Category: Business

Business

HMRC gives green light to Bitcoin business?

Post author By Dan Howitt
Post date Monday, 3 March, 2014
1 Comment on HMRC gives green light to Bitcoin business?

The Telegraph has reported that HMRC will announce that it is to remove the 20% VAT from the sale and trading of Bitcoin in the UK.

Until now Bitcoin has been classified as an electronically supplied service or electronic voucher (depending on which perimeter officer received the query) which meant buying from or trading with a business incurred VAT. This effectively made Bitcoin 20% more expensive in the UK than elsewhere, eliminating any chance for UK businesses to operate in this area.

UK businesses now have the ability to sell bitcoins directly to customers without passing on the 20% VAT charge, making the UK with its financial status probably the most advantageous jurisdiction in the EU to operate a Bitcoin related business. Unfortunately, UK banks have shown very little interest in operating with Bitcoin businesses without specific regulation. They are very risk averse and if the government doesn’t tackle the issue, it may mean the Bitcoin economy will flourish elsewhere at the expense of the UK.

For users of exchanges it is important to note that VAT is being scrapped on all aspects of Bitcoin trading. When you buy or sell Bitcoin on a UK exchange the exchange takes a small fee to facilitate the trade. These fees will now be VAT zero rated, meaning there should be a potential 20% saving on fees for customers and no VAT liability for UK businesses operating trading services.

As a Bitcoin startup we welcome this news and have been pushing for this for nearly 9 months. We met with our local MP Karl McCartney who raised our concerns on this issue in parliament and wrote to the Treasury and HMRC on our behalf. We have also written to members of the cabinet and directly to HMRC ourselves. Hopefully our input alongside the many others who have had similar contacts has raised this issue to the level it deserves.

In all this is great news for the Bitcoin community and we expect to see an influx of startups buying and selling Bitcoins in the UK. The recognition by a UK government agency is an important step towards mainstream adoption and we are now looking to the Financial Conduct Authority to provide UK banks with the regulatory comfort they need to support this fledgling industry.

Bitcoin in the news again – no VAT & school dinners

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 3 March, 2014
No Comments on Bitcoin in the news again – no VAT & school dinners

In the news again, Bitcoin. This time HMRC have decided not to charge VAT on transactions. Seems reasonable.

Made me think about coins. In our house when I get in I empty my pockets onto the kitchen worktop (near the radio). The next morning the pile of coins is substantially smaller, reduced by demands for bus fares and miscellaneous youthful expenses.

The kids no longer need dinner money. We pay that directly into an account each of them has at school and each day a relevant amount is debited at the point of sale. Not good to admit perhap but I have no idea how much cash they burn through in this way. I’m sure someone has a handle on it (will that be the usual lobster thermidor or are we going for the steak and chips today son?).

We also pay their pocket money by direct debit into their bank accounts.

What made me think about all this was the

Tags Bitcoin

Business mobile connectivity phones social networking spam

1951 exhibitors at #MWC2014

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 27 February, 2014
No Comments on 1951 exhibitors at #MWC2014

Yesterday when I signed in for Cloud Expo Europe the guy handing out the badges pointed out a “win an iPhone 5s free draw” for visiting the Telehouse (might have been Telecity – I no longer have the card) stand. All I had to do was take a scratchcard along and see if I’d won.

I duly scratched off the silver scratchey off bit and found a number between 1 and 9,999. Looked like a pretty low chance of winning. In exchange for almost certainly not winning an iPad I was probably going to have to let them scan my badge and stick me on a spam list. Considering also I am not an iPhone fanboi I declined the offer and didn’t specifically head for their stand. It’s a problem, getting people interested in looking at your stuff as opposed to someone else’s.

This morning I wondered whether Mobile World Congress had finished. After the flurry of “exciting” product launches (the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the, erm…) things have gone quiet.

Today is the last day, apparently. At MWC2014 there are 1,951 exhibitors. One thousand nine hundred and fifty one!!! How on earth do you stand out amongst that lot? There must be a much easier way of getting seen.

The web is the only answer. These big shows have to be replaced by website interaction. Ok I hear the argument that says the benefit of going to a trade show is the networking. That can easily be done at specific networking events over a glass of lemonade and a canape. Not too many canapes of course – you will want to do your own fair share of talking:)

Trefor Davies, trefor.net, not in Barcelona.

