Category Archives: internet

The Apprentice 2015

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So the final of the 2015 apprentice lineup was between Joseph Valente and Vana Koutsomitis.

Joseph’s business plan surrounded expanding his plumbing business by pitching an idea to become preferred suppliers to property agents to areas outside of his current region

Vana’s business plan was to launch a dating app that combined online dating with game playing. The games would be a form of psychrometric analysis.

Industry experts and Lord Sugar quickly picked up the fact that Vana’s business would require more than the £250,000 investment to get to market. Vana had spoken to an app developer who suggested a basic app with few features would cost £30000 to £40000 to develop and for a more fully featured app would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and would need marketing.

Lord Sugar chose Joseph Valente as his business partner.

In his final summing up Lord Sugar did say he knew technology rather than the service industry, but the required investment for Vana’s idea seemed to be the downfall of her idea. Questioning her further she admitted the £250000 would be used as seed funding to get an app developed and to market and hopefully withing 6 months they would have 100000 users, She admitted she would have to get further funding to succeed but believed she could sell her idea to get extra funding from Venture Capitalists.

Unless Lord Sugar was willing to put in more money this would water down his shareholding so probably was not an attractive proposition. One industry expert implied there were about 15 dating apps coming to market per month.

It does make you wonder how people with ideas can become successful in the internet/app world. The average person could not easily provide the funds that are being suggested. Most successful apps are free and people seem to expect them to be free. In app purchases seem to work but there has been numerous negative reports of how easy it is for people to run up very large bills to use the app or if a game (progress further). This is especially true of apps aimed at Children.

Up until recently adverts were fairly non existant on apps and users were using the app version more tha the browser version of sites. Today apps now do show adverts but numerous ad blockers exist to stop ads from being displayed though these apps are being outlawed by the app stores; even some websites have been coded so that they show a banner to users if they have ad blockers installed in the browser and wont let them use the site unless the blocker is disabled.

It seems that perhaps bedroom technologists will be lucky to succeed; though this is no different to what happened in the video games industry as todays video games have budgets that are in excess of hollywod feature films. The likes of manic miner and pacman just dont get developed today

It will be interesting to see if Vana does launch her app.

unwanted press

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Just imagine that you have been going about your daily work and through no fault of your own your face and life are published across the press.

Until a few days ago no one had ever heard of dr gemma mullen but because prince william has started his new job with the east anglian air ambulance the daily mail has suddenly taken an interest in her and why…supposedly she is the doppleganger of kate

So this poor doctor who happens to have worked the same shift as william has had her full life history including details of her hen party, wedding and husband published in the press.

The Mail on Sunday today even has a column by rachel johnson (sister of boris)  with the headline “The gorgeous Dr Gemma Mullen doesn’t need fellow air ambulance crewman Wills… She’s already found her prince” see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3166846/The-gorgeous-Dr-Gemma-Mullen-doesn-t-need-fellow-air-ambulance-crewman-Wills-s-prince-writes-RACHEL-JOHNSON.html#ixzz3gNImT0Kz

The article discusses and thankfully dispells the theory of insinuations that have supposedly been portrayed somewhere by others but to be honest was it even needed to be written.
Todays press (though some certain publications have always) seem to have an obsession with celebrity and royal lives. Taking the daily mail and its showbiz section hardly a day goes by without at least one story of the kardashian family, current and previous members of towie, troubled ex uk soap stars and supposed reports from close friends of current marriage/relationship breakdowns. My late grand father an avid mail reader would never have read such stories and no doubt would have changed papers. One has to wonder what is the target demographic of the current publication compared with 20 years ago or even 5 and 10 years ago. The worrying things is that some of these stories in the app edition actually make it onto the main uk news section.

Will you Climb Online?

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Just before Christmas 2014 Mark Wright was announced the winner of the apprentice and picked up £250000 backing from Lord Alan Sugar for his business proposal for a digital marketing agency. His plan centres on digital marketing and search engine optimisation to help push businesses up towards the top in online searches.

Marks Company was to be called Climb Online;

As is to be expected the web sphere went into overdrive with criticisms of his idea and credibility.

