectacular functionalities, which would have added up to this kind of money. Otherwise I suspect, that the company owner Carol Savage has been ripped off by her web development company.
Those two examples just really demonstrate to me that those particular investors may lack the necessary know how in the online industry. Although I have to admit that in both instances the pitches were really professional and the people pitching for the investments were really confident and knowlegable. This is certainly an important part contributing to the investors’ decision making process. However, I still believe that they could have saved themselves a good junk of money if they just stuck to their areas of expertise.
I know, it’s pretty late talking about the SMX Madrid 2009 but I would like to share a few impressions anyhow.
This was my first ever time at an official SMX event and I was really happy that my company let me attend the event, despite the recesssion. I wasn´t really sure what to expect to be honest but I reckon in comparison to the events in London or in the states, the SMX Madrid is a lot smaller scale event. Other conference visitors who had been at the event in 2008 said that this year’s participation must have been only about 1/3 or even 1/4 of the previous years’ . So the recession took its turn quite a bit this year.
At first I was a little bit worried about the event being carried out completely in Spanish, although I understand a lot more than I speak, but most of the keynote speakers did their talks in English.
The keynote speakers included
Sara Holoubek, a very charismatic public speaker, kept the crowd awake talking a lot about social media. Twitter was a big buzz word throughout the 2 day event.
Barney Pell introduced Bing, the “decision making” search engine, which certainly had a couple of features I liked, for example that a video would start playing by hovering over it, rather clicking on it. Apart from that I don’t think it will take off the way Microsoft will hope for, although a massive marketing budget was made available for the launch.
Russell E. Perry introduced 123people, a website designed purely for “spying” on People. When making a search for a person, it returns anything from pictures to social networking profiles of that person, including email addresses. The question of privacy was obviously raised and Perry assured that the site only contains links to the various websites where personal content is been entered but realisticly people require to take care of their own privacy. If your email address is publicly available somewhere, it will appear on the 123people website. I think it’s a great way of managing your own “brand”.
My favourite 2 speakers, and I am probably a bit biased there, as I used to work with them at Bigmouthmedia, were Andrew Girdwood and Susana Inarejos. Andrew shared some really great insights and stats in terms of search behaviour in different countries, whereas Susana talked about synergy between SEO and PPC, which I think is so often overlooked but yet so important.
My overall verdict: I think the SMX Madrid is certainly valuable for people who work in-House or are still fairly new to search. Main bonus of these events is that they are a great place for networking.
Madrid is beautiful as well, so it’s definitely worth going but I have my heart set on going to the SMX Advanced in Seattle next year. Let’s see whether I manage.
People who follow me on Twitter know that I am planning interviews with developers over the next month.
If you are a developer and would like to receive a mention and a link from my blog, all you need to do is participate!
Requirement is only that you provide one question yourself, which you would like to ask fellow developers in the internet industry.
The interviews will kick of next week, so hurry up and send me your questions.
I look forward to hearing from you.
This post is not online marketing related. Well, I thought we all deserve a little breather on a Thursday.
In my post Seven Things about me I mentioned that I was (an on occasion still am) a big fan of arcade games. I came across this real life human Pac Man game by a Frenchman called Remi Gaillard, which takes place in a supermarket. Really funny! 
Watch it here.
Remi Gaillard Pac Man in a supermarket
Happy Thursday everyone!
Are you an affiliate whizz kid who blogs on a regular basis? Then you’re reading the right blog post. Bigmouthmedia, the mighty European search company is running an affiliate blogging excellence award B.A.B.E. . So if you fancy winning £1,000 and receiving glory and enhancing your reputation, read how you can get nominated.
How can you participate? It’s as easy as this:
1) Get a friend to nominate you for the B.A.B.E. award.
This is pretty simple- 15 nominations will make it through to the panel.
2) Blog about the affiliate blogger award B.A.B.E.
Just make sure to use some relevant keywords in you copy, so that your post can be found through the Google Blog Search. 5 blogs will make it through to the panel this way.