PS I hear that half the SGS5 RAM is taken up by its Android firmware load!

Business Cloud hosting

Chelsea Pensioners take cloud mainstream at Cloud Expo Europe

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 26 February, 2014
No Comments on Chelsea Pensioners take cloud mainstream at Cloud Expo Europe

This morning I went to meet @natmorris at Cloud Expo at ExCel. More of what he is up to anon but a few things struck me about the exhibition.

First of all “cloud” has become seriously mainstream. It must have if three Chelsea Pensioners thought it worth a trip. Unless they thought they were going to something else? “Might as well take a look now that were ‘ere Albert”.

Secondly I was amazed by

bitcoin Business online safety piracy

Bitcoin bet or bubble bursting?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 25 February, 2014
2 Comments on Bitcoin bet or bubble bursting?

Mt Gox is dead. Apparently. More than 750,000 Bitcoins missing, so they say. Rumour mill an’ all.

Careless that, or criminal. Either way someone has lost a lot of Bitcoin (Mt Gox has previous – see here from 2011).

Now could be a good time to invest in Bitcoin. The price has dropped considerably. Mind you anytime could be a bad time to invest in Bitcoin, unless you make a living being successful at roulette.

I’m thinking of buying one. Just the one. Just so’s I can feel part of the action. It won’t be a big investment. I once knew a bookie in my local pub. He had a pitch at Market Rasen races and at one race meet I put a two pound bet on a horse with him. He accused me of trying to manipulate the odds with heavy betting 🙂

Current price is £295 or so (it was earlier this pm – changed already by the time of publication – gotta move faster – see preev.com). That’s a new washing machine, or simlar. Mrs Davies would say that a new washing machine would be more useful and not depreciate quite as quickly as Bitcoin has over the last 24 hours.

Wives just don’t understand do they?

I’d like to bet that many of the readers of this blog are multi-millionaires thanks to Bitcoin and here’s me still trying to hack out a living writing blog posts. It could be the answer.

Mind you I do occasionally buy a lottery ticket and I honestly can’t remember the last time I got a single number right. I think there is something going on there. Must be.

I’ll keep you posted.

~~Mt Gox is dead. Long live Mt Gox.~~

PS I realise I’m taking a risk publishing a picture of a two pence piece but I think it is in the public interest to do so. The two pence photographed is worth two pence and will be used as part of a transaction to buy something – box of matches¹ etc. It may not be possible to do this with a bitcoin.

¹ can you actually buy anything for two pence anymore?

Tags Bitcoin

Business net neutrality Regs

Farm regs and navigating around London

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 25 February, 2014
1 Comment on Farm regs and navigating around London

I’m on the way to Laandan and just took a look on my phone downloads for the best way of getting to the Strand. I keep a downloaded tube map on the dog and bone for occasions such as this where the train connectivity is rubbish and it makes more sense to have a local copy.

Imagine my total surprise when the first doc I came across in the downloads section was a report of a farm regulation task force. Don’t ask me how I downloaded this (I can probably find out when).

It’s not that I’m not interested in farm regulations I’m not really interested in farm regulations though I imagine thats situation would change if I was ever thinking of buying a farm. Or going on holiday to a farm. In the case of the latter there could be rules about letting dogs off leashes or not bringing your own sheep. Things you’d need to know.

I’m not sure if my document covers that sort of thing though. I haven’t read it. If anyone wants a copy let me know and I’ll email it to them. I’m not going to host it on this site. People might think it was an offical trefor.net farm reg doc or that I supported the conclusions of the report. I couldn’t tell you one way or another in respect of that because as I said I haven’t read it. Yet.

The fact that I have no idea how I came to download this report is an example of how easy it would be to pick up malware. I do have McAfee on the phone. I have no idea if it is effective. All it ever seems to warn me about are sms messages from WIlliam Hill which it rightly considers to be dodgy.

As far as getting to The Strand goes I’m going to take the Piccadilly Line from Kings Cross to Covent Garden and walk from there. If I didn’t have my bag I’d walk the whole way. It isn’t that far. Unless it’s chucking it down in which case I’ll take a taxi.

That’s how to get around Laandan for ya gor blimey Guvner, would you Adam and Eve it, ruby murray, frog and toad.