His company from day one even though registered with companies’ house it would appear in June 2014 had no website. In fact the domain names for climbonline dot com and climbonline dot co dot uk were already taken. Both if not surprisingly by rock climbing companies. Marks Climb Online domain was to be climb-online.co.uk which was registered on the 16 Jun 2014, along it looks like .uk, .com. as both redirect to the .co.uk domain. Much criticism is to be found on twitter around the fact he has a hyphen in his domain name as it is seen as a kiss of death.

The domains .co, .org, .eu, .org.uk look to have all been registered during the night of the apprentice final by at least one or two individuals, only the ,org.uk has a website behind it.

.agency also has been registered again with a website behind it though as a form of parody.

The twitter account was registered on the 23rd December 2014 with initial tweets indicating a marketing launch for climb online on 5th January 2015, during this time all enquiries should be directed to a PR agency presumably while the legalities etc. were sorted out; It was not until 2 Jan 2015 did a climb online email account become known, surely this could have been announced along with a site holding page as soon as the winner was announced. His true site did not get launched until 10 March 2015.

Mark Wright it would appear only launched his personal twitter account on the 8th December 2014 which seems surprising given the nature of his work though perhaps previous accounts have been removed. With other candidates quite often they have personal websites and twitter accounts, facebook accounts etc. that are used as holding pages whilst the show is being broadcast and don’t seem to become active until when they have been fired.

Marks proposal was to provide services to SMEs during the Apprentice final he was pitching the service at £3000 a month and that there would be a personal touch/approach with someone who would come and site with the business to work out the stratefy, it appears his minimum charge was reported just after the final to be around £400 a month, presumably that would be for the services of his agency and not include any costings for developing any recommended changes to a companies actual website structure and any recommended online advertising.

Roll forward to April 2015 and interviews with Mark started popping up examples being https://econsultancy.com/blog/66270-apprentice-winner-mark-wright-on-seo-algorithms-revolutionising-the-industry/ , http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/smallbusiness/article-3021370/Apprentice-winner-Mark-Wright-turns-profit-Climb-Online-two-months.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490 and http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s108/the-apprentice/interviews/a639378/the-apprentices-mark-wright-my-critics-are-jealous-of-me.html#~p9dbBMnpOfknk6

It appears that in the 3 months of operation Climb Online has turned a small profit, has signed up between 80 and 100 clients and has 10 hired staff and 4 freelancers. He states that his target market are companies with a turnover of around £1.5 million and 10-20 staff so not exactly the small business he initially spoke of. He fully admits that the level of clients he has on board has been helped by his time on the apprentice and that if he was going it alone he would have nowhere near that number so quickly. It would be interesting to know how many of his staff are actively working for his clients and how many are sales people gaining the business. If I recall he pitched that he could hirer seo staff for around £25K a year, I would imagine his sales staff are primarily commission based. Even if we take the lower figure of 80 clients at £300 a month he is turning over £24K a month in fees which currently would put his turnover to staff ratio less than the companies he is targeting his business at and would appear quite tight if things started to unravel. It will be good to see exact figures once he posts his full year accounts and also see how many clients he has then and whether there is any indication of client churn levels.

To support his business he indicates his company is also developing an in-house seo platform presumably funding for this is from the investment he received on winning the apprentice, it would take a while for his in-house product to be fully implemented and used for his current client list. He describes the platform as between Majestic SEO and SEOmozboth of which are chargeable products and probably not aimed at the small company.

Again this article has drawn criticism of his company and there seems to be a consensus in this criticism that he contradicts himself, displays lack of knowledge, his website is poorly designed, lacking in content, he does not practice what he preaches. Its been discovered he is the director of another company wrighton digital ltd which was incorporated only 4 months prior to the end of the apprentice. Whether the criticism of his business is right or wrong I will stay on the middle of the fence you can see both sides. Time will tell I am sure there is room for him and all the others to operate.

