My main activity is the provision of Professional Online Marketing Services including website development. Internet Business Solutions
I also deliver Online Marketing Training including regular 'real-world' meetings with Smart Marketing Warriors Smart Marketing Warriors
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Your choice of browser is not a frequent subject of conversation as web surfers tend to make a choice and stick with it.  Indeed many users are unaware that there even is a choice after buying their pc or laptops with pre-installed software including the default browser – inevitably Internet Explorer from Microsoft.

However, recently the European courts required Microsoft to remind it's users by way of an opening screen with links to their competitors sites that they do have a choice. This must be galling for Microsoft but a useful reminder to all businesses that when you become dominant in your field the world has a knack of kicking you in the teeth just to remind you who's in charge.

Anyway, I've updated the page here on browsers to give an updated view of the available tools.

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greene king pub signLast night I consumed several pints of Greene King IPA, 3 1/2 sausages, an anonymous sort of pasty and half a plate of chips – all paid for by Greene King, the brewers.

Oh, I nearly forgot the goody bag of 6 assorted Greene King bottled beers that I was given as a parting gift at the end of the evening.

There, that's got the declaration out of the way. I'll explain in a moment.

A short while ago I made a small contribution to an online conversation about whether bloggers should accept payment for writing about commercial products.  My contribution was simply to draw attention to the new US Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect last December which require disclosure.  FTC interview here if you want to know more (as you should).

For example; if you receive a FREE copy of any product, even for the purposes of reviewing the product, and you subsequently post a review of that product, you must disclose the fact that you did not pay for the product and received it free.

Hence the opening paragraph in which I advised you, dear reader, of how I have benefited from Greene King's largesse although this post isn't actually a review of their beer.

The event was this month's London Blogger's Meetup when all sorts of bloggers; hobby, passionate and professional, gather together to exchange notes, opinions and chat which may or may not be about blogging.

Such an assembly of blogging potential is like a magnet for corporate sponsorship who no doubt hope to achieve a starburst of 'buzz' as this group of inveterate bloggers write about their activities just as I am doing now. Hence generating links, word of mouth social impetus and good old SEO links.

Now I'm not saying this is a bad thing although there are many purist bloggers out there who will. But I do consider that bloggers should give some thought to the impact of what they are doing as well as, purely from a self preservation point of view, have some knowledge of their legal obligations.

The internet and the blogosphere are still in their infancy and there will inevitably still be wild oscillations of practice and regulation of which the new FTC regulations are only an example.  However, the subject deserves some thought.

Fortunately, Andy Bargery, the organiser of London Bloggers Meetup went some way to salve our collective conscience by also giving speaking time to a young lady who's name, I regret, I failed to catch, but spoke on behalf of Azafady, a charity working in Madagascar.

Contributing her blogging and social marketing efforts in her spare time she was looking for any support available from the audience to use their social marketing skills to spread the message and recruit skills, time and even money to the Azafady cause.

Cask Revolution beer engine

Cask Revolution beer engine

The evening included a quick chat with Chris Gilmour (Nice post Chris – I just snoozed on the train), a nod to Lolly Borel and a conversation with Marcin about AdTaily which sounds like it could be an interesting plugin to sell advertising on your blog with minimal effort.

I suppose I'd better show you what it was all about.  This is Greene King's 'Cask Revolution' beer engine. It allows you to choose whether you want your pint in the Northern or Southern style.

Coming from the North as I do I think they've got them the wrong way around – but what do I know?

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Will the Apple iPad change the way the world works?

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Several years ago I heard Alex Mandossian say that if you are not spending 95% of your time on marketing then you are doomed to failure.  This is why I hate spending time messing around with technical things and go for the easy option whenever possible.

Yet so many software tools are increasingly so easy to use that it is easy to be led into a potential time wasting trap – and get caught out by relatively simple things.

email-deliverabilityI've just fallen into one such trap with a membership site and am only just fighting my way out.  Yet although it was the membership site project that suffered it was not the cause of the problem – that was down to good old hosting standards and email deliverability.

Looking on the positive side I now know more about how to avoid such problems in the future.  But was the loss of six weeks of my time worth the lesson – I don't think so!

Find out how you can protect yourself by reading the full story about email deliverability here.

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