@Cyberdoyle’s first fibre network down on the farm here

Pete Farmer on Net Neutrality here

Rapidly becoming an agricultural blog this.

Business mobile connectivity

Twitter highlights international nature of #MWC2014

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 25 February, 2014
2 Comments on Twitter highlights international nature of #MWC2014

Although we are engrossed in our own language version of life the one thing that has struck me regarding #MWC2014 is the totally international nature of it. We see all the reporting through the websites we use to access such things. However it’s only when you look at the twitter stream for the #MWC2014 hashtag that you really get to see the global nature of the event.

The tweets below represent about a seconds worth of the #MWC2014 stream. Lots of different languages and even more countries. The only thing that is missing here is a real time google translate function within twitter. The sites linked to would be easy as you could invoke the translation for each one as you landed on it.

4g Business mobile connectivity social networking

Report from #MWC2014 – Mark Zuckerberg and the death of the Personal Computer

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 24 February, 2014
4 Comments on Report from #MWC2014 – Mark Zuckerberg and the death of the Personal Computer

I see Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) is in Barca (short for Barcelona – common usage by the mobile “in” people) for MWC 2014 (Mobile World Congress two thousand and fourteen).

It’s the trendy place to be. You get to be part of the hype, the frenzy. In the run up you casually ask others whether they are going so that they can see that you are going. Affirmative responses result in knowing nods, comparisons of favourite bars and restaurants and complaints about all the walking that you have to put up with because the show is so large. To those that respond in the negative everything is left unsaid.

I’ve been to Barcelona. Spent a great few days there with my daughter last summer. We stayed in a nice hotel slap bang in the middle of the city, could walk everywhere and were able to easily retire to the rooftop bar for late afternoon relaxation when we had had enough of the touristy bits.

I years gone by I’ve known one or two of our sales people have to travel in by train from ~~miles~~ kilometres away because accommodation was unavailable in Barcelona itself. Almost as bad as the old days of Telecom Geneva where people would have to commute from Heathrow to Switzerland because hotels were totally sold out for hundreds of miles around (ish) the show.

Mr Zuckerberg is in town because mobile is

Business obsolescence

Yellow pages officially declared dead

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 23 February, 2014
1 Comment on Yellow pages officially declared dead

The powers that run the Davies household (ie Mrs Davies) have officially declared both the Yellow Pages and the BT Telephone Directory dead.

The two tomes, grown increasingly lightweight in recent years, now reside in the log basket next the fireplace in readiness for further processing as the scrunched up bits of paper you use to start lighting a fire.

No remorse, no wistful gazing over the shoulder as we leave the room. The publications served a purpose and enjoyed their long day. Now they are of no use to us. Technology has consigned the printing press to a museum curiosity. What would Gutenberg have to say? “Alle Dinge geschehen, eh?”.

Whomsoever decideth where to deliver these publications have my permission to remove the Davies’ from their list and save the trees. They are no longer required.

Read here about “Yellow Pages Shock“.

Thank you and goodnight… the sound of the telephone going dead at the other end of the line…

Business Regs

Openreach structural separation – a call for inputs

Post author By Peter Farmer
Post date Sunday, 23 February, 2014
14 Comments on Openreach structural separation – a call for inputs

I happen to be writing a paper. It will probably never see the light of day…. though maybe in an archeological dig of Esher in 2,000 years time there could be some interesting head scratching going on if it were uncovered.

The subject is, broadly, “Arguments for and against the structural separation of BT”. In a nutshell, should BT’s Openreach subsidiary be wholly separate, or should we have the status quo….. or maybe some hybrid in between.

The arguments against I have largely got to grips with – one only has to look at the railways to see the issues generated by Network Rail’s status against the train companies which I would suggest is a potentially analogous situation for a future structurally separate Openreach….. but I could especially do with some inputs on what you all think for the arguments for might be.

Feel free to comment away!

Google+ Peter Farmer

Tags BT, Openreach

Business events UC webrtc

4th trefor.net UC Industry Executive Dinner

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 20 February, 2014
No Comments on 4th trefor.net UC Industry Executive Dinner

Online Ticketing for 4th trefor.net UC Industry Exec Dinner – WebRTC with Prof Alan Johnston powered by Eventbrite

Business UC voip

Connected Business – the buzzword formerly known as UC Expo?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 20 February, 2014
No Comments on Connected Business – the buzzword formerly known as UC Expo?

