Deborah Meaden on Twitter having a go at Alistair Darling?

Something Tom showed me today which really made me chuckle. Hee hee har har type stuff. Apparently Deborah Meaden of Dragons Den fame is on Twitter. So is Alistair Darling. And it appears they don’t really get on…

@deborahmeaden Debs – Word to the wise, careful what you say about Sterling as the anti-terror bills are pretty wide-ranging if you get me
@AlistairDarling Alistair, I’m recession proof so no need worry about me.
@deborahmeaden If you say so.. You’re shorting Sterling? A contrarian indicator IMO. You know what they said about the shoe shine boy
@AlistairDarling Alistar, please don’t lecture me on business. I have done very well on shorting sterling, next you say buy blue chips.
@deborahmeaden Whatever babe I did try to warn you. Jack wants you to pop into the Ministry of Free Thinking tomorrow for ‘re-education’.
@AlistairDarling Alistair,please treat me with respect my name is not “Babe” Address me properly or not at all.

I’m tempted to ask an ex-colleague who happens to be Deborah sister if this twitter is the real deal but it’s blatently not, right?

Speed Pitching at MyLongLunch

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a MyLongLunch event but unlike my previous visits to these events, I was actually presenting. If you don’t know what a MyLongLunch event is (and no, it’s not some sort of Ready Steady Cook thing) it’s a networking event for people working in the recruitment advertising industry and those who are trying to court them. Roughly 15 media publications (websites, newspapers, magazines) meet 15+ recruitment advertising agencies and get 10 minutes to talk about their business and what’s cool about it. It’s such a great idea as the media publications attending would never get the chance to pitch to this manay agencies in one day otherwise. The events take place in a pub, so though there’s a real and genuine opportunity to do business, the fact it’s in a relaxed atmosphere takes the edge off things.

Those representing the media rock up with laptops, handouts, bags, sweets, CDs, books, pens, memory cards, tins of mints – anything that might help the agency remember who they are on Friday morning – and set themselevs up at a table. The agencies are then all seated with a media representative who then has just 10 minutes to try and tell them why their publication is the perfect solution. I’ve never been speed dating but I imagine this is just what it’s like. We went representing Boring Student. Though the site hasn’t launched yet we felt that we had a very interesting propositiong for people attending this Graduate themed event. All of the other media there were very much focused at those alread in university or graduates but we were able to present a case that focused on people who don’t quite know whether University is even right for them. It presented lots of opportunity. The only problem was that 10 minutes never seemed to be enough. Jamie Leonard (@jamieasleonard), the MD of MyLongLunch and time keeper, always seemed to shout out just as we got to the interesting bit.

Aside from being a great chance to meet lots of new people it’s also a great way to hone your presentational skills. Meeting in excess of 15 different businesses in a few hours ment that by the end of it I found the presentation we started with was about 10% of the presentation we finsihed with.

If you get the chance to attend one of these events, do. www.mylonglunch.com/events

picture source: flickr – lwr

Europe is too slow to understand Social Networking

An interesting article by Melissa Bounoua in Forbes about how European CEOs don’t yet understand Twitter and what is can potentially bring to their brand. In the article, she writes:

“Most European companies haven’t even heard of Twitter, and some might think it’s a time waster.  British Telecom says it doesn’t have a Twitter account and doesn’t plan to open one. Nestle’s communications manager says using Twitter “just never came up within the group strategy.” “

American brands using Twitter effectively include Whole Foods (@wholefoods) who effectively used the tweeting platform to  tell people where they could get fresh water and generators during last year’s US Gulf Coast hurricane, General Motors (@GMBlog) using it to end rumours they were closing a car factory and Ford (@forddriveone) to make it clear they weren’t taking legal action to shut down fan sites. The article makes a point I totally agree with:

“In general, experts say Europeans don’t latch on to new social networking technologies as quickly as Americans.”

Obviously there are some exceptions, @richardbranson springs to mind, but there is still a lack of euro power on Twitter!

Source: Forbes

Very smart mobile app from lastminute

Lastminute have just launched a new application for the Android G1 phone and though I don’t have one of these devices (I’m an iPhone boy) I had to write about this one as it is just the sort of web app I get very excited by. It’s called nru (get it? near you!) and I’d love to play with it.

Something I didn’t realise is that the G1 has a built in compass. This, coupled with the accelerometers, GPS and wifi/3G connectivity creates an application that delivers a view of things to do around you; this could be restaurants, bars, coffee shops, cinemas. Arghh I already want to play with it!

The app give you a radar map, showing establishments that are close to you at the centre of the map and places further away located on the outer edge of the map. Using all the features of the G1, as you point the phone in different directions you’re presented with new information. Apparently the application gets most of it’s data from Qype and if you’re looking at restaurants, the latest offers an booking facility from lastminute.com is incorporated.

This video shows how the nru works: Lastminute.com nru phone application

Nice eh?

