Beam me up Scotty, scammers in the house

There was another story in the news this morning about some poor old lady who got conned out of all her money by some random bloke persuading her she could earn a gazillion pounds if she handed him over £3,000 in cash. Now, far be it from me to want to sound unsympathetic – especially towards an old lady - but I have no sympathy for her. It’s like a story a few years ago about another old lady who was conned out of tens of thousands by some African bloke telling her she had won the Nigerian Lottery and she could claim her prize if she handed him over several thousand pounds first. I mean if you’re too stupid to believe you’ve won a lottery you never participated in, you deserve to lose all your money.

The reason I bring this up is because I get a lot of scams like this from moronic fake SEO companies. At least once a week I get a badly written email from someone claiming my site is rubbish and to contact them, whereby they will rob me blind, steal my identity and attempt to frame me for a murder they committed.

This morning I received the following:

There are a few things to point out here. Firstly I wouldn’t trust anybody whose name sounds like a villain from Star Trek. Secondly, he claims that no keyword pertaining to my domain comes up on the first page of Google. Well, if you type in “Datapartners” we come up first. We also appear on the first page of Google for a lot of relevant key terms so he obviously hasn’t done his research. Thirdly, I know for a fact that Search Engine Optimisation is, and has always been, a load of bollocks. Fourthly, anyone who claims they can guarantee you a top ranking on Google is a liar. The only way to guarantee a top place on Google is to pay for it so I know that all this imbecile is going to do is create a Google AdWords account for me, bid obscene amounts of money to get me top the top of the paid listings, charge me an even more obscene amount for the privilege and then steal my credit card details.

And he is promising this to how many other web companies? So he is guaranteeing every web company a number 1 ranking for the same key words at the same time. How is that going to work Mr Kahn? It is completely illogical.

To email a company that designs, builds, hosts, manages and promotes websites and try to fob them off with this kind of transparent con proves that these people actually have the IQ of a pickled onion. The fact that so many people fall for it says everything you need to know about the state of intelligence. Don’t fall for it!

How to divide opinion and be successful

Obviously the subject that has been dominating the news over the last few days is the death of Margaret Thatcher. The impending Nuclear War between North Korea and the West has paled into insignificance. The threat of an angry little man with an inferiority complex and questionable haircut means nothing compared to a woman who divided opinion in the UK. Some thought she was an evil witch and the niece of Satan himself and others thought she was the best Prime Minister since that dog who sells insurance. My personal opinion is that spending £10 million on a funeral when the country hasn’t got any money is a bit over the top.

Whatever the differing opinions are, I think the imbeciles who are planning on protesting at her funeral should be arrested and given a good kicking for their lack of respect for the dead. Ignoring the fact that most of these would-be protesters probably weren’t even alive during her time in office, what actually is left to protest about? It’s been over 20 years since she left office and since then the country has been ruined by Labour.

The bottom line is people just like to have a good old moan. This is why I’m so surprised at the lack of fuss being kicked up over Facebook’s latest change to members’ profiles. Last year they upset the entire world by introducing the Timeline layout but somehow have managed to slip their latest revised layout in without anyone noticing. Of course, not everyone has it yet. As usual, they are sneaking it in country by country and it seems to revert back to the current layout at will. It’s basically the same but the navigation across the top is slightly different and they’ve made certain parts of the “About Me” harder to find. They’ve probably also violated a dozen more privacy laws.

It seems to be part of a ream of changes and new things the social networking giant is releasing. In an attempt to keep his disgruntled shareholders happy, Mark Zuckerberg has announced a new payment gateway, mainly with the aim of charging stalkers to message celebrities (no, really!) and this new Facebook Home thing which is something designed to basically make your smart phone do nothing other than connect to Facebook.

Whatever they do next, you can be assured that Facebook will continue to piss the entire population of the world off but still somehow manage to become more popular. It’s a skill Maggie had. RIP.

Apple need some magic fairy dust

I am well aware I’ve ranted about my iPhone on several occasions. What with crashes, software update failures, calls not getting through, crap internet connectivity and various other annoyances, my home button now appears to be broken. I now have to apply more pressure than the women’s liberation front to get the button to work.