The UC Expo trade show is now called Connected Business. My complaint with the former name, Unified Communications Expo, was that it was a bit of a trendy bland catch all for something that used to be known as VoIP.

I’ve been waiting for the new buzzword to come along for a while. However I can’t for the life of me believe that “Connected Business” is this new buzzword. We don’t even really need a buzzword. Marketing departments around the country will now be shouting “oh yes we do – we get paid loads to come up with buzzwords”.

The show has for the last few years just been a place to go and meet mates. There has been very little to differentiate vendors of UC systems and solutions, certainly in the feature sets. These feature sets have been built up over decades.

You might ask yourselves, other than the source of a physical get together for a beer, why bother going? Why bother exhibiting? Everything is done online nowadays. Even the selling. In my recent experience businesses exhibit at these shows because they need to be seen to be in the game – if all their competitors are there but they are not that sends out the wrong signals.

I’ll be surprised if I learn anything but I’m going to go anyway. See ya there.

Connected Business – the show formerly known as ~~Prince~~ UC Expo.

Read previous notes re UC Expo here.

Business online safety Regs

To decapitate or not to decapitate – a political bet? Vodafone filter

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 19 February, 2014
4 Comments on To decapitate or not to decapitate – a political bet? Vodafone filter

An eagle eyed reader spotted this little piece of bemusement from Vodafone.

His newsfeed this morning had an interesting enough looking headline “Labour to launch decapitation strategy against Clegg” meaning that they were going to have a go at unseating him in the next general election.

Interest piqued, the reader clicked on the link only to come up against Vodafone’s content filter.

What was the content one wonders that made the Vodafone filter kick in? The reference to decapitation? Or did it find the politics of the host blog politicalbetting offensive.

Points arise:

Business security spam UC

Selling your contact information – who does it?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 19 February, 2014
2 Comments on Selling your contact information – who does it?

One of the things I’ve been looking forward to in life post Timico is having a cleaner inbox. I don’t get spam using Gmail and the platform very kindly filters most commercial mails in to a tab called “Promotions”.

This I love. I do look occasionally and note that the mails are typically from rewards membership accounts and their ilk. I am ok with this.

My Timico mailbox, RIP, used to get tons of unwanted rubbish from companies I had no interest in and who

Business phones

Contact databases – dontchalovem?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 12 February, 2014
No Comments on Contact databases – dontchalovem?

You may know that trefor.net is a Google Apps account. The business is going to run on the Google ecosystem. It’s a no brainer for me.

All my contacts, and there would appear to be 3,103 of them, are in my personal Gmail account. Don’t ask me where they all came from. I can’t remember who ~~some~~ many of them are – not you of course – I know who you are¹.

As part of the process of getting up and running in business I have the website development ongoing . The structure needs changing. I also need to know who my core stakeholders are. Contributors, prospective advertisers, people who might want to come to events such as the trefor.net Xmas bash (that’s everyone then inc all my old rugby playing pals 🙂 ).

So last night was usefully spent

Business fun stuff

Monday morning February form-filling frolicks

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 10 February, 2014
No Comments on Monday morning February form-filling frolicks

It’s a Monday morning. This morning before driving to the pool I had to scrape the frost off the windscreen. It’s only the second time this winter I’ve had to do it.

Yesterday the birds were to be heard singing cheerfully in our back garden. I told them it was too soon. Winter hasn’t really started yet. It’s minus 1 this morning. Next time I see the birds I’ll tell them I told them so.

When I am rich ~~and famous~~ (I don’t want the famous bit) I will spend my Januaries and Februaries writing the occasional blog post from my villa. The palm trees will sway in the gentle offshore breeze that nudges in through my open window.

Every now and again I’ll take a break from my literary efforts and jump into the pool. Lunch will be taken barefoot on the veranda followed by a nap in the hammock set up under the shade of a square of canvas sail out the back.

I may or may not write some more that day. As the afternoon cools I’ll walk into town – it isn’t far – maybe buy some provisions, or nip into a bar for a cool drink.

You get the drift. January and February in the UK are tedious months. All that villa stuff will only work if there is internet access. I’ll need to check visitor numbers, sales levels, keep in touch with contributors, social media etc etc etc.

Hope it will be ok.

