January 2010

Press Release: London's Business Community Connects for Social Media Week 2010

Social Media Week LondonLondon’s Business Community Connects for Social Media Week 2010

PRESS RELEASE: London, UK, Thursday 28th January 2010

A diverse range of events, covering everything from music, property, politics and charity through to recruitment, will be held next week from 1st to 5th February for Social Media Week London. A global initiative that sees simultaneous activity in New York, Berlin, Toronto, San Francisco, and Sao Paulo, Social Media Week aims to identify and advance social media practices and policy in the corporate, public and non-profit sectors.

Organised in London by Chinwag, the UK digital community, Social Media Week has drawn the support of industry bodies such as the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK) and British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) and generous support from sponsors including Meebo & icrossing and a wide range of companies which are organising events as part of the schedule.

Over 20 debates, panel discussions, presentations and socials are running over the course of the week, many of which are free to attend, bringing together experts in social media strategy and practice with those interested in or already deploying these new communication channels in different business sectors.

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28 January 2010 by Sam Michel

Monkeys With Typewriters: Companies and Social Media in 2010

Monkeys with Typewriters - launch - Flickr

Update: Meet Jemima at Monkeys Tweetup, part of Social Media Week London.

Two years and countless coffees later Jemima Gibbons', Monkeys with Typewriters: The Myths and Realities of Social Media goes far in debunking the belief that social media is a bad influence in today's modern office; a mere distracter from the real work.

We got in touch with the lovely Jemima to find out how businesses will be incorporating social media in 2010.

The book gets to grips with social media's ability to democratise, errode value chains and remove restrictions on never-questioned-before codes of conduct. In the process it outlines a practical framework for happier, more productive working environments.

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27 January 2010 by Suzanne Morrow

Digital Mission Company Win at Midem

SXSWi long horned bull - FlickrBandCentral have been shortlisted for a BidemNet Lab award at the world's premier music festival, Midem, Cannes.

The Online Band Management company, that lets anyone be a music manager, have recenty launched a revamped version of their site with souped-up features and cutting edge enhancements. 

It was only a few short weeks ago that BandCentral joined the Digital Mission to New York, run in conjunction with UK Trade & Investment.

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27 January 2010 by Suzanne Morrow

Google Wave Gets Copenhagen Workout at the Climate Change Debate

Google Wave screen shot Flickr imageGoogle Wave is proving itself to be the perfect platform to discuss climate change. Debatewise  Global Youth Panel (GYP) is using the technoloy to spark discussion  and debate from young people about the state of the planet. During the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. Take that Twitter.

More than 1,000 members of the Debatewise Global Youth Panel (GYP), aged between 14 and 25, discussed the pros and cons of the conference using Google's new instant messaging platform, launched earlier in the year. It's hoped the parrallel discussions will give a good measure of how young people around the world feel about climate change and the steps being taken to tackle it.

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21 January 2010 by Suzanne Morrow

Digital Mission SXSWi 2010 Companies Announced

Digital Mission to SXSWi 2009Top UK Firms Selected for Prestigious US Digital Mission

PRESS RELEASE: London, UK, Thursday 21st January 2010

Forty of the UK's leading digital SMEs have been selected for the second annual Digital Mission to South by South West interactive (SXSWi), one of the world's leading conferences for interactive media taking place in Austin, Texas from 11-17th March 2010. Established in 1994, the conference provides an opportunity for the Digital Mission companies to attend hundreds of conference sessions and networking events.

The successful companies were chosen from over 120 submissions by an advisory board of industry experts drawn from the UK community including: VC's, export specialists, legal experts, journalist and industry pundits, to take part in the Digital Mission to SXSWi.

The companies selected for the Digital Mission to SXSWi '10 are:

Detailed information and contact details for each company is available from the official Digital Mission website: http://www.digital-mission.org/sxsw10-companies

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20 January 2010 by Chinwag Team

Getting Your CV Noticed: Catering to Search Bots

I Love Job Offers T-shirt Too many candidates, chasing too few jobs mean that you have to be just a little bit sleeker than your average to score that prized interview. It's tough out there, I tell you.

If you're churning out the CVs, rapid-fire style, have a read below and see. You could be missing a trick.

Sending a CV online is quick, free and gets your an instant response, even if it's a ping back aknowledgement. Unsuprisingly it's the most common way of applying for a job but at the same time a CV sent by email runs the risk of just festering in an inbox.

Rather than sending your CV as an attachment, paste it into the body of the email. Attachments are often ignored because people are worried about viruses and wasting time downloading documents. With this in mind, stay clear of multi-media CVs. They may make you stand out and prove your technical credentials with their singing, all dancing displays but they're awkward to download, never mind format. 

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20 January 2010 by Suzanne Morrow

Banner Ads to Support Haiti

DEC - Donate to Help HaitiUPDATE 1: @decappeal have been in touch with official banners.

UPDATE 2: Please use #techhaiti in tweets & blogs, tech volunteers and Crisis Camp.

I was working late when the news started to come in about the earthquake in Haiti. The sense of something major unfolding on an unimaginable scale reminded me of listening to the radio as I heard reports of the tsunami.

What can you do? Put your hand in your pocket. Done.

Next up, spread the word using the channels at your disposal. For me, one of these is using the advertising space on Chinwag.com for worthy causes. We've helped Do The Green Thing in the past and using the space to help promote donations is a no-brainer.

I did a lot of searching for banners to use, as I'm conscious of copyright and keeping everything legit when there's money involved. I tried Twitter to no effect and then through LinkedIn, was pointed in the direction of Oxfam Ireland who have a page full of banners (congratulations to their comms team for turning this round so quickly).

Unfortunately, none of them fit the size used on Chinwag (MPU - 300x250), so I've mustered my meagre design skills (and that's probably overstating the case) to create a banner that'll have to do in the meantime:

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19 January 2010 by Sam Michel

iPhone Developers Fall Short of Demand

iPhone apps/cupcakes Flickr imageWe all love our iPhone apps. How did we possibly live without them?

There are green ones, dating ones, financial ones and ones that can even teach your kids how to read. Even the free ones can let you do a background check on a blind date and give you a turn at playing God.

So far the number of iPhone apps downloaded is sitting at a mind-blowing 2 billion. We're downloading from the app store at a rate of 6.6 million every day and the market is worth an estimated $2.5 billion US dollars each year. That's quite a hunk of cash.

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8 January 2010 by Suzanne Morrow

Google Impresses with Nexus One Ecommerce Experience

Nexus One Flickr Google announced the launch of their Nexus One phone on Tuesday, garnering the expected amount of geek love.

But, arguably the real revelation comes from the ecommerce site built to sell the phone, the only place you're going to pick one up in the near future.

Heralded by Business Week as an ecommerce revelation, Google have combined a pared down purchasing process with simple animations which demo the phone using a 3D feel rendered on the 2D computer screen. A nice touch.

Complicated charges, long contracts, complex fees and bundles are being ushered out in favour of simply buying the device, then finding the service. Unusually, the first option available is an unlocked version of the phone, although operator deals are available in the US with t-mobile with more on the way, and a European roll-out schedule (through Vodafone) for Spring 2010.

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6 January 2010 by Suzanne Morrow