3) Twitter about bigmouthmedia’s B.A.B.E. awards
But ensure it’s pretty straight-forward to find your blog URL on your Twitter profile!
What are the requirements for a winning affiliate blog:
Important – Timeframes:
Well, I’m going to nominate Mark, from Digeratimarketing, I think he deserves it!
Good luck for everyone who’s trying to enter!
Thanks for everyone’s comments about my recent post about my internet privacy & security issues with my landlady here in Barcelona! In my last email to Elena I asked her how she wanted to share 1 router with 3 flats (!) whereby she told me a hole would be drilled and a cable from downstairs would be plugged into our router up here. After a few days of silence, she finally got back to me with this:
Sorry to reply you late, but the truth is that I am very busy with no time to sit in front of the computer! [I see!]
Yes, you are right, exactly like that a Lan cable will be pushed through a hole from downstairs to connect with your router. It will not happen that the plug will come out, we have it like that in many places and it works well, nobody will knock on your door. The only thing that may happen is that they phone me and I phone you to make a rerouting. It is not the entire building, it will be three flats. You will have the rooter and the phone that as you know.
The other option for you is that we take out the rooter from your flat and the phone too, leaving you the connection, but I think that is more convenient for you to have it.
When we will have free the entire building, then we will do a connection always for three flats but with the rooters at the staircase, but in this moment the more convenient thing is to do it like that.
I apologize for any trouble that it make cause you to make the connection but it will be something that not will take long.
I am going to be away from Barcelona during next week and we can organize a day good for everybody, the afternoon to do it. i do not think it will take you longer than one hour, probably less.
Best regards,
Elena
Aha! Interesting… she does this all the time?
Anyway, I am pretty sure that no-one will move in downstairs for another few months and by then we’ll have hopefully found another place where we can have our own router. What a luxury that would be!
Enjoy your weekend!
I never think about internet security and privacy that much to be honest. But an email conversation with my landlady changed my view on this matter completely. The situation is just too funny, outrageous and a little bit scary, so I need to share it with you all!
Since my partner and I arrived in Barcelona we have been having quite an interesting time with our landlady. Over the past few months we’ve been living above a building site. The work was meant to be completed in January and we’re already half way through March and I can’t see the works being completed any time soon.
Hence I got in touch with our landlady to enquire about the aforementioned noise, which in turn reminded her to ask for a favour from our end.
I will just copy and past now, thinking about it makes me laugh so hard, I have tears rolling down my cheeks, whilst I am quite astounded how this can be real. I am also going to leave the names in, because the reader audience is mainly English speaking and I just need to keep them in there for effect.
Here it goes.
Internet security, we need no stinking internet privacy
Starring:
1) Landlady: Elena
2) Tenant: Feli
3) The all around handyman: Mr. Salas
4) Internet technician: Carlos Grau
Hi Felicitas
There will be days with noise and another with less but they are working everyday to be able to finish soonest!.
I wanted to contact you because we would need to go to your flat to make a connection between your rooter and the flats below that will share the connection. Tell us please when it would be convenient to arrange it with Mr. Salas.
We will wait for your news, thanks and regards,
Elena
Hi Elena,
I’m not quite sure why Mr Salas would need access to our router to give the flats below internet access, surely those flats will have there own landline connections? if there were several people all sharing from the same connection this would make it very slow? or would the speed of the connection be upgraded?
Regards
Felicitas
Hi Felicitas,
I hope the noise is getting better.
Mr. Salas has to come to your flat to open a link, passing by the floor to connect the rooter with the flats below. Then, below they will have their connections.
We would have the technician for the internet, Carlos Grau that would come together with Mr. Salas. Sr. Salas will make a hole to connect below and Grau will pass the cable and this is it. No more bother for you.
Regards
Elena
Hi Elena,
Am I right in thinking from below that a LAN cable will be pushed through a hole from downstairs that will connect to the router sitting in our flat? this doesn’t seem right to me, what if the plug comes out? we would have people knocking on our door asking what has happened to the internet? or if like some days, it just does not work for a few hours? again, we would be responsible for the entire buildings internet? I did own a property in the UK previously so I know this is not the best way to get a whole building hooked up to the internet.
