John Allsopp

Professionally engineered Internet solutions for humans

Whitby Artnet: 27 December 2008: Just a quick blog to say that this Whitby artist website has been gently selling bits and pieces of art over 2008 and I'm just reviewing their website traffic. Quite surprising really, I would think people would want to see art in the flesh before buying. Perhaps people already know the artists. Anyway it's working, which is nice, despite being very basic.
More Christmas: 27 December 2008: Wallace and Gromit are heroes. You'd have thought they'd have turned into shmaltzy nonsense by now and somehow I avoided the Were Rabbit, but this Christmas' double dose was genuinely funny. I'd seen Gavin and Stacey episodes before and thought they were OK, but this Christmas' episode was beautifully warm, funny, and affirming.; The Royle Family was disappointing, turning a family in which most people can see a bit of themselves into unbelievable caricatures of themselves. And Dr Who was just nonsense, but sometimes it is, it depends on who's written the episode.; It did seem like a BBC knockout though, I'm glad the Press Association agrees.; I discovered that eating cheese before bedtime really is a bad idea, giving me not nightmares, but tense and horrible speleological thoughts about my old 4th year juniors teacher, Mr Harris, who used to take his favourite boys caving at the weekend and who introduced me to the pleasures of blue cheese and the calcium carbide lamp.; I got very close to playing bass in his folk band, and it was after a gig I went to but didn't play in that his mum fed us cheese and biscuits.; After I'd left school, Mr Harris could be seen as the local wizard, driving around Long Eaton in a lime green Citroen 2CV with long white hair and beard and a gnarled stick. Honest.; He did inspire me to borrow a book about caving from Long Eaton Library, and my nightmarish thoughts of last night were of diving into u-tubes of underground water and trusting you'll find air on the other side, and particularly of having to do similarly in a cave so cramped it was, like a worm in a hole, impossible to turn around.; Taking time off work allows my head free reign. It's probably better when trained on work-related problems. I need to know, for instance, when and how pikelets grow into full-sized pike. Incidentally, my dad used to fish for pike, I spent many a happy hour looking through his spinners.; And, do people in a gay bar still say "I'm nipping out for a quick fag"?
Christmas: 24 December 2008: We don't do family Christmasses. Blame vegetarianism. I really, really don't fancy sitting around a turkey, and the rest of the family, I suspect, really, really don't fancy sitting around a chestnut pie or in the case of this year, a made-up nut roast using "whatever we've got in the cupboard".; This year's biggie was tins of Roses / Quality Street, anon for £5 or less. How is that possible? Everywhere you look someone's got one. We've got two in the cupboard and one now empty on my desk. We were going to give them to people but everyone's already got three. Someone somewhere really planned that .. to flood the market early with these things at such a no-brain price, and succeeded. Where are these things made? Were there container ships stuffed completely full of Roses from China steaming across the oceans in August? And did they have one for Roses and one for Heroes, or did they mix them up in case one got taken by pirates?; I enjoy the stillness of Christmas the most. That's my favourite bit. The knowledge that no-one's going to phone you and try to sell you advertising in the local Post Office.; Interesting. There's all the talk about the commercialisation of Christmas. But I guess what I like is that commerce stops for a day or so.; Whatever your plans, I hope you have a lovely Christmas.; Then we can come back all refreshed and get back to selling stuff.
Listening websites: 23 December 2008: Here's what I do best. I have a client for whom I do Internet marketing. Actually all my clients nowadays are Internet marketing clients. Anyway, for that client I have a list of things I do and I just cycle around that list. Call it my Internet marketing system if you like. In that list is the action "write a blog for a rising keyphrase".; What that means is, obviously we have Analytics installed so I can tell what keyphrases people have searched on in order to find my client's website (what they typed into Google). Analytics allows me to compare, say, this month versus last month and to see how much traffic we got on the top 100 keyphrases and how that compares with last month. So I can see which keyphrases grew the most.; I can also see what percentage of visitors turned into a customer for each keyphrase. And I can see if that percentage is rising or falling, too.; So now if I times the traffic and the percentage rise and all the other stuff together, I come out with a big number. And the keyphrase with the biggest number wins and I get to write a blog to suit that keyphrase.; What's cool about that is that the same keyphrase came up 13 days ago when I did the same thing. But now the rise is much stronger. I've discovered, and I'm encouraging, a natural trend. The visitors to this website spoke, I listened, I acted, and my client is getting more business as a result. Who knows where this will take us? If I write this new blog today, maybe the numbers will be even better next time.; This keyphrase was not one the company targeted previously. By setting me loose on their site to develop it into a listening website, I've been able to discover a new source of income for them. They got two new customers out of thin air, one this month and one last, and a customer is worth many thousands of pounds over a lifetime to them.; My client's website is now on page one of Google for this new phrase.; My Internet marketing cycle will 'automatically' develop that phrase until it reaches its natural level, and then it will discover another. And it just keeps on going.; Curiously, another part of my Internet marketing cycle also identified this keyphrase as holding great potential and also caused another set of marketing activities, so somehow it all glues together nicely.; The Internet is a pull system. You have to be there when people look for what you have. So, success comes from listening hard.; If you fancy a bit of that for your website, get in touch.
