Picture the scene. I am on the 0930 train from Norwich to London to give a presentation to the good and the great of the UK marketing world with less than 24 hours notice. To be fair, I knew we had a show to go to and that I would probably be required to say a few words, but in the true style of ‘Dangerous’ otherwise known as my business partner Paul Sheehy, he let me know at the last possible moment that I was to be the main speaker, and he was just there to rescue me if needed.

It’s true that for a moment I forgot the milk of human kindness and thought he must be getting his own back for all those times I took the rise out of him regarding the rugby. But like a good soldier, I did my duty and put together a script only to find that I had missed the target by pitching it wrong. So the night before I had to forgo the white wine chilling in the fridge and concentrate on the job in hand. At 2200 I got my head down safe in the knowledge that I had put together a reasonable presentation and that all would be well as long as I found time to learn what I had written before the hour.

Confidence was high as I pulled into the station, other than the fact that I found out Paul had not been able to download the slides I had sent him to look over. In the words of Homer, doh! (that’s Homer Simpson, not the poet in case of any confusion…)

Anywho, I got to the venue and sat down to listen to the speaker before our presentation. He just happened to be from Google and just happened to cover all the bits that we were going to do. Oh joy. Still, I thought, my rock is sitting across the way and he will make me feel so much better. He will say: ’Don’t worry Chris, all will be fine. This is in the bag.’ Instead I caught him sending a picture of the unforgiving-looking audience to his better half, with the caption relating to defecation!

Now confidence really was high!

Not to worry. The presentation was a good one and the team pulled it off. A senior marketing man from Google even described us as a quirky duo and congratulated us on our presentation. We left at that point… knowing when to quit is a gift!

Continue reading “How did I get myself into this situation?” »

Refreshed from a great night’s sleep and full of the joys of spring, I departed for the B2B Marketing Conference in London on Tuesday – an event that fingertap media were both sponsoring and presenting at. I had a growing sense of excitement knowing that my business had developed to the point that I was now able to speak in front of 160 of the UK’s top marketing managers about the benefits of using search marketing to increase their B2B businesses.

Having arrived at the venue half way through an earlier presentation, all of a sudden my confidence drained out of me. I was completely struck by fear and sent my wife a MMS photo message of the auditorium entitled, “Oh shit I’m bricking it.”

But fear turned to relative calm once the presentation began, and suddenly it felt as though everything was going to plan. A number of nodding heads in the audience definitely helped calm my nerves and I felt a sudden sense of ease. The notes went out the window as the confidence grew and I even started interrupting Chris, who was our main speaker, to add my two pennies. I didn’t feel bad about the interruptions though, as I’m sure Chris appreciated the breather to gather his thoughts.

All in all, it was a day to be proud of in the history of fingertap media and I sincerely hope that we can generate some clients from it. I’ve got no doubt that we left our mark on the day, and am really looking forward to sponsoring next year’s event as well.

Continue reading “Bricking it at the B2B Marketing Conference” »

One of the important things to remember when developing for platforms such as that that Facebook provides is that, whilst it reaches millions of new users, it is still in Beta.

This whole Beta thing is constantly being reminded to developers every time something goes wrong, but it has had a slightly strange effect this week, with many developers reporting their user count (the number of Facebook users that have added their application) rocketing up by the thousands. One developer was even showing more users than Facebook itself!

As I see it, there are 2 types of Facebook developer, both of which rely quite heavily on these statistics.

1) The Entrepreneurial Developer

These make up the vast majority of developers (at least of those who post on the developer forums) and are generally the guys who come up with an idea, build an app and then sell it at it’s peak. Without the DAU (Daily active users) and Users stats, these guys would really struggle to shift their apps, as most app valuations are based on these figures.

2) The Corporate Developer

I would place myself in this bracket, as a developer who’s primary objective is to increase awareness of a brand through an application. Whilst most entrepenurial apps are branded with banner ads, mine are branded through the applications’ core, and designed with the brand in mind. The users’ statistics are equally as important to me as they are a way of justifying the money a client has spent on my time.

Whilst I am not of the persuasion that Facebook should have perfected the platform before releasing it, I do think that it’s important for there to be more feedback from the Facebook team when things like this do go wrong. This has been discussed on the forum for 3 days now and still seems to have had no official response.

Continue reading “Facebook Stats Out Of Control” »

The SXSW INTERACTIVE FESTIVAL celebrates the creativity and passion behind the coolest new media technologies. In addition to panel sessions that cover everything from web design to bootstrapping to social networks, attendees make new business connections at the three-day Trade Show & Exhibition. The newest element of the event is ScreenBurn, which adds specific gaming industry programming as well as a two-day Arcade to the mix.

yes, yes… and we’re going! yay!

Half the company will be flying out to attend what is classically referred to as the world cup of media in these modern times, we are hoping to gain new insite into current and future technologies to further develop our busniness and improve and end service to you the client.

Heres just a few of the seminars we plan to attend:

• Social Marketing Strategies Metrics, Where Are They?
• Social Network Coups: The Users are Revolting! (Annalee Newitz)
• The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Ad Campaigns of 2007
• Top Ten Lessons Learned in E-Commerce
• What Teens Want Online
• Designing A Coherent Social Strategy (Charlene LI)
• Harness the Power of Social Networking on Your Intranet
• Logos: Why They’re Irrelevant and Can Actually Hurt Your Business (Bryan Zmijewski)
• Online Advertising
• The Science of Designing Interactions
• Building Portable Social Networks
• Pimp My Non Profit — Real Non-Profits Kicking Ass with Online Technology
• Social Networking and Your Brand
• True Stories from Social Media Sites
• Content Management System Roundup

Continue reading “Texas here we come!” »