He fully acknowledges the criticism thrown at him and readily admits his company has been subject to negative seo attacks and has had to resort to employing someone for four hours a day to combat these attacks. It’s a shame that people who have the guts to put their head above the parapet are open to such attacks by all and sundry as he is only trying to make a living for him and his employees, also it hurts companies that have taken a leap of faith with his company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Channel 4 – My Online Bride

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Channel 4 recently broadcast a program called My Online Bride.

The program investigated the world of online dating with the emphasis on searching for brides from overseas.

Three british guys where the subjects

i) 46 year old Chris from Macclesfield

Chris has been single for 5 years and with his 10 year old daughter is browsing the website of a thai dating agency called A Foreign Affair which is run by an American company.

Looking at their website it seems they run tours to many different countries.

Chris has signed up for a week long romance tour of Thailand at a cost of £2000. A 51 year old british man called Leonard is in charge of the tour. Mike tour will have 8 western men on it with the should purpose of being introduced to local ladies who are looking for love. The main event of the tour will be an evening at a club where the 8 guys will meet between 80 and 100 girls and be able to choose who they would like to date.

Leonard says of the girls they are all good cooks, are the perfect housewife and like our mums of 25 years ago. For the guys its like they will be in a candy store.

At the club Leonard helps with the introductions, this event is their most popular and has generated a healthy profit on the 18 years its been on offer.

The guys are shown the girls details prior to the event to see the type of girls that will be there and they are known as number rather than a name.

At the event some of the girls are asked whether they think the guys are attractive one says no, another just giggles another has no comment.

Chris meets a girl called Baimon who is 10 years younger than him at the event and they decide after going on a date they would like to meet again. However before they can date properly Baimon informs Chris he has to meet her family and get their permission she however really likes him. Chris goes to meet a senior member of the family where things start to unravel.

Chris is upset and has found love in a foreign country is complicated and expensive. He has met Baimons sister and she apparently has asked for money. She believes that for every day that Chris is in Thailand and dating her sister basically meaning Baimon is not earning that Chris should pay money t support the loss in income, she shows Chris by calculator the some of 2000 per day I presume thats Bhat which is about £40 a day. Chris is extremely upset this and says he is unwilling and unable to pay he thinks its a form of human trafficking. He meets Baimon one more time and tells her its over. She begs him to reconsider she says she is serious and wants a good man for love and she no play game and this is her life not business, he leaves in floods of tears and is extremely upset. and he looks a broken man.

The next we see of Chris is he is back home and he is still bitter about the request for money. We are told that Baiman was already in a relationship with a foreign man when she met Chris and she is now pregnant. Chris though actually met a nice women in a market in Pattaya where he had gone after the disastrous encounter with Baimon to relax. She could be the one.

You do have to feel sorry for Chris, though its hard to believe that he had not heard he may have to support ant thai girl he met and started dating whether he is supporting the thai girl who could now be the one is not clear. Surely the dating agency would have informed Chris the protocols though questions have to be raised about the screening of the girls on their books if the girls may already be dating other guys.

ii) 26 year old Welshman Mike

Mike had joined an agency called marriabebynatali looking for brides from the Ukraine.

Marriabebynatali is an online site with a 45 year old female owner called Nataly who had run the business for 17 years. Ukraine is considered the bride basket of Europe and has the highest proportion in Europe of women to men.

Mike works in a call center and used all his savings to find love with the agency he believed it would cost him £2200 to £2300 but he says there is no price for love. He lacks dating experience or so he says, Nataly will coach him as part of package deal. He uses Skype to chat with potential brides that have been put forward to him. One called Tetiana a 27 year old travel agent from Kiev has caught his eye and he believes he is punching above his weight level. He has been speaking on Skype with her for 6 weeks and they have decided to meet. Tetiana will meet hm at the airport and being very trusting she will let him stay at her apartment in the spare room so they can trial being man and wife. On meeting he seemed overawed with her she was very happy with him. The following day he met her from work and they went on their first proper date he presented her with a bunch of flowers and they went out for a meal. The conversation hardly flowed during the meal perhaps due to lack of a common spoken language so once the meal was over Mike suggest they should go home. The next morning shows a sheepish Mike who admits that against the advise of Nataly the relationship had progressed to being more that friends straight away. Mike was unsure how he felt and what to do so he sought out Nataly and told her that he had slept with Tetiana by way of saying he got his hand in the cookie jar. Nataly feigned being shocked. Mike tells Nataly he believes he might have made a mistake and wants to meet other girls to but does not want Tetiana to think he has messed her around. Nataly believes he is stupid but agrees to organise some speed dates with other girls, Mike decides whilst he is doing this he should move out of Tetianas and rents other accommodation. He is now on the net looking at other girls he will meet over next few days.