Running Raw smoothie: 22 December 2008: OK, I'm going to try a Running Raw smoothie next week and see what happens. For me this is the thing that bugged me enough to try it.
Charlie Brooker: 18 December 2008: Thanks Darren for reminding me about this, Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn column on Oliver Postgate.; I feel detached from Postgate's death because I never knew he existed until he died, so it seems churlish (if that's the right word) of me to be sad he's gone if I didn't know he was here.; Of course, his programmes were fabulous and much loved. But when Brooker, arch creative swearer and general curmudgeon heard about his death he got serious, and what came out was one of the most beautiful things I've ever read.
Koop Arponen: 18 December 2008: Wow, this is actually pretty cool. The small campus of Hull University at Scarborough has a music technology department which I always was rather jealous of as I studied Internet Computing. When I joined I really looked forward to the mixture, imagining there would be loads of opportunity to do websites for up and coming musicians and so on. There was a theatre, and a fine art department too. Fine art is no more, sadly, but I think at least music technology, Internet computing and digital arts are now all mixed up together, which makes for quite an enticing degree. Anyway, Koop Arponen clearly made it work for him. Well done that man and well done Scarborough campus :-)
Which page for which phrase?: 16 December 2008: One thing I haven't properly nailed yet is the business of matching website pages with search phrases. I may have the wrong idea about it anyway.; It seems reasonable, once you've worked out all the phrases people are using when they search for what you sell, to work out which pages of your site are most appropriate for those people to land on. I mean, if you sell, let's see now, radio controlled models then you might have a page for radio controlled planes and one for radio controlled boats and when people enter those keyphrases it makes sense that Google puts the respective page up front and people land appropriately on your site, and you'd make efforts to help that to happen, partly because if you don't, you won't convert visitors into sales as well as you might.; The problem is it gets very messy, it's really not that simple because there will be lots of phrases, and the subjects are all mixed up, and if you blog then there will be relevant blogs too for each keyphrase and how the hell do you manage all that anyway?; One possible route would be to write something to suit all the search phrases you identify, but the inevitable result of that is something horrible and spammy and no use to humans whatsoever, this, for instance, which is the sort of thing that is automatically generated from online resources and organised to channel the link benefits to a site where the owner does make some money. In other words, it fills up the Internet with crap in order to benefit a site that doesn't deserve its position :-); So anyway it just occurred to me that entering, say, 'bespoke ring site:www.peterbrewergoldsmith.co.uk/' into Google tells you which page on that site Google ranks most highly for the phrase "bespoke ring". Right now it ranks the home page over the page specifically about bespoke jewellery, so I can now decide whether the link I'm about to create about "bespoke jewellery" should link to the bespoke jewellery page, because that's a better page to land on, or to go with the flow and try to raise the home page higher.
Hoses: 15 December 2008: Gosh I lead an exciting life. One minute hair loss, the next industrial hoses. I didn't build the site, but I'll be Internet marketing it from here. Actually, I'm genuinely excited. In my early days I did the PR for a number of engineering companies: pump manufacturers, aluminium extrusion companies, companies who made things from plastic and so on. I also love starting from scratch, and although there's a website there, I think it's safe to say there's room for improvement, so I'm more than happy. And actually it is quite exciting in an International Rescue kinda way. If you run a crane that busts a hydraulic pipe, these are the guys who will make a replacement pipe and courier it to you at the speed of a really fast courier, thuswise saving you plenty plenty downtime and keeping Britain moving. So, y'know, that really is exciting.
Adlington: 15 December 2008: I can see why she didn't win, but it would have made me very happy to see Rebecca Adlington win sports personality of the year, because she's a sportswoman and she has personality.; For me, she was the greatest inspiration because I can relate to her. I know Mansfield a little, I grew up in a similar place not far from there. So it's a story of greatness coming from the everyday. But it's also her character, her personality. You just wanna be her friend. Knowing she's there just makes the world that little bit nicer.
