Real Point Blog

Flipboard comes to the iPhone

Chris Cooper — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:21:58 +0000

One fantastic app I was waiting to come to the iPhone has now been out since December 2011, and it's an absolute beauty.

If you've got an iPad (I'm hoping to get the next generation, fingers crossed), you may have already discovered Flipboard, a gorgeous app which takes the content from social networks and other websites and reformats it into a digital, interactive magazine.

Flipboard was named Apple's iPad App of the Year in 2010, and as of September 2011 had been downloaded 3.5 million times. No official figures have been announced since then, but I'm sure the number has increased substantially since the release for iPhone.

With an attractive, image rich interface, Flipboard really is impressive. The content page has a panel for each feed, which when tapped reveals the article content, beautifully laid out like a magazine. Slide your finger across the screen and and the page flips over.

However, just writing about it really can't do it justice; you've got to experience it yourself. And as it's completely free, you've no excuse not to. Download it here.

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Was 2011 really as big as it seemed?

Chris Cooper — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:14:30 +0000

You may have read the article 2011: The year when a lot happened on the BBC News website on Monday. Highlighting the Arab Spring, the deaths of Bin Laden and Jong-il, the Japanese earthquake and phone-hacking scandal amongst them, there have been so many high-profile news stories hogging the headlines that 2011 has definitely felt "somehow more momentous than an ordinary year."

However, the author, Tim Footman, suggests that it isn't simply that there have been such big stories, but the way in which news has broken and spread that has made 2011 such an interesting year. He reminds us that the "first inkling of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden came not from President Obama's solemn press conference, but from one of the al-Qaeda leader's unwitting neighbours in Abbottabad, musing aloud on Twitter about the US helicopter that had suddenly disturbed his evening."

The speed at which news spreads highlights how important and relevant the internet and social media are, and especially how mobile technologies are changing the way we find out and interact with the world around us. Footman asks "how many people first got the news of Steve Jobs's death via one of his own devices?"

Of course, people can be accused of 'oversharing' and it's important not to cross the line of privacy. Let's not forget the aptly-named US Congressman Anthony Weiner essentially lost his job sending very intimate pictures to women on Twitter.

However, there are so many advantages to using social media for business, that it would be naive to ignore it. With over 30 million Facebook users in the UK alone, social media provides a fantastic platform to help increase brand awareness and enables you to engage with current and potential customers. While Facebook and Twitter are great advertising tools, they are extremely useful for providing customer service.

Real Point have launched a series of 'Get on with' courses, to help local businesses make the most of utilising social media. During these hands-on sessions, we'll share with you our knowledge on using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogging with a focus on practical business benefits to help grow your bottom line.

With new courses being added all the time, see online for details of all our upcoming courses or give us a call for more information.

(Word Cloud: Tagxedo.com)

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Scam phone calls from Microsoft resurface

Chris Cooper — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:05:46 +0000

Though fake technical support phone calls started appearing a few years ago, one of our home IT support clients recently had a call from someone claiming to work at Microsoft.

If you're not aware of this scam, the basic reason for the call is that you have "viruses and problems with your computer". They'll likely give you a website link which downloads and installs an application that shows 'the problems' before offering to remove and fix the issues - for a fee of course.

Luckily our client involved has a Mac, so with the mentions of Microsoft and Windows was quick to pick up on the situation, but looking online others haven't been so lucky.

Microsoft (or Apple for that matter) don't have access to your computer, so stay alert and put the phone down if you get a similar call. And if you are having any real IT problems, give us a call.

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Inside Facebook on BBC2: A quick review

Ian ODonnell — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 22:43:10 +0000

The must watch TV tonight for me was BBC2's documentary "Inside Facebook", a Money Programme look at what makes Facebook tick.

With the inevitable challenge of trying to make it suitable for all audiences, it often swung too far to the basics at times. However, it did provide some interesting insights and anecdotes on life at Facebook, from how it all started, to how it's grown from a "geek idea" into a multi billion dollar business while Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated his commitment to Facebook by his continued turning down of increasingly large offers to buy the company.

Facebook & Privacy
One of the most telling moments in the programme was when the question as put to the VP of Public Policy at Facebook about the use of users' pictures in advertising for pages they had "liked". There was a long pause, after which he tried to defend sponsored stories as "ranking mechanism" not advertising, a very wooly answer, and hitting at the heart of Facebook's reality. That, in reality, the product they are selling is you - the user - if you're not paying for something it's very unlikely that you are the customer. The cartoon featured with this post, tells that story perfectly. Thanks to Mike Ashworth for sharing with me, sourced from Very Demotivational.

Is Google Plus a challenge?
This question was put to Mark, and the pause and slight smirk that passed across his face gave the real answer, while his lips gave a polite response.