Not only is the phone knackered, the latest version of iTunes is also rubbish. It is illogical and almost impossible to navigate. It is unintuitive to the point that it took me literally 10 minutes to find where I go to download app updates. Every time I connect my phone, it comes up with some weird error saying it can’t connect to the sync server or something and sometimes it can’t even find my phone. I know the phone is there because I can see it with my own eyes. However, probably the most annoying bug is every time I plug my phone in, iTunes decides to start playing music. This is very embarrassing when I’m on the phone to a customer and Gangnam Style starts blaring out of my speakers.

The most recent publicised cock-up with the iPhone is the bug that left the “Do Not Disturb” feature locked on after New Year’s Eve. Apple has basically said they aren’t going to fix this bug until it fixes itself. What kind of service is that? That’s a bit like me saying “sorry, your websites are all down but I’m not going to fix it until the magic fairies come and reboot the server.”

It hasn’t escaped my attention that Apple products have gone distinctly downhill since Steve Jobs died. He was renowned for being a perfectionist and, quite frankly, an arsehole but his methods obviously worked. He would be sickened by the fact his company is now on a par with Microsoft.

Oh, and sorry to our handful of customers who experienced down-time when one of our servers exploded a couple of months back. The magic fairies had apparently gone on strike.

Make me an offer I can't refuse

I watched a programme on BBC3 last night called “Be your own boss”. Having read the gubbins on the BBC website, it sounded like it could be an interesting watch. It involved entrepreneur Richard Reed looking for the next generation of start-up businesses to invest in. Because I’m a young, dynamic chap full of good ideas and keen to push Datapartners forward, this appealed to me.

Now, you may not know who Richard Reed is. I certainly didn’t. Apparently he is one of the foremost entrepreneurs in the country. This appears to be based on the fact that he founded Innocent Smoothies. If you are a regular reader of my blogs you will know that I wrote about this product last year. His advertising strategy prompted me to purchase a Queen single and download a ring tone for my mobile phone but still to this day I haven’t tried one of his products.

In hindsight, I probably should have realised any modern day “educational” programme was going to be complete toss. It was basically Dragon’s Den meets the X Factor. In other words it was rubbish and embarrassing. I watched half of it through my fingers and spent the other half shouting at my telly at the imbeciles who were getting their 15 minutes of fame.

Apart from the ridiculousness of most of the ideas being put forward, my biggest problem was with the people themselves. For a whole hour all I heard was “Yeah so like I’ve got this like, you know, really great, you know, like, idea right and like it’s, you know, errrrr, really good and like, um, you know, errrr I’d like some kind of like money to, you know, like make it.”

This is a problem because running a business involves being customer facing. It involves presenting yourself to a lot of diverse people who you’re trying to convince to spend money with you. If some snotty student came to me speaking like that I’d show them the door. Then I’d throw them through it.

So you may be expecting me to claim I wasted an hour of my life watching this drivel. Well I didn’t. I came away feeling more confident about my own ability as a businessman. As someone who was born with a stammer and has always struggled on the phone, I am still more eloquent, more personable and come across a lot better than most. I also realised that I know more about the concept of strategy, marketing, sales, finance, negotiation and project management than a lot of people. I just need Richard Reed to give me £50,000 so I can invest in better marketing. So here is my pitch to you Richard: Give me the money and I’ll try one of your smoothies. Deal?

Making something out of a thing

Having been married for 9 months now, I think I have settled well into life as a husband. I have mastered saying “yes dear” whilst not actually listening to what beloved is telling me and I don’t leave the toilet seat up. Ever.

However, I’ve yet to fully master the language of woman. She phoned me up in a blind panic the other day and said she had forgotten to put the things in the freezer and asked if I could do it. When I asked her to elaborate on what this thing might be, I was informed they were the things she bought that morning. After more detective work, I eventually managed to get her to say “ice cream”. Ah, no problem. Despite pointing out she had purchased them some 5 hours earlier and they would almost certainly be beyond saving now, I then asked where these mystical ice creams were. She then helpfully informed me they were in the thing in front of the thing.