In the meantime it’s a Monday morning in February and there is stuff to be done. This week will be largely spent working on website evolution & editorial programmes for the next few months.

Oh and a bit of form filling for the local council – timely considering my post last week on automation and change.

atb

Business ofcom Regs

Mid Term Price Rises

The implementation date of Ofcom’s recent foray into mid-term price rises has now been and gone.

If you were the recently discovered Pacific castaway, then, briefly, Ofcom were concerned that Communications Providers were advertising fixed term contracts at a price and then increasing that price during the contract

This went through one stage of Ofcom intervention, when they introduced (via General Condition of Entitlement 9) the “materially detrimental” test. Which was to say that if an Communications Provider during a fixed term, to a domestic consumer or a small business (the usual sub-10 employee rule) made materially detrimental changes to the terms, the contracted party could have a penalty free exit from the contract.

Don’t ask me what materially detrimental meant. I once spent

Tags bundles, consumers, Ofcom, price rises, regulations

broadband Business ofcom Regs

Should Ofcom compel BT to publish broadband maps?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 8 February, 2014
5 Comments on Should Ofcom compel BT to publish broadband maps?

Should BT have to publish broadband availability map?

We keep hearing complaints from many quarters about the lack of transparency related to the Government subsidised Superfast Broadband rollout into the “final third”. Should BT be compelled to publish broadband availability map?

County Councils are apparently seen to hide behind “non disclosure agreements” signed with BT that prevent them from disclosing details of broadband plans.

Having sat on the Broadband Panel for Nottinghamshire the input from BT was that it whilst they had an outline plan for target broadband rollout areas this would be very much subject to change when detailed site surveys were made of conditions on the ground.

For example

Business mobile apps

Boring TV & better things to do – @CamCardIntSig

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 25 January, 2014
4 Comments on Boring TV & better things to do – @CamCardIntSig

What’s the most boring TV programme you have ever watched? It was probably on a Saturday night. Seems to be traditional to have boring TV on a Saturday night. I’d say it was pretty boring most other nights too but don’t let me put ideas in your head; thoughts.

You do have to ask yourself if the your most boring TV programme was that boring why did you watch it? You could have switched off and done something useful. I’ve just scanned in a hundred or so business cards using an App called CamCard. I bought the paid version for £1.90. It’s useful.

I’m gradually working my way through a thousand or so business cards I had tossed into a desk drawer over the years. Lots of them will now be out of date, especially those of sales people. I discard the obviously incorrect ones but scan everything else in. You never know when they will come in handy. Google contacts will probably provide me with updated data on people anyway. If you suddenly start getting emails from me you will now know why. Don’t worry there will be a fully functional unsubscribe button.

I’m checking out CRM and accounting packages this coming week. I want them all to hook up with Google Contacts. They also need APIs for interfacing with other platforms – MailChimp for example and WordPress, obvs. Not that I’m expecting to be doing many mass mailers though I can envisage a weekly digest of blog posts plus a bit of unique mail only content – for the busy executive who hasn’t got the few seconds to spare in the week to scan through a short blog post.

Ve shall see.

PS there is a TV in the breakout area down the corridor from my office. During the day people sit there watching daytime TV. Some people really need a life.

More TV related stuff:

Sony 4K Ultra HD TV

TV detector vans – the truth

BBC piles pressure on ISPS with Internet TV

Business travel

BA Executive Club Bronze is almost within my grasp

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 18 January, 2014
6 Comments on BA Executive Club Bronze is almost within my grasp

Just flicked through my emails to find one from British Airways telling me I’m only 140 tier points away from reaching bronze status.

A frisson of excitement ran through my entire body (not just bits of it). I eagerly scanned the rest of the email. With bronze I will be able to check in at the business class desk and earn extra Avios. Wahey.

Then someone opened a curtain and in streamed the harsh reality of daylight. My current tally of tier points stands at 160. Another 140 means booking almost as many flights again as I’ve taken in the whole of the last 12 months. That’s two whole trips.

It just not gonna happen.

My imagination began to

Business google

Google Apps for business – xferring account from personal

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 17 January, 2014
4 Comments on Google Apps for business – xferring account from personal

The decision to use Google Apps for the new business has been a no brainer. The productivity tools such as document sharing are a real winner. It is also a bonus that I happened to sign up for Google Apps before they started charging so I get it free of charge, at the moment.