On each date Mike gives each date flowers , however on most dates we see there is once again a language barrier, he only meets the women for a  short time, some were impressed others not so. one of the dates said not handsome did not like his face and he is flustered and more importantly she did not like him

Mike in the end has decided to call it a day with Tetiana and has decided to play the field. He reasons that this week he has met some women who have been interested in him so why not in the future could there not be thousands. Mike says he now believes that love is not as simple as getting to know someone immediately.

Mike was quite a strange character he seemed to have a strange american twang to his accent. He did not go down well on twitter. I can’t believe that at 26 he was so naive in relationships Im sure he knew what he was after. It would be interesting to know if he has met any other girls from overseas since returning home and also it was not obvious if on his other dates he as he put it got his hand caught in the cookie jar.

iii) Sam from Wakefield

Sam from wakefield has been long distance dating a thai girl called Apple presumably they met online. Apple lives with her mum and 12 year old son in rural thailand. She says that many girls want to find a foreign man as wages are low around £2 a week also foreign men are a safer than thai men who like to flirt and gamble.

Sam sends Apple £200 a month. The money is expected by her to help her and her family survive. They have met in Thailand 6 times in total and have decided to marry at a the local thai registry office at a cost of £2000. They have got help from a western 46 year old man called Darren who looks after about 50 weddings a week. It was not said what his cut of the £2000 would be but one would say its a lucrative business.

Once married Sam has to leave the country Apple has to apply for a visa which will take 6 months to be processed. Due to UK visa restrictions Apple will have to travel to the UK alone for the first year and so will have to leave her son with her mother. Her son is upset when she leaves as he feels she will not return for him.

Apple believes Wakefield will be cold but will provide her with the opportunity to find work to earn a good wage to be able to send money home to support her family back in thailand.

During the 6 months since getting married Sam has been preparing the home they will leave in sort of tidying up. Apple and Sam have remained in contact by phone and text.

The house is not that tidy but Sam believes that women like doing housework and besides it will give her something to do.

Sam has invested every penny of his savings to get Apple to the UK and believes he has spent between £8000 and £9000 with his trips to Thailand, sending money of support and the paperwork.

On arrival in the UK Sam meets Apple at the airport and takes her back to the home they will live in. She is impressed and says the house is big though the spare room is messy and like what a tramp would live in. She is shocked there is no tv in the bedroom. Sam shows Apple her cupboard in the kitchen which is full of cleaning products.

Apple thinks she will like it there and is looking forward to earning the money to safe guard her families life back in Thailand.

Its hard to know what to make of Sam perhaps the impression he leaves of being quite a chauvinist is down to how he has portrayed himself in front of the cameras. He has spent quite a lot of money to meet , marry and get Apple over to the UK so perhaps he genuinely wants to be with her. He is young and not like the perceived impression that kits just old guys chasing young far eastern girls. As for Apple one would presume that she would have married any western guy that was interested in her as her goal in life is to provide a better life for her family. This is a common held view of why overseas girls marry western men and move thousands of miles to strange surroundings. Whether it will work we will probably never know.

 

The Overloaded Duck

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Last nights BBC2 Masterchef The Professionals featured the finalists preparing food at a world renowned 3 michelin star restaurant.

I’m sure (well I know) I was not the only one that whilst the programme was showing tried to access the web site of the restaurant and found the site not responsing at all and timing out. It took a while after the program finished no doubt due to people watching back on iplayer, etc for the site to recover.

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