Property site gets £3.75m funding

Given all the gloom about the UK property market in 2009, it was interesting to read that Zoopla is getting £3.75m of funding.

Zoopla has been around for a year and is apparently the UK’s 5th most popular property site. It lets you get property values in your area and also get a realistic value for your own property. I’m not sure how many people have carried out transactions through the site but given the dramatic drop in property prices I can see how many people would become frequent visitors to see if next door is loosing value faster than you.

As estate agencts across the country close down, could this be a signal that we’re about to cut the middle man out? Not quite: Zoopla are about to launch premium estate agenct listings. Grr.

Source: Netimperitive

New Little Chef Designs & Menu

For anyone watching the Channel 4 program where super chef/scientist/geeky thing Heston Blumenthal takes on the dying and dreary Little Chef, this might be of interest. If you’re not watching it, this is nothing more than a few red pictures!

Source: Praline Via: CR Blog

MyLongLunch Officially Launched!

Today was a great day for everyone at Boring, Acknowledgement and MyLongLunch. The new site launched today and it really rocked. Do I just say rocked? Hmm. Anyway, historically the online operation (er.. that’ll be the site) hasn’t operated as well as the offline operation (that’ll be the events, then) but today has been an example of how the two sides of this successful business will become matched.

The site is aimed exclusively at professionals in the recruitment advertising industry (agencies and those working for media publications) and this is only guaranteed by the manual vetting of every single person who signed up for the site. This way, the site retains an air of true community spirit which you experience when attending one of the MyLongLunch events. Too often social networks become overwhelmed with people who, though very interested in the subject matter, can’t contribute and help develop the community.

It contains the stuff you’d expect: user profiles, company profiles, messaging, along with stuff you might be surprised to see: fan pages, blogging for every user and free job posting facilities.

It’s unique proposition is the ability to start a conversation online, move it offline and then bring it back online again. It’s a true online/offline community and everyone who worked on it and subsequently develops it with great content, profiles and pictures should be really proud to be part of it!

Register now for free at mylonglunch.com/register

Twit or Fit?

Remember hotornot.com? Apparently it was sold for $20 million not too long ago. Now hot on its heels is twitorfit.com!

The site uses your existing profile picture on twitter (you know, the tiny one people can’t see too well) and asks people to rate you from 1 (twit) to 10 (fit). It’s interesting to see this format still, potentially, has legs and as twitter becomes more mainstream and grows in popularity I guess it could join the ranks of other twitter add-on sites.

For the purposes of research, I’ve signed up so if you come across me – go easy on the 1s eh! twitorfit.com/boringwill!

2009 Social Media Predictions

Peter Kim today has produced a report with commentary from many people in the social media space about where they think social media will go in 2009. Here are some of the interesting points from it:

• “Although it is now cheaper to launch an initiative leveraging Web 2.0 technology – it requires qualified and passionate people to make them successful.” – David Armano
• “You may not always start the year as a leader, but you can certainly finish it that way.” – Rohit Bhargava
• “Doors are going to close all over the social web. Why? Because the money didn’t come the way people thought it would.” – Chris Brogan
• “The tipping point has not only *not* been reached, but could still tilt *away* from Social Media.” – Todd Defren
• “There’s a lot of fixing that needs to be done.” – Jason Falls
• “We’re going to develop a set of better metrics to help guide, direct and validate ‘commitment’.” – Joseph Jaffe
• “These will be cumulative events and interactions that will build brand loyalty for the companies that pay attention to them.” – Scott Monty
• “The recession will force revenue results out of social technologies.” – Jeremiah Owyang
• “Companies that focus on earning love will thrive during hard times, and kick ass when good times return.” – Andy Sernovitz
• “Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter.” – Greg Verdino

Personally I think it will be an interesting time. The rush we saw in 2008 for companies to be on a social networking site as a ‘me too’ factor will diminish, along with their willingness to spend lots of money without thinking about what they really want to achieve first. I also think it will get more personal with brands realising that it’s not about blogging as a corporation/business but using executives and staff to act as ‘faces’, blending personality with PR.

You can  download a pdf of the report here, or read the article in full at Peter Kim’s blog here.

Remember when?

After seeing that a Renault ad made the top ten Christmas advertising turkeys, it got me thinking about their latest advert. Now have a think about these questions and clock up how many ‘yes’ answers you give:

• Remember when you said girls had fleas?
• Remember when you said you’d never get a mobile?
• ..or a computer?
• Remember when you said you’d never cut your hair?
• ..or have kids?
• Remember when you said you’d never buy a Renault?

Err… sorry but I’m really not down with you Renault. I scored a pathetic 1 out of 6. You’ll have to guess which one that is. The thing is that advertising should be all about appealing to your market by identifying the niches you need to serve but a straw poll tells me that only my Grandad would answer yes to all these questions.. if only he could remember that far back!

Ok, so another Renault ad slated but I did really like the music. However, after discovering that it was France’s Eurovision entry for 2008 I’m over it.

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rTthvxpzNDM]