When I originally signed up for Google Apps I didn’t spend much time playing with the features. I couldn’t quite see what difference there was between Apps and my regular Google use – Gmail, Calendar etc. It’s only now, as a business that I’m starting to get some of it.

For example all of my Google use up until Christmas has been through what effectively is my personal account. Any trefor.net or philospoherontap.com emails have been channelled through Gmail. My personal calendar was a confused mix of the Samsung SPlanner on my SGS4 and Google Calendar via whatever my laptop was a the time. The SPlanner would feed off both Google and my work Exchange account plus whatever else I programmed in.

When it came to the new business I began to question the use of SPlanner when Google did it all for me so I dropped it.

Now that I have two Gmail accounts, one personal and one trefor.net I’ve started the process

Business mobile connectivity

Vodafone mobile outage UK

Vodafone_outage Getting reports of a country wide outage for Vodafone. You can see the number of complaints rising here (or click on the screenshot from downdetector.co.uk if that page has moved on).

Vodafone on Twitter are saying

Vodafone Help AU @VodafoneAU_Help

@samtibbits We’ve got our guys working on an outage there as we speak. You can keep up with the progress here: tinyurl.com/7gtln5p ^AA

I’m glad I’m not in the Network Operations game any more. When something like this happens the brown stuff hits the fan big time. All customer facing members of staff get it in the neck and the pressure is transmitted to the engineering teams.

If you search “Vodafone outage” on Twitter that gets you lots of reactions.

It seems that no matter how much resilience you build into a network there is always scope for something to go wrong.

PS Just checked – that Vodafone Twitter account is for Australia – could be a global outage except that the tweet is 2 days old 🙂 The mind boggles. Global DDOS attack on Vodafone? Almost certainly not but I’m going to leave it in for effect:)

Business google

email Gmail Google+

Following on from my previous comments re emailing to Google+ connections not working it now is. I’ve just sent someone an email. I already had their email address but presumably not in that Gmail Contacts list. So Gmail offered to send the email to the person’s Google+ account. Just made it quicker for me.

I’m starting to use contact details from multiple social platforms now. Earlier this afternoon sent someone an email to an address they had in their LinkedIn profile.

What’s not to like?

Ciao

bebe

Tags email, Gmail, google

Business internet online safety piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

An evening with Julian Huppert MP – Internet Hero #fundraiser

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 15 January, 2014
4 Comments on An evening with Julian Huppert MP – Internet Hero #fundraiser

I’m not in the least bit political. If I get involved on the periphery of Parliamentary discussions and debate it is because I occasionally see MPs trying to implement legislation that doesn’t make sense in our modern internet based world. This is often because MPs have so much information thrown t them that they have to resort to keeping ideas simple so that they can get their brain around them.

Unfortunately when it comes to legislation that touches the internet, and by default touches those of us whose livelihood depends in one way or another (an increasingly large cohort of people) on the internet, the simplistic view often taken by MPs is often at odds with the practical workings of internet technologies.

We end up spending a lot of time and money fending off such legislation, more often than not pretty successfully but usually after great effort and pain. This is because it takes an age for people (MPs) who because of the practicalities of their job have to look at complex issues very simplistically.

I’m all for keeping things simple (stupid) but we also need people in our Parliament who can get their brain around the complexities associated with the internet. What to the layman is a simple network that “just works” is in reality a hugely complex ecosystem. In fact the complex issues faced by MPs often extend to non-technical considerations such as the privacy of the individual In reality it is difficult to separate the technical issues from the non technical as they feed off each other.

One of the few Members of Parliament who does understand these issues is Dr Julian Huppert, MP for Cambridge. His background is research science at Cambridge University. Julian has taken a very active participation in internet and technology related debates in the House of Commons and was one of the leading opponents of the Digital Economy Act that was (outrageously in many people’s view) rushed through in the dying days of the last Labour government.

Because of his work supporting the internet industry, last summer Julian was awarded the Internet Hero Award at the annual ISP Association Awards dinner. Since then he served on the Parliamentary Select Committee looking at the Draft Data Communications Bill (Snooper’s Charter) and was highly influential in the decision making that lead to the Bill being killed it off for this Parliament.

