Condiments 2.0 January 18, 2010
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.Tags: Firefox, Google Chrome, IE, internet, Internet Explorer, Ketchup, Snobbery
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“Ketchup is a simple and gorgeous web app for sharing meeting notes, ideal for home businesses that can’t boast a secretary. It’s free for a limited amount of time”
How useful, I thought. A free web based application that could be applied in the workplace and increase the integration of everything ever with the web. The review appeared on the Enterprise Nation website, a useful resource for home based businesses.
My interest in clicking through to the Ketchup website itself was sufficiently piqued thanks to the explanation of the simplicity of using the app, that and the name is a conversation starter in itself.
Keeping track of meetings, who said what and when that very ‘what’ was to be done by can be an infuriating consequence of meeting notes that dont make sense two hours after the conclusion.
A name like Ketchup for a professional business application already suggests a tongue-in-cheek attitude resides behind the branding but if you have the misfortune to land on their website using Internet Explorer you are in for a surprise.
OK, the message is a touch cheeky and other good web browsers are available but not only is the door shut to you as a potential user, the almost holier-than-thou-message you get is internet snobbery at its worst. Sure, IE has its foibles and I have a loyalty to Chrome for personal usage but why not cater for a further 37%, especially when there is evidence of the application changing to a paid for version in the future.
Just in case I thought it was just me suffering a momentary lapse or a complete funnybonectomy and getting uptight, I consulted my Twitter following and got the following reasoned responses:
As a Mac user, I sometimes find sites I can’t access at all. My thoughts aren’t printable. Let’s just say I go elsewhere
If you’re using IE, you deserve everything that’s coming to you. might be doing yourself out of a lot of traffic tho.
I’d be grumpy and wouldn’t go back, unless I got that message regularly from lots of sites due to using an ancient browser.
What do you think? If a website was condescending about the browser you were using and didnt let you use their site…what would you think?
Nothing to see here December 13, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.Tags: Christmas, reconstruction, sinister
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That’s right, move along now. This blog is undergoing a ’strategic review’. It shall cease to provide content, a reduction in function and endless requests to click to here until the new year.
This is due to a relocation of Me and the need to change the purpose, design and function of this blog for Me. In the meantime you could do no worse than to check out the following blogs:
The Fixed Factor – cycling and sinister foods in equal measure
EmailFail – the good, the bad and the html purist
Trick Click – a great website packed with resources
…a pinch of salt – the tastiest blog in Bristol
Answer Me This! – The best podcast around
Happy Christmas y’all and see you in the shiny new year!
Please Vote me your Golden Twit November 15, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.add a comment
The @MarketingDonut Twitter account (Essentialy, my online professional guise) has been shortlisted in three categories for the very first Golden Twits awards. The Twitter awards are being organised by The Drum, a PR industry online publication.
Obviously I am delighted to be recognised as a Twit, golden or otherwise. I would very much appreciate if you would click through and then press the VOTE button to give us the nod.
BELOW: Shortlist details lovingly borrowed from the GoldenTwits. Original is found here
Your company: BHP Information Solutions
Twitter username: @MarketingDonut
Why do you deserve an award?: Our Twitter account has made small business advice accessible, engaging and an enjoyable daily resource to help small firms to thrive
What were the objectives?: Use Twitter as a means of sharing the best ideas & using our following to get involved to share experiences with a wider connected audience
What have you achieved?: #mydonut trending topic online conference for smallbiz. UGC from our followers to create a Marketing Manifesto. Fun, laughter & conversation
Categories: Business to business, Information service, Public service
Like Minds – why bother? October 25, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Wheat.9 comments
The first Like Minds social media conference took place just over a week ago. Many people got something out of it and some people left empty-handed questioning whether or not the event did exactly what it said on the tin. It was certainly a tall order to have the intention of answering the big ol’ ROI question when applied to Social Media and to do it in one afternoon. Olivier Blanchard got the closest to bringing some insight and cold hard examples as to why businesses should be using social media. His presentation was engaging and also available for further viewing online.
The big question for the conference is where does it go from here? There has been a backlash, there has been a whole wave of in-jokes and hashtag hijacking during and after the event and this is something that needs to be carefully addressed if the future event in February is to be as open and inclusive as the original event set out to be.
One aspect that struck me as shooting oneself in the foot (but with good honest intentions and using all the social media tools available) was the coverage of the event online. Of course, I was there and bringing live-blog coverage. The extent of this coverage was to bring the key sound-bites and to feed in questions from those who could not be there. It did not offer full coverage.
The foot shooting came in the form of the real-time stream of the entire conference online. Filming the event and broadcasting it live to 500 people (Organisers’ figures) is all well and good but if you had paid your ticket price first time round, you’re sat there as the announcement is being made that there is to be another conference in February, why would you pay to go to that one? Ticket price, travel, accommodation etc will not need to be found when you know it is likely to be streamed in its entirety for all to see and for free.
For me, the live video feed should have covered the keynotes but then when it came to the panel discussion where the real ideas and discussions came about, the cameras should have been switched off. This would have offered more added value for money to those who paid to be there and would have led to more buzz being created for the follow-up event.
Of course this may sound overly critical of an altogether fantastic and cleverly organised event (All tickets sold through social media), one that I am certainly keen to attend again and to take on a more active role ( A panel discussion about small business use of social media, anyone?)
So what was the ROI for me attending the event over those who saw it all on a screen from anywhere in the world? The connections made in the networking before and after the event, the traffic that blogging about the event has brought and the ideas of how to apply social media practices in a more meaningful way than I had previously done so.
Bring on February and Like Minds II but bring it all online? Perhaps not.
The blog is mightier than the sword September 18, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Wheat.Tags: blog, Blogging, care, complaint, customer, holiday, internet
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In the old days a quibble over a product or service not being up to scratch would be resolved through an exchange of letters with a customer service department. A swift resolution ensuing, the customer would be happy and the business might have gone beyond just saving face and reinforced its brand values, too. Today, this model is not quite so strong.
According to Webuser.co.uk, a holidaymaker has secured £600 in compensation for a disastrous holiday as a result of the prominent Google search ranking he achieved for the angry blog he fired off when a complaint letter to the holiday firm yielded no result.
The holidaymaker had originally penned a letter of complaint (ten pages of letter, in fact) detailing a depressing series of problems he encountered during a less than satisfactory Tunisian holiday. After six weeks, having only received an acknowledgement for his rant, the increasingly angry traveller went public and recorded his troubles on his personal blog.
In no time, he was getting lots of traffic – much of it from people who had simply typed search terms relating to holidays in Tunisia. In fact, the critical blog entry’s Google ranking was creeping ever closer to the summit on all the key search terms the travel company would rather see taking you to the holiday package they were trying to flog.
Once the holiday company became aware of the growing popularity of the blog post, blogs about the blog post and probably even blogs blogging about the impact of blog posts about the original blog post – such is the way the Internet feeds off itself – it became apparent that an “elevated” level of response was required. Compensation was paid to the blogger and an apology posted on his blog, to boot.
However, it may be too late for damage limitation – the rant, of course, has been widely seen and still exists in the public domain. The digital footprint of a blog post that would never have seen the light of day had the travel company responded sooner is now leaving the most indelible – and embarrassing – of stains on its reputation
Originally published by Marketing Donut in my guise as a blogger for small businesses looking to get the most from their marketing.