To cut a long and very boring story short, the thing she was referring to was a bag and the thing they were in front of was the freezer. The simple fact is that if this conversation had been between her and, say, my mum, they would have completely understood each other. Seriously, the conversation would have gone “I didn’t put the things in the thing can you get the things out of the thing and put them in the thing?” And my mum would have answered “Oh my god the ice cream! I’ll take them out of the bag and put them in the freezer now, dear.”

This is a problem often experienced in the business world. People who work in the same environment understand the jargon and will talk to their colleagues in that very bizarre language. What they don’t realise is the customers they are selling to don’t understand a word they are saying. Sometimes people use this jargon to deliberately confuse customers with bollocks and make themselves sound cleverer than they are.

To cut another long and very boring story short, we don’t do this at Datapartners. We like to make things as clear and simple as possible. Business is good; bollocks is bad.

Viral marketing of an absurd kind

I generally don’t take any interest in celebrity gossip but the recent story about Kirsten Stewart’s affair with a married film director raised an eyebrow.

Basically she was dating her co-star from the Twilight films but has recently admitted to cheating on him with the director of her new film. So let me get this straight; a couple who play a couple in a film are actually a couple in real life and she had an affair with a guy who was the director in her new film and whose wife played her mother in that film. Who says Hollywood isn’t incestuous?

The whole saga is obviously done for publicity. Actors and pop stars basically rely on the public’s peculiar need for celebrity gossip and have to keep dreaming up new and ingenious ways of keeping themselves in the public eye. Quite how the Twilight saga was so popular is something I’ll never understand but the chances of her new film being anywhere near as popular are highly unlikely. This “affair” is just a way of saying “I’m a stupid, insecure moron. Please watch my new film”.

It’s a kind of perversion of what is done in the business world. We have to do something called “marketing” which involves getting our name and brand seen in such a way that convinces people to phone us up and buy our products and services. This blog is technically marketing. Here I am basically saying “I am a grumpy individual who thinks the Twilight films are a dubious story involving a girl torn between necrophilia and bestiality. Please let us design you a website.”

Admittedly the above probably won’t generate any business at all but I know quite a few people read this drivel. It might even make some people chuckle. Either way it gets our name into the public conscious. It might also be something that people will forward to their friends. As a result, our name and brand spreads. Fair enough, comments about necrophilia might mean we spread more like a disease but viral marketing is very effective. It’s almost as effective as the celebrity virus which has now consumed 95 percent of the globe and will soon wipe out all intelligent life on this planet.

Facebook leaves a smelly floater

So Facebook took the decision to float itself on the stock market. Given it is one of the biggest and most well known brands on the planet now, you would think this was an obvious move. Well, given that it is one of the biggest and most well know brands in the world, I’d argue that it is over-valued and over-hyped.

So how has it got on in its first few days? Well, not very well seems to be the answer. As an over-valued and over-hyped brand, people paid over the odds for shares and the value has plummeted because there is no real value behind it. Of course I can’t really comment because I know nothing about the stock market. When I first read about its IPO, I just assumed it was another Facebook chat acronym like LOL and ROFL. And if anyone asked me about floating stock I’d hand them a coat hanger and tell them to break it up and try flushing the lavatory again.

It surprises me that anyone was daft enough to buy shares. After the massive dot com boom in the early noughties when companies like Lastminute.com were floated for obscene amounts and then crashed, I would have thought people would have learned that lesson. Apparently not. I mean how does one value a company like Facebook? Is it based on the number of users? Is it based on the amount it earns in revenue? Is it based on how many personal details it shares with the FBI? How do you quantify such a thing?

Twitter has apparently been valued at a Sicilian dollars as well. How does Twitter even make any money? It doesn’t offer PPC advertising. It has no obvious revenue stream. It has no real value other than to allow people to stalk their favourite celebrities and update their fake friends on the colour of their turds. Perhaps I’m naive but if a Twit offered to sell me a share of Twitter for more than 1p I’d tell them to chirp off and offer me something cheap…