It would make more sense for each of the flats to have there own walled internet connection and own routers to allow for several computers in each flat to be hooked up.
If I have misunderstood what is getting done please clarify.
Regards
Felicitas
Well, what do you think? A little bit dodgy, isn’t it? What about privacy issues, someone savvy could hack into our computers easily. I am not very comfortable with that. Let’s see what the landlady tells us next.
Ok, so it looks like I am going to participate in this blogging “link exchange” mayhem, as I was tagged by Kilian Valkhof who keeps insisting on the fact that I don’t blog enough! So my immediate task is to write seven things about myself, some weird, some random. That’s what the rules say anyhow. Let’s see whether I can russle up some interesting facts.
Seven Things… about me
1) My full name is Felicitas Beatrice Betzl. As my mum didn’t want to pass on the name Klara, which has been passed down through generations to females on my mum’s side. My parents thought very long about my names and both, Felicitas and Beatrice mean Happiness. So I try and be happy most of the time. Well, I smile a lot anyway and am very well known for my sometimes uncontrollable giggle fits. Life can’t always be that serious.
2) My first computer experience was with my father’s Viktor VPC when I was 7 years old and was root cause for my addiction to Frogger in my early computer days. I really did like arcade games a lot, and I should probably not publicly admit to this, but I am known to play a secret game of Tetris on occasion.
3) I’ve been working in online marketing for almost 6 years now, and although I wouldn’t dare calling myself a geek, I can honestly say that my job is also my hobby. My biggest passion lies probably in SEO and social media, which probably has lead me to the fact that I twice dreamt about being a search engine spider, which was a pretty awesome dream. All hyperlinks, were tunnels lit by UV light, which was almost like being in a very futuristic nightclub, however the music in the background, as far as I can remember was the themetune of the Neverending story, which worries me slightly, even though I was a big fan of the book and movie years ago.
4) I own a black Junior bass guitar (as I have too small hands for a regular sized one), which I named Yoda. It’s now living with one of my friends Neil Raeside, a very talented musician based in Glasgow. I never really played it much, as Guitar Hero was just far easier and more fun, I guess. I have a great affinity to Yoda, as I am convinced that he is secretly German, as sometimes my English regresses to Yoda speach although I lived in Scotland for almost 11 years. Sometimes I wonder whether I will look like Yoda when I am old and wrinkly.
5) My first programming experience was during highschool in an extracurricular informatics class. We made a kangaroo walk from the lefthand bottom corner to the top righthand side and made it disappear through an exit. That was my first and last time programming in Turbo Pascal.
6) I do google myself on a regular basis for reputation management purposes and to see who links to me. So far I’ve not had any nasty surprises. Let’s not jinx it!
7) I used to do a lot of Ballroom dancing when I was a teen and I still enjoy dancing now. My favourite dance is the Tango.
Wow, that wasn’t that hard. Well, now I have to find 7 people who are going to share 7 facts about themselves.
Tagging along
First of all I am going to tag some of my Glasgow crowd (friends, people I know throughworking in this industry)
1) Elaine McVicar - A good friend of mine and one of the few girls I know who feels as passionate about the web as I do. Go, Lainey!
2) Rob Johnson – A Glasgow based Flash developer, an old workmate of mine from Dog Digital who likes to laugh as much as I do!
3) Richie Kelly – Another online marketing geek and the master of paid search. Also a good friend and always willing to get beat at pool by me
4) Mike Briggs – Well known SEO guru, who I still haven’t had the pleasure of working with. Maybe one day?!
Now to the Barca crowd
5) David Poblador Garcia – System Admin and fellow SEO geek at my new job.
6) Diego Campo – A really nice, old workmate of mine!
And finally from the USA
7) James Omdahl – One of the most knowledgable online marketing guys I’ve ever worked with and also a great laugh!
And here’s the rules of the game:
Finally got round to getting a new contact form installed. Feel free to drop me a line on my brand new contact form.
Sorry for everyone who was hunting around for my contact details.
I look forward to hearing from you soon!