X Factor: 14 December 2008: I've really enjoyed this year's X Factor. I know it's all engineered and schmaltzy, but you unless you've a freeze-dried heart you can't deny the pleasure in seeing Alexandra Burke sing with Beyonce and win the whole thing. Not because I have any pleasure in seeing Beyonce, I don't even know who she is. But she means the world to Alexandra, and that was awesome to see. And if she did what's rumoured, which is listen hard, learn hard, work extremely hard, practice and practice, and be nice throughout, then I can't think of a better outcome or role model. Dammit I could almost buy the single. I guess singles don't actually exist anymore.; A 'friend' I've never actually met on Facebook is "OUTRAGED that X factor has bastardised Hallelujah and turned it into cheesy crass pop shmaltz". The song is originally by Leonard Cohen. I hadn't heard it until I had to cover it with Manfat Voodoo ( mySpace Facebook). Honest, there's no pleasing some people. I thought it was beautifully done, and hey, someone might track back to Leonard Cohen and Geoff Buckley et al.; I scored extra points with my answer to the question "which one of Girls Aloud would you go out with". A difficult question since I don't know any of them and shouldn't really be choosing lady friends by their appearance alone (nor practicing doing so). I unwittingly chose Nicola Roberts because she looked the least like some 3D hologram of what women of the future will look like, and more like a real person you could interact with today.; It turns out she's been chosen to be the new face of Vivienne Westwood, so it all joins up rather beautifully, especially since she seems to have shown a smattering of individuality and gumption.
Clockwork Satsuma: 13 December 2008: Every time I hear Manfat Voodoo play a song I think "oh brilliant, this is my favourite" and then another song comes along and I think "oh brilliant, this is my favourite". But Clockwork Satsuma has such a lovely beat and developing groove that I've had it in my head all day. For no reason, I haven't heard it for ages. It just crept in there. You might be able to hear it on this from when they recorded a BBC session for More Raw. I couldn't make it play, but my sound is a bit unreliable on this machine.
Digg: 13 December 2008: I'll be spending a lot more time on Digg (under my own account), so if you're already a user, friend me please and if you're not, come on in it's actually pretty cool :-)
Help me: 11 December 2008: Any thoughts on this? I have a pub that wants to offer £1 off your first pint vouchers for Facebook fans who turn up to gigs. How might that work?; The best I've got is that you click a link from the Facebook Page that takes you to the pubs website where you get a voucher you can print off. On that voucher is the gig and date it's valid for, and a number (1, 2, 3, 4 or maybe odds/evens or whatever for the night). The user is stopped from running the page again to get more vouchers (one per friend), I'll detail how if you ask and I know you :-); Then the main problem is at the bar. They need a quick way to verify the voucher. We don't want photocopies, etc. So this current scheme would require, say thirty people printed the voucher, we'd have a ticklist at the bar. So when someone presented voucher 29, we'd tick that off. Anyone subsequent who presented 29 would be refused because one was duplicated.; The problems with that are: clearly it's a load of heartache at the bar (although it is at least a small bar). And it's possible the duplicator would get their first. Also there's got to be a cutoff point and the delivery of that list to the bar, or at least a maximum number.; What are your thoughts? How could that be improved? Ever seen anything like this working elsewhere?; Update: See, it takes a non-geek ladyperson to see the stupidity of all this. Facebook event, invite people, people say 'yes', all the people on the 'yes' list get £1 off by turning up and saying "I'm *insert your name here*, I claim my £1 off", and the bar people check a list of names (and pics, even, since Facebook has that), and tick em off. Job done.
Lisbon: 11 December 2008: So the Irish are going to have another referendum on the Lisbon treaty. When did this type of democracy start? The one where, you have a vote, people vote no, so you disregard that and have another, and maybe keep going until people say yes, as if we were all Jim Trott from the Vicar of Dibley .. "no, no, no, no, no, no, yes". Then you say "ah, well, it's a yes, the people have spoken".; It feels Blairy but I might be wrong.; It leaves a very bad feeling that we don't really have a say in the matter. It doesn't help foster good feelings about Europe. And I want good feelings about Europe. So it seems rather counterproductive.