Paying for poop
The other, sightly disturbing, highlight was when one user told how he paid one pound (real money!) to buy a virtual display case to display his virtual pet poop! This demonstrates one of the other ways, in addition to advertising, that Facebook is monetising its site, by allowing users in games to pay real money to buy virtual elements and advantages within Facebook games.

Advertising models
There was some good coverage of the advertising model and business promotion methods within the Facebook platform, from how to target particular audience groups, testing adverts for effectiveness, to making effective use of business pages. Very useful if you're investigating how to promote your business on Facebook.

In summary, I would highly recommend viewing of this programme for anyone learning about using Facebook for their business. It would also make great viewing for those who are trying to understand just what all the fuss is about or are starting to have concerns about their online privacy. But for those of us who work and live our lives highly engaged in the various social media platforms, there was little new to learn. And the most interesting discussion about it was happening on . . . . Twitter!

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Social Media: Where, when and what should you post? And when not to!

Ian ODonnell — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 21:04:22 +0000

I came across this infographic yesterday from Breaking Copy's blog. It's an amusing but helpful guide on what to post where on which social media platform. Most importantly it has an important reminder of what not to post, following my rule of thumb: never post anything you wouldn't want your parents, children, boss, clients or colleagues to see and if you're not sure leave it till you are.

And I'd love to hear your opinion on Breaking Copy's jibe at Google Plus, are you on it? Do you check it regularly if you are?

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Are you prepared for IT failure?

Ian ODonnell — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 16:01:16 +0000

Ever felt like you have to keep banging the same old drum to get the message through? Yesterday, we spotted an article on the BBC news website which told us that someone else is banging the same drum we are . . . . disaster recovery planning for your IT systems.

A report by IT Group EMC said 74% of respondents (1,750 surveyed) were not very confident they could restore their networks and 54% had lost data or suffered downtime in the past twelve months. The conclusion? Firms need to place a greater emphasis on backup and recovery systems. Have you considered the cost if you don't?

We've blogged about this in the past:

But day by day we still come across companies and individuals who have failed to make adequate provision for backing up their data and to plan for how to get back up and running as quickly as possible in the event of a disaster. If you're worried that could be you, why not give us a call today and arrange a consultation with one of our IT support engineers?

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Post tags: Disaster Recovery, IT Support, PC failure

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Guide to setting up a Facebook Page Vanity Address

Ian ODonnell — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:59:05 +0000

If you have a Facebook page for your business, have you got a "Vanity" address for it? Up until recently you had to have 25 fans before you could apply but now you can select one at setup, though it would seem that for existing pages you still require 25 fans.

What is it?

Instead of the default address which looks like this:

www.facebook.com/pages/realpointgroup/1234567890

you get to choose the bit that goes after Facebook.com so it can look like this:

www.facebook.com/realpointgroup

Why get one?

Easy to remember
Easy to add to electronic or printed literature
More difficult to mistype

Things to think about

Once you select your new address you can't change it, so:

Make sure you type carefully and triple check it before clicking OK!
That it is suitable for long term use; you can't change your mind tomorrow.
That from hearing it to typing it will be straightforward; no clever or unexpected spellings

In effect it is very like choosing a domain name. Many of the same issues apply, so think through the selection in the same way.

How to get one

If you are setting a new page up from scratch you can now select an address as part of the creation process. If you're looking to update an existing page then just go to:

http://www.facebook.com/username

Select the page you wish to create your vanity address for and then enter the name you want to use, click 'check availability' and all being well you're good to go! You can also create a vanity address for your personal profile there.

Problems you can face

Someone is already using your ideal address
Your name contains a well know brand name, which can be on a protected list and is therefore prevented from being used in a vanity URL
Your ideal username is a "generic" word which is on Facebook's denied list.

If this is the case and you feel that you have a valid case for the address you've chosen then you can contact Facebook, more information is available in Facebook's help section or file a username infringement complaint.

Of course if you want any help with this or need to know more about how to make best use of Facebook for your business then you know who to call. We also run Social Media training courses, which include Facebook, if you would like to know more about how to use Facebook more effectively for marketing your business.

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Post tags: Facebook, Social Media, vanity url

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We’ve won Gold, and the Olympics haven’t started yet!

Ian ODonnell — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:16:50 +0000

Yes, I know it's bad form to keep shouting about your achievements, but we're quite proud of our latest award (rolling in just after we'd also been announced as finalists in the Midlands Business Awards).We've just been awarded Gold as a Responsible Business thanks to the nationally recognised ORB Standard designed to acknowledge the ethical and sustainable business practices of SMEs.

