Microsoft to buy Yahoo
Microsoft have pitched to buy Yahoo.
I’m gutted.
Last Autumn it was obvious that Yahoo stock was seriously undervalued by comparison to Google, Amazon, and other major internet companies.
However, not only did I not have an investment portfolio, but the promise of the stock markets tanking made it a bad time to set up a portfolio […]
Now over 200,000 spam comments
Akismet now lists over 215,000 spam comments targeted and deleted at ibrian.co.uk.
I think that says something sad about humanity - that as a species we seek to predate on one another for material advantage.
The internet is such an accurate reflection of the web - the hard working projects that seek to give, the spammers and […]
How to complain
In business and domestic life I’ve repeatedly encountered issues where I’ve felt as though a product/service has either been not satisfactorily delivered, or delivered at all.
In raising complaints, I’ve learned a few key pointers on how to ensure a reasonably swift resolution of such issues:
1. Ask, don’t threaten
Don’t threaten anything. We don’t know there is […]
SMX London: November 15-16 2007
Got a really big workload I’m still working through and haven’t had any time to devote time to any in-depth posts/tutprials/FAQs either here or at Platinax for some time - but a few meet requests for SMX London next week means I need to turn up.
I’ll be acting barfly from around 3pm on Thursday, and […]
Losing out on TV interview requests
Ouch - lost out on a couple of TV interview requests over the past few weeks because of my running a number of news sites.
The BBC wanted me to represent a view on surveillance in society on one of their London programmes, and a couple of days ago Sky wanted to schedule an interview over […]
Database restore after db failed
The database at iBrian has been acting up recently - I had thought that a “repair tables” in phpmyadmin had done the job, but then came onto the site today to find a single post displayed - apparently everything was lost.
Anyway, I uploaded a backup, upgraded Wordpress, and all seems to be running fine now.
I […]
BBC news - it’s the details that matter
Richard Porter describes the difficulties in delivering the news when details are sketchy - such as the recent Iraqi truck bombings, and flooding in North Korea.
However, in my opinion, the problem with media in general isn’t lack of details on breaking stories - it’s the insertion of suspect details in more in-depth coverage.
For example, all […]
Good staff are hard to find
Good staff are hard to find.
I’ve got some good staff on my team - my writers are especially of a good standard, namely because I never went on price, but instead, on quality, hiring experienced writers already working in the UK press industry.
However, writing requires a particular skill - what’s more difficult is when […]
Netscape going Indonesian?
Is Netscape becoming a multi-lingual social media site?
For some reason a large number of posts from Indonesia - and written in Indonesian - appear to have been flooded into the site.
I can only guess the Netscape people figure on promoting Netscape as a multi-lingual site.
I guess I should start submitting in Gaelic. :)
Getting support calls for news sites?
Been an odd morning - it’s only 10am, but I’ve already had two phone support requests because of news sites I operate.
On HomeMove I wrote an article about NHBC certificates - a form of guarantee that a new build property is built to proper standards. It also ensures the builder/developer will correct faults (snagging issues) […]
How to make blogs successful
I just got an email request for an interview - the second over the past few months. No idea what happened over the first as I was never updated, so I’ll repost my answers here.
The basic gist was - what makes for a successful blog?
Obviously ibrian.co.uk isn’t a particularly successful blog - but I’m not […]
Rediscovering link building
Since Threadwatch closed it’s killed off my social respite time, forcing me to concentrate more on work.
It’s sad to lose that social connection with the SEO world, but since then I’ve found myself being creative again with link building, and discovered some interesting new solutions.
Some I know other SEO’s are already using - some I […]
Archive org - actually useful!
Normally I find archive.org something of a curiosity - it’s fun to see how sites looked years ago, but aside from that, not much use?
Or so I thought.
Recently I’ve figured on setting up a few blogs outside of commercial niches, just to document my personal interests as I see them.
I’m always reading up on […]
Fancy Dress
What’s really interesting running the Platinax Business Directory is the type of submissions that it attracts.
While not expensive, the £14.95 submission fee is enough to separate the wheat from the chaff, and there are very few low quality sites that get submitted.
What’s really interesting is how many paid submissions I get from multinational companies. […]
Learning from experience and turning failure into success
A lot of business/marketing/webmaster blogs are filled with speculation - sales-speak which defines success with a subject in generic terms.
Success is nothing more than working hard and focusing on your subject. Apparently.
I disagree - success with anything comes from experience, and a big part of that experience comes from doing things *wrong*.
That means wasting […]
How long before citizen journalism is faked?
The BBC lauds the contribution of user generated media - photos, video, etc, not least in the recent spate of flooding to hit the UK.
As a viewer, it was brilliant being able to access images of places I knew, photographed by old neighbours and published on the BBC website.
But here’s the stark stark warning - […]
10 reasons why my sites suck - do yours?
It gets just a little intimidating when I read of publishers earning over $1000 a day for a single site, and other sites generating hundreds of thousands of visits per day.
Especially as I’m doing nowhere near either with any of my sites.
So what am I doing wrong?
Just a cursory examination of some similar sites in […]
Hull and Yorkshire Flooded
Originally born and bred in Hull, East Yorkshire, it’s been pretty shocking to see the images and video of the severe floods that have hit the entire eastern England.
Especially as Hull and the surrounding area seems to have taken the brunt of it.
Even more so that a combination of amazing power of the internet coupled […]
Google News - getting harder to be syndicated?
For some reason, for the past two years I’ve taken it on board to develop a whole string of news site.
I figure it’s partly because I have a closet desire to be a newspaper publisher for real - it was one of my dreams even before I’d heard of the internet.
The other reason is that […]
My Business Credit Card has been used for fraud
Just got off the phone with the Royal Bank of Scotland’s credit card fraud division. They wanted to run through a couple of recent transactions with me.
Fine - I’ve done this a few times before, and it’s always a false alarm, but I don’t mind - it’s nice to know people are looking out.
They run […]