A sales question: 11 December 2008: I was sat in DeVries Honda (no idea what that site's like, it looks like a blank screen to me) and overheard what sounded like the chief salesman asking someone who had just bought a car "what did you think of your car buying experience with us". That's not quite what he said, but it was equally cringeworthy, but perhaps to be expected.; The thing is, it worked. It led to a possibly half hour conversation about buying habits online/offline, about Scarborough lacking choice unless you're willing to drive for an hour, and so on. All incredibly interesting stuff.; But I felt the sale guy was defensive. He actually said "we all have to make money" at one point. I feel it would have been better to have actively listened. These people's opinions have already been formed. You ask that question in order to fix it for the next client.
CFS: 10 December 2008: There's been surprisingly good coverage of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / ME in the press as a result of the death of Lynn Gilderdale. What used to be disdainfully called Yuppie Flu is now taken a little more seriously, but we are no nearer understanding the cause, nor the cure. They can't even agree what to call it. CFS is a diagnosis of exclusion, a dead end, a collective shrug of the shoulders.; One possibly clear piece of understanding out of the specialist Leeds and West Yorkshire CFS/ME service is this. Prior to getting CFS, the person will be running their life too hard. Too little rest, doing too much, pushing themselves too hard and never letting up.; Then a trigger event happens. It could be a virus, food poisoning is common, even an innoculation jab. For the body, that's one thing too far, and it shuts down in order to protect itself. That's the onset of CFS. They aren't clear on why sufferers don't come back out when rested, but that's the illness part of it, the lack of recovery. People take to their beds and stay there.; The point being, it may seem like "the virus gave me CFS", but it was just a trigger event. It was a pre-disposition combined with the way the person was running their life that gave them CFS, the virus/injection/whatever was just one too many stresses for their body.; Anyway, now it turns out, you can die of CFS.
Is this funny?: 8 December 2008: I think so, but then, I sit in a darkened room all day, then sleep in a different one all night. So I might have lost touch. It's a t-shirt for bald men. It says "My hair has gone to live on my arse. £5 to look. £1 from far away (no touching)". Funny or not? I honestly can't tell any more. I think it's very funny, but like I say .. it might just be offensive.
Creative North Yorkshire: 8 December 2008: I just had to write a 1,000 character description of what I do for the Creative North Yorkshire website. Here's what I wrote, I think it sums things up reasonably. Let me know if you disagree. It's aimed at artists, it might be a bit more hard hitting if it were aimed at entrepreneurs or the army.; "I'm a freelance Internet marketer. Commonly I would work to get more visitors to your website, and to encourage them to do what you want (perhaps buy something) when they arrive. I work continuously, always improving your online presence.; One way to do that is to listen to your market using your website. We might achieve that by watching visitor traffic and behaviour and adapting your website and marketing efforts accordingly, often by writing, photographing, filming or coding new content.; This is done cost effectively by spotting and improving what already works. Working on one income stream reveals others accidentally. As I work, new ways to improve your site are constantly being uncovered to form an ongoing development cycle that's almost automatic.; I bring decades of marketing experience, a first class degree in Internet Computing, innumerable hours of study of Internet marketing, and the ability to write and take photographs."; Update: that worked, I'm in.
Computer Love: 3 December 2008: Someone told me one time that the problem with owning stuff is it all needs looking after. The less you have, the less time you spend dusting, filling, polishing, working to pay to insure and house, oiling, and repairing and the more time you have for .. living. So sell it all on eBay (you can always buy it back). I'm a hoarder, actually, do as I say, not as I do.; We know that computers don't increase productivity. Except I was rather hoping the Internet might break that but I'm out of the loop enough not to notice if anyone's researched that. But I read an article about how we complained about computers being vulnerable to viruses and so software developers put loads of time into making software that automatically updates itself to patch against vulnerabilities.; The problem is, we now have needy computers. Every time I switch my Windows machine on (which, granted, is just a few times a month), it wants love. This needs to be updated, there's an update for that.; In the current sequence, Apple sent an update which broke iTunes. So I thought before I fixed that I probably ought to run the Windows update that's been sat there for a while. It turns out to be XP Service Pack 3. You probably know more about that than I do. But it's been 45 minutes of chugging away so far and I've no faith that when it completes the current progress bar there won't be another twenty three of varying lengths after that. It didn't say "before you run this, we ought to tell you, it'll waste an hour of your day". If it did, I'd run it before going to lunch.; And having seen various medical professionals I've now got a 2 hour wake-up-to-office routine and probably 30 minute going to bed routine and there's another half an hour taken up in the day.; So, I could really do with my computers just working. Making things more efficient. Like they said they would in the sixties.