We came across the standard through Jo Sandford of Creating Synergy, a Certified ORB Auditor, who we met through Coventry Business Network. We were assessed on our ability to operate efficiently and ethically, meet and exceed legislative requirements and consider our impact on people and the environment.

A previous blog post I wrote summarises why we think it's so important to focus on the triple bottom line, so it feels good to get the work we we've done in this area recognised by a third party.

So, if you want to work with a company that's "doing things right" then you no longer just have to take our word for it, you can take ORB's!

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Post tags: Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR

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What is the cost of IT failure to your business?

Ian ODonnell — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:07:32 +0000

Computers and technology - however much we might not want it to be the case, the reality is our businesses are increasingly reliant on them.

Have you sat down and done the maths for your business on what the cost of technology failure would be?

Wage costs

Firstly, there's the cost of people failure. As you can roughly add 50% to someone's wage in associated costs of employing them, the following would be the cost to your business of lost staff time:

Hourly wage x 1.5 x number of people x length of downtime = cost of downtime

So for example:

Wage of £10 ph x 1.5 x 5 employees x 4 hrs downtime = £300

Catch up costs

You might then have to play catch up and pay overtime to get onto missed workload, so doubling that cost. And if it's an extended outage, you might find yourself forever playing catch up.

Income loss

If work can only be done in real time, there's an immediate loss of income as well. For example, if you're an insurance business and your computers being down prevents you being able to access data to give an answer to the customer on the phone, your competitor is only a phone call (or click!) away.

Customer loss

Next there's the cost of loss of customer confidence. If an IT outage prevents you delivering on your promises, will they order from you the next time?

Data loss

If an IT outage causes loss of data, then there are the costs of potential customer information loss or the time costs involved in recreation of data. If you've ever tried recreating accounts data . . . it is a painful business! Plus you may fall foul of data protection regulation in the process.

Cash flow problems

Not only is no work being completed and going out the door to keep customers happy, but neither are invoices - creating a double whammy in potential cash-flow problems further down the line.

Cost of repair

On top of all of this, if you don't have an IT support contract or expertise in house, then not only will you have to find a trustworthy IT technician, but you will be at the back of their queue behind customers with Service Level Agreements and you may well also be paying a higher hourly rate and may have to wait for new equipment to be delivered. A new server can take 3-5 days to build - could your business survive that long?

So what can you do?

Plan . . . plan . . . plan. Look at every aspect of your business and its use of technology and evaluate how you can either prevent failure or minimise its impact. Put in place comprehensive backup solutions and design methods that allow you to get up and working again sooner rather than later. A good IT support company can help you by evaluating potential failure points, looking at solutions which minimise risk of failure and monitoring your systems to prevent problems becoming "fatal". For many small businesses today, cloud solutions for email and data storage can provide cost effective options to massively reduce your IT risk.

If you want to assess your business's exposure to the risk of IT failure and put in place a strategy to deal with this, then do give us a call on 01676 521444 and one of our engineers will be happy to talk it through with you. We offer cost effective IT support contracts that you can tailor to fit your business' needs.

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Post tags: Disaster Recovery, IT Failure, IT Support, PC Repair

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Your website – don’t count the cost, look at the value

Ian ODonnell — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:53:35 +0000

"You're too expensive . . . ."
"My mate's son can do it for . . . ."
"I can do it myself for free . . . ."
"I want it to do everything, I don't care how much it costs . . . ."

These comments, and many more, have all been heard when we start talking to prospective clients about web design projects. But they're focussing on the wrong thing: The Cost.

Why is cost the wrong thing? Because cost is just the money you hand over - value is what will make a difference to your business.

Any project should deliver value, or Return on Investment (ROI). A simple question proves the point: Which of these two options would you prefer? To spend £200 on your website and get £199 worth of business, or spend £2,000 and get £50,000 worth of business? I'm pretty sure you've gone for the second option, but so often conversations focus on the difference between the cost of £199 and £2,000 and not the difference in value between £199 and £50,000, and the fact that the former might have made them a net loss!

There is another question which also often fails to get asked, including by many design agencies of their potential clients. Are you spending too much on your website?

If you had a website costing £2,000, could you realise that in extra revenue within twelve months? For example a service based business, with only limited time slots available, might not physically be able to take on the extra clients that would deliver the return. This is why it's so important when working on such a project, not to consider it in isolation, but to look at it within your overall business and marketing strategy, and a good design agency should ask the questions that prompt this. We have turned clients down or persuaded them to rethink their plans because we could see that they were spending in the wrong places and at the end of the day that does no-one any favours.

So next time you speak to your design agency, don't ask how much a project will cost but how much value they're going to deliver. If it delivers the value, it's worth the cost.

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Post tags: cost, return on investment, ROI, value, Web Design

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