We need to keep MPs like Julian in the House of Commons. He is good for the internet. He understands the issues. MPs need to raise a lot of cash to pay for their election campaign. I assume the next election will be in 2015 but much will go on between now and then.

I have agreed to help Julian by organising a fundraising dinner on his behalf. He is a Liberal Democrat but this is not a party political issue. In fact this is a technology blog not a political blog.

Whatever your political beliefs, if you work in a business, or maybe it is your business, that makes its living from the internet it is in your interest to support Julian.

So this is an invitation to you to a Fundraising Dinner entitled “An Evening with Julian Huppert – Internet Hero”. This dinner, on Tuesday 25th February, is a sit down job at the National Liberal Club in Whitehall – a totally high class environment if you’ve never been.

At £300 a head this isn’t a cheap do but we have to remember that the idea is to help raise funds to get Julian re-elected. We won’t be stinting on the quality of the food and drink in any case.

You will be in the company of 49 other influential people from the internet industry so it will also be a great night for networking. We shouldn’t forget that it will also be an opportunity to share your thoughts with Julian.

Click here to find out more or drop me a line if you want to talk about it.

That’s all for now. Please help if you can.

Tags Julian Huppert

Business ecommerce mobile apps

The O2 Wallet is dead, long live Zapp – mobile payment App

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 15 January, 2014
5 Comments on The O2 Wallet is dead, long live Zapp – mobile payment App

The O2 wallet is dead. It disappointed from the start. I put a tenner in to have a play and found that I couldn’t use my phone to pay for anything. It had a mobile app but all that did was provide a web interface for the phone. It wasn’t a contactless payment tool. To use it seemed just as elaborate as my normal internet banking service, so not particularly easy then.

It might have been an article on the BBC about a new contactless payment system, Zapp, that made me think of the O2 Wallet again. When the O2 Wallet was launched I thought I would be a trailblazer (I’m sure I wrote a post about it at the time but am blowed if I can find it). I would be able to use my phone to pay for things. I signed up and downloaded the android app. Good start.

I started small by sticking ten quid in my newly opened account. The tenner sat in the account for I know not how long (actually must have been 18 months because that’s how long O2 is saying the project lasted). I found it impossible to spend that cash, like I said.

I was disappointed but hey, it was an experiment that cost a tenner. Though it did occasionally drift into mind I forgot about the O2 Wallet. I pretty much wrote off the tenner.

Last night I logged in to my O2 Wallet account. The miracle was that I could remember my password. I was greeted with the message shown in the pic.

Following the instructions I withdrew my £10. Put it back into my bank account. Lost out on 18 months of current account interest at 0.75% but who cares (as he rolls another cigarette in a fifty pound note)(not really, I don’t smoke).

I noted with bemusement a message saying that the service was free at the moment but that charges would be introduced in future.

O2 will be closing my account in March. I will uninstall the app today.

The O2 Wallet is dead. May Zapp succeed where O2 did not. I hope it does. I have on occssion nipped out to the shops and left my wallet at home but I rarely forget my phone.

I hope Zapp is easy whilst remaining secure because it is the future of payment systems.

That’s all. Written in bed on my droid.

Footnote. I just uninstalled the O2 Wallet app and looked for Zapp in the play store. No sign of it!!! Hmm. Not a great start.

Tags O2 Wallet, Zapp

Business ecommerce gadgets

Skimlinks – moneymaking machine #wonga #moolah #lolly

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 13 January, 2014
6 Comments on Skimlinks – moneymaking machine #wonga #moolah #lolly

A few weeks ago as a bit of an experiment I signed up with Skimlinks. Skimlinks is a means of making money via affiliate marketing on your website. Their plug in scans your site for words that they can associate with their affiliated merchants (Amazon etc) and they insert a link to a relevant product sales page on that site. I have it set on a fairly low level of intrusion as a) it was only an experiment and b) I didn’t want to annoy people with too much in the face advertising. Google can also take a dim view on this sort of stuff if it is over the top.

At the time it was before I had announced my plans to leave my previous employer and start anew. One or two of you did actually notice and made comments on Twitter. Nothing bad, Just “interesting, let us know how you get on“.

Well I am excited to announce that since signing on (looks as if it was early November) I have made a grand total of £57.34. In recognition of what is a huge rate of growth (zero to fifty seven quid = infinite rate of growth) I shall shortly be announcing the imminent flotation of this blog on the stock market.

It is worth taking a look at where this income has come from and at some of the stats so vibrantly driving the new economy.

I mentioned Amazon (etc). All the sales have in fact come through Amazon and the vast majority have been for the Google Chromecast for which I am making anything between £1.12 and £1.47 commission per sale achieved. For the unfamiliar amongst you a sale is recognised against my account by tracking the click through from trefor.net to the ultimate signing on the dotted line by the paying punter. I don’t get the money for around 60 days which are pretty generous terms in Amazon’s favour considering they will get the cash instantly because the customer will have paid by credit card.

Aside from the Chromecast there’s a fairly long list of other items bought after clicking on a link. The mix is wonderful. Wonderful because you wonder how on earth they got to this blog if they were actually looking for certain items. Click on the photo on the right for a larger view. The wonderful list includes a Breville Technique Digital Steam Iron, 2400 Watt, BRASS ALLIANCE QUINTET FROM ST. PETERSBURG (presumably a musical CD – I’d expect a fairly substantial commission if I’d managed to arrange a gig for them), Ramozz @ 5X Led Pcb Connector Cable For 5050 Led Rgb Strip and some MENS LONG COTTON SOCKS Comfy grip Size 6-11 Black 6pk (made 45 pence there – don’t laugh, it all adds up).

If you look at the statistics since the installation of Skimlinks the blog has had 62,605 visits and made £57.34 from 1,450 clicks – thats an average of 4 pence per click.

Ok so this isn’t going to pay for next summer’s holiday in Barbados, or even one in Skegness although I still have time before I need to book – will just have to accept that we might miss the January sales.

It is however interesting to see what kind of traffic you need to drive to the site in order to make money. If we assume that Barbados is going to cost ten grand – we will have to leave the kids behind, we have to be realistic about expectations – then my quick back of a google spreadsheet calc tells me we will need just under 11 million visitors between now and the end of May. This assumes Anne and I will be going at the start of the school holidays (wouldn’t want the headmaster to find out we had abandoned the kids for a couple of weeks) and recognising that it is going to take 2 months to get the cash off Skimlinks.

Half the battle in business is getting your objective setting right and making them realistically achievable. Also you do have to be sensible about these expectations. Clearly the blog isn’t going to go from the current visitor levels to around 2 – 2 1/2 million a month just like that. We must expect a ramp up. So in order to hit an average of around 2.5 million visitors a month over the next 5 months or so we probably need to be hitting a run rate of 4 1/2 million visits a month by the end of May. Ish.

There we go then.

Now this is all just a bit of fun but at the end of the day trefor.net is going to make money so what learnings can really be taken out of the Skimlinks numbers.

Well for one the blog is getting a lot of visits to the Chromecast review – 10,754 in the time period being covered here. This is almost certainly because we were one of the first to carry a review of the Chromecast in the UK – it was only available via import at the time. This has been noticeable over the years. Before FTTC (fibre broadband) was available I wrote some technical posts on it and for a long time, until the consumer ISP advertising machines got into gear, the blog ranked very highly for FTTC.

Also a search for Chromecast on this site brings up 7 results. I’d be surprised if was really that low but in any case there must clearly from Google’s perspective be some content regarding Chromecast worth ranking.

Once we are properly up and running trefor.net is going to specialise in certain aspects of the technology market. It isn’t hard to guess what the focus is going to be. It’s the kind of stuff that has been covered over the years – connectivity, hosting, mobile and so on.

The key is in generating content that will elevate the site up the rankings for specific subjects. For example a high end broadband bundle can yield up to £140 in commission for a sale achieved through an affiliate marketing click through. A few of those in a month and you can justifiably start applying for the passport and cancel the caravan booking in Skeggy.

It’s also important to understand who the blog readership is because getting the content right will also not only generate affiliate click through sales but also attract specialist advertising.

Anyway that’s enough for now. Gotta nip out for some suntan lotion – Poundland, January sales.

trefor.net is open up for guest posts so if you have anything you want to say in the technology area drop me a line and can chat about setting you up with an account.

Ciao

PS Only £7 of the Skimlinks money is so far available for collection because of the 60 days rule. I haven’t looked to see if it is there. I don’t get out of bed for less than a tenner.

Tags affiliate, sales, Skimlinks